The Rougblog

If Only Michigan Had Money To Fight Smoking! Oh, wait...

2012-02-02T16:45:00.001-05:00

From the February 1st newsprint edition of the -- Oscoda County Herald (article not available online):

District Health Department No. 2 health educator Tracey Wood, citing the American Lung Association's "State of Tobacco Control 2012" report, said Michigan received an "F" for tobacco prevention and control funding, with the state spending only $1.8 million annually to help people stop smoking and keep children from starting.

[...]

"With additional funding, the state could provide more and larger grants to local health departments and other community agencies to implement evidence-based programming throughout the state," she said. "In addition expanding funding would allow for more affordable and accessible quit services for those who want to quit.
When states are funded at the levels recommended by the CDC, adult and youth tobacco use rates decline, lives are saved, health is improved, and the state saves money."

One point eight million bucks really doesn't sound like very much money for a state that is in the midst of receiving about $280 million per year for 26 years as a result of a lawsuit against evil tobacco companies that made huge profits while saddling benevolent states like Michigan with billions of dollars worth of socialized medicine debts.

While I am a detractor of governments attempting to either cajole or punish citizens into more favored behaviors, I am still curious as to what happened to the tobacco windfall that has come Michigan's way if such a small amount of it is being aimed at health care costs--after all, wasn't that much of the point behind the lawsuit to begin with?

A quick search landed me at the Mackinac Center and an article by Jack McHugh written at the end of 2009:

When the settlement was announced in late 1998, it was like chum dumped into shark-infested waters: Hungry special interests began circling the state Capitol.

Setting the money away in a "rainy day" fund was never in the political cards — the political rewards for feeding the sharks were just too attractive to lawmakers. Gov. John Engler recognized this and forestalled the frenzy by proposing to use most of the revenue to pay for college scholarships for students who did well on the state's MEAP test. Most of the balance went to Medicaid health care programs.

But the sharks began nibbling around the edges. In 2005, the Legislature created the "21st Century Jobs Fund" business subsidy program, a hodge-podge of spending with little oversight. To pay for it they borrowed $400 million against future tobacco settlement proceeds.

To avoid spending cuts in the 2007 budget, the Legislature approved another $415 million in borrowing against future tobacco money. In 2008 they pulled out this same credit card, using it to buy $60 million in tourism ads (the "Pure Michigan" and related campaigns).

So here we are early in 2012 with government agencies and benevolent NGOs lamenting a lack of funds to fight the evils of tobacco. (An evil, incidentally, that the state benefits from the sale of to the tune of twenty cents per cancer stick.)

If only Michigan had any money to fight the evils of tobacco. Can't we sue anybody?

The War Room With Jennifer Granholm

2012-02-01T14:54:00.002-05:00

Okay, I admit it, I watched the second installment of "The War Room with Jennifer Granholm." (Don't give me a hard time about my judgment, watching it was punishment enough.)

Honestly, I always thought that Granholm was a poor public speaker. Her most famous line "In five years your going to be blown away" was as uninspiring in salesmanship as ultimately were the results of her product. (She does get five points for not overselling!) Even as governor, when she stood behind teleprompters and was thus able to avoid the frequent mangling of words, (something she could not do during either of her first two shows) I found her voice and cadence tentative.

She seemed very uncomfortable, particularly standing beside the discussion table with her guests; something that appeared to discomfort everyone. She looks at the wrong camera frequently, and demonstrably speaks with her hands when she has a trouble finding the right words--one of these times she's going to accidentally poke some poor guest's eye out.

I assume that within a week or two a lot of nervous tics will be ironed out and, for Jenny's sake, that the discussion table gets scrapped for something that doesn't look like it belongs at an open bar mingler.

To Granholm's credit, I believe that Granholm wants her show to be more mainstream Democrat than the ultra-left blathering idiot Olbermann and the raging Cenk Uygur. As evidence, she managed to find herself one professing Republican guest (Jillian Manus) but of the ilk that Dems are most famous for unearthing--those that during the last election cycle voted for Obama rather than leave the top of their ballot blank or write in a palatable candidate of their own professed party.

There was significant buildup and promotion for "The War Room With Jennifer Granholm." It was going to be fresh, hard hitting and was purported to be the fleshing out of a lineup of hosts on Current that could rival that of Fox News' nightly stable. It might have been fresh but it was far short of hard-hitting and it will remain so until the potholes get filled.

My guess is that Democrats so far are disappointed with the show but that they hold out hope that the bugs will become smoothed out over the short term. I believe this because, as a long time detractor of Granholm, I was giddy with the awfulness of the show's production and performance.

Time will tell if it significantly improves. My guess is that, over time, it has to. Maybe I'll watch again in a couple of weeks to see if things have changed. Let's just consider it my own little form of self flagellation.

"Electricty Rates Will Necessarily Skyrocket"

2012-01-26T13:20:00.001-05:00

As Jeff says, and so it begins.

Arab Spring Looking A Lot Like Arab Winter

2012-01-26T12:13:00.000-05:00

Ugly stuff being reported by the BBC.

"After all the promises to get detention centres under control, it is horrifying to find that there has been no progress to stop the use of torture," Donatella Rovera, from the charity, said.

Medecins Sans Frontieres said it was being "exploited" as some patients were being brought to them between interrogation sessions.

"Our role is to provide medical care to war casualties and sick detainees, not to repeatedly treat the same patients between torture sessions," said general director Christopher Stokes.

We helped to put these people in charge despite the fact that we had no national interests in the conflict.

Qaddafi was a bad man who we helped to replace with other bad men. Islamists are now rising to the surface of the emerging governments we helped to put in place.

Perhaps this is part of a necessary progression; one similar to the one that the Iranian people appear they want to be in--political strongmen fall begetting an Islamic theocracy that falls begetting a true constitutional republic.

The problem is, of course, that Iran, the country perhaps closest to achieving this full cycle transformation, one with millions of west-leaning citizens who hate their freedom quashing Islamist regime and who have no desire to ever live under the thumb of an Islamist crushing strongman, has not gotten the support from the west that the theocrats-in-waiting in Egypt and Libya received with nary a concern as to who might end up on top.

My Own Education Proposal

2012-01-25T12:00:00.002-05:00

I was very much interested in one of the educational proposals President Obama made last night in his state of the union. He wants to make it necessary for every child in America who has not graduated and is less than 18 years old, to stay in the classroom.

Oh, this is a flowery goal in both appearance and odor. Statistics say, which ones I'm not sure but ones that Obama alluded to last night, that even students who are made to stay in school do better than those who dropped out. Okay, I've not seen the study. But, if someone has dropped out, how do you know how they would have done if they had stayed in school and vice versa?

But I'll let Obama cite all the statistics he wants. My question is, how good do motivated students do in school when they are forced to sit in the same classrooms as clowns who have no desire to be in school and no inhibitions against disruption?

It takes one freak show to ruin an otherwise learning atmosphere. It takes one bonehead to start a fight, bully a nerd, expectorate a spit wad, or disrupt a classroom. And what are the consequences for such behaviors in such a situation...the delinquent might get...wait for it...kicked out of class.

Disruptive students require a much higher percentage of school resources than do good students who really would like to learn something before the final bell rings. They use up extra resources, poison the learning of other students, and cost the taxpayers money.

I have a better suggestion. All students who drop out of school prior to graduation or the age of eighteen should forgo forever any government assistance for a lifetime. No diploma? No Bridge Card. No diploma? No Section 8 housing. No Diploma? No heating or transportation assistance.

Hey, I'd go a step farther. No diploma? Get off the heavily subsidized transit bus.

If they cannot force themselves to sit in a classroom until the age of 18, we should not be forced to care for them afterwards.

A Job Is A Job Is A Job

2012-01-22T20:33:00.003-05:00

Susan Demas at MLive has an issue with the "right wing economic argument" that government cannot create jobs. She then goes on to blame, in part, the sluggish economic recovery in Michigan on shrinking government employment even though she'd like us to think that this blame is being cast by a respected University of Michigan economist.

I think we could use a little context here.

Knee-jerk conservative Bible thumpers do believe that government can create millions of specific jobs. How many people are employed by our postal service so that my Mom can receive 18 pieces of junk mail a day (all posted at a bulk discount rate) while that legendary arm of government operates at a mere loss of about $15 billion per year? Those are jobs, aren't they?

Not to put too fine a point on it all, but the worker's paradise of the Soviet Union used to pride itself on almost 100 percent employment. Among those employed were countless citizens entrusted in keeping its railroad tracks nice and shiny. It was a good gig, but then again, stooped over Soviet rail shiners were often envious of straight-backed American road workers who could make a decent living while leaning on a shovel. Weren't those jobs too?

(Sadly, the Soviet track shiners lost their gainful employment when the USSR stumbled off its mountain of debt--one that is miniscule in comparison to the peaks being created by America today.)

But I digress.

No, the conservative argument is not that government cannot create specific jobs. The argument is that it does not create net jobs in a free market economy, and that government created jobs, while sometimes worth the cost, are not ultimately stimulative or wealth producing.

Yes, this does include most jobs even conservatives feel are necessary, such as military personnel, police, firefighters, prison guards, and many college professors today teaching pretty much anything other than women's studies and ethics in journalism. These sorts of jobs, those that fall legitimately within an accurate scope of government concern, while costing net jobs and not being stimulative in the aggregate, are very much worth the cost.

But why would Demas bother trying to present an accurate representation of conservative economic policy when her abridged version fits the Democrat and media stereotype (redundant, I know) of gun toting, Bible thumping, knuckle-dragging, immigrant hating, elderly killing conservatives so much better? (It's early Monday morning and I tire of thinking of adjectives...)

Says Dumas about recent economic data suggesting that the Michigan economy is recovering:

But one fact got buried in the flurry of economic data. While Michigan added 63,500 jobs in 2011, it could have been more.

Why? Well, the private sector grew, as University of Michigan economists reported. There were 77,500 private-sector jobs added. But the overall number of jobs added was brought down by the decline in government sector jobs.

And that's one reason why Michigan's economic recovery hasn't been as robust as downturns past.

"It's been brought down because government jobs are declining," economist George Fulton.

But what is the U-M economist Fulton actually referring to?

What is the "it" that has been brought down?

Is "it" the number of jobs added, or is "it" the economic recovery?

Is Fulton actually saying what Demas wants her casual readers to believe he is saying (that government layoffs are slowing the recovery,) or is he saying that the total number of jobs added has been "brought down" because of a decline in government employment, a statement not at all inconsistent with conservative economic theory or, for that matter, simple mathematics?

Who knows?

What we do know is that Susan Demas is a columnist that plays with words and contexts like an experienced magician works a masterful shell game. A snippet of comment here, a bit of editorializing there, and after a few deceptive swings and swoops you find an economist who appears to be standing in league with the absurd while firmly positioned against the mischaracterized.

It too is not a bad gig if you can get it. At least it beats polishing railroad tracks.

EV Proponents Have More Work To Do

2012-01-20T12:10:00.000-05:00

Europe ain't so smart after all. From the National Legal and Policy Center:

The Daily Mail reported that sales of electric cars in the United Kingdom have fallen so sharply that there are now more charging stations than there are vehicles. If you thought the flaccid U.S. sales of the Chevy Volt (7,671 units) and Nissan Leaf (9,674 units) were a letdown – despite significant government funding for research and development, batteries, charging systems, and a $7,500 tax credit for buyers – the signs from Europe won’t lift spirits.

“Just 2,149 electric cars have been sold since 2006, despite a government scheme last year offering customers up to £5,000 (about $7,700 U.S. dollars) towards the cost of a vehicle,” the U.K. newspaper reported. “The Department for Transport says that around 2,500 charging points have been installed, although their precise location is not known.”

That’s just 430 cars sold per year. In addition, Britain has spent £30 million on charging points for public and business locations, and EV buyers have taken advantage of only £3.9 million of the £300 million in government grants made available for EV purchases, according to The Daily Mail.

Common sense should dictate, after looking at such startling figures, that it is time for governments around the world to end their intrusion into the automobile industry. Should, it seems, is an odd word.

What wisdom that will be gleaned instead from this phenomenon, of course, is that governments have not yet done enough to promote electric vehicles.

Doing more will be accomplished in multiple ways, but their strategic points will fall within two major strategies. First, more must be done to positively encourage consumers toward an EV purchase, such as the $7,500 per unit credit being offered in the US (a credit being used by consumers with an average income of about $170,000) and secondly, by punishing consumers into modified behaviors. This latter strategy includes government policies that would include promoting high fuel costs and discouraging travel.

It is being celebrated today that gasoline consumption in the US has gone down in the past few years, perhaps in part to the 8,000 Chevy Volts sold so far in the US, and complemented by the odd couple thousand purchased by Brits. More likely it is the economy crippling initiatives promoted by governments that have had more to do with falling gasoline consumption--of which the EV is a storied poster child.

All it really took was several years of economic stagnation, nearly ten percent unemployment, and a booming number of citizens on food stamps to force gasoline consumption down. This may not be too high a price for the enlightened to pay for what they deem a cleaner environment based on flimsy evidence, but it is a heady price for those of us to pay who happen to suffer at their whim of the more enlightened in Europe and elsewhere.

Adam Carolla is Uniquely Qualified

2012-01-18T12:57:00.002-05:00

h/t Ace

Troy's Disappearing Line in the Sand

2012-01-18T12:00:00.000-05:00

A few weeks ago I complimented the city of Troy, Michigan, for its realistic interpretation of public finances.

Troy has figured something out. It has determined that the most destitute country in the history of the solar system does not have the money to spend on a project whose benefits were over-hyped, was not needed, and despite the fact that the $8 million necessary to construct the albatross was coming from the feds, was not free.

The people in Troy have discovered something that should make them eligible to win next year's Nobel Prize for Economics--namely that federal tax dollars still are paid by those who live in small, medium, and large towns across America; they are not created arbitrarily at the wave of some federal bureaucrat's wand.

[...]

Troy is but one declining city in one declining state in what amounts to a bankrupt country, and as it turns its nose up at this project, countless other entities across the nation are greedily peeping toward the sky hoping the shadow of Father Bird Obama will regurgitate some borrowed Chinese money down their gluttonous throats for their own versions of a pet project--easily wiping out Troy's common sense on the order of a thousand times or so.

As it turns out, the city of Troy decided that it wanted some nourishing regurgitation after all--but not until the project was stripped clean of waste. By shaving 400 square feet off the original proposal, the project will now cost only $6.2 million instead of the originally proposed structure estimated to cost $8.4 million. And Troy would like itself a piece of that action. (In fairness to Troy's Mayor Janice Daniels, she still voted against the measure.)

By shaving off 400 square feet the project's cost has been lowered significantly. That was some expensive square footage there--roughly coming in at $5,500 per square foot. The smaller and redrawn project will cost a mere $3,100 per square foot which I find absolutely alarming...what kind of slum are these bureaucrats trying to push over on us? No gold toilet seats? No granite counter tops?

Holding fast to principle, the council also dispensed itself with the estimated $30,000 of annual maintenance that would have been its portion of upkeep. Voila! No cleaning needed!

While the opulence of the structure is not irrelevant here, it is the blatant ignorance that council member Wade Fleming displays that drives me bonkers (well, that and the CMU Chippewas football team.) "The bottom line is this is federal money. Like it or not, it'll be spent on a transit center somewhere in this country if we do not use it in Troy."

Fleming is too blind to see the genuine bottom line he claims to have found, even after he has tripped over it. Fleming, multiplied by the millions of bring-home-the-bacon bureaucrats all across this once great land, has helped to spend this country into destitution, its future generation into servitude, and its ideals into an asterisk within the history books.

So, put the grand kids on the hook for Troy's version of the Taj Mahal. When they are old enough to begin paying their taxes this transit center will be key in getting commuters from the Detroit area to Chicago in approximately the same amount of time it will take them to get there by car.

Congratulations America! An enlightened society will get there no faster, it will just depart in style.

UK Sovereignty?

2012-01-17T11:46:00.000-05:00

The EU is toast financially. Years upon years of kicking the can of economic-collapse down the road is soon to result in a seam rending the likes of which would make Bruce Banner's wardrobe appear well hemmed.

While this generation's lot of EU under producers (see Ireland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, etc.) have basically stripped future generations of enlightened Europeans of economic viability, there has been another attack upon the future generations of Europe that has been largely unnoticed.

Today in the UK, less than thirty percent of the laws and regulations hoisted on the back of Brits are actually hoisted there by British lawmakers. The rest of said hobblings are locked in place at the behest of a larger government, that of the EU. (While the UK has a delegation serving in Brussels, its delegation is relatively powerless when mixed among the whole.) The UK in effect has ceded authority on its own land to those in Brussels and elsewhere who are supposedly more enlightened even though this highway to enlightenment comes at a huge cost.

The latest example is that of Abu Qatada, an avowed supporter of terrorism being held on British soil for more than ten years. His firebrand teachings have been inspirational to many terrorists who in turn killed many people for the sole reason of being non-Muslims. (Well, to be fair, his teachings have led to the killings of many Muslims too, just the wrong type of Muslims, if you know what I mean, and I think that you do.)

The British government has been trying to deport Qatada to his home country of Jordan--a place Qatada fled years earlier to escape what he felt was the certainty of state-sponsored torture. And yet, even though the UK is supposedly a sovereign country, and even though another sovereign country, Jordan, would love to have the elusive Qatada back in their custody, the European Court of Human Rights has denied the deportation. Qatada will therefore remain in British custody being lavishly supported by British taxpayers until the cows come home.

The UK is, of course, to blame for this, regardless of how diligently they have attempted to deport Qatada. Preening Brit elitists, in its frantic attempt to be a part of a new Europe to displace the US as the world's foremost economic engine, chose instead to abdicate their basic responsibilities of protecting British citizens financially, culturally, and physically.

If the UK has willingly chosen to delegate protection of its citizens onto Brussels and elsewhere, should they be surprised that there are many in Europe that really don't care one iota whether a terrorist is detained within Britain at British expense? Besides, there are many on the continent who think that the stuffy Brits could use a little multiculturalism.

The EU is crumbling and its finances are in ribbons. The upside to all of this is that individual countries might actually accept some responsibility for their own outcomes after the impending collapse, rather than expecting sages from larger organizations of benevolence to make the proper decisions for them.

In a Nutshell, Why We Are Destitute

2012-01-07T12:24:00.005-05:00

Sorry, but Robert Ficano's miserable record as a county executive is only part of the story here. Sure, he's an inbred corrupt Democrat bureaucrat, but he is pretty typical when it comes to inbred corrupt Democrat bureaucrats.

No, what makes me want to bark at the moon is the fact that a person in Wayne County can retire after 25 years at the age of 50 and collect a $90,000 annual pension.

Fifty? Retire? For $90,000 a year?

Who represents the taxpayer when such lavish benefits are slathered upon public employees? I'm not suggesting that government workers cannot be hard workers, I'm certain some small percentage of them are--though none of them understandably work at the DMV.

But, WTF?

Why should we taxpayers have to pay for people to become unproductive so early in life and at such high compensation?

Hell, meet handbasket.

100 Percent Recall

2012-01-05T16:39:00.003-05:00

Of course, when you've only sold approximately 8,000 of the vehicles in total (and many of those few to the government and crony capitalist GE) recalling every last one of them isn't such a big deal after all.

Sure, the cars have been thoroughly disappointing to drivers who expected 40 miles out of their charges before the gasoline motor kicked in, and thoroughly freezing to those drivers who live in cold climates where the seat warmers are insufficient to keep the driver comfortable, and thoroughly disgusting to middle income taxpayers who must drive '95 Buicks so they can afford to contribute to rich consumers the $7,500 rebate necessary to drive the Volt off the lot, but the idea that they won't explode weeks after a side impact is extremely, well, comforting to everyone!

What it Ain't

2012-01-04T14:32:00.003-05:00

In light of the fact that I've spent part of the morning changing out my forced air furnace blower motor, you can probably guess what this picture is of.

It ain't marvelous cave art.

"Hey, hey, ho, ho, these racist cuts have got to go!"

2012-01-03T17:44:00.000-05:00

A city hundreds of millions of dollars in debt located within a state that can no longer afford to extend to it earmarked financial support, and further, located within a country that is farther in debt than any other country in the history of the human race, cannot shut down one underused and unnecessary public library without being accused of racism.

Detroit does not have the money to maintain its libraries. It does not have the money to fix its buses, secure its streets, pay its light bill, or haul its trash. (It seems the only money it does have is to pay extravagant salaries and provide extravagant benefit packages to its City Council members.)

Never mind their silly accusations of racism, these protestors have their economics bass ackwards.

Libraries and other unnecessary public institutions are only viable when they are thought of as the fruits of success, rather than the drivers of success. Wealth creators spring up in communities where wealth creation is encouraged--they rarely spring up in locations based solely upon their great libraries and museums.

This wealth is then spread about among those who own work for the wealth creator, enjoy the products or services provided, or live near the place where the product or services are made or delivered. These wealth creators, employees, and consumers of products in turn pay the taxes that can then be used to support extravagances such as libraries and museums.

Don't get me wrong, I think libraries and museums are great. I also like zoos, parks, skating rinks, public plazas, and the occasional mass transit system. Any and all of these things, when viable, should be encouraged within a community.

However, when city operations become so encumbered with costs and administration that their policies begin to punish wealth creation (through higher taxes, usage fees, regulations, etc.) there will be less wealth created. Businesses will leave, scale back, or close altogether and employees, in turn, will leave, lose benefits, or lose jobs altogether. Tax bases dry up and libraries must close.

This is not racism. It is economics.

Taliban to Expand with the Blessing of the US?

2012-01-03T15:40:00.000-05:00

Stunning idiocy.

From the BBC:

The Taliban say they have reached a preliminary agreement to set up a political office, possibly in Qatar, as part of Western plans to end the war.

A statement confirmed the move, which has been backed by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Both the US and Germany have been pushing for such a representation in an effort to kick-start negotiations.

If our goal for the Afghanistan invasion, other than the soggy corpse of Osama bin Laden of course, is for the expansion of the Taliban's influence in the Mideast, I'd say that we've lowered the bar to an Improv level of seriousness.

American foreign policy no longer even attempts to benefit America. Perhaps that is the change that was voted for.

First January Post

2012-01-03T13:58:00.002-05:00

This has been an up and down (mostly) year for the Rougblog.

I've spent between one quarter and one half of my time out of town, state and region, and much of my time here at home has been spent compensating for the time I must spend elsewhere. You know the old saying, ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Let's just say I've been doing a lot of gotta do.

For every post I've actually put online here I've probably started another that never made it to the digital page. Just like playing guitar (I am the world's worst avid guitar player) when you put down the instrument for an extended period of time it takes a while to get the feel when you finally pick it up again. Likewise, my forced time away from the keyboard has helped to create difficulty when I'm actually sitting behind the keys.

My inspirations have been jumbled. My words have lacked crispness. My analysis also-ran and my discernment shallow. How much of this is the result of my travel and how much of it can be attributed to my woefully low IQ is unclear to me.

Regardless, this upcoming year undoubtedly holds within its calendar the most important presidential election in the past 150 years. Our country is on the brink of economic collapse while the very fiber of our representative republic is being challenged internally by the machinations of an ever more powerful and seemingly benevolent government.

It is my intent to slog my way through this year by posting more frequently and posting more loudly. It is my desire to post often enough that my yip or yap, when added to the cacophony of others also yipping and yapping, will break through the heavy clouds above our political landscape and make a difference.

Ya gotta do what ya gotta do.

Shocker! Stabenow and Levin Wrong Again

2011-12-23T21:40:00.005-05:00

Could it be that sound economic principles are now driving our energy policy? How about our policy on agriculture? Well, either would be a stretch, but every little bit helps.

The United States has ended a 30-year tax subsidy for corn-based ethanol that cost taxpayers $6 billion annually, and ended a tariff on imported Brazilian ethanol.

Congress adjourned for the year on Friday, failing to extend the tax break that's drawn a wide variety of critics on Capitol Hill, including Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif. Critics also have included environmentalists, frozen food producers, ranchers and others.

The policies have helped shift millions of tons of corn from feedlots, dinner tables and other products into gas tanks.

Environmental group Friends of the Earth praised the move.

"The end of this giant subsidy for dirty corn ethanol is a win for taxpayers, the environment and people struggling to put food on their tables," biofuels policy campaigner Michal Rosenoer said Friday. "Given corn ethanol's downsides, it's outrageous that taxpayers have been subsidizing the industry to the tune of $6 billion a year. The industry's inability to get this tax credit extended signals that it no longer has carte blanche in Washington: Corn ethanol is no longer a sacred cow."

Clearly ethanol had no business being considered a vital portion of America's energy solution to begin with. Its harms were legion and its benefits dubious.

The corn ethanol industry was largely the brainchild of environmental activists and benevolent politicians who joined forces to not only save the planet from the evils of pollution and to save America from the evils of foreign oil, but it also served as a grand vehicle for politicians to bring home the bacon to voter districts rich in corn production--an act not considered nearly so evil.

They could save the family farm, could save the environment and, as an added bonus, could also tell the Middle East to stick it where the sun don't shine. Of course, that was before those pesky unintended consequences started popping up as thick as corn in a flat southern Michigan field. Buoyed with redirected tax dollars, the ethanol industry boomed.

Corn was diverted from food production into an inefficient energy source whose manufacture and distribution actually consumed as much energy as it produced. Millions of acres of arable land were diverted from other grains and vegetable production to that of producing corn; corn that was to be burned in my sleek '95 Buick.

Prices rose for corn as demand rose. Prices also skyrocketed for those products that had their production acreage slashed in favor of corn. Beef and poultry prices also rose as feed grains hit the roof. Meanwhile, the UN and NGOs began issuing warnings of impending starvation in the third world as food supplies waned and costs rose.

But, there was even more trouble. Many ethanol producers declared bankruptcy outright or managed to stay afloat merely through the taxpayer funded leverage supplied to them by vote seeking bureaucrats.

Ethanol producers in turn lamented that they had entered the industry at the behest of government but that the government had not done enough to actuate demand. So, a gullible congress bowed again and again to lobbying pressure by continuing to subsidize corn and ethanol production and also by changing fuel mix standards to heighten demand. Billions more dollars (and meals) went down the drain annually.

There were other ethanol alternatives, of course, the most viable being cane ethanol from Brazil. However, stodgy bureaucrats could not allow efficient ethanol to enter this country when they had activist voting constituencies that needed their inefficient products protected. So, tariffs levied upon imported ethanol made what would be a sensible alternative a no-go.

Farmers were given taxpayer money to grow corn. Ethanol manufacturers were given taxpayer money to start up and continue operations. The industry was guaranteed increasing demand for its products through manipulation of fuel blends. The industry was granted protection from truly efficient foreign ethanol.

Despite the billions poured annually into the industry and stacking the deck heavily in its favor, it simply could not support itself on its own merits regardless of the motives behind its launching. Economics is funny that way.

In recent years even many former ethanol supporters have jumped ship, among them most notably the Nobel Prize recipient Albert Gore who admitted he was merely taken in by the hype and that he is a hopeless moron. Other groups are now off the ethanol bandwagon too, apparently feeling some guilt over the millions their favored regulations helped starve over the past few decades.

However, despite Al Gore's two brain cells hesitantly sparking to life, some enlightened politicians still exist that favor the disaster that is corn ethanol, with Michigan's two brainy senators sharing top billing. Senators Stabenow and Levin voted against suspending the subsidy, apparently still is support of the idea that a bankrupt nation should be able to force its recessed citizens to pay billions in tax dollars for the simple pleasures of being able to pay billions more on food, to use less efficient fuels, and as an added bonus, to severely restrict the caloric intake of millions of people in the third world.

In Michigan we call that representation. In Ethiopia they simply call it hunger.

Hatemonger!

2011-12-23T19:53:00.003-05:00

That would be me for linking to this article in the Daily Mail concerning contemporary textbooks in the modern Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

'They show students how to cut (the) hand and the feet of a thief,' he said.

The textbooks were printed for the 2010-2011 academic year and translated from Arabic by the institute.

In one, for ninth-graders, students are taught the annihilation of the Jewish people is imperative.

One text reads in part: 'The hour (of judgment) will not come until the Muslims fight the Jews and kill them. There is a Jew behind me come and kill him.'

According to the translations, women are described as weak and irresponsible.

Mr Al-Ahmed said the textbooks also call for homosexuals to be put to death 'because they pose a danger at society, as the Saudi school books teaches'.

Incidentally, Saudi Arabia was the home of 11 of the 19 airline hijackers on 9-11-2001.

And Then There Were Three (Less)

2011-12-21T19:41:00.000-05:00

The green energy industry, in particular the solar energy component of that industry, now has three fewer participants than it did just a month ago as BP Plc. has bid it a long, last goodbye. It did so voluntarily citing 'continuing global economic challenges'; this unlike two German competitors who were recently forced into liquidation by the realities of the free market and the global economy.

Solon SE and Solar Millennium, the latter of who received a $2.1 billion grant of free US taxpayer money, are no longer producing solar cells due to oversupply in the market (too little demand for an overprice product) and price pressures (falling retail prices the result of too little demand.)

It must be understood that the solar energy industry itself has recognized that it is woefully inefficient. But, in the convoluted thinking of a government driven benevolent economy, this is a feature and not a bug. It brags that it requires the most workers per megawatt of power produced than any other energy source. See how long Denny's stays in business using a "more cooks in the kitchen than anyone else" business model. Of course, that is only part of the problem. Not only is the production and installation of solar energy components more expensive than its green and not-so-green energy sisters, once the solar components are built and installed at an industry high labor cost, the energy produced is both intermittent and dependent upon even further subsidized transmission lines to bring the energy to market.

There simply is no way for these companies to make a free market profit pursuing a highly inefficient energy solution and selling it to the world for multiple times the cost of fossil powered energy. The only way a solar energy company can stay in business is by having its solar cell division carried along by other divisions that are hugely profitable (a course of action BP is no longer willing to pursue,) by perpetually preying off of taxpayers through the benevolence of planet saving politician pimps (which was the preferred route of German owned Solar Millennium,) or by choosing the path of the Chinese--compensating workers with poverty inducing wages and coupling that with a willingness to market dump products at a loss in order to dominate the industry.

We can complain all we want about China's emerging dominance in the solar panel market, but why? Economics has dictated that solar energy will not for many decades be anything more than a small niche market within the energy industry as a whole--and it will only reach profitability if its products are severely overpriced. (A price, incidentally, that only benevolent US and EU governments have been willing to pay.) Large scale profitability can be reached only if American families are forced to endure poverty inflicting prices for such heinous acts as warming up cans of soup (a food we should all get used to eating at least twice a day should solar energy ever be forced on us) or huddling around the dim family light bulb in order to read Al Gore's latest work of fiction. Americans will not voluntarily make such sacrifices--a development that the Obama administration has duly noted.

What we have here is a trade off in living standards. On one side is the American consumer who must endure a lower living standard to pay the exorbitant price of a failed energy policy, while on the other is the Chinese worker who must work for poverty sustaining wages in order to deliver a communist-blessed product to market against all economic common sense.

We must have one or the other for an existent solar energy industry. Me, I'll take the side of the energy loving American consumer and the over-stretched American taxpayer and hope that the Chinese people don't suffer overmuch for my greed.

A Salute to Troy

2011-12-20T11:48:00.002-05:00

By Troy, I'm referring to Troy, Michigan, a city that lies in the shadows of a crumbling Detroit and a city, it would seem, with at least a little bit of common sense and a sense of responsibility.

Troy has figured something out. It has determined that the most destitute country in the history of the solar system does not have the money to spend on a project whose benefits were over-hyped, was not needed, and despite the fact that the $8 million necessary to construct the albatross was coming from the feds, was not free.

The people in Troy have discovered something that should make them eligible to win next year's Nobel Prize for Economics--namely that federal tax dollars still are paid by those who live in small, medium, and large towns across America; they are not created arbitrarily at the wave of some federal bureaucrat's wand.

This country is $15 trillion in debt not counting the scores of trillions of additional debt currently off the books in the form of unfunded liabilities. Not only does this country not have the money to fund wanted but unnecessary building projects, it doesn't even have the money to fund initiatives without which needy people will go hungry, without heat, and without health care.

Troy is but one declining city in one declining state in what amounts to a bankrupt country, and as it turns its nose up at this project, countless other entities across the nation are greedily peeping toward the sky hoping the shadow of Father Bird Obama will regurgitate some borrowed Chinese money down their gluttonous throats for their own versions of a pet project--easily wiping out Troy's common sense on the order of a thousand times or so.

But for this moment at least, we should salute Troy.

Joe Biden is not Sentient, per se...

2011-12-19T18:49:00.002-05:00

Fightin' Joe Biden is at it again, this time waxing eloquent on the tangled web of geopolitical intrigue present in ~~modern day~~ stone age Afghanistan and, one assumes, tribal Pakistan.

One can definitely draw a line between al Qaida and the Taliban, but one cannot have one working brain cell and posit that the Taliban is no enemy of the US. While they are not al Qaida, they did offer Osama bin Laden an unfettered existence within their territories from which to attack the US. While they are not al Qaida, they have killed many Americans within Afghanistan. While they are not al Qaida, they have helped to export terror to surrounding countries including Pakistan and India. While they are not al Qaida, the Taliban is one of the most oppressive political bodies on Earth, beating women who do not cover their faces, burning schools, blowing up innocent civilians, stoning infidels, outlawing music, among other things.

The Taliban is working against every interest of the US and is willing to back that up with munitions. Yet our Vice President does not see within any of that the hint of an enemy stance.

One heartbeat from the presidency resides a man with a flat line EEG.

Imagine My Surprise

2011-12-11T17:34:00.002-05:00

Imagine my surprise when I read the first few sentences of a politics blog post by Libby Spencer in the Detroit News.

"As you know, the investment firm MF Global went bankrupt and somehow "lost" at least $1.2 billion of their customers' money. Former CEO...["]

Seeing that an article written by Libby Spencer might possess even the slightest hint of criticism aimed at a progressive Democrat is enough to set my heart aflutter. Might Libby be seeing the light? Might her enthusiastic approval of all things socialist at all times be finally cracking.

Might she finally criticize John Corzine, the huge Democrat supporter and former Democrat governor of New Jersey, who took huge bets on foreign states with his clients' money just before the Eurozone members began floating in obvious debt? Might she?

With a lump in my throat I decided that I had to look.

So, I clicked through to the main blog post where I was met with this headline: GOP helps Banksters Run Wild. Drat.

Libby was just teasing.

No mention of Corzine's long standing membership within the favored Wall Street Democrat support group. No mention of Corzine's party affiliation. No mention of his Democratic former governorship in the nearly insolvent state of New Jersey. No mention of Corzine's term as Democratic senator. No mention of his failed nomination to President Obama's cabinet. No mention of any of these pesky little facts in a story designed to use Corzine's actions as a way to pillory the GOP.

I did find this little bit of fun...

I didn't know this but according to the report, "Farmers, ranchers and others who make a living from agriculture rely on futures contracts to lock in commodity prices."

Imagine that, Libby admitting her ignorance on something so basic as this despite the fact she feels expert enough to comment on politics and economics with all too much frequency.

Let's hope she doesn't discover all the items of basic economics in which she is totally ignorant, at least any time soon. I don't think my heart could take it and I'm certain I couldn't toil my way through any blog post of Libby's that long.

Irony...heh

2011-12-10T09:12:00.002-05:00

Protein Wisdom:

I’m tempted to talk about the irony of kids taking out student loans to enroll in a class that will “study” why irate college grads who can’t get jobs are camped out in tents complaining about the amount they owe on student loans...

That ain't no education bubble, its just an inflatable muffin. Tuition rates at NYU? $1,159 per credit hour. Carry on.

Lowest Common Denominator

2011-11-24T13:42:00.000-05:00

"I am not trying to be a snob", said the snob, "But if you come from any of the coasts or if you have an education in art … you wouldn't even think twice about it."

But, what is "it?"

Well, since you had to ask, "it" is the photographic work of MSU professor Danny Guthrie who over the course of the past few years has produced a controversial series of photographs. The controversy arises because some of the works contain Guthrie's aging nude body juxtaposed and oft times interacting with the nude bodies of female art students decades his junior.

Guthrie has it made--a high paying union gig at a taxpayer supported institution where emotionally immature coeds can be successfully plied out of their clothing so the tenured prof can artistically slobber on an outer thigh.

However beautiful that saliva or thigh might be, should the professor be using his understood status amidst the student body (heh, I wrote that on purpose) to publicly lament his sexual waning?

So that you know, this photo is cropped to hide the naughty bits.

While they might not think twice about this on any of the coasts or among the artistically educated, as an MSU parent who lives more than thirty miles from Lake Huron, I'm thinking about it big time right now. What I'm thinking is perhaps we should not allow the incrementally desensitized to be the moral arbiters of all things artistic in this world. Perhaps we should not hold the artistic community in such high regard that their flippant responses to moral and ethical questions become the standard by default.

I am no prude. If some twenty one year old wants to yank off her bra in order to allow Guthrie to plant his grizzled pate between her breasts at the perfect light optimizing angle, I suppose that is her choice. That doesn't make it any less creepy.

Danger of Letting the Media Decide

2011-11-09T19:45:00.000-05:00

I posted this over at Right Michigan in the comments section to a post by The Wizard of Laws. I might as well post it here too as nothing much else is happening on this site of late.

I am of the opinion that we conservatives cannot let unsubstantiated claims promoted by a leftist media interfere with our selection of a candidate. It is dangerous to do so. We should not cede this territory to the twenty four hour news cycle.

Every conservative candidate that climbs to the top of Romney opposition gets cut off at the knees by a willing media intent upon preventing a conservative candidate from making the ballot.

How surprised should we be that the communications arm of the democrat party dragged up these skanks and ran about 100 prime time hit pieces on Cain based on the unsubstantiated claims of someone named anonymous? Where were these women when Cain was running for the senate? Where were they when he climbed ever higher in the corporate world? Where were they when his radio talk show became ever more popular? More importantly, where were they fifteen years ago when Cain was supposedly groping them or making untoward gestures?

Where was the muckraking media when John Edwards stepped out on his terminally ill wife who was undergoing cancer treatments? For that matter, why was discussion of Chappaquiddick taboo for all the years that the swollen-headed and oft inebriated Teddy Kennedy sat in the Senate? Bill Clinton, a man who "didn't have sex with that woman" remained the champion of the media long after the stained dress was proffered, with their attention instead aimed at that unsympathetic and vengeful shrew, Linda Tripp.

"But," say the doubters, "we don't think Cain is necessarily guilty. We are just concerned about the unprofessional manner in which he responded to these very serious allegations." Good grief. The guy said immediately that he didn't do it and that he has never done it. This is just the fruit of the media trying to create doubt.

The media, for its part, would be much more pleased if we selected a candidate to represent us who is highly skilled at explaining the success of his disastrous health care initiatives, or one that can eloquently state his support of "efficient green jobs technologies" that use more energy than they create, are not green, that will have no impact on the climate, and that will destroy more jobs than they create. That these slick presentations are based on fallacies is of little import to a media whose goal has somehow drifted from informing to persuading.

I haven't decided yet on whom I'm going to vote for. But, I'll be damned if I'm going to let Brian Williams, Martin Bashir, David Brooks, and those flunkies at Politico decide on who best should represent the Republicans in a system that they'd like to have mirror the process by which the mullahs screen presidential candidates in Iran. These democrat mouthpieces have no skin in the Republican or conservative games.

I think we conservatives will only survive if we refuse to pay attention to that man behind the curtain.

Turkia Abbott and Lou Ficano

2011-10-31T18:10:00.001-04:00

*** UPDATE AT BOTTOM ***

I have to admit that I have not followed closely the appointment of Turkia Mullin to a directorship of the Wayne County Airport Authority. Her involuntary departure after only two months on the job is, however, interesting.

Ms. Mullin was considered a good public servant in Wayne County, in fact being so valuable that the County paid her $200,000 for leaving, and it is that exit payment that appears to have put the kibosh on her employment at the airport authority--a job for which she has no direct experience. (Oddly, you'd think that a valued employee would be offered $200K for sticking around and not beating the pavement, but this is not apparently how government works in Wayne County.)

What did Ms. Mullin do wrong? Aside from accepting a payment that may or may not have been illegally offered, we do not know. And, there is absolutely no reason to believe that Mullin was intentionally trying to receive an illegal payout. (Hey, I know its an unjustified and truly irrational payout, but does that make it illegal?)

What I find most interesting here is that it is Wayne County that should be heavily scrutinized for offering Ms. Mullin the $200K upon her departure, not necessarily Ms. Mullin who would have been a nutcase to turn down such an offer unless she thought the payment illegal.

But, the illegality of said payment is not so obvious. In fact, her exit payment (as well as some others) is under investigation right now, but it was not Ms. Mullin who wrote herself a check upon leaving, and it was not Ms. Mullin that demanded payment before she left. Ms. Mullin is certainly guilty of acting human when someone in authority and someone that you think is acting legally tries to shove stacks of crisp greenbacks across the table at you. But, to my knowledge, she didn't extort the payments and she didn't attempt to hide them once they were shoved at her by the greasy fingers of Wayne County Executive Robert Ficano.

Now, don't get to thinking that I think such payments make any sense. Whoever authorized such payments ought to be run out of their jobs on a high-speed rail because they clearly are not being good stewards of the people's money. In fact, I think any person in charge of any government authority that would think such payments justified should also be run out on a rail, after all, its the only way to be sure. Well, that or nuke them from orbit.

But, there is nothing that I can see to this point that makes me believe that Mullin was acting in any way other than human. These government agencies toss around money like feathers of a broken pillow, and what public servant properly desensitized to bundles of wasted cash wouldn't think it proper to accept a few if they were legally offered as thanks?

Ms. Mullin, upon the deserved scrutiny her payment received, returned most of the $200K. She also was put on the defensive by those who began to scrutinize her credentials for the job that she had already been hired for. This too seems like a government screw up (if a screw up at all)--this of the Airport Authority rather than Ms. Mullin. Good grief, if I thought I stood a chance of knocking down $250K running Detroit Metro I'd go for it. It isn't the applicant's fault that the hiring authorities offered Ms. Mullin the job without any previous airport experience.

Of course, Ms. Mullin is now threatening a lawsuit against the airport board and might be due a $750,000 cash settlement as a contract buyout for the job she's held for eight weeks and from which she's just been fired. (By the way, I think I got the wrong major in college.)

I'm certainly not suggesting that Mullin is innocent of all ethical wrongdoing in this saga. But I do find it odd that Robert Ficano is the one whose agency paid Mullin the disputed $200K severance, and that it is the same Robert Ficano whose airport board offered the inexperienced Mullin the airport job, with, I suspect, an outstanding letter of reference signed by none other than Robert Ficano. What's more, it is the same Robert Ficano who is politically behind the removal of Mullin from the airport job his appointed directors specifically hired her away from Ficano's Wayne County to fill.

Mullin might be a crony (and a reasonably good lookin' crony at that,) but it is Ficano who is pulling the strings here and a busy puppet master he is.

To recap, Robert Ficano has now successfully gotten Turkia Mullin removed from the same job he just recently had recommended her for, this after apparently losing faith in her for accepting the same severance check his office offered her for leaving her former job with Ficano, so that she could take the second job, also with Ficano.

Abbott and Costello could make a routine.

UPDATE ***

CS at Right Michigan points to more muddy water here.

Herman Cain Allegedly Guilty of Something! Roll the Presses

2011-10-31T15:57:00.000-04:00

It appears as if Herman Cain is as guilty as his black skin might indicate. He's done gone and made some anonymous someone, a couple decades ago, allegedly, feel offended by something that he might have said or done. Whether or not what he said was intended to be offensive or not is irrelevant, as is whether or not what Mr. Cain said or did could be plausibly interpreted as offensive. (Incidentally, he says he was accused of harassment but has denied ever harassing anyone.)

This is what we have come to expect from politicians and the media who will spend an inordinate amount of time seeking out scandals among conservative political competitors while aggressively looking the other way when it comes to vetting progressive politicians who might, wink, wink, impregnate a campaign staffer while his wife is home dying of cancer.

How many snoops fled to the Alaskan woods to dig up dirt on Sarah Palin? Accusations of affairs, marital troubles, fraud, vindictiveness, cronyism, obstruction, etc., against the Alaskan governor were each given their days in the headlines--none of which were proved. Even her children became targets of progressive political merrymaking up to and including her Down's Syndrome infant son.

Michelle Bachmann and her Neanderthal! husband have undergone more religious inspection than did the twenty years that Barack Obama sat in the pews not listening to a single word spake by the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. (Oh, he also didn't listen to Frank Marshall Davis, take tips from Saul Alinsky, take political cues from Bill Ayers and Madelyn Dohrn, snort a little coke, get a sweet deal from Tony Reszco, strong arm political opponents off the ballot, or steer millions in government grants to the employer of his wife.)

George W. Bush was accused by a democrat operative and Dan Rather of evading the Vietnam War even though the evidence was created out of whole cloth and with a technology that didn't even exist when Bush was in the Texas Air National Guard. (Why should such trivialities matter?) It was enough for Mr. Rather and his crack team of fact checkers at CBS to run with.

Which gets me back to Herman Cain.

Whoever is guilty of forwarding these accusations needs to be exposed for who they are--regardless of which camp they might be coming from. Some rumors are pointing at operatives within the Rick Perry campaign and if that is true Republican voters should hold him responsible. We should expect better from our Republican candidates.

I'm afraid, however, that we will not be able to expect as much from a liberal press that yearns for another four more years of Obama. This is a story that might very well have no natural legs on its own but that we can probably expect progressive journalists to duct tape fake legs to for however long it takes to damage Mr. Cain.

Politics is a dirty business but it needn't be so dirty if voters would, first of all, hold politicians responsible for the mischief they create, and secondly, if they would tell the legacy media to go jump in a lake.

Jack Frost Visits Oscoda County

2011-10-31T12:29:00.002-04:00

Early Saturday morning I rose in order to visit my children in East Lansing to ascertain how successfully they are being indoctrinated into leftist culture and politics. (It probably drives the professors crazy when they discover just how counterproductive I was during their formative years.)

In any case, when I arrived at the car I saw this heavy frost pattern on the roof. I'm not a photographer but I snapped a picture anyway.

Winter is coming.

Another Great Moment in Bureaucracy

2011-10-28T16:43:00.002-04:00

One of the many downsides of huge government is the number of rules and regulations that must be adhered to. The more complex these sets of rules and regulations become, the more difficult it is to satisfactorily navigate through the morass.

The city of Detroit is so far removed from sanity that we have come to expect knuckelheadedness in even the situations where obvious solutions are evident.

I give you the city of Detroit.

2.5 Percent Rise In GDP Equals 4 Percent Rise in Oil

2011-10-27T16:09:00.005-04:00

Today the US government released GDP numbers for the last quarter.

It was an anemic 2.5%. In historical terms, a quarterly GDP number this low is alarmingly low. It is not high enough to spur employment growth. It is not high enough to outpace modest inflation. It is not high enough to pull this country out of the serious economic doldrums it has dug itself into.

And yet, 2.5 percent is enough in today's energy depleted economy to send oil prices up over 4% and to a three month high. West Texas Crude hit $93 plus per barrel today on economic numbers that would have sent them a buck or two a barrel lower only two or three years ago.

I know we are suffering from a credit crisis. I know we have a serious debt issue. I know that unemployment is unacceptably high and that the American Dream is under attack in nearly all corners of this country. But, in my opinion, it is this country's obtuse energy policy that will keep it from recovering in a healthy way over the next few years.

America can simply not recover when every modest step it takes toward a rebound results in a shovel to the head in the form of energy prices.

Because It Worked So Well In Michigan

2011-10-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

Jennifer Granholm's impact on the state of Michigan is still unfolding. She spent eight long years in the governor's mansion, each one of them dedicated to making Michigan less competitive on both the national and international stage.

She harmed employers through crippling regulations. She harmed employers by promoting regressive tax policies. She harmed the entire economic landscape through efficiency-hobbling initiatives that funneled taxpayer money to heavy Democrat constituencies. Unions gained in strength under her leadership while the services provided by those unions became more expensive and less efficient. She made energy expensive, cronyism cheap, and all the while knew she was blowing much of Michigan away.

Sadly, hindsight has taught her nothing. She regrets not having been tougher in office. She regrets not being forceful enough with her agenda. Her vision and leadership were all that could save the state. And save it she did.

During her tenure as savior, Comerica fled the Great Lakes State. As did Pfizer. As did portions of GM, Ford, and Chrysler. Meanwhile, despite the superior workforce she touted her job training programs and her public universities had helped to produce, Toyota opted for Texas, Volkswagen chose Tennessee, and Honda now produces cars in Indiana. Windtronics (despite a nice state grant) shipped their manufacturing north to Canada. Eaton moved theirs south to Mexico. Factories became shuttered from coast to coast, from peninsula to peninsula, and for sale signs began to spring up on lawns along the highways like mushrooms after a warm rain.

And yet, it is the wisdom and talents of Jennifer Granholm that will soon be on display at Current TV, the media company founded by former VP and Nobel Laureate Albert Gore. She is getting her own television show--The War Room with Jennifer Granholm.

From the promo:

During two terms as governor, she pioneered the state through an economic storm, strengthening its auto industry, preserving the manufacturing sector, and adding new, emerging sectors, such as clean energy.

Each night, Granholm will present a dynamic, fun and informative show that actively engage viewers with a blend of smart analysis and relevant commentary from guests on the cutting edge of politics, business and entertainment.

Only to Al Gore and the socialist left could the current condition of Michigan be a bragging point on a resume.

People silly enough to follow Granholm's sort of 'smart analysis and relevant commentary' on economics and business deserve to travel their own path to predictable ruin. The rest of us will only watch when we need a good laugh.

Oh No! Not Again...

2011-10-25T13:47:00.000-04:00

This from an article on MLive yesterday under the title: Expect more pressure to raise minimum wage as percentage of those receiving it increases.

Anyone earning minimum wage in Michigan makes $296 a week for a 40-hour week, or $15,392 a year. Federal poverty level in 2011 is $10,890 for a single person and $14,710 for a couple.

Nationwide, the Bureau of Labor Statistics says the percentage of employees working for minimum wage doubled from 2009 to 2010, going from 3 percent to 6 percent. The percentage of men receiving minimum wage or less nationwide rose last year from 1.9 percent to 4.5 percent

Some states are aggressively raising their minimum wages, led by the State of Washington, where the minimum wage will go up 37 cents on Jan. 1, 2012, to $9.04 per hour. Ohio is also raising its minimum wage Jan. 1 from $7.40 an hour to $7.70 per hour for non-tipped employees and $3.85 per hour for tipped employees, plus tips.

As the Occupy movement gains more supporters across the country expect more more discussion about raising the federal minimum wage. The Center for Economic and Policy Research is already arguing that if the minimum wage had kept pace with the economy, it would be almost $20 per hour.

Minimum wage laws fly in the face of liberty even though they are a tyranny based on benevolence. The results of minimum wage laws are always of the "unintended consequence" variety, while their motivations are of the "for the people" ilk.

While the article itself is rather straight in its presentation, it is in the comments that one can find the progressive favor for such intrusion into the private sector.

Here are facts that are rarely disputed among economists. First, since minimum wage increases are arbitrary and not based on increased productivity or profitability, the added cost of higher wages are inflationary. In other words, if a company has to absorb an additional $1,000 a week in payroll and other employment costs, in order to simply keep its head above water, the business must raise revenues to offset the new $1,000 in costs and must toss a few more dollars to the profit side in order to keep margins healthy. (Don't believe me on that last part? Try to get a commercial loan today with poor margins.)

But, what if a company is unable to get customers at the higher rates? (This occurs often to businesses whose products are more discretionary in nature.) Those businesses, unable to raise the additional $1,000 per week in receipts, must find other ways to make ends meet. The easiest way to do this is to lay off employees, and the first jobs to go are typically those that can be done with lower frequencies and lower skill labor. A business can have the back room swept less often, can make customers wait a bit longer in line before a cashier is available, or can try and handle the lunch hour with a smaller wait staff.

Each job has a price point. At a certain cost they are worth doing. At costs above this point they are not worth having accomplished as often or at all. By raising the costs of employment, more and more jobs are no longer worth doing at the prescribed rate.

The fact is, whenever the minimum wage laws are changed they increase unemployment among unskilled and new-to-the-marketplace workers while also offering an inflationary component to the entire economy. Those workers who hold on to their jobs gain nothing over the long term because their larger checks must purchase more expensive goods and services, while those who have been laid off lose big at the outset.

Another unintended consequence of higher mandated costs is the shifting of commerce from high overhead mom-and-pop operations to larger corporate behemoths such as Wal-Mart and Home Depot. While all progressives hate warehouse stores for the small businesses they supposedly destroy, they have no problem with encouraging the very sort of regulations that place a decided disadvantage on the backs of these smaller stores.

The minimum wage war is something that is fought every several years at the Michigan or national level. Foolishness has often been defined as employing the same failed solutions time and time again while each time expecting a different outcome.

The results of an increased minimum wage in Michigan are as predictable as the effects of gravity. We know that they will increase unemployment among the most vulnerable while also adding to inflationary pressures and, in addition, will put smaller employers at a disadvantage against low overhead businesses. No wonder it is in such favor among progressives.

Thank you sir, may I have another!

Stop Being So Rude, Just Shut Up and Put Your Father Back On the Phone!

2011-10-24T15:08:00.002-04:00

I am so blessed by being in my 50s and still being able to enjoy the company of both of my parents who have lived long and healthy lives. I have experienced few benefits due to my underemployment, but one is the ability to share a morning cup of coffee with my parents several times a week when I'm in town.

Last Wednesday was just such a morning as I pulled into drive the of their house at about 9:00 am. I entered their sweltering house and greeted my Mom with a quick hello but left my Dad alone as he was listening intently on the telephone. I would occasionally hear him toss out short responses such as "I don't know about that" and "Oh, a few years ago."

The conversation went on for another five minutes or so--my father occasionally interjecting a word here or there which was answered in kind by a muffled voice that I could pick up whenever the angle of my Dad's hand changed to allow the caller's voice to reach my ear.

I asked my Mom who he was talking to. "Some salesman or someone that wants some money." My Mom at that point began suggesting that my Father should just hang up on the caller, but My Dad has never been a man wont to engage in rudeness or the impolitic. So, on he listened with the occasional interjected word to the increased frustration of my Mom and interest in me. I gathered enough from what I could hear that the salesman was hawking a septic treatment designed to infuse the septic system with massive amounts of bacteria that would help the system from becoming overloaded and needing to be repaired or replaced. (Think expensive Rid-X.)

After another few minutes or so, my Dad began to say more forcefully that he was uninterested in what was being sold. While never being rude or raising his voice, it became obviously clear to me that the salesman was not going to take no for an answer--he was the kind of salesman who only understood the word 'no' when it was delivered by the sound of a dial tone. But, since my father has never hung up anyone in his entire life, the conversation continued on and on until my Dad was completely frustrated.

Of course, my Mom was willing to offer her advice. "Hang up on him." "Hang up the phone." "Hang up on him." As for myself, I was confident that I could dispatch the caller with a simple--"Dude, my Dad's not interested. What is it about "no" that you do not understand?"

Finally my Dad threw up his arms with the receiver clutched tightly in one hand and asked "What am I supposed to do?"

I was angry. My elderly Father has lived too long and gracefully to have to put up with the sort of crap being expelled by this anonymous asshole. "Let me have the phone," I told my Dad. He handed it to me without hesitation.

On the other end of the line I could hear a man blathering on (he believed at the time he was still talking to my Father) about the information that he had delivered and about the value of his product. Having delivered the information flawlessly and truthfully, he was demanding that my Father repeat to him what it was about his presentation that my Father either disagreed with or did not understand.

"Sir?, Sir?" I said into the phone. There was a slight pause as I introduced myself to the salesman. "I need to let you know that you are no longer talking to my Father. My name is Kirk and my Dad just handed me the telephone because he was getting frustrated. He is not interested in your product and he has told you several times already."

"Who am I talking to?"

"You are no longer talking to Boyd. You are now talking to Kirk, his son."

I must admit that there was a flurry of words from the salesman at this time that I don't entirely remember, and his flurry was matched with a flurry of my own that, because of my frustration, I have also forgotten. I know that I did not raise my voice.

This went on for several sentences, him talking, me talking, and nothing at all being communicated other than the noise that is created when different words from different mouths are crashed headlong into each other.

Then, perhaps in the short break it might take me to inhale, I heard this..."Mind your own business. Be a good Son, and give the phone back to your Father." Classic.

"What?" I remember asking this with a disbelieving tone in my voice. "Hey, my Father just handed me the phone. At that point I think it became my business. You wouldn't listen to him so he handed the phone to me. He is not interested in your product."

"Shut up and give the phone back to your Father. You are causing him to lose money."

"Maybe I am, but it is his money. He can do with his money what he wants and he is not interested in your product."

"He has used the product in the past and was satisfied. Give the phone back to your Dad. You are being rude."

"You're kidding me! You just told me to shut up and now I'm the one being rude?"

This seemed to snap him back to the fringe of reality as he slowed down and attempted a different tactic. "Let's go back to square one. Who am I talking to?"

I have to admit that at this point I was no longer upset and was having a bit of a good time. I was happy to continue this conversation.

"Sure. Let's start over."

"Okay, my name is Joe. I'm the account manager."

"Hello, Joe. My name is Kirk. I already told you my name earlier when I introduced myself."

"I'm sorry, I must have missed that."

At that point Joe leaped off into another sales pitch having deduced that I was now the one that needed to be sold, not my Father. He talked about the oils included in today's new cleaning products. He talked about their impacts on a septic system. He talked about the buildup they caused on sewage lines, about the reduced flow this buildup could cause, and how this could result in major problems. He yammered on and on for several minutes. Admittedly I had been ignoring most of what he said, so when he asked me a question, I had no idea what his question even involved but I faked it. Satisfied with my response, he went on again, this time launching into the costs associated with failing to use his product. A replaced septic system would cost $7,000. A pumping of the septic would run my Dad $300. Calling a plumber in to do work on the system could cost additional hundreds.

"Are you a plumber?" he asked me.

"No, my brother in law is the plumber."

"Well, you probably know then how expensive all of this could get. This could cost your Father a lot of money."

"Joe, you might have a great product. It might be the best product on the market. But the fact is that all of this is irrelevant. It is not my money. It is not your money. It is my Dad's money, and he does not want to buy your product."

"You need to stop being so stupid and give the phone back to your Father. Why are you even there? Don't you have a job? Are you there because you are living off your parents? Be a good son and give the phone back to your father."

"Joe, where are you calling from? What company do you represent?" Up until this point I knew the type of product he was selling but did not know which company was employing him to prey off my Father's politeness and to occasionally, whenever the need would arise, to accuse his customer's family members of preying on unsuspecting patriarchs. "What number are you calling from."

"The same number that showed up on your caller ID."

"We don't have caller ID here. Where are you calling from?"

He gave me the 800 number of the business and told me he was calling from Florida. He also made certain that I understood that my Dad had purchased the product from him in the past, apparently giving his phone call the necessary wiggle room to avoid do-not-call restrictions.

"Oh. I thought I could detect a Florida accent." Now, I have no idea why I was trying to engage this guy in casual conversation other than the fact that I was having a pretty good time. Perhaps it was stupidity.

"I don't have a Florida accent. I am from New York. You must be too stupid to recognize a New York accent." Yep, it was stupidity.

"Oh, well, I've known people from Florida that had similar accents." I was responding to the guy with a mirth in my voice because the whole situation had become humorous to me. I had never in my life had a conversation like this. I was being entertained!

"You're wasting my time. Why don't you shut up, be a good son, and put your Father back on the phone."

"Because he is not interested in your product."

"I tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to call him back later in the day when you are not around."

"You had better not call him back later in the day. He has already told you that he is not interested in your product. I don't want you to call back here and I don't want anyone else from your company ever calling here again."

"Well, your Father has already given me his credit card information."

I knew that this was a lie. My Father is as blind as a bat and couldn't read numbers if they were written in bold red on the side of a barn. "So, what are you telling me, Joe? Are you saying that you plan on charging my Father's credit card for a product that he has told you that he does not want to buy?"

"No, I'm not saying that. I wouldn't do that."

"Then why would you even mention it? Is there some sort of identity theft issue that my Father now has to be concerned with?"

"No, I would not do that."

"I cannot figure out why you would mention having his credit card information unless you were trying to threaten me with an illegality."

Joe clearly did not want to continue to discuss the credit care issue. He moved on. "Well, when your Father's septic tank fails and needs to be replaced and it costs him thousands of dollars to have it done, I'm going to call him up and say 'I told you so."

"How in the world are you ever going to find out if and when my Father's septic tank goes on the fritz? Do you have spies out here that monitor sewage levels?"

"And, when your septic tank fails, I don't want any phone calls down here threatening to sue us."

"Why would we ever call you if the septic tank failed?"

"Because of the costs of replacing a septic tank and because your Dad has been using the product for the past few years. You might claim the product failed. You know what? You are just wasting my time. I'm going to call back later when I can speak with your Father. I'm going to hang up on you."

"You called here and you don't think you are wasting my time?"

"I'm going to hang up and call back later. You are too stupid to talk to and you are costing your Father money."

"Joe, please don't hang up on me. What about my feelings?" Click.

After twenty plus minutes with my Dad on the phone and another fifteen minutes more with me, Joe had determined that too much of his time had been wasted.

I went and hung up the phone thoroughly impressed that I had outlasted possibly the rudest and most obstinate sewage treatment salesman on Earth. I went back and discussed with my parents some of what had been said.

I then did a Google search of the phone number he had given me to see if I could find any consumer complaints lodged against the company for its sales tactics. I found none but decided I'd call the company to lodge my own complaint.

I dialed the 800 number worried that I was going to get Joe back on the line and that he would have to hang up on me again, after all, a man's self esteem can only withstand so much. My fears were calmed when the phone was answered by a nice young lady not named Joe with an accent decidedly un-NewYorkerish.

I told her that I wanted to speak with a supervisor. She assured me that she could help me. I told her a second time that I wanted to make certain I was speaking with someone that supervised the account managers. Again, she assured me that she could assist me with whatever I was calling about.

"Do you supervise Joe? I'm calling from Michigan and Joe called here this morning and I want to lodge a complaint about him."

"What did he say to you?"

I did my best to recount all of the things that occurred, trying to lay them out similarly to this blog post. Of course, I probably remembered a few things then that I forgot to write here, and I probably wrote some things here that I forgot to mention to the supervisor.

When I mentioned the credit card number and that I was going to be very angry if Dad was charged for product he did not want or became a victim of identity theft, she wanted clarification. I repeated that part of the story to which she assured me that Joe had no credit card information. While I knew that my Dad had not given the information to Joe I was not so certain that Joe did not have access to the credit card information through his access to my Father's sales file--after all, Joe was the account manager.

Finally, after I had completed my account of events, the supervisor told me that when she heard the phone ringing that she wondered if it was me. She told me that she had wandered out into the call area and heard Joe's part of the conversation and told me that Joe had definitely "crossed the line." Joe was going to be reprimanded.

I told the lady that my Dad should not have to suffer through any more of these calls and that I did not want Joe or any other representative of the company calling him back. She quickly and resolutely agreed and assured me again that the credit card information was secure, that Joe would not call him back, and that no other representative from her company would ever contact my Father again.

We ended our call in the traditional manner without anyone being hung up on and, thankfully, with no one's feelings being damaged.

Approximately twenty minutes later the telephone rang again. My Mom answered the phone, paused, and then handed the telephone to my Dad. My Dad listened for a few seconds and then handed the phone to me.

I said into the receiver, "Hello, this is Kirk."

On the other end of the line was the general manager or owner of the company that Joe had called from. Once again I was asked to recount my side of the story. This time, however, while retelling the story I was kindly encouraged to continue. For instance, when I mentioned that Joe had told me to 'mind my own business' the general manager interjected that he thought it was definitely my business. When I told him that I had been repeatedly called stupid, that I had been told to shut up numerous times, and that I had been told to mind my own business and be a good son, my words were greeted with empathy. He too was concerned when I mentioned the credit card part of the conversation and assured me that Joe did not have that information.

"I want you to know that Joe is not just getting a reprimand. He is being fired. What he did is inexcusable and we cannot have that here."

To my insistence that I did not want anyone from his company to call my Father again, he said he didn't blame me one bit and that no one would call.

He apologized again and we hung up.

In retrospect I couldn't help but wonder what Joe's problem was. Meth? Coke? Was he wrestling with the manic side of a bi-polar incident? I am not gloating over the loss of his job and my intent was not to get the man fired. I told the general manager as much when he told me Joe was being terminated. The guy needs some help.

The truly sad thing about this whole story is that I did not have to embellish it in the least. Some of the comments might be slightly out of the order in which they were originally uttered and I'm certain I forgot portions of what was said--for instance, I know I was called stupid at least five times, but I cannot remember what I said to prompt Joe's wrath each individual time. To the best of my ability and recollection, this story is recounted as accurately as possible but if I can think of anything else I'll add it to the bottom in an update.

Leonard Pitts on Herman Cain

2011-10-18T19:28:00.000-04:00

From the freep

One of the least-discussed impacts of the black experience in America is its emotional toll. African Americans were psychologically maimed by this country, the expression of which can still be seen in the visceral self-loathing that afflicts too many.

Meaning the black child who equates doing well in school with "acting white." Meaning the famous black man who bleaches his skin. Meaning the famous black woman who rationalizes her use of a certain soul-killing racial epithet. Meaning Herman Cain.

Pitts plays the identity politics card with such mastery that not only is Cain's authenticity as a black man challenged, but today's black populist culture is itself forwarded as evidence of legacy racism.

Leonard Pitts is left to define for the rest of us who is a bigot, who is self-loathing, and who is inauthentic, and is also kind enough to point out the two types of African-Americans that we crackers can tolerate--which I truly appreciate as its just like having a Caucasian owner's manual!

For my part, I don't know Herman Cain the candidate as well as I expect to know him over the next few weeks and months, but his message of conservatism is refreshing--not because it is a message of black conservatism, but because his message is one that this pasty skin American believed in before he was introduced to the inauthentic Mr. Cain.

As for Pitts, living life must be miserable when you cannot take even one day off from keeping score.

What's Next, The $22.95 Cup of Coffee?

2011-10-18T18:26:00.000-04:00

Starbucks is worried about the extinction of the coffee bean according to the company's director of sustainability, Jim Hanna. Global warming rears its ugly head again.

With a typical cup of coffee at Starbucks already more expensive than a six pack of gray tube socks, I don't think an escalation in the price of a Grande Caffè Misto will affect me much.

The Circle of Life: Government Style

2011-10-17T13:40:00.000-04:00

At the same time that the Suburban Mobility Authority for Regional Transportation has announced plans to cut its bus service by 22 percent and to lay off 123 people, Ray LaHood has announced that SMART will be receiving federal grants totaling nearly $5 million for new buses.

In the government's circle of life, the albatross is never allowed to die.

This One Was Not For the Children

2011-10-14T20:51:00.000-04:00

There are many winners in the plea deal that resulted from the dismissal of Teresa Gueyser from her Superintendant's post at the Detroit Public Schools--this shortly after she was exposed to Detroit's School Board President fondling himself while he sat across from her at a meeting.

As sympathetic as the lawyer turned adminstrator might seem, she gets to walk away with a cool $650,000 that could otherwise have been used to, well, educate children. Of course, Otis Mathis, the self-pleasuring public servant in trust of the education of his city's children, gets off (I'll bet you didn't see that one coming (or that one)) with a couple years probation for his admitted behaviors while simultaneously avoiding the embarrassment of other disclosures.

The DPS itself, perhaps the most incompetently run government entity this side of Mogadishu, gets to avoid what could have easily amounted to even larger legal fees while not having its already besmirched reputation dragged farther into the gutter in full view of the district's parents.

There are words that aptly describe Otis Mathis though I will leave them untyped should Mom stumble onto this rant while looking for important cake recipes in Mennonite history. There are other words and terms every bit as fitting (and more palatable to your typicaly anabaptist) to describe Gueyser; opportunist, sufferer of Münchausen, selfish git, typical bureaucrat. I find one simple word appropriate to describe the DPS; failure.

The driving force behind the education of children has become money. Not necessarily the money actually needed to educate the little rugrats, but the chambers full of treasure to be divided among the educrats so that little Johnny and Little Sally can drop out after completing the 11th grade while their older siblings, Billy and Susan, having received their own diplomas can scantly read the word Diploma stamped on its face.

$650K is peanuts to a school district so awash in red ink that the new punishment will scarsely register a blip, and $650,00 is less than peanuts to a city with problems so numerous that a public snake charming hedonist can seamlessly rise to the level of School Board President after he had already climbed to the board room of Wayne County.

The scoreboard looks like this. Gueyser gets her some cash, Mathis can entertain some other unsuspecting victim (that is, should the miracles of modern medicine fail him in his never ending quest to stop yanking himself in public) and the DPS can avoid having its name in the papers throughout a very embarrassing and protracted court litigation. The kids? Who cares, the education establishment has bigger fish to fry.

Confusing Orwell

2011-10-12T21:02:00.002-04:00

Okay, I'm in Georgia right now and blogging is almost impossible, but at the very least certain hypocrisies must be exposed and ridiculed.

Americans United for the Separation of Church and State has filed a brief in support of the Justice Department in a lawsuit brought against the Lutheran Church.

The case involves a former teacher at Lutheran school, who along with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission is pushing a claim that a Lutheran congregation should be forced to restore her ministry position.

Let me see if I have this right.

A group whose adopted name would seem to indicate that it exists ostensibly for the purpose of keeping the church out of the state's business and the state out of the church's business, has decided instead to cast lots with Eric Holder and Barack Obama in their attempts to put the government in charge of the church's personnel policies for ministers.

We know, of course, that these control freaks are not interested in church and state separation but rather endorse a rigid hierarchy where the church rests comfortably underneath the heel of state tyranny. Saying so just doesn't sell as well.

The Great War Against Employers Continues

2011-09-30T18:16:00.000-04:00

Wonderful.

We now have another class of aggrieved in this nation...and it used to be ME! Sadly, I lost my special status even before I got a chance to use it.

Hey, I've been there. I'm still only cobbling together a living after losing my job in the construction sales industry a couple years ago. (Thank you Jennifer Granholm!) I spent many months completely out of work and many more months "underemployed" as today's dynamic social sciences lexicon might refer to me.

Barack Obama's so-called jobs program includes a priceless little gem that would allow me to sue the pants off of any of the scores of potential employers that didn't hire me during the blight of my unemployment.

One can imagine the additional costs that could be amassed by any business with over fifteen employees that makes the mistake of filling its only opening after accepting 100 applications and interviewing ten finalists. Any one of those spurned 99 percent that might happen to be unemployed at the time of their application could be encouraged to sue for damages.

Here in Michigan there are often thousands of applicants accepted for only a handful of jobs. How many Alice reruns do you suppose the average unemployed job seeker would have to sit through before the Law Offices of Sam Bernstein or Robert Goldwater started peddling their sue first meme over job discrimination?

While the law does specifically exclude applicants who are unqualified or incapable of handling the job in question, the mere threat of litigation and the financial requirements of walking the regulation tightrope will have a chilling effect on many potential employers.

This chill might effect not only the routine hiring process conducted by any employer, but even base-level decision making that might be considering potential company expansions or relocations. How will a company pay for any unforeseen litigation costs? How much more expensive will their product become in order to defend against unjustified accusations?

Of course, these concerns are not a major problem for those who demand that a 'jobs bill' be signed immediately regardless of its actual impact. The great war against employers continues apace.

More at Overlawyered.

Anwar al-Awlaki Meets His Maker

2011-09-30T15:34:00.005-04:00

I know that Ron Paul and the ACLU are very concerned that the US would target an American citizen for assassination when he has never been truly charged with any crime, but I'm not quite so sentimental.

Anwar al-Awlaki strove for the status he acquired and relished his meteoric rise to the top of the anti-American Muslim jihadist movement. He was a spiritual adviser to at least two of the nineteen 9-11 hijackers, was a correspondent and adviser to the Fort Hood shooter, and was behind the radicalization of many African jihadists including the underwear bomber.

Perhaps the Justice Department should have charged the late al-Awlaki, but such maneuvering would have been largely cosmetic to begin with and it is doubtful that having charges against the scumbag would in any way blunt Paul's or the ACLU's ultimate disfavor.

Had al-Awlaki been hiding in New Mexico or Texas, I'd agree with Ron Paul. We don't assassinate American citizens on our soil because we have other options. But, in the hostile sands of the Mideast where the Allah-commanded murdering of nearly anyone, Christian, Muslim, or Jew, is commonplace, we are somewhat limited in our legal arsenal if not the one held by our military.

Dick Durbin and the Bank Profit Dyke

2011-09-30T15:34:00.000-04:00

Dick Durbin is a painfully predictable communicator which, it seems, he attempts to compensate for by spewing out of his acerbic pie hole fantastic claims that do nothing more than provide evidence of his mind boggling ignorance.

One of Durbin's biggest legislative accomplishments is the inclusion of the Durbin Amendment to Dodd–Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, an act signed into law last year in response to our current economic malaise. (It should be noted that many critics of the Dodd-Frank fiasco point out that the act responds to our current economic crisis by addressing exactly zero of the factors that contributed to the economic crisis, that it would not have headed off the recession had it been passed in previous years, and that its passing will contribute significantly to the likelihood that we might fall face forward into the second half of a disastrous double-dipper.)

It does all of these things because it misinterprets the major causes of the recession to begin with. It blames Wall Street and the big banks for the recession (two easy-to-hate culprits) while it conveniently forgets that it was a predictable housing bubble coupled with a government-mandated relaxation of lending standards that were the principle motivators of the credit crunch. Then, when benevolent bureaucrats swooped in to save the day, they exacerbated the problem by holding risky lenders largely unaccountable for their ill advised exploits while siphoning out of the private sector badly needed capital.

Hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars flowed into the coffers of careless banks, conveniently blinded mortgage lenders and insurers, poorly managed car companies, overspending state and local governments, and ill-advised green energy favorites until those numerous billions, now adding up to trillions, had been fatally squeezed out of the American economy and no longer were available to private enterprises who needed the capital resources to expand their businesses while also expanding their employment bases.

Dick Durbin, Barney Frank, and Chris Dodd were three of the swooping bureaucrats--all of them partly responsible for the catastrophic credit meltdown in America, and all of them equally as guilty of misdirecting blame for their own complicity at Wall Street and the banking boardrooms.

You see, the rich and the banks they own make wonderful villains. They are the haves while we are the have-nots. They board corporate jets to flit about the globe while we haven't had a vacation in years. They own yachts while we cannot afford fishing licenses. The rings on their fingers could pay off our mortgages. They are the millionaires while we live paycheck to unemployment check.

It is the evil banks and their excessive profits that Dick Durbin was aiming at when he slipped the Durbin Amendment into the Dodd-Frank disaster at the last moment. The villainous banks needed to have their profits reined in, and Durbin was just the man to do it.

And yet, even responsible banks must operate at a profit and must maintain a certain profit margin. Falling nether a particular profit margin makes banks, like any free market business, unworthy of investment. So, when the benevolent Dick Durbin struts around a bank and sees profits he feels are unnecessary or unfair, he attempts to plug those leaks with regulations. Unfortunately, when more and more of these profit centers become plugged with the pudgy fingers of Durbin, more and more seemingly unreasonable measures of revenue must be gathered elsewhere.

This is not because banks want to punish their customers for their patronage, but rather the banks are being forced to scrounge for dollars under the seat cushions because many of their conventional streams of income are being crushed by regulations.

Do I love banks? Nope. They piss me off as much as the next guy. My free checking went away years ago, my ATM charges keep climbing, and it is rumored that my e-banking might start costing me money. But, these seemingly unreasonable charges are becoming the norm these days because government regulators are busy trying to plug profit holes that they deem excessive even though eliminating them makes banks turn to more creative (and unreasonable) measures to maintain their profit margins.

Says Durbin:

“Earlier this year the Federal Reserve determined that the interchange fees Visa and MasterCard fix for big banks grossly exceed the cost of processing a debit card transaction by some 400%. These hidden fees were designed to boost big-bank profits by charging small businesses and merchants every time a debit card was swiped. And profit they did. Bank of America hauls in billions in debit interchange each year.”

“Thankfully, on October 1st that flawed system will be replaced by a more transparent and competitive market. Swipe fee regulation will still allow banks to cover the actual costs of debit transactions but will rein in the banks’ excessive profit-taking. Small business and merchants will benefit from fee relief and consumers will benefit from lower prices. And banks that try to make up their excess profits off the backs of their customers will finally learn how a competitive market works.”

The more 'transparent and competitive market' that Durbin has announced that will result from his brilliant private sector intrusion, in part, amounts to millions of debit card holders having to fork over an additional few dollars every month for the right to spend their own money. Other annoying charges are certain to follow in order to pay for Durbin's bulbous nose snuffling about my bank account, and to pay the salaries of the additional bank regulators necessary to pull off this sort of intrusion, as well as to pay the higher overheads incurred by banks that must install and maintain viable systems in a more regulated world.

Profits will not go down. But costs, as accompanied by all regulations, will go up. These will need to be paid for.

Thanks. Dick.

Debating the Next Potential Disaster

2011-09-24T19:26:00.000-04:00

I have never liked debates as a way to determine the best candidate, and the latest spate of contentious gumsnappery has done little to change my mind.

Debates should be, at most, a small portion of what potential voters consider when they choose a candidate to champion. Unfortunately, in today's world of reality television and 24 hour a day populist news jibber-jabber, it is the candidate who is quickest on his rhetorical feet that gains most on the staged political stage.

Newt Gingrich, a candidate who carries more baggage than a Michelle Obama stoop-shouldered bellhop, did nibble around the edges of my argument when he challenged debate moderators on two separate occasions to ask serious questions of the debaters rather than trying to manipulate potential presidents into embarrassing exchanges as if they were Snooki and Michael "The Situation" Sorrentino.

Each of the presidential candidates in the current Republican stable have years of history in business or politics or both, and a voter's investigation into these histories is a far better way to judge a candidate than whether or not they can deliver a scoring soundbite in the form of a quick comeback. And yet, this is not how I see many voters choosing candidates.

Debate moderators are offered but a few opportunities to dig into this history. Unfortunately it seems that they, and their bosses, would rather turn these events into entertainment spectacles rather than embrace their utility.

My Mom is a true believer in conservative principles; she believes an ever expansive government is dangerous, that a government, as well as those that it governs, should live within its means. She is a conservative that believes that the federal government should not nose its way into state issues, that the state government should not nose its way into local issues, and that local government should not nose its way into private issues. My experience is that she has no problems with parents nosing their way into children's issues, but that is another story.

So, at the end of the of the past couple of debates, she has decided that she is a supporter of Mitt Romney. This is not because of his long history of offering big government solutions, but because he is such a good debater.

I'm sorry, but this is akin to spending weeks investigating the best kind of car to buy, spending many hours digging into the option packages, the gas mileage, the warranty, the attendant service agreement, and then, when it is all said and done, choosing the pretty green one.

If not for his debating skills (and the not so subtle endorsement of mass media) a former community organizer with no business or administrative or foreign policy experience would not now be sitting at the helm of a country sliding off the end of the earth. A man who has never created a job in his life, but for political debates, would not be in charge of the national strategy of creating jobs. A man whose self-admitted real life administrative experience prior to his election amounted to nothing more than running his own presidential election campaign, but for debates, would not now be the CEO over the largest economy on the planet.

So, sure, pay attention to the debates. Let's see how quick witted and fast footed these celebrities of politics are. But, in the end, lets look at some history and track records. Perhaps we can avoid the next disaster.

A Belated Political Humor Trifecta

2011-09-19T15:49:00.003-04:00

I've been gone for ten days and blogging, as always, is difficult when I'm on the road.

While I was gone I saw several things that I believe are worthwhile reposting here.

First, with a hat tip to NewsBusters...Martin Short sings a lasting tribute to Osama bin Laden.

Then from Moonbattery I ran across this:

But not to be left out, Iowahawk jotted down a number of questions he wished to be asked of the president during his twitter press conference a few weeks back. My favorite among many hilarious queries..."Why do you need permission to be clear, and not need permission to bomb Libya?"

9/11/2011

2011-09-11T10:48:00.003-04:00

...Daniel F. Libretti...

I've been watching the somber 9/11 memorial proceedings on Fox News and Daniel's name has just crossed the bottom of the screen in what seems to be a never ending scroll of the murdered.

This is a day of rather raw emotions. Anger. Pride. Grief.

America has been accused of not letting go. Of not getting on. We've been accused of celebrating this day and turning it into a holiday.

This is no holiday. While it might be a day on the calendar that many Americans circle in red ink, it is more likely a day that most of us simply allow our eyes to become circled in moist redness.

I would guess that a vast majority of those that stand solemly today on that ground once buried under thousands of tons of rubble, do so not because they want to be there, but do so because they have to be there.

...Luis Manuel Lopez...

That was a day of disbelief.

We vowed then, ten years ago, that we would not forget the images of bodies as they tumbled out of the sky, that we would not forget the images of the towers as they fell, and that we would not forget the sacrifices of those who selflessly charged into fiery buildings fated to fall.

But, I think what we vowed to remember on that day has become more than the simple evil that attacked us. We also remember the good that is America.

Today, as we feel the painful effects of the baring of old wounds, as we watch names circle the bottom of our television screens, we also salute the goodness that is America. We remember the vivid past, but we are also being reminded of who we are, as a people and as a country.

Ten years on and we have not forgotton.

...Joseph Ross Marchbanks, Jr...

I Cannot Wait

2011-09-08T19:17:00.004-04:00

I will not be watching our President as he makes his much anticipated jobs speech tonight in a joint session before some of both houses of Congress. It is being predicted that his Majesty will be regurgitating parts of several past proposals that at one time or another, within divergent contexts and in different financial times, a few of his detractors might have endorsed.

Well, I personally am not so thrilled at what I believe will be his $450 billion worth of slush fund projects to get Americans working again. As we saw in his beloved bailout bill, much money will be channeled toward hard left union constituencies where the taxpayers get totally screwed. The money enters a narrow pipeline where the recipients of said funds will be providing to the taxpayers no more than a fifty cents on the borrowed dollar value.

I'm not so thrilled either about proposals that would supposedly reward businesses for hiring new employees or not laying off the ones that are already unjustified given current economic conditions. First of all, with the rising flood water of employment regulation just around the corner these tax credits do nothing but temporarily negate the inevitable higher cost of doing business under Obama. Secondly, if any company is ever rewarded for not letting go of unnecessary employees we toss the entire working apparatus of the free market system and capitalism out the window.

But lets look at the timing of this jobs speech in the current business context.

We have one company, Boeing, that has been told by the Obama administration that it cannot operate a factory in South Carolina because doing so, according to the NLRB, would be an act of punishment aimed at unionized labor. The Department of Labor has demanded that Boeing keep production at its union facilities in Washington rather than let right to work state South Carolina provide the several thousands of employees that would operate the factory.

Now, Boeing is not shuttering the Washington factory. In fact, since its announcement of building a plant in South Carolina became public, it has actually added hundreds of jobs in Washington.

Lets look too at Gibson Guitars, a company incidentally that is owned and operated by conservative supporting executives. The Justice Department raided two of the company's factories in Tennessee to investigate whether or not the company was in violation of foreign timber harvesting laws. The company is not even being charged with violating any American laws. Gibson's largest American competitor, Martin, is not being scrutinized in the same manner even though its instruments are manufactured using many of the same woods. Martin is owned by big Democrat political contributors.

Lets look too at the fossil fuel industries. Barack Obama has suggested that he wants to bankrupt the coal companies. He has said that, under his plan, electricity rates must necessarily skyrocket.

Yet, at the same time that he heaps huge piles of red tape in front of efficient energy sources, he rewards his solar panel buddies over half a billion dollars worth of federal subsidies. Now that the company has gone belly up, FBI agents have raided the company, Solyndra, and seized a huge cache of information. How this information will be used, whether to indict Solyndra officials (unlikely since they visited the Oval Office over twenty times) or to cover up whatever hazy relationship has existed between the administration and its corporate lap dogs is anyone's guess.

So, the Obama speech is being anticipated by many. I wonder, however, how filled with anticipation the executives at Gibson Guitars are, or how excited the executives at Boeing are. I wonder how excited the owners of big oil and big coal are over the prospect of listening to the US President tell them how he is going to create jobs.

They all know that this administration is using whatever means it has available to it to actually shut down companies unfortunate enough to belong either to an unfavored industry or to be unwise enough to believe in a political ideal that runs contrary to the one held in the White House.

Politics when fought within the political arena can be an ugly game. Politics, when fought in the private sector, is as revealing as it is ugly. It tells us a lot about those that try to use their political power to shape industries and companies into instruments of the state itself.

This is not liberty, it is tyranny. This is not freedom, it is fascism. This is not the free market, it is a cobbled together obstacle course designed to trip up all businesses that do not parrot the talking points of this administration.

Ya, I cannot wait to read tomorrow what the President will say in a few minutes.

Well, You Can't Blame Him For Everything...

2011-09-03T17:21:00.000-04:00

How many times have we heard this from defenders of Barack Obama as it relates to the horrible economic climate we live in these days?

'You cannot blame him for everything.'

Dozens of times? Hundreds?

It is an excuse used by this administration in its own defense as well as by progressive media pundits who acquired all they know about journalistic objectiveness in a beer tent outside an NEA rally. Certainly the basic tenet of the comment is true...Barack Obama did not create every single situation that led us too far down this road to economic ruin.

And yet, such defense of Obama is rarely evenly applied by the literati to George W. Bush who took office in charge of a largely dismantled intelligence community just nine months before a bloodthirsty collection of Mohammedan adherents decided the best way to serve their God was to kill a few thousand Americans in New York City, Washington DC., and an infamous Pennsylvania field.

In fact we fiscal conservatives were alarmed by Bush's inability to locate his veto pen until about year seven of his administration, and we felt horribly betrayed by the "compassionate conservative" after we found out that his brand of conservativism and compassion amounted to a perpetual commitment to growth in government. No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug benefit are two far reaching intrusionist examples that expose Bush for the big spending Republican that he was.

But this post is not about Bush at all (he isn't still President, is he?) but rather about a barely wavering media and voting constituency of Barack Obama (as if they were two different things) who refuse to apply an equal standard to this President Messiah and his evil predecessor.

So, while Barack Obama cannot be directly blamed for everything that is leading us to ruin, we have to point out three things to those receiving their political education from National Socialist Radio.

1. While Obama did not create all the policies that are breaking the bank of our country, he philosophically supports nearly every one of them regardless of whether or not he was around to vote on them when they were instituted.

Some will argue that it was the expensive wars that created our problem or the greed on Wall Street. These arguments can be easily dispensed with when one looks at Obama's unnecessary and misguided escalation of the Afghanistan war partnered with his arrogant participation in a Libyan war where we don't even know who we are supporting. And while Wall Street does house a staggering number of greedy bastards, a majority of those greedy bastards are supporters of Obama and his trademarked brand of crony capitalism.

Bush supported a Wall Street banker bailout. Um, so did Obama. Obama also supports the sort of Keynesian intrusionism that allows the genius of bureaucracy to pick the industries and businesses that are supposed to win and lose. It is this genius that bails out automobile companies and their socialist workforces while it tries its hardest to castrate the oil, manufacturing, clothing, and agricultural companies that it finds socially unhelpful. It is also the genius that preys on companies like Exxon/Mobil while it slathers doomed-to-fail Solyndra Inc. with hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.

When Bush supported No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug benefit, he was only hounded by progressives such as Obama for their narrow scale. They were underfunded! They needed to be even bigger!

The housing crisis and run up in energy prices, which are largely the cause of the current situation, are both the direct result of progressive socialist policies that Obama has always supported fully. As our gas prices rose Obama opined that "[energy] prices must necessarily skyrocket." As housing concerns tangled, Obama was actively involved in ramrodding, at the community organizer level, the federal policies that not only encouraged high risk mortgage candidates to buy homes they could not afford, but helped put taxpayers on the hook ultimately for their mortgage obligations.

Is it more important that Obama was not in office when the Community Reinvestment Act was voted on or not in office to help spearhead a disastrous and progressive energy policy, or is it more important to recognize that he is now and always was sympathetic in toto to the reasonings behind their commencements?

2. While Obama did not create all the policies that are breaking the bank of our country, he has used the regulatory powers of every federal agency that he has at his disposal to hamstring the growing of the American economy.

The EPA, the FDA, the Departments of Energy and Education and Commerce, HUD, the DOJ, the Department of the Interior and the Consumer Protection Agency, HHS, etc., etc., have all used their expanded powers of tyranny under Obama to not only destroy wealth but to hinder its creation at either the wellhead, in the laboratory, on the factory floor, or atop the tractor. I cannot wait until those 10,000 new IRS officers cut their teeth imposing Dodd-Frank and Obamacare mandates.

This ain't helping.

3. While Obama did not create all the policies that are breaking the bank of our country, it has to be recognized that Ronald Reagan inherited an economy from Billy Carter's dumber brother that was in many ways worse than the one inherited by drunk driver Onyango Obama's nephew.

Two and a half years after Reagan inherited a disastrous economy, the American economic machine had turned around. When he took office he faced higher Carter level inflation, comparable unemployment rates to those suffered by Obama, and interest rates of nearly twenty percent. Reagan faced a tumultuous Middle East, an oil squeeze, and a Congress decidedly of progressive vein.

Under Ronald Reagan America began the longest lasting period of sustained economic growth this country has ever known. He cut taxes, cut regulations, rebuilt the military, supported our friends abroad, and set free the American spirit.

Barack Obama believes in different tactics. He wants to raise taxes, introduce crippling regulations, cannot wait to gut the military, sold our traditional friends down the river, and has dismissed American exceptionalism as nothing more than cultural narcissism.

No, Barack Obama is not at fault for everything that this country suffers today.

But, that he agrees with all the policies that helped create this situation, that he has used every tool at his disposal to exacerbate the situation, and that Ronald Reagan took a worse situation and quickly turned it around all should give pause to even his most loyal progressive political groupies.

Down, Down, Down

2011-09-02T13:44:00.002-04:00

Once again, the US economy has produced some unexpected news--job creation was low in August. In fact, according to today's Department of Labor report, no net new jobs were created. This is the first time since 1945 that there has been a zero job growth figure.

But, it gets even worse. The dismal job growth performances for the past two months have both been revised, wait for it...downward. A dismal July estimate of 117,000 jobs created was lowered to an even more dismal 85,000, and an embarrassingly dismal June estimate of 46,000 jobs was lowered to a wear-a-sack-over-my-head-dismal 20,000 jobs created.

This is the success story of Barack Obama and his army of economy killing regulators and Keynesian economists. You cannot wage a war on employers without it having a crippling effect on the numbers of employees they can afford to either keep on, or add to, the payroll.

Sanity, Ignorance, Ignorance, Sanity/Ignorance, Intrusion, and Intrusion with a Dash of Ignorance

2011-09-01T14:20:00.003-04:00

How else can I describe the six cost-efficient ways that our ex-Governor and ex-First Gentleman have laid out to help this country create jobs?

We Michiganders are fully aware of the skill set that Jennifer Granholm and her trophy husband, Daniel Mulhern, brought to the Michigan statehouse.

Under Granholm's leadership the state became a wasteland of vacant homes and shuttered storefronts. The only good good news was that business was brisk in both the outbound moving van and Michigan Works! staffing sectors of the economy. For half of her time in office, Michigan led the nation in unemployment and was the only state in the union to actually lose population during the decade that contained her administration.

And this is the experienced perch from which Michigan's dynamic duo will point out to the rest of us 'six cost-efficient ways to create jobs.'

Before we explore the list, can we not at least ask an important question? If these two were so smart when they had tens of thousands of state employees and agencies at their beck and call, why didn't they use some of their expertise to, you know, actually help get Michigan's economy moving?

The answer to that question can be found within the six cost effective solutions they forward. They just don't get it--never have, and never will.

Here is the list.

1. Give global companies, which have parked more than $1 trillion in earnings offshore to avoid U.S. corporate taxes, incentives to "repatriate" those foreign earnings.

Of course, this is a borrowed stroke of genius from conservative economists and business leaders. One cannot plausibly argue with point one. It is the earmarking these two want to do with the repatriated funds that gives me pause.

2. Put half those proceeds toward a blockbuster "Jobs Race to the Top," modeled on the highly effective Education Race to the Top.

First of all, one would have to be two points shy of lucid to say the Education Race to the Top has been highly effective, but that is not the point. Secondly, has there ever been a scarier word than "blockbuster" ever attached to a government spending initiative?

Granholm and Mulhern do not recognize what private sector jobs are--they are a byproduct of a successful and profitable business, they are not the purpose of a business. Such failed logic is seen within the solar energy industry (one of the Mulherns' favorites) today where heavily subsidized companies are still going belly up because of the inherent inefficiency--not just the relative inefficiency of solar energy physics, but also because of the economics involved. As hard as it is to believe, solar industry leaders have been known to brag about their sector creating more jobs per Megawatt produced than any other energy sector. Hey dipsticks, this is not a feature, it is a flaw.

Imagine Henry Ford's success if he had tried to bring his product to market while employing more people per car produced than any of his competitors. (No, that an innovation of the UAW some decades later.) How many early model Fords would have been sold with such a claim to fame? How could the cars have become accessible to the American consumer if they were more expensive than any other car on the road? No, Henry went in the opposite direction and tried to produce more cars per employee rather than the other way around.

The solar energy industry has everything exactly bass ackwards.

If you really want to incentivize job creation, make profit more achievable. Leave cleverly disguised intrusions into the free market at home.

3. Invest the remaining proceeds toward capitalizing an infrastructure bank, broadly defined — construction for roads, bridges, technology, grid upgrades and schools.

Great, then lets spend the rest of the windfall in the same manner that was wasted on our other stimulus boondoggles--namely slathering money onto the Democrat Party's favorite monolithic voting constituency. But hey, if the hundreds of billions of dollars that have already been spent on supporting union jobs haven't been successful, what could a few billion more hurt?

Why can't we just use the windfall to pay down our huge debt? That would lower our debt obligations, strengthen the dollar, lower the costs of commodities, and maybe make it possible for me to eat a hamburger once in a while down at the restaurant. Why do socialists believe that every boon to the economy has to start with the spending of billions of taxpayer dollars?

4. Lower the nation's corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 25 percent, and pay for it by streamlining the tax code and eliminating loopholes.

America's corporate tax rates are among the highest in the world. Even the socialist paradises of Europe have significantly lower income tax rates on corporations. So, what could my beef be with this?

It is once again a complete misunderstanding of economics. Lowering of tax rates helps grow the economy--as such, they all but pay for themselves. Letting anal retentive Democrats rewrite tax laws in order to pay for tax cuts will not turn out well. Just cut the tax rates to a level that is competitive with the rest of the world, and watch our economy grow.

5. Modernize our unemployment and workforce training systems.

Government funded job training programs are misguided, inefficient, and completely outside the responsibility of government.

How can Granholm and Mulhern ever possibly discern what jobs our evolving economy will need unless they also believe they can nudge this economy toward their own favored outcome? No person, not even a brilliant Harvard educated Canadian lawyer, can interject herself into an economy and determine what industries of the future will be successful. Corn ethanol anyone? Solar panels?

No, lets let consumers determine what products they will want in the future, and lets let business provide those products and train their own workforces to produce those products.

6. Adopt a federal clean energy standard to proclaim to clean energy businesses — which can locate anywhere — that a market exists here for their products.

And here you have it. Granholm and Mulhern believe the best way to achieve inexpensive job creation is to further regulate the American economy so that inefficient energy sources can compete with efficient ones. I wonder how much that will cost.

It is just another angle to the failed Keynesian principle that you can create wealth by destroying it.

I will not be buying the book by Granholm and Mulhern. Its a brand new book certain to contain glossy terms to describe the same tired old ideas. Ultimately, all we really need are the proper puppet masters to pull the right strings.

Granholm and Mulhern should be available shortly after the book is released.

Back Blogging

2011-08-31T21:27:00.003-04:00

My quaint and nearly unread little blog was taken off the web by those at Google who determined some odd activity was taking place on the site. What that means for sure I don't know...perhaps they just think my writing sucks. And why not? I do.

In any case, I'm going to continue blogging at a rather subdued pace--enough to keep things active but not so much that I get burned out. I'm hoping to catch my second (or third or fourth) wind this fall when the election season really comes into focus.

Meanwhile I am simply going to enjoy being called a racist by certain members of Congress while other members tell me to go to hell. There is some industrial grade ugliness permeating our political landscape and I'm not just talking about a Maxine Waters cameo.

I want to be a part of the political give and take, and knowing my own personal frustration level I believe these things have to be approached delicately.

So, expect to be inspired! Just not for a long time.

Wasted Money is Wasted Money

2011-08-31T20:54:00.004-04:00

I had a debate the other day with a relative who was strongly supportive of the FAA spending millions on a project at the local county airport. Now, to put this in perspective, you have to realize what the local county airport consists of.

It has always been, up until the multi-million dollar project, a dirt runway with very little flight activity. There are at most one or two aircraft stationed at the port, and a busy week on the tarmac would amount to a couple two-seaters touching down.

A couple years ago, the airport landed a grant from the FAA as part of Obama's vast project to improve infrastructure while paying off union supporters and buying local votes. The total cost of the projects from coast to coast cost the US taxpayers billions of dollars. With the completion of the local project it is hoped that air travel into Oscoda County will increase. (It had better if the justification for the money spent is to ever generate enough local business to cover the price tag.)

The reasoning my relative used for his support of the project was that the money, if not spent here, would just get wasted elsewhere and, besides, the county only had to pay a small portion of the project's costs. Of course, the first of these arguments makes nearly any earmarked cost containment impossible regardless of where it might occur, and the second is false on its face. Ultimately, whether funds are spent from local coffers or are ultimately borrowed from the Chinese by the Obama administration, we, the taxpayers, are on the hook for the whole thing.

The fact is that all conservatives everywhere must fight the spending of discretionary dollars regardless of where it is going to be wasted. A waste is a waste whether it is spilled milk on my doorstep or on some other overtaxed person's threshold.

There was a time perhaps when we could pick and choose which boondoggles to throw our money at. Those times are long gone. It is time for conservatives to stand on principles that transcend the locality of waste. Now, when a hurricane ravages any portion of our country, or when wildfires lap at the homes of our fellow Americans, we have to go begging to the credit markets to get the capital we need.

Perhaps Oscoda County should have gone without the project, and perhaps the other airports around the country should have done likewise. We could do with fewer bike paths, studies on animal sexuality, and should stop the expansion of our country's benevolence on the fly. When this country collapses under our burgeoning debt the least of our worries will be whether the borrowed money was wasted locally.

Speaking of Food Stamps...

2011-08-17T20:12:00.000-04:00

The Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack has run to a microphone with his own facts, namely that for every dollar invested in the SNAP Program (food stamps) $1.84 is generated in additional economic activity. In fact, according to Vilsack, the program is directly stimulative and creates jobs.

Now, I'm not even going to spend a minute trying to unravel the methodology of the study that produced the $1.84 gained per $1.00 spent in food stamps claim. Who knows, he might be right.

What is unfortunately omitted by Vilsack is the fact that the $1.00, before it is ever spent, has to be extracted from the larger economy. The dollar, if it had not been taken from the private sector, would have had every bit as much impact on the economy even without its metamorphosis into a vehicle of benevolence. Let's be generous to Mr. Vilsack and grant him his $1.84 figure.

But that is only a small part of the morass. In actuality, the $1.00 that was ultimately bequeathed to the food stamp recipient began as closer to $3.00 in the pocket of a privileged taxpayer. What began in the private sector as three crisp one dollar bills, became atrophied by the salaries and benefits paid to bureaucrats and further, were exposed to other extravagant overheads rarely enjoyed by any entity outside of the federal government.

So, yeah.

Once Mr. Vilsack begins tracking the $1.00 that is spent in his program he might very well arrive at the $1.84 in economic activity. The problem is that he begins tracking that dollar way too late because the extraction and bequeathing of what became one dollar actually subtracted in the neighborhood of $5.52 from the economy. ($1.84 X 3) Then, once the shriveled three dollars in the form of one dollar were spent, the $1.84 figure so glowingly referred to by the secretary comes to life.

A more valid claim from Mr. Vilsack would be that every $1 spent on food stamps only costs the economy $3.68. ($5.52 minus $1.84)

Which, all things considered, is not a bad deal coming from Washington.

Victims of Benevolence: Part II

2011-08-17T17:10:00.003-04:00

Yesterday I mentioned a plan spearheaded by the USDA to have all Detroit school children receive free meals each day. Included would be a breakfast, lunch and snack.

These meals will be presented without qualification. The story quoted one of the program's DPS supporters:

“One of the primary goals of this program is to eliminate the stigma that students feel when they get a free lunch, as opposed to paying cash.”

I thought about that a great deal and have a bit more to say.

This program presents charity without graciousness and it demands acceptance of charity without humility. It aggressively attempts to white wash the charitable transaction as if doing so will somehow be beneficial to the children, the school, and society at large.

Of course, the opposite is true. These sorts of situations will make needy (and not so needy) children and underprivileged (and not so underprivileged) parents feel entitled to what they routinely receive from the government. It will also further encourage bureaucrats to assume that they are the grand benefactors of children because parents, for whatever reason, have failed to step to the plate.

I would submit that parents have failed to step to the plate because government has interjected itself into every aspect of the family. It has encouraged fathers to leave, it has encouraged mothers to go it alone, it has encouraged single parenting for the financial benefits it incurs, and it has encouraged for decades the listless lifestyle that would keep disadvantaged families in a dependent and perpetual state of disadvantage. This program is just such an encouragement.

So we taxpayers will fund (or rather, borrowed Chinese currency will fund) this latest program which is in part designed to expunge both graciousness and humility from the fruits of the program. Taxpayers will not be thanked for the charity, indeed, the charity will not be acknowledged because its goal is to make the giving a non-charitable event.

Bureaucrats? They will have successfully shoved their noses further into the natural order of parenting. They will have disrupted the supportive acts of parents providing for their children and, more damagingly, disrupted the lessons that would have been learned from that nurturing.

No one wants to see children go hungry. Myself included. My biggest regret is that decades of government interference has created so many hungry children.

Victims of Benevolence

2011-08-16T13:01:00.004-04:00

One of the standards of both economics and human behavior is that you will get more of the activities you reward, and will get fewer of the activities that you punish.

What should we expect then from an initiative that will grant all children in the Detroit Public School District a free breakfast, a free lunch, and a free snack? Certainly their will be short term positives from such a program. Less hunger in the classroom has got to be a good thing as far as that goes.

And yet, the program has further goals:

“One of the primary goals of this program is to eliminate the stigma that students feel when they get a free lunch, as opposed to paying cash.”

Here we are getting into a gray area where the long term negative outcomes might very well overwhelm whatever positive returns might result.

What becomes of a society where a natural revulsion for accepting government handouts has been systematically stamped out? What results when young people are trained that government wealth redistribution efforts are every bit as legitimate as those that teach citizens to be independent and self-sufficient?

In its quest to stamp out all negative things that might happen to a child, the government in its many forms has tried to form a safety net around all children, and in the process has assumed many of the responsibilities that parents would normally hold for themselves.

They help feed children, and clothe them. They help keep a roof over the heads of children. They give them health care, dental care, and in many instances, child care. They provide education and use this perch to help promote their moral and blessed standards on the next generation of voting Americans.

And yet, good parents and an ill-equipped government accept the role of parenting with a different perspective. Parents wean their children so that they can become independent and become successful in this difficult world. They do this intentionally. They punish and praise, they instruct and they nurture.

The government, despite all its well intentioned efforts to replicate the parental role, is sadly both ill-equipped and too lacking in common sense to pull it off. While it is great at offering suckle, the problem with governmental parenting is that it does not know how to wean--its recipients encouraged to suck at the public teat for generations.

This instance in Detroit is but another example of an ill-advised government takeover of a role once reserved for parents; an effort that holds as a primary goal an attempt to both legitimize and perpetuate its status there. It uses children whose parents are perfectly capable of buying them their own food as pawns in a campaign for other children to learn the feel-good status of depending on the taxpayers for their calories.

You get more of the behaviors you reward, and you get fewer of the behaviors that you discourage. Tell me please, what will this result in?

Shocker!

2011-08-15T13:40:00.000-04:00

What a shocker!

One of the biggest recipients of corporate welfare in this country thinks this country's corporate welfare program is just peachy.

Heck, pretty soon even Jeffrey Immelt will come out in favor of Obama's policies. Oops, too late.

Coming to a school district near you

2011-08-08T18:19:00.003-04:00

Funny how the old 900 mile trip by car can drain even the most well intentioned of blogger's initiative. And then there is me, an essentially lazy blogger in the first place who needs little more than a ten mile drive across the county to dry up whatever motivation might occasionally seep into his beleagured veins.

But, things occur down here too.

So, I am well south of Michigan and soaking up the 95 degree heat in a city where the school children are just today entering back into the hallowed halls of cheating. This is great for the kids that happen to be young enough that a great majority of their schooling years have not been stolen from them by highly sought administrators and teachers; educators who discovered that accolades can be more easily achieved if they dispense with all that learning crap and just sort of erase littly Johnny's answers if he gets them wrong. For the unfortunate majority of Atlanta school children, however, this pretty much sucks.

How does the recent graduate ever get back the one shot at a public school education his youth will ever provide? What about this year's senior who has had his test scores altered since he was in the fourth grade?

Well over a hundred educators from the Atlanta school district have been implicated in perhaps the largest cheating scandal ever to embarrass public education. In the Atlanta school district it is apparently more important to appear as if you are being successful than it is to actually teach Johnny to read and write and do his math.

Which leaves little Johnny a bit behind the eight ball if he were ever in the situation where he might need to know something to get a job or, perhaps even worse, might have to serve the public with competence once he landed that job. Such trivialities cannot be allowed to stand in the way of an Atlanta educator in his or her never ending quest to ~~be successful~~ get more funding.

And this is ultimately the danger and disaster that is public education today--a system that has removed the responsibiity of educating children from the local level and instead placed it upon third parties who control the purse strings from on high. When Johnny flunks math, er, passes despite dubious results, his parents can be pleased to know that in the stead of the E he deserved, his teachers and adminsistrators can give him a solid B while his school system can qualify not only for additional grants, but also the right to snuff out Johnny's younger brother's education too.

A recent survey among educators found that the pressure to cheat on evaluations and tests was becoming more and more apparent. How difficult is that to figure out? With the free market expunged from the machinery that delivers a product, how tough to predict should it be that the product delivered would be less than the customer wanted while costing more than it should have, and consequently, how tough to discern that a little rail greasing needs to take place to keep the money flowing?

No one will recapture the lost decade of Little Johnny and tens of thousands of students like him. In the mean time, one hundred plus educators will lose their jobs and perhaps face criminal charges and well-deserved civil suits on top of it all. Absent an education, perhaps Johnny can soak up a few Gs from his now unemployed English teacher.

But this leaves greater society exactly where? I'll tell you where, with the same system in place that begs educators to cheat while it more forcibly, year after year, removes parents and localities farther away from their responsibilities to each other.

And it is all coming to a school district near you.

The Blues

2011-08-04T20:22:00.002-04:00

Has there ever been a better time for this?

We Must End Our Dependence on Foreign Energy Sources

2011-08-03T15:16:00.002-04:00

Uh oh.

Next Target: The Family Farm

2011-08-03T14:10:00.000-04:00

Now that the country has been saved by our benevolent President and our excellent collection of congressional miracle workers, I can get back to pointing out how difficult it will be to ever cut the expanding growth of government when it continues to assume an ever larger role in making sure the rest of us behave properly.

With each added government advancement into our private lives not only does government grow larger and more expensive, but the private sector, which pays all of the taxes in this country to begin with, is forced to operate more inefficiently. This inefficiency makes profitability and wealth creation more difficult and reduces the amount of tax that can be paid back to the government. These tax losses have to be made up somehow...perhaps higher tax rates?

Such trivialities are of no concern to a government that has already assumed that it has providence. The Constitution notwithstanding, with clever usage of the commerce clause, the general welfare clause, and outright dismissal of the 10th Amendment, bureaucrats and regulators have wormed their way into every facet of our lives.

While Michelle Obama grows turnips in the White House lawn, a resident of Oak Park, Michigan is prosecuted for growing inappropriate vegetables in front of her more modest home. Just a county north of there, a cider mill operator is in trouble with the regulators who feel it inappropriate for the proprietor to sell firewood alongside his fruit and donuts.

In Georgia, residents are prosecuted for selling vegetables grown on their property without obtaining the proper licensing, and little girls are threatened with prosecution for selling lemonade and girl scout cookies without the blessing of inspectors. While Amish farmers are prosecuted for selling raw milk in Pennsylvania, farmers everywhere are told to begin treating their spilled milk as hazardous waste. (Truly farmers these days do have a real reason to cry over spilled milk.)

Of course, once all the hurdles of producing food are cleared, those who market and sell the food must clear a number of additional hurdles put in place. If you happen to be a packager and seller of walnuts, you had better make certain not to make health claims on the packaging, even though those claims have been confirmed by numerous laboratory studies--doing so will run afoul of the FDA.

If you happen to be a fast food producer you had better make certain to advertise your products in a manner that doesn't appear to make your food too fun to eat. If you happen to own a restaurant you'd better watch the salt content, proudly display nutritional information, and make certain not to serve fat people. Heck, if you have a kid attending a certain school in the Chicago area, don't even bother to send a sack lunch--it is assumed to be unhealthy and just butt out, thank you.

None of these examples could have an impact on the ability of a family farmer, gardener, distributor, restauranteur or entrepreneur to make a living, could they? None of them could affect the price of food being sold to consumers, could they?

I'm not even going to get into the Department of Energy's fingerprints being all over the whole ethanol disaster and why that has affected prices and every American's cost of living.

We have to be close to the end of this regulatory mess, don't we? I mean, seriously, aren't the EPA, the FDA, and the DOE sufficiently involved into everything already?

Well, no, as it turns out. There is still the Department of Transportation that is suggesting a reclassification of all farm equipment to that of Commercial Motor Vehicles and requiring all operators of the equipment to get the proper licensing.

The change would prohibit family farms from using young workers to operate a tractor who are not old enough to drive a car on public streets; the same applies to seniors who are unable to drive on public streets.

Likewise, those who do operate the tractor would be forced to undergo advanced testing and fill out the same paperwork that is required of those who drive semi-tractor trailers.

The changes would ultimately infringe upon the operation of family farms by imposing loads of paperwork, such as detailed logs to be kept by all drivers, and regulations, which include a physical and drug test to be administered every two years on all drivers.

As the choke hold on American wealth producers tightens, the wealth the country depends on to pay its bills and feed and clothe its population gets more difficult to obtain.

Except for high paid regulators, that is. Its always nice to be on top.

h/t Protein Wisdom

That Ain't No Promised Land: II

2011-07-31T12:47:00.001-04:00

I wrote the previous post basically in response to a rather irritating edition of the Laura Ingraham show that I listened to (tape delayed) while I was on the road Friday night. I'm not much of an Ingraham fan but when in the car I listen to what I can listen to.

I listened to an hour long lament of the tea party's impracticality when it came to its unrealistic expectations. We only control one half of one third of the government...blah...blah...blah.

Ingraham was adamant about the GOP's need to fall in line in order to better our prospects in the next election cycle. Boehner is doing all that he can--we cannot stick out our necks too far and then become blamed for the fiasco that is the collapsing foundation of our economy. On and on. For all her fire, she sounded as if she had complete confidence in the Republican establishment to do the right thing once they get control.

I do not. Not even close. I do not trust Boehner and I do not trust Mitch McConnell, and I do not trust Eric Cantor, and I do not trust that blabbermouth John McCain (the GOP's last presidential candidate) or any of the other bluebloods that want me to be a good little party member.

But that doesn't mean that I'm not a bit practical too. I realize that the tea party cannot expect to have any impact on the political landscape if it forms its own party, and if they do such a thing, their foray will essentially hand the government to the fascists on a silver platter.

From a practical standpoint, the GOP to me is nothing other than a host animal on which I wish to affix my determined conservative proboscis. Just call me Roug of Borg.

John Boehner is not a conservative and never has been. He is a big time government statist who believes that government, when controlled by a benevolent puppeteer, can provide nearly all things.

This is antithesis to what I believe government is and should be. Boehner, et. al., must be assimilated.

While the tea party has to be proud on the impact it had in nudging the Grand Opportunist Party slightly toward the right, it has to recognize that the work has only just begun, and that as long as tea party supported candidates are still a "practical" part of a centrist led Boehner GOP, our accomplishments will be minimal. I have zero confidence in a Boehner led party ever getting us a smaller government--his actions over the years clearly indicate that that is not the foundation of his beliefs.

The next step of the tea party must be to expand its influence in the GOP and then to dethrone the entrenched bureaucrats that populate its leadership.

That Ain't No Promised Land

2011-07-30T12:54:00.000-04:00

In an effort to bridge the timeline between now and the next election, practical Republicans have said they'd love them some many hundreds of billions of dollars in added debt over the short term in order to budget an additional $7 trillion in debt over the next ten years.

This is the new face of fiscal and political practicality.

Now, even the impractical among us knew that the Boehner bill, as written, was as dead on arrival as the dermis underneath a Nancy Pelosi botoxic expression. We'll just have to wait and see what the mouldering Harry Reid can do to the bill before he sends it back to Boehner.

Wherever this leads, many of us in the tea party are being considered "impractical" or "hobbits" by the establishment GOP because we are not falling in line behind our christened party leaders in their Orwellian attempts to rein in spending.

But, from an equally practical standpoint, what evidence do we hobbits have from these GOP leaders that they have any intention of cutting overall spending when, according to the lexicon they employ, a $1 trillion cut in spending in reality is an $8 trillion increase in spending over ten years?

Let's go back a few years. It was a Republican president with great Republican support that gave us No Child Left Behind and the prescription drug benefit. TARP was a bipartisan fiscal calamity. Every one of these examples have the sticky fingerprints of John Boehner all over them.

When Boehner's support of these massive government expansions is juxtaposed with a bill that approves of an additional $8 trillion in spending over the next ten years, the practical among us hobbits begin to think that Boehner might be part of the problem and in no way capable of or interested in finding a solution.

So, ya, I'm not too happy with what the tea party has been able to accomplish so far, but I realize that we've only been a movement for the past three years, and I also realize that for the time being our little movement only occupies the caboose of a long established train.

My representative, Dan Benishek, was elected with support of the tea party, but he is not a member of the tea party caucus. He is one of the dutiful republicans that, in a thrust of practicality, got his ass in line behind John Boehner. I had two signs in my lawn that proclaimed my support of Benishek in the last election. They announced clearly that "Enough is enough." Now, as it turns out, perhaps they should have read "Enough might not quite be enough yet, but after getting my ass in line a time or two, enough really will be enough!"

But, while I'm a bit miffed at the moment, I'm not certain this is totally fair to Benishek. I'm certain he made what he thought was the best "practical" decision. I'm certain he believes that with one more election under our belts, with added Republican control over the Presidency (if they are able to gather it,) with added control over the Senate (again, if they are able to gather it,) and an expanded control of the House of Representatives, that real change can finally take place. I believe that he thinks that to see tea party people act impractically at this juncture would put additional Republican gains in the next election in greater doubt.

On all of these counts he might be exactly correct. The problem is, of course, that we hobbits know in our heart of hearts that the current GOP leadership is not to be trusted with the future of our children and grandchildren. We know the track record. We've seen them in action.

Establishment GOPers want me to have confidence in them for their vision of the future. They want me to believe that they will do the right thing. They want me to not only end my protests, but to buy in. But they cannot point to any history that would help me gain the confidence they demand. They were happy to gain back the House in large measure because of the tea party, but they were even happier to assume their positions in power while commanding the rest of us to "get our asses in line."

To a simple sort of hobbit, this seems suspiciously like business as usual.

We'll have to see how all of this works out, and while I don't necessarily support a primary challenge to Dan Benishek over this, I certainly support any effort that would oust John Boehner from his anointed leadership position.

We know the types of government programs that he supports. We know the types of deals he is willing to make. We've heard the condescension and we're wet with the drippings of his practicality.

Oh, he's a leader all right, but it ain't no promised land that he's leading to.

This Screwed

2011-07-28T21:30:00.000-04:00

This is what John Boehner's proposed dramatic cuts to the budget actually look like on paper.

How screwed are we again if this is the plan the good guys are proposing?

Bozo Economics

2011-07-28T20:07:00.000-04:00

I've said it many times before and now it looks like I have to say it at least one more time.

Jobs are a necessary byproduct of a successful business but they are not the reason for a business or an industry to exist. Any company that exists in order to create jobs is either a company that will fail or a part of some public/private partnership existing on the marriage of an inefficient premise with some government entity willing to invest your tax dollars on that inefficiency.

Which brings me to this article on WUWT:

According to Rhone Resch, the last three years have seen the U.S. solar industry go from a start-up to a major industry that is creating well-paying jobs and growing the economy in all 50 states, employing 93,000 Americans in 2010, a number that is expected to grow between 25,000 to 50,000 this year (PDF). In the first quarter of 2011, the solar industry installed 252 megawatts of new solar electric capacity, a 66 percent growth from the same time frame in 2010.

Solar energy is creating more jobs per megawatt than any other energy source (PDF) with the capability, according to one study, of generating over 4 million jobs by 2030 with aggressive energy efficiency measures. There are now almost 3,000 megawatts of solar electric energy installed in the U.S., enough to power 600,000 homes.

And these jobs created are supposed to be a feature.

In a comment to the article ferd berple responds in an even more beautiful manner than his name might suggest is possible:

Imagine for one moment that it is 1908 and Henry Ford announces to the world that he has discovered a new car manufacturing process for the model T that creates more jobs per model T produced than any other technology available.

Wouldn’t that have meant the death of the model T? If Ford had required more jobs created to produce a model T than any other car, then how would Americans been able to afford the model T? Wasn’t the secret of Ford’s success to reduce the manpower required to build the model T and thereby reduce the cost so that everyone could afford to buy a Ford model T?

It seems that by taking the other route, by requiring the most workers per megawatt produced, that solar power is pricing itself out of the market. Why not simply hire people to turn hand cranks to produce energy. That would certainly create even more jobs than solar power per megawatt.

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!

How many times in the past ten years have we heard Jennifer Granholm or some other government yokel praise the new economy and the jobs of the future that it will create? These masterminds have spent the better part of this century trying to kill efficient energy production systems in order to have them replaced with ones that squash wealth and ultimately cost many more jobs than they could ever replace.

More jobs per megawatt is not a bug, its a feature! Everybody cheer!

Where did these bozos learn their economics?

My Opinion on the Boenher Plan

2011-07-28T12:02:00.000-04:00

John Boehner could be a huge political winner here. So says a number of Republican operators and beltway journalists who are much more experienced in observing the political scales that measure such things than I am.

Dana Perino, Charles Krauthammer, John McCain, and Bill Kristol are among those siding with Boehner in his quest to increase the deficit over the next several years to the tune of many hundreds of billions of additional dollars.

Perhaps the passage of Boehner's plan would amount to a huge political victory. I'm not so certain it would be a huge victory for the country.

Boehner and company are willing to accept that the government would assume unfathomable amounts in new debt in exchange for symbolic cuts to future spending increases and the hope that their political adversaries will oblige them with more meaningful cuts on the morrow. (Sure, like that always works out.)

Boehner's plan is clearly less expensive than any plan that would be favored by President Obama, and it is clearly less damaging to the current US economy than any pined for by Harry Reid. However, Boehner's plan does not attack the debt in any meaningful way as it merely would slow the rate of growth of spending by our country's regulatory overlords rather than actually shrinking the debt.

You see, government accounting methods allow for tricks and verbal gymnastics the sort of which led to the collapse of Enron and Worldcom and the incarceration of those who encouraged the accounting. While these accounting tactics are not allowed in the private sector because of the fraud such methods perpetrate, their employment provides the desired obfuscatory cover for politicians who know the government will spend hundreds of billions more next year while making it sound like they will be spending hundreds of billions less.

If this is not the case, why would future increases in the debt ceiling ever be necessary? The way that government accounts for expenditures is a bit different than what we plebs do.

Lets suppose the government planned on spending $2 next year when this year it only spent $1. Along comes a government plan that suggests that rather than spending the additional $1, we should actually be cutting a dime from the budget. You and I look at this and we say, "Gee, we will only be spending 90 cents this year--those politicians are sure cutting back."

But all of that is before you discover that government is using Enron accounting practices. No, that dime taken from the budget is not based on this year's actual spending but instead is based on what government intended to spend next year. In effect, the dime in cuts amounts to an increase of 90 cents in spending above and beyond what was spent this year. Of course, we are not talking about mere dollars here, but trillions of them.

Sadly, this has become a game of blame dodging in which establishment Republicans have determined that it is preferable to be complicit in the possible financial collapse of this country than it is to be blamed for today's comparative crisis in miniature.

Sooner or later this country is going to have to take the hit and every day that it is delayed will make that hit more painful and costly. Ultimately, blame will be assigned indiscriminately regardless of who deserves it most.

It is better, I think, to demand more meaningful cuts today and establish a firm apparatus that guarantees actual cuts for tomorrow.

GOP Establisment Must Be Put Out To Pasture (Or a Glue Factory)

2011-07-27T17:58:00.004-04:00

This is why the establishment wing of the GOP, a country club gaggle of blue bloods that stood idly by as our national debt reached $14 trillion and our country's unfunded liabilities ballooned to over $100 trillion, cannot be allowed to stay behind the reins of the party.

John McCain has few principles by which he governs other than a desire to have his side win. As far as he is concerned, his country can slide ever farther into massive debt and can inch ever closer to economic collapse as long as his side looks better to the masses than does his rival fraternity.

Enough is enough.

The tea party wants people like John McCain to retire their mouldering bones to the political sidelines so that younger and more vibrant thinkers can cut through the crap that his ill tempered dementia has helped create.

Seriously, how can any man who has been sitting in Congress as long as he has and has helped issue in the circumstances under which the country now resides, think that he has enough moral authority remaining to lecture the tea party about wanting to save the country?

To think I voted for this hemorrhoid for President is enough (though I did it only because I supported Gov. Palin) to make me want to puke.

Amy Winehouse

2011-07-26T14:23:00.000-04:00

This is perhaps not the sort of thing you would expect to hear on The Rougblog, but your humble host really liked much of the music of Amy Winehouse, the musical prodigy being remembered today in London, some sixty years too soon.

She was soulful and bluesy and not wrapped up in producing the generic sort of sounds that are squeaked by literally thousands of performers the world over. She was different.

While I read with disturbing frequency about her ever more erratic behaviors no doubt spawned by needles, bottles, powders and smoke, I was never so cynical as to pick a date on which she would die as many others did.

Four times in rehab was not enough to turn her away from what turned out to be the inevitable.

She was special in a way that will be forever clouded and diluted by her end. The heralded heights of her musical career will forever be tempered by the depths of her demise--her memory marked with an ugly asterisk.

As Archbishop Cranmer states with such eloquence:

Some are born dead, some achieve death, and some have death thrust upon them. At whatever point it occurs, it is unavoidable, inevitable, inescapable.

Amy Winehouse was of those Marmite kind of artists: you either loved her or loathed her. She had recently cancelled a number of concerts in Serbia, Turkey and Greece so she could 'sort herself out'. Sadly, it appears that rehab was not enough. Her long battle against drink and drugs has brought her music to an end, and the world has lost another talent at a tragically young age. RIP.

Corporate Jets...Boo!

2011-07-26T13:30:00.000-04:00

According to reports from people with more patience than I have, President Obama once again uttered the usage of "private jets" in his ~~campaign~~ budget speech last night. Private jets, you see, are an icon of corporate greed gone wild.

It is not, I suppose, that corporations who own such jets are evil from a generic standpoint, just that corporations that can afford to own such jets by definition do not pay enough in taxes. Here are some choice quotes from Mr. Obama about corporate jets in a recent speech:

“It would be hard for the Republicans to stand there and say that the tax break for corporate jets is sufficiently important that we’re not willing to come to the table and get a deal done.” President Obama

"You'll still be able to ride on your corporate jet. You're just going to have to pay a little more." President Obama

[wishing to close] "egregious loopholes that are benefiting corporate jet owners or oil companies at a time where they're making billions of dollars in profits." President Obama

We're getting the point...the jets themselves are not evil, but those brazen enough to own one (and those politicians who are doubly brazen for standing up for those who do own one) are choosing to toss the elderly to the dogs so that caviar and champagne can be savored at 30,000 feet.

This is not the first time that the evil rich have been singled out for their tastes toward the expensive--never mind that corporate jets are used primarily to transport high paid executives from city to city at the company's own cost to conduct the company's own business, rather than blathering Commanders In Chief who enjoy the same sort of globetrotting but instead are tucked comfortably inside the taxpayer provided cabin of Air Force One.

No, toward the end of George HW Bush's single term in office, he broke his lukewarm pledge of "no new taxes" by, among other things, targeting items of excessive value purchased by the rich. These luxury taxes targeted furs, jewelry, yachts, private planes and automobiles all priced above a certain threshold.

Less than two years later the luxury yacht industry estimated layoffs of about 25,000. That is, there were 25,000 fewer people making good money in the boat building industry (and paying no income taxes on that good money earned in the boat building industry) so that people purchasing boats built by the boat building industry and priced at more than $100,000, would kick in an extra 10% to the government to help cover the costs accrued by the government due to higher unemployment levels in the boat building industry.

While that lesson may not have been learned by our current President, those people who work within the corporate jet industry are definitely taking notice.

Gov. Sam Brownback led a news conference in Wichita on Wednesday criticizing Obama's remarks.

The governor said at least 30,000 people in Kansas are employed by the aviation industry, and more than 40 percent of general aviation aircraft around the world is built in Kansas. Wichita is home to manufacturing plants for Cessna, Hawker Beechcraft and Bombardier, along with roughly 200 parts suppliers who depend on them.

Obama seems to believe that taxing the bejeebus out of items that most people cannot afford is an attractive way to promote class warfare, it is not painless to those whose jobs are washed away in the wake of the punishment. You see, these punitive actions tend to spread out beyond their intended targets.

Higher taxes on certain items will change the purchasing behavior of consumers. They buy fewer of the items, find additional means to lower the tax burden, or seek out jurisdictions where the tax bite is not so punitive. One need look no farther than the actions of a very enlightened and progressive former democratic candidate for president to see that this is true.

The corporations that own corporate jets pay billions a year in taxes and provide millions of jobs to employees that also pay billions a year in taxes. The corporations that design and manufacture corporate jets pay millions a year in taxes and employe tens of thousands of people who also pay millions a year in taxes. The tens of thousands of employees of corporate jet manufactures spend millions of dollars a year in restaurants and hotels, in food and in apparel, in appliances and automobiles. Companies that provide hospitality services, household goods, and durable items in turn pay billions and employ millions. (Rumor has it that some of these companies also happen to own corporate jets.)

Are these not good things?

As Americans, we should celebrate the iconic corporate jet for the wealth creation and employment that it represents. We should celebrate a society that allows the most inventive and innovative among us to make millions of dollars while they provide the rest of us with gainful employment, a life more comfortable than that enjoyed by our parents, and the opportunity to slice out our own little part of the American dream.

The White House does not celebrate such icons but instead wants to change American society by vilifying and dismantling the apparatus that allows such wealth and private employment to exist.

It is said that those who do not know history are destined to repeat it. I think that Barack Obama and his progressive minions know their taxation history. They simply like what they have seen.

Rod Allen: RACIST!

2011-07-23T15:18:00.000-04:00

Detroit Tigers' television commentator Rod Allen made a huge mistake the other night by suggesting that the seven Tigers on the field at that time might (gasp!) want some rice and beans during the after game meal.

Allen: "Lot of quality at-bats tonight by Tigers batters."

(Avila fouls off a pitch.)

Allen: "Tigers pretty much got a all-Latin squad out there tonight."

Impemba: "Ordoñez, Cabrera, Martinez, Peralta, Guillen, Avila, Betemit. Jackson and Boesch don't qualify."

Allen: "They're gonna have to get some rice and beans for the postgame spread tonight."

Impemba: "[Nervous-sounding laugh]. Yes, they are. ... Two and two!"

Now, there is no hint that any of the mentioned players were offended by the suspected racist remarks of Allen, but in the absence of their echoing an injured protest, some white guy from Yahoo got offended for them.

Give me a break. There is already enough legitimate racism in this country that the empathetically benevolent among us need not create it out of thin air and then waste our time in drawing our attention to the creation.

Says the too offended David Brown:

It might have been tricky for him, [ed. Brown isn't suggesting that Allen, as a black man, is incapable of such a thing, is he?] but Allen could have referenced how the Detroit clubhouse — which includes respected stars such as Victor Martinez, Miguel Cabrera and Jose Valverde) — is a place where Latino players can feel comfortable. That's not always the case in the major leagues. Such a discussion could be valuable.

Short of that, if only Allen had tried to be funny, maybe something stereotypical he said theoretically could be defended. But Latinos eating only rice and beans? It wasn't funny the first billion times someone said it, so why keep it going? Allen comes off like he's mocking them, even though — giving him the benefit of the doubt — he probably didn't mean to.

No, it didn't sound to me like he was mocking them. For instance, from what I heard, Rod Allen didn't suggest that the players would only want to eat rice and beans as Brown asserts, but merely that they might want it included. But then again, I don't try to interpret every word uttered by anyone I hear through the filter of racism and cultural disrespect.

Perhaps Allen could have made it all easier for the rest of us by simply coming right out and uttering a colorful slur. After all, its getting pretty darn hard these days to tell the real racists from the poseurs.

But, I've got an even better idea, this one for David Brown.

Lighten up a little bit, take to the sidelines, and let the Latino players on the Tigers speak to Rod Allen if they are actually offended. Let them be the ones to draw Rod Allen aside and tell him that his words cut them to the quick, otherwise it just sounds like your lecturing of Allen is done because you feel that Latinos are somehow either incapable of speaking for themselves or are simply too dumb to know when they've been insulted. (See how two can play at this game.)

Journalist in the Headlights

2011-07-21T19:42:00.003-04:00

A degree in print journalism or broadcast journalism is, to oversimplify, the successful completion of a line of study designed to perfect a certain type of communication. A journalism degree trains its recipients to confidently communicate effectively the information a journalist sees fit to disseminate.

Sadly, a person so degreed and steeped with nearly unequaled communication skills can know relatively nothing about economics or history or psychology or anything else.

Their degree, however, gives them the license, too many of them believe, to blather on condescendingly to other people who actually did study economics, history or psychology in college.

Enjoy...

h/t Daily Pundit

Rule of Law Versus Democracy in Detroit

2011-07-21T13:14:00.003-04:00

Jesse Jackson is back. This from MLive:

The Rev. Jesse Jackson is back in Michigan, and he's calling on the U.S. Department of Justice to join his fight against the state's recently-expanded emergency manager law.

'We have a profound economic crisis in the country and the state," Jackson said this morning on WJR-AM 760. "There's nothing about the economic crisis that should allow one to demolish democracy. The vote remains sacred even in a time of crisis."

In response to another commenter I posted this:

The United States is not a democracy and it never has been. It is a representative republic. There is a significant difference. What democracy basically boils down to is "majority rule." While this is great for those in the majority on specific issues, it doesn't do a lot of good for those who find themselves believing in something that the majority finds distasteful.

In truth, the founding fathers feared democracy. The ignorance of our political system displayed by people on here who sound otherwise intelligent is troubling to me. Don't they teach history or government in school any more?

Detroit is a cesspool today because it has operated for decades in a manner inconsistent with individual rights and the rule of law. It has been a center of corruption, graft, and the welfare state for so long that it has virtually crumbled other than what few crumbs it could pander from those who refused make it face the consequences of its own corrupt actions.

I don't feel sorry for Detroit. It made its own bed and for too long now it has been making the rest of us wake up next to it.

What is most interesting about Jackson's (and I presume the commenter's) thoughts is that while they endlessly pander for the money of others to help prop up historically corrupt municipalities, they simultaneously demand that those whose money they spend should butt the hell out.

It is the rule of law versus democracy. I'm shocked! Shocked, I tell you, that Jackson winds up, once again, on the wrong side of the equation.

Rising Medical Costs: A Case Study or, How the Grand Trifecta of Government Intrusion Into the Free Market Screws the Rest of Us

2011-07-21T12:45:00.002-04:00

My family is once again growing. The soon to arrive boy or girl will be joining the family of my niece and her husband who only four years ago blessed us all with twin boys. I wrote about their miracle here.

Those births occurred with myriad complications and the final medical bill landed well within seven figures.

In America we have to admit a couple of things. First, we have to admit that our medical community is the most advanced and successful on earth. Second, we have to acknowledge that it is expensive.

One of the evil villains in the rising cost of medical care in this country is the pharmaceutical industry. Sure, doctors are also greedy, as are nurses, as are hospitals, as are those who test your gross blood, your disgusting stool, and your even more disgusting growths. And, let us not forget the greed of ambulance providers, insurance companies, and anyone else remotely involved in the providing of medical services. Yet, somehow, when we are in need of their services, we manage to grovel back to these too-rich (and competent) devils and pray that they save our lives and make the pain go away.

And, with every advancement, costs rise.

Too often absent from the accusations lofted at medical providers over the cost of our best-in-the-world care is our beloved government--the largest and most benevolent corporation on earth.

Which brings me back to my expectant niece. Because of the premature birth of her twins, she is at very high risk of premature delivery of this next child. Her doctor has dealt with this the same way that many doctors have routinely dealt with it for the past few decades--with the prescribing of a hormone called progesterone. The drug, delivered by injection once a week, is given to expectant mothers during at-risk pregnancies for up to the last 20 weeks of the pregnancy.

The cost per injection...about $20 for a total cost of approximately $400. Or at least it was.

Enter the US government in the form of the most benevolent FDA. New cost...$1,500 per shot, or about $30,000 for twenty injections.

How did this happen?

In its quest for a perfectly regulated society, the FDA determined that progesterone as it was produced for decades did not meet the standards that should be applied today. To wit the drug was manufactured by pharmacists and not under the heavily regulated umbrella of the federal government.

This could not stand.

Recently, the FDA granted a patent to the K-V Pharmaceutical Company for Makena, the new government approved form of progesterone.

K-V Pharmaceutical, having hurdled the quarter of a billion dollar cost of dealing with federal regulations for the delivery of the new drug, and then enjoying the virtual monopoly provided to it by the FDA for this product that a pharmacy could make in its back room for $10, the market cost for the brand new old medicine was increased overnight by 750%.

This is no problem for the evil rich, who most likely are insured and, if not, can afford the medicine regardless. It is no problem for the insured who will have it provided for them after coughing up a copay--the category that my niece falls into. It is no problem for the poor who, after levying the government, can have the note toted by Medicaid and the taxpayers. It is a problem for a growing number of families who are still employed by companies that can no longer afford to provide health care coverage for their employees.

Meanwhile, medical costs skyrocket, insurance rates skyrocket, consumer prices skyrocket for any product made by those who provide insurance to their employees, and America saunters one step closer to the cliff--all this while progressive thinkers scream for even greater regulation on everything from what we eat, drink, breathe, use, rent, buy, sell, or otherwise brush up against in even our most casual walks through life.

Do I hold K-V Pharmaceuticals harmless in this whole mess? No, but I recognize that they are acting in exactly the way that we would expect for a company to act that has just spent a fortune for the right to produce a product for which they have also been granted a government monopoly. Really, that is exactly what we should expect from companies that feast off the nectar of a benevolent government bathed in fascism; a government whose two main priorities are to guarantee safety in all aspects of our dangerous human existence, followed closely by an insurmountable desire to make certain no members of society act in a manner not blessed by the collective.

Lets multiply this by the millions of intrusions the government makes in the free market every day. Increase regulation. Restrict individual choice. Squash competition.

It is the grand trifecta of a well-engineered benevolent state. Freedom would be cool, that is, if it wasn't so darn dangerous.

Epilogue: Due to great consumer pressure, K-V Pharmaceuticals has made some price changes to its product and claims it is now priced only about 330% higher than it was just a few months ago. Thanks.

Unwilling To Learn

2011-07-19T18:16:00.005-04:00

A balding former roommate (and occasional reader) of mine tells a story of his youth.

When he was about ten years old he had his bicycle stolen from him. In an effort to get his bicycle back from the thief, he gave the thief's friend $10 to retrieve it for him.

While waiting listlessly for a bicycle that never returned, his Father disgustedly pointed out that "You live and learn, Son. You live and learn."

Tom Coburn, Mitch McConnell and Saxby Champliss are today seriously contemplating spending another couple trillion on their third stolen bicycle in the past few years.

Some people refuse to learn regardless of how many times they've been snookered.

The Good Old (hot) Days

2011-07-19T15:17:00.003-04:00

You know it is hot when my 91 year old Dad is sporting blue jean cutoffs with black socks that are, as you have most likely pictured by now, pulled up as high on his calves as the elastic properties of a fine cotton-Coolmax-polyester-nylon blend could possibly allow.

And, you know it is really hot when my Mom hasn't yet made him go inside and change into something a little less offensive to the eye.

So, here we sit wearing whatever we can to stay cool inside a high pressure dome that is being advertised as the strongest to cover the country's midsection since the mid-90s. It has to be global warming or, at the very least, some global climate change action.

Which all made me wonder what my Dad was wearing some 75 years ago when a pre-global warming climate produced a steamy 112 degrees in Mio.

That was way back in 1936 when on July 13 of that year the all time record high for Michigan was recorded some ten miles from the farm on which my Dad was raised. My Mom was perspiring only two miles from Mio on the family farm where she was raised.

What would Al Gore be saying this week if, instead of temperatures that will flirt with 100 degrees, we were facing the temperatures my parents suffered through back before any rural homes enjoyed central air and before farm families even enjoyed insulation in their walls?

Perhaps this will be a good week to buy carbon credits on the open market because this high pressure dome is going to stay in place for at least a couple more days. But personally I think it would be a better investment to pick up a pair of old jeans and scissors. Just don't tell Mom.

We Could Use a Little Truth

2011-07-17T12:38:00.003-04:00

Barack Obama has hinted that if the Congress cannot raise the debt ceiling that he could not guarantee that Social Security checks would be mailed out. We expect these sorts of scare tactics because they come right from the written works of Saul Alinsky, the Communist community organizer from whom Barack Obama learned most of his playbook.

But, any of us who have spent any time investigating this know it to be, as Joe Wilson might shout from the Capitol floor, a lie. There will continue to be money flowing into the treasury after a deadline. In fact, there will be more than enough money necessary to pay the interest on the debt, social security benefits, benefits to military personnel, Medicare, Medicaid and, with enough votes, they could still fund an all important study of AIDS transmission in Chinese prostitutes and maybe even build a library or two.

So, why doesn't Kay Baily Hutchinson say just that? Rather, the "establishment" GOP Senator from Texas says that social security checks can still be mailed out because it comes from another fund altogether.

On Fox News today with Shannon Bream:

[...]we shouldn't be having the President say he might not be able to send social security checks out, he can. He absolutely can. It's a different fund. They know that. So, I think it is a scare tactic."

Ms. Hutchinson, the only reason we are in this financial mess to begin with is because the other fund of which you speak does not exist. It has been used up. Spent. It is gone.

It would benefit Americans everywhere to know the truth about this financial mess. Covering up Obama's pessimism with your own brand of optimism is obfuscatory.

Speaking of an Overreaching Nanny State

2011-07-08T23:12:00.003-04:00

Let's not leave the good people of Colorado out of it either.

The wonderful bureaucrats of the Rocky Mountain State are getting serious about turning themselves into the parents of every child in the state. They know what is best for the children and, in order to make sure that incompetent parents don't neglect to teach future citizens about tolerance and multiculturalism, they're writing regulations making it mandatory for all day care centers in the state to make available dolls that represent three different races.

It's bad enough that these red-tape artists have the gall to attempt such a foray into the private sector, but then they have the stone cold gall to spend months parading around the state wasting tax payer's money in order to implement "this [...] lengthy, thoughtful, deliberate process."

I wonder if an Irish, German, and French doll would suffice?

h/t Drudge

The Nanny State Is Coming For Your Vegetables

2011-07-08T22:37:00.004-04:00

There are few things on Earth that tick me off more than self righteous bureaucrats using their authority to bully the people that pay their salaries.

It is bad enough that we have bureaucrats trying to tell us what we can eat, if we can invite other people to smoke on our own private property or if we might, pretty please, be able to add some salt to our food.

Now we have a benevolent overlord threatening a homeowner for growing vegetables on her own front lawn. Why? Apparently for no other reason than he doesn't want them to.

Michelle Obama can grow a whole garden on the White House green but Julie Bass, of Oak Park, Michigan should know a little bit better.

From My Fox Detroit:

"We thought it'd be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help," she said.

Bass' cool garden has landed her in hot water with the City of Oak Park. Code enforcement gave her a warning, then a ticket and now she's been charged with a misdemeanor.

"I think it's sad that the City of Oak Park that's already strapped for cash is paying a lot of money to have a prosecutor bothering us," Bass told FOX 2's Alexis Wiley.

"That's not what we want to see in a front yard," said Oak Park City Planner Kevin Rulkowski.

Why? The city is pointing to a code that says a front yard has to have suitable, live, plant material. The big question is what's "suitable?"

We asked Bass whether she thinks she has suitable, live, plant material in her front yard.

"It's definitely live. It's definitely plant. It's definitely material. We think it's suitable," she said.

So, we asked Rulkowski why it's not suitable.

"If you look at the definition of what suitable is in Webster's dictionary, it will say common. So, if you look around and you look in any other community, what's common to a front yard is a nice, grass yard with beautiful trees and bushes and flowers," he said.

But when you look at front yards that are unsightly and overgrown, is Bass' vegetable garden really worth the city's time and money?

Surely Julie Bass must have a crappy looking garden. I mean, how else could it bind the city planner's thong underwear into such a tight little knot that it would so thoroughly encroach on Kevin Rulkowski's already too retentive anal cavity?

Nope.

If George Washington was alive today he would beat Kevin Rulkowski's ass.

h/t The Agitator via Drudge

A Post That Repeatedly Bangs Its Head Against The Wall

2011-07-08T21:50:00.003-04:00

We don't have the money. Our children don't have the money. Our grandchildren, if the fruits of our legacy remain a constant, will not have the money either.

And yet, despite the fact that everyone on the face of the planet knows that we don't have the money, Michigan's junior Senator, Debbie Stabenow, will be introducing fascist legislation designed to circumvent the energy free market by plowing another $2 billion into one of our government's most favored initiatives, advanced battery research.

That $2 billion will have to be either borrowed from the Chinese or pulled out of a secret vault Timothy Geitner keeps securely hidden inside his own large intestine. Did I mention that we don't have the money?

Debbie Stabenow is not an expert on much of anything other than identifying air turbulence as global warming. Yet, because of her cozy relationship with union boneheads in Michigan, she has been afforded multiple opportunities in office to push for additional graft that will benefit her most loyal voting subjects in the run up to future elections.

Environmentalists and jug head union members holding hands with socialist public officials have literally driven Michigan's signature industry out of state and out of commission. In its place these same dipsticks are pushing for "future alternative industries" that can only survive if kept on the perpetual life support pried from the wallets of future taxpayers by politicians like Stabenow.

The Kwame Doctrine

2011-07-06T14:40:00.000-04:00

Full disclosure: I have neither read the book nor do I ever intend to read it. In fact, I vow at this moment in time to never engage in any activity that might put one red cent in the hands of the poster child for municipal corruption, Kwame Kilpatrick.

But, what's not to like about the book? Here I thought J.K. Rowling had an imagination.

Really, the reasoning printed on its enlightened pages puts blame squarely on those who cause sordid political downfalls--not on those such as Kwame who admit guilt of betrayal, of scandal, and of cover-up, but on those who uncover the crimes.

If his guilt had been successfully enshrouded he might still be mayor.

This is not the doctrine of someone who has hit bottom or understands his mistakes. This is the doctrine of a narcissist who believes that actions are justified by virtue of his own desires.

Cronyism, corruption, cover-up, misuse of public funds, conspiracy, etc., are all merely tools to be used in the administrations of elected officials to better one's pocketbook or political influence. And if the whole thing unravels we can blame the police.

Chomsky Denounces Chavez

2011-07-05T14:41:00.004-04:00

...because leftists are reasonable in their expectations that all the narcissistic political tyrants they endorse should know exactly when they have reached the appropriate level of absolute power.

Or something.

Rationing the Necessities

2011-07-05T13:31:00.003-04:00

Remember Elaine Benes begging for a square of toilet paper during an episode of Seinfeld?

Her situation is being repeated on Coney Island these days, only it isn't Jerry's date in the next stall from whom she must beg some two-ply.

From the New York Post.

The city is so hard up for cash that it's rationing toilet paper in women's public restrooms -- to the point where bathroom attendants are doling out a few measly squares per patron -- along the world-famous Coney Island boardwalk.

The Post witnessed stone-faced Parks Department employees leave toilet-paper dispensers empty last week and instead force astonished female beachgoers to form "ration lines" in the bathrooms.

Regina Ballone, 25, of Brooklyn visited a boardwalk bathroom at West 16th Street Wednesday and was "grossed out" at the thought of someone else handling her toilet paper.

"Never in my life have I experienced anything like this," she said. "I walked toward a stall, and a bathroom attendant stopped me by shouting, 'Hey, mami! There's no toilet paper here,' and she whipped out a big roll for me to grab some."

That socialist paradise that is New York is coming face to face with the realities of an economy that makes war against job providers--well, that is all private sector job providers because the government can apparently still afford pay people to hand out a square here and a square there when it cannot afford to stock up the wall dispensers.

Sheesh.

h/t Publius Forum

Hating on Old Dudes that Once Founded a Country

2011-07-05T13:01:00.004-04:00

In the last few years, what many people believe of the Founding Fathers has gone from a group of wise men whose vision helped to found the greatest nation in the history of the planet, to a group of deeply flawed men with vision too narrow to even contemplate the circumstances that would surround the lives of needy Americans in the years following the country's founding.

Protein Wisdom (and Dr. Larry Arn) have something to say about that.

MLive Asks: Does West Michigan need more visible minority and gay faces to attract a creative class?

2011-06-23T17:31:00.002-04:00

To which I have to ask, what in the heck is a gay face?

You know, gays have that certain...look. Really?

I mean, if I ever tried to define a "gay face" I would be ridiculed as homophobic and a hater. Yet, it would seem to be entirely reasonable for a whole class of artists to be attracted to a community that projects a look that we heterosexuals would be remiss to identify or, absent any obviousities, investigate.

Would it be wrong for masses of unemployed straight guys to pretend overt gayness in order to attract an expansion in the arts? If so, what exactly is overt gayness? Is it any more obvious that a gay face? Could such acting in itself be construed as anti-gay or would it be seen as an act of community bonding?

These are questions that only those in chosen identity groups should ask or answer and I renounce myself for the queries.

So, how long will we have to wait before a government sponsored job-training program is launched to attract any related industries?

Why We Are Here

2011-06-23T16:50:00.000-04:00

What is too often forgotten when people consider the current situation our economy is in is that the brakes were being applied to growth and wealth creation even before Fannie May, Freddie Mac and AIG (among others) collapsed.

Months prior to the rest of us finding out that Franklin Raines and Jamie Gorelick had absconded with millions of taxpayer dollars as a reward for pimping insolvent home loans, the cost of energy was already climbing at a frenzied pace.

As a fill-up crashed through the $30, $40 and $50 barriers for those driving even pretend mostly plastic cars, consumers were already being forced to ponder the priorities of vacationing in upstate Michigan or putting away a little cash in order to be able to make it to work the following week.

And that was the plan.

If there is one certainty in this world, it is that elitist Americans hate them some wrong energy.

Energy that is inexpensive is considered wrong for America. Inexpensive energy by definition promotes the use of that energy. As such, energy a consumer can actually afford to painlessly use is part and parcel to the perceived problem. It had to be made more expensive!

The great American slowdown is, then, not a bug, but a price that has to be paid. While progressive politicians and sympathetic journalists alike lament the "unexpected" continuance of our economic malaise, the bright side is that not only has our energy thirst been somewhat slaked, but our carbon footprint has been downsized!

As Barack Obama promised in his run up to the presidential election "[energy] prices must necessarily skyrocket." He knew already, prior to his election, that his energy plan would raise energy prices, because it was necessary. His current energy secretary surmised that what needed to be done was to raise American gasoline prices to the levels suffered in Europe.

Our government's offensive against the American energy industry is a multi-pronged attack.

Obama's moratorium on offshore drilling has crippled employment along the Gulf coast while also driving a number of drilling rigs to waters off the coasts of other nations. (Not to worry, we'll be their biggest customer!)

While his EPA tries to put the kibosh to newly discovered west Texas oil fields, his EPA also tries to castrate an energy industry waiting to capitalize on tar sands, oil shale and natural gasa.

His new regulations against coal fired electrical plants are designed to raise electricity prices on those of us who now have the time to watch The View while anxiously awaiting our unemployment checks.

Interjected into the whole mix is the benevolent hand of a government that picks winners and losers among corporations that salivate at the ringing of a public bell.

A window company that buy into the government's ideology can expect a nice fat check to the detriment of its competition. Companies that agree to enter into the production of inefficient green energy can expect kickbacks that not only make the otherwise insolvent operations profitable, but can also ride their ill gotten profitability into a new and less competitive era once those companies who lost out on the blessings of government graft fall by the wayside.

A giant Michigan chemical companies that supports public/private partnerships in the development of solar energy might miraculously receive a huge grant to help develop facilities. A large national company that endorses the government's overall energy policies can inexplicably pay no corporate income taxes on billions of dollars in profits. And a corn ethanol industry that sprouted up at the behest of visionary bureaucrats can survive today because government dictates the use of its products while at the same time it bails out otherwise insolvent producers and growers. (Never you mind the rising cost of eggs.)

Ah, but it would be too easy to blame all of this on admitted progressives, for Republican voters share much of the blame. They have for far too long voted for members of the (R) party not knowing what the R stands for.

One such perpetually elected GOP whiz is former Michigan Rep. Vern Ehlers who is joining with other foundationless Republicans in endorsing yet more government involvement in private enterprise in order to achieve their desired outcome.

In a letter sent to President Barack Obama, the 15 signatories – including recently retired Michigan Congressman Vernon Ehlers – say that to reduce dependence on foreign oil and maintain a clean environment, upcoming Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards for 2017 to 2025 should be aggressive.

Ehlers is a nuclear physicist for God's sake. He is a brilliant man, and yet he either misunderstands economics entirely or has unfortunately recognized the breadth and depth of his own unmatched brilliance. Who needs the free market or capitalist principles when one can merely project his own brilliance upon others? Ehlers is a member of a vast army of foundationless Republicans that wear the proud colors of the GOP in much the same way that a nation of die hard basketball fans jumped onto the bandwagon of the Miami Heat, at least that is, until game six.

It is discouraging that we cannot, as conservatives, make the effort to vet out even the most obvious of non-conservative stances among our own candidates. We have a full plate of candidates on the GOP side currently running for president, and yet the leader of that bunch of would-be nominees is an embracer of big-government solutions so vast it would make JFK blush.

Until the conservative movement is able to articulate effectively its message to not only the masses but to those who seemingly say they already identify with it, we will continue to languish within a society slowly losing its freedoms, its exceptionalism, its direction and, ultimately, its viability.

That we have not, to this point, is why we are here. That we may not in the near future is, most likely, why we would remain.

Shrinkage!

2011-06-06T19:14:00.002-04:00

Finally, Anthony Weiner has spilled the beans and confessed to his inappropriate behavior. He betrayed his wife, he lied to the American people, he tried to blame the incident on those who made the evidence public, and he dragged a number of others into a feculent pool where only a betraying, lying and false witnessing politician should wade.

I don't give a hoot about Anthony Weiner's dilemma though I feel badly that those naive enough to hitch their wagon to him must suffer for his indiscretions.

He can stay in office for all I care. He doesn't belong to me--he is a Dem and that type of behavior is completely acceptable for a Democrat as far as I'm concerned. If he can hold onto his job--the simps in NYC are getting exactly what they deserve--a guy who is no more loyal to his wife than he would be to any one of his constituents.

Now, the next time a Republican does this sort of thing I'm going to be asking for his head on a plaque. As an independent that feels he was left by the Republican Party left over the past couple of decades, I still pine for the GOP of old, the GOP that tosses out horses' asses that look remarkably like Anthony Weiner.

San Fran Nan and her brain addled kin can demand that Republicans leave office whenever they foolishly text someone that they shouldn't. (Which they do.) Let her for all I care. I don't care what she says and the day that my actions bear in any way on her words is the day you might as well put a bullet in my aching skull.

After all, as conservatives, we expect more from those that represent us than do progressives.

Crossing Over

2011-06-06T19:13:00.000-04:00

Bono enters the dark realm.

U2's Bono is what we would call a philanthropist. He has made his fortune and has, as a result, made efforts to steer the windfall of that fortune onto those who have not been as successful.

His charities are many but perhaps his best known is his work in Africa. Not only has Bono given millions to those on that continent, but he has teamed with others (even twisted a few arms) to maximize the financial efforts in toto.

Private giving and giving through taxation to the poor are two completely different things. One is divine, the other is a tragedy on multiple levels.

First of all, private charities are exponentially more efficient than are governmental agencies. Many private charities can (humbly) boast that over three quarters of the money that they collect is given directly to the cause. Government, by the time it has sucked out enough money to cover overpaid and inefficient bureaucracy, can brag about its contribution of about thirty percent.

Many conservatives lament what unending charity does to unquenchable recipients. I am of like mind. But, the most sinister thing about government benevolence is the long term impact it has on would be private givers.

With inefficient government taking on the role of wealth redistributor it has effectively allowed would be charitable givers to abdicate their moral responsibilities toward taking care of others. (Of course, with government taxation taking an ever larger bite out of earners' salaries there is substantially less money left over to give of freely, even if a person wanted to.)

Many a person depends on government to take care of others, and as long as they are taxpayers (never mind that about fifty percent of Americans pay no income taxes at all,) they feel that they have done their duty. Fail.

Which brings me back to Bono.

A tax protest group from Art Uncut will attend U2's performance on June 24 to campaign against the group's "convoluted" tax affairs, accusing them of avoiding taxes which could have helped exactly the sort of people Bono publicly cares about so dearly.

U2 moved a portion of their business affairs from Ireland to the Netherlands in 2006, reportedly in order to avoid a limit on lucrative tax breaks for artists in the republic.

The protest group have said that they do not intend to interrupt the band's performance, but hope to make sure their message is visible.

They plan to float a large bundle of cash from one section of the crowd under an Irish flag to another section under a Dutch flag. The message "Bono Pay Up" will be spelt (sic) out in lights.

An Art Uncut spokesperson said: "Bono claims to care about the developing world, but U2 greedily indulges in the very kind of tax avoidance which is crippling the poor nations of this world."

How many people has Bono employed? How many people have benefited from the charity of his free giving? How many others have been made aware of the plight of others through his many causes?

The cretin protesters would rather have government do their duty for them. It matters little to them that a quarter given privately does as much for the recipient as does a dollar taken forcibly from the pockets of the productive to be redistributed.

It is difficult to know who the protesters are, but I would hazard a guess that a good many of them work for government sponsored charities and therefore depend on Bono's taxes to grant them a paycheck.

Ignorance at the Top of the Teaching Profession

2011-06-03T17:37:00.002-04:00

Are there any members of the MEA who teach (or understand) economics, history, or psychology?

Anyone?

If so, please explain to me how the MEA (and other teachers' unions) can spend its membership dues in a way that exposes its collective ignorance on these subjects so blatantly while not motivating any significant cries of protest from its membership?

If the membership of these huge and powerful unions truly believes that employers are the cause of our nation's economic strife, how can we ever expect the next generation of consumers, employees, and employers to to be any smarter than the horses' asses leading the MEA today?

Germany to Shut Down Nukes Permanently

2011-05-30T12:48:00.000-04:00

An enlightened Germany has decided to cut itself off at the knees--it has determined that the wealth, and the modern conveniences it produces, are not worth the risk of a tsunami creating a nuclear accident on its soil. Or something.

Germany's coalition government has announced a reversal of policy that will see all the country's nuclear power plants phased out by 2022.

The decision makes Germany the biggest industrial power to announce plans to give up nuclear energy.

One has to wonder how the German populace will feel about such a decision in the next decade or so as substantially less efficient energy sources become exponentially more expensive and herald in the economic stagnation, poorer living conditions, and poverty that such a change in policy will surely cause.

This is not to say that nuclear energy is cheap energy. It is more expensive than is energy driven by fossil fuels, but it is substantially less expensive than the "green technologies" that are being praised as the answer to the world's growing energy crisis. Which all seems to fit the German psyche just fine as German environmentalists and bureaucrats also seek a world where the use of coal and oil are largely discontinued.

At this point in our history, we simply possess neither the technologies nor the wealth necessary to adequately replace fossil fuels and nuclear energy as drivers to our modern economies. We are slowly creeping toward these goals, but we are far from finding the solutions.

There are only two possible short term answers then, despite any shallow protestations to the contrary. One is to merely accept lower living standards on a par with those portions of the world that today riot over the suffering created by their poor current living standards. A second is to merely, and intentionally, motivate a vast reduction of human life on planet Earth.

Many environmentalists and bureaucrats believe that they can simply leverage great advancements in our energy future by shoving absconded (or borrowed) money at solutions they perceive might work.

Corn ethanol is just such a disaster--where bureaucrats decided outside the free market that burning a renewable fuel would be a great solution to an energy shortage. Now that corn and other agricultural products' prices have risen dramatically, after millions of people around the world have starved, after Iowa has turned itself into a net importer of corn rather than an exporter, and after numerous ethanol producers are operating via government subsidy and under the protection of bankruptcy, we are discovering that the production of corn ethanol for energy is a net energy loser.

Studies have shown that more energy is used in the planting, growing, harvesting, manufacturing, and transporting of corn and ethanol than energy it can produce. (Not to mention that it takes 1,700 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol.) Oh, and if that doesn't rot your socks off, ethanol is significantly less efficient per gallon than is gasoline.

Similar discoveries are being made in the wind and solar realms--though I suppose we can be thankful that tens of thousands aren't starving over the installation of massive and hideous bird-killing whirligigs that many refuse to even have built in their own neighborhoods.

These emerging and government driven technologies produce energy that is vastly more expensive to produce, vastly less efficient, and vastly less reliable than is either fossil or nuclear energy.

Manufacturing costs are huge, and transporting the energy from areas that are sufficiently sunny or windy enough to provide ample production make the expense of the energy ridiculously high--all this for a product that is likely not to work when the need is greatest.

Which will leave Germany exactly where?

Tomorrow's ultimate energy solutions will only come to fruition with the investment of wealth that today's inexpensive energy helps to create. Germany feels it can get there, instead, by destroying its country's short term wealth, and then by forcing contrived and undiscovered government solutions onto a gullible and helpless public.

The US, while not quite so addled, has within its borders a substantial number of politicians willing to ransom the livelihoods of their subjects to do the exact same thing.

The human experience on Earth, that is, up until the wealth generated by the industrial revolution and a previously untried economic experiment called "capitalism," was misery. It was disease, blight, starvation, endless labor, and poverty. It is still the way that many people on this Earth live.

If German leaders have their way, it is the way that future generations of Germans will be living too.

Regulate the Internet!

2011-05-25T09:00:00.000-04:00

There have been many movements designed to wrest control of the internet away from private interests.

Visions of usage fees, desires to stamp out ideologies, and a simple hankering to control all things human are the chief forces behind these movements.

The UN, Congress, and now the G8 are huddling in their palaces devising strategies in which to control, further regulate, and curb our human thoughts in this newest of human frontiers.

This quote in the New York Times got my attention, spoken by one who is considered one of Europe's most conservative statesmen:

[...] Mr. Sarkozy, who convened a special gathering of the global digerati in Paris on the eve of the G-8 meeting. Calling the rise of the Internet a “revolution,” Mr. Sarkozy compared its impact to that of two previous transforming episodes in global history: the age of exploration and the industrial revolution.

The Internet revolution “doesn’t have a flag, it doesn’t have a slogan, it belongs to everyone,” he said, citing the recent uprisings in the Arab world as examples of its positive effects.

Before an audience that included top executives of some of the world’s largest Internet companies, including Google, Facebook, Amazon and eBay, he added, however: “The universe you represent is not a parallel universe. Nobody should forget that governments are the only legitimate representatives of the will of the people in our democracies. To forget this is to risk democratic chaos and anarchy.”

No, it doesn't have a flag and it doesn't have a slogan. And yet, Nicolas Sarkozy sees the internet, while being unowned by anyone, as a conduit for government control because government is the only legitimate representative of the people.

So much for the electronic economies that have burgeoned because of the internet outside of government control, the millions of jobs they have helped create, the efficiencies that have grown, the new sciences that have been expanded because of it, and the expansive personal freedoms that have exploded as a result of switches, routers, and the home computer.

All completely illegitimate.

Pipe it through the government and those geniuses in charge of it (such as Mr. Sarkozy himself,) and you might get his blessing. Otherwise, get bent.

Words and Actions

2011-05-21T18:06:00.002-04:00

This is exactly what we need...good old fashioned conservative thought.

"We need to encourage this kind of change all across America. We need to reward the reforms that are driven not by Washington, but by principals and teachers and parents. That's how we'll make progress in education — not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

Such flowing truth.

Who is the genius that spoke these words?

Obama promoted his Race to the Top initiative, which has states compete for education money. But the program has drawn criticism and Republicans on Capitol Hill are unwilling to devote new money to it. He also renewed his call for Congress to send him a rewrite of No Child Left Behind, the nation's governing education law.

"We need to promote reform that gets results while encouraging communities to figure out what's best for their kids. That why it's so important that Congress replace No Child Left Behind this year — so schools have that flexibility," Obama said. "Reform just can't wait."

One has to wonder how a system that purposefully removes parents, teachers, and local school boards from the educational decision process will somehow miraculously allow parents, teachers, and local school boards to "make progress in education — not from the top down, but from the bottom up."

Or, am I assuming too much when I believe that Obama knows up from down?

I Know He's Exciting Because The Media Tells Me So

2011-05-19T11:07:00.003-04:00

I was surprised to find out the other day that Jon Huntsman was taking the GOP presidential campaign by storm. I was so surprised because I only vaguely remember hearing his name, and that vague recollection had him pegged as the brave rescuer of Little Red Riding Hood.

Such mental ambiguity is odd for a guy like me who spends too much of his time worrying about the sad state of all things political and particularly worrying about the state of the saddest of all political parties, the Republican. (It's actually a tie between the GOP and Dems, but I'm rounding up.)

As a former student of journalism I am always skeptical of mass media when they tell me what I am thinking. Bias in journalism is not always so obvious as to be read within the articles posted above the fold on page 1A. No, where most of journalism's bias is manifest is in what it chooses to put on 1A versus what it buries on page 12 or doesn't write about at all.

In other words, a person has to investigate for himself what has been omitted entirely or pooh-poohed (a word I learned from the AP Handbook) sufficiently to land face first opposite Aunt Mildred's recipe for sweet onion and artichoke pie.

Jon Huntsman has become a favored candidate of the media. One could debate the reasons behind this, but I believe it is because of Huntsman's track record of political moderation and his propensity to "reach across the aisle."

When newspapers across the country were choosing their endorsements for the GOP presidential nomination during the last cycle, paper after paper opted for the moderate John McCain. And, why not? John McCain's politics were of the type that most editorial boards across this land would be thrilled to put up with if they had to choose among GOP conservatives. They weren't choosing what candidate best reflected the ideas and desires of conservatives, they were choosing which GOP candidate best reflected the liberal viewpoints harbored within the editorial board.

Herman Cain is a candidate who also has low name recognition. He is much more conservative than is Huntsman and is also a guy who rose to the top of corporate America rather than being born on the top rung. As a conservative person myself, and after researching a lot on the candidates that are currently crisscrossing America, I think Herman Cain, as well as any other candidate, reflects the conservative political values that I hold most important to me. (There are two or three others on par with Cain.)

Perhaps Jon Huntsman is the next John McCain; a man who the progressive media has christened as the best possible candidate to satisfy the political bent of liberal newspapers around the country. We can expect Huntsman to fill the editorial pages of more and more newspapers as they promote him in an attempt to raise his name recognition and tout his experience.

Then, should Huntsman ever get the nomination, the editorialists can turn on him as viciously as they did the Maverick--which, from my point of view, is the way they should have ravaged him from the get-go.

Herman Cain, on the other hand, will have his face pasted to a black and white ink portrait of a smiling Aunt Mildred located somewhere between the obits and the free pet classifieds. If anywhere.

Tomato, Tomahto

2011-05-18T10:36:00.000-04:00

Certainly we could all use the wisdom of Whoopi Goldberg at a time like this--a woman so aware of the life forces around her that she can pronounce unerringly whether a sexual assault is either of the non-rape variety, or, you know, of the rape-rape species.

Such pronouncements can prove invaluable when the accused is of a particular political or artistic bent. We saw this in the case of Roman Polanski, an admitted pedophile whose actions of drugging an underage girl and then sodomizing her against her will were, according to Whoopi, of the previously undefined non rape-rape variety.

Roman's defense? All men like teenagers which, apparently, was enough for Ms. Goldberg. If Ms. Goldberg was in charge, all such universal and unassailable sexual impulses would carry with them immediate absolution, regardless as to whether the sinner actually asked for forgiveness or instead fled the shackles of his plea deal and lived out the rest of his free days gleefully enjoying the sweet memories of a drug addled minor decades his junior.

It was, however, Polanski's sensitive devotion to the arts that helped salve the rather casual objections of Polanski's transgression to artists such as Goldberg, Harrison Ford, Harvey Weinstein, Anne Applebaum, and the sadly aging Debra Winger. Who were we, after all, to stand between a man of the arts and his libido?

Another sex crime is rocking the world today, that of IMF head Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Now, certainly the Strauss-Kahn situation varies with the Polanski situation in that Strauss-Kahn is innocent until proven guilty and has admitted no guilt. Polanski admitted guilt but then fled.

What does remain the same is the inability for leftists to accept the potential evil of persons housed within their own ideological circle.

Seventy percent of French socialist party members believe that Strauss-Kahn is the victim of a conspiracy to ruin his political aspirations which include the potential presidency of France. That the uber socialist Strauss-Kahn was staying in a $3,000 per night hotel room is just nit-picking minutia and not indicative of any hypocrisy.

One thing that I like about conservatives. While our standards are not rigidly upheld by every member on every occasion, when a supposed member strays from his ideological foundation he is lambasted for it by those on the right. When Mark Foley is smitten with a house page, he is rousted from office. When Gary Studds does that and even more, he is elevated to a position of power within the Democrat Party.

We will have to see how all of this turns out in a court of law as Strauss-Kahn is not deserving of any diplomatic protections and he will be tried.

Perhaps we could get Whoopi to tell us what's up and save us all a lot of time.

No Guilt Here!

2011-05-17T18:36:00.003-04:00

"If you're going to ... try to make me feel bad, you aren't going to do it."

So says a man who just last year won a multi-million dollar lottery prize when confronted with the fact that he still uses food stamps.

So much for the old Kennedy quote..."ask not what your country can do for you...blah, blah, blah."

Entitlement is a disease.

On the road again...

2011-05-06T14:24:00.003-04:00

I'm on the road again and, as Mom and my other reader has probably noted, I don't get an opportunity to write very often while I'm out of town.

Don't get me wrong, I am happy to be holding down a job of today, but I just wish it wasn't in lieu of one of the yet to be created Michigan jobs of tomorrow favored by our former Governor Jennifer Granholm.

I'll try to do better next week but there are no promises.

California Finds Something Else to Regulate

2011-05-03T15:43:00.002-04:00

On a hat tip from Overlawyered, a bill has been introduced in California to help provide for a safer lodging workplace.

Section 6714 is added to the Labor Code, to read:
6714. (a) The standards board shall, no later than September 1, 2012, adopt an occupational safety and health standard for lodging establishment housekeeping. The standard shall apply to all hotels, motels, and other lodging establishments in California. The standard shall require all of the following:
(1) The use of a fitted sheet, instead of a flat sheet, as the bottom sheet on all beds within the lodging establishment. For the purpose of this section, a "fitted sheet" means a bed sheet containing elastic or similar material sewn into each of the four corners that allows the sheet to stay in place over the mattress.
(2) The use of long-handled tools such as mops or similar devices in order to eliminate the practice by housekeepers of working in a stooped, kneeling, or squatting position in order to clean bathroom floors, walls, tubs, toilets, and other bathroom surfaces.

Is there no portion of the American business landscape that some unfortunately elected fop hasn't decided that he can run more efficiently and more effectively himself?

I've got news for California State Senator De León, if you show me a toilet that has been cleaned without effort of "stooping, kneeling, or squatting" I will show you a toilet that is teeming with bacteria and unfit for Mr. De León's backside to utilize.

Realistically, how are housekeepers even supposed to clean underneath the toilet seat if they cannot even stoop to lift the lid?

When a state believes it has the wisdom and wherewithal to regulate even the proper cleaning of toilets down at the local Super8, it is clearly engaged in systematic overreach.

California is billions of dollars in debt, pining for another federal bailout, driving thousands of employers out of the state every year over the high cost of doing business, and abjectly delusional when it comes to getting its expenses or revenues in line.

If this is any indication, it hasn't even started trying to figure it out.

Having it Both Ways

2011-05-03T11:29:00.002-04:00

Either Usama bin Laden was a Muslim or he was not.

He would have told you, prior to his head being blown apart like a misguided suicide bomber, that he was a Muslim. His followers, both during and after the blowing up of schools, weddings, hotels, subways, trains, airplanes, and city squares would tell you the same thing.

And yet, most of those within the western politic would describe Usama and his bloodthirsty minions as "misunderstanders of Islam." Western governments have undergone painstaking effort in separating the images of the jihadist bin Laden and the peaceful followers of Islam who are the "vast majority" of Muslim believers.

Our own government has fallen into this trap as well. George W. Bush has called Islam "a religion of peace." He also said "Islam is a vibrant faith. Millions of our fellow citizens are Muslim. We respect the faith. We honor its traditions. Our enemy does not. Our enemy doesn't follow the great traditions of Islam. They've hijacked a great religion." He also said: "All Americans must recognize that the face of terror is not the true faith -- face of Islam."

Current President Barack Obama has had a few things to say about Islam himself: “That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn’t. And I consider it part of my responsibility as President of the United States to fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

Both men have taken great care in addressing Muslim masses so as to be sure not to offend or to paint America's War on Terror as a War on Islam. Both men have made it known that they do not believe that terrorism is a part of true Islam. They both made it clear that they believed that Usama bin Laden, as a purveyor of terror, was not a true follower of the Islamic faith.

So, why is it, after the US heroically carried out a raid deep into Pakistan that lead to the timely death of Usama bin Laden, that US authorities felt it necessary to carefully treat Usama's carcass as if it were an esteemed vessel of Islam? Why would we, after our last two presidents have adamantly noted, and indeed, after moderate Muslims the world over have demanded, that terrorism has no part in Islam and that those who engage in terrorism are not true Muslims, even attempt to do anything other than unceremoniously dump Obama's body in a nameless garbage pit?

Either bin Laden was a Muslim or he was not. Perhaps the US isn't as clear on this concept as it has tried to convince us that it is.

Talk Nice to My Volt!

2011-05-02T16:57:00.003-04:00

Does anyone else think this is as funny as I do?

BMW CEO Jim O'Donnell has apparently experienced great criticism for his comments about electrical vehicles. So much so that he has had to issue an apology. Yes, he has finally crossed the line--he has insulted a blessed technology.

His horrible mistake in judgment? He announced that he believed in a "free economy," that tax credits should be ended, and that electric vehicles would not work for most people.

One only hopes he also engaged in a little flagellation and that hate crime legislation can soon be introduced that includes insensitivity toward techno groupies.

"I sincerely apologize if I have offended the strong network of electric vehicle advocates whose support has been deeply meaningful to us at BMW."

It is accepted by most of us that we should not insult overly sensitive people for their race, religion, weight, social status, or disability, but now we cannot even insult a technology for fear of offending its followers.

Between Him and His Maker

2011-05-02T10:30:00.003-04:00

Most of the world celebrates today the demise of one Usama bin Laden at the hand of American Navy Seals. Certainly those that took to the streets at Ground Zero, in Times Square, in Annapolis, and at the White House had celebration on their minds.

There are deeply rooted political consequences of such an action, an action that our President deserves credit for. Some international political truths are also, now, becoming crystal clear. But somehow, on this day at least, I find myself largely being able to ignore such trivialities.

Those who do not celebrate are generally making threats upon the celebrators. This morning, already, the jihad continues. Already, in planning rooms across the planet, forces for freedom continue to plot the death or capture of those who will find promotion in the vacuum left by Usama's sodden corpse.

And yet today I find myself singing this verse over and over...

na-na-na-na
na-na-na-na
hey, hey, hey, goodbye...

For the more reflective today, let us not forget, meeting one's maker is no different than meeting one's final judge. We did what we had to do and took him out. Now God will decide.

A Non-Fiction Windmill Story

2011-05-01T00:29:00.000-04:00

Over at Watts Up With That:

Consider the Oldbury wind turbine, which WattsUpWithThat.com reveals was installed a couple of years ago at a primary school in the Midlands at a cost of £5000 sterling plus Vicious Additional Taxation at 17.5% (US $9694 in all).

In the first full year of the Oldbury White Elephant’s 20-year life it generated a gratifying 209 kilowatt-hours of electricity – enough to power a single 100-Watt reading-lamp for less than three months. The rest of the year you’ll have to find something else to do in bed.

This is one of the technologies the very wise in the US are favoring over pumping oil or burning coal. The government favored technology actually sucks wealth out of our economy while those chosen by the free market shower our country with wealth producing efficient energy.

For centuries the human condition on Earth was misery. It was famine, disease, abject poverty, starvation, disco. Cheap energy's infusion into free market capitalism has changed all of that. The vast majority of today's poverty stricken own cell phones, have cable television, access to transportation, education, housing, and food.

Yet, this is what the elite in America are willing to sacrifice in their skirt chasing of green energy solutions. It is both a mathematical and economic certainty that future generations of Americans will be much poorer, sicker, hungrier and more desperate than they are now if our leaders' continue to chart a course toward the purposeful destruction of American wealth.

It is certainly a price they are willing to have the rest of us pay.

Zimbabwe President Visits Vatican

2011-04-30T10:03:00.000-04:00

Perhaps a miracle will be performed on the detached hands of the political adversaries of Robert Mugabe. At least that way the sufferers at Mugabe's Marxist (and still attached) Catholic hand might see some benefit to their leader's presence at the beatification of Pope John Paul II in Rome.

Mugabe is, simply stated, a butcher of humans (and he ain't the best friend of currency either.) This is not a rarity for Marxist heads of state. What is somewhat surprising is that the man is apparently entitled to witness the beatification because of the office he holds.

Mugabe is a head of state whose abuses caused him human rights sanctions as far back as 2002. Since then his followers have killed, maimed and terrorized his political foes in a campaign of violence designed to keep him in the office for which he lost a popular election.

But, it would seem that with bloody retainment of power comes great privilege, and Mr. Mugabe is wielding the privilege like Michael Moore would a meaty ham bone among the starving at the gate. That such privilege is bestowed upon Mugabe by the Vatican (and the Italians who have allowed him free passage despite sanctions) is the worst sort of blatant hypocrisy.

If The Vatican, the one sovereign country on Earth dedicated to the belief in and the teachings of Jesus Christ cannot, even within their own bureaucracy, find excuse enough to keep Mugabe away from this theater we can pretty much toss the country's name into the column of generic and rudderless appeaser states that already span the Earth despite their glossy wrapping.

Perhaps the homeless, the tortured, the burned, the terrorized, and the handless Zimbabweans can catch it on television.

Putting Oil into Context

2011-04-28T21:09:00.003-04:00

In a post titled Facts About Oil over at Powerline, John Hinderaker outlines a few truths about the evil oil industry that our benevolent president would rather you not worry your pretty little heads about.

A Tea Partiers Assessment

2011-04-28T12:45:00.000-04:00

One thing that I respect about the tea party is its above board nature. It is a movement that openly advocates its positions and attempts to achieve its objectives through conventional and lawful means.

It is a movement replete with individuals that understand the importance of the rule of law, the difference between a representative republic and a democracy, and appreciates the role that individuals have in society. It embraces a person's rights of life, freedom, and the unfettered pursuit for a better life.

All of these things are in stark contrast to not only the progressive left, but also to centrist politicians who have adopted a belief that government should provide for individuals and identity groups those things that they fail to provide for themselves (irrespective of any attempt to self provide, and sometimes whether the providees even desire the interjection.)

The tea parties seek change at the ballot box. Most progressives will settle for a ballot box solution if one is readily apparent (particularly if enough illegal or dead voters are able to partake in the effort,) but absent their candidates being elected will just as opportunistically pursue change through judicial fiat or bureaucratic regulation, that is, except for those high called brave statesmen that flee beyond the nearest state border.

An obvious example of this is when climate change legislation ground to a halt in the US Congress, EPA regulators in the Obama administration predictably assumed an unprecedented expansion of regulatory powers they justified through hazy interpretations of the Clean Air Act.

Another recent example of these shenanigans is the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) seeking to block Boeing's attempt to build aircraft in South Carolina rather than producing them in union dominated Washington state. The NLRB is positing that Boeing's attempt to produce aircraft in a right to work state is in direct response to belligerent union activities that interrupted production at their established factory.

Now, mind you, Boeing is not shuttering any Seattle area plant. (In fact, employment in that area is actually increased over the past few years.) And Boeing is not shifting the production of one aircraft from Seattle to South Carolina. (The factory in SC is for the new Dreamliner aircraft.)

And yet, the NLRB is seeking to halt production in South Carolina in direct appeasement of the deep pocketed labor unions in Washington state that helped elevate President Obama to victory.

When President Obama bought himself a couple of car companies he said out loud and on many occasions that he had no desire to run a car company. However, it should be noted, that many of the new products being touted by GM today are ones blessed by government authorities for their harmony with government environmental and energy policy. He also was able to seat a more union friendly board, provide some ownership of the new entities to the unions, kick out a few established industry executives to be replaces with government chosen alternatives, and continued to fund speculative industries whose production would fishtail nicely with government's energy and environmental policy.

Boeing is a different and perhaps even more sinister matter. Here, government regulators are attempting to interject themselves directly into the managerial matters of a private enterprise in order to grant its most favored electoral constituency unprecedented powers over a company they draw their paychecks from.

There is no doubt that businesses are under attack in America. They are seen as greedy corporations with few redeeming qualities. The wealth that they generate for workers are largely ignored because of the wealth that is also generated for stockholders and company officers. As the valued presidential adviser Bill Ayers said recently in an interview "With great wealth comes great theft."

Capitalism is unfair. Boeing, as such, is a thief. And government regulators are today's Robin Hoods setting matters of wealth aright while assisting themselves in perpetuating their continued regulatory status.

Debt and the growth of government (along with the fact that the Republican Party offered up a centrist candidate in the last presidential election) were the primary causes behind the growth of the tea party movement. It is the overreach of government regulators and their unrelenting invasion into the private sector that will provide the incentive to keep the movement vibrant and growing.

This fight is just beginning.