Fish Czar

What does it mean when the cowards of yesterday are coming out in force and naming themselves the great thinkers of today. Is it just me, or is the fact that we have a "science czar" a little uncomfortable, especially when that man once published the following words: "...a fetus is no more a complete human being than a blueprint is a building."?



See related article here. Honestly, I'm a little troubled here. Our current administration is looking into managing health care, deciding how to deal with the elderly (death counseling etc.), and deciding at what point a human is in fact a human. This is so troubling that I think most of us simply ignore it as an overblown trivial issue. Do you have any idea how many abortions take place each year. It's an awesome number. And I don't mean that in the cool way. It is staggering! And that's just counting what the government is able to track.

It's not just that the mere volume of abortions is so enormous that troubles me alone; it's the fact that our society willingly accepts it and convinces itself through faulty logic that killing a child is not killing a child. The thinking goes: "It's legal sometimes, so it must not be immoral." Sin city is far from Vegas, it's at your local Planned Parenthood. Of course violent retaliation upon the employees of Planned Parenthood is unacceptable. Violence against the administration is unacceptable. I don't know what the answer is to stopping this failure of ours to understand the difference between what's right and what's convenient for covering up our mistakes.

It seems like we, as a people, voted for Obama to cover up previous mistakes. In a way, I feel like he is the consequence of our current abortion of conservatism. We the people, having perhaps felt that conservatism has failed us, are deciding to be rid of it, soon to find ourselves one lonely evening crying in our beds because of the terrible thing we've done. We'll wake up to miss what we had: like a newborn child; a responsibility beyond measure and a freedom beyond compare. We'll be left with a liberal shell; a bloody pile of wasted tissue.

I like Obama. That is, if I were to see him in person, I bet it would be hard not to be taken in by his charm. I bet he would know just what to say to me to make me feel comfortable. He's cool. He's funny and charismatic. But then I remember that so were so many other leaders that led their nations to disaster. I also remember Michelle Obama's nightmarish words that "Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual...unengaged, uninformed...", and that reminds me that the actions being taken right now are not in the interest of a people that are governing themselves. They are the actions of an elitist administration that has forgotten that the people are the carpenter and the government his tools, not the other way around.

Cowards are those in government that use the people as their tools for success. It's easy to make promises to give people what they want. It's easy to convince yourself of your own power to give them what you think they need. It's hard to let them tell you and truly listen. It's much easier to give a man a fish than teach him how. There are those in congress and in the administration that look to me as if they are trying to control the oceans while handing out minnows.

We Want Soto!

I was watching C-Span during my lunch break today. Why? Because nothing great was on Comedy Central, that's why. So the famous Sotomayor has been voted in as a supreme court judge. You can check out the video of the committee making that decision by clicking here. It gives an interesting perspective of the difference in thinking patterns between liberals and conservatives. Particularly between Senators Cornyn of Texas and Durbin of Illinois.

Of particular interest is the lack of logic in Durbin's commentary. The emphasis on her race and gender is out of proportion to its importance and often appears to take precedence over her true qualifications. Perhaps she will be an excellent judge. I hope so. But the fact that she is a Latina woman and the possibility that fact will encourage young Latina girls to seek better education and a better life is a bonus. It is not a qualification in and of itself. The current emphasis on her status as a minority is backwards. It is her ability, wisdom, and citizenship that matter, and whether or not she's black, white, yellow, a purple Teletubby, male, female, androgynous, or a giant talking anteater matters not one stitch of a damn. After giving numerous reasons why a lifetime appointment to supreme court is so incredibly important (none of which were race or gender related), Dick Durbin follows his own point by reminding the committee that the vast majority of supreme court justices have been white males, therefore Sotomayor's appointment is an amazing opportunity almost too good to pass up. This is his key focal point on why she is a good pick, not because she matched the definition he gave seconds earlier of what makes a good judge. To rephrase his speech into a simpler analogy, it's as if he'd said: "I like marshmallows for their gooeyness, flavor, and texture, but I'm buying this particular package of marshmallows because I and my liberal president like pink, and by-golley these are some really pink marshmallows. Look how pink they are! They couldn't be anything but gooey, tasty, and firm." Makes perfect sense to me, Dick.

In honor of Soto's confirmation and our more liberal brethen's impression that we, the American people, are generally "uninformed" I direct you to some resources regarding the law of this land. First, an introduction to the US Code and the Federal Register courtesy of Wikipedia. Secondly, there is a new link in the "Lifeline to Reality" section to the right (where all those random links are). It is called "Law of the Land" where you can access things like the US Code and the Federal Register and Library of Congress. These resources will allow you to research the law as it exists and keep track of bills before they become law. Maybe you can stop some bad ones or encourage some good ones by contacting your representatives and letting them know what you want.

This is...

...by far the coolest thing I've seen this week, top 5 from this month.



The beat-boxer doing his air-drumming is the best part.

Complications

Well, the health care reform bill is not going to be voted on in House or Senate before the congressional holiday that starts in August.
I do want to point you to this post though, not so much because of the topic of the post per se (Dems trying to obstruct Republican efforts to communicate with their constituents) but because of the chart.
See this chart (.pdf) that shows the incredibly convoluted nature of ObamaCare. You don't even have to read the chart. One glance tells you all you need to know. If you do read it, however, it's even worse.

Happy Birthday Uncle Tessie!

If not for the almighty Google, I would have completely missed Nikola Tesla's birthday. What an interesting and mysterious figure that fellow was. The man was ahead of his time and quite possibly working on science that we still haven't figured out to this day. From what I understand, before his death, he was working on wireless energy transfer. Imagine being able to power your home without wires to the energy company and no ginormous solar panels on the roof. Check out a biography on Tesla here.

Uninformed

A line in Grimp's last post reminded me of something I read yesterday.

And while they [politicians] remind you how you are unengaged and uninformed...

I find this interesting and ironic. Literally no member of congress read the entirety of the porkulus bill. It was too big and rushed out the door too fast for anyone to read it. It was rushed because Mr. The One and his friends said it had to be rushed, the economy was going to collapse tomorrow if it wasn't passed, strike while the iron is hot, etc etc. As Grimp said, look where it's gotten us. The dire emergency wasn't really averted or helped at all by rushing a crap piece of legislative pork out the door.
The health care bill is another matter. There is no, literally no, excuse for rushing a health care bill. Health care costs cannot be definitively shown to significantly impact or be a danger to the US economy. The economy is certainly not in danger of collapsing again tomorrow (or next week or next month or in six months) if Our Politicians don't do something to radically overhaul the health care industry.
I bring up the stimulus bill and the health care bill for one reason: Steny Hoyer's honesty.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Tuesday that the health-care reform bill now pending in Congress would garner very few votes if lawmakers actually had to read the entire bill before voting on it.

“If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,” Hoyer told CNSNews.com at his regular weekly news conference. (via cnsnews.com)

Unengaged and uninformed. Yep. That describes Washington to a "t".

Public Enemies

Politics is simply the art of making the best of imperfect decisions on behalf of someone else that you are supposed to be representing. No matter what you do, you are sure to help someone and hurt someone else. You can even make the right choice and still hurt the wrong people. No doubt it is challenging and takes a special character to do it right. There are those in politics who take their job seriously and do a great job of it. Then there are those who seem to think they are God's gift to America and are serious in their jobs insofar as they get to ride in the cool jet and blather on tv as if they are professionals on topics that surpass their comprehension. They are the enlightened ones; the elites who will bring wealth, health, world peace, and a cooler climate to we, the meager masses. Sound familiar? The promises roll in almost faster than the money rolls out. The entitlements that sound so wonderful and caring often prolong and augment the problems they are designed to correct. Or were they really designed to correct anything? And while they remind you how you are unengaged and uninformed, they cause inflation and devalue the dollars you use to buy groceries or have saved up for emergencies, telling you all the while to give more to the community while they grow fatter on their programs, perks, and parties. Interesting how unemployment goes up as more dollars are spend to "stimulate" the economy. The only thing being stimulated are Al Franken's sunken testes. Are we really going to keep being okay with this situation? As we expect more and more of an ambiguous autonomous government, we will expect less and less of ourselves. In the end, what we will have left is an ambiguous autonomous government and a pitiful public that will thank God for the scraps it is given from whatever is left over.

PIDDLE

Obama, the politician, described.

Teenagers and their sex drive

The Political Law of Unintended Consequences continues...except that this consequence was so very obvious, you'd have to be stupid...or a liberal...to not see it coming.
From the UK:

A multi-million pound initiative to reduce teenage pregnancies more than doubled the number of girls conceiving.

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

Original article here, commentary here. A PW commenter puts it very succinctly:

Don’t ya love it? Am I the only one to notice that if a leftist/liberal/democrat says that doing “A” will stop “B” from happening then YOU KNOW that what’s going to REALLY happen is more “B”?

Rents high?
Introduce rent control = Higher rents.

Teens getting pregnant?
Teach them birth control = More teen pregnancies.

High cost of Health care?
Government backed health insurance = Higher health care costs.

Economy in recession?
Government bailouts and buyouts and stimulus = Depression.

High murder rate in cities?
Eliminate citizens owning guns = highest murder rate in U.S.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

Innovation

In yet another case of the free market doing its thing, we have the Curious Case of the Incandescent Light Bulb:

When Congress passed a new energy law two years ago, obituaries were written for the incandescent light bulb. The law set tough efficiency standards, due to take effect in 2012, that no traditional incandescent bulb on the market could meet, and a century-old technology that helped create the modern world seemed to be doomed. But as it turns out, the obituaries were premature.

The 2012 law was supposed to take out "inefficient" incandescent light bulbs and, essentially, mandate CFL bulbs for all. This despite the presence of mercury in CFL bulbs that, when smashed (in a garbage dump, for instance) would leak the poisonous substance into the ground. Environmentalists seemed not to notice the irony.
Well now there's another alternative, thanks to the free market and the innovation of scientists at Phillips. The incandescent makes a comeback.

But they are also 30 percent more efficient than older bulbs. Philips says that a 70-watt Halogena Energy Saver gives off the same amount of light as a traditional 100-watt bulb and lasts about three times as long, eventually paying for itself.

At $5 a pop, they are a little more than 50% more expensive than CFLs, but they don't contain mercury and they don't have the harsh lighting characteristic of CFLs. Expect innovation to continue, prices to drop, and technology to improve even more before 2012.

The Travesty that is Nationalized Health Care, a continuing series

Yes, I keep beating this drum. And I will continue to do so until the stupid idea is defeated and shown for the ignorant sham it is.
Statist Health Care, by the numbers:

13: The number of teeth that British veteran Ian Boynton pulled out himself with pliers “because he couldn’t find an NHS (National Health Service) dentist… [he] could not afford to go private for treatment so instead took the drastic action to remove 13 of his teeth that were giving him severe pain.”

More:

1,500,000: The number of Canadians who do not have — and cannot find — a general practitioner/primary care physician due to shortages in medical staff

Read it all.

5 1/2 Months

Mr. Obama has been President for almost six months now. As we approach that marker, we will be inundated with "How has He done?" stories from various and sundry sources. Let's get out ahead of that trend and review a few things.

First, an easy recap: the economic policy review, courtesy of Keith Hennessey. I found this statement revealing:

In my judgment, four initiatives that the Administration hyped heavily appear dead or nearly dead: PPIP, foreclosure prevention, small business lending, and climate change.

On foreign policy, he's screwed up on Russia (first the the reset button and now wanting to ratify treaties without Senate approval), Iran (not supporting democracy), and Honduras (not supporting democracy). Inasmuch as we can attribute the Maersk captain's rescue from the pirates to Obama, he got that one right. Or at least it turned out alright. He hasn't said or done anything of substance about North Korea, despite repeated missile launches in violation of international law, most recently on July 4. Oh, Guantanamo. Guantanamo, that Obama railed against on the campaign trail. Guantanamo, where Obama has quietly kept almost all Bush-era policies.

So...mostly bad. Let's give him a half a star, out of five.

Pesky Actuals

Unemployment primer for those who still think that government should be running the economy: click here.

Ancient Texts United and Distributed with Modern Science

What is it? Read about it here.

Find Codex Sinaiticus by clicking here. It seems a little hard to navigate right now (probably a work in progress).