Health. Care?

Please stand in line to read article here.

Friedman

Confession: I have gone my entire adult political life without reading or listening to Milton Friedman. I agree with his political economics (because Reagan did), but my experience with him is second-hand. After watching this, I need to go find a copy of Capitalism and Freedom and read it.

This interview is from December 1975, but it's funny/sad that, with the exception of a handful of data points (ie. minimum wage at $2.50), Friedman could very well be describing the political and economic climate of today. The clip is 28 minutes long, but well worth it.

The Perverse Recession

VDH has a great article today. My favorite part:

4). Politicians have become like the CEOs they caricature. The only difference is that their poorly-run corporations cannot go broke. How odd to see a spendthrift Bank of America or Citibank mogul chewed up by a profligate Senator who is responsible not for $100 billion in subprime toxic assets, but for $13 trillion in run up deficits. Strange it is to see Nancy Pelosi rail about private jets for corporations that indirectetly get US subsidies when she flies on one through direct government subsidies. The truth is that now it is far better to be Speaker of the House, Senate Majority Leader, or House whip making a paltry $200,000 or so than to be the head of Goldman-Sachs or GM. The jets are better, the traffic-interrupting motorcades are quicker, the perks, free food, gas, car, or limo are as good or superior, and the deference and status outdo those in the corporate world. A cabinet officer or Congressional leader gets all the slush of the CEOs without the risk or liability of going broke. There is no broke—ever. You come into office, spend, take the perks, and go out leaving a greater debt to your successor who likewise prints more money. And if you are a Ted Stevens, Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd or John Murtha, instead of obscene stock options, your freebies aren’t even taxed—or known.

Flushing it down the Pot

I've become sick. Sick to my gut. Sick to my gut of the mentality that anyone who is poor deserves to be bailed out by the more fortunate. Christianity teaches that men should love one another and help the poor, especially widows and orphans (in other words people who have hit hard times and need help). Notice I said, NEED help. Not simply those that WANT help. After all, the poor in America often live a life of luxury compared to 90% of the rest of the world. Not all of the poor or homeless are 100% responsible for their situation, of course, but neither are they all entitled to partake in the wealth that others have gained through hard work, persistence, maybe some luck, some planning, and time. Is it really okay to simply aggregate the efforts of the fortunate for those less so? Answer: not without stripping away the freedom and incentive from both.

The reason I write this post is because I recently learned of a rather poor family here in town (and by poor, I really just mean that they have 1 car instead of 2, live in an older home, and probably get clothes at Wal-mart instead of Macy's). The mother and father are married and both have children from other mates. Yes, they are minorities. They have two bright and eager children, both capable of great futures. They have a huge tv, sound system, and guess what...their house smells like pot. The children seem well cared for, but what of their financial future? What of their college tuition? This is a family that takes part in Big Brothers Big Sisters. So money is spent on this family by the volunteers of this program. Yet Obama and other lefties want people like these volunteers to pay more and more by funding their college. What they will end up doing is subsidizing the parent's drug habit. The more I learn, the more I see that liberals will gladly suck us all dry like vampires if they can. To me there are few more putrid acts of man than that of pissing a child's future away and then expecting a hand out. There may be one sin more egregious: the act of supporting this behavior by enforcing it with law.

So thanks lefties. Thanks for writing and enforcing legislation that ironically persecutes those that pay their taxes, mortgages, and credit card bills, while you and your supporters and appointed officials simply lie on your taxes and live off the rest like ticks in the crack of America.

Read "Our Battered American"

Now "Pause and Take a Deep Breath"

Breitbart's Weekly

Check it.

Bring the Paine

Misspelling was intentional in case you wondered. It's time to listen to reason from 200 years ago because the reasoning powers of today seem to suck biscuits: Click here for enlightenment.

The Law of Unintended (?) Consequences, part 3271

The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008 affects (among other things) children's books, children's clothes, children's bicycles, and Goodwill and other thrift stores. Not to mention the eeeeeevil horrors of dumping all those products that have been mandated as unusable or "dangerous" into landfills. Ridiculous.

Honestly? Tell me something, anything good that has come out of congress in the last 30 years. Preferably something that wasn't a rectification of a problem they caused themselves.

BANK-ruptcy

When it comes to businesses going down the tubes, I am not in favor of nationalization of businesses, or industries. I am in favor of creative destruction. This post gives a different spin to the debate on nationalization - the author suggests calling it a bankruptcy, because that's what it is - as long as the government is not involved in running the newly reorganized firm. For the life of me, I can't find much to criticize about his points. Read it and see what you think.

To my son, and his son, and his son:

I'm sorry. I'm sorry the government of my day is full of nitwits and socialists. I'm sorry that on my son's 2nd birthday, his future was irrevocably made a little less bright.
I'm sorry. I hope that one day you will be able to crawl out from the crushing mountain of debt and taxes you will be responsible for, and you can forgive us for being stupid with your future.

Here's the full list, broken down by category, of what $318,723,307,000 (plus interest) has bought the people of today, at the expense of the people of tomorrow.
Here are the tax cuts, credits, bonds, and grants, totaling $480,533,000,000 (estimated).

Remember, not one single member of congress actually read the entire bill before voting on it. There were a grand total of three Republican votes in all of congress.

I need a drink.

What news anchors do during commercial breaks

Classic, and oddly impressive.
For some reason, I can see us doing this back in college. The sound effects the guy uses make this even funnier.

Evolution Part I of...we'll see

On this, the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin, we gather to ponder the concept of evolution. Charles didn't invent evolution, of course, nor was he even the first to contemplate the possibility. What he did, however, was perceive connections between species and realize that perhaps they branch from each other and develop over long periods of time to adapt to their environment. Finches with larger beaks able to eat the local nuts tended to parent little finchlings with larger beaks able to eat the nuts, etc. Little beak toters tended to starve or travel elsewhere with smaller nuts, I suppose.

But before we get into all of that, there is a more critical starting place. Ponder these two terrifyingly obvious yet mind numbingly impossible scenarios, one of which, it would seem, must be true: either the universe has always existed, or it has not always existed. Your options for the reality of the universe in which you live are unthinkable eternity going back to infinity or unimaginable nothingness which gave birth to a rapidly expanding universe capable of, not only harboring, but in effect creating life itself.

Man, in his search for meaning has increased his knowledge of detail of the universe, yet this detail seems never ending whether abstracted outwardly or inwardly. The word atom comes from the Greek, atomos, which effectively means indivisble. Yet, today, we know that the atom is a tiny universe unto itself.

Until next time...cheers.

Amish Paradise

I consider myself technologically proficient. I love gadgets, new and old. I like to play around with them, read about them online, look at them in Best Buy, and occasionally buy one for myself. My wife calls me a nerd.
On the other end of the spectrum, we have the Amish. Or so I thought. It turns out that there is such a thing as Luddite techno-nerds. The Amish aren't quite as simplistic as we think. Check out this article.
Best part:

I visited one retrofit workshop run by a strict Mennonite. Marlin was a short beardless man (no beards for the Mennonites). He uses a horse and buggy, has no phone, but electricity runs in the shop behind his home. They use electricity to make pneumatic parts. Like most of his community, his kids work along side him. A few of his boys use a propane powered fork lift with metal wheels (no rubber so you can't drive it on the road) to cart around stacks of heavy metal as they manufacture very precise milled metal parts for pneumatic motors and for kerosene cooking stoves, an Amish favorite. The tolerances needed are a thousand of an inch. So a few years ago they installed a massive, $400,000 computer-controlled milling (CNC) machine in his backyard, behind the horse stable. This massive half-million dollar tool is about the dimensions of a delivery truck. It is operated by his 14-year old daughter, in a bonnet.

Completely awesome.

Gotta Love 'em

Gotta love congress when they create a socialistic solution and then grill the participants as scapegoats. Oh, I know...let's do it more and bigger. The hot seat? Really? For participating in the plan?

Don't Care

Ham it up Chuck! In fact, I don't care so much I'm thinking of FedEx'ing you a pulled pork sandwich with the cash I've got in my wallet. Ah, heck, I'll just send you a cashier's check for what's left in my checking account and let you name my firstborn child. In fact, you can even date my daughter when she comes of age, have the keys to my car, and stay at my house on weekends. But wait, there's more. I'll even throw in my free will, and if you act now, you can have my soul. Operators are standing by. So here's a quarter, Chuck. Call someone who cares.

Stimulus Lite, or a Reasonable Facsimilie Thereof

Now, here's a Democrat plan I might get behind.
Walt Minnick (D-ID) has taken the ideas in the Porkfest Act of 2009 that might actually create some short-run stimulus and stripped out everything else. Then he puts a short time line on the bill (2010) and public accountability (sadly, sadly lacking in TARP and the Porkfest Act of 2009) and shockingly comes out with something slightly resembling a reasonable use of taxpayer funds.
Funnily enough, as noted here, this is very similar to a plan Obama campaigned on. Why isn't this the plan he's pushing instead of one $700 billion more expensive? He does want to keep his campaign promises, right? Will anyone pay attention? Will anyone call him out on it?
I note that there's no tax cuts in here, as the Republican alternative bills have proposed, and it's silly to think giving money just to the lower and middle classes (they are not the job-creators) is the way to jump start the economy, but it's a start.

The Reality of Abortion

See Reagan's essay on Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation from 1983 (interestingly, the same year that "Faithfully" by Journey came out on the Frontiers album).

Here is a link where you can read a little bit about what abortion actually is instead of just focusing on the ambiguous meaningless term it has become - medical information about abortion. Read for yourself. There are many ways to kill a child.

That's the reality folks. You do have free choice. What will you make of it? Even if you have made the wrong choices in the past, there is still a future left for you to enjoy, free from guilt. The choices you make now are crucial.

For those who have been through abortion and might need help, here is a link to some professional resources that I hope might lead you to a more comforted place in your life.

As the author John Powell once said in regards to mothers who had undergone abortion: "Please believe that you are not alone. There are many of us that truly love you, who want to stand at your side, and help in any way we can."

As mother Teresa said: "If you don't want the little child, that unborn child, give him to me."

Influenza isn't political

Here is an interesting (short) article on maybe why the flu spreads quicker/easier in winter. My town has the bug going around right now (second or third time this winter, I think) so this one caught my attention.

No Wonder

Well put...

Also, this is kinda fun, considering there are only around 300 million folks living in the US.

Heh

Good questions.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Tax Avoidance

Didn't I tell you earlier there's always more than one cockroach?

How about this:

Nancy Killefer (didn't pay taxes, thrown under bus)
Tom Daschle (didn't pay taxes, was very sorry)
Tim Geithner (didn't pay taxes, was also very sorry, now heads IRS)
Carol Browner (communist)
Hillary Clinton (pay for play)
Bill Richardson (pay for play, thrown under bus)

Not to mention Charlie Rangel (writes tax law for congress, didn't pay taxes)

And the fact that Mr. The One promised (with his fingers crossed behind his back, no doubt) to allow to lobbyists to infiltrate his administration...except that he's already done it 17 times.

Pop quiz

Question: What's laden with pork, a burden on my child's future, and costs twice as much as the Iraq War? Oh, and ineffective at stimulating the economy.

Two guesses and the first one doesn't count.