Idaho resident responds to NYT article pimping sad stereotypes

Funny stuff.

This sounds right to me

... all the fraud, critical "lost" data, suppression of criticism and so on doesn't prove that there's no global warming — people can lie about things that, nonetheless, turn out to be true — but it has to induce a certain degree of skepticism. So what should we do?

Nothing. At least, in my opinion, we should continue to try to minimize the use of fossil fuels regardless. Burning coal and oil is filthy, and they're more valuable as chemical feedstocks anyway. We should be building nuclear plants and pursuing efficiencies in the shorter term, while working on better solar (including orbital solar), wind, etc. power supplies for the longer term.

I agree. Cap and trade is a bunch of crap with primarily political goals.

But I'm all for taking care of the environment and burning less oil. I was an early adopter of compact fluorescents - because I believed the hype that they would save me money in the long run. Now I'm switching back to incandescents and waiting for LED lights to get cheaper. The fluorescents never lasted as long as they claimed - some of them I replaced as often as I would have an incandescent and for a lot more money. And now of course we find out they have mercury in them which will now be going into our landfills. 

I'm interested in solar, too, but again mostly I'm waiting for it to get cheaper. 

And of course, I don't think the government needs to be driving this stuff. Let the markets sort it out.

A plague on both your houses

voters not happy with Dems or GOP. 

Sounds about right to me.

Have a little salt with this ...

This was forwarded to me from my friend Craig. I thought it was interesting but kind of long. I definitely agree with it that lawyers are more part of our problems than likely bringers of solutions. I suspect there are plenty of lawyers among Republicans and some non-lawyers among Democrat politicians, but I haven't looked into it.

The Democratic Party has become the Lawyers Party. Barack Obama is a lawyer. Michelle Obama is a lawyer. Hillary Clinton is a lawyer. Bill Clinton is a lawyer. John Edwards is a lawyer. Elizabeth Edwards is a lawyer. Every Democrat nominee since 1984 went to law school (although Gore did not graduate). Every Democrat vice presidential nominee since 1976, except for Lloyd Bentsen, went to law school. Look at leaders of the Democrat Party in Congress: Harry Reid is a lawyer.. Nancy Pelosi is a lawyer.

The Republican Party is different. President Bush is a businessman. Vice President Cheney is a businessman. The leaders of the Republican Revolution: Newt Gingrich was a history professor. Tom Delay was an exterminator. Dick Armey was an economist. House Minority Leader Boehner was a plastic manufacturer. The former Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is a heart surgeon. Who was the last Republican president who was a lawyer? Gerald Ford, who left office 31 years ago and who barely won the Republican nomination as a sitting president, running against Ronald Reagan in 1976.

The Republican Party is made up of real people doing real work, who are often the targets of lawyers. The Democrat Party is made up of lawyers. Democrats mock and scorn men who create wealth, like Bush and Cheney, or who heal the sick, like Frist, or who immerse themselves in history, like Gingrich.

The Lawyers Party sees these sorts of people, who provide goods and services that people want, as the enemies of America .. And, so we have seen the procession of official enemies, in the eyes of the Lawyers Party, grow.

Against whom do Hillary and Obama rail? Pharmaceutical companies, oil companies, hospitals, manufacturers, fast food restaurant chains, large retail businesses, bankers, and anyone producing anything of value in our nation.

This is the natural consequence of viewing everything through the eyes of lawyers. Lawyers solve problems by successfully representing their clients, in this case the American people. Lawyers seek to have new laws passed, they seek to win lawsuits, they press appellate courts to overturn precedent, and lawyers always parse language to favor their side.

Confined to the narrow practice of law, that is fine. But it is an awful way to govern a great nation. When politicians as lawyers begin to view some Americans as clients and other Americans as opposing parties, then the role of the legal system in our life becomes all-consuming. Some Americans become adverse parties of our very government. We are not all litigants in some vast social class-action suit. We are citizens of a republic that promises us a great deal of freedom from laws, from courts, and from lawyers.

Today, we are drowning in laws; we are contorted by judicial decisions; we are driven to distraction by omnipresent lawyers in all parts of our once private lives. America has a place for laws and lawyers, but that place is modest and reasonable, not vast and unchecked. When the most important decision for our next president is whom he will appoint to the Supreme Court, the role of lawyers and the law in America is too big. When lawyers use criminal prosecution as a continuation of politics by other means, as happened in the lynching of Scooter Libby and Tom Delay, then the power of lawyers in America is too great. When House Democrats sue America in order to hamstring our efforts to learn what our enemies are planning todo to us, then the role of litigation in America has become crushing.

We cannot expect the Lawyers Party to provide real change, realreform or real hope in America Most Americans know that a republic in whichevery major government action must be blessed by nine unelected judges isnot what Washington intended in 1789. Most Americans grasp that we cannotfight a war when ACLU lawsuits snap at the heels of our defenders. MostAmericans intuit that more lawyers and judges will not restore decliningmoral values or spark the spirit of enterprise in our economy.

Perhaps Americans will understand that change cannot be brought to our nation by those lawyers who already largely dictate American society and business. Perhaps Americans will see that hope does not come from the mouths of lawyers but from personal dreams nourished by hard work. Perhaps Americans will embrace the truth that more lawyers with more power will only make our problems worse.

The United States has 5% of the worlds population and 66% of the worlds lawyers! Tort (Legal) reform legislation has been introduced in congress several times in the last several years to limit punitive damages in ridiculous lawsuits such as spilling hot coffee on yourself and suing the establishment that sold it to you and also to limit punitive damages in huge medical malpractice lawsuits. This legislation has continually been blocked from even being voted on by the Democrat Party. When you see that 97% of the political contributions from the American Trial Lawyers Association goes to the Democrat Party, then you realize who is responsible for our medical and product costs being so high!

The system is working as designed.

The President's two major initiatives - cap-and-trade and health care - have failed because there was not a broad consensus to enact them. Our system is heavily biased against such proposals. That's a good thing.

from here. 

Apparently we're in Wonderland.

Who knew?

Nothing means anything, anymore. Words truly are "just words," now, and in this Looking-Glass Administration, words mean exactly what Obama says they mean at any given moment. They will mean something else, in five minutes.

Attacks on GOP

How can the Republicans be accused of being the Party of No, if they are in fact voting as their constituents want them to and rejecting the president's agenda? Doesn't that make us the People of No?

Exactly.

I think the President knows this and would much rather tell us to please just get out of his way because he knows better than we do what we need. But he's cunning enough to realize that might be seen as hubris by the little people, so he goes after the opposition party.

If someone is trying to set a bomb to blow up a building (or an economy, or a nation) then obstruction is what's needed. Compromising doesn't really do the job, sometimes.

SOTU and SCOTUS

From comments on Ann Althouse's blog (via Instapundit):

As Dennis Miller just said a minute ago on my radio: Obama chose to call out the only 9 guys in the room that did their homework in law school. And the rest who ended up settling for politics stood and cheered it.

man up!

You know, one could argue that President Bush "inherited" Al Qaeda from Bill Clinton, who did little-to-nothing in response to all of Al Qaeda's provocations throughout the 1990's and unto the USS Cole bombing. But never, not once, did Bush ever say, "I inherited this…" It's time for Obama to become a man.

from here

SOTU

I didn't see it - only heard about 5 minutes of it, but saw some commentary to the effect that it sounded like a campaign speech. That doesn't surprise me. He's good at campaigning - really it's the only thing he has experience in ...

perspective

Gerri's friend Joanna has been helping in Haiti since November. She has a blog. Her latest update ended: 

Hope that all of you had a good weekend.  I just noticed that the Vikings lost.  How sad.  I think it is the first glimpse of "news" I have seen in months.

The middle class is filled with people who pay attention to the second page of their paycheck stubs.

It's clear that the middle class is the great enemy of collectivism. Only they have the combination of voting power, money, and economic self-interest to see the growth of government as undesirable, and provide effective resistance. They generally view their interactions with government in a negative light – they've all spent time in the Department of Motor Vehicles mausoleum, spent hours wrestling with tax forms, or been slapped with a traffic citation they don't think they deserved. They understand the inefficiency and emotional instability of government, and instinctively resent its intrusion into their lives. A health-care takeover is the best chance collectivists will ever have of persuading the middle class to vote itself into chains

The middle class is a vast group in a capitalist society, which is one of the things collectivists really hate about capitalism. Its upper reaches include the entrepreneurs and small business owners that bring economic vitality. Virtually every aspect of Obama's agenda is designed to injure or burden small businessmen, and this is no accident. Despite their angry rhetoric about giant corporations, leftists have little trouble controlling them.

it is crucial to understand that it doesn't matter if the people engineering a collectivist state have sinister motives or not. In fact, the belief that their intentions make a difference is incredibly dangerous. It's related to the catechism of the faculty-lounge Marxist, which holds that communism and fascism only failed because bad people were in charge of them.

 
and of the President's statement that he pushed so hard for the health care plan because insurance companies "were doing things that were just plain wrong, and were leaving folks in an extremely vulnerable position."

It doesn't matter if this is his sincere belief, spoken straight from the heart. His health-care plan was still an awful idea that united the country in opposition against the increasingly thuggish and arrogant methods he used to advance it. Those methods are integral to the collectivist enterprise. It will always become thuggish and arrogant, because when all virtue resides in the State, those who oppose the growth of the State become villains by definition.

 (emphasis mine)

from here - It's worth reading the whole piece

True for families, businesses, governmente

Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.

- Charles Dickens, David Copperfield.

Thoughts on the Brown win

 Polls show that most Americans want smaller government, even with fewer "services." Running on a platform that money's better kept in voters' own pockets, rather than handed over to special interest logrolling and vote-buying, will work: If it'll work in Massachusetts, it should work pretty much anywhere.

from Instapundit.

Haiti blogger

One of my wife's friends has been volunteering in Haiti since November. Take a look at her blog for a first hand account.

I'd rather have global warming than

a 20 - 30 year ice age ...

It's not a myth ...

No, they're not camping in the snow. They're fishing. That snow is covering the frozen lake. It's never too cold to fish in Minnesota.

Paging Mr. Brooks

via Instapundit. 

Colorado New Years Trip

no comment

"The lot offers wider parking spaces especially designed for female drivers, who tend to cause twice as many collisions in parking lots than in other places, according to insurance company data," the Global Times says.

from here. 

A death panel by any name would smell as sweet ...

The senate bill includes a provision that the section of the bill that regulates the Independent Medical Advisory Board - the panel of bureaucrats who will be rationing care - can only be repealed or amended by a super-majority of the senate.

In a letter to Harry Reid last week, CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf noted (with a number of caveats) that the bill's calculations call for a reduction in Medicare's spending rate by about 2 percent in the next two decades, but then he writes the kicker:

"It is unclear whether such a reduction in the growth rate could be achieved, and if so, whether it would be accomplished through greater efficiencies in the delivery of health care or would reduce access to care or diminish the quality of care."

Reducing access to care or diminishing the quality of care. 

I'll take whatever's behind door number three. 

following up

on the previous post on the Copenhagen Dictators Parade from earlier.

Here's Jonah Goldberg from National Review Online:

The historical record is clear: Democratic free-market nations are better at protecting their environments than statist regimes for the simple reason that they can afford to. West Germany's environment was far cleaner than East Germany's. I'd much sooner drink the tap water in South Korea than North Korea.

 

Mugabe rails against capitalism as if he has a better idea of how to run things. That's almost funny given that Mugabe has destroyed what was once a great cause for hope in Africa, in large part by abandoning capitalism and democracy. Zimbabwe now has the highest inflation rate in the world and one of the lowest life expectancies. Let's hope nobody was taking notes when he was giving out advice.

 

Moreover, capitalism, and the wealth it creates, is the best means of bending down the population curve. Don't take my word for it. The U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change acknowledges that "affluence is correlated with long life and small families" and that growing prosperity will cause world population to decline even further.

 

Want to know the best way to heal the planet? Create more rich countries. Want to know the best way to hurt the planet? Throw a wet blanket on economic growth.

"Chavez, Morales, Mugabe lash out at Copenhagen"

yeah, that's definitely who we should be taking advice from.

"I don't think Obama is here yet," said Mr Chavez.

"He got the Nobel Peace Prize almost the same day as he sent 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people in Afghanistan."

That's gotta hurt. 

 And from Mr. Mugabe - ranked the 7th worst dictator of all time according to a 2007 Parade Magazine article - we get this lovely analogy

"Why is the guilty north not showing the same fundamentalist spirit it exhibits in our developing countries on human rights matters on this more menacing threat of climate change?" he said.

"Where are its sanctions for eco-offenders? When a country spits on the Kyoto Protocol by seeking to shrink from its diktats, or by simply refusing to accede to it, is it not violating the global rule of law," he added in reference to the core emissions treaty which the US has refused to sign.

Senator, you can't HANDLE the truth

Kind of cheezy, but it made me grin.

Political truth-o-meter

Interesting web site that investigates political sound-bites and rates them for accuracy. Seems pretty bipartisan. They're also keeping track of President Obama's various promises and how they're holding up.

UN's armed response to questions about ClimateGate

sigh.

What's up with our 'safe schools czar'?

An administration department of education appointee - the apparently ironically titled "safe schools czar" - was the executive director of an organization that presented seminars billed as promoting tolerance for homosexuals, but which were essentially sexual how-to classes for students at least as young as 14. 

This hasn't been widely covered in the media - at least I haven't seen it. The first references I saw to it - which I didn't understand, lacking the context - were in the Day by Day cartoons online.

Here's a treatment from the Washington Times. 

And here's a more graphic piece that includes some video and a poor quality image of one of the organisation's pamphlets. As well as a clip of the classic Monty Python skit on the same topic. It was funny because it was so outrageous. Or so they thought...

All we are saying ... is

everyone involved needs to embrace the idea that all scientists are skeptics; that all scientific theories are open to doubt; and in particular that future projections of climate change are subject to considerable uncertainty. Furthermore, the economic and environmental impacts of warming are also uncertain, as are the costs of CO2 mitigation.

From the Earth Institute at Columbia U. 

We need honest open discussion about the research and the options. There's no such thing as "settled science".

Love this title ...

How the Left Swiftboated America: The Liberal Media Conspiracy to Make You Think George Bush Was the Worst President in History

And the Amazon reviews should be entertaining, too.

Friday Fun

A site dedicated to ... shoelaces. More specifically different ways to tie and lace shoes. 

The New Socialism

Politically it's an idea of genius, engaging at once every left-wing erogenous zone: rich man's guilt, post-colonial guilt, environmental guilt.

The Green movement is the new plan for transferring wealth from the developed world through the UN to (the dictators in) the Third World.

Read the rest here.

ClimateGate as the tip of the iceburg

Most of the participants in Copenhagen seem intent on rushing headlong into a successor to the Kyoto Protocol. But it would seem more fruitful at this point to redouble our efforts to figure out what we do and don't know about the climate's past, present and future. That includes casting some much-needed sunshine on the data on which so much importance is being placed, but which so far has remained shielded from public view.

from the WSJ 

The first sign of corruption

 in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means. – Georges Bernanos

At this scale of government, corruption is endemic. It doesn't make that much of a difference which party sits on top of that much power. With the rare exception prosecuted by law enforcement, there is little immediate risk of penalty for dirty politicians. It takes years to get them voted out of office, and their local electorate might not be eager to displace a powerful, long-term incumbent with a new representative… especially if the incumbent has brought a lot of money home to the district, in addition to lining his own pockets. Big Government even corrupts thevoters.

The larger government becomes, the more its arrogant ruling class believe themselves worthy of royal treatment… and the more justified they feel about lying to the public for their own good. That is why the climate change elite gathered in Copenhagen this week is outraged that anyone would dare question their right to save a foolish world from itself, by lying through its teeth in a bid to seize power.

Read the rest. 

EPA to declare Carbon Dioxide a pollutant

"An endangerment finding from the EPA could result in a top-down command-and-control regime that will choke off growth by adding new mandates to virtually every major construction and renovation project," Thomas Donohue, president and CEO of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, said in a statement. "The devil will be in the details, and we look forward to working with the government to ensure we don't stifle our economic recovery."

Never mind that we're finding out that there has been a conspiracy among top global warming scientists to manipulate data models and to squash any dissenting research.  

How long can the blame game go on ...

From Victor Davis Hanson: 

Barack Obama, nearly a year into his term, is still talking about Bush culpability for everything from unemployment to Afghanistan.  At what year will it ever stop?

Bush inherited a nuclear Pakistan, a firewall between the CIA and FBI in matters of counter-terrorism, an appeased and ascendant Osama bin Laden, unsustainable no-fly zones over Iraq (the French had already bailed), al-Qaeda with a safe zone in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, and an intifada-prone Mideast—in other words, no more than the regular stuff. But I don't remember Bush talking of the creepy Clinton pardons—Eric Holder  being at their epicenter—after a year in office.

When Clinton arrived in January 1993, the Balkans were a mess, and no one knew what to do about Milosevic. Eastern Europe and the former republics had been promised varying degrees of NATO membership. And we were running staggering trade deficits, and in a recession. But even Clinton got over blaming Bush soon enough.

Bush I had to deal with an invigorated Saddam Hussein, the Kuwait mess, a Noriega who was out of control, easing the Soviets out of eastern Europe, a divided Berlin reuniting—and, again, the usual stuff.

Reagan inherited a demoralized military, an insane regime in Khomeini's Iran, a bellicose and appeased Soviet Union, and communist expansion in Central America.

In other words, nothing Obama has seen overseas is, by past standards, all that unusual. Iraq was mostly quiet when he assumed office. We had not been hit again since 9/11. The Patriot Act and anti-terrorism protocols were in play and working. The fact that he has not yet closed Guantanamo and kept Predators, tribunals, renditions, etc. apparently means he finds them useful—despite the reset rhetoric.

Steyn on global warming

"If you're 29, there has been no global warming for your entire adult life. If you're graduating high school, there has been no global warming since you entered first grade. There has been no global warming this century. None. Admittedly the 21st century is only one century out of the many centuries of planetary existence, but it happens to be the one you're stuck living in." 

In response to that, the shrieking pansies of the eco-left had a fit. The general tenor of my mail was summed up by one correspondent: "How can you live with your lies, dumb f–k?" George Soros's stenographers at Media Matters confidently pronounced it a "false claim." Well, take it up with Phil Jones. He agrees with me. The only difference is he won't say so in public.

Which is a bit odd, don't you think?

From here. 

What he believes ...

Thomas Friedman's opinion piece in the NY Times. 

He makes some good arguments. This in particular seems worth keeping in mind:

 Many big bad things happen in the world without America, but not a lot of big good things.

We may not like being the sole super power in the world today. And people elsewhere may not like us in that role either. But as our power decreases, the relative influence of other nations becomes greater. Raise your hands who wants to live in a world where China or Russia is the dominant power in the world.

Personally, on the Afghanistan situation I'm undecided. I agree with him that nation building there is not the same as in Iraq. It's a different mix of cultures with fewer people spread over a larger area. That said, whatever we decide I hope we back our decision appropriately. If we're in it, we need to be in it to win it.

jon stewart

on Climategate. Funny stuff.

Hear, hear!

Congressfolks introduce bill to set IRS penalties at level paid by Treasury Secretary Geithner - $0.

One (some) of the problems with

government.

Imagine ...

If these were internal Exxon-Mobil e-mails, the trial lawyers would be racing out the door with only one pants-leg filled and every Green press flack would be demanding this lead the evening news and front every newspaper above the fold. If similar e-mails came from the RNC showing racism or homophobia, the New York Times would not demur in the name of privacy, it would call for the GOP to go into federal receivership.

Seriously, this is a really big deal but it's not likely to be treated like it by the news megaliths because it doesn't fit the narrative.
But there's no media bias.
Never mind that the science that is the basis for the entire Global Warming panic that we are completely restructuring our economy over is now suspect and the most respected authorities on the subject have proven that they have been manipulating their findings and squashing results that don't agree with their own.

No argument here...

 A rule under which only politicians have guns strikes me as the worst of all possible worlds

What you won't see in the AP story on the health care bill ...

the inconvenient facts.

The long awaited correlation between politics and food preferences

This is kind of fun.

Gun control: using two hands instead of one

FIREARMS REFRESHER COURSE 1. "Those who hammer their guns into plows will plow for those who do not."~Thomas Jefferson 2. "Those who trade liberty for security have neither." ~ John Adams 3. Free men do not ask permission to bear arms. 4. An armed man is a citizen. An unarmed man is a subject. 5. Only a government that is afraid of its citizens tries to control them. 6. Gun control is not about guns; it's about control. 7. You only have the rights you are willing to fight for. 8. Know guns, know peace, know safety.     No guns, no peace, no safety. 9. You don't shoot to kill; you shoot to stay alive. 10. Assault is a behavior, not a device. 11. 64,999,987 firearms owners killed no one yesterday. 12. The United States Constitution (c) 1791. All Rights Reserved. 13. The Second Amendment is in place in case the politicians ignore the others. 14. What part of 'shall not be infringed' do you NOT understand? 15. Guns have only two enemies; rust and politicians. 16. When you remove the people's right to bear arms, you create slaves. 17. The American Revolution would never have happened with gun control. IF YOU AGREE, PASS THIS 'REFRESHER' ON TO TEN FREE CITIZENS.

 

--
tom

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.
 - Thomas Jefferson

Global cost of corruption: $1,600,000,000,000

... that's $1.6 trillion with a T - every year. That's an estimate, of course, since it's kind of hard to get a handle on that kind of transaction. Much of it, unfortunately, is stolen from the world's poorest nations. This only makes it harder to fix global hunger and poverty.

"This money is significantly greater than the value of all foreign development aid. It is more than the ten year cost of the health care bill that just passed the House. It would be enough to fund a worldwide basic health system and provide basic primary education to every child on earth. Over the next fifty years it will cost the world much more than climate change."

Are free markets trying to make a comeback in the U.S.?

The old is new again. Sign me up.

Worldwide resurgence in czars experiences setback

as the UK Drug Tsar gets fired for not perpetuating myths about drugs.

Cautionary note about Facebook games

Watch for scams in Farmville, Mafia Wars, and the rest of the FB games.

Boys club, White House style

from Prof. Althouse, via Prof. Reynolds.

Day by Day

Yeah, this pretty much sums it up ...

So's how's Healthcare reform working for Massachusetts

Short answer - not good.

Long answer.

A few highlights - but read the whole thing:

 Massachusetts has all the goodies in the Baucus bill:  subsidies, guaranteed issue, community rating, an individual mandate, and employer penalties.  Indeed, the Massachusetts program is probably to the left of where we're going to end up, on things like empowering the exchanges to negotiate with insurance companies and the size of the penalties for failing to procure insurance, two measures which are supposed to be critical for holding costs down.

and

And health-care costs have continued to grow rapidly. According to a Rand Corporation study this year, the growth now exceeds state GDP by 8%. The Boston Globe recently reported that state health-insurance commissioners are now worried that medical spending could push both employers and patients into bankruptcy, and may even threaten the system's continued existence. 

But why can't we be like Europe?

It's no good saying that well, we should try to be more like the Netherlands--you can't build a system on the assumption that you will, suddenly and for no apparent reason, be able to import someone else's political culture. 

and finally:

Progressives are watching the whole health care legislative process with utter dismay as it produces a monster of a bill that not even its mother could love--and trying to love it anyway, on the grounds that it's a start.  But this ridiculous hodgepodge, this hypertrophied Rube Goldberg apparatus, is not some startling aberration of the political process, induced by some Republican dark magic.  This is the kind of thing the American political system produces.  This is why all of our programs have a substantial element of the inexplicable and bizarre. 

Hard to argue with this

this

We've got the worst political class in American history, and its rottenness is pretty thoroughly bipartisan.

Why aren't we researching ways to remove excess CO2?

That makes more sense to me than trying to reconfigure the entire world energy structure ...

Governments are doing practically nothing to study the removal of carbon dioxide directly from the atmosphere, but this technology could be a much cheaper form of climate protection than photovoltaic cells and other approaches getting lavish support, according to an article published today in Science.

ACORN and Obama

With ACORN in the news for at least three separate instances of supporting child prostitution it's a good time to remember that one of our president's early jobs was as a community organizer with ACORN. And that ACORN was in line for $4 billion in stimulus money right after the president's inauguration even while they were under investigation for voter registration fraud.

I think if this was a Republican president, we'd be hearing a LOT more about this ...

legalize, regulate, treat, tax

From New Scientist: 

Better world: Legalise drugs

Far from protecting us and our children, the war on drugs is making the world a much more dangerous place.

ACORN back in the news

... well should be at least.

Sheesh.

You'd think an organization like this would be a black mark on a resume ...

Genius bar appointment? Seriously?

I had the same experience - and reaction - as Instapundit.

Never

forget...

Personal liberty

 ... larger government not only means less personal freedom but more corruption, influence peddling, and "rent seeking" as interest groups and industries inevitably must seek to sway government representatives and bureaucrats who would hold enormous power over their economic destiny.

 Let's avoid all that. (from here)

Best health care in America at the VA?

I was reading Paul Krugman's piece in the NYTimes about various approaches to universal coverage. He mentioned that "our own Veterans Health Administration, which is run somewhat like the British health service, also manages to combine quality care with low costs."

I had thought that there were a lot of problems with VA care, but apparently that's not the case these days. This piece talks about an article singing the praises - deservedly so, it seems - of the care provided by the VHA. 

I think Krugman downplays valid concerns about following the English or Canadian models - particularly since he got burned recently polling Canadians about their thoughts on their health service.

Still, the fact that the VA manages to provide superlative care definitely gives me food for thought. 

more whole foods fun

The agitator sees irony in the proposed whole foods boycott.

Why does health care cost so much in the US?

That's the question I typed into Google. About halfway down the results page I found this article from the NYTimes Bizness section.

Compared to other countries, health care is more expensive here. We knew that. Health care expenditures per capita seem to be closely related to GDP per capita - so countries with more money spend more on health care - makes sense. 

But that doesn't account for the discrepancy in the US. We pay more here for 

" factors other than G.D.P. per capita. Prominent among these other factors are:

1. higher prices for the same health care goods and services than are paid in other countries for the same goods and services;

2. significantly higher administrative overhead costs than are incurred in other countries with simpler health-insurance systems;

3. more widespread use of high-cost, high-tech equipment and procedures than are used in other countries;

4. higher treatment costs triggered by our uniquely American tort laws, which in the context of medicine can lead to "defensive medicine" — that is, the application of tests and procedures mainly as a defense against possible malpractice litigation, rather than as a clinical imperative."

Any real reform needs to address all those factors.  

Health care reform

The president's op-ed sounds reasonable. He usually sounds reasonable until he gets off message or off prompter - which is understandable, he doesn't actually have much experience after all. It's charming, really, the glimpses into his real attitudes and ideas.

I liked that he wrote so much about reforming Medicare. That's a great idea and since that's already a government program they should get started on that right away. For the rest I think we should wait and see how that part goes.

And for a look at what's ACTUALLY in one of the bills under consideration - so, to be clear, what the actual law would be as opposed to what the op-ed says - here are answers to a few questions like - 

df

WILL THE PLAN RATION MEDICAL CARE?

um ... yeah

WILL THE PLAN PUNISH AMERICANS WHO TRY TO OPT OUT?

un hunh - well, it imposes a tax penalty, so it would only actually punish the 60% or so who actually pay taxes ...

WILL THE PLAN DESTROY PRIVATE HEALTH INSURANCE?

yes - it doesn't outlaw it, but it creates a situation that is so disfavorable to private plans that they will be quickly marginalized if not completely eliminated.

DOES THE PLAN ALLOW THE GOVERNMENT TO SET FEES FOR SERVICES?

of course - as with medicare. 

There's more, please follow the link and read it all for yourself.

Underage drinking considered

Prof proposes teaching kids to drink Here. Well, kinda.

This should make some people happy

Chevron's profit plunges 71%

But maybe not since they did still make a profit.

Really?

Really? This is something the leader of the free world needs to do? A "Beer Summit"? Seems like the government is being run by PR flacks. I see a new reality TV show in the offing. Move over Judge Judy. President Barry's in the house.

Gadgets circa 1979

This is kind of fun

I was in 8th grade in 1979.

I had this. And I played it a fair amount. It was basically just trying to move one dot of light through others. 

Saw this in theaters. I was a huge Steve Martin fan - had two or three of his albums.

No internet. 

No cell phones. 

VHS players were still a pretty big deal. 

No CDs.

No PCs. 

No Macs.

hard to imagine...

That was 30 years ago.

30 years from now expect to look back with the same sort of amazement at how primitive things were.

It's good to be the government

Social Security Administration spends $700,000 on conference. Good thing the government's got plenty of money ...

"Nearly all my professors are Democrats. Isn't that a problem?"

Diversity! But not for you.

Separation of economy and state

Makes sense to me.

"Patrick Henry did not say "Give me a small rollback in government or give me death." He said: give meliberty. So should we."

Pilot Green Energy Program Looking Green Around the Gills

Austin Energy officials say that times have changed and that the nation's most successful (by volume of sales) green-energy program, which offers the renewable energy only to those who select it, might no longer be the best way to carry out the city's goals. It now costs almost three times more than the standard electricity rate.

Sounds like a good concept - customers who opted in were guaranteed a fixed rate for 10 years. The program started in 2000 and went well up until this year when costs have risen. Now 99 percent of the current offering is unsold.

All they need to do is tax the standard electricity at a 200% rate and the green energy becomes competitive. Duh.

Responding to the president's op-ed.

Medicare - the future of medical coverage?

One doctor's choice.

I have faith, courage, and enthusiasm!

Positive self-talk may actually have opposite effect. Who knew?

If democracy and human rights are high values, then all societies are not morally equal.

President Obama hasn't shown much interest in promoting democracy according to this piece in the Wall Street Journal. I think it's evident not only in his foreign policy and his speeches which are the focus of the article, but also in his governance. He seems to have taken to heart the adage that the most efficient form of government is a benign dictatorship. Congress and the media have shown little interest in balancing or pointing out his power grabs - placing the administration of the Census under direct control of the White House, strong-arming and firing independent Inspectors general to help out political allies. I'm not much of an alarmist, generally, and I expect the pendulum will eventually swing back, but I'm a little nervous about the direction we're heading.

*grin*

franken wins, franken wins, franken wins

sigh. 

I can't imagine anyone's surprised by this. Oh well.

What does it mean when the director of the Congressional Budget Office says:

Under current law, the federal budget is on an unsustainable path—meaning that federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.

Whatever it means it doesn't seem good. A cynic might think we're just creating a perpetual crisis situation that will require the government to continue to 'fix' things for the foreseeable future (or at least until 2012).

health care

I don't pretend to know how to fix the health care system in the US. I agree that there are issues and they need to be addressed. I fear throwing out the existing system and starting from scratch for a lot of reasons - many of them vague and hard for me to articulate. I don't have a lot of knowledge in this area - although I did work for a health insurance company for a while and we had premature twins who exposed us to some of the incredible expenses that come with the extremes of medical care. We were fortunate enough at the time to be on a health plan that essentially covered everything. Had we chosen a different plan option from my employer our personal expenses likely would have been more significant.

Michael Kinsley's column in the Washington Post captures one of my vaguely uneasy fears:

Statistics on life expectancy or infant mortality are averages. The easiest way to raise your averages -- maybe even the best way, if we're being honest -- is to concentrate on the general level of care and not to squander a lot on long-odds cases. But if the long-odds case is you or a family member, you may well feel differently.

 
Our twins - more accurately, the one who lived for 11 days as opposed to the one who died in utero - was a long-odds case who spent all of his short life in one of the the highest-rent district of the hospital - the neonatal intensive care unit. As his parent I would have been outraged if I'd been told that the odds were such that it didn't make financial sense to treat him.

I've spent a little time with Google tonight and there certainly are statistics to say that England and Canada - two nations with universal coverage - have better longevity rates and better infant mortality rates than we have in the US. Some of the commentary on those statistics, though, suggests that the statistics - as they often do even if they're mathematically correct - fail to encompass the whole story and that there are other factors reflected in those numbers other than just the health care systems of the respective countries.

It is a complex situation that deserves careful, transparent consideration with all parties represented - both private and public. We should not rush this decision to meet any arbitrary deadline.

You might be naive if

this surprises you.

please please please

don't put the government in charge of any more healthcare.

The Massachusetts plan that's being studied as a model for a national plan turns out not to have enough money.

There are good reasons the framers gave very limited powers to government and it's usually a mistake to expand those powers. When the government is in charge politics becomes the primary motivator.

I understand that a lot of people don't like profit as a motive because it seems greedy, but I think politics as a motive is at least equally greedy and considerably less transparent.

mediterranean diet

and living longer. A new study compares the effect of various components of the Mediterranean Diet on living longer. The bad news - I'm supposed to eat a lot less meat. sigh.

Only one approved opinion on

'climate change' at EPA. Luckily, with the new administration science will be separate from ideology. It must be so because The One said so.

Here's a more detailed piece.

Does a 'firm pledge' count

if nobody really believes it?

Can You Get Fit in Six Minutes a Week?

Apparently. Cool. I'm going to start doing that ... maybe next month.

supercharging the economy

8 modest proposals.

press show replaces press conference

yeesh. Wonder if they're selling overpriced popcorn and soda.

Why can't the president get an ice cream with his family?

I'm really no fan of President Obama, but I don't care at all if he wants to get an ice cream with his family.
Good for him, in fact. It's got to be hard being the First Family. I've always felt sorry for the kids, especially.
There are plenty of real issues to discuss.
This is just silly.

What happens to medical research under Obamacare?

Here's an amazing breakthrough (at least in trials) that took people with inoperable prostate cancer and virtually eliminated the tumor non-invasively and without chemo or radiation.

Will this kind of research still happen under a nationalized health system? How much of it happens under existing national health systems? Maybe it happens, now. I don't know, but I'm concerned about it. 

I'm really looking forward to a lot of medical breakthroughs in the next few decades to save me from my poor health choices going into my golden years.

New draconian rules for private pilots

This is kinda scary. I'm not a pilot, but I don't like the trend...

Why Obama’s big economic gamble is failing

Apparently he's a politician, not an economist.

"...current Obama budget chief Peter Orszag — concluded that an Obama-like economic stimulus package would be "totally impractical" because it would take so long to implement. (True enough, only seven percent of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act has been doled out so far.)"

It was impractical for actually helping the economy, but it's a cornucopia for consolidating power and rewarding loyal constituents. 

The Chicago way

White house getting out the guns for the knife fight. 

Obama removes AmeriCorps's Inspector General in spat with friend

Curious to see if we hear any more about this. 

To summarize - a federal inspector general investigated an Obama-supporting California Mayor (and former pro basketball player), Kevin Johnson, and found that he had misused AmeriCorps grant money. Johnson supposedly has agreed to pay back roughly $400,000, or almost half the grant money that was received by his non-profit group. This seems to suggest that the there was some substance to the investigation and one would hope the inspector responsible would be commended for saving money and reducing fraud. Instead, President Obama has 'lost confidence' in him and wants him fired. Gotta love that Chicago style politics.

Who's in charge of GM?

This guy - a 31 year old white house aide. Well, that makes sense.

Stimulus plan creating jobs

at an inverse rate. It's almost like the opposite of creating jobs. Probably, I just don't understand the numbers.

“Barack Obama invokes Jesus more than George W. Bush did.”

But with less conviction ... (quote from here)

You Scare Me, Mr. President

Letter from a former executive at Proctor and Gamble.

Is science at least as important as football?

Theo Gray wants to know.

Are religious conservatives to blame for abortion doc murder?

Question posed in USA Today.

My answer - they're to blame if they pulled the trigger - or conspired to have the trigger pulled. 

Otherwise, they're free to hold and express their opinion - at least for now. And hopefully that will always be true. If people aren't free to express opinions that others disagree with then we no longer have freedom of speech. The whole point of "free speech" is to be able to do just that. There's no need for the government to protect the right to express popular opinions.