Quote of the day:
"You ought to be able to raise your voice in your own house without risk of arrest." Mass. Governor Deval Patrick on the arrest of a Harvard professor in HIS OWN HOME FOR DISORDERLY CONDUCT.
He went on to describe the arrest as "every black man's nightmare".
Dear Governor: You and your special interest group are NOT SPECIAL. This is EVERY AMERICAN'S NIGHTMARE.
The problem here was not a Rogue Cop... this is a Rogue system. The fact that the Officer "followed proceedures" indicates, to me, a problem with the f%&$ing proceedures.
Only this time, they messed with a very well connected, powerful figure from a politically feared speacial interest group. He has the president to weigh in. What about you? Or me?
We have over funded our "justice system" and our military to the point that we are breaking the back of the economic system, and we are losing our freedoms in the process.
Libertariananimal (at) gmail (d0t) com
Friday, July 24, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Open Letter from Shedlock to the President
I was going to write about this in my blogs today, but since Mike Shedlock already said it, and said it about as well anyone could have... I will let him do the talking. The following is an open letter to President Obama on Mike Shedlocks' excellent blog today (Link here to original article). I think it needs to be repeated, and often, and shouted from the rooftops.
I give you Mike Shedlock:
Open Letter to President Obama on Healthcare and the Economy
Dear Mr. President,
Wednesday evening we heard you address the nation on health care and the economy. I was hoping to hear some tough answers to tough questions. Instead we were treated to one hour of tap dancing on eggshells where it seemed your primary intent was not to break any eggs.
You spoke of the need for sacrifices but failed to mention any. You said Medicare benefits would not be reduced and everyone would be covered.
Mr. President where are the sacrifices? By who?
The press seemed concerned with a fear of rationed health care. Some republicans have raised the issue as well.
Mr. President I am concerned there will be no rationing of health care. It is axiomatic that there is unlimited demand for free services.
Here are some tougher questions I am sure everyone would like to know.
Will the plan cover a transplant procedure with a $50,000 cost for someone who is 80 years old with a life expectancy of two years? One year? Who decides? Or is everything free for everyone regardless of the odds of success?
Will the plan cover fertility treatments? Abortion?
Will the plan address issues that arose in the Terri Schiavo case?
To what extent must doctors provide generics instead of prescription drugs?
Mr. President, unless something is done to rein in costs taxpayers will be footing the bill for a lot of things they shouldn't. In every county that has a single payer system, there is come degree of rationing.
Somehow you have us believe benefits will not be reduced, everything will be covered for everyone, there will be no rationing and somehow health care will cost less because of reduced paperwork. Mr. President, no one believes that, not even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. President, to prevent costs from spiraling out of control rationing is mandatory. Unfortunately, you do not have the courage to admit it. Yet until you do, it can't happen.
Mr. President, a heart operation in the US might cost $100,000 whereas the same operation in India, in a world class hospital might cost $20,000. Will we fly people to India for non-emergency medical operations if they save taxpayer money? If not, why not? Shouldn't the primary concern be getting the most benefits for the least cost?
Mr. President, you noted that the AARP and doctor's groups were in favor of your plan. You failed to mention the $245 billion "sweetener" it took to get them to do so. Moreover, you did not even count that $245 billion while calling your plan "budget neutral".
Mr. President, with numerous states blowing up over the issue, it should be clear the US cannot afford the defined benefit programs promised government workers. Starting with Congress, what is your proposal pension reform?
Similarly, when does Congress share the pain of this recession?
Mr. President, you called the cancellation of additional F-22 planes a victory. This strikes me as odd given the Pentagon does not even want more of them. Why is canceling a military program that the military does not want such a big victory?
Mr. President, the savings on the F-22 program is $2 billion. The 2010 Pentagon budget is $534 billion, a $21 billion, four percent increase over 2009. Total defense spending is $780 billion. Mr. President, is this sustainable?
Mr. President, history is replete with examples of great nations spending themselves into oblivion attempting to maintain their empires. It should be crystal clear the US can no longer afford to be the world's policeman. So, Mr. President, when will you start bringing the troops home from Europe, Japan, and the Mid-East?
Mr. President, I did not vote for you nor did I vote for Senator McCain. I voted for Ron Paul. However, I did expect and frequently said that I expected you to get some things correct.
Instead, I see you carrying out the same failed stimulus and bailout plans of President Bush. You promised transparency on spending and did not deliver.
The proposal to Audit The Fed is languishing in Congress even though it has overwhelming support of both Congress and the public. You broke a promise to release details of military torture. Where are significant charges against anyone? I was positive you would handle the torture issue correctly, but I was wrong.
Mr. President, you placed your faith in the same set of folks at the Fed and Treasury as President Bush, in spite of the fact they all failed to see this coming.
Mr. President it frequently appears as if Goldman Sachs is running your administration just as it ran the last.
Mr. President, other than a sketchy health care plane with no details and no cost constraints, exactly what change have you delivered?
Thank you Mr. President, now can we have some answers please?
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
---------------------------------------------------------
The recklessness with which the Obama Administration has approached healthcare in America is UNFORGIVEABLE. Where is the Cost/Benefit analysis? (I want HARD NUMBERS, not more speech.)
Ahhh, but there will be no hard numbers. This is a POWER GRAB. Numbers would only get in the way of the Agenda of The Powers That Be.
LibertarianAnimal (at) gmail (d0t) com
I give you Mike Shedlock:
Open Letter to President Obama on Healthcare and the Economy
Dear Mr. President,
Wednesday evening we heard you address the nation on health care and the economy. I was hoping to hear some tough answers to tough questions. Instead we were treated to one hour of tap dancing on eggshells where it seemed your primary intent was not to break any eggs.
You spoke of the need for sacrifices but failed to mention any. You said Medicare benefits would not be reduced and everyone would be covered.
Mr. President where are the sacrifices? By who?
The press seemed concerned with a fear of rationed health care. Some republicans have raised the issue as well.
Mr. President I am concerned there will be no rationing of health care. It is axiomatic that there is unlimited demand for free services.
Here are some tougher questions I am sure everyone would like to know.
Will the plan cover a transplant procedure with a $50,000 cost for someone who is 80 years old with a life expectancy of two years? One year? Who decides? Or is everything free for everyone regardless of the odds of success?
Will the plan cover fertility treatments? Abortion?
Will the plan address issues that arose in the Terri Schiavo case?
To what extent must doctors provide generics instead of prescription drugs?
Mr. President, unless something is done to rein in costs taxpayers will be footing the bill for a lot of things they shouldn't. In every county that has a single payer system, there is come degree of rationing.
Somehow you have us believe benefits will not be reduced, everything will be covered for everyone, there will be no rationing and somehow health care will cost less because of reduced paperwork. Mr. President, no one believes that, not even the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. President, to prevent costs from spiraling out of control rationing is mandatory. Unfortunately, you do not have the courage to admit it. Yet until you do, it can't happen.
Mr. President, a heart operation in the US might cost $100,000 whereas the same operation in India, in a world class hospital might cost $20,000. Will we fly people to India for non-emergency medical operations if they save taxpayer money? If not, why not? Shouldn't the primary concern be getting the most benefits for the least cost?
Mr. President, you noted that the AARP and doctor's groups were in favor of your plan. You failed to mention the $245 billion "sweetener" it took to get them to do so. Moreover, you did not even count that $245 billion while calling your plan "budget neutral".
Mr. President, with numerous states blowing up over the issue, it should be clear the US cannot afford the defined benefit programs promised government workers. Starting with Congress, what is your proposal pension reform?
Similarly, when does Congress share the pain of this recession?
Mr. President, you called the cancellation of additional F-22 planes a victory. This strikes me as odd given the Pentagon does not even want more of them. Why is canceling a military program that the military does not want such a big victory?
Mr. President, the savings on the F-22 program is $2 billion. The 2010 Pentagon budget is $534 billion, a $21 billion, four percent increase over 2009. Total defense spending is $780 billion. Mr. President, is this sustainable?
Mr. President, history is replete with examples of great nations spending themselves into oblivion attempting to maintain their empires. It should be crystal clear the US can no longer afford to be the world's policeman. So, Mr. President, when will you start bringing the troops home from Europe, Japan, and the Mid-East?
Mr. President, I did not vote for you nor did I vote for Senator McCain. I voted for Ron Paul. However, I did expect and frequently said that I expected you to get some things correct.
Instead, I see you carrying out the same failed stimulus and bailout plans of President Bush. You promised transparency on spending and did not deliver.
The proposal to Audit The Fed is languishing in Congress even though it has overwhelming support of both Congress and the public. You broke a promise to release details of military torture. Where are significant charges against anyone? I was positive you would handle the torture issue correctly, but I was wrong.
Mr. President, you placed your faith in the same set of folks at the Fed and Treasury as President Bush, in spite of the fact they all failed to see this coming.
Mr. President it frequently appears as if Goldman Sachs is running your administration just as it ran the last.
Mr. President, other than a sketchy health care plane with no details and no cost constraints, exactly what change have you delivered?
Thank you Mr. President, now can we have some answers please?
Mike "Mish" Shedlock
---------------------------------------------------------
The recklessness with which the Obama Administration has approached healthcare in America is UNFORGIVEABLE. Where is the Cost/Benefit analysis? (I want HARD NUMBERS, not more speech.)
Ahhh, but there will be no hard numbers. This is a POWER GRAB. Numbers would only get in the way of the Agenda of The Powers That Be.
LibertarianAnimal (at) gmail (d0t) com
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
The Left and the Corporations
I get comments and emails regularly from folks that excoriate Corporations.
How disingenuous.
It is the existence of Corporations, in their guise as legal persons living in perpetuity, that enable the Left's social programs to exist. It is the evolution of the corporation which gave us Medicare, Social Security, the military/industrial complex, the prison/industrial complex, perhaps even the marriage/divorce industrial complex (nah, that last one was me just for fun...).
I can see your eyes glazing over... Stay with me, now...
Without corporate collection of payroll and income taxes, the U.S. Federal Government would not have been able to begin funding all of the silly social programs and military expenditures that will be our undoing.
Funny about those unintended consequences...
Greg
"Harrison Bergeron"
Quote of the day -
"As society becomes more competitive and more meritocratic, income inequality is likely to rise simply as a consequence of the underlying -inequality—which is very great—between people that is due to differences in IQ, energy, health, social skills, character, ambition, physical attractiveness, talent, and luck." - Richard Posner, senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Any of my Leftist readers care to comment on that?
(only half tongue in cheek)
You wanna know why the Left does not want capitalist's making millions and showing those millions off? Well, we all KNOW why, we just don't want to admit it.
It is all about SEX.
Men build buildings, buy sports teams, go into the movie business, etc... for one reason only - and its not or achitectural reviews, championship rings, and oscars... it is to attract sexual partners. (My 86 year old mother recently said that if women ran around with a mattress on their backs, we would have never made it out of the caves... I love really old people, they don't give a sh*t about your PC requirements.)
And nothing pisses off the inadequate more than the love lives of the really, really rich and famous.
Of course, when the really, really rich and famous get old, they revert from the arrogance of youth to the hyopocrisy of age without skipping a beat. Perhaps they feel guilty, or perhaps when those waves of testosterone turn to a trickle their thoughts turn to less carnal issues.
Who knows?
Who cares?
The Left seems to care. They want to tax and redistribute wealth, ostensibly for the betterment of society... it won't work guys...
Because you are still inadequate, and in the absence of income inequality there will be a new meassurement - and you are going to like that one even less.
Now let us take the Right...
They have their own angry, "got-the-short-end-of-the-stick" (if you catch my drift) guys who just don't measure up (or whose equipment can't be helped by a little blue pill) and don't want you to either. So its fire and brimstone, family values, and definition of marriage by (male)ministers that get caught with a male prostitute (but he did go to therapy and get cured... besides his wife "forgave" him... for what? For wanting anal sex with a man? Well, like I said, he was "cured" in therapy.)
What a world!
But healthcare and abortion are both "Rights" (anybody see the cluster f*ck with that?), the Left wants to hire ARMIES of goose stepping thugs with guns and jack boots to "regulate" our society into the utopia it could be if we could only have more social justice via being subjected to the vicarious "controlled" violence that only a government can render unto its citizens.
Think I am crazy? Stop paying your income and property taxes - tell me what happens. (Don't do anything so stupid, the challange was rhetorical.)
Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it.
For those of you not old enough to have read Vonnegut in college, here is a link to my personal favorite short story of his... "Harrison Bergeron".
In Solidarity for Freedom
Greg
"As society becomes more competitive and more meritocratic, income inequality is likely to rise simply as a consequence of the underlying -inequality—which is very great—between people that is due to differences in IQ, energy, health, social skills, character, ambition, physical attractiveness, talent, and luck." - Richard Posner, senior lecturer at the University of Chicago Law School and judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Any of my Leftist readers care to comment on that?
(only half tongue in cheek)
You wanna know why the Left does not want capitalist's making millions and showing those millions off? Well, we all KNOW why, we just don't want to admit it.
It is all about SEX.
Men build buildings, buy sports teams, go into the movie business, etc... for one reason only - and its not or achitectural reviews, championship rings, and oscars... it is to attract sexual partners. (My 86 year old mother recently said that if women ran around with a mattress on their backs, we would have never made it out of the caves... I love really old people, they don't give a sh*t about your PC requirements.)
And nothing pisses off the inadequate more than the love lives of the really, really rich and famous.
Of course, when the really, really rich and famous get old, they revert from the arrogance of youth to the hyopocrisy of age without skipping a beat. Perhaps they feel guilty, or perhaps when those waves of testosterone turn to a trickle their thoughts turn to less carnal issues.
Who knows?
Who cares?
The Left seems to care. They want to tax and redistribute wealth, ostensibly for the betterment of society... it won't work guys...
Because you are still inadequate, and in the absence of income inequality there will be a new meassurement - and you are going to like that one even less.
Now let us take the Right...
They have their own angry, "got-the-short-end-of-the-stick" (if you catch my drift) guys who just don't measure up (or whose equipment can't be helped by a little blue pill) and don't want you to either. So its fire and brimstone, family values, and definition of marriage by (male)ministers that get caught with a male prostitute (but he did go to therapy and get cured... besides his wife "forgave" him... for what? For wanting anal sex with a man? Well, like I said, he was "cured" in therapy.)
What a world!
But healthcare and abortion are both "Rights" (anybody see the cluster f*ck with that?), the Left wants to hire ARMIES of goose stepping thugs with guns and jack boots to "regulate" our society into the utopia it could be if we could only have more social justice via being subjected to the vicarious "controlled" violence that only a government can render unto its citizens.
Think I am crazy? Stop paying your income and property taxes - tell me what happens. (Don't do anything so stupid, the challange was rhetorical.)
Be careful what you ask for, you may just get it.
For those of you not old enough to have read Vonnegut in college, here is a link to my personal favorite short story of his... "Harrison Bergeron".
In Solidarity for Freedom
Greg
Hypocrisy Knows No (Political) Bounds
The Left hates the concept of "State'S Right's" - except when it comes to abortion... "well, in that case the States should decide, not the U.S. in Roe v Wade..."
The Right supposedly champions "State's Rights" - except in the case of Gay Marriage... in that case... "we need a Constitutional Amendment (from a Federal Government whose size and scope they wish to limit) to define marriage as between a man and a woman..."
Talk about FOS...
Peak Oil is going to demolish the Left's and and the Right's raison d'etre - Government tax money.
Tax collections are off 25% or so... AND THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK.
Yes, the demographics (an aging population) would argue for more government, not less... but you can argue all you want - the money won't be there.
So it is good-bye Left, and so long Right. The question is: what will take their place?
"A rose by any other name...." Heck, the new groups' might even call themselves Republicans and Democrats... just look back 40 years... Democrats were against the Civil Rights movement (don't believe me? Hit the history books young man...), now Americans of Color are a major power in the Democratic party.
Things change.
The Right supposedly champions "State's Rights" - except in the case of Gay Marriage... in that case... "we need a Constitutional Amendment (from a Federal Government whose size and scope they wish to limit) to define marriage as between a man and a woman..."
Talk about FOS...
Peak Oil is going to demolish the Left's and and the Right's raison d'etre - Government tax money.
Tax collections are off 25% or so... AND THEY ARE NOT COMING BACK.
Yes, the demographics (an aging population) would argue for more government, not less... but you can argue all you want - the money won't be there.
So it is good-bye Left, and so long Right. The question is: what will take their place?
"A rose by any other name...." Heck, the new groups' might even call themselves Republicans and Democrats... just look back 40 years... Democrats were against the Civil Rights movement (don't believe me? Hit the history books young man...), now Americans of Color are a major power in the Democratic party.
Things change.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Murder, Medical, Marijuana
California is going to legalize marijuana. The measure is going to make it onto the ballot, and the vote in favor of legalization will be overwhelming, and there is not a power on earth that can stop it. The remaining 49 states will relent over time - they will have little choice. (The only people in favor of criminalizing marijuana are Law Enforcement, Prosecutors, Prison Guards, Judges, et all - the folks that benefit financially from this unworkable prohibition.)
I never met Vincent, though he lived not too far from our office. He was about my age, a father, had some health issues, had never been trouble with the law... and he was murdered in his home of 14 years (in his Pajamas) by a Pembroke Pines police officer while serving a narcotics warrant for - get this - marijuana... at 6:30 in the morning. Seems Vincent thought his he was the victim of a home invasion - not very far fetched in South Florida.
How Florida is going to reconcile this murder with the fact that the rest of the states are going to legalize marijuana is beyond me.
The police that are/were willing to participate in these kinds of raids, the judge that signed the search warrant (it was not even an ARREST WARRENT, the police were on a fishing expedition), the politicians that funded these activities and the people that support this at the ballot box have this man's blood on their hands (and his bloody pajamas on my mind).
I hope they burn in the lowest Canto of Hell.
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