Sunday, July 19, 2009,6:02 AM
Move Over, Fellas
There's a new editorial page in town.

It's called the weblog.

It has to be tough these days to write commentary for a newspaper. News breaks, information is compiled, information is checked, sources are checked, the editorial committee bats around an editorial response, proofreading, editing, rewrites, more committee discussions, final proofs ...

By then everyone on the planet has heard the news, read the analysis, absorbed the implications, and moved on.

Case in point: The poor Roanoke Times.

The following is an editorial about a subject that the Democrats brought up a long time ago, one that was subsequently dropped - because it was found to be completely baseless. A long time ago.

And the boys at the Times are just now getting around to addressing it. Heck, it's been so long since I covered it, I had to go to the archives to refresh my memory:
Cheney and the CIA
editorial

President Obama's reluctance to investigate the possible legal wrongdoings of his predecessor is understandable, if unfortunate.

Understandable because such an investigation would heighten partisan rancor and detract from Obama's broad, forward-looking agenda.

Unfortunate because evidence continues to mount that the Bush administration abused executive authority and trampled the law.

Obama's reluctance may need to be overcome to get to the bottom of the latest revelation: Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly ordered the CIA to keep a secret counterterrorism program shielded from congressional oversight.

Details of the program are murky ... [link]
Actually details of the program became unmurky a week ago when it was determined that the program was never even a program. It was a discussion. Nothing more.

But the Times - a week late and a story short - comes to us with pithy commentary about what ought to be done to correct this grievous wrong. The one that the rest of us quit paying attention to when Michael Jackson died. The wrong that everyone now knows was never a wrong.

I expect a response from the Times to this weblog post sometime around November.

Of 2010.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:39 AM
They're Blind
A state government task force came to Roanoke the other day trying to get its arms around the issue of poverty. Commendably, it was seeking solutions to that seriously growing problem. Predictably, the government task force was presented with a range of government solutions.

More of the same, in other words:
Officials hear 50 solutions to poverty
By Mason Adams, Roanoke Times

Finding problems associated with poverty during this national recession isn't difficult.

On Saturday, state officials visited 25 localities around the commonwealth seeking a much rarer commodity: solutions to those problems.

They found 50 at Virginia Western Community College in Roanoke, where individuals and representatives from local government and nonprofit agencies stepped up to give two-minute spiels on their ideas.

The suggestions -- which ranged from streamlining the welfare application process to reinstating the 36 percent annual interest rate cap on payday and car title loans -- will be compiled by the Virginia Poverty Reduction Taskforce into a report that will be delivered to Gov. Tim Kaine and the two major-party candidates for governor. Kaine will subsequently make recommendations to the Virginia General Assembly, probably by this fall.

Many of the suggested poverty solutions involve more state funding, which will likely be a tough sell during a time when lawmakers have been faced with cutting programs and services because of shrinking revenues.

TAP [Total Action Against Poverty] President Ted Edlich called for universal health care and better regional cooperation.

Correlli Rasheed, who also works with TAP, said that public transportation should be expanded and that rights to felons should be more quickly restored once they leave prison.

Jo Nelson, who helps with TAP's work force-development program, said that welfare requirements should be changed to allow ... [link]
We need more government help.

We need more government help.

We need more government help.

We need more government help.

Meanwhile our governments are on the verge of implosion because of a lack of funds because they have provided more help - trillions of help - to the poor - an ever-expanding demographic - than they have available to them.

Government poverty programs have failed us over the last four decades.

So let's do more of them!

Someday someone is going to stand up at one these bullshitfests and ask: How do we get all those thousands of employers who left here and moved their jobs to China back here to the USA?

I guarantee you this: The answer doesn't involve ...

... streamlining the welfare application process, or ...

... reinstating the 36 percent annual interest rate cap on payday and car title loans, or ...

... more state funding, or ...

... universal health care, or ...

... regional cooperation (?), or ...

... public transportation needing expansion, or ...

... welfare requirements needing to be changed.

The government - THE PROBLEM - taxes too much. The government regulates too much. The government badgers too much.

You want answers? China - where taxes are lower, regulations are less onerous, and where government allows commerce to thrive unimpeded - China - where thousands of Virginia jobs have fled - is expanding like crazy. This isn't rocket science. Look to China. Do what China does. Do what we once did. In a day when we were rolling in jobs and poverty wasn't nearly the problem it is today.

A day when we knew what we were doing and didn't need silly government conferences to figure that out.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:35 AM
Quote of the Day
On ObamaCare, Investor's Business Daily:
When it's all whittled down, as few as 12 million are unable to buy insurance — less than 4% of a population of 305 million. For this we need to nationalize 17% of our nation's $14 trillion economy and change the current care that 89% like?
"Reformers' Claims Just Don't Add Up," July 17, 2009
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,5:09 AM
At Least They're Honest
This comes to us - via the New York Times - from an infamous Princeton PhD - the one who not only supports infanticide but encourages it - Peter Singer. I bring that up because it makes his call for cutting the elderly loose when it comes to nationalized health care more readily understood.

Singer:
Why We Must Ration Health Care

Rationing health care means getting value for the billions we are spending by setting limits on which treatments should be paid for from the public purse. If we ration we won’t be writing blank checks to pharmaceutical companies for their patented drugs, nor paying for whatever procedures doctors choose to recommend. When public funds subsidize health care or provide it directly, it is crazy not to try to get value for money. The debate over health care reform in the United States should start from the premise that some form of health care rationing is both inescapable and desirable. Then we can ask, What is the best way to do it?

As a first take, we might say that the good achieved by health care is the number of lives saved. But that is too crude. The death of a teenager is a greater tragedy than the death of an 85-year-old, and this should be reflected in our priorities. We can accommodate that difference by calculating the number of life-years saved, rather than simply the number of lives saved. If a teenager can be expected to live another ... [link]
This is what you can expect from government health care. Your age will determine the extent of care that you'll receive.

And America is rapidly aging.

The bottom line: Cut 'em loose. Cut us loose. Save money.

That's what passes for "health care for all" in leftistland.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:48 AM
We're Back To That
It's time someone explained to the leadership of the Episcopal Church (USA) what the word "inclusivity" means. Last time I checked my trusty Webster's, it didn't define the word as having anything to do with driving a huge portion of your flock OUT.

Yet that's what those leaders have done over the last few years. Conservative members of this once-proud, once-large mainline church have fled in droves since it was decided to jam the homosexual issue down their throats. It being done, as bizarre as it sounds, in the name of "inclusivity."

So how is the leadership reacting to its plummeting membership count? What's it going to do to keep its members from all becoming Baptists?

Need you ask?
Pared-Down Episcopal Church Is Looking to Grow Through ‘Inclusivity’
By Laurie Goodstein, New York Times

Anaheim, Calif. — The Episcopal Church is betting its future on the hope that there are more young people out there like Will Hay.

Mr. Hay, 17, was one of the youngest voting delegates at the church’s 10-day triennial convention, which ended Friday. He has stuck with his church, even when the priest and most of the parishioners in his conservative San Diego parish quit the Episcopal Church two years ago in protest of its liberal moves, particularly the approval in 2003 of an openly gay bishop, V. Gene Robinson. Mr. Hay has helped rebuild his parish, which was left with 48 people and has since drawn nearly 100 new members.

Mr. Hay is no left-wing ideologue, and in fact fears that some of the convention’s landmark decisions last week may alienate even more conservatives. The church’s convention voted not to stand in the way if another gay bishop were elected and to allow for the blessing of same-sex couples.

But Mr. Hay was not troubled by those things. And he believes that the church can grow by emphasizing “inclusivity,” the favorite buzzword of Episcopalians.

Whether Episcopalians really can regenerate a church based on youth and “inclusivity” remains to be seen. [link]
This guy has a future in his church. He believes in "inclusivity" and thinks, at the same time, that his church made the right decision about embracing homosexuality, even though it will drive out - exclude - conservative members of that same church.

That's the Episcopal definition of inclusion.

This kid will go far.

Though his church may not. A large percentage of its target audience - the gay population - never attends church.

But maybe he'll change all that.

Maybe he won't.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:42 AM
'America Is Not At War. America Is At The Mall'
That's a quote that I read the other day. Origin unknown.

It's worth mentioning, as you head out to church and then to the Mall this morning, that we are, in fact, still at war:
Captive G.I. on Video by Taliban
By the Associated Press

Washington (AP) — The American soldier who disappeared June 30 in eastern Afghanistan, and was later confirmed to have been captured, appears on a video posted Saturday to a Web site by the Taliban, two United States defense officials said.

The soldier is shown in the 28-minute video with his head shaved and the start of a beard. He is sitting, wearing a nondescript gray outfit.

American defense officials confirmed that the man in the video is the captured soldier.

The soldier says the date is July 14. He says he was captured when he lagged behind on a patrol. [link]
We hope for his speedy and safe return.

In the meantime, the war goes on.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:36 AM
Just Like That Hemorrhoid That Won't Go Away
This is truly déjà vu all over again.

I related the story on these pages long ago about the man and the incident that made me an enemy of environmentalists forever. The moment at which I realized they weren't just reckless; they were criminally dangerous.

It occurred on an episode of CNN's Crossfire show way back in the early to mid-eighties (I think). The guest was then-Senator Tim Wirth of Colorado. A big environmentalist then and now. He was being asked about legislation pending before Congress that had to do with the environment - ozone holes, as I remember.

The pivotal moment came about something like this:

Interviewer: "But there is no evidence to back up that which you claim."

Wirth: "We can't wait for evidence. If we wait for evidence to be brought forth, it will be too late. We must act."

There is no evidence to back up what I'm saying, so let's so let's do what I'm saying.

Which, if you think about it, is a great argument for burning witches at the stake and setting cookies and milk out on Christmas Eve for Santa.

The man shocked me into a lifelong reality: He is delusional, dangerous, and prepared to alter our way of life so as to conform us to his twisted worldview.

I now make it my business to do what I can to combat his kind at every turn.

So why do I bring this up now?

Guess who's back:
Wirth delivers ‘extreme words’ on climate change to energy execs at COGA conference
By Cathy Proctor, Denver Business Journal

Calling his own speech “extreme words,” Tim Wirth, a former U.S. senator from Colorado and now head of the United Nations Foundation, told natural gas executives Wednesday they are running out of time to position their industry as part of the solution to climate change.

“You don’t have the right to sit back and do nothing [about climate change],” Wirth told a crowd of nearly 2,000 people at the Colorado Convention Center, responding to a question about what the industry should do about climate change legislation in the U.S. Congress. “We are in very deep trouble, the edge of catastrophe, and you can help.” [link]
We're running out of time.

Again.

Or is it still?

With jokers like this, it may be a never-ending "edge of catastrophe."

I learned long ago to not trust a word people like Wirth say.

You'd do well to do the same.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:23 AM
Oh, Those Devilish Details
Get this:
With Push Toward Renewable Energy, California Sets Pace for Solar Power
By Felicity Barringer, New York Times

San Francisco — A decade ago, only 500 rooftops in California boasted solar panels that harvest the sun’s energy. Today, there are nearly 50,000 solar-panel installations in the state, according to a report to be issued Thursday by the research and lobbying group Environment California.

As a result, California, the longtime national leader in solar energy, has a capacity of more than 500 megawatts of solar power at peak periods in the early afternoon — the same as a major power plant.

The solar capacity in California grew by a third from 2007 to 2008. [link]
Jumpin' Jehosaphat! That's BIG!

Now I understand what Obama and his bunch are talking about when they extol the virtues of the renewable energy economy.

500 to 50,000 in ten years.

Rock on!

Uh, what?

Gimme that again?
But even with the increases of the last decade, solar power is a pipsqueak among energy sources; it represents about one-quarter of 1 percent of California’s total energy capacity, according to the California Energy Commission. Nationally, according to the Energy Information Administration, it represents about 0.02 percent of total capacity, but those federal figures are incomplete: they reflect only centralized facilities, not distributed rooftop installations.
0.02%? Is that even measurable? Can that be right? 1/5th of one percent? That must rank right up there with cow methane power. And turn-on-and-open-your-oven-on-a-cold-day power.

And what of those 50,000 rooftops in California that are now gathering solar energy?

It turns out they've been heavily subsidized by the state for years. The same state that is now broke.

So how different would the results be if California wasn't footing the bill?

"Cost is a major hurdle; installation of a rooftop system is likely to cost at least $20,000."

I think we've heard enough.

- - -

I particularly enjoyed this line:

"California, the longtime national leader in solar energy, has a capacity of more than 500 megawatts of solar power at peak periods in the early afternoon — the same as a major power plant."

Peak periods in the early afternoon.
And the other 21 hours in the day? Speaks volumes about its capacity, its scope, and its potential.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:08 AM
A Jolt Of Reality
My brief fascination with the new Camaro had me thinking that I might, despite all its problems, buy GM again some day.

But a Democrat has brought me back to my senses and reminded me why I'll never see the USA in a Chevrolet again:
Harkin wants ethanol measures in climate bill
By Philip Brasher, Des Moines Register

Washington, D.C. - Sen. Tom Harkin said he wants Congress to use a climate bill to force auto companies to make new cars and trucks capable of running on 85 percent ethanol as well as conventional gasoline.

"We own the automobile companies. Why not? I think that will be an easy one," Harkin said Thursday, referring to the government interests in Chrysler and General Motors. [link]
Yeah, so what if the thing runs like crap, gets terrible gas mileage, and requires an engine replacement at 120,000 miles. We all know that Chrysler and GM are now just welfare programs for otherwise dispossessed auto workers. So why not enrich our already fabulously wealthy corn farmers while we're handing out the public assistance checks?

For the love of God.

Ford is looking so much better by the day ...

- - -

I must correct Mr. Harkin. "We" don't own the automobile companies. We own failing automobile companies. There are lots of others that are doing just fine. And aren't controlled by the likes Harkin.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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Saturday, July 18, 2009,6:01 AM
You Might work On That Segue, Fellas
This is kind of comical.

The Roanoke Times this morning calls out the Republican Party for asking if the commonwealth of Virginia is getting full-time attention from its governor, what with his duties as head of the national Democratic Party interfering.

It seems to me to be a legitimate concern, but that's beside the point I'll make.

Check out these two paragraphs about Tim Kaine's travel habits:

Credit the Virginia GOP for persistence if nothing else. Like a dog worrying a bone, Republicans have seized on the notion that Gov. Tim Kaine is spending too much time as head of the Democratic National Committee, neglecting his elective office as a result.

Their strategy is transparent. Kaine has been a popular and effective governor, like Gov. Mark Warner. Democrat Creigh Deeds is running as the heir apparent to that legacy of good government -- a strategy that worked for Kaine in 2005.

Uh, how did we get from Kaine's travel to Kaine's popularity and effectiveness to Mark Warner's popularity and effectiveness to Creigh Deeds being - "apparently" - the heir to Kaine's and Warner's "good governance" and, we can assume, popularity and effectiveness?

My neck hurts from the whiplash.

Rewrite!

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:55 AM
Memo To Coal Miners: Stay Out Of Tennessee
It appears an informal boycott has been launched:
Coal miners boycotting Tennessee tourist sites
By Roger Alford, Associated Press Writer

Frankfort, Ky. (AP) -- Angry Appalachian coal miners are refusing to vacation in Tennessee because they say one of that state's political leaders wants to eliminate needed jobs by banning mountaintop removal.

Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander is sponsoring legislation that would bar coal companies from the controversial mining practice that involves blasting away mountaintops to unearth coal and dumping dirt, rock and trees into the valleys beneath. Such a ban would effectively halt the destructive form of mining.

Miners in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia are taking part in the protest, said Roger Horton, director of Citizens for Coal, the pro-coal advocacy group that organized the boycott.

Horton, a miner on a mountaintop-removal operation in West Virginia, said some 5,000 coal miners already have joined the week-old boycott, which he hopes will spread to involve all of the nation's 81,000 coal miners.

The boycott will continue, Horton said, until Alexander relents. [link]
Says Horton:

"He needs to mind his own business. Why fool with us? We have good congressmen and senators here who know what's best for West Virginia. We don't need his interference."
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:50 AM
Mitch McConnell To Vote Against Sotomayor
In a statement released to the press:
From the beginning of this confirmation process, I've said that Americans expect one thing when they walk into a court room, whether it's a traffic court or the Supreme Court -- and that's equal treatment under the law. Over the years, Americans have accepted significant ideological differences in the kinds of men and women that various presidents have nominated to the Supreme Court. But one thing Americans will never tolerate in a nominee is a belief that some groups are more deserving of a fair shake than others. Nothing could be more offensive to the American sensibility than that. Judge Sotomayor is a fine person with an impressive story and a distinguished background. But above all else, a judge must check his or her personal or political agenda at the courtroom door and do justice even-handedly, as the judicial oath requires.

Judge Sotomayor's record of written statements suggests an alarming lack of respect for the notion of equal justice, and therefore, in my view, an insufficient willingness to abide by the judicial oath. This is particularly important when considering someone for the Supreme Court since, if she were confirmed, there would be no higher court to deter or prevent her from injecting into the law the various disconcerting principles that recur throughout her public statements. For that reason, I will oppose her nomination.
The fact that she's not all that bright might have been mentioned too. Still ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:46 AM
Unemployment In VA Continues To Climb
It's now at 7.2%.

And that's with all the billions in stimulus money going to protect government jobs.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 4 comments
,5:32 AM
ObamaCare. The Verdict Is In.
And it comes from the most liberal Obama-supporting newspaper in the land.

From "Democrats Grow Wary as Health Bill Advances":
Even as Democratic leaders and the White House insisted that the nation was closer than ever to landmark changes in the health care system, they faced basic questions about whether some of their proposals might do more harm than good.

Democrats had three reasons for concern. The director of the Congressional Budget Office warned Thursday that the legislative proposals so far would not slow the growth of health spending, a crucial goal for Mr. Obama as he also tries to extend insurance to more than 45 million Americans who lack it.

Second, even with House committees working in marathon sessions this week, it was clear that Democrats could not meet their goal of passing bills before the summer recess without barreling over the concerns of Republicans and ending any hope that such a major issue could be addressed in a bipartisan manner.

Third, a growing minority of Democrats have begun to express reservations about the size, scope and cost of the legislation, the expanded role of the federal government and the need for a raft of new taxes to pay for it all. The comments suggest that party leaders may not yet have the votes to pass the legislation.
Remarkably, despite all this, the Democrats will pass it and Obama will sign it.

Even though ObamaCare will have the opposite effect from that originally intended.

For the love of God.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:17 AM
The Brewing Scandal
I brought to your attention yesterday a story about Virginia 5th District Congressman Tom Perriello - a Democrat - taking campaign cash from a Democratic Party bigwig the day before he voted in favor of a bill that the Democratic Party bigwig wanted him to vote in favor of.

Well, the story is getting attention:
Democrats put their Representatives up for sale
By Ed Morrissey, Hot Air

How did Democrats manage to win a narrow 219-212 victory on cap-and-tax three weeks ago? According to Glenn Thrush at Politico, they did it the old-fashioned way — they bought the votes. Democratic leadership in the House dumped tens of thousands of dollars into the campaign coffers of Democratic waverers on the expansive and expensive energy-industry controls:

Three House Democratic leaders who were whipping members on the climate change bill gave tens of thousands in campaign cash to party moderates around the time of the 219-212 vote on June 26, according to Federal Election Commission records.

It’s impossible to tell if that torrent of cash was an attempt to schmear wavering Democrats — or just part of the usual cash dump made by leaders on the eve of the June 30 quarterly fundraising deadline.

Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) doled out $28,000 to reps who eventually voted yes on June 24, two days before the big vote — on a day when House leaders were doing some heavy-duty arm-twisting.

Clyburn recipients who voted for the bill included a who’s-who of battleground district Dems: Steve Driehaus, D-OH ($2,000); Martin Heinrich, D-NM ($2,000); Suzanne Kosmas, D-Fla. ($4,000); Betsy Markey, D-Colo. ($2,000); Carol Shea-Porter, D-NH ($2,000), Baron Hill, D-Ind. ($2,000); Alan Grayson, D-Fla. ($2,000); Leonard Boswell, D-Iowa ($2,000); Jim Himes, D-Conn. ($2,000); Mary Jo Kilroy, D-OH ($2,000); Kurt Schrader, D-Ore. ($2,000); Jerry McNerney, D-Calif. ($2,000) and Tom Perriello, D-Va. ($2,000).

Pelosi and Clyburn claim that the donations were just the normal end-of-quarter cash dumps that leadership routinely give their members. Perhaps, but the pattern of giving more than 16 months before the next election speaks to a certain strategy on pending legislation. While the two did contribute to eventual opponents of the bill, the money went in this week primarily to swing voters on the issue, which makes it look less routine and more like they only mostly succeeded in buying support for the bill.

When Democratic leadership has been whipping the vote for weeks and suddenly shows up with bags of money for the waverers, calling that “routine” may be more indicting than Pelosi understands. [link] [my emphasis]
It would be interesting to hear Perriello's explanation for the cash transfer. So far he's remained silent.

Deafeningly silent.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:04 AM
Which Obama Should We Believe?
The House Republican Conference has come up with a powerful video that shows our president speaking out of both sides of his mouth on the stimulus issue.


Two Obamas?

It will have immediate effect.

It was not intended to have had an immediate effect.


Good God.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:47 AM
They Just Won't Stop
It isn't bad enough that the climate legislation that is working its way through Congress will throw thousands out of work and regulate many Americans into poverty. Now the Obama administration is talking about us - the USA - footing the bill for Chinese greenhouse gas emissions as well!

They're out of their minds:
Commerce Secretary: Americans ‘Need to Pay’ for Chinese Emissions
By Keith Johnson, Wall Street Journal

yesterday, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said something amazing—U.S. consumers should pay for part of Chinese greenhouse-gas emissions. From Reuters:

It’s important that those who consume the products being made all around the world to the benefit of America — and it’s our own consumption activity that’s causing the emission of greenhouse gases, then quite frankly Americans need to pay for that,” Commerce Secretary Gary Locke told the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai.

The idea that rich-country consumers should pick up the tab for some of China’s industrial emissions has been gaining currency lately—but not from within the Obama administration.

Secretary Locke’s statement could open up a new can of worms—right when China’s actions on energy and the environment are proving so crucial to mustering support among wavering senators for the administration’s big cap-and-trade bill. [link]
Unbelievable.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 4 comments
,4:04 AM
A Passing
Walter Cronkite, legendary news man, liberal commentator, has died.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
Friday, July 17, 2009,7:11 AM
Taking Pay-For-Play To a New Level
I received this via email from the National Republican Congressional Committee so you might think to question the source. But the link that was provided was to the Federal Elections Commission, and that source is irreproachable.

The email had mostly to do with Nancy Pelosi donating money ($4000) to the reelection campaign of a particular Democrat the day before he voted in favor of the cap-and-tax bill. Purely coincidental? Why would a politician be donating cash to other politicians?

Hmm.

Listed also were donations that the chief sponsor of the bill - Henry Waxman - made to other Democrats (11 in all), also on the day before the vote.

Hmm.

Then, finally, came a list of Democrats who were sent cash by Jim Clyburn, the Democrat House Majority Whip, 23 Democrats in all, on the day before the cap-and-tax vote.

The day before the vote.

Here's the list:
At the bottom of the list?

Southside Virginia's own 5th District Congressman Tom Perriello.

$2,000.

The day before he voted YES to Pelosi's and Waxman's and Clyburn's destructive climate bill.

From the Federal Elections Commission we see the donation provided by "Friends of Jim Clyburn":

Said Tom Perriello after his YES vote and after the receipt of cash:

“There’s got to be something more important than getting reelected. If I lose my seat, and that’s the worst that happens, I could live with that.”

Would that "something" include integrity?

Tom Perriello. In search of "something."

Click on the images to enlarge them.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 5 comments
,7:01 AM
If It Saves Money
Of course it won't. This is the same VDOT that bought land up in Eagle Rock so as to be able to preserve it as a mosquito breeding ground.

But if this is an attempt at saving the taxpayers of Virginia some money, than I'm all for it:
Despite pleas, state to shutter I-81 rest areas
By Jeff Sturgeon, Roanoke Times

In spite of continuing appeals not to do so, Virginia will close almost half of its interstate rest areas early next week, state highway officials said Thursday.

The Virginia Department of Transportation will close two facilities along Interstate 81 in Southwest Virginia on Tuesday morning, the first about an hour after daybreak and the second once crews get the first one sealed up.

Unless it lines up private businesses to operate them, an option Virginia is seeking federal permission to pursue, the shuttered rest areas are scheduled to be razed by 2011, state Transportation Commissioner David Ekern has said. [link]
So I'll find someplace else to pee.

If this is an attempt by VDOT executives to intimidate the populace (that pays their paychecks) into raising their budget, it won't work.

Now we demand more cuts!

Starting with that swampland.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,7:00 AM
The Truth About Global Warming
And global cooling.

Science - actual science - grounded in statistical data rather than in speeches proffered by pseudoscientists like Professor Al Gore, seems to be settling around the theory that the Sun is the big contributor to our planet's rising and falling temperature cycles.

Not human activity.

The latest:
Solar cycle affecting global climate, say scientists
domain-b.com

Research led by scientists at the National Science Foundation-funded National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado, has shown that maximum solar activity and its aftermath have impacts on Earth similar to that caused by ocean currents La Niña and El Niño in the tropical Pacific Ocean.

The research, while establishing a key link between the solar cycle and global climate, may pave the way toward predictions of temperature and precipitation patterns at certain times during the approximately 11-year solar cycle.

The new paper, along with an earlier one by Meehl and colleagues, shows that as the Sun reaches maximum activity, it heats cloud-free parts of the Pacific Ocean enough to increase evaporation, intensify tropical rainfall and the trade winds, and cool the eastern tropical Pacific. [link]
Solar activity caused global warming.

As it's now causing global cooling.

Someone send a telegram to the world's really smart leaders.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:54 AM
ObamaCare Nothing But Smoke & Mirrors
What is the main reason Barack Obama gives for Congress rushing to pass his sweeping nationalized health care program?

To control costs.

What does his legislation - as proposed - actually do?
CBO Chief: Health Bills To Increase Federal Costs
By David Clarke and Edward Epstein, Congressional Quarterly Staff

The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs facing the government, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said Thursday.

That is not a message likely to sit well with congressional Democrats or the Obama administration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., said Thursday she thinks lawmakers can find ways to wring more costs out of the health system as they continue work on their bills.

The Democrats and President Obama have cited two goals in their overhaul proposals — expanding coverage to the estimated 47 million Americans who currently lack it and bringing down long-term costs because the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending threatens to swamp the federal budget in coming years.

Under questioning from Chairman Kent Conrad , D-N.D., Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that the congressional proposals released so far do not meet that second test. [link]
So, if their primary goal is not going to be met, why are they wasting their (our) time?

- - -

Powerline provides a graph that should frighten the soup out of you. It shows projections of federal debt as outlined by that same CBO, with Obama's "health savings" factored in:

Madness.

Graph courtesy of the Congressional Budget Office.
Click on the image to enlarge it.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:48 AM
Lest We Forget
Environmentalists support only that form of electricity generation that comes from solar power, which, to date, has proven to be a highly effective source of energy for pocket calculators.

And not much more.

Petroleum.

Coal.

Gas.

Even wind.

Even hydro.

They oppose 'em all.

Oh, yeah, there's also, by anyone's standards, the most environmentally-friendly form of power generation ever devised by humankind. Well, they oppose that too:
Groups oppose second nuclear reactor at Watts Bar
By Kristen Letsinger, KnoxNews

Several environmental groups are banding together in petitioning the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to stop TVA from operating a second reactor at Watts Bar nuclear plant.

The Sierra Club, the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, the Tennessee Environmental Council, the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League and We the People Inc. on Wednesday asked the NRC for permission to intervene against TVA's bid for an operating license at the Rhea County site.

The groups contend the Unit 2 reactor could harm water resources, including the Tennessee River, and risk public health and safety because of ... [blah blah blah] [link]
In case you hadn't heard, it's Republicans who are deemed to have no answers beyond NO.

Really.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 7 comments
,6:41 AM
We Play Into Their Hands
We curb greenhouse gas emissions (for reasons unknown anymore).

American industry suffers (even more than it has been).

India and China ignore their (ever-increasing) greenhouse gas emissions.

They pick up the slack, crank up their factory output, and they're on the road to prosperity (a long road it will be, for sure).

Is it any wonder that both China and India are big supporters of our getting our greenhouse gas emissions under control?

Why Poor Countries Won't Curb Emissions

We're idiots (and we deserve the third-world status that will soon be ours).
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:33 AM
Judgment Is Hereby Rendered
Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor is deemed "not that smart" after all":
Rosen Was Right
By Jennifer Rubin, Commentary maganzine

After two days of Sotomayor testimony I thought of Jeffrey Rosen’s piece on Sotomayor back in May (before he had to backpedal and support her so as not to embarrass the “team”). I don’t think much of his temperament criticism, but his analysis of her legal and intellectual capabilities seems exactly on the money.

[lengthy Rosen quote snipped]

Has she said anything to dispel these concerns? Whether examining her verbal skills, her command of the law or her intellectual acuity, I come away thinking she is one of the least impressive Supreme Court nominees to come along in recent memory. Judge Robert Bork was obviously not everyone’s ideal judge, but the man’s intellectual prowess was undeniable and he refused to lie about his views. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg was frankly charming and sharp-witted in her testimony and could march the senators through the evolution of a number of strains of jurisprudence.

Whether you agreed with their philosophy or not, you had the sense with the Clinton, Reagan, and George W. Bush nominees (yes, I leave Souter off the list) that there was good reason to put them on the Court. You listened for a day or even and hour and said, “Yes, that’s a Supreme Court Justice.” It was hard to dispute, even if you disagreed with one or another on his or her judicial methodology, that the nominee was bringing some intellectual heft.

Does anyone really have that sense from Sotomayor? And all of this is made worse, much worse, by her ham-handed efforts to distance herself from her own speeches and deny her own involvement with PRLDEF.

Rosen was trying to warn his liberal compatriots that they could do “better” than Sotomayor. He was right and should get some credit for his effort. [link]
How did the USA sink this low?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,6:21 AM
I Love Beautiful Women
A warning: This may offend some of you (but it's already Friday and I haven't done that yet this week).

I saw a young (overweight) gal (in shorts) yesterday evening with some grotesque tattoos on her shins/calves. Both shins/calves. Tattoos of howling wolves or some damn thing. Tattoos that had to measure - top to bottom - 14 inches. Tattoos that looked to be seriously permanent. Big, blue, and bold.

Beyond belief.

She looked like she was wearing soccer shin guards.

I thought for a moment that I was going to puke.

She looked like she belonged in the circus.

I was reminded of that soon-to-be forgotten incident when I read this article in today's New York Times:

Femininity, Salvaged

It's about a photographer who took beautiful pictures of beautiful women posing in beautiful settings.

A long time ago.

Today?

She'd probably reject the freak show in favor of photographing lilies.

I wouldn't blame her.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:07 AM
Democrats Are Wienies
How else to explain the whining that is coming from the party that made the jackass famous:

"An aide to one conservative Democratic lawmaker said the climate bill was 'really rammed down our throats.'

Poor baby. Did that mean elderly grandma who runs your House caucus slap you into submission?

For the love of God.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,6:00 AM
Question(s) of the Day
If rich people are Obama supporters, and rich people are those who will be called upon to pay for (some of) his health care program through a surtax, and rich Obama supporters have been shown over and over again in recent months to not pay the taxes they owe, will rich Obama supporters be expected to pay Obama's surtax?

But if they don't, who will?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:49 AM
It's No Wonder The USA Is In Big Trouble
We have idiots like Joe Biden in charge.

The headline blaring the latest from our vice president on Drudge doesn't even warrant further comment.:

'We Have To Spend Money To Keep From Going Bankrupt'

My God.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:13 AM
You Decide
Is it a sign of the times? Or is it a matter of me being completely out of touch?

Here's a list of TV shows that were nominated for Emmy awards the other day.

I've never heard of half of them.

I've not watched 90% of them.

Is it me or is it TV?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Thursday, July 16, 2009,7:50 AM
Outrage!
It appears that The South is rising again.

In indignation.

Over a monument placed at the Battle of Lynchburg.

Virginia.

To commemorate the valiant service of 13 YANKEE (!) soldiers who fought there in 1864, 12 of whom were killed or wounded.

O, the affront.

A Northern monument in the heart of Dixie.

See "A Yankee takes a look at monument controversy" in this morning's Roanoke Times.

I don't know.

I think I'd be a little careful if I were to pick that fight.

After all, we'd quickly have to find a home for this if we go down that road.

Personally? I think it serves its purpose where it is.

Click on the image to enlarge it.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,7:46 AM
And While We're On The Subject ...
.. of silly Civil War controversies, we learn this morning that Governor Kaine has weighed in on the Wal-Mart in Orange County kerfuffle:
Gov. Kaine, Howell urge new Va. site for Wal-Mart
By Steve Szkotak, Associated Press Writer

Richmond, Va. (AP) -- Gov. Timothy M. Kaine and the speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates are encouraging Wal-Mart and Orange County officials to find an alternative site for a Supercenter proposed near a Civil War battlefield.

The 138,000-square-foot store is planned near the Wilderness battlefield, which Kaine and Speaker William J. Howell said "ranks supremely important" among the many Civil War battlefields in Virginia.

"Every acre of battlefield land that is destroyed means a loss of open space and missed tourism opportunities, and it closes one more window for future generations to better understand our national story," Kaine and Howell said in the later [sic] dated July 13 to Lee Frame, chairman of the Board of Supervisors. [link]
Laudable, yes?

Who wants to denigrate the hallowed ground of The Wilderness (and Spotsylvania)?

But someone should probably get with Messrs. Kaine and Howell and break the news to them that the site Wal-Mart wishes to build on is not on the battlefield. It's a mile away.

And someone, in addition, should break the news to all those who have their undies in a knot over this issue that if we were to ban residential or commercial construction here in the commonwealth on any piece of land near where Civil War history was made, we'd effectively ban all residential or commercial construction. Even little backwater Bland County has its Civil War history (thus my home would have been banned). You can't sink a spade into the ground anywhere in Virginia without it being within a mile of Civil War history.

So get a grip.

Few people have more respect for those who fought here in the years between 1861 and 1865 than I do. And nobody holds our history in higher regard. But Civil War history belongs in the history books and museums (and in battlefield parks). And a line has to be drawn. And that line has to be at the park gates.

Virginians want Wal-Mart. They also want their battlefields preserved. The two needs are easily accommodated.

If everyone doesn't get all weird on us.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,7:40 AM
Is Boucher Praying For Cap-n-Tax to Vanish?
The general outcry from the citizenry here in Southwest Virginia, particularly in the area that will be most affected by Congressman Rick Boucher's climate legislation, the coalfields of Tazewell and Dickenson and Wise and Russell Counties, must have reached his distant ears by now. And he has every reason to be shaking in his boots because of it. People here are in a rage over his anti-coal, anti-growth, pro-energy tax bill and they're not soon to calm down. Many of us want his scrawny ass gone.

It now appears that Boucher isn't alone in his fright. Every Democrat in Washington who signed on to this abomination may be quaking in fear right now as well:
House Members Being Hammered Over Waxman-Markey
By Iain Murray, Hot Air

I'm hearing that the popular reaction to the passage of the Waxman-Markey electricity tax bill in the House has blown House members away. The public outrage is really hurting those who voted for it, and that's why the bill has been "parked" ... in the Senate. Very good sign. We need that sort of public pressure to defeat this monstrosity, and similarly for the health-care plans. If these two overreaches go down, Obama's political capital will be spent. How often has a president become a lame duck by his own actions within a year of taking office? [link]
The pressure is indeed on.

And Boucher, if he's smart, will react to it. And he'll quit lying about what his legislation will do to Southwest Virginia.

By the way, tell us, Rick, if your legislation is so good for the coal industry, why did you add a provision to it that would extend unemployment benefits to laid off coal miners for three years after the thousands who are anticipated to be thrown out of work get thrown out of work? Good for the coal industry? Who you trying to kid?

Hear those footsteps, pal? It's the voters of your district massing behind you. And the mood is ugly. Recant now or prepare for the worst come election day.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,7:36 AM
Uh, Aren't You Missing Something?
I suppose, if you live in the trendy suburbs of Washington D.C., you might come to the same conclusion that a Washington Post reporter came to with regard to Crocs®. They have simply lost their fad appeal and young people have moved on to other trends, putting the maker of America's favorite clog on the verge of bankruptcy:
Once-Trendy Crocs Could Be on Their Last Legs
By Ylan Q. Mui, Washington Post Staff Writer

Crocs were born of the economic boom.

The colorful foam clogs appeared in 2002, just as the country was recovering from a recession. Brash and bright, they were a cheap investment (about $30) that felt good and promised to last forever. Former president George W. Bush wore them. Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler wore them. Your grandma wore them. They roared along with the economy, mocked by the fashion world but selling 100 million pairs in seven years.

Then the boom times went bust, and Crocs went to the back of the closet.

The company had expanded to meet demand, but financially pressed customers cut back. Last year the company lost $185.1 million, slashed roughly 2,000 jobs and scrambled to find money to pay down millions in debt. Now it's stuck with a surplus of shoes, and its auditors have wondered if it can stay afloat.

Rachel Weingarten, a trend and marketing expert, has relegated Crocs to the wasteland of the comfort-shoe aisle. Maybe in a decade nostalgia will set in, said Weingarten, author of "Career and Corporate Cool." Then a pair of hot-pink Crocs dug from the back of the closet might inspire misty-eyed memories: "Remember when we had ugly, Flintstone-looking feet?" [link]
But wait. Is that what's really happened to Crocs? That they simply lost their appeal?

Or is it that you can buy those $30 Crocs for the kids at Wal-Mart (under a different name, made by a different manufacturer) for 4 bucks?

Many Americans are still walking around with "ugly, Flintstone-looking feet." They're just not buying the far more expensive product out of Denver. They're buying Chinese.

As goes the ... trend.

- - -

By the way, GDP growth in the USA decreased at an annual rate of 5.5 percent in the first quarter of 2009. GDP growth in China "accelerated to 7.9% in the second quarter" of the same year.

But who cares? We have climate to contend with.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,7:26 AM
Bewildering
It's worth remembering: The Episcopal Church (USA) made this mess when it decided to make itself more "inclusive" and welcome homosexuals into the fold with open arms.

Inclusive? Church leaders have an odd definition of the word:
Episcopal Church Chooses to "Walk Apart" from Anglican Communion
By Nicholas T. Wright, Washington Post

In the slow-moving train crash of international Anglicanism, a decision taken in California has finally brought a large coach off the rails altogether. The House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church (TEC) in the United States has voted decisively to allow in principle the appointment, to all orders of ministry, of persons in active same-sex relationships. This marks a clear break with the rest of the Anglican Communion.

Both the bishops and deputies (lay and clergy) of TEC knew exactly what they were doing. They were telling the Archbishop of Canterbury and the other "instruments of communion" that they were ignoring their plea for a moratorium on consecrating practicing homosexuals as bishops. [link]
So the Episcopal leadership, in its infinite wisdom, decides to stand up for inclusion by effectively excluding itself from the Anglican Communion. I'll bet in their world this makes perfect sense.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,7:18 AM
The Devil In The Details
From Investor's Business Daily:
It didn't take long to run into an "uh-oh" moment when reading the House's "health care for all Americans" bill. Right there on Page 16 is a provision making individual private medical insurance illegal.

When we first saw the paragraph Tuesday, just after the 1,018-page document was released, we thought we surely must be misreading it. So we sought help from the House Ways and Means Committee.

It turns out we were right: The provision would indeed outlaw individual private coverage. Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law. [my emphasis]

"It's Not An Option," July 16, 2009

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,6:48 AM
What Do I Care?
I suppose, if I were the average American, I'd be just fine with the Democrats' latest plan to pay for ObamaCare. It involves the levying of a crushing tax on the super-rich. And I'm not super-rich, so have at it, Barry. Right?

In fact, the plan will hit only a handful of Southwest Virginians at most. So it's someone else's problem entirely. Thus, I don't care.

Or shouldn't.

Right?

Especially knowing that 88% of the voters in Manhattan, where the tax will have the most impact, voted for Obama last November. Boy, is that sweet justice. I can't wait to hear the squeals.

But that's like being happy that a malignant cancerous growth has appeared on one's butt rather than somewhere that could prove to be more immediately fatal. It's still a malignancy and it will certainly spread. And it will kill.

Out of New York this morning:

You can almost hear the squeals already.

So why am I not pleased?

Because that malignancy that is soon to appear in Manhattan will be spreading across this country. Starting with small-business owners who will have to pay the same tax surcharge if their payrolls exceed a certain threshold. Which means reduced payrolls will follow. And reduced payrolls mean more unemployed. And more poverty. And more misery.

The natural tendency is to shrug off the doings by the crazy politicians up north that will only affect the crazy citizenry up north. But don't think the complacency, or schadenfreude, if you're so inclined, is going to last very long. In a short while that tumor will reach Southwest Virginia. And the squeal you hear will be coming from next door.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 10 comments
,6:03 AM
The Grass Is Always Greener
I read articles written by East Coast liberals about the virtues of socialized health care and my eyes roll.

Take Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, for example. He related to us a story the other day that came out of Southwest Virginia that was told to some guy named Bill Moyers that includes this line:

"I saw people lined up, standing in line or sitting in these long, long lines, waiting to get care. People drove from South Carolina and Georgia and Kentucky, Tennessee -- all over the region." The people were lined up to get free care.

He also relates a story about an emergency room in some hospital that is crowded with people - many of whom are probably getting free treatment as well - and concludes that the entire system needs to be scrapped and ObamaCare needs to be instituted.

Two points:

1) There is no doubt that there are people here in Southwest Virginia who are in desperate need of help. And they're able to find it with some effort.

2) I distrust geniuses like Cohen because they are willing to sign on to alternatives without ever understanding the implications.

Let's look at the one existing system in the United States today that most closely emulates ObamaCare:
Massachusetts in Suit Over Cost of Universal Care
By Abby Goodnough, New York Times

Boston — A hospital that serves thousands of indigent Massachusetts residents sued the state on Wednesday, charging that its costly universal health care law is forcing the hospital to cover too much of the expense of caring for the poor.

The hospital, Boston Medical Center, faces a $38 million deficit for the fiscal year ending in September, its first loss in five years. The suit says the hospital will lose more than $100 million next year because the state has lowered Medicaid reimbursement rates and stopped paying Boston Medical “reasonable costs” for treating other poor patients.

The central charge in the suit is that the state has siphoned money away from Boston Medical to help pay the considerable cost of insuring all but a small percentage of residents.

Low-income residents, who have benefited most from expanded access to health care, receive state-subsidized insurance, one of the most expensive aspects of the state plan. But rapidly rising costs and the battered economy have caused more problems than the state and supporters of the 2006 law — including Boston Medical — anticipated. [link]
Deep thinkers like Richard Cohen never get beyond the issues perched on their noses - poor people need care; government can pay for it.

But "government" doesn't pay for anything. Taxpayers do. And the only alternatives available to the government when it comes to covering everyone include raising taxes to cover health care for the poor and forcing medical providers - including hospitals like this one in Massachusetts - to go bankrupt by withholding sufficient funds necessary to cover the cost of caring for those who get "free" care.

There are indeed inequities in the current system. But lowering the quality of care that 90% of us receive in order to get some modicum of coverage for the remaining 10% is not a solution. It is a recipe for disaster.

I don't expect liberals like Cohen to ever understand that. Deep thinkers that they are.

- - -

The one solution that will work? Economic prosperity. Jobs. Wealth.

Oh, never mind. That's so Ronald Reagan ...

- - -

About those lines of people who were seeking free care - don't make more of them than is there. My grandmother used to stand in such lines. When asked why, since she and my grandfather were reasonably well off, she replied: "Because it's free."
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 5 comments
,5:54 AM
Tell Me This
You people are all intelligent. So explain to me how Obama is out telling those who are still listening to him that we need to overhaul the American health care system in order to control costs. But the first piece of legislation that his buddies in the Senate come up with in this regard "stops insurance companies from denying coverage based on pre-existing conditions" and "eliminates annual and lifetime caps on coverage."

Both measures are guaranteed to raise insurance company costs.

They will eat this?

Please.

These people must think we're complete idiots.

Oh, wait, we elected 'em. Maybe they're right.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:29 AM
Sotomayor Brings Out The Snark In All Of Us
Pundits are having great fun with Obama's nominee for the Supreme Court. Oddly, "eminently qualified" and "superior in intellect" don't seem to be entering the discussion these days, now that Sonia Sotomayor has had the chance to show America what she's got. Or don't got.

This embarrassment does not speak well for Mr. Wonderful:
Good news: Sotomayor confuses “eminent” with “imminent” — twice
By Allahpundit, Hot Air

Excruciating to watch, and apparently not her only malaprop of the day. According to Ed Whelan, she confused “providence” with “province” and said “story of knowledge” when she meant “store of knowledge,” too. If the boss routinely made embarrassing mistakes like this on her blog, it’d be a running joke among the nutroots; as it is, the fact that a federal appellate judge turned Supreme Court justice is making them at a congressional hearing will doubtless go blissfully unremarked upon. Although to be fair, she only ever claimed to be wise, not to have the vocabulary of, say, the average 10th-grader. Awesome, awesome pick, Barry.

Anyway. Doubtless we’ll soon be told that it’s racist somehow to even mention this, so I preemptively denounce both myself and Whelan for noticing it. [link]
Uh, I apologize in advance too. In my case, it's a lingering holdover from the days of slavery that I can't get out of my system.

* Don't write. I did it on purpose.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,5:21 AM
Wonderful
Two of the most gifted and most versatile vocalists alive today got together at the Grammys and made magic.

Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli sing The Prayer.



Stunning.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:17 AM
Ya Get What Ya Pay For
You send a clown to Washington, you shouldn't be suprised if he gets there and acts like he's in a carnival troupe:

Franken, Sotomayor go down TV memory lane

My guess is, this is as close as Al Franken is going to get to a substantive discussion in the next five years.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,5:10 AM
This Is Your Future
I know. It seems impossible to believe. Our health care delivery system could never sink to this level, right?

Stick around:
A 9-month wait for arthritis treatment: Delay can mean a lifetime of agony for victims
By Daniel Martin, London Daily Mail

Thousands of rheumatoid arthritis sufferers face a lifetime of agony because they are not being treated quickly enough, a report says.

Guidelines state that patients should receive treatment within three months of the first symptoms appearing.

But the average wait is nine months - and GPs are not trained well enough to know what help to offer.

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,4:49 AM
Blood Sport
There should be a warning label affixed to every computer monitor in the land:

Caution. The internet is not for the faint of heart or thin skinned. Enter at your own risk.

Why?

Even I find my eyes opening wide when I read things like this:
Is Regina Benjamin too fat to be surgeon general?
By Frances Kissling, Salon.com

By all accounts Surgeon General nominee Dr. Regina Benjamin is an extraordinary woman. She is an African-American family doctor who has spent most of her ...

The only problem seems to be that some people think the face is too fat.

From her photos, it appears that Dr. Benjamin will need a generous size 18 military uniform. The anti-fat brigade has been arguing in various online comments sections about her BMI and whether or not the term obese applies. These chattering masses wonder if a country plagued by obesity should have an above average-weight woman speaking to public health.

For me the answer is a resounding yes. This country is full of above-average weight women and children struggling for dignity as well as to lose weight. [link]
Actually I hadn't heard of this issue being raised until this Benjamin "supporter" raised it. But there is a point to be made, I guess. Would this guy and others who have jumped to her support be as supportive of Dr. Benjamin and her unhealthy lifestyle - considering the fact that she's to be our nurse-in-chief - and considering the fact that hers will be a ceremonial, cheerleading post within the administration - if she were, say, a chain smoker?

Oh, wait ...

I guess anything is acceptable as long as you have the right politics.

Here's to Dr. Benjamin. May she - like her new boss - set the perfect example for America's youth.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 7 comments
,4:34 AM
The Planet Warms ... Again
For those of you who still cling to the notion that the planet is warming, and that it is warming because of the activities of human beings who reside on it, explain this:
Past warming shows gaps in climate knowledge - study
By David Fogarty, Climate Change Correspondent, Reuters

Singapore (Reuters) - A dramatic warming of the planet 55 million years ago cannot be solely explained by a surge in carbon dioxide levels, a study shows, highlighting gaps in scientists' understanding of impacts from rapid climate change.

During an event called the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, global temperatures rose between 5 and 9 degrees Celsius within several thousand years. The world at that time was already warmer than now with no surface ice. [link]
SUV's? Incandescent light bulbs? Wienie roasts? 55 million years ago?

What caused that global warming, genius?

And by the way, I wouldn't call that a "gap in climate knowledge." I'd call it a complete refutation of that which today passes as climate knowledge.

It's time to face the facts, fellas. If the planet warms, it ain't us.

- - -

Even USA Today is questioning its once firmly held beliefs:

Could we be wrong about global warming?

What's this "we" stuff, kemo sabe?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
Wednesday, July 15, 2009,5:01 AM
Tweedle Dum, Tweedle Dee
The Washington Post editorial page this morning questions the House Democrat plan to tax the living hell out of rich people in order to pay for Obama's misguided health care plan. See "The Deep-Pockets Mirage."

The Post thinks it unwise.

The editorialists there would rather Congress tax the living hell out of America's wealthier people in order to pay down the deficit.

We're doomed.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:41 AM
As Obama Pushes For Universal Health Care ...
... the state that has come the closest to providing it is now imploding and is forced to retreat:
Massachusetts Takes a Step Back From Health Care for All
By Abby Goodnough, New York Times

Boston — The new state budget in Massachusetts eliminates health care coverage for some 30,000 legal immigrants to help close a growing deficit, reversing progress toward universal coverage just as Congress looks to the state as a model for overhauling the nation’s health care system.

Gov. Deval Patrick has proposed restoring $70 million to the program, which would partly restore the immigrants’ coverage. But legislative leaders have balked, saying vital programs for other groups would have to be cut as a result. The cut, which would affect only nondisabled adults from 18 to 65 years old, would take effect in August unless the legislature approves Mr. Patrick’s proposal.

Because of its three-year-old law, Massachusetts has the country’s lowest percentage of uninsured residents: 2.6 percent, compared with a national average of 15 percent. The law requires that almost every resident have insurance, and to meet that goal, the state subsidizes coverage for those earning up to three times the federal poverty level, or $66,150 for a family of four. [link]
"The state subsidizes coverage." Let's be clear, the state does no such thing. The taxpayers have to foot the bill. And the taxpayers of Massachusetts, like those in the rest of the country, are tapped out.

You think universal health care is a neat idea? Be prepared to pay for it, sweetheart. Out the nose.

The rest of us aren't. Even the famously liberal people of Taxachusetts are learning the painful lesson that there's no such thing as a free ride.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 12 comments
,4:24 AM
Wake Up, Fool
How many more stories like this must we read before we give up on that silly notion that the planet is warming:
Record Low Temperatures Hit Northeast
Now! Hampshire

As politicians in Washington, DC debate what to do about global warming, the Northeast has been hit with record low temperatures this morning.

According to ABC News, the cities of Binghamton and Rochester in New York and Hartford, CT experienced record lows for July today.

Meanwhile, here in the Granite State, temperatures in Concord fell to 47-degrees this morning, the lowest since 1940. Temperatures in Portsmouth came within one degree of the lowest ever in July. [link] [emphasis in the original]
Congress and Obama still cling to the notion that the planet is warming. They're blind. Totally blind.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:23 AM
The Affirmative Action Candidate
The boys and girls over at The Corner have been savaging the performance of Sonia Sotomayor at her confirmation hearing. Much of it is arcane legal stuff, but it all makes for a fascinating read. A good example can be found here.

Even those at the Associated Press seem confused at times by the answers she's given to relatively simple questions. See "It's a good thing Sonia Sotomayor speaks Sotomayoran."

It appears to be the case that this woman of impeccable résumé has never in all her years been challenged on an intellectual level and she's coming across like a first-year law student with a muddled understanding of fundamental concepts that she should have learned decades ago.

How do we explain the fact that this untalented, unqualified Latina female rose to such high office and is now poised to sit on the highest court in the land?

It's a complete ... mystery.

- - -

It's rather telling, I think, the America's most famous ditze - New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd - thinks Sotomayor is doing just swell. She thinks the hearings are more about white men being afraid of extinction.

Huh?

Sotomayor must be cringing. Such friends she doesn't need.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:21 AM
What $2 Trillion Deficit?
Does he even have a clue?

Obama Attacks on Economy and Seeks Billions for Community Colleges

For the love of God.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:19 AM
Nothing Could Be Further From The Truth
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,4:10 AM
You Knew How This Would Play Out
The mainstream press and every Democrat in Washington (there is a distinction here; the big guns in the press are New York Democrats) went absolutely apoplectic last weekend when it was "revealed" that then-Vice President Dick Cheney had "ordered" a "top secret" CIA plan that involved ... well, we're not sure ... be kept from Congress. That would be the reviled Dick Cheney circumventing the Constitution (that the press and the Democrats occasionally adore) during the just-as-reviled Bush years.

And what a story it was! Every news channel. Round the clock. Breathless reporters telling us what they didn't know about the scandal that their experts didn't seem to know anything about either. Pundits! Shouting their indignation! How dare Cheney ... do ... whatever he did! Keeping top secret stories from Congress. Fry his ass!

Throughout the firestorm - maelstrom! - I looked on in abject disinterest.

Ho.

Hum.

Why? Because I knew, without knowing any of the particulars that those in the know didn't know either, that the whole thing would be found to be a complete fabrication. In a matter of days. I had no doubt.

A few days have now elapsed since the scandal broke and ...
Former CIA Director: No One Told Me Not To Tell Congress
By Mark Memmott, NPR

The man who ran the CIA from 2006 through January says he wasn't told by then-vice president Dick Cheney not to brief Congress about a covert program aimed at members of al-Qaida, NPR's Mary Louise Kelly reports.

Gen. Mike Hayden's statement is at odds with a New York Times report Sunday that said the CIA:

"Withheld information about a secret counterterrorism program from Congress for eight years on direct orders from former Vice President Dick Cheney, the agency's director, Leon E. Panetta, has told the Senate and House intelligence committees, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said Saturday."

Hayden tells Mary Louise that "I never felt I had any impediment in briefing Congress." [link]
It's all bullshit. As I had no doubt all along.

There have been dozens of calls for investigations. I think one is in order too. We need to find out how seemingly intelligent people can become Democrats and members of the mainstream press and immediately lose their freaking minds.

I will give them this: They are an entertaining bunch.

- - -

I'm not alone in being impertinent with this story. Jonah Goldberg:

It’s hard for me not to see it as a ploy by Democrats to distract from the fact that the stimulus bill is a dud, health care is going badly, and cap-and-trade looks like a disaster. The base always enjoys beating up on Cheney, and the press likes that stuff, too.

But, again, let me make sure I'm not missing something. Cheney ordered the CIA to look into sending out squads to kill al-Qaeda leaders after 9/11. Call me crazy, but that’s what I assumed they’d been doing all along. I’m far more scandalized that such plans haven’t been up and running for eight years than I am by the fact that Congress wasn’t briefed on a plan that had never been put into action. (I can only hope the plans were tabled because it was determined that cruise missiles and UAVs worked better than CIA assassins).

So what exactly is the fuss about? Cheney, with the backing of Congress, looked into killing people — who were very much in need of being killed — but the program was never operationalized and Congress is P.O.’d that they weren’t briefed further on a program that wasn’t operational?

Please don’t look at the socialized medicine in the corner; we’re hunting Cheneys.

Great stuff.

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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Tuesday, July 14, 2009,6:36 AM
The Human Toll In Southwest Virginia
Lawrence Kudlow:
Why China beats the U.S.

We know China is already our principal banker, to the tune of nearly $1 trillion. As Mr. Obama's record spending and borrowing continues -- he'll be the greatest bond salesman in American history -- our financial reliance on China grows daily. But that's not all.

China also surpassed the United States as the world's biggest automaker in the first half of this year, with June sales soaring 36.5 percent from a year earlier. The Chinese registered 6.1 million car sales for the first half of the year. That way outpaced American sales, which were just 4.8 million.

Also, China has no capital-gains tax. It only has a 15 percent to 20 percent corporate tax. The United States, on the other hand, is raising its cap-gains tax rate to 20 percent.¹ It's also increasing its top personal tax rates.

In fact, the scheduled income-tax increase along with a much-discussed 4 percent health care surtax will balloon the top U.S. tax rate all the way to 51 percent. And there's more. To finance so-called health care reform, congressional Democrats are talking about raising the tax rate on capital gains and dividends by another 1.5 percent while installing a value-added tax (VAT) that would begin at 1.5 percent.

So top tax rates in the United States may edge into the mid-50 percent range.

Here's the clincher: Year-to-date, Dow Jones stocks are off 8 percent, while China's stocks are up 71 percent. The world index is up 4 percent. Emerging markets are up 25 percent. They're all beating us. None of this is good. [link]
A bit of local history. Fieldale, located outside Martinsville:

"In 1916-1917, Marshall Field & Company of Chicago, Illinois, purchased 1,841 isolated acres in central Henry County, Virginia to build a company mill town to produce quality towels for the Marshall Field’s Department store. The area was strategically located along the Smith River between the Danville & Western and the Norfolk & Western Railroad lines. The company town flourished with the 245,000 square foot Fieldcrest Mills, approximately 300 workers’ houses, a business section that contained a grocery store, movie theater, post office and bank, two schools, a community center, churches, roads, and the first electricity in the region."²

"The Fieldale Mills have consistently been said to 'produce enough towels to wipe the face of the earth.'"³

In the last five years, the U.S. textile industry has lost 210,000 jobs.

Before that, Fieldale lost its heart and soul in 2003:

Pillowtex Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Petition

At its peak Fieldale had as many as 1,500 local residents working in its Pillowtex factory, the last of its textile mills. When it closed its doors forever, nearly 1,000 Virginians were thrown out of work, and Fieldale was effectively out of the textiles business.

But the name lives on. Being sold over the counter today by a retailer near you, quality dish towels at low discount prices:

Fieldale, the name associated with the mills that produced "enough towels to wipe the face of the earth" thrives.

This was no accident. As Kudlow lays it all out above, we allowed it to happen. It happened.

We now rue our efforts.

May God have mercy.

1 Note: While the Chinese corporate tax rate is between 15 and 20%, the U.S. corporate tax rate is 40%.
2 From National Historic Register of Historic Places registration form
3 From "David Lindsay."
* It is unclear whether today's Fieldale Mills is associated in any way with the former Fieldcrest Mills of Fieldale, Virginia.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 8 comments
,6:33 AM
What The Lord Giveth ...
... Richmond may take away.

You folks over in Russell County and Lebanon might start to worry. Your largest employer may be on its way out. You know, the one that came to your community with great fanfare back in 2005? The one that won a state contract to store commonwealth data and was contractually obligated to build its data storage facility in Southwest Virginia? The one that Congressman Rick Boucher takes partial credit for having located to your community? The one that donates lavishly to Boucher's reelection campaigns?

If the following isn't straightened out, bad things are going to befall:
Kaine asked to stall technology contract changes
By Michael Sluss, Roanoke Times

Richmond -- Senior state lawmakers have asked Gov. Tim Kaine not to alter terms of Virginia's computer services contract with Northrop Grumman before legislative panels complete their reviews of problems with the contract and the agency charged with implementing it.

The chairmen of the General Assembly's money committees and the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission sent the letter to Kaine on Monday, as the two panels probed issues surrounding the state's 10-year, $2.3 billion contract with Northrop Grumman to consolidate and manage the state's information technology services.

A Senate Finance subcommittee received new details about missed deadlines, billing errors and difficulties tracking inventory as the state works through its contract with Northrop Grumman. And a separate panel was told that the board overseeing the state's information technology agency improperly closed an April meeting in which members discussed aspects of the contract.

"It's a huge amount of money and it's not working the way we anticipated," said House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, R-Salem. [link]
Uh oh. I don't know where this is headed but the 400 employees of Northrop Grumman might have reason to worry.

State contracts are not open-ended. They come due. And it looks like this one is in jeopardy.

Stay tuned.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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,6:31 AM
Can Governor Kaine get away with this?
Is government allowed to go into direct competition with business?
State employee loan program unveiled
By Michael Sluss, Roanoke Times

Richmond -- Virginia has established a short-term, emergency loan program for state employees that Gov. Tim Kaine said could become a model for providing alternatives to high-interest payday and car-title loans.

The Virginia State Employee Loan Program is designed to help qualified workers get small loans of $100 to $500 to help manage financial difficulties without relying on high-interest cash-advance businesses that are under growing scrutiny from state lawmakers.

"This program will allow our state employees to receive small loans without having to go to predatory lenders," Kaine said. "If the commonwealth can offer this kind of program, other large employers may consider similar initiatives of their own."

The loans will carry an annual interest of rate of nearly 25 percent and be repaid over six months through direct debit from the borrower's credit union account. [link]
Aside from the fact that loans through Tim's Tax & Trust are only going to be made available to the chosen few who happen to be on the government payroll, and aside from the fact that a semi-annual percentage rate of 25% is considered in some circles to be usurious in itself, can the government go into direct competition with private companies in the banking business?

We need to get a lawyer on this.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,6:16 AM
Of Course He Does
The government hasn't defaulted on its Treasuries yet, so why not?

Obama Plans Community-College Initiative

What trillion dollar deficit?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:00 AM
Things Are Looking Up in the Sotomayor Hearing
For the first time in 40 years Ted Kennedy, a man who should be in prison for past deeds gone unchallenged isn't sitting in judgment.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:56 AM
Let Me Complete That Sentence
Sotomayor Pledges 'Fidelity to the Law'...

... and she will determine what "the law" to which she pledges fidelity really means.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:33 AM
Where To Cut? Start Here.
On the same day that we learn that the United States of America surpassed - for the first time in its history - $1,000,000,000,000 in annual budget deficit - and it was accomplished by June - we also get the news that the United States government has filled the token position of Surgeon General.

Why remains a mystery.

The dispiriting news:
Obama Picks New Surgeon General
By Lauren Neergaard, Associated Press

Washington (July 13) -- President Barack Obama nominated for surgeon general a rural family physician who has faced hurricanes, flood and fire to care for impoverished patients along Alabama's Gulf Coast.

Obama says Dr. Regina Benjamin understands the needs of the poor and uninsured, making her uniquely qualified to be America's doctor as his administration tries to revamp the health care system. [link]
So a rural doctor who has experience managing a receptionist and a nurse or two now runs the federal Office of the Surgeon General. That in itself should give a clue as to how important the office is.

Think of the appointee - Regina Benjamin - as being the nation's medical Ann Landers. One in which (a) the administration(s) can fill quota goals (in this case two points - female and black; four if she's a lesbian quadriplegic) and (b) trot someone out on a regular basis to tell us simpletons that teenage pregnancy is bad, condoms are good, and smoking is the scourge of the Western World, worse than a plague of locusts.

But, Democrats will argue, the office only costs us $3 million a year and she'll only make 200 grand for the gig. It's a bargain. And what's that compared to the total federal budget of 3.55 gazillion dollars?

Let's start over. The annual deficit of the United States tripled this year over last and just exceeded a trillion bucks. Why? Because we spend $3,000,000 on bullshit like the Office of the Surgeon General.

3 million here, 3 million there, and soon we have fiscal catastrophe.

For the love of God.

I'm looking for the candidate for high office who says, "Enough is Enough."

A small-time doctor being handed a multi-million dollar, multi-thousand employee agency to run, productivity of which and output from which we expect to be squat, is ENOUGH.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:40 AM
Climate Specialists Are Getting Nervous
What to Think?
From the BBC: “Almost 250 children under the age of five have died in a wave of intensely cold weather in Peru”. “This year, freezing temperatures have arrived almost 3 months earlier than usual.” From CBC news: “Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island overnight Tuesday (July 7 into July 8) with reports of frost throughout the province (in southeast Canada).” “…a meteorologist with Environment Canada said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in Prince Edward Island.”

There have been individual record cold days in Chicago and Central Park, New York and New Zealand had the coldest May on record. In addition, the Potato Famine disease (Late Blight) is striking potato and tomato plants from Maine to Ohio and it’s threatening commercial and organic farms according to Reuters news, and according to Meg McGrath, a plant pathologist at Cornell University’s extension center in New York, “Late Blight has never occurred this early and this widespread in the United States.” The destructive disease can spread rapidly in cool, moist weather, infecting an entire field within days. The bottom line, which is causing me increasing concern every day, is that we’re seeing much colder weather in both hemispheres and its effects on humans and agriculture.

"Meteorologist Rich Puzzo, "Deadly and destructive cold...," July 13, 2009

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
Monday, July 13, 2009,7:01 PM
Fluff & Bluster
"The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy — it's a choice between prosperity and decline. The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy."
-- Barack Obama

We will modernize more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills. In the process, we will put Americans to work in new jobs that pay well and can’t be outsourced – jobs building solar panels and wind turbines; constructing fuel-efficient cars and buildings; and developing the new energy technologies that will lead to even more jobs, more savings, and a cleaner, safer planet in the bargain.”
- - Barack Obama

"The renewable energy economy is exploding in the United States."
- - Barack Obama


"Virginia has the potential to create tens of thousands of green jobs by 2025."
- - Governor Tim Kaine

"The clean energy industry will create good jobs that can't be shipped overseas in high-tech research, construction and manufacturing. Democrats reject the false choice between a healthy economy and a healthy environment: Green can be good for our planet and our pocketbooks."
- - Governor Tim Kaine

"[The Clean Energy Security Act] opens the door to a more secure energy future and the creation of millions of new jobs innovating, deploying and exporting to the world the new low CO2 emitting technologies that will power our energy future."
- - Congressman Rick Boucher

In today's news:
Austin's clean energy program costing more, selling less
By Marty Toohey, Austin American-Statesman staff

For the past decade, Austin's ambition to become the world's clean-energy capital has been best exemplified by one effort: GreenChoice, a program that sells electricity generated entirely from renewable sources such as wind.

Now the nationally renowned program is struggling to find buyers — the latest allotment is 99 percent unsold after seven months on the market — and Austin Energy is looking for ways to bring down the rising costs.

But those are short-term talks.

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.

"I think it's time to sit back and look at the philosophy behind GreenChoice," said Roger Duncan, the head of Austin Energy and the chief architect of GreenChoice.

Duncan said part of the solution might just be adding new wind, solar and other renewable-energy projects into the bills of all Austin Energy customers, which could increase rates for everyone.

The reason is that GreenChoice prices have risen more than fivefold since the program started. GreenChoice now would add about $58 a month to the electricity bill of an average home. [link] [my emphasis]
The rhetoric.

The reality.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:23 AM
I Was Wrong
I took the time yesterday to flail the Roanoke Times for its editorialists' (boneheaded) attempt to refute the argument that Obama can only reduce health care costs by forcing the rationing of care. It is, in fact, not the only way. There is another. And the Washington Post points it out. In "Health-Care Savings":
The rapidly rising cost of health care, President Obama has said, is "a threat to our economy" and "a ticking time bomb for the federal budget." So a critical test of the health reform proposals lumbering through Congress is whether they defuse that bomb. The answer, so far, is no.

What would it take to fix that system?

[C]hanges in the current, irrational system of medical malpractice litigation might help lower costs. The evidence that costs are driven up by doctors practicing defensive medicine to protect themselves from lawsuits is scant. But higher malpractice premiums are passed on to consumers. Steps to reduce the prevalence of medical errors and to lower the cost of adjudicating claims -- perhaps by finding ways to screen out frivolous claims -- could also help bend the current dangerous trajectory of health-care costs.
"The evidence that costs are driven up by doctors practicing defensive medicine ... are scant." That's a laugher. Pour a couple of drinks down the throat of any doctor and he'll tell you that that's exactly why he runs so many tests and brings in specialists for diagnostic back-up at the drop of a hat. To cover his ass against potential litigation.

But that's beside the point.

Medical malpractice lawsuits are more often than not frivolous and unwarranted. But lucrative for plaintiffs and their attorneys. And the costs of health care are driven ever upward because of it.

That needs to stop.

That can be stopped.

And, with the Democrats in control in Washington, it won't be stopped.

But here's to the Washington Post for setting me straight.

- - -

Interestingly, the Post calls on Congress and Obama to actually come up with concrete proposals that will actually reduce costs. Except for that cited above, the editorialist came up with no suggestions. Zilch. The elephant in the room that he avoided noticing? R-A-T-I-O-N-I-N-G.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:03 AM
Cynical, At Least
I'm reminded of a Tom Perriello (D-VA 5) quote:

This is a gift. For the first time in a generation, we have the chance to redefine our energy economy. …This is a great moment for us.”

He was referring to that now-infamous "climate change" bill. That "gift" to humanity intended to save the planet.

It was to him a "great moment" when he voted in favor of it.

It being a bill - a great one - dealing with great subject matter - producing a great moment - a bill he never even bothered to read.

Before voting in favor of it.

Making for a great moment in American - nay, global - history.

HE NEVER READ IT.

For the love of God.

That needs to change.

Investor's Business Daily:
Congress Needs A Read-The-Bill Bill
editorial

Lawmakers voted on the stimulus and global warming bills without having read either. Eventually they'll vote on health care legislation that could fund unrelated items. Time to end this systemic fraud.

The stimulus bill, signed into law less than a month after Barack Obama took office, reached 1,434 pages and will eventually cost the nation more than $1 trillion.

Waxman-Markey, the global warming bill, passed the House last month after Democrats added a 309-page amendment at 3 a.m. the morning before the vote, bringing that package of nonsense up to 1,200 or so pages.

Before it votes on health care, we have in mind another bill that Congress should take up. This one should be short, just a few words. It would be far more important to the future of the republic than fevered legislation establishing a public option for health care coverage or vainly trying to manipulate the climate.

This humble bill would simply require each member of Congress to sign a document saying he or she had read the legislation in full before they could vote for it.

Lawmakers should never vote for a bill they haven't read in its entirety. [link]
"This is a great moment for us," said the rookie politician. How did he know? That's what the memo from Pelosi's office said.

Great moments, Tom, are made of much more. Aspire to being great? Start by knowing what you're babbling about.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,4:45 AM
Good For Them
The ruling class here in the USA - and that would include our Congressman Rick Boucher - may have lost their collective minds when it comes to the economy and its relationship to "climate change" legislation, but the rest of the world has not.

Here's to the sane:
Hot-Air 'Consensus'
New York Post editorial

Memo to the cap-and-taxers on Capitol Hill, who want the United States to cripple its economy by "leading the way" on curbing carbon-gas emissions to halt global warming, or climate change, or whatever the term du jour is:

The Third World has no interest in bobbing along in your wake.

That's the message that came out of the latest G-8 summit in Italy, where President Obama hoped to reach a comprehensive international agreement on capping heat-trapping gases by mid-century.

Seems developing nations like China, Mexico, Brazil and India -- which are responsible for an increasingly greater share of global carbon emissions -- refused to endorse a proposal that would have them cut such emissions in half by 2050, with industrialized countries cutting theirs by 80%.

China, India, et al. understand that placing severe restrictions on their industrial output would bring their rise out of poverty to a shuddering halt -- and they have no intention of committing economic suicide.

No reasonable person would expect otherwise. [link]

No reasonable person exists in Washington D.C. anymore.

So our esteemed leadership hurtles headlong down the path of destruction and those of the expanding countries look on and say, "Sayonara, fools."
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,4:05 AM
It's Come To This
At some point, the global warming proponents are going to have to be held to account for what they've done. I think we are rapidly approaching that point:
Climate change: The sun and the oceans do not lie
By Christopher Booker, London Telegraph

The moves now being made by the world's political establishment to lock us into December's Copenhagen treaty to halt global warming are as alarming as anything that has happened in our lifetimes. Last week in Italy, the various branches of our emerging world government, G8 and G20, agreed in principle that the world must by 2050 cut its CO2 emissions in half. Britain and the US are already committed to cutting their use of fossil fuels by more than 80 per cent. Short of an unimaginable technological revolution, this could only be achieved by closing down virtually all our economic activity: no electricity, no transport, no industry. All this is being egged on by a gigantic publicity machine, by the UN, by serried ranks of government-funded scientists, by cheerleaders such as Al Gore, last week comparing the fight against global warming to that against Hitler's Nazis, and by politicians who have no idea what they are setting in train.

What makes this even odder is that the runaway warming predicted by their computer models simply isn't happening. Last week one of the four official sources of temperature measurement, compiled from satellite data by the University of Huntsville, Alabama, showed that temperatures have now fallen to their average level since satellite data began 30 years ago. [link] [my emphasis]
So. After all the caterwauling, after all the dire predictions, after the insufferable Al Gore is handed a Nobel (for God's sake), statistical data show global temperatures to be normal.

May all the environmentalist whackos burn in hell for what they've done to our way of life.

Pun intended.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Sunday, July 12, 2009,5:48 AM
You're Missing Something
The Roanoke Times this morning attacks my argument that ObamaCare will necessarily bring about the rationing of health care.

Well, no. That's not quite true. The boys there say we're already rationing care, so what's the big deal?
Beware of 'ration' scare tactics
editorial

Don't be fooled. Our system already rations care. Those who can afford it and those who, by happenstance of good geography, live near an abundance of specialists receive fine care. Those who can't afford it, like the 46 million uninsured Americans* and millions more of underinsured, have rationed care. So, too, do those living in rural or underserved areas where health care resources are scarce and the wait long.

Even those of us with company-provided health insurance often engage in battles with insurance companies that wish to ration the care our doctors order. And most Americans are just a pink slip away from severing our ties to affordable health care. [link]
A few points:

1) It's true that health care today is rationed, most notably by insurance companies. That's why they're despised, right? You attempt to have services performed and your insurance company cites in its policy (which is made clear up front, if you were to inquire) as reason for rejection of payment. Indeed, that's a form of rationing.

But the government has, over the years, circumvented that process, has become the arbiter-at-the-point-of-a-gun, and increasingly mandates that which health insurance companies must cover. Thus the runaway costs.

2) It's true that poor people have their care rationed because of their inability to pay for services. But (a) that's a great reason to not be poor and (b) they receive adequate care for free anyway. Ask anyone who works in an emergency room.

3) You don't like the way your insurance provider rations its coverage? Get a different provider.

"What? That would require that I change employers. I can't do that."

Then you have no complaint. The decision is yours. You accept the way your provider rations.

4) The most important take-away from this editorial:

"'The choice isn't between rationing and not rationing,' New York Times business columnist David Leanhardt wrote last month. 'It's between rationing well and rationing badly.' Make no mistake, we ration badly."

Perhaps. Though it is rationed more effectively than any other system on the planet, if one considers the end result and not the equality of dispensation.

But the point that I made regarding the future of America's health care delivery system - the best ever devised by humankind - that rationing is a necessary part of our future, is a point that is avoided - oddly - by those who wrote the editorial.

"We already ration, so shut up" is not a viable argument.

What is the government going to do to control costs? That is, after all, Obama's number one priority in coming up with his plan, right? Those runaway costs?

There can be only one answer. He'll ration care.

Badly.

5) You at least have some option available to you today if you don't like the way your provider rations your coverage. See above. When the government is the only provider, what options are available to you? The government plan or death. Or a new home in the Caymans.

"It's between rationing well and rationing badly." Think what you will about the way health care is rationed today. But if it's bad now, as Canada and Britain have irrefutably proved, it'll be a lot worse when some hourly government bureaucrat in some building in Washington decides your fate.

- - -

* I'm getting really annoyed at people who toss out that 46 million figure like it means something. The vast majority of those 46 million uninsured are either wealthy enough to own coverage but choose not to, or are uninsured but will soon have coverage (they're between jobs, for example), or they're illegal immigrants. The remainder all have coverage - in the emergency room - for free. It ain't perfect. A problem? Only if you want it to be.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 4 comments
,5:36 AM
It Becomes Clear
A Roanoke Times columnist who thinks violence will sweep through Virginia restaurants that serve alcohol if patrons are allowed by law to carry concealed weapons inside, despite the fact that 36 other states make such allowances without incident, also thinks that Virginia's concealed-carry permitting process is too weak:
Through the Norfolk-based Concealed Carry Institute, you can now meet Virginia's "competence" qualification for a concealed carry permit with a $39.95, one-hour online course, provided you can pass a 20-question true-or-false and multiple choice quiz at the end.

(If you fail, you're provided the correct answers and you get to retake the test for free).

I took the course Monday, passed that quiz and earned my certificate -- even though I've never touched a handgun in my life.

It is completely nuts that Virginia law would deem me competent enough with a handgun to get a concealed carry permit. [link]

What exactly is this guy frightened of?

The unknown.

"I've never touched a handgun in my life."

Now we understand.

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,5:14 AM
Where Would You Invest YOUR Money?
George Will makes a pretty good argument that you'd be foolish to invest it in the USA:

Let's guess: Will a person or institution looking for a place to invest $1 billion seek opportunities in the United States, where policy decisions are deliberately increasing taxes, debt, regulations and the cost of energy, and soon will increase the cost of borrowing and hiring? Or will the investor look at, say, India. It is the least urbanized major country -- 70 percent of Indians live in rural areas, 50 percent on farms -- so the modernizing and productivity-enhancing movement from the countryside to the city is in its infancy. This nation of 1.2 billion people has a savings rate of 25 to 30 percent, and fewer than 20 million credit cards. Which nation, India or the United States, is apt to have the higher economic growth over the next decade?

Yet while government diminishes America's comparative advantages, liberals are clamoring for . . . higher taxes.
"Higher Taxes, Anyone?" Washington Post, July 12, 2009
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 6 comments
,5:03 AM
Uh, Let's Change The Subject
What do you do when your favorite politician is fast becoming the most reviled and ridiculed man in the country? When all his plans and aspirations for this once-great nation are crashing to the ground? When everything he's done has gone terribly wrong?

Well, if you print the Washington Post ...

... you change the subject!

Today's headlines:

Probe of Alleged Torture [Under Bush] Weighed

and ...

Democrats May Investigate Secret [Cheney] Program

Hilarious.

Transparent. Piteous. Hilarious.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:55 AM
Quote of the Day
Deroy Murdock:
As "cap-and-trade" advocates tie their knickers in knots over so-called global warming, Mother Nature refuses to cooperate. Earth's temperatures continue a chill that began 11 years ago. As global cooling accelerates, global warmists kick, scream and push their pet theory -- just like little children who cover their ears and stomp their feet when older children tell them not to bother waiting up for Santa Claus on Christmas Eve.

"There has been no significant global warming since 1995, no warming since 1998, and global cooling for the past few years," former U.S. Senate Environment Committee spokesman Marc Morano writes at ClimateDepot.com. Citing metrics gathered by Roy Spencer of the University of Alabama at Huntsville, Mr. Morano adds: "The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveal yet another drop in Earth's temperature. ... Despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled 0.74 degrees F since former Vice President Al Gore released 'An Inconvenient Truth' in 2006."

So, to defeat so-called global warming, there is no need for the $864 billion Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, the Kyoto Protocols, elaborate new regulations or U.N. guidelines. Instead, let the cold times roll. [link]
It would do us well to remember the fact that this is what Congressman Rick Boucher (D-Abingdon) and his ilk in Washington are basing their efforts to destroy the coal industry on with their crushing cap-and-trade tax. A theory that is - with each passing day - proving to be a seriously flawed theory.

Mourn its passing.

But file its memory for future use. Election day will be here soon.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:52 AM
Obama Flounders
As his poll numbers plunge, Barack Obama gets desperate. And shrill. And more than a bit buffoonish.

I'm not even believing this:
Obama Says Economic Stimulus Plan Worked as Intended
By Edwin Chen, Bloomberg

July 11 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama said his $787 billion stimulus bill “has worked as intended” as he pushed back against Republican criticism that his recovery program has failed to rescue the economy.

“It has already extended unemployment insurance and health insurance to those who have lost their jobs in this recession,” Obama, who is traveling today in Ghana, said in his weekly Saturday radio and Web address. “It has delivered $43 billion in tax relief to American working families and business.”

Obama spoke after stocks fell for a fourth week on concern that an economic recovery will be delayed. A government report last week showed that employers cut 467,000 jobs in June and the unemployment rate rose to 9.5 percent, the highest since 1983.

Obama, in his speech, said the stimulus program is helping state governments save jobs. Were it not for the program, the president said, “state deficits would be nearly twice as large as they are now, resulting in tens of thousands of additional layoffs -- layoffs that would affect police officers, teachers, and firefighters.” [link]
This is beyond ludicrous.

Go back and read what Obama said in January about his stimulus plan and what it was intended to do. It wasn't about state governments saving jobs. It wasn't about state deficits. It wasn't about government employees getting laid off. It wasn't about extending unemployment insurance.

Here's a snippet revealing what it was supposed to be about:
"The jobs we create will be in businesses large and small across a wide range of industries. And they'll be the kind of jobs that don't just put people to work in the short term, but position our economy to lead the world in the long term." In addition, "90 percent of the jobs produced would be in the private sector, including hundreds of thousands in construction and manufacturing."
Now he paints a completely different picture. It's now about government jobs and bolstering insurance pools. Because his plan has done nothing. Nothing except drive up the national debt.

He's grasping. And it's not pretty.

I think he'd do well to apologize and give us our money back.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:41 AM
Back To The Drawing Board
Darn! It now seems certain that those uncomfortable, grotesque and not-very-utilitarian electric cars aren't good for the environment either.

What's a green person to do?

The sad news:
Not So Fast With Those Electric Cars
Investor's Business Daily editorial

A government report says reliance on electric cars will do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and may merely shift our dependence on foreign sources from one set of dictators to another.

It's a beautiful theory — highways full of electric cars emitting no greenhouse gases or pollutants after being plugged into an outlet in our garages overnight. The problem, according to a new Government Accountability Office report, is that the effort may only shift the problem somewhere else.

"If you are using coal-fired power plants, and half the country's electricity comes from coal-powered plants, are you just trading one greenhouse gas emitter for another?" asks Mark Gaffigan, co-author of the GAO report. The report itself notes: "Reductions in CO2 emissions depend on generating electricity used to charge the vehicles from lower-emission sources of energy."

The GAO report says a plug-in compact car, if recharged at an outlet drawing its power from coal, provides a carbon dioxide savings of only 4% to 5%. If the feeling of saving the environment from driving an electric car causes people to drive more, that small amount of savings vanishes entirely.

Then there's a whole new problem of disposing of a new generation of batteries using lithium. [link]
So environmentalists are driving around in those ugly little tin cans for no good reason. Except to feel good about themselves.

Well, here's to self-esteem.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:24 AM
How Warm Is The Planet Getting?
Warm enough for Long Island, New York to have set an all-time record this month.

Er, ... on second reading it appears that that was a record cold temperature. Sorry.
Temperature of 64 sets chilly record for LI
Newsday Staff

A record chill - in July.

Thanks to a high of only 64, Thursday was the coldest July 9 since the National Weather Service began keeping records at Long Island MacArthur Airport in 1984.

The old record for the day's lowest high was set in 1984, when a high of 76 was reached.

More records may be broken or tied early Friday because a low of 56 is forecast. The record low for July 10 is 56. [link]
Expect some goofball "scientist" to blame the record cold on global warming anyway.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Saturday, July 11, 2009,5:59 AM
Blind Leading The Blind
What does universal health care mean to local residents in Roanoke? Free stuff!
Supporters of public health option hold rally in Roanoke
By Sarah Bruyn Jones, Roanoke Times

Marnie Miller wasn't sure she supported having a public plan option included in health reform, but she knew she supported having the cost of health insurance lowered.

With that conviction, Miller joined a rally Thursday in Roanoke to ask Sen. Mark Warner to support a public plan as Congress considers how to restructure health insurance for the nation.

"I don't know much about the politics," Miller, of Roanoke, said. "But I don't have health care because of the high cost."

Neither Miller nor her five children have health insurance. When they are sick they go to the emergency room.

A registered nurse and a single parent, Miller said she earns too much for her children to qualify for health insurance through the state, but not enough to afford the high cost of insurance.

"It would be $1,000 a month," she said. [link]
Here's the kicker:
Like Miller, many of the approximately two dozen people gathered Thursday couldn't articulate the exact details of what a public option entails. Instead they talked about the outcomes they are interested in seeing, such as making insurance more affordable and eliminating the increased expense associated with having a pre-existing condition.
Pre-existing conditions. An extremely expensive proposition. One that Warner - being a Democrat - will be more than willing to provide for, when his boys take charge of the program.

It'll all come down to gifts. Awards. To favorite and/or vocal constituencies.

And with each mandate, the cost of health care will climb.

And we'll be right back where we are today with the expense of care going through the roof.

Unless the Marnie Millers of the world are told, at some point ... no.

Have you ever heard a Democrat say no when it comes to health care?

No.

Folks, there ain't enough money in the world ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 4 comments
,5:16 AM
The Elderly Need Not Be Admitted For Treatment
The question about nationalized health care comes down to one of rationing. It invariably has to. It's the only way that Obama can control costs (even massive tax increases to pay for "universal care" do nothing to control costs).

So, the question(s) become: Who lives, Barack? Who dies? Who decides? Joe Biden?
In Retooled Health-Care System, Who Will Say No?
By Alec MacGillis, Washington Post Staff Writer

The question came from a Colorado neurologist. "Mr. President," he said at a recent forum, "what can you do to convince the American public that there actually are limits to what we can pay for with our American health-care system? And if there are going to be limits, who . . . is going to enforce the rules for a system like that?"

President Obama called it the "right question" -- then failed to answer it. This was not surprising: The query is emerging as the ultimate challenge in reining in health-care costs that now consume $2.5 trillion per year, or 16 percent of the economy. How will tough decisions be made about what to spend money on? In a country where "rationing" is a dirty word, who will say no?

Although Obama and his advisers have held up providers' spending patterns as the crux of the crisis, proposals in Washington go only so far in addressing the thorniest questions about who gets what care. Instead, cost-saving measures are focused on introducing a public insurance option to compete with private insurers, or on general cuts in Medicare and Medicaid payments to hospitals.

The bills being written would put new emphasis on evaluating treatments according to their "comparative effectiveness," or weighing the risks and benefits of different types of treatment for the same illness, but the bills stop short of incorporating cost-benefit analyses into the findings or of requiring that providers abide by conclusions.

The Democrats' caution has not kept Republicans from accusing them of embracing rationing. They raise the specter of the British agency, which goes by the acronym NICE, that decides whether that country's nationalized health-care system will pay for items such as costly cancer drugs that extend lives a few months on average.

"You're going to be saying to people, 'We're not going to care for you, because we've decided it's too expensive to care for you,' " said Robert E. Moffit of the right-leaning Heritage Foundation. [link]
The huge baby boom generation is now entering retirement. And the elderly require - far and away - most of the health care that is dispensed in this country. So the obvious solution that confronts the Obama administration when it begins to give his plan form and substance is to use cost-benefit analysis on old people like a club. Why focus on a ninety-year-old woman's breast cancer when treatment of a one-year-old's cleft palate is more statistically justifiable, knowing that in order to control health care costs, the government won't - can't - provide for both.

Frightening.

You give up on the present system - the best humankind has ever come up with - and this is what you have. Rationed care.

If you're over 80, this should scare you to death.

Oh, by the way, your sudden death works to plan. You saved society a bundle of money on your care, or lack thereof. So please die. Your government would appreciate it.

And what a society we are about to devolve into.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,5:04 AM
Okay, This Isn't Fair
I enjoy heaping criticism on our dear president as much as the next guy but we can sometimes take it too far. Take AssGate for example.

You've by now seen the photos of Barack Obama staring at the butt of a 16-year-old girl as she climbs steps next to him. An embarrassing photo, to be sure. In many states, he'd be locked up for it.

But let's be fair.

And fair is watching video footage of that moment in context. To my discerning eye, he never looked at her butt. He's not a pervert.

He can be criticized for many things but this ain't one of them.

That's my opinion.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 4 comments
,4:58 AM
Concentration Camp For NRA Members?
Look, I'm not a black helicopter kinda guy. I don't cotton to conspiracy theories.

But tell me what's going on here and tell me this doesn't make one think of those detention camps that then-President Roosevelt set up to imprison Japanese-Americans in the early 40's:
Political opposition is not a hate crime
Washington Examiner editorial

[L]egislation quietly making its way through Congress would give the White House power to categorize political opponents as hate groups and even send Americans to detention centers on abandoned military bases.

Rep. Alcee Hastings - the impeached Florida judge Nancy Pelosi tried to install as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee until her own party members rebelled - introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill that gives Attorney General Eric Holder sole discretion to label groups that oppose government policy on guns, abortion, immigration, states' rights, or a host of other issues.

Another Hastings bill (HR 645) authorizes $360 million in 2009 and 2010 to set up "not fewer than six national emergency centers on military installations" capable of housing "a large number of individuals affected by an emergency or major disaster." But Section 2 (b) 4 allows the Secretary of Homeland Security to use the camps "to meet other appropriate needs" - none of which are specified. This is the kind of blank check that Congress should never, ever sign.

It's not paranoid to be extremely wary of legislation that would give two unelected government officials power to legally declare someone a "domestic terrorist" and send them to a government-run camp. [link]
The tendency is to pooh pooh this sort of thing and dismiss it as wild speculation.

If only there weren't precedent though. If only the United States government hadn't done this before. Yesterday it was "slant-eyed yellow bastards," tomorrow "redneck gun nuts."

I can see it coming ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,4:42 AM
Another Fine Mess
What happens when the president of the United States nominates someone to the lofty - and permanent - position of Supreme Court justice and that person is demonstrably - and woefully - lacking in the skills necessary to succeed at the job?

Well, if you're Harriet Miers, who was nominated by Bush, you're driven into the hinterlands in disgrace before the opportunity affords itself.

But what if the nominee proves to be a poor choice because she's a total lightweight but has a sterling résumé and is put forth by a Democratic president?

I wish I knew the answer to that one, because that's where we are today:
Sotomayor Enters Confirmation Process with Miers-Like Numbers
Now! Hampshire

Sonia Sotomayor will begin her confirmation hearings next week with some of the highest levels of public opposition of any Supreme Court nominee in the last two decades, according to a new poll by the CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation.

n fact, only one nominee had a higher level of opposition: Harriet Miers, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005. Miers later withdrew her nomination under questions about her qualifications from both the political left and right.

Forty-seven percent of respondents to the poll say they would like to see the U.S. Senate vote to confirm Sotomayor versus forty-percent who say they would not. In the final CNN poll taken before Miers withdrew her nomination, forty-three percent of respondents said the Senate should oppose her confirmation.

No other recent nominee, not even Robert Bork, whose own nomination under President Ronald Reagan was scuttled, faced public opposition this severe. [link]
Sotomayor will be confirmed because Obama holds all the cards. And the process isn't a popularity contest. It's all about legal expertise. Whether real or trumped up.

But this episode gives government another black eye. Unnecessarily so. Obama could have nominated a host of (liberal) jurists who were well-qualified for the gig. Instead he chose a Puerto Rican female ... who had a nice résumé. Thus we don't end up with the best and brightest. We end up with ... Sonia Sotomayor.

Such the pity.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 5 comments
,4:41 AM
This Doesn't Bode Well
It seems Obama is taking his party - at breakneck speed - into the dumper:
Voters Trust GOP More than Democrats on Eight of 10 Key Issues
Rasmussen Reports

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 key electoral issues, including, for the second straight month, the top issue of the economy. They've also narrowed the gap on the remaining two issues, the traditionally Democratic strong suits of health care and education.

Most voters (52%) now trust Republicans more on the issue of taxes, also the highest level found in over two years. Only 36% trust Democrats more on taxes. A survey conducted at the end of June found that 39% of voters now expect their taxes to go up under Obama, the highest level of concern measured to date.

On national security, Republicans hold a 49% to 40% lead over Democrats. That’s down from a 15-point lead last month. [link]

It looks like Mr. Hope & Change is at least achieving half his promise. How the times they are a'changin'.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:29 AM
America Clamors For ObamaCare
Or not ...
Only four show up for health care rally
By NEMS Daily Journal

Tupelo - A health care rally drew only four people to U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker's office Thursday.

Sponsored by MoveOn, a national public policy advocacy organization, the rally was intended to support expanded health care for the poor.

Organizer James Hull said 100 e-mail invitations were sent but wasn't surprised by the turnout.

Hull said the location had nothing to do with Wicker personally. [link]
In the poorest state in the nation, no less.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,4:27 AM
So How Warm Is The Planet Getting?
So warm that New Zealand had its coldest month of May ever recorded:
May the coldest on record, Niwa figures show
By Matt Stewart, Wairarapa Times-Age

Niwa [New Zealand's National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research] senior climate scientist Georgina Griffiths said May "broke records from one end of the country to the other - it was the coldest May on record", and there was nothing much to toast in the South Wairarapa wine village, which registered 69 percent of normal sunshine hours for May - the lowest figure for the town since records began.

June didn't fare much better as Ngawi racked up a record low topping the mercury at just 6.6C on June 16 - the lowest daily maximum temperature on the books. [link]
Odd how the cap-and-trade proponents aren't talking about global warming anymore.

Or maybe it's not odd at all.

But if it's not about climate, why are they going through the gyrations?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Friday, July 10, 2009,7:32 AM
Constituents Speak Out
Congressman Boucher felt the need to sow the wind. Now he reaps the whirlwind. I can't think of a more deserving worm. A contributor to the Bristol Herald Courier lets it fly:
Writer Blasts Boucher For Energy Act Vote

Thank you Congressman Boucher – for nothing. Your incredibly calloused vote of “aye,” together with your comrades (in the best socialist sense) has enslaved present and future generations of our great nation by shackling them with the highest tax increase in the history with passage of the atrocious “cap and trade” bill.

You have failed miserably to uphold your oath of office to protect the people you represent, and instead, burdened them with a baseless, multi-trillion dollar debt.

This bill, an assault on prosperity by way of a repressive energy tax, will generate soaring inflationary costs on all goods and services, unbearable electricity costs, and a chaotic destruction of the economy. All to chase a meaningless 7/100 degree temperature reduction for planet Earth by the year 2050; maybe, but not really because both China and India – which together produce more than twice the CO2 of the United States – refuse to participate in this idiotic game. You could not sense 7/100 of a degree differential if you sat on it.

As with too many of your ilk, you have chosen to supinely follow the Democrat Party dictum like sheep, led by Nancy Pelosi who left her brains in San Francisco, rather than placing the USA first. You make a mockery of informed, representative government. [link]
You may be sitting back all smug there in the comfy confines of Washington D.C., Rick, but back home people are finally waking up to the fact that you do not represent them. That you represent Washington. And they are seething. You did wrong by us. And you'll not be forgotten for it.

That fact should scare the crap out of you.

You're not getting away with this one, pal.

Retire.

Or face that whirlwind come November, 2010.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,7:18 AM
Coming To An Electric Chair Near You
How stupid can this pair of morons be?
Body found in van after Wythe Co. traffic stop
By Shawna Morrison, Roanoke Times

The body of a woman was found in the back of a van stopped for speeding in Wythe County on Thursday morning, Sheriff Doug King said, and her death has been classified as a homicide.

The woman appeared to have been shot multiple times, King said. He said the victim was an adult female, but he declined to release her name until her family has been notified.

Police believe the woman was killed in Taylorsville, N.C., where the van's driver, Lisa Church Damron, is from.

Wythe County Deputy Chris Coleman was on patrol on northbound Interstate 77 Thursday morning when he clocked the Ford Aerostar travelling 85 mph in a 65 mph zone, King said.

About 8:30 a.m., he pulled the van over near mile marker 30, two miles from the intersection of I-77 and Interstate 81.

The deputy determined that Damron and her husband, Jerry Wayne Damron, were under the influence of alcohol, King said. He charged Lisa Damron with driving under the influence and Jerry Damron with appearing drunk in public.

Because both of the van's occupants were under arrest, King said, the deputy was going to have the vehicle towed.

"As the deputy was taking an inventory of the van prior to having it towed," King said, "he discovered a dead body in the trunk." [link]
Since a van doesn't have a "trunk," I must assume the reporter means to say a dead body was found in "a trunk." Be that as it may ...

How stupid can you be? You've got someone in the back of your vehicle - full of bullet holes - so you go flying down the highway 20 miles an hour over the speed limit? Why not just spray paint the fact on the side of the van? (Especially in Wythe County where sheriff's deputies are always out pinching speeders on I-77.)

Murder Victim In Tow.

Or, as these two geniuses might have written it:

Merder Wumin in trunk

For the love of God. Just skip the trial and take 'em both out back to the trunk of their choosing.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,7:17 AM
The Sobering Truth
Investor's Business Daily on health care reform:
President Obama says a new public insurance plan is needed to keep private companies "honest." Well, to be honest, there's already a public plan, and it's hurtling toward insolvency.

The administration and congressional Democrats tell us they're working to reform health care in America. We'd be more inclined to believe them if they started by reforming a program that badly needs it. Instead, Medicare is the elephant in the room: Everybody knows it has huge problems, but few Democrats want to mention them. We can see why.

"Fix Medicare First," July 9, 2009

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:47 AM
Never Fair. Never Balanced.
First, let me stipulate: John Ensign - the Republican senator from Nevada who couldn't keep his penis under control - deserves this, another exposé appearing in the New York Times. One of many.

Senator’s Parents Gave Mistress Thousands

He deserves every word of every one of them.

I can't help but wonder, though, when the Times will become as diligent about reporting the escapades of that other slimeball Republican, John Edwards.

Oh. Wait ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:39 AM
It Figures
I wasn't alone in predicting this.

Now that the dust has settled, what do we have to show as a response to the 9/11 catastrophe?

Well, Saddam Hussein's neck is about six inches longer than it was on 9/10. And Osama bin Ladin finds himself eating beans & wienies out of a can in some cave somewhere. And there's a real pretty hole in the ground being kept nice and tidy where the Twin Towers once stood tall.

Oh, and there's this: Our government got a whole lot bigger.

First came the silly idea that we needed to create another bureaucracy. Thus was born Homeland Security, a department that files paperwork and maintains a bibliography of reports generated by the FBI and CIA. And does little else (now that that goofy terrorist alert system - color coding and all - has been put out of its misery). Thousands of new-hires were needed in order to tackle that critical process. Of course.

And then there was this gem. It was decided by the really smart people in Washington that we needed to fire every baggage handler at every airport in the country and replace them with ...

... you guessed it ...

... even more government employees.

Why?

Well, because they were the cause of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York City even though they had nothing to do with the terrorist attacks that occurred on 9/11, it provided a great opportunity to throw a fat, juicy bone to the American Federation of Government Employees union.

So we fired thousands of Americans.

And America became safer for it.

When we hired and overpaid government proles.

But why bring this up now?

The final step in the process that began before the fires were even put out in that big pile of rubble in New York City we came to know as Ground Zero is being undertaken:

Airport Screeners a Step Closer to Bargaining Rights

How?

To show they don't even need to mask the effort any longer, Democrats have come up with something called - get this - The Transportation Security Workforce Enhancement Act.

Key words being workforce and enhancement. As in enhancing the ranks of the 45,000-strong union membership in AFGE where once actual working Americans once toiled. And enhancing the ranks of the Democratic Party in the process.

A parting legacy passed down by Democrat ... er, Republican George Bush.

I feel safer. You?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,6:38 AM
The Good News In The Bad News
Well, it appears those 15 million Americans who are driving around looking for work today will be able to save on gas:

Oil Weakens as Recovery Hopes Dim

I think they'd rather have the recovery.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,6:37 AM
Bull 1, Idiot 0
Why am I not sympathetic to the plight of this poor schmuck who was gored to death by a rampaging bull in Pamplona, Spain yesterday?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,6:28 AM
Quote of the Day
Charles Krauthammer on Barack Obama's historic nuclear weapons treaty-signing ceremony in Moscow:
Obama says that his START will be a great boon, setting an example to enable us to better pressure North Korea and Iran to give up their nuclear programs. That a man of Obama's intelligence can believe such nonsense is beyond comprehension. There is not a shred of evidence that cuts by the great powers -- the INF treaty, START I, the Treaty of Moscow (2002) -- induced the curtailment of anyone's programs. Moammar Gaddafi gave up his nukes the week we pulled Saddam Hussein out of his spider hole. No treaty involved. The very notion that Kim Jong Il or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will suddenly abjure nukes because of yet another U.S.-Russian treaty is comical.
"Plumage -- But at A Price," Washington Post, July 9, 2009
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,6:12 AM
Nice
No, it's not "green." Which means it doesn't run on a sewing machine motor or 9 volt batteries. And it only gets 22 miles per gallon in the city. And it's going to be made by the government so there'll be a plethora of reliability issues. But it still turned my head when I saw it for the first time yesterday in a bank parking lot.

The new Chevy Camaro is, in so many words, sweet.

And I'm not alone in thinking so:
A Muscle Car to the Rescue for General Motors
By Bill Vlasic and Nick Bunkley, New York Times

Detroit — Believe it or not, General Motors has a hit car on its hands.

Amid the gloom of bankruptcy and a miserable market for new vehicles, G.M.’s new Chevrolet Camaro muscle car is winning over consumers looking for a little excitement in a bland landscape of look-alike sedans and watered-down sport utilities.

G.M. sold 9,300 Camaros during the month of June — more than either its entire Buick or Cadillac divisions could muster on their own.

Its long hood, rakish grille and brawny fenders echo the powerful look of the Camaro in its heyday, when G.M., Ford and Chrysler turned out tire-squealing cars that defined Detroit.

While it comes with a big V-8 as an option, the base model has a 6-cylinder engine that gets 22 miles per gallon in combined city and highway driving.

It is also priced for the mainstream buyer — about $23,000 for the base version, and up to $32,000 for the loaded V-8 model. [link]
If you can get past the fact that government employees are building the thing, the same ones who administer the digital TV converter box program that has gone so smoothly, this is a car worth looking at.

No, it's not going to save the earth from fiery destruction.

But you'll sure enjoy the ride to hell.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 4 comments
,5:48 AM
A Time Gone By?
There was a time when newspaper photo contests were kinda fun. When photographers were judged on their abilities to ... photograph.

Now their success depends on their ability to photoSHOP. The latest scandal in a long line of photo manipulation scandals:
New York Times Magazine Withdraws Altered Photo Essay
PDNPulse

The New York Times has published a new editors' note about the altered photo essay that was published in Sunday's Times Magazine. The newspaper says "most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show." The note does not address which photos were altered, or whether the photographer misrepresented them to the editors. PDN has tried to reach Edgar Martins, the photographer, but has not heard from him. Here's the Times' note:

"A picture essay in The Times Magazine on Sunday and an expanded slide show on NYTimes.com entitled 'Ruins of the Second Gilded Age' showed large housing construction projects across the United States that came to a halt, often half-finished, when the housing market collapsed. The introduction said that the photographer, a freelancer based in Bedford, England, 'creates his images with long exposures but without digital manipulation.'

"A reader, however, discovered on close examination that one of the pictures was digitally altered, apparently for aesthetic reasons. Editors later confronted the photographer and determined that most of the images did not wholly reflect the reality they purported to show. Had the editors known that the photographs had been digitally manipulated, they would not have published the picture essay, which has been removed from NYTimes.com." [link]

It is time for newspaper editors like those at the Times to get with the times. Rather than get involved in a photo essay or photo contest, knowing that the chances are real good that the pictures they're viewing have been doctored, run a photoshop contest instead. That, at least, truly represents what their readers are viewing as well as the creativity of the submitting "artist."

This can be fun too. In a legitimate sort of way.

As one might expect, they haven't learned a thing.
"Photo" courtesy of Freaking News
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,5:20 AM
Where Do You Draw The Line?
There was a day, not that long ago, when respectable members of the press would have summarily declined this kind of heavy-handed offer.

No longer. Now it's: Let's party! The rubes need not know!
White House Press Corps Happy to Attend Barack Obama's Off-the-Record BBQ
The Gawker

Reporters from roughly 30 television networks, newspapers, magazines, and web sites celebrated the Fourth of July with Barack Obama at the White House last weekend. Why didn't you know that? Because they were sworn to secrecy.

Gawker has learned that the White House gave tickets to virtually every major news organization that covers the president—the New York Times, Washington Post, Newsweek, Time, ABC News, NBC News, CNN, CBS News, and so on, about 30 in all. The reporters were invited to attend on the following condition:

"You are being invited to attend this event as a guest. Blogging, Twittering or otherwise reporting on this event is not permitted. If you feel that you cannot agree to abide by these ground rules, please don't claim a ticket."

These are the same people who just a week ago were whining in the press briefing about Obama's malicious and dastardly attempts to "control the press." [link]
I don't fault Obama for this. Every president has worked to accomplish that which he's getting away with. I blame the press. The members thereof are being played like pawn shop fiddles and are enjoying every minute of it. And they're oblivious to the implications.

Obama smiles.

As did Joseph Goebbels before him. He too was a man who knew something about manipulation of people of weak mind and no character:

Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.

Play 'em, Barack. They don't seem to care.

- - -

Some of you may not see the source referenced here as being "legitimate." The Gawker is little more than a gossip blog. Unfortunately the news relating to this incident wasn't reported by the mainstream press. Go figure.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:59 AM
Don't Get Me Started
Didn't we hear the same people making the same contention about cap-and-tax?

Consider me more than a bit skeptical:

House Dems rebel against health-care reform

Yeah, whatever. They rebelled against Obama's climate bill too, until the day came that they had to vote on it. Then they quickly fell in line.

Protestations mean nothing, fellas. It's where the rubber meets the road that counts.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,4:20 AM
Global Warming, Yada Yada
Here's more evidence that we've made a huge mistake about the planet getting hotter:
Tasmania as cold as ice
Brett Dutschke, Weather Zone

Bitterly cold weather has been gripping Tasmania as temperatures plummet as much as eight below average.

Widespread frost has affected much of the state in the last few mornings and has been severe in central and eastern parts. Liawenee has had minimum temperatures of minus seven degrees in the last two days, six degrees below average.

Some valley locations, such as Bushy Park and Ouse, which dipped to minus four on Wednesday morning, failed to get within seven degrees of the average maximum. [link]
As Congress prepares legislation intended to combat warming ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Thursday, July 09, 2009,7:04 AM
A Tree Falls In The Forest ...
Patrick County has a new chairman of its Tourism Advisory Council.

The two individuals who were known to have been Patrick County tourists this year were unavailable for comment.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,6:38 AM
A Worthy Cause
As long as cash-strapped taxpayers in this crisis-engulfed state aren't paying for it:
Update expected on Va Freedmen Project
Associated Press

Richmond, Va. (AP) -- Gov. Tim Kaine is set to update Virginia's first-in-the-nation initiative to electronically compile the records of black Virginians whose family history was smudged by slavery and racism.

The Virginia Freedmen Project has collected microfilm from the National Archives and digitized them to make genealogical records more accessible to African-American families.

Kaine will make an announcement Thursday on the initiative at the Black History Museum and Cultural Center in Richmond. The center has worked with volunteers in the labor-intensive task of taking the National Archives materials and making them available electronically. [link]
I can find no evidence on the internet that we are providing funding for this project. It appears that the two professors who are working to compile genealogical data on descendents of slaves are using volunteers to make it happen.

I therefore am very supportive of the effort.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 8 comments
,5:19 AM
This Wasn't Supposed To Happen
I wonder how long before the rats in the Democratic Party start to flee this sinking ship:
Daily Presidential Tracking Poll
Rasmussen Reports

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows that 32% of the nation's voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-seven percent (37%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of –5.

The number who strongly disapprove inched up another point to the highest level measured to date and the overall Approval Index is at the lowest level yet for Obama. [link]
Here's Rasmussen's graph showing the trend line in Obama's job approval:
Not good, there, big fella.

And to think, except for that massive SCHIP tax on the poor (but that involved cigarettes and poor people, so nobody cares), Mr. Sunshine hasn't proposed any tax increases yet.

Wait till that hits the fan. And it's gonna hit the fan.

Is Obama on track to become the least respected president in history?

The course is set.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 9 comments
,5:08 AM
They're Still Being Found
Statistics are woefully lacking but it's fair to say that tens of thousands of soldiers - Blue and Gray - went missing and were never accounted for during the Civil War years of 1861 to 1865. Many were deserters. But others died and were buried in hasty, makeshift, unmarked graves outside campsites, along the routes of march, and on battlefields littered with the two sides' dead. Others had their last resting places marked - sometimes with wooden headboards - only to have their identities forever lost when the markers were lost and the sites turned back to nature.

It's interesting to note that after all these years, the missing are still turning up. Literally:
Soldier Remains Found In Franklin
By Gregory L. Wade, Civil War News

Framklin, Tenn. — Workers uncovered a partial skeleton at a Franklin construction site as a machine operator removed dirt in a trenching operation.

The recovery was made roughly 50 feet from the Columbia Pike about a mile from the town square. This corridor was traveled constantly by soldiers of both armies and was the main artery of the Confederate attack in the Nov. 30, 1864, Battle of Franklin.

Union uniform eagle buttons, a leg bone, jaw bone with teeth and several bone fragments were recovered after Franklin police were called to the site. Detective David Dixon said, “It was evident this was not a crime scene but an archeological finding.” The remains were turned over to the Tennessee Division of Archeology which issued a “stop work” order at the site.

“These are most likely the remains of a Union soldier who might have died during the December 1864 retreat action from Nashville,” said local historian Eric Jacobson. [link]
I remember touring a museum a number of years ago there in Franklin, Tennessee (the site of a particularly violent and sanguinary five-hour battle that took the lives of nearly 2,000 soldiers). On display in a cluttered showcase was part of a human jawbone with teeth still attached. It was uncovered in a street maintenance project (in the 1960's?) and had been turned over to the museum. It was suspected that it too came from a soldier hastily buried along the roadside.

How many more are out there waiting to be found? How many right here in Virginia?

Thousands.

And they will, one by one, continue to surface.

Fascinating stuff.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 5 comments
,4:36 AM
Where Are The Bush Haters Now?
Not long ago they were foaming at the mouth over the injustice.

Today it's, "Hey, did you see the daughter's speech at Michael Jackson's funeral?"

Where's that outrage?
Detainees, Even if Acquitted, Might Not Go Free
Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely.
The Wall Street Journal

Washington -- The Obama administration said Tuesday it could continue to imprison non-U.S. citizens indefinitely even if they have been acquitted of terrorism charges by a U.S. military commission.

Jeh Johnson, the Defense Department's chief lawyer, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that releasing a detainee who has been tried and found not guilty was a policy decision that officials would make based on their estimate of whether the prisoner posed a future threat.

Like the Bush administration, the Obama administration argues that the legal basis for indefinite detention of aliens it considers dangerous is separate from war-crimes prosecutions. [link]
Well, things are different now. Those who complained loudly about America turning into a fascist state are quite comfortable with it these days.

Odd how the indignation seems to come and go.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:19 AM
As Congress Pushes To End Global Warming ...
... the globe is in serious cooling mode.

This would be hilarious if it weren't so serious an issue:
Frost in July hits P.E.I.
CBC News

Temperatures dropped to a record low in Prince Edward Island overnight Tuesday, with reports of frost throughout the province.

An official record low of 3.8 C [39° F] was set early Wednesday morning at Charlottetown airport.

The previous record for that date was 5.1 C [41° F], set in 2005.

Bob Robichaud, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, said that to his knowledge, frost has never been reported before in July in P.E.I. [Prince Edward Island].

"That 3.8 we got last night kind of sticks out as being lower than some of the other records for anytime in early July," Robichaud told CBC News on Wednesday. [link]
Another statistic to add to the pile already submitted showing the planet to be cooling.

Yet Obama and his pals are pushing legislation to stop that which might actually be a blessing if atmospheric temperatures continue to plummet.

To laugh or to cry ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:08 AM
Beyond that ...
If the fact that the planet is cooling, making global warming prevention legislation seem like a bad joke, there's this that spells doom for the Democrats' efforts as well:

China, India reject climate change restrictions

Yet our leaders push on, oblivious, wandering, befuddled ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
Wednesday, July 08, 2009,4:48 AM
It's Common Practice
We've long suspected that the mainstream press and Washington politicians were in bed together. Now we find out - from members of the mainstream press who still have some sense of obligation and respect for their profession - a dying breed - that it is the case and has been going on for a long time.

This ain't right.

And Dan Radmacher of the Roanoke Times agrees:
What were they thinking?

I was shocked by news that The Washington Post got caught attempting to sell access to public officials and high-level reporters by sponsoring dinners at Publisher Katherine Weymouth's home. I was thoroughly unconvinced by Weymouth's mia culpa.

Now Talking Points Memo is reporting that such efforts to sell access are hardly unique. The publisher of The Atlantic has been hosting such events since 2003.

I know revenues are tight, but some money-making schemes should never make it off the drawing board. Media credibility is in a precarious enough state without adding fuel to the fire. [link]
"Media credibility." Now there's an oxymoron if I ever read one.

Anyway, Dan's right. When the Washington Post sells influence ... what's the metaphor? Something about a ten dollar hooker.

The press.

Tsk. Tsk.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,4:47 AM
Are These People Nuts?
Most everyone agrees that Obama's stimulus plan has been a dismal failure. Intended to stop job losses that were sweeping the land, with the expenditure of $780,000,000,000 of our hard-earned money, we've instead seen over two million Americans lose their jobs since he came into office. And the unemployment rate continues to climb. And the economy worsens.

So how are his economic advisers advising our president now that their plan has gone down in flames?

You won't believe it:
Obama Adviser Says U.S. Should Mull Second Stimulus
By Shamim Adam, Bloomberg

July 7 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. should consider drafting a second stimulus package focusing on infrastructure projects because the $787 billion approved in February was “a bit too small,” said Laura Tyson, an outside adviser to President Barack Obama.

The current plan “will have a positive effect, but the real economy is a sicker patient,” Tyson said in a speech in Singapore today.

“The economy is worse than we forecast on which the stimulus program was based,” Tyson, who is a member of Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory board, told the Nomura Equity Forum. “We probably have already 2.5 million more job losses than anticipated.” [link]
Which is a great reason to ignore these fools.

The stimulus didn't work. Let's do it again.

For the love of God.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 8 comments
,4:39 AM
A Soon-To-Be Train Wreck?
Are all of Obama's plans to spend us into oblivion soon to come to a halt?

Color me skeptical.

But Michael Gerson thinks it to be the case:
Obama's Iceberg
Washington Post

The jobs report last week opened a long gash beneath the waterline of President Obama's legislative agenda. Few realize it, but a scramble for lifeboats is about to begin.

On closer inspection, the economic news, which seemed bad, is even worse. Not only did unemployment rise to 9.5 percent but wages fell, undermining the consumption needed to revive a consumption-driven economy. Unemployment increased among "breadwinners" -- married men and women who head households -- also making major family purchases more difficult. Recent increases in unemployment benefits and food stamps have helped many Americans pay for food and rent. Jobs, however, are what lead to the purchase of furniture, cars and homes. Paired with a decline in business investment, these trends make a second-half recovery less likely.

There are political implications of a weak recovery -- none of them good for the president.

Obama's spending ambitions would have been jaw-dropping even in the best of economic times. Federal spending this year is about 28 percent of gross domestic product -- a figure exceeded only when Franklin Roosevelt was fighting a global war against Germany and Japan. Along the fiscal path Obama has chosen (according to the Congressional Budget Office) our national debt will more than double in 10 years and will amount to 82 percent of the entire economy.

Initially, Obama counted on an atmosphere of economic crisis to grease the passage of any legislation he pronounced an economic need. But it hasn't worked out that way. Whatever their virtues, restricting carbon emissions and expanding the health entitlement do not constitute a direct response to America's financial and economic failures. No economic theory suggests that a round of new federal regulations and entitlements would result in a burst of economic growth. [link]
Personally? I don't think any of this matters to the people who brought about this monumental fiasco (see this morning's weblog post on an Obama adviser's call for another stimulus package). And I really don't think Obama cares one whit about the debt or his role in ballooning it.

But I hope there is some modicum of sanity left in Washington. The Republicans? Do they still exist? Let's hope. Because this train is hurtling down the track and the bridge ahead is out.

Someone needs to apply the brakes. And soon.

* I know.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:30 AM
Shocked. Shocked!
A smile crossed my face yesterday when I heard on the radio that the American Bar Association bestowed upon Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor the highest rating it could possibly have given her. "Of course it did," I muttered to myself.

And smiled.

Everyone knows she's highly qualified.

Stop smiling.

Investor's Business Daily:
Valueless ABA Ratings
editorial

The media are treating the American Bar Association's top rating for Judge Sonia Sotomayor like a dispassionate report card. The record shows that the ABA applies a politicized double standard.

The ABA's Canons of Judicial Ethics have a lot of high-minded language. Such as: "To ensure impartiality and fairness to all parties, a judge must be objective and open-minded." And: "A judge shall not . . . by words or conduct manifest bias or prejudice," including but not limited to "bias ... based upon race, sex, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity ... ."

And why not? Because "a judge who manifests bias or prejudice in a proceeding impairs the fairness of the proceeding and brings the judiciary into disrepute. A judge must avoid conduct that may reasonably be perceived as prejudiced or biased."

The very definition of "conduct that may reasonably be perceived as prejudiced or biased" can be found in Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor's statements on race.

The unmistakable assertion: A "wise Latina woman" is morally superior to those of another race and the other sex.

The ABA further insists that "a judge shall not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, gender, religion, national origin, ethnicity or sexual orientation."

But Sotomayor violated that too, until recently holding membership in an all-female "old girls" club whose only purpose is networking to empower its already elitist members.

Yet in spite of that, the senators have forgotten those sentiments, and the ABA is ignoring its own precepts — all because a dependable liberal is on the verge of getting a lifetime Supreme Court seat.

In the past, outstanding jurists ranging from Robert Bork to Clarence Thomas were scored well below Sotomayor. That was especially outrageous in Bork's case since he never had a decision overturned by the high court; Sotomayor has had 60% of her rulings thrown out.

Politics, not competence, is the ABA's motivation. [link] [my emphasis]
Liberal politics guides the ABA's decisions? Say it ain't so!

Just smile. And file it where it belongs.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,4:21 AM
I Was In 'Test' Mode?
I regularly use a GMail account for email communication (fuhrman.jerry@gmail.com). It's worked flawlessly for me for at least a couple of years. Little did I know I was in beta testing:
After Five Years, Gmail Finally Sheds the ‘Beta’
By Miguel Helft, New York Times

San Francisco — What took Google so long?

Like many software products, Google’s Gmail service was first released with a “beta” label on it — meaning that while it was polished enough for public use, it was still in a testing phase, so any glitches were to be excused. Beta versions, which are sandwiched between internal “alpha” versions and final “release” versions, typically have a lifespan of weeks or months.

But Gmail was different. Released on April 1, 2004, it was still in beta five years and tens of millions of users later.

That changed on Tuesday, when Gmail finally shed the beta label, signaling that Google considered the product to be fully baked. [link]
Uh. OK.

Works fine, fellas. All you had to do was ask. Four years ago.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:14 AM
This Must Hurt
I wonder how a legend (in his own mind) takes it when he's treated like a mere mortal:
In Russia, Obama’s Star Power Does Not Translate
By Clifford J. Levy and Ellen Barry, New York Times

Moscow — Let other capitals go all weak-kneed when President Obama visits. Moscow has greeted Mr. Obama, who on Tuesday night concluded a two-day Russian-American summit meeting, as if he were just another dignitary passing through.

Crowds did not clamor for a glimpse of him. Headlines offered only glancing or flippant notice of his activities. Television programming was uninterrupted; devotees of the Russian Judge Judy had nothing to fear. Even many students and alumni of the Western-oriented business school where Mr. Obama gave the graduation address on Tuesday seemed merely respectful, but hardly enthralled.

“We don’t really understand why Obama is such a star,” said Kirill Zagorodnov, 25, one of the graduates. “It’s a question of trust, how he behaves, how he positions himself, that typical charisma, which in Russia is often parodied. Russians really are not accustomed to it. It is like he is trying to manipulate the public.” [link]
Who, Obama? Trying to manipulate the public?

Please.

He has the press for that. In the outside world anyway.

He just stands back and sucks in the accolades.

So the Russians aren't in awe of Mr. Wonderful. I now have have more respect for them.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,4:04 AM
Left Out In The Cold
I feel like I must be the only human being on the planet who didn't watch Michael Jackson's funeral ... celebration (?) yesterday.

And that I'm a lesser human being for it.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
Tuesday, July 07, 2009,7:20 AM
For Your Morning Contemplation
You want your government to quit spending money it doesn't have? You want the size of government reduced? You want programs eliminated?

Then understand what that means. And be prepared for the consequences.

Be prepared to have your ox gored.

If you're not, shut up and accept ObamaWorld.

The Danville Register & Bee makes a good point:
Joining the (tea) party here at home
editorial

The 400 or so people at Saturday’s Danville TEA Party got the basics right. But the group... has a long way to go to convince most Americans.

The best arguments made — that federal government spending must be brought in line with revenues and that existing programs have to work as well as possible before the public can be confident of adding new ones — sometimes got lost in the white-hot rhetoric.

One elderly veteran said he worried that a new federal health care system would endanger his care — especially the expensive prescription drugs he received. He seemed worried that under a new federal health care system, his needs would be in competition with someone who was younger and potentially had more years to pay into the system.

But he inadvertently spoke two ugly truths about the government: For all its faults, it continues to care for people like him — and he wants the government to keep doing that.

Most of the people at Saturday’s TEA Party were senior citizens. Were they worried that the government’s fiscal recklessness would endanger their Social Security checks? [link]
Earth to old people: The Social Security system is part of the problem. Which makes you part of the problem. So if you want government brought under control, your beloved program must be brought under control.

It's not enough to rail against aid to Israel and subsidies for farmers. The system is broken. The system needs to be fixed. And you are front and center in that system.

If you're in the crowd (a very large crowd) of Americans who, when asked if they want the government to spend less, say, "Yes, but ...," or, "I paid into it; so unlike those Jews over there, I deserve ...," then you're the problem. You are the problem. Recognize it and accept it. And sit back and enjoy the looming government collapse. You helped bring it about.

Big government? That's you in the mirror, pal.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 5 comments
,6:29 AM
Babe Alert!
Why, who is this handsome young man?

It's none other than my firefighter son, Jarrod, in church.

And before anyone comments, yes, he gets his good looks from his father.

(Companion unknown)
Click on the image to enlarge it.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,5:47 AM
Sweet Music
Wouldn't it be great if that too-smart-by-half slimeball, Arlen Specter, didn't even win his party primary contest after switching parties because he knew he couldn't win his party primary?

I am lovin' this:
Specter faces hurdles in Democratic re-election
Ex-GOPer 'miscalculated' switch
By Donald Lambro, Washington Times

When Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania suddenly became a Democrat in April, it seemed he had virtually ensured his re-election to a sixth term in 2010.

The veteran senator had the backing of President Obama, top state Democratic leaders such as Gov. Edward G. Rendell and Sen. Bob Casey and was all but assured of the Democratic nomination in a state that has been trending heavily Democratic in recent elections.

However, a new set of obstacles stands in the way of the senator, who switched parties in the face of polls showing he could not win the Republican Party's renomination.

A Franklin & Marshall College Poll (formerly the Keystone Poll) of Pennsylvania voters reported last week that 28 percent said he deserves re-election, down from 40 percent in March. While it showed he was holding on to 43 percent of Democratic voters, just 24 percent of independents and 11 percent of Republicans questioned by the pollsters supported keeping him in office. [link]
Those Democratic voters will soon have an actual Democrat along with Specter to choose from. Expect that 43% figure to plummet too.

The scheme just ain't playing out, is it, big guy?
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:32 AM
Administration Backpedaling Like Crazy
Investor's Business Daily:
"The truth is, there was a misreading of just how bad an economy we inherited," Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News. Really?

Those who pushed through this year's $787 billion fiscal "stimulus" seem to be counting on the American people's short memory. Wasn't it just last year that we were told, repeatedly and with stark emphasis, that this economy was the "worst" since the Great Depression?

That was the pretense for not only the stimulus, but for the federal takeover of the U.S. auto industry and the quasi-takeover of the U.S. financial industry. It's also the underlying premise for both nationalized health care and massive new taxes to cut CO2 emissions.

If the stimulus passed, the White House vowed, unemployment would peak at 8%. Today, it's 9.5% — and rising.

"The truth is, we and everyone else misread the economy," said Biden. But the "truth is" something quite different.

Many voices — including ours — were raised in opposition to the stimulus when it was debated.

Americans were promised "shovel ready" projects would put stimulus money to work right away creating jobs. For the record, since February, the month the stimulus was passed, the U.S. has lost 2 million jobs. The stimulus is clearly a failure. [link]
You've heard the expression, "Misery loves company." Well, in Biden's case, failure loves company. But we'll have no part of it.

This old goof and his unprepared, unqualified boss were disastrously wrong on the economy. And thus, wrong on the stimulus. As many predicted they would prove to be.

Now they want to include us in their failure.

Sorry, old man. This is your gig. Own it.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,5:10 AM
On Liberals And Their Irrational Fear Of Guns
Ed Morrissey:
Steve McNair apparently died not at the hands of his mistress in a murder-suicide but at the hands of the “gun culture” of America. So decides sports writer Mike Lupica in the New York Daily News, who must have leapt to his typewriter within minutes of the wire services announcing McNair’s death in order to indict millions of Americans who don’t kill people but manage to own firearms responsibly.

[snip lengthy quote from the Lupica piece]

For the record, the murder of a boyfriend, as this appears to be, is slightly more likely to happen by knife instead of gun. Statistics from the DoJ on murders of intimates from 1990-2005 show that 47% of murdered boyfriends get stabbed to death, while 45% of them get killed by guns. Would Lupica attribute that to a “knife culture”?

But why let facts get in the way of accusing every gun owner in America of McNair’s murder? [link]
"New York Daily News blames 'gun culture' for McNair murder," Hot Air, July 6, 2009
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 2 comments
,4:53 AM
While Congress Prepares ...
... to stop global warming, the globe is cooling.

From the National Weather Service:
PUBLIC INFORMATION STATEMENT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW YORK NY
455 PM EDT WED JUL 1 2009

...UNUSUALLY WET AND COOL JUNE FOR CENTRAL PARK...

THIS JUNE IS TIED FOR THE 8TH COOLEST ON RECORD. THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 67.5...3.7 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL...WHICH ALSO OCCURRED IN 1897.

THIS WAS THE COOLEST JUNE SINCE 1958...WHEN THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS 67.2 DEGREES.

CENTRAL PARK HAS NOT HIT 85 DEGREES IN THE MONTH OF JUNE THIS YEAR.

THE LAST TIME THIS OCCURRED WAS BACK IN 1916. THIS HAS ONLY OCCURRED 2 OTHER TIMES...1903 AND 1886. [link]
Yet "scientists" are convinced that the planet is in the throes of global ...

Oh, never mind. I'm getting tired of pointing up the fact that their theories are totally flawed.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 3 comments
,4:47 AM
I Wonder If They'll Be Teaching This In School
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
Monday, July 06, 2009,5:29 AM
Talking Nonsense
The Roanoke Times has an answer to the soon-to-be staggering cost of electricity - if Rick Boucher's legislation is allowed to pass Congress. The answer?

Make it far more expensive.

From the editorial, "Electrifying Rhetoric":
To ease tomorrow's bills, lawmakers need to do more to encourage emergent green energy producers. Generating power with fossil fuels is only going to become more expensive as irreplaceable fuels become scarcer and more expensive, and as additional environmental measures are required.

The lawmakers' job is to encourage innovative changes to produce cleaner energy at affordable prices rather than to rail against a system they created.

Three points:

1) The admission that change is needed to bring about affordable clean energy prices speaks volumes.

2) "Clean" energy is much more expensive than coal (that evil fossil fuel that generates most of our electricity). The two most often mentioned alternatives are wind and solar. According to the New York Times, wind (which is a very unreliable source of energy) is 50% more expensive than coal. And solar power - also an extremely unreliable source of energy when the Sun isn't shining - "will be 173% more expensive per unit of energy delivered than traditional coal power," according to a report issued by the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee's Kit Bond.

3) So how is the pursuit of expensive alternatives to the truly inexpensive and reliable and abundant source of energy - coal - supposed to "ease tomorrow's electric bills"?

It won't. It can't. It's bullshit.

Someone needs to pound that message into the blockheads' blockheads.

 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 5 comments
,5:26 AM
Environmentalists Are Idiots
This goes in the You Can't Make This Stuff Up category.

According to a team (a team!) of researchers led by Tim Coulson of Imperial College, London, the abundance of food on Scotland's Soay Island has caused the sheep there to be smaller.

Hmm. An abundance of food makes animals ... smaller?

Now, to sane human beings, nutrition is a good thing. And a bountiful copiousness of food, to normal-thinking people, makes humans and animals healthier. And larger. Plump even.

But if you're an environmentalist, and you have global warming in the brain, black is white, sun is moon, and abundance brings us ... little sheep?

Good God:
The Incredible Shrinking Sheep of Scotland
By Bryan Walsh, Time

News alert: the sheep of Scotland are shrinking! On Soay Island, off the western coast of Scotland, wild sheep are apparently defying the theory of evolution and progressively getting smaller.

Why? In short, because of climate change. Generally, the sheep's life cycle goes like this: they fatten up on grass during the fertile, sunny summer; then the harsh winter comes, the grass disappears and the smallest, scrawniest sheep die off, while their bigger cousins survive. That's how you end up with big sheep, which — according to Darwin's laws of natural selection — will pass on their big genes to the next generation.

But over the past 25 years, the average Soay Island wild sheep has decreased in size, according to a report in the July 2 issue of Science by a team of researchers led by Tim Coulson of Imperial College London. Thanks largely to global warming, the winters on Soay Island are becoming shorter and milder. That makes food more abundant and allows some of the smaller, more vulnerable and younger sheep to survive. Then they go on to have offspring that tend to be small themselves — and have a better chance of survival because of the increasingly mild winters. [link]
Laughably. Absurd.

Forget the fact that the planet has warmed less than a fifth of one degree over the last thirty years. (Winters have shortened as a result? Less than one degree?)

Forget the fact that it hasn't warmed at all this entire century.

Forget the fact that shorter winters mean longer springs and summers - that which high school-educated people call the growing season. The growing season being a good thing.

And forget common sense if you're inclined to believe this bit of idiocy:

"Thanks largely to global warming, the winters on Soay Island are becoming shorter and milder. That makes food more abundant and allows some of the smaller, more vulnerable and younger sheep to survive."

Earth to moron(s):

Food in abundance makes smaller sheep larger sheep.

Food in abundance gives vulnerable sheep the chance to become healthy sheep.

Food in abundance allows for younger sheep to become older sheep.

Food in abundance, to those of us who aren't afflicted with global warming disease, is a darn good thing.

Your argument that global warming is a bad thing because it creates conditions such that food is plentiful is perhaps the most preposterous thing I've ever read.

To the rest of the world, rejoice. With fools like these for enemies, we are sure to win this debate.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 1 comments
,5:04 AM
Babe Alert!
Why, who is this beautiful young woman?

It's none other than my daughter, Jodi, celebrating her birthday with ... Kool Aid ... in hand.

That's what she told me it was anyway ...
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 7 comments
,4:55 AM
Counterpoint
The Bluefield Daily Telegraph the other day, to its discredit, allowed Congressman Rick Boucher to print in its paper his explanation for the cap-and-trade bill that he helped create being good for jobs and good for Southwest Virginia. His story - maddeningly - went unchallenged by the journalists stenographers there. So I thought I'd take the time this morning to present the other side of the debate.

Boucher says the plan will be good for us.

The truth:
You won't want to warm up to this
By Robert E. Murray, writing in the Washington Times

Perhaps the most destructive legislation in our country's history passed Friday in the House of Representatives -- the Waxman-Markey tax bill offered in the guise of addressing climate change.

This bill, named for Democrats Henry A. Waxman of California and Edward J. Markey of Massachusetts, would have adverse and lingering consequences for every American. It would raise the cost of electricity for our homes, fuel for our cars and the energy that produces our manufacturing jobs, with little or no environmental benefit. Further, independent experts estimate it would cost Americans more than $2 trillion in a little more than eight years.

All Americans in the Midwest, South and Rocky Mountain regions would be most drastically affected because the climate-change legislation would destroy the nation's coal industry and the low-cost electricity it has provided to those regions for generations. Wealth would be transferred away from almost every state to the West Coast and New England.

The most abundant and by far least expensive energy source in our country for generating electricity is coal. America's coal reserves rival the energy potential of Saudi Arabian oil. Unfortunately, the Waxman-Markey bill would force America to throw away this tremendous resource, and our low-cost electricity with it.

The legislation sets an unattainable cap on carbon dioxide emissions by 2020, with the first reductions due by 2012. Under the program, businesses that emit carbon dioxide would be required to purchase or obtain from the government special carbon dioxide credits. This carbon dioxide cap would force utilities to switch from lower-cost coal to natural gas or other, more expensive energy sources. Reliable estimates show this bill would cost each American family at least $3,000 more for energy each year.

The chief executive of one of the nation's major utilities recently said it best in the Wall Street Journal: "The 25 states that depend on coal for more than 50 percent of their electricity ... will have to shut down and replace the majority of their fossil fuel plants as a result of the climate change legislation." [link] [my emphasis]
The column ends with this:

"It is not too late to tell Congress to kill this flawed bill. Everyone should call your senators and ask them to vote 'no' on the Waxman-Markey bill (otherwise known as cap-and-trade) and support affordable energy, American jobs and our quality of life."

Don't bother calling Boucher. He won't answer. He doesn't want to be bothered. Katie Couric is on the other line.

- - -

So you know, Robert E. Murray is chairman, president and chief executive officer of Murray Energy Corporation, "the largest independent coal producer in the United States." When Boucher tells you he has the support of coal company executives, you might add that to the long list of tales he's telling with regard to cap-and-tax.

- - -

The coup de grâce is delivered by this morning's Washington Post. In "Q and A on the Climate Bill":

Would this bill stop climate change?

No.
End of discussion.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
Permalink ¤ 0 comments
,4:43 AM
Lesson To Be Learned From Palin's Rise & Fall
Although I don't agree with everything he's written, Ross Douthat of the New York Times gets the moral of the Sarah Palin story right:
Palin And Her Enemies

Male commentators will attack you for parading your children. Female commentators will attack you for not staying home with them. You’ll be sneered at for how you talk and how many colleges you attended. You’ll endure gibes about your “slutty” looks and your “white trash concupiscence,” while a prominent female academic declares that your “greatest hypocrisy” is the “pretense” that you’re a woman. And eight months after the election, the professionals who pressed you into the service of a gimmicky, dreary, idea-free campaign will still be blaming you for their defeat.

All of this had something to do with ordinary partisan politics. But it had everything to do with Palin’s gender and her social class.

Sarah Palin is beloved by millions because her rise suggested, however temporarily, that the old American aphorism about how anyone can grow up to be president might actually be true.

But her unhappy sojourn on the national stage has had a different moral: Don’t even think about it. [link]
He's right. And we are the poorer for it.
 
posted by Jerry Fuhrman
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