Recently in Arrogant Elite Category

In light of the upcoming summer season, this little tidbit by way of Maggie's Farm hits a little too close to home. But considering where it comes from we shouldn't be all that surprised, should we?

The Obama Administration seems to be doing all it can to make sure life is "fair", even if it has to destroy long standing traditions, activities, and other bits of American culture to do so. The latest bit of "fairness" comes by way of the rather overused and severely twisted ADA, or the Americans with Disabilities Act. The most recent salvo threatens to close down both public and commercial swimming pools because they don't have easy access into the water for the severely disabled.

Last week, news was made as today's deadline approached for commercial and municipal swimming pool owners to install means, by which disabled swimmers could enter the nation's swimming pools. It is the kind of regulation that would make a great punch line for the conservative version of the Daily Show, if conservatives were that funny. The Obama Administration has recently construed the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Standards for Accessible Design to apply to the act of swimming.

Today, this regulation was supposed to go into effect, opening up the owners to $100,000 fines as well as trial lawyer liability. However, thanks to the kindness of the Justice Department, existing pools now have until January 2013 to comply. "Newly constructed or altered places of public accommodation, commercial facilities and state and local government facilities" operating swimming pools will now be required to install permanent structures that lower physically disabled patrons into the pool.

How many municipalities, hotels, and other facilities will close their pools rather than worry about facing fines or spending money they can't afford to comply with this latest application of the ADA, particularly when it was never really meant to be used in such a punitive fashion?

Call it yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences punishing the innocent all in the name of "fairness".

I have to agree with Bird Dog on this one: The Kennedy's are what we term "bad people" in Yankee land.

I know the folks out on Martha's Vineyard Island universally detested the Kennedy clan with only a few exceptions, those being Jackie, John Jr. and Caroline. The rest were considered meddlesome do-gooder-like wastrels more interested interfering with Islanders' lives and livelihoods rather than actually doing anyone any good.

Much as cities in California have made mistakes when it comes to their finances, it appears here on the East Coast the city of New York is about to shoot itself in the foot, but in a different fashion.

While New York also has problems with its public employee unions, it's nowhere near the level seen elsewhere. Instead, the City Council is proposing rules that will help drive the last surviving industry out of the city - the financial industry.

For the life of me I can't figure out how making it too difficult and too expensive to remain in New York City is going to help the city's finances. Is it possible the City Council has been infected with the "California disease"? After all, California's state and local level governments have been doing their best to drive businesses out of business or out of state. They have succeeded. That's why California is in the fiscal mess it's in. And now New York City wants to do the same thing?

Yet in the wake of JP Morgan's massive losses last week and the continuing controversy surrounding the Wall Street bailouts, the New York City Council is debating a measure that would require city banks to publicly disclose their efforts at "socially responsible" banking.

--snip--

Many bankers, as well as Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have voiced their opposition to the new plans. The regulations, they say, would add another burdensome layer to the web of regulations that already exist at the federal and state levels. The Council, however, appears unmoved, and support of key council leaders...give it a fighting chance at making it into law.

If it does, its supporters on the Council will hail it as a major victory, but it will be a loss for the city as a whole. The financial industry is the one industry keeping the city alive, yet New York's blue politicians seem unconcerned about the risks of antagonizing their major cash cow.

This is the same attitude held by many politicians in California and we've seen how well that's worked out for them. The City Council doesn't seem to understand that the banks and other financial institutions will have no problem departing the city for greener pastures. As the post linked above states, Fortune 500 companies have been leaving New York for decades. Wall Street firms will have no problems following them to places with better business climates. And with today's telecommunications infrastructure, those greener pastures can be anywhere, even here in New Hampshire.

Every story we hear coming out of the once Golden State gives us more insight into the coming collapse of California. What's worse is the state government, including the legislature and the governor, is doing everything it can to hasten the process. How is it that it can't see the very actions it's been taking are only making things worse while those it chooses to ignore are the ones needed to set things back on the path to prosperity?

As more than one pundit has stated, California does not have a revenue problem but a spending problem. Even the once-and-again governor Jerry Brown knows the state is in a deep fiscal crisis, but his solution is raise taxes again. This after the last tax increase failed to raise the projected revenues, leaving the state with a $16 billion budget deficit. Whether he and the rest of the tax-and-spend Democrats realize it or not, they're on the wrong side of the Laffer Curve, meaning even if they continue to raise taxes, revenues will be well below projections. At this point the taxes have become punitive and outright confiscatory, punishing financial success. Once you start doing that people either stop trying or they leave. In the case of California, it's both. And it's not just those providing jobs who are packing up and leaving, so are many of the workers, including illegal immigrants. The net population change has shown more than 4 million more people have left California than have entered over the past 10 years. And this figure does not include the illegal immigrants, many whom are heading back home because there's no work to be had in the economic wasteland that is California.

Other states have been struggling with economic crises, including New Jersey. It is here where we see the difference in approaches taken to solve fiscal problems. Governor Chris Christie dove head first into the problem, understanding New Jersey's fiscal crisis was due to runaway government spending at all levels and overreaching public employee union demands. He went after both and managed to cut spending and dial back a lot of the union benefits that were unsustainable, particularly during this ongoing recession. As the piece linked above stated, "More states are realizing that the road to fiscal hell is paved with progressive intentions." Christie gets it. Brown does not.

There was also another thing Christie did that Brown did not: Canceled a multi-billion dollar commuter rail project between New Jersey and New York City that his state could not afford. He knew it for the money-wasting boondoggle it was and wanted nothing to do with it. Brown on the other hand, caved in to federal demands and decided to go ahead with a high-speed rail project that is doomed to fail before the first rail tie is laid down, committing California to billions upon billions of taxpayer dollars it doesn't have for a project no one (except the watermelon environmentalists) wants or needs. What use is a high-speed train to nowhere? (The initial stretches will be built out in economically depressed and less urban and suburban areas. Why would they need such a train when the only place it will take them is to another economically depressed area?)

Need more proof California is heading to an inevitable financial meltdown? Then look at the local level where municipalities are struggling to meet unrealistic demands from their public employees and the state. Here's an example:

A mere handful of people are left to hear the San Jose city manager offer the latest bleak financial news: the state of California was clawing back tens of millions of dollars more, and "140 employees have been separated from the city." (New times call for new euphemisms.) A pollster presents his finding that, no matter how the question is phrased, the citizens of San Jose are unlikely to approve any ballot measure that raises taxes. A numbers guy gets to his feet and explains that the investment returns in the city's pension plan are not likely to be anything near as high as was assumed. In addition to there not being enough money in this particular pot to begin with, the pot is failing to expand as fast as everyone had hoped, and so the gap between what the city's employees are entitled to and what will exist is even greater than previously imagined. The council then votes to postpone, for six weeks, a vote on whether to declare the city's budget a "public emergency," and thus to give to the mayor, Chuck Reed, new powers.

The relationship between the people and their money in California is such that you can pluck almost any city at random and enter a crisis. San Jose has the highest per capita income of any city in the United States, after New York. It has the highest credit rating of any city in California with a population over 250,000. It is one of the few cities in America with a triple-A rating from Moody's and Standard & Poor's, but only because its bondholders have the power to compel the city to levy a tax on property owners to pay off the bonds. The city itself is not all that far from being bankrupt.

--snip--

[Mayor Chuck Reed is] a Democrat, but at this point it doesn't much matter which party he belongs to, or what his ideological leanings are, or for that matter how popular he is with the people of San Jose. He's got a problem so big that it overwhelms ordinary politics: the city owes so much more money to its employees than it can afford to pay that it could cut its debts in half and still wind up broke. "I did a calculation of cost per public employee," he says as we settle in. "We're not as bad as Greece, I don't think."

We're not as bad as Greece. Not exactly an overwhelming vote of confidence from the mayor, is it? San Jose isn't the only municipality facing the same kind of crisis. It is, unfortunately, an all too common problem across the state.

Stockton is on the verge of bankruptcy. Vallejo's government is all but shut down after that city's bankruptcy in 2008, with police and fire departments gutted, a relocated city hall with few staff, and a general feeling of hopelessness.

Eighty percent of the city's budget--and the lion's share of the claims that had thrown it into bankruptcy--were wrapped up in the pay and benefits of public-safety workers. Relations between the police and the firefighters, on the one hand, and the citizens, on the other, were at historic lows. The public-safety workers thought that the city was out to screw them on their contracts; the citizenry thought that the public-safety workers were using fear as a tool to extort money from them.

Since the bankruptcy, the police and fire departments have been cut in half; some number of the citizens who came to [city manager] Phil Batchelor's office did so to say they no longer felt safe in their own homes. All other city services had been reduced effectively to zero. "Do you know that some cities actually pave their streets?" says Batchelor. "That's not here."

Is this is what is in store for other cities and towns in California? Yes, unless things change and the public employee unions either give up their over-the-top compensation (which has put municipalities into these dire fiscal straits) or are broken or decertified. Otherwise California has no chance at all.

Call it yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Germany's push to become "greener than everyone else" is now showing some of the major downsides of the quasi-religious environmental movement.

We buy organic food, put E10 in our gas tanks and switch to green electricity. Our roofs are covered in solar panels and our walls plastered with insulation. This makes us feel good about ourselves. The only question is: What exactly does the environment get out of all this?

The answer is not much, really. One downside to a lot of the environmental measures being taken is that things stink more than they used to, literally.

Showerhead technology has undergone rapid development in recent years. Less water, more air, says the European Union's environmental design guideline. Gone are the days when it was enough for a showerhead to simply distribute water. Today an aerosol is generated through a complicated process in the interior of the showerhead. The moisture content in the resulting air-water mixture is so low and the air content so high that taking a shower feels more like getting blow-dried.

..."Think about how you can save water! Taking a shower is better for the environment than taking a bath. Turn off the water when you're soaping yourself. Never let the water run when you're not using it. And maybe you can spend less time in the shower, too."

This is all very well and good, but there's only one problem: It stinks. Our street is filled with the stench of decay. It's especially bad in the summer, when half of Berlin is under a cloud of gas.

--snip--

Our consumption has declined so much that there is not enough water going through the pipes to wash away fecal matter, urine and food waste, causing blockages. The inert brown sludge sloshes back and forth in the pipes, which are now much too big, releasing its full aroma.

...But toxic heavy metals like copper, nickel and lead are also accumulating in the sewage system. Sulfuric acid is corroding the pipes, causing steel to rust and concrete to crumble. It's a problem that no amount of deodorant can solve.

The waterworks must now periodically flush their pipes and conduits. The water we save with our low-flow toilets is simply being pumped directly through hoses into the sewage system below. On some days, an additional half a million cubic meters of tap water is run through the Berlin drainage system to ensure what officials call the "necessary flow rate."

Save water on one end, but blast huge amounts of water through the sewer systems to flush out what used to flow easily before the days low flush toilets and low-flow shower heads on the other end? I'll bet the Greenies didn't see that coming. Net savings? Probably somewhere on the negative side of the balance sheet, particularly if one takes into account the increased maintenance and replacement costs of the infrastructure. What makes this even more ironic is that Germany isn't suffering from water shortages by any means, yet they're acting as if the country is located in an arid climate.

As the author of the article states, much of Germany's environmental regulations and requirements are more of the "this makes me feel good about my contribution to saving the environment" type than any real efforts to "save" the environment. In other words, it's all feel-good legislation with a net-negative outcome.

The Spiegel article goes on to list a litany of failed environmental issues that are costing the German economy billions of Euros while giving little in return, including energy efficiency requirements that cause more problems than they solve, and intensive recycling efforts that end up with a lot of the materials saved from the landfill being "thermally recycled" - burned to generate electricity - which has its own environmental issues.

As much as we can point to Germany's problems with going green, we can't assume we won't go to the extremes the Germans have. All we have to do is look at California to see how many of their environmental regulations have done far more harm than good. While there are differences between Germany and California, one of the biggest being large parts of California being arid, many of the same side effects are being felt there as well. We can't assume that many of the same actions taken in California won't make it to the rest of the states, particularly if Obama's rogue EPA gets its way.

(H/T Small Dead Animals)

Bret Stephens addresses members of the graduating Class of 2012, exposing them to some hard truths they haven't had to face until now. One of most salient points is something that will stand them in good stead, assuming they're willing to listen: "But if you can just manage to tone down your egos, shape up your minds, and think unfashionable thoughts, you just might be able to do something worthy with your lives. And even get a job. Good luck!"

Bret brings up a number of problems with our existing college and university system today, that being they are less about preparing students to face the real world and more about students "getting inflated grades in useless subjects in order to obtain a debased degree." What's worse is that many of these students put them and/or their families deep into debt, yet they won't be able to find jobs that will pay them anywhere what it is they owe.

Some of those commenting to Bret's piece miss the point, trying to make it seem that he's saying the only worthwhile degrees are in STEM disciplines (Science, Technology, Engineering, Medicine), but that's not what he's saying at all. Instead he's warning students who get degrees in Womyn's Studies, Urban Graffiti, or Transgendered Native American Studies shouldn't expect to be snapped up by corporate America when there are more than enough graduates with degrees in Business Administration, Statistics, Finance, Graphic Arts, Culinary Arts, and an almost endless list of other BA and BS degrees that are far more applicable to the real world.

What's even worse for many of these still unprepared grads is that is that a lot of their contemporaries who didn't go to college are doing far better than they can ever hope to do. This is particularly true of those who went into the trades. They don't have huge student loans to pay off. They started earning their way years earlier than their college-bound friends. And in many ways they've grown up while their friends lived an extended adolescence in college.

On a slightly different thread, one commenter fell into a semantic trap, claiming students are being taught how to think. He went on to claim that they're being brainwashed into being good little progressive puppets. But what he really meant was that they're being taught what to think, which is entirely different.

Being taught how to think, meaning being taught critical thinking skills, is something we need more of in our educational system. If one can think critically, then they can reason from available facts and their own experiences rather than being spoon fed radical and, in the end, socially destructive ideologies masquerading as knowledge and wisdom. Unfortunately we aren't seeing much in the way of critical thinking being taught in our schools any more, and it shows. (This is particularly true in many of our liberal arts colleges.)

Could it be that the lack of critical thinking skills and the abundance of money through loan programs has caused this rampant problem of students studying majors that don't prepare them for life in the real world? I don't know, but it's something worth pondering.

I read this and realized I had to post it in toto. Just linking it wasn't going to cut it.

Right behind the economy, the issue that will sway swayable voters in November is the repeated displays of arrogance by President Obama and his administration, inept arrogance at that. Indeed, that arrogance has been so heavy- and ham-handed that it has and will continue to undermine almost every other appeal the Obama campaign may make to marginal voters. Those on the dole or looking forward to being on it may shrug, but those with a shred of self-respect will be repulsed.

Obama's arrogance has reached the point of making him a laughing-stock. Obama's inflated self-image will continue to overreact, making him appear more unworthy of confidence. Yeah, that's the ticket! The best worst efforts of many in the major media to cover it up will be pierced, demonstrating their own lack of credibility. Others clinging to a shred of journalism will have to report the Obama campaign's lack of credibility. There's my forecast. And, I'm sticking to it.

P.S.: For those wondering about how Romney will capitalize on this, his campaign and those of us in the alternative media have shown how to expose the fool behind the curtain. All Romney himself has to do regarding Obama's buffoonery is remain the gentleman that he is, and toss out an occasional barb at the overinflated balloonery from the Obama camp.

Arrogance indeed. Of course as someone has pointed out to me in the past, it isn't arrogance if you can actually do what you say you can. However, as Bruce writes above, Obama's arrogance is based upon his overinflated opinion of himself. He's inept, therefore he is arrogant. Other than making energy prices skyrocket, he hasn't kept one campaign promise. Not. One.

He's never once had to prove himself to anyone, and particularly the public, and somehow he figured he wouldn't have to do so as President of the United States? His greatest accomplishments before making it to the White House have been running for and winning election to office, each one higher than before. But he's never actually had to perform the duties of those offices (voting "present", anyone?) because as soon as he is sworn in he's started running for the next office. But now he's in the highest office in the land and he's had to perform. Instead, he's tried to vote "present" and found he can't do that any more.

(Actually, I realize I made a mis-statement about Obama having to prove himself. He has...in this case proving he's just as capable as any other incompetent 'community organizer' by making $110 million of Annenberg Foundation funds disappear with nothing to show for it.)

Is it any wonder that some of those who supported him in 2008 want nothing to do with him in 2012?

I'm not the only one questioning the wisdom of blending ethanol with gasoline. It's not just the net energy gain or lose, the decreased fuel economy compared with unblended gasoline, or the problems ethanol causes in fuel systems. There's also the economic effects, particularly the always ubiquitous unintended consequences ethanol brings to the equation.

...[M]aking ethanol (grain alcohol) from corn...is a fairly straightforward and cheap process, so even without the federal subsidy, so-called "E10" gas (90 percent gasoline, 10 percent ethanol) is cheaper than straight 100 percent stuff. But instead of simply allowing refiners to mix in up to 10 percent ethanol if the market and production environment made it favorable, the law mandated a steep ramp-up to full sales of nothing but E10 in a very short time. On the surface we would move that much closer to energy independence with this law. Well and good.

The not-so-advertised reasons for the law have to do with the strength of the agricultural lobby. The E10 mandate was a tremendous windfall for everybody who grows corn. While some ethanol from corn was being used voluntarily as a fuel additive before 2007, the mandate caused this use to skyrocket. By 2011, according to the Mosbacher Institute report by economist James Griffin, 37 percent of the entire U.S. corn crop went toward ethanol production. And corn prices soared from $2.50 per bushel up to as high as $7.50.

If the only people hurt were U.S. food consumers (not everybody drives a car, but everybody eats), it would be bad enough. But the U.S. grows and sells more corn than any other nation, and much of it is exported to poorer countries, where it is a staple in many diets. While the rise in corn prices was not solely responsible for the worldwide inflation in food costs that led to food riots in many nations in recent years, the timing is suspicious, and there is no question that the EISA law led to hardships for many poor people around the world who were now even less able to afford to eat.

It's not too often those pushing for mandates look at the consequences they may create. As long as those unintended consequences don't affect them, they don't care. Call it yet another proof that crony capitalism (better yet just call it crony economics because it really has nothing to do with capitalism) always causes more harm than good because only a few benefit and everyone else pays the price, with little if any return for what they pay.

Frank Luntz of the Washington Post has an interesting piece dealing with the 5 Myths About Conservative Voters. Luntz attempts to address those myths that Democrats believe about conservative voters.

For the most part I agree with his points, but at times he gets a little mushy as if he doesn't want to offend the sensibilities of his liberal readers. On his very first "busted" myth he doesn't quite make the connection between what conservatives want in regards to government and what it means.

Conservatives care most about the size of government.

Today, conservatives don't want a reduced government so much as one that works better and wastes less.

In a poll we completed among self-identified conservatives just before the 2010 elections,"efficient" and "effective" government clearly beat "less" and "smaller" government. For conservatives, this debate is less about size than about results, along with a demand that elected officials demonstrate accountability and respect for the taxpayer, regardless of whether they're spending $1 million or $1 trillion.

--snip--

It used to be that conservatives supported smaller government on theoretical grounds: The bigger the government, the smaller the citizen; government should only do for people what they truly cannot do for themselves; government isn't the solution, it is the problem.

I think Luntz missed the point. A government that works better and wastes less will be smaller. There won't need to be nearly as much government (and attendant bureaucrats) in order for government to perform its functions. One begets the other.

We want smaller government because it costs less and is more efficient. If being more efficient and less costly creates a smaller government, so be it. Just so long as they stop wasting taxpayer dollars on things we neither need or want.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

As a follow up to yesterday's post about Janine Turner's advice about how to convert liberals, I've decided to post a comment made to Janine's post.

I respond to that tactic with a statement to the effect that energetic conversation doesn't have to imply conflict. Further, that an expresser of opinion has a moral obligation to gracefully receive a rebuttal or keep your opinions to yourself.

It never fails me and usually embarrasses the conversation squelcher.

It has always been my belief that conversation does not mean those conversing must agree with each other. On the contrary, some of the best conversations I've ever had have been with people with whom I disagree, whether on a subject trivial or profound. But it seems quite a few on the left believe the only worthwhile conversation is with those with whom they agree. Call it preaching to the choir or speaking in an echo gallery. But if they limit themselves to such conversations, then new and interesting ideas will never be broached and they might as well be talking to themselves.

And yet again I have to bring up that many 'conversations' I've had with true blue liberals follow the same pattern, with references to "everybody knows such-and-such" or "I feel that..."

As to the first, one of my favorite philosophers, Robert Heinlein, opined: "If 'everyone knows' such-and-such, then it ain't so by ten thousand to one."

As to the second, I have always found those three words to be extremely annoying. I don't care what someone feels about a particular subject. I want to know what they think about it. I've found that opinions based upon feelings and not upon logic and facts are almost always wrong, sometimes disastrously so. The same is also true about decisions based upon feelings. It might make the person making the decision feel better about themselves, but it doesn't help those who will be affected by that decision. In many cases it makes things worse because the person who made the decision ignored the facts and the possible consequences of that decision. As long as they felt good about the decision it was the right one as far as they were concerned. Of course they're the ones who rarely have to suffer the consequences of their decision.

The WP Dad forwarded this to me, an e-mail he wrote to the pastor of our local church. To say my father and the pastor do not see eye to eye politically would not be an untruth by any means. However it is illustrative of the chasm that can exist between friends, at least when it comes to politics.

I cannot say with any certainty how much history the pastor has studied, remembers, or understands. But it appears to me that he does have blind spots when it comes to the actions of those who do not hold freedom dear and would prefer to run things, even if it means killing millions in order to enforce their will.

This e-mail has not been changed other than some formatting and corrections made to some typos.

I apologize for labeling Pres Obama as a Fascist. I should have done that only after presenting arguments that satisfy me that he deserves the label. I have listed below a variety of reasons I have for believing he is a socialist and will become a Fascist.

1. The President's major political asset is his charisma. Polls show that more often than not voters disapprove of his policies, yet he has a high personal approval rating. His accomplishments are meager other than getting elected. Even there his foray into local Chicago politics succeeded because his opponents for the nomination were mistakenly omitted from the ballot.

2. His cabinet appointments have been disappointing. I think that Eric Holder's major accomplishment has been to shield the President. Prior to his appointment his only noted achievement was to obtain a pardon for a major donor who had fled the country after conviction. He slipped the pardon into the list of Pres. Clinton's last day pardons as if it had been vetted and approved in the normal manner by the justice department. His appointee to the Energy Department, as late as two weeks ago was that it was necessary to drive up fossil fuel costs to make green energy more attractive.

3. Assistant Cabinet members require approval from the Senate. Rather than follow the Constitutional requirement, The Pres. appointed numerous Czars who became de facto Assistants without approval. We got ideologues who were avowed communists or revolutionaries.

4. Under Pres. Obama's stewardship, the nation is being reshaped into a secular society. There has been an increasing effort to drive religion from our society. Witness eliminating prayer from our schools, removal of any religious overtones (like the Ten Commandments) from public buildings. Morality is officially suspect, to be replaced by legality and regulation. Each year we add multiple thousands of pages of regulations to control behavior and Congress feels they have accomplished nothing if they haven't passed batches of laws. Is all of this to replace what was once accepted as morals and ethics.

It is documented that those that call themselves liberals do far less charitable work and give far less to charity. I suppose if Government is responsible for the welfare of every individual, then I have met my obligation to my fellow man if I simply pay my taxes That looks to me as an inducement to accept socialism. Socialism always fails because as Margret Thatcher said, "Eventually you run out of other people's money." When Socialism fails the most common result is despotism.

5. Charismatic leaders tend to have cadres of militant supporters. Cuba and Venezuela, Castro and Chavez have co-opted their armies. Mussolini, Hitler and Lenin/Stalin had Brown Shirts, Black Shirts, and Red Shirts. Pres. Obama has Purple Shirted goons. How else would you identify the mobs of union members who descended on Wisconsin in an attempt to over throw the duly elected Governor. They claim that the Tea Party is violent and racist. Not as violent as the Purple Shirts.

6. Pres. Obama and his administration have diligently worked to expand their natural base. We are reaching a point where too great a portion of the voting populace either work for or are married to someone working for a government. Their unions negotiate for improved pay and perks. On the other side of the bargaining table are the unborn generations who will have to pay the wages and perks "someday".

Another huge constituency are the poor. If we are in danger of running out of poor people we simply change the threshold. Of course we have always had a very mobile society. Thomas Sowell had a very revealing essay about mobility. Many of those who are poor were wealthy less than a decade ago. Many recent graduates from high schools and universities are poor until they get work and earn promotions. Many of the wealthy are recipients of one time windfalls and they won't be wealthy ten years from now.

Once you start subsidizing poverty you get more poverty. Much of what we give the poor is not counted as income - food stamps, rent subsidies, unemployment is counted. I've often wondered how many of those who collected unemployment for the full ninety-nine weeks had a working spouse and the unemployment benefit amounts to wages for staying home and being a house husband/wife.

7. The stimulus package was going to 'kick start' projects that were 'shovel ready', but a very large portion of the money went to state and local governments to cover their shortfalls. Instead of shrinking payrolls, these government employees were shielded while productive workers in private employment were laid off or downsized. In particular the stimulus money went to Unions, specifically the teacher's and autoworkers unions. In the case of both Chrysler and GM the bond holders who were legally entitled to protection got cents on the dollar and were not allowed to reorganize the companies. I don't understand why there weren't lawsuits. By the way, it is my contention that the UAW created the Asian and European invasion of our market. Every increase in productivity went to overpaid employees and never to the consumer. Eventually prices for domestic cars were so high that they created a spacious umbrella for competitors to emerge.

There was a time when our technology improvements helped us to protect our markets. The unions couldn't organize the Asian companies, but technology is easily exported. It was thought that the Asian workers were not capable of utilizing our technology, but in reality the 'worker bees' were better educated and better motivated than our domestic scholars.

8. The President has been decrying the Do Nothing Congress, but it is the Democrat controlled Senate that is doing nothing. Pres. Obama is complaining that the days of cooperation and compromise have gone away. In those good old days there was a fair consensus about where the country should go and the compromise was about the best way to get there. Today, there are two opposing ideas about where to go. One side says a democratic capitalist society has served us well and the opposing side says the wave of the future is European style socialism. Compromise is seen by both sides as surrender. Progress will hinge on the will of the people. Even if Pres. Obama is reelected, I'm betting that the Tea party will control both houses.

9. Education has been in decline for decades. The only country that spends more per pupil is Switzerland, but the U.S. has continually slipped in the hard sciences. I believe the Universities have become the home of Lenin's 'useful fools' Government subsidized Universities and tuition increases matched the subsidies. Government began to guarantee student loans and in response to fairness dicta Universities began admitting unqualified student and the dumbing down curricula. Lots of students took gut courses and many flunked out. When these ungraduated student began reneging on the loans, government made student loans ineligible for bankruptcy. One drag on the housing industry has been the large numbers of graduates who owe so much that they are not able to get mortgages. They move in with Mom and Dad, don't get married but they do have children. The government subsidizes unwed mothers.

We castigate greedy Wall Street, but Wall Street can't hold a candle to institutes of higher learning. Too many classes are taught by itinerant instructors that move from campus to campus teaching for meager wages without benefits, while professors retire handsomely. There was a recent article by a retired Sociology professor that recounted his perceptions. There are excessive classrooms and laboratories because neither students nor professors want to start work before 9:00 or work after 3:00, The facilities are less than 50% utilized. Administration used to account for about 20% of payroll and today it is closer to 50%. Part of the reason for this is the excessive regulations impose by government.

Colleges aren't the only culprits. Public schools are also overloaded with administrators. My speculation is that teachers who fail in the class room can't be fired, so to protect the students the under-performing teacher become part of the administration.

In the meantime 'shop' has virtually disappeared from high schools. We now have VoTech. Let me tell you of a recent family experience. One of my grandsons had perception problem that made book learning very difficult, but he was good with mechanical tasks, particularly small engines. He was denied access to a Vocational school because the classes he wanted were over-subscribed by college bound kids that wanted easy courses to improve their GPA. Naturally we now have a shortage of skilled mechanics, carpenters, electricians and plumbers. My son has a neighbor that drives his high school kids around Concord and points out the best houses. He tells them that is where my plumber lives...

Goodness gracious. That certainly enough and I really want to go to bed. I have to add, I am slightly optimistic about the future. Life is going to be difficult for a while but the nation will survive even if Obama is reelected.

Indeed.

Yeah, this pretty well sums up my thought about this issue:

I've been a bit busy, so blogging has been sporadic. Rather than leaving you with nothing to read, let me point you to a post at GraniteGrok that asks the important question: What could go wrong? In this case it's about LA's proposed move to ban paper or plastic bags in an effort to force people to use reusable cloth bags.

It's obvious they folks in the upper echelons of LA government haven't thought this through and will, in the end, make the people of LA pay for their shortsightedness as they fall sway to the Law of Unintended Consequences. But then California provides uncountable examples of how the Law has been punishing their residents for decades.

First it was ABC with its shoddy characterization, purporting from police video a lack of a wound on the back of Zimmerman's head. Then yesterday NBC apologized (sort of) for its unconscionable editing of the audio tapes to make Zimmerman appear to be motivated by racial animus. Now CNN is withdrawing its claim that Zimmerman used "coon."

I still see the Detroit Free Press--just today!--still persisting in using a photo of a cutsey Trayvon Martin from five or six years ago, while using a photo nearly as old of Zimmerman with the prison jump suit. We don't need the late Andrew Brietbart to see how ridiculous & biased that is.

Every so often someone comes along in our life that deserves a righteous fisking, and so it is with a fellow by the name of James Veverka of Tilton, New Hampshire.

Mister Veverka shows up regularly in the Letters section of our local newspapers, and in particular the Laconia (NH) Daily Sun.

For the most part I ignore Mister Veverka's leftist rants as almost everything he writes is right out of the left's talking point templates. I doubt he's had an original thought of his own in years. But it was one of his latest rants about the GOP in the March 17th edition of the Sun that goaded me into deconstructing yet another of his emotion-filled unthinking rants.

Let's get started, shall we?

Some things to consider.

First, religious liberties do not trump equality under the law. If one wants to be a religious fanatic, a bigot, a sexist, or a homophobe , they can do it in their own home, church, or private affiliation. People have used religious beliefs to support wars, cruel and unusual punishments, beating children, religious oppression, slavery, miscegenation laws, segregation, anti-semitism, anti-suffrage, polygamy, homophobia, and its all a failed Medieval argument.

Ooh, I love this guy! He trashes the First Amendment as if it means nothing because he's been told it does not trump "equality under the law" and then builds a strawman argument about why anyone who believes they should not be forced to go against their religious beliefs about the sanctity of life due to an unconstitutional governmental edict is automatically a religious fanatic who wants to return us to Medieval dogma and the auto de fe. How far would he take this? Would he demand Christian Scientists abandon their faith and beliefs in the power of prayer to heal and force them to support his "beliefs" against their will? (After all, Mister Veverka's deep religious faith in the power of an oppressive government to make sure everyone is equal is no different than the very religions he besmirches.)

Basically, Mister Veverka, you have libeled and slandered those of faith who have no designs to create a theological dictatorship. They just don't want to be told by an overreaching government that they must pay for medicines and medical procedures they see as no different than murder. After reading a number of your diatribes over the past few years, it has become quite evident that you have a deep seated hatred of religion or those who profess to religious belief. Who is the intolerant one here, Mister Veverka?

Let's move on.

For a bunch of tea bags who are concerned with abortion and welfare, they sure haven't thought this one out in the slightest. If one wants fewer abortions and less welfare families, family planning, sexual health care, sex education, and contraception are the only answers. Making contraception unavailable and abortion illegal is as about an intelligent a solution as the drug war is for drug use or banning guns is to end violent crime.

Here, right off the bat, he aims a sexual slur against Tea Party supporters, implying they are homosexuals. (Who's the homophobe, Mister Veverka?)

His statement also shows he is woefully ignorant about the Tea Party and what it stands for, and from earlier rants he's written, it's clear he doesn't want to. He'd rather stay within his own narrowly defined 'reality' so he can convince himself he's the only one who knows "The Truth!" If he even bothered to find out what it's all about he'd know that for the most part the Tea Party isn't interested in social issues he brings up. They just want the government to stop spending money it doesn't have on things we know don't work or is a waste of taxpayer dollars, stop passing laws and imposing regulations that do far more harm to the American public than any of the things Mister Veverka has accused the the GOP of trying to do, and for the government to stop its increasing meddling in our lives and our businesses.

If he wants fewer people on welfare, it isn't the GOP or the Tea Party (they aren't the same thing) that have trapped millions in poverty or want them to remain there. It is the government, and particularly the Democrats, starting with LBJ and his "Great Society". More people on welfare means more control by the government, something the Democrats love because it gives them a captive constituency.

He brings up that the only answers to this problem are "family planning, sexual health care, sex education, and contraception." He assumes these are the only solutions to the welfare problem. But the best way to get people off of welfare is to make it harder for them to get on it and easier for them to get jobs. But most of the programs created over the past 50 years and the rules and regulations handed down by the government have done just the opposite. And who created most of those programs and have been heavy handed in creating economy killing regulations? Hint: It's not the GOP.

To Be Continued...

I see the double standard as applied to conservatives by liberals still stands.

Rush Limbaugh calls an advocate for employer provided birth control a "slut", and the leftist media goes nuts and he loses 9 advertisers. Bill Maher calls Sarah Palin a c***, and not one word of protest is uttered by the Left, nor do his sponsors abandon him.

So by their rules, the Left and their minions are free to disparage any conservative woman, using the most offensive language. But should someone on the Right use a disparaging term that is orders of magnitude less offensive against a liberal woman, it's tantamount to rape and the tar and feathers come out.

These a**holes need to grow up.

As the furor has started to die down over Peter Gleick's use of identity theft in order further support of his cause, that being Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming, I have to admit to thinking about both the immorality of the act and the casting aside the ethics that someone like Gleick should have strove to uphold.

Some have tried to rationalize his act, proclaiming his intentions were good. But that's an old excuse that has been overused and does not excuse his actions. We also know where that road leads: Hell.

The debate rages on about whether "lying for the cause" excuses the lies or is merely an excuse for something that an unethical or immoral person would have done anyways.

We've seen so much in the way of lies and deceit in regards to AGW that it's becoming hard to discriminate between facts, wishful thinking, and outright fabrications. And in that regard I have to say the award for the most deceitful actions must go to the supporters of AGW. As the ClimateGate e-mails have revealed, those who should have been pursuing the truth instead put their efforts towards burying it. (Please notice that I use the lower case 't' in truth, as science is supposed to search for the truth. Use of the upper case "T" in Truth tends to signify that whatever is designated using that word tends to be anything but.) Dissenting viewpoints were quashed. The word 'peer' in "Peer review" was redefined to mean "only those who agree with us", which destroyed the credibility once attached to that phrase. Publications which dared to publish dissenting views were targeted for trivialization or forced to fire editors who refused to toe the line if they wished to survive.

Such is the power of lying for the cause.

In this case the lies are allegedly to force courses of action that are supposedly necessary to save the planet. Never mind that there is tenuous evidence at best that any such actions are required. The true believers know they are right and are willing to put forward any story, use any lie, any fabricated evidence to advance their cause. The thought that they might actually be wrong has never crossed their minds. And should there be any facts that contradict their belief system then it must be suppressed and those presenting them discredited.

When these kinds of actions are applied to science, then it ceases being science. It becomes dogma and requires no proof. We saw that in Nazi Germany (racial science) and the Soviet Union (Lysenkoism), where political beliefs overrode the truths provided by science. And because of it millions died.

CAGW is no different. And while it's not likely to lead to extermination camps and gulags, millions (if not a couple of billion) will pay the price for the lies put forward "for the good of the people." Scientific truth need not apply.

Received by way of a co-worker:

Just a note of reality that our liberal family and friends probably don't know or care to admit.

As a pilot I get e-mail notices from Air Traffic Control whenever there is a significant impact on airspace. The most common is when airspace is shut down due to a presidential visit.

I have never received so many as these past two years during which the current resident of the White House has made multiple trips weekly via Air Force One for campaign/fund raising stops all around the country. I most frequently get notices that impact NY and Boston. These trips involve multiple government aircraft to haul all the staff, security personnel, and accompanying entourage along with the presidential limo and numerous support vehicles - all on the taxpayer's dime. In other words, your dime and mine.

Burning literally tons of fossil-based jet fuel, it costs roughly $180,000 per hour to run Air Force One alone, not counting all the other support aircraft and vehicles. A separate giant C-5 cargo plane burning equal tonnage of fossil fuel always accompanies the presidential 747 to carry the limo and Secret Service vehicles. This doesn't even take into consideration the thousands of unreimbursed state, county, and local man hours and fuel costs for police cars, helicopters, buses, vans, delivery trucks, etc. expended on additional security, traffic and crowd control.

On just Thursday this week, both New York and Manchester/Nashua [New Hampshire] airspace will be shut down for presidential campaign stops. So, let's understand the actual financial statement here - political campaign fundraising (A) going to the president's reelection (B) and party war chest (C) - not the federal treasury (D) or local budgets (E) - is being funded from the federal treasury (D) and local budgets (E). Does anybody here see the obvious disconnect?

So if we're going to talk about deficit reduction and carbon footprints, let's get serious here.

When both George H.W Bush and George W. Bush were in office they would visit the family vacation home in Kennebunkport, Maine, just a hop, skip, and a jump from the former Pease Air Force Base (now a commercial airport and an Air National Guard airfield) in New Hampshire. There was little disruption of commercial and general aviation traffic and security was easier as there was still a military presence at the field and at the nearby Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. I have a feeling the Bushes were far more cognizant of the inconveniences and the cost their presence caused and worked to keep it to a minimum. Not so with the present occupant of the White House.

I've covered the decline of Detroit more than once, covering the various reasons for its precipitous fall from grace.

It's decline continues as the Democrat policymakers continue their experiment to create a socialist utopia. Too bad it's been failing and in such a spectacular fashion that it's impossible to hide. No amount of dissembling and sleight-of-hand can point observers away from the obvious: Detroit is dying and it's the fault of the Progressives who have been running the city for decades.

They have implemented just about every socialist program, regressive 'redistributionist" tax, and punitive business regulation on their wish list upon the city and its residents and the results are clear to see: Detroit has gone from the richest city in the US (per capita) to the second poorest. (Only Cleveland beat them out for that honor.) Detroit can stand as an example of what the rest of the nation will look like if Obama and the rest of the Progressives get their way. The socialist experiment has failed and no amount of window dressing can change that, no matter how hard the MSM tries.

Another thing I have found with the ongoing debate about Anthropogenic Global Warming climate change has been the constant claims by the warmist camp about "consensus" in regards to the findings by tens of thousands ten thousand a thousand 99% of climate scientists that It's-All-The-Fault-Of-The-Evil-Humans. This in itself is enough to discredit their 'proof', as science in no way, shape, or form is about consensus. It means they truly do not understand the scientific method or how proofs are made.

This is something the late author and physician Michael Crichton addressed during a guest lecture at Cal Tech back in 2003.

I want to pause here and talk about this notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you're being had.

Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results.

The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.

There is no such thing as consensus science. If it's consensus, it isn't science. If it's science, it isn't consensus: Period.

Crichton went on to list a number of major failures in regards to "consensus science", some of which caused the loss of many lives. Others destroyed careers, even though later it was discovered that those who went against the consensus were right and everyone else was wrong.

Albert Einstein had his own take on consensus, having once stated "It doesn't matter if ten thousand scientists agree with me. It only takes one to prove me wrong." One of the smartest men in the modern era understood the fallacy of consensus science.

And this is the weakness of the 'theory' of Anthropogenic Global Warming. At the moment it's all consensus and no hard proofs. People, many of them non-scientists, look at some of the presented data and see a correlation between global average temperatures and the atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. They come to the conclusion that the increase in carbon dioxide is the cause of the temperature rise. They've fallen into the Correlation Trap. Unfortunately, so have some of the so-called climate scientists, like Al Gore.

As anyone who deals with data and statistics can tell you, correlation does not imply causality. This means just because two factors correlate to each other does not automatically mean that one caused the other. There may be other factors that affect both and cause the correlation but have not been discovered, or have been discounted through ignorance, bias, or conscious decision.

Another possibility the correlation may show but that the warmists have chosen to ignore: CO₂ concentrations have changed because of changing temperatures, something ice core samples from Antarctica have shown to be the case over the past 400,000 years, where CO₂ levels have lagged temperature changes, not led them. But why should they let that data change the narrative? After all the 'consensus' is that it's all our fault, meaning no further discussion is needed or wanted.

Yeah, that will work out well for all of us.

Not.