The quote of the day has to go to Matt Scharper, head of California’s Search and Rescue operation, who spoke of On-Star and other GPS devices: “With the Yuppie 911, you send a message to a satellite and the government pulls your butt out of something you shouldn’t have been in in the first place.”The least we can do is to let these people pay for their own rescues.
Rescuers are a tad peeved at people who take on the wilderness but still want someone to save them at the first sign of trouble.
Poor societies - like Bangladesh - produce very little C02 per capita; rich societies - like us - produce large amounts of C02 per capita. Therefore a cull of rich societies would be at least 60 times as productive (for Gaia) as one of poor societies.So Gaia is best served by a poverty-striken, disease-ridden , pollution-filled society, where life is brutal, hellish, and short? This is the progressive vision for Gaia?
The only thing to be said with certainty is that there has been an increase in studies. “In 2008 alone, there were some 4000-odd peer-reviewed papers published on the topic.”A lesson in systems engineering: “The law of unintended consequences puts their proposals in the realm of madness.”
Despite the vast self-importance of humans, changes in the Sun seem to have a substantially greater impact on the Earth’s climate than we do, and there is nothing much we can do about that.
[Global waming alarmists] seem to have taken to heart the old poem “When in danger and in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout” without knowing whether there is a danger.
Among the media, academia and within planning circles, there’s a generally standing answer to the question of what cities are the best, the most progressive and best role models for small and mid-sized cities. The standard list includes Portland, Seattle, Austin, Minneapolis, and Denver.It's so much easier to be progressive if you don't have to worry about diversity.
But look closely at these exemplars and a curious fact emerges. [These] “progressive” cities aren’t red or blue, but another color entirely: white.
Political parties must stand for something. When Republicans were in the wilderness in the late 1970s, Ronald Reagan knew that the doctrine of "blurring the lines" between parties was not an appropriate way to win elections.That’s a clear shot across the bow of the Republican ship of state. If the Republican Party doesn’t get its act together soon and start acting like a conservative party, it will soon go the way of the dodo – and deservedly so.
Journalists have been laid-off across the country, because of the media’s broken business model. Surely, the Key News can recruit a less-biased reporter.Except that in a nut house, the selection is limited.
The Poles are going to do just fine under the new missile defense plans, ... They were smart not to make a fuss and fight the Obama administration, but instead to try to figure out ways to enhance their security with the “new guys in charge."As the English idiom goes, “beggars can’t be choosers.” My sympathies to the Poles – they’re between a rock and a hard place.
He was enrolled in Ms. Sakai’s kindergarten class at Noelani Elementary School [Hawaii public school] in 1967, but he was only there a couple or three months before he was off to Indonesia.So he missed out: All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
- Share everything.Life is tough when all you have going for you is an “elite education.”
- Play fair.
- Don't hit people.
- Put things back.
- Clean up your own mess.
- Don't take things that aren't yours.
- Say you're sorry.
- Live a balanced life.
Assurant, one of the nation's bigger writers of individual policies, ... leads in high-deductible plans of the kind Obamacare would ban (emphasis added).My suspicion is that it is exactly these high-deductible plans that are keeping the cost of health care from rising even faster than they are. Ban them and watch annual cost increases accelerate.
A combination of health-savings accounts with a move away from comprehensive insurance to catastrophic coverage would not only better serve Americans but would result in a massive boost to the health-care industry.If only the Obama administration was half as smart.
In Massachusetts, they’ve had the opposite effect. After the enactment of Commonwealth Care in 2006, every provider group — from the fertility doctors to the substance-abuse counselors — persuaded the health-care officials that no plan would be “comprehensive” without their services. The result? Cheap insurance isn’t just hard to come by in the Bay State — it’s illegal.I would note that I just got notified by my company of a new Federal mandate (the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008) that will almost certainly drive up my health insurance premiums next year.
A spectacular red.
Red highlights in the tree tops behind the neighborhood homes.
The yellow leaves alongside the house are spectacular in the evening sun.
Just nine months into his presidency, Obama has appeared at 23 Democratic fundraisers, including the two he attended Tuesday night, according to Mark Knoller of CBS News, who keeps a detailed log of presidential activities.Maybe it’s time to tell him to shut up and start cleaning up all those messes he claims he “inherited..”
By comparison, George W. Bush attended six political fundraisers and Bill Clinton went to five during their first year in office.
Hmm ... haven’t we been taught by our 'intellectual betters' to disregard the opinions of ‘dead white males’?“Our greatest destiny is to serve ourselves and our fellow man (and woman).” -- Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
“We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” -- Winston Churchill.
I’ve been a member for 40+ years, and had long thought that our species had gone extinct, so I was pleased to see an “Order of Turtles” group on the career networking site LinkedIn.
You may ask, “Who are Turtles?"
They are “an illustrious group and include in their membership some of the country's foremost leaders in fields of government, finance, entertainment, aerospace and other areas where aggressiveness, a feeling for fair play, clean thoughts and a sense of humor are keys to success.”
More realistically, Turtles are a widespread, loosely-knit group of fun-loving individuals with a somewhat wry sense of humor. There is no organization, no membership roll, no meetings, no dues, and no obligations – except an implied one to recruit more Turtles.
Membership is open to anyone who is (a) breathing, (b) has an IQ above room temperature (Celsius – and that may be waived), (c) wants to join, and (d) can answer the Questions correctly (coaching is allowed).
The origin of the Turtles is uncertain, to say the least. The most common – and I think most likely - explanation of its honorable origin refers back to the Second World War, when a group of American fighter pilots stationed in England formed a semisecret drinking fraternity among its squadron's members, and put prospective candidates for membership through a mock initiation.
Are you a Turtle?
“If You’re An Employer Who Can’t Afford To Provide Health Insurance To Your Employees, You Get Taxed”And if you don’t think that there are lots of people out there are making exactly JoeC’s assessment, you’ve got a lot to learn about human nature.
What part of “can’t afford” is it I do not understand? I must be missing something somewhere. Come to think of it… it might be cheaper to pay the tax than to pay for the health benefits for my employee (myself). My catastrophic plan costs my company close to $500/month for me and my wife. So I could go to a slightly more expensive plan that actually paid for things like dental, prescription drugs, and eye care…. and get taxed because I had the expensive plan (over $8000)… which would cost me even more. Hmmmmm…. let me think about this for a moment. So I can:
A) Pay a tax (say $1000) because I have no insurance and get ‘free’ gov’t care
B) Pay $6000 for a minimalist plan (which I have now)
C) Pay $8000+additional tax for a better plan that still costs me a co-pay
Lemme think about that for a bit.
Somehow we went from revolutionary fervor to the boring Ministry of Truth in nine months.Read it all.
Personally I found the left far more interesting when they were suffering from Bush Derangement Syndrome than Obamophilia.
[Washington DC] Metrobus operators have been disciplined hundreds of times for speeding, running red lights and striking pedestrians since 2004. During the same time period, many drivers have been caught driving while distracted, including one case where a bus operator was watching television behind the wheel.One has to wonder how many are affirmative action employees hired in spite of bad records ... but that question will never be asked.
Documents obtained by WTOP through a public records request show that since 2004, bus operators have racked up almost 400 violations for running red lights, as well as 260 speeding violations. In one instance, a bus operator was driving 59 miles per hour in a 25-mile-per-hour zone.
Voters in the city [Kinston, NC] decided overwhelmingly last year to do away with the party affiliation of candidates in local elections, but the Obama administration recently overruled the electorate and decided that equal rights for black voters cannot be achieved without the Democratic Party.Republicans need not apply ....
The Justice Department's ruling, which affects races for City Council and mayor, went so far as to say partisan elections are needed so that black voters can elect their "candidates of choice" - identified by the department as those who are Democrats and almost exclusively black.
The Magazine Publishers of America's American Society of Magazine Editors has added a category to its annual magazine cover awards: Obama. This new category is the only ASME category focused on a single person, and highlights the reverential attitude for the President widely held in the magazine publishing community.It's true; scroll to the bottom for details.
Yes, ever since week one of the Obama administration, I have been doggedly calling for heads to roll. As months of crass ineptitude drag on, however, the blacklist of those who should be tagged for the guillotine gets longer and longer. The most recent fiasco, of course, was sending the president of the United States on a humiliating fool's errand to beg for the Olympics as a Chicago boondoggle. I cheered when splendiferous Rio de Janeiro rightfully got the gig.On Sarah Palin:
You are correct to argue that the cluster of appointees around a person in power reflects his or her belief system and modus operandi. However, it is a mark of leadership to recognize the need for professional evolution beyond an old comfort zone. Obama is approaching a turning point which will define his political future, if he has one. He is surrounded by some mighty small potatoes who need shoveling into the dumpster. The petty provincials need to go, and far more sophisticated and world-savvy analysts must urgently be brought on board.
I too have been repulsed by the elitist insults flung at Sarah Palin in the massive, coordinated media effort to destroy her. Hence I have been thoroughly enjoying the way that Palin, despite all the dirt thrown at her by liberal journalists and bloggers, keeps bouncing back as if unscathed. No sooner did the gloating harpies of the Northeastern media think they had torn her to shreds than she exploded into number one on Amazon.com with a memoir that hadn't even been printed yet! With each one of these amusing triumphs, Palin is solidifying her status as a bona fide American cultural heroine.There's more. Read it all.
Yes, the snobbery about Palin's five colleges is especially distasteful, given the Democratic party's supposed allegiance to populism. Judging by the increasingly limited cultural and factual knowledge of graduates of elite schools whom one encounters working in the media, blue-chip sheepskins aren't worth the parchment they're printed on these days. Young people forced through the ruthlessly competitive college admissions rat race have the independence and creativity pinched right out of them. Proof? Where are the major young American artists, writers, critics or movie-makers of the past 20 years? The most adventurous and enterprising minds have gone into high tech. We're in a horrendous cultural vacuum because our status-besotted education industry is geared toward producing not original thinkers but docile creatures of the system.
Fox's news operation ... slants conservative ... in the choice of topics: fiscal irresponsibility, the expansion of big government, an imperial judiciary, the war on terrorism, radical Islam, crime, teenage out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and the culture wars.Which, perhaps, is the reason its ratings are soaring while its competitors are moribund.
Fox has filled an ideological vacuum left by the likes of CNN and MSNBC.... Fox consciously - even proudly - caters to God-fearing, gun-toting, red-state viewers. It speaks to the populist, patriotic and conservative values embodied by Middle America - principles that have been consistently mocked by media elites.
A must read.Keith Olbermann. In addition to his nightly gig on MSNBC -- a numbing blend of Leftist politics and something approaching Tourette's syndrome -- Olbermann is a co-host of NBC's "Football Night in America," the pre-game show that leads into "Sunday Night Football." Naturally, that would be Sunday night NFL football.
Olbermann calls an accomplished and best-selling conservative author, commentator, blogger, wife and mother a "big mashed-up bag of meat with lipstick," but such dehumanizing venom doesn't count as controversial, or even lightly strain his NBC-NFL connection.
Seniors who want to collect their Social Security benefits and opt out of Medicare won a court victory recently that hopefully will pave the way for them to be able to do just that.If Ross Perot - and I - want to pay for our own health care, shouldn't we be allowed to?
U.S. District Court Judge Rosemary M. Collyer denied a motion to dismiss the plaintiffs claim [that] the federal government has no right to force them into Medicare while holding their hard-earned Social Security benefits hostage.
Have you stopped reading, listening, watching, and paying attention to most of what now passes for establishment public or popular culture?Confusions of the Age.
I don’t particularly like the idea that I want little to do with contemporary culture. But I feel it nonetheless ....
Sports: "But with the Limbaugh matter, the entire Potemkin edifice is exposed .... Is Ted Turner never allowed to buy another sports team, given his outrageous political statements about Iran, Israel, Bush, global warming, etc?"Read them both.
Russia: "When we serially cried out “reset” button, blamed Bush for the new Cold War with Russia, and promised to “listen”, we knew the US was walking blindfolded up the steps of Putin’s guillotine."
Sexual hypocricy: "[I]f popular culture has all but suggested that heterosexuals who engage in such an act are depraved when carried out consensually, and especially worthy of odium beyond that accorded to the rapist, when as an act of coercion, why is the subject simply taboo in matters of public discussion of male homosexuality?"
Racism: "[I]n just 9 months there have been more racially charged rhetoric and more charges of “racist!” than we’ve seen in the past decade."
Wealth: "The rich offer bromides for the poor, but are exempt by their capital from the consequences should such social policy prove ill thought-out."
We’re surrounded by either fools or knaves.My suppport for the “fool” theory is wavering. Read the whole thing.
The support for the “knave” alternative is becoming more compelling. People who are serious about their desire for an economic recovery simply don’t do the things they have done and don’t propose the things they are proposing. What they want are things you would expect from the government of a banana republic, not the supposed leader of the free world.
Petroleum is a major part of America’s energy picture. Shall we get it here or abroad? Palin understands it's better to be independent.In effect, American environmentalists are preventing responsible development here at home while supporting irresponsible development overseas.
Tempting as they may be to central planners, top-down, one-size-fits-all solutions are recipes for failure.
Building an energy-independent America will mean a real economic stimulus.
[E]nergy independence is not just about the environment or the economy. It’s about freedom and confidence.
[The Democrats] concocted two groups — Americans for Stable Quality Care and its predecessor, Healthy Economy Now (I think the term is “front organization”) — to push the White House’s health-care agenda.Since the Democrats did it, it’s not astroturfing; it’s “Fake But Accurate.”
Not surprisingly, an ethics expert interviewed by Politico (we need experts because ethics is a subspecialty, knowledge of which is not commonly found among ordinary politicians) thinks the whole thing raises “questions.”Ethics are sooo ... nuanced.
Things come down to choices: lower costs versus death panels; torture versus intelligence; equity versus growth.But there are deeper, more fundamental, choices to be made.
The missing pairs of choices in Reich’s list are these: creativity versus certainty, risk versus return, bureaucracy versus innovation. We can live only if we take the risk. That is the most unsayable truth of all.Reich’s view is that the “loaves and fishes” must be supplied by a benevolent government to ensure equity. My view is that I’d rather bake my own bread and catch my own fish.
Facing the choice of whether to maintain our dominance or to gradually, deliberately, willingly, and indeed relievedly give it up, we are currently on a course towards the latter. The current liberal ascendancy in the United States--controlling the executive and both houses of Congress, dominating the media and elite culture--has set us on a course for decline. And this is true for both foreign and domestic policies. Indeed, they work synergistically to ensure that outcome.There’s still time to vote “NO.”
-- $201 billion in new taxes on high-premium health care plans.Are you starting to notice a trend here?
-- $83 billion in new taxes paid by workers who will receive less employer-sponsored coverage or lose that coverage altogether but will be compensated with higher wages or monetary benefits, which are taxable.
-- $23 billion in penalty fees paid by employers who do not comply with the federal insurance mandate.
-- $4 billion in penalty fees paid by individuals who don't have health insurance.
-- $16 billion in new income and Medicare payroll tax revenue due to changes in Medicare.
And $180 billion in other tax revenues items, including: A new tax on prescription drug makers that would account for $22.2 billion over 10 years; a new tax on medical device manufacturers that would bring in $38.6 billion; and a new annual tax on insurance companies would net the government $60.4 billion.
Can’t TOTUS teach him a new phrase?Terrorists? ‘Now let me be clear: We are indeed at war with al-Qaida and its affiliates.’
Student testing? ‘Let me be clear: Success should be judged by results, and data is a powerful tool to determine results.’
Iran? ‘Let me be clear: Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile activity poses a real threat, not just to the United States, but to Iran’s neighbors and our allies.’
Auto bailouts? ‘Let me be clear: The United States government has no interest in running GM.’
In Moscow: ‘Let me be clear: America wants a strong, peaceful, and prosperous Russia.’
In Ghana: ‘Let me be clear: Africa is not the crude caricature of a continent at perpetual war.’
In Italy, bemoaning poor U.S. leadership on climate change: ‘Let me be clear: Those days are over.’In Trinidad, announcing new aid: ‘Let me be clear: This is not charity.’
In breaking with her Republican colleagues to vote for that Senate committee bill, Senator Snowe said she still has reservations about it, especially about its cost. And with good reason. Consider what just happened to the bill in recent days.Where is ObviousMan when you need him?
Central to it was a tradeoff. Insurance companies would no longer be able to refuse coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Nor could they charge sick people higher premiums. In return, the bill would require everyone, sick and healthy, to have insurance, thus providing the companies a stream of new premiums from the healthy to cover the care of the sick.
But the committee then voted to weaken the penalties on those who refused to obtain coverage. That made it inevitable that millions would opt out of the system, choosing to pay the modest penalties, and wait until they got sick to get insurance, knowing they could not be turned down because they were sick.
The insurance industry responded with a report Tuesday that said the bill would end up raising health care premiums for everybody. No kidding. The report was immediately denounced by the White House, but that's almost beside the point, which is this:The major cost of this whole new insurance entitlement is supposed to be paid for by about a half trillion dollars in unspecified Medicare cuts.
Does anyone believe that a Congress that can't put teeth into its insurance requirement, would actually make those kinds of cuts in Medicare, perhaps the most popular program ever passed?”
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Under the Massachusetts proposal, if your care costs less than the annual allotment, then they keep the unused portion. If your care costs more, then the difference comes out of the providers’ pockets.Rationing under another name.
"A world-first experiment to try and reduce energy use for the day on the Isles of Scilly was foiled after a turn in the weather caused participants to use more electricity," London's Daily Telegraph reports.The link is here.
In the day-long experiment, Scilly people were asked to follow "a series of guidelines including switching off unnecessary lights and TVs when not in use and only filling kettles with the exact amount of water required." Result: Energy use dropped, but by only 1%.
The reason: "Organiser Dr Matt Prescott said the experiment was undermined by bad weather--which saw people using more power than usual." The experiment might well have been a success had it been conducted a day earlier, when it was sunny and warm.
Which leads us to a thought. What if there were a way of changing the climate so that the weather was warmer all over the world? We realize this is probably unrealistic, but if it could be done, it would be a great way to save energy.
Accidentally over billing the Federal Gummint: $22For all the things you want to destroy, there's the grandstanding US Attorney's Office.
Prosecuting a clerical error: $450,000
Abusing your power for a political agenda: Priceless.
It’s more akin to “my state because I need to be re-elected” but the thought is a close cousin.[2] Hmmm ... their logic opens some interesting possibilities. If they can essentially graduate the level at which the tax on benefits kicks in based upon the cost of benefits in given states, it seems to follow we should lobby for differentiating the federal income tax brackets by cost of living in a given state.
Jeez, I wouldn’t give them ideas.[3] The desire to help other people is admirable. The insistence on doing it with other people's money is less so. The willingness to carve out special exemptions for you and yours, at the expense of everyone else, is despicable.
Which is phrasing it politely.[4] [U]nfortunately, the Republicans have shown themselves to be lesser versions of evil than the Democrats. While going to hell slowly is better ..., the destination is the same.
Yes. This reminds me of the quote attributed to Mark Twain: "A lie will go round the world while truth is pulling its boots on." It’s always a choice between the lesser of two evils; good never seems to get in the race.
Despite these state-level failures, President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats are pushing forward a slate of similar reforms. Unlike most high-school science fair participants, they seem unaware that the point of doing experiments is to identify what actually works. Instead, they've identified what doesn't—and decided to do it again.It’s the classic definition of liberalism: doing the same thing over and over again, each time with the expectation that the outcome will be different.
“[T]his ridiculous hodgepodge, this hypertrophied Rube Goldberg apparatus, is not some startling aberration of the political process, induced by some Republican dark magic. This is the kind of thing the American political system produces. This is why all of our programs have a substantial element of the inexplicable and bizarre.”And she is absolutely right. The only way to significantly reduce the cost of healthcare in the U.S. is to significantly reduce government’s role in healthcare.
Nobel Peace Prize is Given to Obama“Given” as opposed to “Awarded” – a subtle swipe at the President, or just the Post’s usual sloppy reporting? I’d like to believe the former, but smart money is on the latter.
It can be an all-purpose argument-ender or a signal of apathy. And it can really be annoying. The poll found "whatever" to be consistently disliked by Americans regardless of their race, gender, age, income or where they live.Whatever.
The embarrassment over Chicago finishing dead last in Copenhagen was also felt by the multitude of Obama promoters in the media that almost unanimously jumped to the supine conclusion that victory for Chicago was assured once the president announced his plan to bless the International Olympic Committee with his presence.But of course it had to be the Republican’s fault:
MSNBC's Ed Schultz, ... blamed Republican negativity for Chicago's defeat, and then truly lost control of his mental faculties: "They only support America when it's good for their political agenda. What the Republicans did, I think, rivals Jane Fonda sitting on a gun in North Vietnam."Poor choice of imagery, Ed. Just in case you forgot, Jane Fonda was/is a Democrat.
