April 2010 Archives

I usually don't talk like that. But that's what I said yesterday when I glanced at the cover of the Laconia Daily Sun newspaper and saw a front-page photo of my six-year-old daughter. I usually teach my children, "Oh, my goodness!"

Even though she had warned me about it, when I picked up the paper at the Meredith library, where I got an Orson Scott Card fantasy thriller, the third installment of Brent Ghelfi's increasingly compelling Volk series, and a couple of musical CDs featuring Robert Schumann, I didn't even bother to take a look. It was only when I had returned home that I did, prompting my wife (who's home this week) to think someone had died.

Seeing one's child on the front page is often not a good thing. But I've been lucky with the behavior of my progeny thus far. I am terrified when they become teenagers, however. Esp. the girl--she's way too pretty.

I know the Democrats would like to regain their supermajority in the Senate, but isn't this going just a little too far?

1. In the past when Puerto Rico voted no to statehood the question asked on the ballot was, 'Do you want to become a State?' Each time this question has been asked the citizens of Puerto Rico have overwhelmingly voted that they do NOT want to become a state.

2. The current bill introduced in Congress is NOT, in fact, intended to 'grant Puerto Rico the right to decide if they want statehood,' as lying Congressmen and Senators claim. This bill changes the wording of the question that is to be put to the citizens of Puerto Rico - a scheme designed to trick the citizens into something they have already indicated the do not want.

3. The bill would require Puerto Rico to ask the following question on the ballot. In place of 'Do you want to become a State' would be the question 'Do you want to maintain current status?' This is key. By changing the wording on the ballot one gets an entirely different result. Polls, for example, indicate that Puerto Ricans do not want to maintain the status quo (which means they want some changes) yet they still do not want statehood. But this ballot would not even ask the question 'Do you want Statehood.'

That's only the beginning. If the first ballot has a clear majority voting 'no', the follow up question during a later ballot only gives them the choice of statehood or independence, with no third choice to for no change in status. That's no choice at all.

Are the Democrats that desperate that they need to resort to trickery to ensure a Democrat majority in the Senate?

Wait. What am I saying? Of course they'll do that. They play by Chicago Democrat rules now, just like the Teleprompter In Chief.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing for all the details of this backdoor attempt by the Democrats at garnering two more seats in the Senate.

This letter to the editor appeared in Monday's Laconia Daily Sun. The author, one E. Scott Cracraft managed to use every single discredited and bigoted cliché in the book in his effort to paint the TEA party and its activists and supporters as the next Nazi Party. Originally I thought to just post it and my reply and leave it at that. But after rereading Mister Cracraft's diatribe, I realized what it really deserved was a complete fisking to show what a clueless and unthinking "useful idiot" he has become.

In spite of the efforts by the Tea Partiers (and the corporate media) to make the "Tea Party" movement appear "mainstream," the movement's "core" is far from mainstream. This movement includes people who arm themselves to overthrow a legally elected government. In some states, they have advocated succession from the Union. Some anti-Obama activists have even gone as far as calling for a military coup against the Obama administration.

This guy has tried to tie just about every fringe group he can think of to the TEA party movement. I'm surprised he hasn't tried to include the Weather Underground. Oh. Wait. It's President Obama who has ties to members of that domestic terrorist organization!

Cracraft's accusations ring hollow if for no other reason that there's been absolutely no evidence tying any of the militia groups to the movement. The "core' as he calls it has no desire to overthrow the government except by the same means the present government came to power - the ballot box. But there will be one difference: we won't need to stuff ballot boxes or commit massive voter fraud in order to throw the bums out.

The Tea Partiers also include religious conservatives who have forgotten that the U.S. Constitution does not make the American Republic a "Christian Country" but rather separates church and state while providing the most religious freedom possible. Others want to ban a woman's right to reproductive freedom. Interestingly, these same people who cry out against abortion also judge "welfare moms" for having too many babies! And yes, in spite of the movement's public rejection of racism, there are some racists in that movement These people cannot accept the fact that the American people (and the Electoral College) elected an African-American President with a "foreign" sounding name. Many of these are "Birthers," who even question President Obama's right to be president even though he won the election fairly and legally. No mainstream politician of either party has supported this lie but this urban legend persists, largely due to some of whom are in the Tea Party movement or who support it.

This country was first settled by religious refugees seeking to be free to practice their religion without interference from either their rulers or the established churches. Cracraft seems to forgotten this as well as the Constitution states there is a freedom of religion, not just freedom from religion. Over the past 50 years or so too many in this country have done their best to drive free expression of religious belief underground as if it were a dirty little secret to be hidden away from prying eyes. They have used the courts to redefine the meaning of the First Amendment in such a way as to ban almost all public displays of belief. Being a person of faith is not a disqualifier for holding public office, despite what Mr. Cracraft would apparently like to believe.

He also seems to believe that only the TEA party has racists. I hate to disillusion him, but there are far more racists within the Democratic Party than the TEA parties. He also ignores the fact that quite a few TEA party supporters voted for Obama and have since come to see him for the disingenuous big-government socialist he is. That isn't racism. That's regret. The only similarity between the two is that they both begin with the letter 'r'.

Then too, the anti-immigrant sentiment on the part of many Tea Partiers can be construed as racist. I rarely hear those opposed to immigration reform talking about white, European immigrants. It is usually about Asians, people from the Middle East, and Hispanics. Racist or not, there does seem to be and element of the "politics of meanness" among the Tea Partiers.

We aren't anti-immigrant. Many of us are immigrants or children of immigrants. We are anti-illegal immigrant. There's a big difference between the two. It's possible Cracraft is incapable of telling the difference because to him all the illegal immigrants are future Democrat supporters...once they can figure out a way to grant them amnesty and a short ride to citizenship. Never mind the legal immigrants such a move will screw over.

Conservatives have frequently criticized liberal presidents in the past, including President Clinton, but no conservative has gone so far as to question their qualifications to serve. "Red-baiting" has become common on Tea Party signs and at Tea Party gatherings. No liberal candidate has been called a "communist" or a "traitor" to his or her country in a long time. This includes people that are more liberal than Obama. The Constitution, in order to protect our political freedom, narrowly defines what "treason" is and I fail to see how our current president fits this definition. Thus, I cannot help but believe that there is a strong racist element in the movement against President Obama.

As the old saying goes, "You shall know them by the company they keep." It is Obama who has consorted with known and self-avowed anti-American terrorists (Bill Ayer and Bernadine Dohrn, just to name two). It is Obama who, for almost 20 years, attended an unabashedly racist church with a pastor who spouted bigoted, racist rhetoric and called upon God to damn America, much like any radical Muslim cleric.

Of all our previous Presidents, only Obama has worked so hard to conceal his past, the details of his upbringing, his scholarship, and his vital statistics. Every other President's life was an open book. But not Obama's. We know nothing of his academic achievements. We know nothing of any articles or papers he might have authored while editor of the Harvard Law Review. And what we do know of his time at HLR is not flattering, with more than one colleague of his from his time there saying he was basically a do-nothing editor-in-name-only, deigning to grace the others working there with his presence from time to time and not much more.

The Tea Partiers are not engaging in "mainstream" talk. They have an extreme reactionary agenda which should be a concern of every American. They are using violent language, arming themselves, and even calling themselves "right wing terrorists." I have to laugh when a self-commissioned militia "colonel" spoke of defending themselves against leftists at a recent Tea Party in Washington. In case you have not heard, armed left-wing groups in the United States pretty much died out with the Weather Underground in the 1970s. It is not the liberals or progressives who are dressing up in camouflage and conducting field maneuvers utilizing automatic weapons (I think the Second Amendment calls for a "well regulated militia" with a chain of command subordinate to the elected civilian authorities and not a bunch of grown boys playing army in the woods). Nor is it the liberals and progressives who are making death threats to members of Congress with whom they disagree.

There he goes again, painting a picture of the TEA party supporters as fringe militant wackos. Well guess what? All these guys are are fringe element wackos, but they aren't TEA party folks. They have as much to do with the core of the TEA party movement as you do, which means none.

If all he knows of the TEA party is what he's seen on TV or from the New York Times, Washington Post, the Huffington Post, or the Daily Kos, then Cracraft is so mis- and un-informed as to be laughable. Not one of these 'sources' is reliable, unbiased, or without a political agenda that does not have the good of the American people as their focus. Like any media source, left or right, they can't be trusted. The fact that he appears to do so shows he's become incapable of thinking for himself and can only parrot what these sources have programmed him to say.

Some Tea Partiers, in their literature and websites, even call for employers to fire liberal employees simply because they are liberal. It does not matter what the employee's work performance is like. They also want to remove liberal teachers from our schools whether or not they are good teachers. They even encourage their followers to break off social relations with liberals and to totally marginalize them. And they accuse liberals of "intolerance?"

I've heard this claim, but I haven't seen a shred of evidence. He's made the claim. It's up to him to prove it.

I know I don't want the good teachers to be fired. But what I don't want are educators that aren't teaching what they're supposed to be teaching and are instead indoctrinating our children, teaching them what to think, not how to think, how to reason things out on their own. These days far too many of our kids are coming out of school totally unprepared to make it in the real world. They haven't been taught the critical thinking skills that will allow them to succeed away from the indoctrination centers we call schools. All they've been taught is how to allow others to think for them and to not question what they've been told.

As far as tolerance is concerned. The most intolerant people I have come across in my life have all been liberals. For them, tolerance is something other people must have, not them.

The Tea Partiers and their ilk protest and claim that as a "grass roots" movement, they are not responsible if there are some "wackos" in their ranks. But, while urging the American people not to "paint them with the same brush," the Tea Partiers seem to paint all liberals and progressives as Marxists, communists or terrorists, if not worse. And, I am not sure that they are even using these terms accurately. Therefore, it should not come as a surprise that many of their opponents tend to paint them as "racists" and "fascists."

When a large majority of the liberals/progressives in power spout Marxist/Communist ideals and support leftist/fascist dictators over democratically elected governments, then yes we'll call them Marxists and Communists and fascists.

When our President insults our staunchest allies and embraces our enemies with open arms, then yes, we will paint him with the same broad brush. To quote yet another old saying, "By their actions you shall know them." So far our President's "smart diplomacy" has done more damage to America's foreign relations in a little over a year than eight years of Dubya's presidency.

One also has to be cynical about the "grassroots" label: the Tea Partiers and their Tea Parties are being funded by some very wealthy conservative interests. Some of these interests do not want banking reform. Others have a personal stake in seeing that meaningful health care reform is eventually defeated. How else could Sarah Palin pull down $100,000 per speech? Also, one look at a typical Tea Party website shows the movement's close association with extreme right-wing national movements and organizations.

Oh, really?Just who is financing the TEA party movement? I notice he didn't name names. He made the claim, it's up to him to prove it.

On the other hand, the Democrats, and particularly the extreme left-wing of the party, has been heavily financed by multi-billionaire George Soros, an unabashed socialist (his claim, not mine) and someone who is not a friend of the American people. Like most on the Left, he believes we aren't capable of making our own decisions and he's willing to spend his billions to make sure our ability to do so will be stripped from us, one step, one right at a time. Also, much of the Hollywood elite are willing to support political causes most Americans find repugnant. They pour millions into the Democrat party to help elect candidates that are more than willing to dismantle the Constitution because we're too stupid to understand that we need the morally bankrupt progressives to tell us what we need.

As to Sarah Palin's $100,000 speaking fee: So what? When she speaks at TEA party functions she has given that money to help fund the movement on more than one occasion. Bill Clinton pulls down that much for the same thing, but Cracraft hasn't asked who's financing his speaking engagements, has he? It's a specious point. Get over it.

I have no doubt that there are well-meaning members of the "silent majority" in the Tea Party movement who are simply afraid of government and who came blame them? The Federal Government can be scary to all of us! After eight years of George Bush, who turned a federal budget surplus into a deficit through his wars and giving tax breaks to rich Americans, who would not be suspicious of the federal government and its motives? The well-meaning Tea Partiers should consider who their real "enemy" is: the "Military/Industrial Complex" (a term, incidentally, coined by a Republican, not a liberal Democrat) which has received more taxpayer money than every "welfare cheat" combined.

First, a good part of Clinton's budget surplus was funded by borrowing money from the Social Security Trust Fund, which has not been paid back and never will be.

Second, Bush didn't give tax breaks just to the rich. He gave them to every tax payer...unless Cracraft's definition of 'rich' is the same as that of the Democrats in Congress - Anyone with a job.

Third, at least one of those wars was not started by us, not by George Bush. It was started by Osama Bib Laden after his follower committed an act of war against the United States, one that was greater than the attack on Pearl Harbor back on December 7, 1941.

Fourth, the other war was started by Saddam Hussein in 1990. We merely got around to finishing it.

Initially, this anti-government movement included a large number of libertarians. While not always agreeing with them, I have always respected the libertarians more than the Republicans who seek to hijack their movement. The libertarians oppose government intrusion into any aspect of our lives. While they are against taxation and "big government," at least they are consistent. They may oppose taxation but they also are champions of personal liberty and oppose government interference in what one smokes or who one sleeps with.

I have to agree that the GOP has been trying to hijack the TEA party, trying to 'bring it into the fold', as it were. But we're too pissed off at the GOP, and particularly those within the party that we call RINOS, - Republicans In Name Only. The GOP betrayed its libertarian roots and became a somewhat less liberal version of the Democrat Party with the same spendthrift tendencies.

As we have seen, the RINOS had no problem spending money the American people didn't have. But that's no excuse for the Democrats to double down and create a deficit in one year that was bigger than Bush's deficit over eight years. (And we must remember these two things: the Democrats controlled Congress during the last two years of the Bush Administration - a time during which the two biggest budget deficits occurred - and that all spending starts in the House of Representatives.)

Mainstream America is sick and tired of being ignored by our employees, who spend without our leave, impose programs upon us we neither want or can afford to pay for, and forget that they work for us, not the other way around.

Unfortunately, the Tea Party Movement seems to have been taken over by extreme GOP conservative hypocrites who are committed to protecting corporate interests. While they whine about government interference in terms of regulating business, they seem to have no problem with regulating a person's personal lifestyle choices. While the Tea Partiers oppose government getting involved in health care, they seem to have no issue with banning same-sex marriage or medical marijuana. I hope the "well-meaning" Tea Partiers eventually realize which side they are really on.

Oh, and the Democrats haven't been doing just that, and rather blatantly while they're at it? They haven't passed legislation that created 'regulations' and 'rules' and laws whose sole aim is to cripple competition and lock out the small guy. They aren't pandering to those same corporate interests?

Cracraft has attributed far too many motivations to the a vast majority of TEA party supporters and activists. Mostly, we want to be left alone by government, want government to get its financial house in order, want the government to start following the Constitution, want the government to stop spending money it doesn't have and won't have in the future. Abortion, gay marriage, and a host of other social issues aren't even a blip on our agenda. The resistance to health care has nothing to do with denying people health care, but does have to do with its unsustainable cost, its intrusive nature, and its destruction of one of the best health care systems in the world all in the name the overused and purposely misdefined term 'fairness'. My question is, fair to who?

'Nuff said.

It was a long day today, leaving me with little time to complete the post I'd hoped to post this evening. Rather than doing a really poor job of it and posting it tonight, I'm going to put it off until tomorrow so I can create a halfway decent post that might actually be worth reading.

Like any bit of software, there are times when updates or upgrades can cause far more problems than they were meant to fix. Sometimes the new problems are minor in scope and very few users will notice them. Other times the new problems will bring a computer system to its knees.

Such was the case with a recent update pushed out by the the folks at McAfee, the anti-virus software company.

Many companies and people on Thursday [April 21] were fixing thousands of Windows PCs that went haywire as a result of a seriously flawed software update sent by antivirus vendor McAfee.

The update distributed at 3 a.m. Eastern time Wednesday misclassified a critical Windows XP system file, called svchost.exe, as a malicious program. As a result, McAfee's AV software was instructed to detect and remove the threat, sending affected PCs into fits of rebooting that made the machines useless.

Um...Oops?

Fortunately my recently resurrected main computer was still off-line when the accidentally malicious software update was released, so it did not suffer the fate of so many other XP machines. (A note: my main computer also runs Linux, thank goodness). None of the other machines here at The Manse use McAfee (Deb's computer uses AVG and the other computers, which run Linux, use ClamAV).

Since when did Andrew Breitbart become more important than almost any other journalist, except for...Matt Drudge?

It's doing things like this, which the Slut Media--unforgivably in bed with the Democratic party--doesn't deign to do. Keep it up, Andrew. And that was compelling radio you did filling in for Michael Savage, that towering talent.

Skip and I continue in our losing ways, though he's drawn ahead with a little over 8 pounds separating us. (We started a little over 4 pounds apart.)

At this rate I ought to reach my target weight of 195 pounds by mid to late July.

Here are this weeks results:


Click on image to embiggen it so you can actually read it and stuff...

Dustin's Gun Blog is right on:

Washington DC and Chicago are still favorites among armed thugs as both places are a smörgåsbord of defenseless potential victims walking around on the streets, disarmed by their own government which is unwilling to recognize constitutionally protected rights, including, but not limited to, our right to keep and bear arms.

The money one has in heaven is the sum total of what one has spent in anonymously giving and what one has spent in lemonade stands. I spent a dollar at the latter. A quarter was a tip!

A man's gotta start somewhere.

BeezleBub's school vacation started this weekend and he headed off to the WP-In Laws for a couple of days before spending the rest of the week working at the farm.

He spent Saturday and Sunday working on his Jeep, getting it ready to head to the body shop for a paint job. Being a John Deere fan, he's having it painted JD green with yellow striping and yellow wheels. I expect he'll get vanity license plates for it with some reference to John Deere on them.

One thing you have to say about him - he doesn't do anything half way.

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I admit to having a love/hate relationship with computers. I love using them, but I hate having to troubleshoot them. My main computer has been problematic over the past few months and it took until today to figure out the intermittent problem I've been having was due to a faulty power connector. There were times when it wouldn't boot and the BIOS would send out an ear-splitting high-low beep, telling me a voltage supply was out of spec. The faulty connector was the one that connects the power supply to the motherboard. One of the sockets was spread too much, making the connection intermittent, so whenever I moved the wiring harness out of the way the connection would either make or break.
 
I'm hoping all is fixed now. Only time will tell.

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Add Chris Muir to the list of those poking a finger into the eye of Islamic fanaticism.

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As if Chris Muir's finger poke weren't enough, then this bit of website hacking ought to get their attention.
 
Ridicule is indeed the best response.

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Tom Bowler questions the timing of the SEC's move against Goldman Sachs, seeing it as a purely political move by the Obama Administration purely to gain favor with an increasingly angry American public even though the actions won't fix anything. Never mind that a lot of the problems can be laid at the feet of Congress, and particularly Democrat members of Congress.

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Are TEA party supporters racist? Apparent so...but no more so than non-TEA party Americans. But you wouldn't know it from the way the media is reporting on the results of both the CBS/NYT and University of Washington polls.

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Color me unsurprised.

The so-called "Coffee Party" has quickly gone from civility to outright hatred towards the TEA parties.

As one commenter put it, "The Left's motto: If you can't beat 'em, BEAT 'em." (spelling corrected - ed.)

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Bill Whittle answers the question: "What did the Founding Fathers think of a strong central government?"

Apparently they had a major dislike for the idea, unlike far too many of Obama and his fellow travelers.

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Jea Tea delves into an uncomfortable subject for the multi-culti Left, but makes some valid points about Western Civilization and how it is too often seen by the Left as somehow inferior to all other cultures despite a plethora of evidence to the contrary.

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Nigerian lottery/bank transfer scams are so yesterday. Today, scammers are using ObamaCare as a means to steal by offering fraudulent health insurance policies to 'protect' themselves from the bad effects of health care reform.

As if we didn't see this coming.

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Back in May of last year I predicted the Cash for Clunkers program would screw up the used car market. It turns out I was right.

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"Public Unions! Huh! Good god! What are they good for?"

"Absolutely nothing!" (With apologies to Edwin Starr.)

Check out the photo included with the linked post if you doubt it.

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Stephen Hawking thinks we should avoid contact with extraterrestrials at all costs because they may be just like us. Think of what happened to the Indians after Columbus arrived, except that this time we'd be the Indians and the ET's the Europeans.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where warm weather has returned for now, boats are repopulating slips, and where thoughts of boating intrude constantly at work.

This is obviously racist. Well, then again, maybe not.

When is reward detrimental to the wellbeing of of those receiving it?

When it is undeserved.

Unfortunately the mindset of too many of our educators is that rewards are needed to build self-esteem, and self-esteem was far more important than actual achievement. The side effect of this esteem building? Increasing academic failure because there are no negative consequences for failure. With no consequences no one bothers to try. Such a system is set up to ensure failure and minimize success. That's no way to build a future for our kids.

Leland Teschler writes:

"When I was a kid, we'd just have first, second, and third-place winners for stuff like this," he remarked. "Most of the time you didn't win anything. When that happened, you'd just shrug and go out for a milkshake. I'm not sure giving everybody a prize is healthy."

There is a body of research that shows that accolades handed out too generously may cause kids to underperform. In one case, researchers did a series of experiments on 400 fifth-graders, some of whom were praised for their intelligence, others for their effort. It turned out that kids praised for their intelligence tended to give up when confronted with tough tasks at which they didn't excel. They assumed their poor performance was evidence they weren't really smart after all. Kids praised for effort, however, reacted to failure differently. They generally just assumed they hadn't focused enough and bore down on the problem.

The "everyone wins" philosophy is nothing more than means of imposing leftist egalitarianism, where equal outcome is far more important than equal opportunity. Far too often (every time, actually) the "equal outcome" is worse than if actual competition were allowed. Even the 'losers' in a competitive atmosphere will, more often than not, perform better than the 'equal' outcome of the "everyone wins" scenario. The equal outcome scenario always pulls everyone down to the lowest common denominator, which is usually pretty bad. The true competition scenario tends to pull everyone up, though not to exactly same level. Call it an effect of the Law of Unintended Consequences, sort of. It's like a scene out of Harrison Bergeron, where everyone is forced to be equal.

I suspect the everybody-gets-a-gold-star movement arose from misguided attempts to bolster kid self-esteem. After all, the self-esteem bandwagon started rolling downhill with such momentum that in 1984 California created an official self-esteem task force. But there's evidence that performance doesn't rise with self-esteem. One study in particular conducted by social psychologist Roy Baumeister concluded that having high self-esteem didn't improve grades or career achievement. Nor did it reduce alcohol usage or use of violence. (In fact, other studies show that criminals have plenty of self-esteem.)

It seems all kinds of bad ideas, particularly when it comes to education and social engineering, start in California. The self-esteem movement started there and spread like a cancer. Self-esteem became more important than actually learning anything useful. Self-esteem became more important than performance. When I'm flying in a commercial airliner, give me a pilot that knows what he's doing over a pilot that is a marginal performer but has great self-esteem.

Self-esteem only gets you so far. Beyond that you actually have to know something and know how to perform, no matter what type of job you have.

Henry Louis Gates in the NYT, he of the "beer" summit:

{snip} The historians John Thornton and Linda Heywood of Boston University estimate that 90 percent of those shipped to the New World were enslaved by Africans and then sold to European traders. {snip}

It has been said that the well behaved rarely make history. While the phrase was undoubtedly intended humorously, there is a note of truth to this. In fact, it's the ones that are different that we remember (for better or for worse). In fact, that is the single most thing that I believe makes America great: we can be different, we can dissent, and we can do so quite vocally. Then, I stumble upon this great irony...

"...any group that says I'm young, I'm democratic, and I'm a socialist is all right with me..."

Interesting... We have here "young", ok. I can buy that, it's a new generation, with new ideas, and new ways to make things work. Next we come across "I'm democratic". That I can also buy, and what luck, as they just happen to be (presumably) in the United States - in my opinion the greatest democratic republic in the world today. Lastly, "I'm a socialist". This is where one might run into a problem, as they just claimed to be "democratic". Princeton would define socialism as "a political theory advocating state ownership of industry." It would define democratic (democracy) as "a political system in which the supreme power lies in a body of citizens who can elect people to represent them." These two definitions seem to be inherently incompatible. In fact, the very idea of "democratic socialist" is so fundamentally split that the groups themselves cannot even precisely define what a democratic socialist is. These two political systems could never exist in full form in the same government. This is simply because the systems are inherently opposites.

The pinnacle of democracy lies in the procedure of elections. If we, as a people, do not have the power to remove a leader from power, they have no incentive to listen to the people, nor carry out their will. The whole idea behind democracy is that all voices are heard. That requires leaders not only to listen, but it also requires that these voices have methods to express grievances with their elected officials. The pinnacle of socialism is governmental control, as this is meant to eliminate "classes" and social inequalities. The socialist system would require leaders to stay in power indefinitely, as any leadership change would undoubtedly lead to an upset of the social system, thereby creating the very problem it set out to solve. Beyond these fundamental differences, however, lies the reason far more simple: there are people that are greedy. Why have all socialist states have ended in authoritarian control? Because when you put the state in charge of resources, there are those that will use those as leverage to ensure that they stay in power. With no recourse to remedy such an issue (other than a revolt) to remove the offender from power, the denizens of such a state are simply out of the proverbial luck. A democracy cannot exist where there is fear of repercussions over dissent. Socialism cannot tolerate dissent in order to exist. Quite simply, the two are just incompatible. But moving on...

"...Right now, we are living in a time that is going to dwarf the McCarthy era. It is going to dwarf the internments of World War II. We are right now in a time that is going to dwarf the era of Jim Crow and segregation...they are coming, they are coming after you. They are going to be brutal, and pressing..they are ripping off the mask of racism."

Please note, she is referencing "...this rise of this so-called 'Tea Party Movement'..." in her above quote. Now, she gives three examples. First, we have McCarthy, who became known for his claims of communists and socialist within the government. Though his intentions sound quite honorable, his methodology was far less so. In fact, his very name is an accepted reference to a tendency to "unscrupulously accusing people of disloyalty." Is this "Tea Party Movement" unscrupulously accusing people of disloyalty? Let's see here... We have "fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited governments, and free markets." As a matter of fact, the very mission statement reads:

The impetuses for the Tea Party movement are excessive government spending and taxation. Our mission is to attract, educate, organize, and mobilize our fellow citizens to secure public policy consistent with our three core values of Fiscal Responsibility, Constitutionally Limited Government and Free Markets.

Nowhere in there is there any mention of accusations, nor is there any mention of any disloyalty. Simply put, the Tea Party Movement is there to encourage people to take action against perceived injustice. While there may be some argument that certain members of such a movement will accuse others of disloyalty, I'd quickly like to point out that it is a fray, and can be found anywhere. After all, it would be quite bigoted to identify all Christians with Westboro Baptist Church, nor would it be fair to identify all Muslims as extremists. Secondly, it's likened to an Internment Camp during WWII. Unfortunately, I still have yet to read the article where any Tea Party rally takes a hostage, nor have I even come across and article describing a Tea Party supporter "interning" another individual. Therefore, we must dismiss such a comparison as unfounded and purely inflammatory. Lastly, it is compared to the "Jim Crow" laws and segregation. Again, I still have yet to see any similarities between segregation and the Tea Party. In fact, despite slurs and other derogatory remarks from within their own races, many African Americans are starting to support the tea party movement. Is the Tea Party sending a message of segregation and racial inequality? No, in fact I cannot find even one mention of race in the tea party doctrine. Again, we only have "fiscal responsibility, constitutionally limited government, and free markets." I fail to see any similarity, or even remote grounds for comparison. Hence, it must dismissed as another unfounded remark merely present for its inflammatory value.

"...this particular organization, Young Democratic Socialists, you do whatever you can in every way that you can and all of you devote more time to building this organization..."

By all means, if you wish to stand for something, then stand for it wholeheartedly. There are many that I disagree with, yet I respect, because of their willing to defend their beliefs even in an adversarial setting. However, in order to earn such respect, one must be willing to defend their beliefs with logic and reason, not just rhetoric (which it almost purely was, despite many claims of the opposite). There is no intelligence behind a "well, that's just what you think" defense. There is no thought behind it, nor facts. One could argue anything and be impervious to any dissent. This is not how real ideas are created. An idea is only as good as it's support, and in order to achieve that support one must be willing to defend, with reason, their idea. I have launched a rational, reasoned, and logical critique of Ms. Lewis' comments. Rather than just call my dissenters and their groups a "bowel movement", and use buzzwords to rile indignation, I have firmly stated what I believed, and why. Should ACORN ever wish to see your tax dollars funding again, perhaps they would be better off to employ a CEO who did the same.

And it's about the Lowell Mill Girls, which I am researching for my new American literature textbook. You should check it out. You may even enjoy the oldies.

The willful ignorance of some people when it comes to pollution of the air and water never ceases to amaze me. I don't know how often I've heard people say something along the lines of "Pollution is getting so much worse, poisoning the land, air, and water." It's mostly some of the younger people under the age of 45 saying that because they didn't experience what it was like back in the 60's and early 70's, when the air was dirty and the water in rivers and lakes was unfit to drink or swim in. One river, the Cuyahoga in Ohio, was so polluted it actually caught fire. The old joke went that New Yorkers didn't trust air they couldn't see.

Seeing pictures of a number of cities around the US back in the 60's and early 70's it was easy to see the heavy brown haze that hung over them day after day. Looking at pictures at those same cities today the first thing most people will notice is the lack of the brown haze that was so prevalent 40 and 50 years ago.

Rivers and lakes that were dangerous to be exposed to for any length of time are now clean and are being used for recreation and as water supplies again.

Have all the polluting sources been eliminated yet? No, but progress is still being made in reducing or mitigating what sources still exist. That sounds good, right? But to some the reduced pollution, and specifically air pollution, is a bad thing, particularly when it comes to global warming.

You're likely to hear a chorus of dire warnings as we approach Earth Day, but there's a serious shortage few pundits are talking about: air pollution. That's right, the world is running short on air pollution, and if we continue to cut back on smoke pouring forth from industrial smokestacks, the increase in global warming could be profound.

Cleaner air, one of the signature achievements of the U.S. environmental movement, is certainly worth celebrating. Scientists estimate that the U.S. Clean Air Act has cut a major air pollutant called sulfate aerosols, for example, by 30% to 50% since the 1980s, helping greatly reduce cases of asthma and other respiratory problems.

But even as industrialized and developing nations alike steadily reduce aerosol pollution -- caused primarily by burning coal -- climate scientists are beginning to understand just how much these tiny particles have helped keep the planet cool. A silent benefit of sulfates, in fact, is that they've been helpfully blocking sunlight from striking the Earth for many decades, by brightening clouds and expanding their coverage.

Here it is, we've spent around 40 years and a lot of money to greatly reduce air pollution and now the AGW folks are saying that because of the cleaner air we're making global warming worse?

We just can't friggin' win, can we? No matter what we do, even if it leads to cleaner air and water, it's the wrong thing as far as the AGW faithful are concerned. So the only way to slow global warming is for us to undo the last 40 years of air pollution control? They have got to be kidding, right?

Unfortunately, they are entirely serious.

Considering the heights this station achieved in the late 1980s with Gene Burns, the late Jerry Williams, and Janet Jaghelian, this amazes. How the mighty have fallen!

The "greatest ecclesiastical villain since Judas Iscariot"? I Think Mr. Iscariot gets a bad rap. But this guy? Fuhgettaboutit.

And it does my heart good to see some disinfectant sunlight put on the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) here. This group contributes to the Left's hysteria.

My liberal brother, now with the State Dept. as a diplomat, has given money to them.

But he may begin to feel what many Western Catholics are now facing up to with their own Vatican. Despite the good the Catholic Church does, the self-inflicted wounds and the secular leftist media's feeding frenzy (Matt Abbott explains why here.) have caused--and will continue to cause--massive damage. This is also a personal issue with me, as I teach at a Catholic school begun by a now-deceased Mexican priest who apparently has a lot to answer for in the next life. If there is a hell, he probably is there right now.

BTW, there's the NFL draft this week. I used to spend hundreds of hours prepping myself for it. Yes, I'm such a nerd. Here's my guess at what the Patriots do, if they stay at their current position of the 22 pick of the first round. Here are three players to focus on: Cal's extremely fast RB Jahvid Best, Penn State's very good DT Jason Odrick, and my personal favorite, Florida's versatile center Maurkice Pouncey.

There may be players they really like such as Brandon Graham of the Yellowbellies that they will trade up for if it's not too costly.

It is week 15 of the challenge and Skip has pulled ahead again while yours truly slowed down (but still lost a little weight). But I expect the pace to pick up a little bit...I hope.


Click on image to enlarge

I got in very late tonight, leaving me with little time to do anything but post this brief message. I haven't forgotten to post the results, I'm just too darned tired. I'll post 'em tomorrow. If you want to see them now go on over to GraniteGrok. I'm going to bed....

Winter returned to New Hampshire, dropping sleet and snow starting on Friday. So much for late-spring weather coming early and giving us an early start on summer.

I was planning on pulling the winter storage cover off of the Official Weekend Pundit Lake Winnipesaukee Runabout, but the winter weather changed that plan. If the weather had remained warm and sunny I would have considered launching the boat at the beginning of May rather than over the Memorial Day Weekend. But this latest bit of winter weather has convinced me stay with the usual schedule.

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Lori Ingham has a final link round up of the TEA party protest in Manchester, NH that took place this past Thursday.

There's lots of bloggy goodness to be found!

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Is there another GOP upset in the offing in the Bay State? Considering Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's tumbling numbers, recent tax hikes, and even more profligate deficit spending by the state, is it possible he might be defeated by a GOP challenger in November?

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And speaking of upsets, is it possible the Democrats could lose over 70 seats in the House this coming November?

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ClimateGate: The gift that keeps on giving and giving....

Despite massive efforts by the UN IPCC to explain away the deficiencies and outright falsehoods in their 2007 report, the people and the scientific community aren't buying it. It doesn't help that the IPCC is trying to use more knowingly tainted data from the CRU to prove their report is correct.

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I'll bet you didn't know that AGW causes volcanic eruptions, slavery, and was caused in ancient times by bad Native Americans.

I'll bet they'll also find a link between AGW and the Boston Red Sox not making it to the World Series the past couple of years, too.

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First it's a new period of low solar activity, expected to last the next 30 years or so.

Now it's increased volcanic activity in Iceland, expected to continue for the next 60 years.

Between the two of them we can expect cooler temperatures, particularly in the northern hemisphere. We can also expect some colorful sunsets for the next year or two as the ash from the latest volcanic eruption in Iceland circles in the upper atmosphere.

Another effect of the higher volcanic activity: disruptions of air travel across the Atlantic on a more frequent basis. Both Steven Den Beste and Glenn Reynolds believe such disruptions will increase the use of teleconferencing.

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Does any of this look like economic recovery to you? I guess it does if your intention is to tank the economy with useless 'stimulus' spending and future confiscatory tax rates to pay for it all.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

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It appears crime is causing problems in one small New Hampshire town. The local police department has been receiving investigative help from the state police.

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It appears New Hampshire Governor John Lynch has a thin skin.

A TV ad slamming Lynch's failure to keep his promises about controlling state spending, not raising taxes, and vetoing a gay marriage bill has been airing for a couple of weeks on local stations . Lynch doesn't like the ad (big surprise there), claiming the organization paying for the ads are "attack on New Hampshire and an attack on the people."

Frankly, I don't see how this ad is slamming either the state or the citizens. It is accurately targeting Lynch's failures to wield his veto pen as he promised he would to control state spending (which has increased by over 30% over the past two budgets) and control taxes (which have increased dramatically because of overly optimistic revenue estimates used to justify increased spending). He also supported the state's efforts to confiscate $110 million surplus funds of a private agency set up to provide medical malpractice insurance, claiming that because the state passed the legislation to create the agency they owned the funds. (The state Supreme Court decided otherwise, stating that since no state funds, personnel, or facilities were provided to the agency and because the legislation that set up the agency stated any surplus premiums had to be returned to the policyholders, the state had no claims to the surplus funds.)

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From Gateway Pundit: Obama & Dems make great strides...in achieving Communist goals in America.

Reading an original address made to the House of Representatives back in 1963, it is easy to see far too many of their goals have been achieved.

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The focus on self-esteem and feel-good advocacy has replaced actually studying subjects like science in our schools. As this Forbes op-ed piece states, such a focus is doing our kids a great disservice.

Every schoolchild these days seems to be a devoted environmentalist, able to spell "sustainable" before "dog." However, much of the indoctrination about environmentalism--especially in schools--is of the passion-is-more-important-than-fact variety. These kids are being misled and shortchanged, to their own and society's detriment.

For last year's Earth Day, for example, sixth-grade students at a tony private school near San Francisco were given this bizarre assignment: Make a list of ways Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates' fortune could be spent on environmentally friendly projects. There was no hint that systematic market-based incentives for people and businesses could protect the environment--merely that it is OK to appropriate wealth from someone as long as it's for a good cause. (emphasis added)

Ah, yes, the "ends justifies the means" doctrine so prevalent amongst the PC/Socialist crowd. Never mind that it's theft. Never mind that the unintended consequences may be far worse than whatever such theft is intended to 'cure'. Never mind the kids won't learn the critical thinking skills they'll need to succeed once they get out of school...unless they decide to go into education or politics.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where winter has returned, the woodstove is running, and where we're waiting for spring to return.

Religion of Peace, huh?

It's here. Notice that the last president who never attended college was a first-class book worm. Truman had large parts of the Bible memorized, for example

Thursday I attended one of the hundreds of TEA party protests held around the nation. Turnout was around 1000, which was similar to last year's Tax Day TEA Party protest.

Of the myriad of speakers at the protest, only one was a sitting member of the House of Representatives and he was visiting from Michigan. A number of Congressional hopefuls were there, but none spoke, preferring to press the flesh and speak one-on-one with TEA party supporters. Not surprisingly, only GOP candidates showed up even though invitations were extended to candidates from all parties.

Three of the more inspiring speakers included former US Senator Gordon Humphrey (R-NH), Thom Thomson - son of the late New Hampshire governor Meldrim Thomson, and former New Hampshire Senator George Lovejoy.

Senator Humphrey related his experiences of serving in the Senate for two terms. (He promised when he was elected that he'd only serve two terms, then come home. He kept his promise.) The one thing he said that stuck in my mind was his comparison of Congress to "a pit of vipers." He also warned that even those with the best of intentions when they arrive in Washington are eventually seduced by the power their office confers. It doesn't happen quickly, but it does happen, which is why he has supported term limits. He also led the call to "Throw the bums OUT!", something the crowd quickly picked up and chanted with increasing volume. Humphrey said we shouldn't discriminate as there were plenty of Republican bums deserving to be thrown out as much as their Democrat colleagues.

Both Thom Thomson and Senator Lovejoy spoke about the fiscal problems visited upon the people of New Hampshire by both the legislature and the governor, with legislative Democrats willing to spend money the state doesn't have, implementing tax hikes that hit the people most affected by the recession, and attempting to 'appropriate' private funds from a medical malpractice fund in an effort to fund the runaway budget. The governor also failed to protect the taxpayers in the state by refusing to use his veto pen to stop the 30% increase in state spending over the past 2 budgets.

While other TEA party protests drew some number of infiltrators/agitators, the Manchester protest drew only one 'visitor' from the New Hampshire Democrat Party, and he pretty much just watched the activities.

All in all it was a great gathering with appreciative crowd all sharing the same message: "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it any more!"

Have you seen the short video. Well done, Mr. Justice. That was perfect.

Of course Obama was born in Kenya. If he had been born in Hawaii, he'd have produced a certified birth certificate, not a doctored inferior document in lieu of it. Why wasn't it more known that John McCain produced an honest-to-goodness birth certificate for the campaign that any candidate to one of our service academies is required to produce? Hell, there was even a congressional investigation of McCain's status, as he was born in a naval installation in Panama while his father was stationed there.

Or maybe Obama's a genius waiting to discredit those of us on the Right who don't care that we look uncool bringing up the issue. But it is required by the Constitution for the man (or woman) to be a naturalized citizen. Back in Obama's day, that would have been automatic if his mom had been 19 or older. But the fluzzy (I can't endorse everything that the Rev. James Manning says, but I don't doubt what he says about his momma and his momma's momma. I about wet myself the first time I heard this audio on the G. Gordon Liddy Show last year.) was only 18 when she gave birth.

The world can turn on a technicality.

But I'd discount the latter, what with all the narcotics Barry Sotero admits to have inhaled, ingested, et al. Expect this issue to increase in intensity in the next few years when the President will have a much tougher time skating by on the obvious photoshopped document "leaked" to the internet. Back in the early 1960s, for example, the race of black people was conventionally listed as "Negro," not "African" as is the likely phony response.

On October 30, 2008, in a column for the Wall Street Journal. My respect for Henninger grows and grows. The last line in his remarkably prescient column makes me sad, his depressing insights are based on truth.

It's true that America is abandoning the frontier spirit of embracing risk that entrepreneurs do, and we're instead turning to the European model of security. Freedom or security--they usually can't go together. Capital formation appears to have been yesterday's concern. When have we built, for example, a nuclear power plant?

Early 1980s (In truth, most of it was late 70s until the hysteria of Three Mile Island caused a multiple year shut-down) in Seabrook, New Hampshire.

Something utterly dramatic better occur in November. We're approaching "Hail, Mary" status, Tea Party.

"Under capitalism the rich become powerful. Under socialism the powerful become rich. That is the main difference between the two systems."

Meet the first blind, double amputee to re-enlist in the Marine Corps' history. How many 23-year-olds have such determination and dedication. Go to a nearby university and you'll see lazy, immature, indolent humans of the same age. Cpl. Bradford is a good man. A very good man.

I attended the Tea Party in Manchester, New Hampshire this afternoon/early evening and got back just before 9PM.

I'll have an honest to goodness post about it tomorrow Saturday.

The axiom goes, "If you tax it, you get less of it. If you subsidize it, you get more of it." A number of times throughout our history we have seen that axiom proven true. Starting prior to the Great Depression, and running the gamut from FDR's numerous 'recovery' programs in the 1930's, LBJ's Great Society programs in the mid 60's, and extensions of those programs that placed ever greater burdens on the taxpayers supposedly for the benefit of the poor, we've seen the government providing all kinds of incentives for people to remain poor and unemployed.

The welfare programs as envisioned by Woodrow Wilson and FDR and attempted by LBJ did more to subject otherwise productive Americans to abject poverty than any economic or natural disaster. Of course I would expect proponents and recipients to claim otherwise. But history shows many of the programs designed to 'help' the poor did nothing more than trap them into government subsidized poverty with little hope of getting out from under the government thumb.

One of the more insidious programs that has been turned into a political football recently has been unemployment compensation.

While in and of itself unemployment isn't necessarily a bad thing, the extension of benefits that have been piled on one after another have been used for political gain and not for the benefit of those receiving them.

All these serially extended benefits have done is work as an incentive not to work. That isn't supposed to be the way unemployment works. They were supposed to be a short term temporary bridge between jobs. But they are in danger of becoming more long term and, if some in Congress had their way, to become permanent. That would be a disaster for the American economy, just as a similar program devastated the the British economy as increasing numbers of unemployed ended up staying 'on the dole' rather than actively seeking work.

Democrats seem to think that extending jobless benefits for another 20 weeks is a big political winner. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin recently roared, "Is there any compassion at all left with Republicans for people whose checks are going to run out?" New York's Chuck Schumer calls Republicans "inhumane."

But do these Senators really think it's compassionate to give people an additional incentive to stay out of the job market, losing crucial skills and contacts? And how politically smart is it for Democrats to embrace policies that keep the jobless rate higher than it would otherwise be? How many Democrats share Mr. Harkin's apparent desire to defend a jobless rate near 9% (today it is 9.7%) in the fall election campaign.

Yeah, that ought to be a real winning campaign strategy. "If you vote for me I'll make sure the likelihood of you actually getting a job remains small because we'll do what we can to discourage you from looking for one."

Whenever jobless benefits have been extended in the past, any recovery in the jobs market has slowed because the unemployed won't start looking for jobs in earnest until just before their benefits run out. All extending the benefits does is move that time out by weeks or months and add to the cost of providing those benefits.

If Republicans were really cynical, they'd let the new benefits pass and run against the higher jobless rate in the fall. In any case, no one should be surprised that when you subsidize people for not working, more people will choose not to work.

'Nuff said.

When there's more to be had free. Free of the biblical injunction to earn it from the sweat of one's brow. Ain't life grand? Not sustainable, but good when one can get it.

And I work two jobs to pay for my brood. At times the thought forces itself into my head to ditch one--a job, not a child--to qualify for Food Stamps, heating assistance, etc.

I am for doing good to the poor, but I differ in opinion of the means. I think the best way of doing good to the poor, is not making them easy in poverty, but leading or driving them out of it. In my youth I travelled much, and I observed in different countries, that the more public provisions were made for the poor, the less they provided for themselves, and of course became poorer. And, on the contrary, the less was done for them, the more they did for themselves, and became richer.

Source: American Thinker
HT: Leonidas

I love listening to the man. When he was alive and would come on the radio or TV, I'd stop whatever I was doing and listen to the man with intensity. Today's Milton Friedman is Thomas Sowell.

We have so few such public intellectuals who are actually worth the listening to. Thanks, Neal Boortz.

• "Government doesn't have any responsibility. People have responsibility."
• "There has never been a more effective machine for eliminating poverty than the free enterprise system and the free market."
• "If you look at the real problems of poverty and the denial of freedom to people in this country, almost every single one of them is the result of government action."
• "We have constructed a governmental welfare scheme, which has been a machine for producing poor people."

They're still out there, though imperiled by gubmit bureaucratic fiat. I dare you to see something like this in Europe.

As Dennis Prager has noted, big gubmit=small people. And vice versa. That Texas town has big people. God bless 'em!

I did not have a post on our results last week. I could blame it on latent triskaidekaphobia, which is why I bypassed Week 13 of the challenge. But the truth is I got sidetracked at work and never got around to creating the weekly graphic. Mea culpa maxima.

The loss continues, though Skip had a slight set back. I've closed the gap again to our original 4 pound gap but I have a feeling my rate of loss will be declining unless I really start exercising.

Here are this week's results.


Click on the image to embiggen it so you can actually read it.

Last weekend we were in the midst of summer-like temps. This weekend we saw snow falling on Saturday morning (though only for a few minutes, but still...). The Official Weekend Pundit Woodstove has been running on and off all week and all day Saturday, but because the temps haven't been all that cold we haven't had to run it at anything but minimum burn.

At least today it was warm enough to do without the woodstove. It was also warm enough to use the clothesline to dry laundry.

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I find it interesting that even a year and a half later that Obama and Palin are still being compared to each other and that more often than not Obama is not coming out on top of those comparisons. The latest shows Obama in bad light, slamming Sarah Palin for her lack of knowledge of nuclear policy, when he him self has even less.

He's forgotten she was Commander-in-Chief of the Alaska National Guard, whose mission was nuclear missile defense.

He slams her for her lack of foreign policy experience even though she had to deal with neighboring Canada on energy policy, fishing rights, and a host of other international trade issues. Obama had absolutely none, his trips to foreign countries during his campaign notwithstanding. A brief series of whistlestop visits to a few foreign countries does not mean The One gained foreign policy experience. By that criteria I am an effin' foreign policy expert when it comes to the UK.

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These folks have the best burgers in the state of New Hampshire bar none. My two favorites: Bill's Belly Buster Burger and the Iron Horse Burger.

Check out the cool videos, too.

(Disclaimer: I have known the owners, Sally and Bill, for some time. However, if the food wasn't some of the best I've ever had I wouldn't plug their eatery in any way, shape, or form. Nor was there any recompense for my posting my opinion of their menu.)

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It's not just Middle America that thinks the Obama is out of touch, perhaps deranged. So does Nicolas Sarkozy, President of France.

According to this report, Sarkozy was "appalled" at Obama's "vision" of what the World should be under his "guidance" and "amazed" at the American Presidents unwillingness to listen to either "reason" or "logic".

So much for "smart diplomacy" and a more respected America.

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BeezleBub started drivers ed a couple of weeks ago.

While most parents dread seeing their kids start driving, others look forward to it, seeing it as a means to reduce their own duties as their kid's taxi driver. I am of two minds, seeing BeezleBub growing up and taking more responsibility for himself, but wanting him to remain the same sweet kid I've come to know. After all I've been driving him to school and to the farm for the past 5 years and it's been a big part of our lives. How will I feel when he no longer needs either me or his mom to do that for him? I expect it will be bittersweet when the time comes.

I have no doubt that he'll be a good driver. I've been driving with him now for a couple of months and he's been doing pretty well. While he still has to learn more of the rules of the road, he does very well actually driving. It doesn't hurt that he was born 42-years old, either.

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"I tell ya, I don't get no respect! No respect at all!"

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I agree with the idea that everyone should pay income taxes, even if it's only $1. Everyone should have skin in the game otherwise it's too easy to keep taking from those actually paying the taxes until it reaches the point where they have nothing left to pay or have fled with their wealth.

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Frank J has published "My Contract With America".

I can agree with almost all of his points, but I draw the line at "It will be our promise to find out exactly how large and how violent a robot can be." Frank, think Cyberdyne Systems Model 101.

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President Obama announced there would be an investigation of the coal mine disaster in Montcoal, West Virginia. In and of itself that is not unexpected. But the way the president announced this made it sound as if mine accidents aren't usually investigated by the government, specifically the Department of Energy (for coal mines), OSHA, and various other federal and state agencies with regulatory control over coal mines.

Will there really be any difference in the intensity of investigation just because the president announced an investigation? I doubt it. But Obama made sure it sounded like it was going to be one of his top priorities, right behind alienating our allies, sucking up to our enemies, and dismantling the US economy.

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Yet another liberal talking head is making use of tragedy to push the leftists agenda to force unionization of workers against their will.

MSNBC's Ed Schultz has had the audacity and the poor taste to claim the tragedy at the mine in Montcoal, West Virginia would have been avoided if the only the workers were unionized.

He's pushing for immediate passage of the misleadingly named and unconstitutional Employee Free Choice Act, which would allow for wholesale fraudulent unionization through intimidation by union 'organizers'.

One thing Schultz has neglected to mention is that mine accidents and tragedies occur at union mines, too, and it's unlikely unionization would have made a difference in any way. But that won't stop him from making the claim.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where boating season is one day closer, the weather is slowly getting warmer, and yet again Monday has returned all too soon.

Tea Party Derangement Syndrome is making itself more widely known in a number of ways, but it seems to be manifesting itself as claims of incipient violence against all "right-thinking people", meaning liberal Democrats.

But more often the violence is threatened or committed by members of the very groups claiming tea party supporters are the ones going to commit violence. Union members seem to be the ones most often committing acts of violence against tea party activists.

But it isn't limited to just union thugs. It seems to affect Congressmen, too.

On Thursday, April 8th, 2010, Congressman Alan Grayson, Democrat in Florida's 8th district, interrupted a district meeting of the local Orange County Republican Executive Committee. The meeting was being held at Perkins, a family restaurant.

Matthew Falconer, candidate for Orange County Mayor, quickly challenged Alan's rudeness. Grayson demanded not to be interrupted, but Falconer quickly reminded the congressman that he is in fact interrupting their meeting.

Grayson threatened Falconer by saying that he'll spend thousands of dollars making sure he doesn't get elected. Question: Is it legal or at least unethical for a sitting congressman to threaten to influence a local election? Why is Matt Falconer, running for local Mayor, even on the radar of Alan Grayson?

The answer: TPDS (not to be confused with PTSD, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Or maybe Grayson has come to believe he is entitled to his office and that anyone daring to displace him deserves nothing but contempt, derision, and ridicule.

It isn't only Grayson showing symptoms of TPDS, but a number of other CongressCritters too, including my own representative, Carol Shea-Porter.

Recently she's tried to make it seem as if she's been misunderstood, but we understand her all too well. She's shown nothing but contempt for those of us disagreeing with her and her socialist beliefs. Are we supposed to believe that she's suddenly seen the light and that we should re-elect her come November? Not likely.

I expect more incidents linked to TPDS to manifest themselves as we get closer to elections in November. I expect to see more union thugs committing acts of violence against tea party activists. I expect to see less civil discourse from Democrat incumbents towards tea party supporters. I expect the hysteria from the Left to reach deafening levels. And I expect the hateful and demeaning rhetoric aimed at tea party supporters to reach epidemic proportions.

The ongoing health care debacle in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts has been an object lesson for those opposed to ObamaCare as it exists now, showing the nation how not to do health care reform. Unfortunately ObamaCare is based heavily MassCare, using many of the same 'economics' and mandates. As we've been seeing over the past year or so, MassCare is coming apart. Between much higher than projected costs, lower than projected revenues, and health insurance companies taking a hit - higher payouts and rate hikes denied by the state - forcing them to stop accepting new policyholders. Of course Governor Deval Patrick has retaliated, taking the insurance companies to court.

Insurance companies are now claiming that the rejected rate increases mean they won't be able to operate at a profit, and arguing that no actuary would approve the sort of rates that state insurance regulators say they expect. Actuary sign-off is not only important for fiscal stability--it's a legal requirement in the state. (emphasis added)

Is this just insurance company posturing? It's entirely possible. Industries, entirely understandably, are bound to put up a fight when told they can't set their own prices. That means making the toughest claims they think they can get away with. But it's not unbelievable that the combination of rate caps and increased regulatory burdens is imposing what amounts to an impossible strain on private insurers.

One commenter to the linked piece has proven again that far too many people don't understand economics, and particularly the economics of health care and health insurance.

The answer is easy. Make all health insurance companies non-profit by law. They they'll be tripping over each other to provide us all with free health care, once that pesky profit motive is out of the way.

This comment shows complete ignorance of how insurance works and the razor thin margins health insurance companies have. Health insurance companies have a less than a 2% profit margin (even non-profits have to make money). As another commenter noted, just because an insurance company is non-profit doesn't mean they won't lose money if payouts are higher than the premiums they take in. Between state mandates and state control of rate hikes, insurance companies are being squeezed between a rock and a hard place. And like ObamaCare, Massachusetts health care does not allow insurance companies to deny coverage to those with pre-existing conditions, meaning the amount they'll pay out for medical claims will go up disproportionately to the number of new policyholders they'll gain. Unless premiums go up to compensate for the higher claim payouts, the insurance company will lose money and, under the worst circumstances, fail.

In order to help those of you out there who are economics knowledge-challenged to understand what I just said, here's a simple equation that explains it all:

Claims Paid + Overhead* ≤ Premiums Received

* personnel salary/benefits, utilities, rent/mortgage, office equipment, taxes, loan payments, etc.

Translation: the claims paid plus the costs of running the business must be equal to or less than the amount of money received for premiums paid by the policyholders. If the amount of money received from premiums is consistently less than claims paid and overhead, the insurance company goes broke, closes, and its policyholders will be left with no insurance. This is the direction MassCare is forcing the health insurance companies there to take. ObamaCare won't be any different, except that it will cause this problem nationwide.

Neither MassCare or ObamaCare have addressed the real issues with rising health care costs, nor are they likely to do so. Neither was designed to do so.

If only this had actually happened.

The testimony of Charles Prince, former CEO of Citigroup, a too-big-to-fail bank that received $45 billion in bailouts and $300 billion in taxpayer guarantees, was riveting. You've seen it on the news, but if you were watching it live on C-Span, the stark power of his brutal candor was breathtaking. This, as you know, is what he said:

"Let's be real. This is what happened the past 10 years. You, for political reasons, both Republicans and Democrats, finagled the mortgage system so that people who make, like, zero dollars a year were given mortgages for $600,000 houses. You got to run around and crow about how under your watch everyone became a homeowner. You shook down the taxpayer and hoped for the best."

"Democrats did it because they thought it would make everyone Democrats: 'Look what I give you!' Republicans did it because they thought it would make everyone Republicans: 'I'm a homeowner, I've got a stake, don't raise my property taxes, get off my lawn!' And Wall Street? We went to town, baby. We bundled the mortgages and sold them to fools, or we held them, called them assets, and made believe everyone would pay their mortgage. As if we cared. We invented financial instruments so complicated no one, even the people who sold them, understood what they were."

"You're finaglers and we're finaglers. I play for dollars, you play for votes. In our own ways we're all thieves. We would be called desperadoes if we weren't so boring, so utterly banal in our soft-jawed, full-jowled selfishness. If there were any justice, we'd be forced to duel, with the peasants of America holding our cloaks. Only we'd both make sure we missed, wouldn't we?"

Sadly, this was nothing more than wishful thinking on Peggy Noonan's part.

Still, it would be refreshing, wouldn't it?

This entry on VDARE led me to this interesting blog which led me to another which led me to this NPR discussion on race and IQ a few years back following James Watson's statement that raised a ruckus. BTW, Watson's autobiography is excellent. One of his pieces of advice I follow by inclination: Don't play golf.

Think about all the wasted time. But I do take lots of walks with my dogs.

All I got to say is that the concept I was taught at university that sex, er, "gender" is "socially constructed" and that race is merely skin deep is a load of hogwash. Having and raising a daughter has disabused me of the former; learning that forensics experts can identify race and sex and (in some cases) age of deceased going solely on skeletons is eye-opening to say the least.

This quote is pertinent, which I first came across reading Lawrence Auster's magnificent booklet, The Path to National Suicide:

Author of Soft Despotism, Hillsdale College professor Paul A. Rahe speaks to Milt Rosenberg, whom I consider the best interviewer in the English-speaking world now that David Brudnoy has left us. (Hugh Hewitt is a close second.) The points he makes are profound and, I think, correct. For example, pace Dennis Prager, American Democrats should really be calling themselves Social Democrats since their policy positions are indistinguishable from those Social Democrats of Europe--except in the former being more pro-abortion. And what Pelosi, Reid, and Obama are foisting on the center-right country is a radical version of social democracy. Part of that is an ingenious re-application of the so-called Fairness Doctrine through bureaucratic approval processes. Here he's spot on. And Dr. Rahe brings up the passage of bills--health care being only the most recent--that no one has read. So what exactly is in them is anyone's guess. I think the Founding Fathers would find it intolerable that legislators are voting on massive legislation which they themselves haven't read. Can the "subterranean revolution" work? 

"No," says Paul Rahe (pronounces as "Ray"), "it's self destructive." He's a very bright thinker. What he says is true. It's demography, stupid, as Mark Steyn has figured out. I figured it out twenty years earlier reading John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces and learning from Catholic thinkers like the great Kuehnelt-Leddihn, who had it figured out much earlier. It's always been the case that middle class people (called "burghers" in the Middle Ages) throughout history have voluntarily limited their family size, which is not the case for peasants, who need their children's labor, or aristocrats, who take pride in their bloodlines, something utterly alien to American ears. Government's Social Security has destroyed the traditional social security: Having a brood better ensures that one will be taken care of in one's autumnal years. There is that commandments--the first of 613 for Jews--"to be fruitful and multiply." Then there's the commandment in the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) to honor one's parents. (Funny how it doesn't work the other way.) In exchange for the good of independence and an income, today's retirees are hurting their grandkid(s). Do they even feel guilty? No, I don't think so.

The welfare state is a frontal attack on both the family and on the Judeo-Christianity ethic that sustains and nourishes the domestic cell whose health is of paramount importance for society. The state can now be considered--on balance--a parasitical appendage to society, by being excessively large and counterproductive.

People's ignorance of economics never ceases to amaze me.

Wait. That's not entirely true.

Liberals' ignorance of economics is something I take for granted. Mind you, not all liberals are economic morons. But far too many of them are, particularly many of those in government. That ignorance has also spread among far too many of the rank and file liberals. You know the ones I mean.

Rather than wasting time going trying to describe this in detail, let me show you how at least one of them thinks.

The comment below was in response to this Jonah Goldberg op-ed piece in USA Today that asked the question "How much taxation is too much?"

The problem is that that we liberals are SMARTER than conservatives and realize that in a society we HAVE to pay some sort of remuneration to the government for them to do things that private citizens cannot do or afford to do themselves.

Such as building roads, building bridges, fixing those two things, building numerous other things that I could go on for HOURS and not get them all, as well as fund an Army for our defense (though we don't need a STANDING army with nuclear weapons now).

Taxes do not 'choke growth'. If they did, the periods where taxes were the highest wouldn't be the periods of the most growth in our economy... guess what, THEY ARE!

Clinton: higher taxes, MUCH higher growth, people making sometimes 2 times what they used to make.
Bush the 1st: No growth.
Bush the 2nd: No growth.
Ronald Reagan: No growth really (yes, look at the FACTS, he didn't have any real growth except with what the GOVERNMENT was spending).

Need I keep going on?

Yes, taxes at too high of a level can 'choke growth'.... however, we are nowhere damned well NEAR that on businesses! Hell, most of them only pay about 5% in taxes a year after all their deductions.

No, the problem is not high taxes.... the problem is LACK of high minimum wage laws, LACK of job protection laws (no firing without a very good reason), LACK of numerous other things, including an extremely HIGH tax rate on people make over 10 million a year, even on 'investments'.

Right now, more and more money is being concentrated in the hands of the super-rich and businesses, to the detriment of the poor and middle class. It's time for that to stop, and for the Republicans and conservatives to realize that their 'capitalistic dream' has turned into a predatory capitalistic nightmare, and that we need to SWING THE BAR back towards some socialism and citizen protection.

At first I thought the commenter was being sarcastic. But then I realized he was serious. It also shows how much of a moron he is, at least when it comes to economics and who pays taxes and how much they pay. This guy has bought the "rich-are-bad/greedy/thieving-people-who-steal-from-the-poor-and-pay-no-taxes" canard hook, line, and sinker.

But the biggest clue this guy just doesn't get it it his pronouncements about minimum wage, job protection, and taxing the rich.

...the problem is LACK of high minimum wage laws, LACK of job protection laws (no firing without a very good reason), LACK of numerous other things, including an extremely HIGH tax rate on people make over 10 million a year, even on 'investments'.

First, I have to ask what he means by a lack of high minimum wage laws? Does he really think that if minimum wage is raised even higher than it is that it will somehow solve one of the problems of the working poor or those working entry level jobs? Obviously he does. But if he looks at what happened after the last three minimum wage boosts he'd see the number of minimum wage jobs went down as business owners found they couldn't justify hiring the same number of people as they might have otherwise. The very people the higher minimum wage was supposed to help had just the opposite effect. Strike one.

Second, what kind of 'job protection laws' is he thinking about? Does this moron think that laws like those in France will somehow solve unemployment? Perhaps he should ask the French how well it's worked out for them. With laws making it very difficult to lay off workers, particularly when there's no work, businesses are reluctant to hire. Instead, they try to make do with the employees they already have or outsource the work elsewhere. Unemployment remains high in general and is even higher for the younger members of French society. The very people the job protection laws were supposed to help had just the opposite effect. Strike two.

Third, what does he mean by 'extremely high tax rate' on the rich? Does he mean 90%? 95%? 98%? In the end it doesn't matter because if the taxes are high enough the rich will leave, taking their money, and the jobs that money provides with them. All one needs to do is look at the UK during the 1970's, when the so-called 'wealth tax' was 98%. Those making enough to be taxed at that rate didn't stand for it. They pulled up stakes, took their money and their companies out of the UK, and the British economy collapsed. High tax rates are an effective incentive to stop the economic activity being taxed. As Chief Supreme Court Justice John Marshall warned us, "The power to tax is the power to destroy." The revenue extremely high taxes were supposed collect had just the opposite effect. Strike three.

This guy also has also got to start use Google considering he rewrote the economic history of the past 30 years, giving President Clinton credit for the work of Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush while downplaying the economic growth during most of George W. Bush's time in office. (He conveniently forgot the little disturbance on 9/11/2001 and the economic bubble created during the last couple of years of Clinton's time in office that burst in February 2001 - the so-called "dot-com" debacle - less than a month after Bush took office. Millions lost their jobs when the dot-com companies employing them collapsed. Millions saw their investments in Internet companies disappear overnight.)

What saved Clinton was the 1994 mid-term elections. The GOP took control of Congress and forced him to move to the right economically, allowing the economy to continue the growth started during the Reagan Administration.

Unfortunately the viewpoint expressed by the commenter reflect the beliefs of far too many rank-and-file liberals. And contrary to his beliefs, liberals are not smarter than conservatives. Both have their share of idiots. But fiscal conservatives don't suffer from the economic delusions afflicting liberals.

I could spend another few thousand words explaining why this guy is wrong and why he's an idiot, but I've got better things to do than trying to correct this economic mental defective.

Mike W., a great gun enthusiast and young conservative who I believe is attending law school, has a worthy post showing how a 1976 Maggie Thatcher quote eerily matches up with the socialism rapidly re-making the country here today. He also brings up how gubmit totally botched up the projected costs of Medicare, which a surprising number of people know. But still, it needs to be shouted from the rooftops. You outta check it out.

Dangerous guy, but a fun trip nonetheless. I wish I knew some of the stuff he dishes out. I didn't fare well in the dating scene. It was like the desert: an occasional oasis then a long stretch of nothingness.

But here is the amoral trickster, speaking truth to power:

You gotta read this smarmy liberal woman's letter-to-the-editor in the Concord Monitor. She is so blinded by leftist thought she doesn't see her own glaring contradiction: She wants less objective reporting, not more, in favor of more "sensitivity." Screw her. 

That's funny. Redhook, me too. Yo tambien. But I do it right out of the bottle. What do I need to learn? HT: Geeky UTenn Law Prof. 

Dr. Williams writes:

I believe we are nearing a point where there are enough irreconcilable differences between those Americans who want to control other Americans and those Americans who want to be left alone that separation is the only peaceable alternative. Just as in a marriage, where vows are broken, our human rights protections guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution have been grossly violated by a government instituted to protect them.

The Zogby International poll commissioned by "The O'Leary Report," states the leftwinger's (Obama's) support is maintained only here:

1) Those who pay no income taxes;
2) Those living in New England; ?!
3) Young people (who don't remember the Carter years and are naive). See here for the numbers.

I'd add recent immigrants, both legal and illegal

Let me just preface this by saying, We Are Doomed. Progressives worry about corporations; however, the real threat to liberty may be in the menace of the herd.

Truthfully, it's mixed, democracy's record. The Founding Fathers, of course, viewed it with disdain, even if they were "small r" republicans. See the letters Jefferson and Adams exchanged with each other. People are now waking up to its ills. I learned from my mentor Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn that democracy interfered with people's dinner tables, something a monarch in the Middle Ages would have never dreamed of doing. Think Prohibition.

Two incidents happened in the past couple of years that may shed some light on democracy in America: one, when I couldn't smoke after having a delightful repast at the Center Harbor Diner. I never did smoke my pipe, but it was wonderful to realize I could; second, a third-generation West Pointer (his dad and grandfather both retired as generals and he himself will likely do so as a full-bird colonel) completely agreed with my negative assessment of democracy, allowing the dimbulbs to gang up on the productive and knowledgeable. Wow, I thought, perhaps a threshold has been crossed. This guy is in Iraq right now, purportedly for democracy.

I have also taken to heart the insight in On the Disadvantages of Democracy from that thoughtful American who wrote the Leatherstocking Tales, James Fenimore Cooper:

It is a besetting vice of democracies to substitute public opinion for law. This is the usual form in which masses of men exhibit their tyranny.

Ever since the New Deal revolution, in which a timorous Supreme Court--after the aggressive court-packing attempt by FDR--gave up certain Constitutional guarantees, the Ninth and Tenth Amendments in the Bill of Rights have been wholly abandoned. They definitely provide a counterballast to overweening centralization in the nation's capital that we've seen since the New Deal (1930s) and Great Society (1960s).

It's so bad, in fact, that those who actually believe in them are considered by the not-so-bright attorney for Anita Hill to be likely candidates for domestic terrorism in her ridiculous Department of Homeland Security report that caused a brouhaha when talk show host Roger Hedgecock disclosed, correctly, that returning Gulf War veterans were being IDed as possible sources of "right-wing domestic terrorism." The mind boggles. Janet Napolitano's resume is certainly thin gruel for the momentous job she has now. I'm only aware of talk show host Neal Boortz's bringing it up. Why is that?

Believing in the Bill of Rights is now outside the mainstream of contemporary thought. How long will it be before the rights crumble that are supposedly being protected?

In a thoughtful essay at LewRockwell.com "God, Socialism, and the Free Market,"  Dr. Shawn Ritenour, an economics professor at Grove City College in Penn., continues this line of thinking:

I have noticed that whenever I used the word "Mankind" in an article, it emerges in the printed version, without my permission, as "Humankind," a word I despise as both ugly and sanctimonious.

Read on.

"If you voted for Obama ... seek urologic care elsewhere," posts an honest-to-goodness physician. Is he or she a GraniteGrok reader? (Skip has warmed my heart quoting the Randian philosopher Tibor Machan and the great F. Bastiat; his pamphlet The Law is tremendous.)

I don't know why Skip & Chan are so hard on supporters of the left. In a democracy envy becomes most important, that's why not knowing economics is no impediment to having firm convictions. "The rich," after all, can pay for all of it! Most of it, anyway. Here's Bertrand Russell, that left-wing atheist mathematician of yesteryear, writing when clarity was more important than PR:

...when great changes occur the theories which justify them are always a camouflage for passion.  And the passion that has given driving force to democratic theories is undoubtedly the passion of envy.

Steve Sailer wonders aloud why no investment bankers who dented the economy to the tune of a cool trillion haven't been prosecuted. After all, federal prosecutors jailed Martha Stewart for something different than what they were originally investigating her. There are indeed a lot of laws out there.

Deb, BeezleBub, and I headed down to the WP In-Laws today for a family Easter gathering. Some of the New York members of Deb's family were there as well, which was great as we hadn't seen them since some time last summer.

The trip down and back wasn't quite as pleasant as it might have been as we took the trust Ford F-150 rather than the Intrepid. The three of us crammed in the cab made for tight quarters.

In case you're wondering why we took the truck you'll have to ask BeezleBub. He said the WP Dad-in-Law said he'd be sending something back with us and that we'd need the truck. He did indeed send something back, but it sure as heck didn't need the truck seeing as what he gave us was a 12-pack of peach Fresca (only available in the Keene, NH area as far as we've been able to find out), and a quart of maple syrup he made last month.

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You know it's getting bad for Obama when the Washington Post is beating up on him for his lengthy non-teleprompter responses to questions asked during his Let's Sell ObamaCare To The Rubes tour.

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Skip Murphy is all over Carol Shea-Porter (D - NH1) and her most recent town hall meeting in Laconia, New Hampshire. Video he shot at the meeting shows how little she thinks of many of her constituents, dissembling during a response to a Blue Star Mother, 'filibustering' time away from those of her constituents having had the audacity to ask questions she didn't want to answer, blaming Bush for the present administration's hard left turn towards socialism, and disparaging the idea that a member of the House of Representatives should represent the will of the people.

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Will the 2010 mid-term elections be even worse for the Democrats than some have been predicting?

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Bogie is getting ready for additional census training in preparation for going out and counting those who haven't returned their census forms.

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Even folks in Europe understand the damage President Obama is doing to America, which will leave it weaker economically and militarily. They also understand it may take decades to repair the damage Obama's imperial hubris is inflicting upon America.

(H/T Tom Bowler)

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Pun Salad does a Q&A fisking of a New Hampshire newspaper's biased and inaccurate portrayal of the TEA parties and its supporters.

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Please stop us before we hire again!

It appears Vermont has a real problem with their education system, with increased staffing levels and falling enrollment. Last year's student/teacher ratio was 10.6:1 and student/teacher's aide ratio of 20.7:1. If staffing remains at 2009 levels, the ratios will fall to 10.3:1 and 20.1:1 respectively by 2011, with an over all student/staff ration of 4.6:1. The staffing costs are unsustainable as will been placing an ever greater burden on the taxpayers by 2012. What makes it worse is that student performance hasn't improved, meaning the money isn't being well spent and the taxpayers (and parents) aren't getting their money's worth.

This problem isn't unique to Vermont as many states are seeing the same thing. People have got to get it into their heads that more money and more staff does not automatically equate to better education for our kids.

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I find it ironic that Henry Waxman (D - CA) doesn't understand the Generally Accepted Accounting Principles or Securities and Exchange Commission regulations, particularly the ones that require companies to account for changes in laws and regulations that affect their costs and tax status as soon as they become aware of them.

His demand for explanations from companies that reported major negative effects due to provisions within ObamaCare betray his ignorance, both of the aforementioned requirements and the changes wrought by ObamaCare.

Hayek's insight into economics and regulation is often called "The Knowledge Problem," and it is a very powerful notion. But recent events suggest that it's not just the economy that regulators don't understand well enough -- it's also their own regulations.

This became apparent when various large businesses responded to the enactment of ObamaCare by taking accounting steps to reflect tax changes brought about by the new health care legislation. The additional costs created by ObamaCare, conveniently enough, weren't going to strike until later, after the November elections.

They were also bad publicity for ObamaCare, and they seem to have come as an unpleasant shock to House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who immediately scheduled congressional hearings for April 21, demanding that the chief executive officers of AT&T, John Deere, and Caterpillar, among others, come and explain themselves.

Call it yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences coming back to bite clueless legislators in the ass.

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And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where the weather has been summer-like, the water is still too cold, and thoughts snow have faded from our thoughts.

The family got all dressed up for church. I typically wear a suit and tie, anyway. But the daughter of mine was in a very pretty dress. As was Goodwife.

I thought this post is very appropriate. I really like Pope Benedict, but boy is he having a rough go of it. Some of it deserved. My Latin is almost nonexistent, but I think Oremus pro pontifice nostro means "Let us pray for our pope."

All this time I thought all white people were the wrong kind of white people. Now I find out that there are two different kinds of white people, the right kind and the wrong kind.

The wrong kind of white person is the one that "right kind" white people want to avoid when camping (the one in the RV); the one that watches Leno; the one who doesn't like hummus or find Sarah Silverman funny. It's the one who, when he goes to San Francisco, makes the Rocket Boat the highlight of the trip. It's the white person who drives a truck, not to reject the political statement of driving a Prius, but because he needs it for work. Sarah Palin, even though she's a strong woman, in a Native American, union household with a disabled child, and an unwed mother single mother daughter is the wrong kind of white person.

Nothing has changed for me as I'm still the wrong kind of white people and proud of it. I've got the "Ford F-150 and a .30-06" to prove it.

I attended the gathering outside the Laconia, NH City Hall for Carol Shea-Porter's town hall meeting. (I didn't get to actually attend the meeting as there were only 60 seats and I got there too late to even stand in line to get in.) She was there to convince us that ObamaCare was going to do wonderful things for everyone and that there would be no problems paying for it all, but it appears most of the 60 folks actually in the meeting weren't buying it. She chose not to answer other questions asked of her, either doing a rope-a-dope, giving a non-answer answer, or giving a constituent the runaround rather than a straight answer. And she wonders why we're angry?

Since I couldn't get into the meeting I spent time talking with the folks outside, some of whom supported CSP and her vote in favor of ObamaCare and the rest that did not.

Almost all of the supporters were retirees, with one or two of the rest being dyed-in-the-wool don't-let-the-facts-get-in-the-way government-is-the-answer-to-all-our-problems-even-the-problems-the-government-created liberals. Discussing the issues with them was enlightening. One of the first things I realized about the folks I was talking to was that they had little understand of economics, particularly in regards to ObamaCare, and did not understand the implications of the heavy economic burden ObamaCare will impose. They were of the opinion that "the rich will pay for it all" and that they don't pay nearly enough. I asked one of them how much money the rich, as they defined them, made in a year. She guessed over a couple of trillion dollars a year. Even after I informed her that even if they took 100% of what the rich made in a year to pay for ObamaCare, the government would only collect about $400 billion. I also mentioned the government would only collect that much the first year and that the second and subsequent years they would collect $0 because either the rich would pack up and leave or they would 'go Galt' (go on strike).

Her response?

The government should force them to work so they could "pay their fair share of taxes." At that point I said her "So you would advocate turning the rich into slaves just to fulfill some twisted ideal of 'social justice'?" Of course she said no, but I pointed out she had just said they should be forced to work against their will. That, by definition, is slavery, something that is unconstitutional, immoral and unethical.

From that point the discussion pretty much ended as I think she realized she had strayed into a topic that was indefensible from any viewpoint and didn't want to talk to me any more.

I did manage to have an intelligent discussion with a couple of pro- and anti-ObamaCare folks. We all agreed some kind of health care reform was necessary. We merely disagreed on the level of reform needed. But after about 30 minutes of debate some of the pro-ObamaCare folks appeared to be shifting their outlook on ObamaCare as written. As one of them said, "We have to do something!" But one of us on the anti-ObamaCare said something along the lines of "True, but let's make sure it's the right something and not the most expedient and seriously flawed something like the present law."

Unfortunately I had to leave the discussion at that point to get back home. But I felt that perhaps we had put some doubt in the minds of some not-so-wholehearted ObamaCare supporters.

Very cool video about my home state (with apologies to Jay Z).

It was reported today in the Berlin, NH Berlin Daily Sun that the new Federal Prison just completed near that city will be housing the detainees from Guantanamo Bay as that detention facility is phased out.

Word has it some of the detainees were dismayed to learn they would be moved to the new prison in northern New Hampshire in light of the much colder climate and the miles and miles of dense forests and the sparsely populated countryside. Supposedly one detainee was heard to say something about their new home being an "Allah-forsaken wilderness filled with bears, lions, and wolves."

The full story is below the fold.

I'm astonished that Walter Rodgers, a mainstream reporter for the Christian Science Monitor, would write an article such as this, similar to what I've been saying for fifteen years. When I published a letter to the editor in the Concord (NH) Monitor, for example, delineating similar themes, there was plenty of progressive denunciation. But that was 1996.

But people can't help noticing the demographic tidal wave occurring. Here're the last two sentences:

Illegal immigration may ultimately be more threatening to the character and values of the US than any threat from radical Islamists. It's not about tribe; it's about the law.