The infrastructure of manufactured intelligence has become a truly impressive thing

Original

The Left is Too Smart to Fail
The infrastructure of manufactured intelligence has become a truly impressive thing. Today as never before there is an industry dedicated, not to educating people, but to making them feel smart. From paradigm shifting TED talks to paradigm to books by thought leaders and documentaries by change agents that transform your view of the world, manufactured intelligence has become its own culture.

Manufactured intelligence is the smarmy quality that oozes out of a New York Times column by Thomas Friedman, Maureen Dowd, Frank Bruni and the rest of the gang who tell you nothing meaningful while dazzling you with references to international locations, political events and pop culture, tying together absurdities into one synergistic web of nonsense that feels meaningful.

There's a reason that there's a Tom Friedman article generator online. But it could just as easily be a New York Times article generator that sums up the hollowness of the buzzword-fed crowd that is always hungry to reaffirm the illusion of its own intelligence.

We all know that George W. Bush was a moron. And we all know that Obama is a genius. We have been told by Valerie Jarrett, by his media lapdogs and even by the great man himself that he is just too smart to do his job. And it's reasonable that a genius would be bored by the tedious tasks involved in running the most powerful nation on earth.

But what is "smart" anyway? What makes Obama a genius? It's not his IQ. It's probably not his grades or we would have seen them already. It's that like so many of the thought leaders and TED talkers, he makes his supporters feel smart. The perception of intelligence is really a reflection.

Smart once used to be an unreachable quality. Einstein was proclaimed a genius, because it was said that no one understood his theories. Those were undemocratic times when it was assumed that the eggheads playing with the atom had to be a lot smarter than us or we were in big trouble.

Intelligence has since been democratized. Smart has been redistributed. Anyone can get an A for effort. And the impulse of manufactured intelligence is not smart people, but people who make us feel smart. That is why Neil deGrasse Tyson, another obsessively self-promoting mediocrity like Carl Sagan, is now the new face of science. Sagan made science-illiterate liberals feel smart while pandering to their biases. Tyson does the same thing for the Twitter generation. 

 Self-esteem is the new intelligence. Obama's intelligence was manufactured by pandering to the biases and tastes of his supporters. The more he shared their biases and tastes, the smarter he seemed to be and the smarter they felt by having so much in common with such a smart man.

Obama Inc. built his image around the accessories of modern manufactured intelligence, premature biographies, global reference points and pop culture. This marriage of high and low with an exotic spice from the east embodies modern liberal intelligence. Take a dash of pop culture, mix it with an important quote, throw in some recent technological development that promises to "change how we all live", mention your time in a foreign culture and draw an insipid conclusion.

That's not just the DNA of every other New York Times column, TED talk and important book by an equally important thought leader sitting under the floodlights at your local struggling chain bookstore with its portraits of great writers on the wall and the tables groaning under unsold copies of Fifty Shades of Grey, Malcolm Gladwell, Candace Bushnell and Khaled Hosseini.

It's also the DNA of Obama Inc. It is its assumption of intelligence through compassionate self-involvement, progressive insights derived from an obsession with the self and the sanctification of Third World references, real or imaginary, invoking the spiritual power of the Other, the totem of alien magic, to transcend the rational and the pragmatic. It is upscale Oprah; egotism masquerading as enlightenment, condescension as compassion and soothing quotes as religion.


Once upon a time, bright young American men went to Europe and wrote books about the world. That was our notion of intelligence. JFK did it and was widely praised for his intelligence. Today bright young American men and women go to the Third World and write their books about the world, mining the compost of their Flickr accounts, Tumblr updates and Twitter feed for deep thoughts.

Intelligence to a modern liberal isn't depth, it's appearance. It isn't even an intellectual quality, but a spiritual quality. Compassionate people who care about others are always "smarter", no matter how stupid they might be, because they care about the world around them.

An insight into how we live matters more than useful knowledge. Skill is irrelevant unless it's a transformative progressive "changing the way we live" application.

Obama and his audience mistake their orgy of mutual flattery for intelligence and depth. Like a trendy restaurant whose patrons know that they have good taste because they patronize it, his supporters know that they are smart because they support a smart man and Obama knows he is smart because so many smart people support him.

The thought never rises within this bubble of manufactured intelligence that all of them might really be idiots who have convinced themselves that they are geniuses because they read the right books (or pretend to read them), watch the right movies and shows (or pretend to) and have the right values (or pretend to).

Smart is surplus when you have Gladwell sitting under a full DVD set of The Wire prominently displayed on your bookshelf right alongside a signed copy of The Audacity of Hope. 

Marxists thought that Marxism was smart. Progressives measure intelligence in progressivism. Its only two qualities are "world awareness" and "progressive future adaptation". 

Obama hit both these qualities perfectly with his Third Culture background and the appearance of modern technocratic polish. Not just a politician, but a thought leader, he had the pseudo-celebrity quality of their kind, able to move smoothly from a celebrity panel about Third World microfinance, to a Jay-Z concert to a fundraiser for DIY solar panels for India to a banquet for a political hack.

Everyone who encountered him thought that he was smart because he made them feel smart. And that is the supreme duty of the modern liberal intellectual, not to be smart, but to make others feel smart. Genuine intelligence is threatening. Manufactured intelligence is soothing. And those intellectually superior progressives who need to believe that Obama is smart in order to believe that they are smart cannot stop believing in his brains without confronting the illusion of their own intelligence.

Manufactured intelligence isn't smart. It's stupid. It's as stupid as building windmills for sustainable energy in places where the wind hardly blows, as stupid as calling inflated budgets "investments" and as stupid as believing that a man is smart because he can reference poverty in the Third World.

It's easy to tell apart fake intelligence from the real thing. Manufactured intelligence fakes "smart" by playing word games. It constantly invents new terms to provide the enlightened elites with a secret language of Newspeak buzzwords that mean less than the words they are replacing. The buzzwords, Thought Leader and Change Agent, quickly take on cultist overtones and become ways of describing how the group's leaders would like to use power, than anything about the world that they describe.

Manufactured intelligence is a consensus, not a debate. It's not arrived at through a process, but flopped into like a warm soothing bath of nothingness. It's correct because everyone says so. And anyone who disagrees is clearly stupid and lacks awareness of the interconnected ways that the world synergistically works. And probably doesn't know science, Sagan or Neil deGrasse Tyson either.

Real intelligence is the product of constant debate. It is forever striving to overthrow the consensus and willing to challenge anything and everything. It uses a specialized vocabulary only to describe specialized phenomena, rather than replacing existing words with new words to describing existing phenomena in order to seem as if it understands the future better by going all 1984 on it.

Finally, manufactured intelligence is self-involved. It mistakes feeling for thinking. It deals not with how things are or even how we would like them to be, but how we feel about the way things are and what our feelings about the way things are say about what kind of people we are.

Liberal intelligence is largely concerned with the latter. It is a self-esteem project for mediocre elites, the sons and daughters of the formerly accomplished who are constantly diving into the shallow pools of their own minds to explore how their privilege and entitlement makes them view the world and how they can be good people by challenging everyone's paradigms and how they can think outside the box by climbing into it and pulling the flaps shut behind them.

Perpetual self-involvement isn't intelligence regardless of how many of the linguistic tricks of memoir fiction it borrows to endow its liberal self-help section with the appearance of nobility.

Liberalism isn't really about making the world a better place. It's about reassuring the elites that they are good people for wanting to rule over it.

That is why Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for having good intentions. His actual foreign policy mattered less than the appearance of a new transformative foreign policy based on speeches. Gore promised to be be harsher on Saddam than Bush, but no one remembers that because everyone in the bubble knows that the Iraq War was stupid... and only conservatives do stupid things.

Liberal intelligence exists on the illusion of its self-worth. The magical thinking that guides it in every other area from economics to diplomacy also convinces it that if it believes it is smart, that it will be. The impenetrable liberal consensus in every area is based on this delusion of intelligence. Every policy is right because it's smart and it's smart because it's progressive and it's progressive because smart progressives say that it is.

Progressives manufacture the consensus of their own intelligence and insist that it proves them right. 

Imagine a million people walking in a circle and shouting, "WE'RE SMART AND WE'RE RIGHT. WE'RE RIGHT BECAUSE WE'RE SMART. WE'RE SMART BECAUSE WE'RE RIGHT." Now imagine that these marching morons dominate academia, the government bureaucracy and the entertainment industry allowing them to spend billions yelling their idiot message until it outshouts everyone else while ignoring the disasters in their wake because they are too smart to fail.


That is liberalism.

Al Gore Warns Polar Ice May Be Gone in Five Years

FIVE YEARS AGO TODAY—
Al Gore predicted the North Polar Ice Cap would be completely ice free in five years. Gore made the prediction to a German audience in 2008. He told them that “the entire North ‘polarized’ cap will disappear in 5 years.”

Pretty damaging, assuming anyone cares.

Obama supporters will go hysterical over this well sourced list of 462 examples of his lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc.

In talking with liberals they seem to think none of this matters, because he was trying to do the right thing.

The bottom line would be... Words not Deeds?

Obamacare Schadenfreudarama

Original

To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to laugh at the unravelling of Obamacare.

First, the obligatory caveats. It is no laughing matter that millions of Americans’ lives have been thrown into anxious chaos as they lose their health insurance, their doctors, their money, or all three. Nor is it particularly amusing to think of the incredible waste of time and tax dollars that has gone into Obamacare’s construction. And the still-unfolding violence that this misbegotten legislation will visit on the economy and our liberties is not funny either. This very magazine has been downright funereal about the brazen and unconstitutional seizure of one-sixth of the economy, and rightly so.

But come on, people.

If you can’t take some joy, some modicum of relief and mirth, in the unprecedentedly spectacular beclowning of the president, his administration, its enablers, and, to no small degree, liberalism itself, then you need to ask yourself why you’re following politics in the first place. Because, frankly, this has been one of the most enjoyable political moments of my lifetime. I wake up in the morning and rush to find my just-delivered newspaper with a joyful expectation of worsening news so intense, I feel like Morgan Freeman should be narrating my trek to the front lawn. Indeed, not since Dan Rather handcuffed himself to a fraudulent typewriter, hurled it into the abyss, and saw his career plummet like Ted Kennedy was behind the wheel have I enjoyed a story more.

Alas, the English language is not well equipped to capture the sensation I’m describing, which is why we must all thank the Germans for giving us the term “schadenfreude” — the joy one feels at the misfortune or failure of others. The primary wellspring of schadenfreude can be attributed to Barack Obama’s hubris — another immigrant word, which means a sinful pride or arrogance that causes someone to believe he has a godlike immunity to the rules of life.

The hubris of our ocean-commanding commander-in-chief surely isn’t news to readers of this website. He’s said that he’s smarter and better than everyone who works for him. His wife informed us that he has “brought us out of the dark and into the light” and that he would fix our broken souls. The man defined sin itself as “being out of alignment with my values.” We may be the ones we’ve been waiting for, but at the same time, everyone has been waiting for him. Or as he put it in 2007, “Every place is Barack Obama country once Barack Obama’s been there.”
In every tale of hubris, the transgressor is eventually slapped across the face with the semi-frozen flounder of reality. The Greeks had a god, Nemesis, whose scythe performed the same function. It was Nemesis who lured Narcissus to the pool where he fell in love with his own reflection. Admittedly, most of Nemesis’s walk-on roles were in the Greek tragedies, but in the modern era, comeuppance-for-the-arrogant is more often found in comedies, and the “roll-out” of Healthcare.gov has been downright hilarious. (I put quotation marks around “roll-out” because the term implies actual rolling, and this thing has moved as gracefully as a grand piano in a peat bog.) But, as the president says, “it’s more than a website.” Indeed, the whole law is coming apart like a papier-mâché yacht in rough waters. The media feeding frenzy it has triggered from so many journalistic lapdogs has been both so funny and so poignant, it reminds me of nothing more than the climax of the classic film Air Bud, when the lovable basketball-playing golden retriever finally decides to maul the dog-abusing clown.

During the government shutdown, Barack Obama held fast, heroically refusing to give an inch to the hostage-taking, barbaric orcs of the Tea Party who insisted on delaying Obamacare. It was a triumph for the master strategist in the White House, who finally manoeuvred the Republicans into revealing their extremism. But we didn’t know something back then: Obama desperately needed a delay of Healthcare.gov. In his arrogance, though, he couldn’t bring himself to admit it. The other possibility is that he is such an incompetent manager, who has cultivated such a culture of yes-men, that he was completely in the dark about the problems. That’s the reigning storyline right now from the White House. Obama was betrayed. “If I had known,” he told his staff, “we could have delayed the website.”

This is how you know we’re in the political sweet spot: when the only plausible excuses for the administration are equally disastrous indictments.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, it took about five minutes for liberals to cast the chaos and confusion of the disaster as a searing indictment of not just the Bush administration but of conservatism itself. Whatever the merits of that argument (and there are not many), Katrina was at least a surprise. The October 1 deadline for Obamacare was set by Obama’s own administration years ago — and it caught them completely off guard. The president may now claim that he knew nothing, but he must have wondered why Henry Chao, Healthcare.gov’s chief project manager, set the bar of success at sea level last March: “Let’s just make sure it’s not a Third World experience.” At this point, it could only be more of a Third World experience if Healthcare.gov required enrollees to pay with chickens.

The Government is the problem

Prohibition:
Prohibition was instituted with ratification of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution on January 16, 1919, which prohibited the "...manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States..." Congress passed the "Volstead Act" on October 28, 1919, to enforce the law, but most large cities simply ignored the law and bootlegged alcohol to meet demand, creating a huge black market rife with crime and corruption. Prohibition was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment in 1933, essentially acknowledging the exercise had been pointless and counter-productive.

No Child left behind:
Under George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind education plan, federal education spending doubled in eight years. Despite spending among the most per student in the world on education, the U.S. remains far behind most economically developed nations in terms of math, science and other core competencies. As Joel Klein of The Atlantic put it: "On America’s latest exams (the National Assessment of Educational Progress), one-third or fewer of eighth-grade students were proficient in math, science, or reading. Our high-school graduation rate continues to hover just shy of 70 percent, according to a 2010 report by the Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, and many of those students who do graduate aren't prepared for college."

Medicare:
According to the Cato Institute, "When Medicare’s Part A was launched in 1965, it was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990, but ended up costing $67 billion. When Medicare’s home-care benefit was added in 1988, it was projected to cost $4 billion in 1993, but ended up costing $10 billion." The Washington Times adds: "The State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP), which was created in 1997 and projected to cost $5 billion per year, has had to be supplemented with hundreds of millions of dollars annually by Congress." President George W. Bush heaped another $720 billion cost on top over 2009-2018 with Medicare Part D, which subsidizes prescription drug costs for senior citizens.

Medicaid:
As Cato pointed out: "When the Medicaid program’s special hospitals subsidy was added in 1987, it was supposed to cost $100 million annually, but wound up costing $11 billion annually within five years." According to CNN Money, "Medicaid spending is set to double over the next 10 years -- from $253 billion today to $593 billion in 2022 -- and, according to the Congressional Budget Office, Medicare spending will do the same."

Immigration Reform:
Immigration reform has become a hot topic, but not everyone knows that Ronald Reagan once signed onto the initiative in 1986, an act he later regretted. Senator Marco Rubio criticized The Gipper in a 2009 speech: “In 1986 Ronald Reagan granted amnesty to 3 million people. You know what happened, in addition to becoming 11 million a decade later? There were people trying to enter the country legally, who had done the paperwork, who were here legally, who were going through the process, who claimed, all of a sudden, ‘No, no no no , I’m illegal.’ Because it was easier to do the amnesty program than it was to do the legal process.” Rubio added: “If you grant amnesty, the message that you’re sending is that if you come in this country and stay here long enough, we will let you stay. And no one will ever come through the legal process if you do that.”

War on Drugs.
The war on drugs is one of the most glaring failures of government. Since Republican President Nixon launched the anti-drug crusade in 1971, the program has cost over a trillion dollars. The result? Less personal freedom, more criminals locked up for consuming illicit substances, and a global conflict that immerses us in the business of numerous other countries. The lesson of the failed drug war is clear: criminalization leads to a black market, fueling more crime and more victims. The U.S. is currently the number one country in the world in terms of illegal drug use, according to CNN.

Farmer Subsidy:
One of the more perversely amusing failures of government has been the subsidies given to farmers NOT to grow food. The charade has been going on since the eventually constitutionally authorized Agricultural Adjustment Act of 1938. Because of the way prices react to supply and demand, "successful" farmers find themselves "punished" by the market with lower prices for their produce. Instead of people switching out of growing certain crops or into other productive activities, as the market signals them to do, the government underwrites excessive grain production and consumption, partly explaining America's obesity "epidemic."

Ethanol Subsidy:
According to Daily Finance (AOL), "Over the past 30 years, the federal government has given an estimated $45 billion to the corn industry to help support ethanol production. In 2011 alone, those subsidies totaled about $6 billion, or about 45 cents for every gallon of ethanol." Ethanol subsidies came to an end in 2012, but several states still mandate certain levels of ethanol be used in automobile fuels. Excessive ethanol production (as signaled by the market) has been plausibly connected to pushing prices up on numerous foodstuffs on the U.S. and global markets, leading to the spread of world hunger, and even to particular Arab Spring uprisings.

Green Jobs:
As The Examiner explains about the president missing his green jobs targets since 2009: "As part of the Obama green energy program, the goal was to train 124,893 people, and place 79,854 (64%) in new green jobs. After 17 months, the results of the green jobs program indicate that only 52,762 were trained, and only 8,035 got green jobs – each job costs tax payers about $62,000." (U.S. Dept. of Labor Inspector General, Jan. 2012) The article points out: "President Obama’s first re-election campaign ad boasts of 2.7 million green energy jobs. But, nothing in the Departments of Energy, Labor or Commerce justifies such job claims."
War on Poverty:

DDT Ban:
The ban on the malaria-fighting chemical DDT since Rachel Carson published "Silent Spring" (1962) has been connected to the horrific death of tens of millions of Africans, including millions of children. Michael Arnold Glueck and Robert J. Cihak, both M.D.s, sum up the health policy disaster such: "That DDT prevented 500 million deaths by 1970 and that the banning of its use in poor countries has resulted in millions of unnecessary deaths holds no sway with true believers in this doctrine. This current 'beggar thy neighbor' approach reflects a kind of Western imperial arrogance - and ignorance - that would rather let people suffer and die than face the fact that some secular pieties may be wrong."

War on Terror:
The ‘war on terror’ has led to over a trillion dollars expended on nation-building overseas. The cost in terms of human life, spending, and civil liberties has been extremely high. Billions are being spent on a police organ under the control of the executive branch known as “The Department of Homeland Security,” whose practices have been questioned by many civil rights groups. Not only has the TSA, a branch of the DHS, been engaged in random screening and inappropriate, documented harassment of ordinary, law-abiding citizens, it has been proven to be extremely wasteful, even going so far as to shelf over $184 million in security equipment that sits in a Texas warehouse.

Social Security:
When Social Security was passed in 1935, it was a safety net program that taxed only 1% of income. Now it is over 6.2% and growing. People understandably feel like it is an entitlement program, since they pay into it their working lives. But the program is not liquid. The Social Security program is financed like a Ponzi scheme, where younger generations pay for the retirement of older generations, who are ironically wealthier in terms of net worth. Because of baby boomers retiring and a much smaller workforce to finance the system, the program (along with us) is slated to go broke over the next 75 years, racking up an estimated $45 trillion in unfunded liabilities. (Peter G. Petersen Foundation)

Cash for Clunkers:
According to a recent TriCities op-ed from Mike Smith of Ralph Smith Motors in Virginia, CARS created a dearth of used cars, artificially driving up prices. For those who needed an affordable car, but didn’t qualify for the program, this increase in price meant affordable transportation was well out of reach. It also meant used-car dealers, most of whom are independently owned, small-business owners, had little to no stock. According to Smith, 122 Virginia dealers chose not to renew their licenses after that year.

Obamacare:
Not what it was promised, not costing what was stated. Screwed up at every possible instance.

The new top topic of every election from now on.

Americans are intent on being the stupidest nation on earth. Just look who we elect to represent ourselves...

Obamacare is the law of the land. To hope to stop this huge burden on the taxpayer is not only racist but seditious!  Look for the 2014 elections to be about the train-wreck before us.

Just in case you are missing the greatness of Obamacare here are some highlights:

Thousands of Doctors Fired. Next we will see the debut of the IPAB board — that group of individuals who will objectively, in a machine-like manner, decide the cost-benefit value of allowing surgeries, care or medicine for patients.

White House wanted half million ObamaCare signups by November.  Their target by the end of the year was 3.3 million.  The most recent estimate is that - 51,000 people had actually registered - most of them via state exchanges in California and New York.  Granted, that number was released last week so.

Now, we're learning that the problems don't end if you manage to claw your way through the healthcare.gov registration process.  In fact, a new CBS News report indicates that's just the beginning of the federal system's troubles.

"CBSNews has learned these problems are more than just people trying to sign up.  Insurance companies now are reporting problems once people manage to complete their applications.  They say the website is generating duplicate and incomplete enrollment forms, suggesting the problems are pervasive."

So, 20,000 people have managed to register via the federal exchange and the system is so badly designed that it can't keep the data straight. Just imagine if the feds actually had gotten the traffic they expected.


We paid over $500 million for the Obamacare sites and all we got was this lousy 404. "Government has a long history of spending money unnecessarily. But in an age when the U.S is home to the world’s largest, most successful Internet companies, how is it possible that we can’t even manage to build a functional website without blowing through hundreds of millions of dollars?"

Tech experts: Health exchange site needs total overhaul.  According to USA Today, the Healthcare.gov website is in far worse shape than anyone in the administration is admitting.  The level to which it's been botched is looking to be truly spectacular.  According to their sources, Healthcare.gov was built by an incompetent IT company using badly outdated ten-year-old technology.

ObamaCare Is Raising Insurance Costs. One of the most important feature of any health plan is its "network"—the group of doctors and hospitals that agree to serve the plan's enrollees. Doctors can limit the number of patients they take with exchange insurance if they can't handle any more patients. With the Narrow plans out there you are looking at shortages!

How Obamacare Dramatically Increases The Cost of Insurance for Young Workers.  President Obama, too, touted the bill’s ability to “bend the cost curve,” repeatedly promising that the law would “bring down premiums by $2,500 for the typical family.” But that was then. MIT economist Jonathan Gruber now says that Obamacare will increase premiums by 19-30 percent.

Consider this Liberals: “What would you say if Bush had done it?”

In the case of ObamaCare, the lesson might be the most poignant.

I found these questions on a discussion board, and decided this time, it was worth the comparison: if ObamaCare were BushCare what would the repercussions and responses be?

So ask yourself these questions, and then question if ObamaCare would be deader than disco.

Imagine…

1. If Republican George Bush made it mandatory that every American buy health insurance.

2. If Bush said if you don’t buy it, you will be fined.

3. If Bush said he would employ the IRS to collect the fine from you for non-conformance.

4. If Bush took the “public option” out of the bill, in order to please the private health insurance companies.

5. If Bush created a health care plan where the average cost was $328 dollars a month.

6. If Bush totally ignored all of the polls that said most Americans were against the health care bill.

7. If during the first 2 weeks of Bush’s health care plan rollout, the website crashed and hardly anybody could sign up.

8. If Bush gave Corporate America a one-year delay joining, but refused to do the same for poor people.

If George Bush did these things, he’d be the most unpopular president in history, especially among blacks.

Original

Even when it comes to something as basic, and apparently as simple and straightforward, as the question of who shut down the federal government, there are diametrically opposite answers, depending on whether you talk to Democrats or to Republicans.

There is really nothing complicated about the facts. The Republican-controlled House of Representatives voted all the money required to keep all government activities going — except for ObamaCare.

This is not a matter of opinion. You can check the congressional record.

As for the House of Representatives’ right to grant or withhold money, that is not a matter of opinion either. You can check the Constitution of the United States. All spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives, which means that congressmen there have a right to decide whether they want to spend money on a particular government activity.

Whether ObamaCare is good, bad or indifferent is a matter of opinion. But it is a matter of fact that members of the House of Representatives have a right to make spending decisions based on their opinion.

ObamaCare is indeed “the law of the land,” as its supporters keep saying, and the Supreme Court has upheld its constitutionality.

But the whole point of having a division of powers within the federal government is that each branch can decide independently what it wants to do or not do, regardless of what the other branches do, when exercising the powers specifically granted to that branch by the Constitution.

The hundreds of thousands of government workers who have been laid off are not idle because the House of Representatives did not vote enough money to pay their salaries or the other expenses of their agencies — unless they are in an agency that would administer ObamaCare.

Since we cannot read minds, we cannot say who — if anybody — “wants to shut down the government.” But we do know who had the option to keep the government running and chose not to. The money voted by the House of Representatives covered everything that the government does, except for ObamaCare.

The Senate chose not to vote to authorize that money to be spent, because it did not include money for ObamaCare. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says that he wants a “clean” bill from the House of Representatives, and some in the media keep repeating the word “clean” like a mantra. But what is unclean about not giving Harry Reid everything he wants?

If Senator Reid and President Obama refuse to accept the money required to run the government, because it leaves out the money they want to run ObamaCare, that is their right. But that is also their responsibility.

You cannot blame other people for not giving you everything you want. And it is a fraud to blame them when you refuse to use the money they did vote, even when it is ample to pay for everything else in the government.

When Barack Obama keeps claiming that it is some new outrage for those who control the money to try to change government policy by granting or withholding money, that is simply a bald-faced lie. You can check the history of other examples of “legislation by appropriation” as it used to be called.

Whether legislation by appropriation is a good idea or a bad idea is a matter of opinion. But whether it is both legal and not unprecedented is a matter of fact.

Perhaps the biggest of the big lies is that the government will not be able to pay what it owes on the national debt, creating a danger of default. Tax money keeps coming into the Treasury during the shutdown, and it vastly exceeds the interest that has to be paid on the national debt.

Even if the debt ceiling is not lifted, that only means that government is not allowed to run up new debt. But that does not mean that it is unable to pay the interest on existing debt.

None of this is rocket science. But unless the Republicans get their side of the story out — and articulation has never been their strong suit — the lies will win. More importantly, the whole country will lose.

Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305.

Dictatorship

 "The Labor Department announced Wednesday that federal laws governing private employee pension and related benefit plans will be interpreted to recognize all legal marriages of same-sex couples, regardless of where the couple is living currently." 

This means that the Obama administration is now going to recognize all same-sex married couples, regardless of state law.  Welcome to  leadership by one person with total power. Voting doesn't matter; Congress doesn't matter; the states don't matter.

Christopher Hitchens’ lies do atheism no favors

Christopher Hitchens’ lies do atheism no favors

Sarah Palin, peoples champion

Remember when President Obama promised us, “If you like your current health care plan, you can keep your plan?” That was not true, and his deceptive claim falls in line with all the other lies about Obamacare – like there’d be no health care rationing.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense can understand that if it is cheaper for a company to cancel employees’ health benefits and pay the $2,000 Obamacare fine instead of providing, say, a $10,000 government mandated employee health care plan, then of course that company will choose to pay the much smaller fine.

And if companies don’t have to provide government mandated health care for part time employees, then of course that’s an incentive for them to cut back employees’ hours and make their workforce part time.

This isn’t rocket science. This is Economics 101. And it’s happening right now at companies all over the country.

We saw this coming, and now even President Obama’s union leader friends have finally 'fessed up to Obamacare lies. These union leaders betrayed their own membership by enthusiastically endorsing Obamacare, and now our good union brothers and sisters are at risk of losing the benefits they’ve worked for and counted on their whole lives. Union bosses, you owe your membership an apology, retraction, and resignation.

Union leaders are now scrambling and trying to get special carve-outs exclusively for union members. I sympathize with union members – especially when they’re led by thugs. I always do. But this is the wrong way to go about fixing the enormous train wreck that is Obamacare. More cronyism, select exemptions, and special subsidies make the problem worse.

We need to repeal the whole darn thing, and that starts with defunding it. 

Union brothers and sisters, don’t let your incompetent leadership hoodwink you again. Demand a full repeal, an immediate defunding, and some resignations.

- Sarah Palin

Man Made Global Warming hoax, loosing to truth...

If you ever see someone not arguing with facts be suspicious.  If you find anyone using fallacious arguments to augment their beliefs be skeptical.  If you see big money involved in science, bet that facts and truth are going to the wayside of the road.

Case in point.  There is big money in funding climate research.  More money if you can scare the population into thinking 'DOOM'  Al Gore started the trend of junk science, fake facts and poor ethics to make a hypocritical buck.


Robin McKie, science editor The Observer, Saturday 11 August 2012 21.52 BST.
Rate of Arctic summer sea ice loss is 50% higher than predicted.

"This rate of loss is 50% higher than most scenarios outlined by polar scientists and suggests that global warming, triggered by rising greenhouse gas emissions, is beginning to have a major impact on the region. In a few years the Arctic ocean could be free of ice in summer, triggering a rush to exploit its fish stocks, oil, minerals and sea routes."

Scary stuff right?  This is just over a year from the current headline.

By Hayley Dixon9:55AM BST 08 Sep 2013.
Global warming? No, actually we're cooling, claim scientists.

"Professor Anastasios Tsonis, of the University of Wisconsin, said: 'We are already in a cooling trend, which I think will continue for the next 15 years at least. There is no doubt the warming of the 1980s and 1990s has stopped.'"

So ponder what a difference a year makes, unless either the first or the second was not based upon science or facts or ethical reporting.

The Arctic this year has about 1.3m km2 more ice than last year at this time.

This doesn't mean that global warming is not real and important, but it does again emphasize that panic is not productive, nor warranted. It also means man has less to do with it then the IPCC will have you believe.

Obama is a National embarrassment.

A year ago



That looks a lot like Obama setting that red line, doesn’t it?  “That would change my calculus — that would change my equation.” 




“My credibility is not on the line — the international community’s credibility is on the line,”


Even the most staunchest Obama support has got to do a double take at this.

Do you remember the "97% consensus", which even Obama tweeted?

Do you remember the "97% consensus", which even Obama tweeted?

Turns out the authors don't want to reveal their data...

It has always been a dodgy paper (http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/8/2/024024/article). Virtually everyone I know in the debate would automatically be included in the 97% (including me, but also many, much more skeptical).

The paper looks at 12,000 papers written in the last 25 years (see here, the paper doesn't actually specify the numbers, http://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/watch-the-pea/). It ditches about 8,000 papers because they don't take a position.

They put people who agree into three different bins -- 1.6% that explicitly endorse global warming with numbers, 23% that explicitly endorse global warming without numbers and then 74% that "implicitly endorse" because they're looking at other issues with global warming that must mean they agree with human-caused global warming.

Voila, you got about 97% (actually here 98%, but because the authors haven't released the numbers themselves, we have to rely on other quantative assessments).

Notice, that *nobody* said anything about *dangerous* global warming; this meme simply got attached afterwards (by Obama and many others).

Now, Richard Tol has tried to replicate their study and it turns out they have done pretty much everything wrong. And they don't want to release the data so anyone else can check it. Outrageous.

Read Tol's letter to the Peter Høj, University of Queensland: "the main finding of the paper is incorrect, invalid and unrepresentative." (http://www.uq.edu.au/about/vice-chancellor)

It would be hilarious if it wasn't so sad.

http://richardtol.blogspot.co.uk/2013/08/open-letter-to-vice-chancellor-of.html

Crossing the 49th.

We crossed into Canada.  I had a detailed list of goods, that impressed the boarder staff.  We did not have to unpack anything, that was great!

According to the boarder guard my kids and wife are returning Canadians.  I now have a six month visa, which means I am a visitor and will have to leave in February.  I also, had to get travelers insurance for medical emergency.

My wife applied for her Social Insurance Number (SIN), this is like the USA's Social Security Number (SSN).  Next with the SIN we could get a bank account.  The nice surprise was I was able to be added to the account, even with my status.

We had been in contact with the Secondary school for Connor.  We arranged to meet with his teacher.  The school was very nice and the staffing was amazingly different.  The support for Connor appears to be much more then we could have hoped for.

The drivers license here was, probably, the easiest transition.  The province contracts through The Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (aka: ICBC).  It was a simple matter to register as they recognize a US license is recognized as a form of ID and equal to a Canadian insofar as ability to drive.  So she turned in her Oregon for BC.

We set up a five year lease agreement, which counts as residency proof.  Also, we ordered embossed ATM cards as another form of ID.

Next up was the BC cares card for healthcare.  The Canadian system has socialized medicine.  Each province handles their own populace.  Think of this as a state run system.  This got a bit tricky.  You can fill out the paperwork and send it in.  The insurance will not cover you for three months.  Even then you need to have your entire family  under the plan.  So my status as a visitor is problematic.  However, the school required proof we filled out and mailed the form.  So we did...

The school system is oriented towards the needs of the student with an emphasis on state and fed be dammed!  As long as we have everything for immigration and healthcare in process he can be enrolled.

With our lease agreement, Tina's SIN card, license, passport and proof of mailing for BC Cares, Connor is enrolled!

That was quite the hurdle!

Phone solicitation for Murder.

So I got a polling person call me up and ask me questions to make murder of babies palatable.  It was about a Federal Law protecting Abortion rights up to the fourth trimester.

The argument was being framed as men and the government are keeping women from reproductive based healthcare.  Further that this was going against constitutional protections.

I oppose abortions.  I do not believe they should be made illegal.  In my utopia abortion is a safe legal procedure which never is performed.  I oppose abortion because it murders an innocent life.  I also know if abortion was against the law it would open up a black market that would lead to horrors I can only begin to imagine.  The stories from the first half of last century was bad enough, with the desire of stem cells... well now I am making myself sick.

I also find it odd the Planned Parenthood (Murder Inc.), apparently targets African Americans who make up 12% of the population, but 35% of the abortions in America.  Isn't that genocide? or Eugenics?

Recently the Gosnell Case briefly shown a light on the horrors our society has created.  The media was not all that interested in following the case.  There are rumblings that Gosnell was far from an isolated case.  Let the horror show continue with our tax dollars...

Are we obsessed with sex?  Is the proliferation of birth-control and the hedonistic bombardment causing the decline of western civilization?

Why are the chaste ridiculed or singled out as freakish?  Way past time for this ethical pendulum to swing back to sane.

Obama focusing strongly on jobs... again... this time for real? Dunno...

JANUARY 2011: “The White House Has Quickly Pivoted To Jobs After The President’s State Of The Union.” “Turning to domestic politics, the White House has quickly pivoted to jobs after the president’s State of the Union — even if it’s being overshadowed by the situation in Egypt.” (Chuck Todd, Mark Murray, Domenico Montanaro, and Ali Weinberg, “First Thoughts: Balancing Act,” NBC News’ First Read,1/31/11)

APRIL 2011:  “Obama’s Day: Turning Back To Jobs … President Obama Returns Today To What He Calls His Top Priority: Jobs.”“Though his presidential hours have been crowded by Libya, Japan and other foreign policy challenges, President Obama returns today to what he calls his top priority: jobs.” (David Jackson, “Obama’s Day: Turning Back To Jobs,” USA Today, 4/1/11)

AUGUST 2011: “OBAMA AND SENATE DEMS PLAN PIVOT TO JOBS” “OBAMA AND SENATE DEMS PLAN PIVOT TO JOBS: Senate Democrats hope they now have ‘checked the box’ on debt reduction and can move to an agenda focused on job creation and economic growth, through a combination of spending and tax cuts.” (Mike Allen, “DEMS PLAN PIVOT TO JOBS: Transportation, Infrastructure, Tax Breaks On Fall Agenda,” Politico’s ”Playbook”, 8/2/11)

AUGUST 2011: The Huffington Post Headline: “Obama’s Jobs Pivot” (Joe Peyronnin, “Obama’s Jobs Pivot,” The Huffington Post, 8/2/11)

AUGUST 2011: National Public Radio Headline: “Obama, Democrats ‘Pivot’ To Jobs But May Be Hamstrung” (Frank James, “Obama, Democrats ‘Pivot’ To Jobs But May Be Hamstrung,” National Public Radio, 8/3/11)

AUGUST 2011: Yahoo! News Headline: “Obama ‘Pivots’ To Jobs – But What Can He Do?” (Zachary Roth, “Obama ‘Pivots’ To Jobs – But What Can He Do?,” Yahoo! News’ The Lookout, 8/5/11)

SEPTEMBER 2011: Politico Headline: “President Obama Pivots To Jobs – And Dares GOP To Follow” (Glenn Thrush, “President Obama PivotsTo Jobs – And Dares GOP To Follow,” Politico, 9/8/11)

JUNE 2012: The Wall Street Journal Headline: “Obama To Revisit Economic Debate” (Carol E. Lee and Laura Meckler, “Obama To Revisit Economic Debate,” The Wall Street Journal, 6/11/12)

JULY 2012: MSNBC: “The Jobs Pivot: With The Economy Struggling, How Does President Obama Make The Case To Be Reelected?” (MSNBC’s “NewsNation,” 7/6/12)

FEBRUARY 2013: National Journal Headline: “Stung By Media’s Focus On Liberal Agenda, Obama Pivots Back To Economy” (Ron Fournier, “Stung By Media’s Focus On Liberal Agenda, Obama Pivots Back To Economy,” National Journal, 2/8/13)

Carlos Danger

Anthony Wiener is his worst enemy. I have zero sympathy for him as he is just another pervert seeking public office, again...

Why racism?

I am not a Glenn Beck fan.  I have never watched any of his shows.  I do like The Blaze news website which is one of his many ventures.  However, this video echo's soundly in my mind.  Why racism?

Failure is acceptable for Obamacare.

This affordable healthcare law is having quite the time in the news.  It is confusing, it ends personal privacy, it is expensive.  It has expanded the IRS, which is a government agency that has been doing bad things for a long time.  The employer mandate has been shifted off a year, yet the personal mandate has not.  The exchanges are a mess, the rates are going up.  It is apparent it will not work as planned.

We see the Right being "I told you so"  and the left saying "It just needs a few tweaks"

What I think is that this is going to fail-over into true single payer socialized medicine.

On a Personal note

I lost my job back in November 2012.  Despite countless resumes and online applications I was not able to secure employment quick enough to continue our mortgage on our underwater home. Our house is in short-sale (foreclosure).

At the same time my Mother-in-Law is needing more assistance with day-to-day activities. While my sister-in-law has moved into a job with tremendous opportunity that limits her availability.  Also, the labor participation rate is much higher in the area.

So we are moving up to Canada.

The Same Sex Marriage dialog we have been wanting.

I came across this back and forth about SSM.  I present the links in order.  This is ongoing.  Hopefully I will remember to re-post.


SSM for or Against part 1:

SSM for or Against part 2:

SSM for or Against part 3:

SSM for or Against part 4:

Today's Problems

I suppose if you ask ten people what the major problems that trouble the USA, you would get 10 different answers.

If you ask people "Is Government the problem?"  you will have 10 who agree.

I hate dealing with Customer Service. (updated with good news)

UPDATE *scroll down

Direct TV just cost me $55.00 because their equipment is faulty.  Not to mention two days of no telephone at the house.  Frustration....

My Phone service went out, every jack in the house.   This is problematic because I do not have a cell phone.  So no 911 no getting important calls, no making calls.  Oddly enough, our internet was still running fine.  It is DSL and comes through the same phone lines.

I tried various trouble shooting things,  with no luck.  I then called Century Link to file a service repair ticket. If the problem is on their side of the box, it costs nothing.  If it is on my side of the box $85.00.  

The tech found that the DirectTV box was shorting out the phone lines.  He further said this was common and I should contact Direct TV for reimbursement of the money.  His name is Jay, his Tech number is 488.  His boss is Ryan 541-440-3110.

When Jay unplugged the DirectTV box the phone service was restored.  Which really makes the culprit clear.

So, I contact Direct TV.  The automatic crap sees I am bundled with Century Link for the discount and transfers me.  Despite my screaming NO!  I get Charlie from customer service, who proceeds to tell me that it is Century Links problem, not theirs and the Direct TV boxes NEVER have this issue and they will not be able to provide any compensation.

I ask to escalate this up to a supervisor and Charlie decides to give me a one time credit of $30.00.  Not being happy with the $55.00 I will be paying out of pocket, I ask to speak to a supervisor.

For the next eight minutes 38 seconds I am waiting.  Listening to the sounds of the call center.  At that time Charlie goes to transfer me to a "Supervisor" and I am on hold for another 2 minutes 15 seconds.  Charlie tells me someone cut in line and it will be even longer.

Charlie then wants to make a deal and provide me a 10 dollar a month credit for the next 12 months.  At this point I am more interested in disconnecting my Direct TV then being hooked into another 12 months with faulty equipment.  So I tell Charlie to issue the $30.00.  

Oh, this is not over.

UPDATE:
I got a hold of various e-mail addresses for Direct TV Corporate.  I just got a call and they are issuing me the balance!  WOOT!

Gif from a friend.

Way too many years ago a talented artist friend of mine did a series of drawings. I was the subject.

Bob Vandewalle took a photo of me from a toga party and the AD&D Monster manual drawing of a Doppelganger and did a metamorphosis series of five hand drawn pictures.

Yesterday I found the pictures, after a good 30+ years.  I scanned each in and handed them over to my multi-media savvy artist of a Daughter.  She made them into an animated GIF and viola!  Something I always wanted!

http://www.daily-times.com/ci_23451739/coverage-may-be-unaffordable-low-wage-workers

http://www.daily-times.com/ci_23451739/coverage-may-be-unaffordable-low-wage-workers

Obamacare? We were just leaving … - Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

Obamacare? We were just leaving … - Anna Palmer and Jake Sherman - POLITICO.com

To Recap.

Benghazi exposed that this administration will lie about the death of four Americans in order to get reelected.    The administration lied about it to the public, lied about it to Congress.

The IRS Tea Party scandal exposed that the regime openly, willingly, laughingly suppressed its opposition.  They denied tax-exempt status to organizations assembled by their political enemies.

The AP Fox News Department of Justice probe showed that the top Obama administration figures were willing to use the FBI to go after the press, especially the opposition press, Fox News.   This administration has named its enemies and has encouraged people to disregard it.

The NSA phone record monitoring.  This showed that Eric Holder, and Obama, ordered the data mining against Americans on a scale never even imagined before and without warrants from the FISA court.

We are being placated by the Administration saying: "Don't worry about it.  Standard operating procedure. Government does this and we should be glad the government does this."

David Petraeus comes to mind and the outing of his affair.  Somebody knew about it, and somebody outed him.  And it happened for political reasons. Meta-data?

Then we have the existence of secret e-mail accounts.  This shows that the administration has political appointees who are engaging in activity that is absent oversight.

Because secret e-mail accounts are not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests, and they prevent any official record of activity.

Even the worst Right-Wing paranoid fears could not have proven more wickedly accurate.  Will we survive this Administration?

Boycotting to censor.

The Albert Einstein Institution defines an economic boycott as, "The withdrawal or withholding of economic cooperation in the form of buying, selling, or handling of goods or services, often accompanied by efforts to induce others to do likewise. It may be practiced on local, regional, national, or international levels."

Rush Limbaugh, was the focus of a boycott after he outed Sandra Fluke as a slut.  To recap, she insisted that the government subsidise her birth control for sexual escapades.  Rush apologized, which incited more vitriol from the left.  Sandra Fluke did not accept the apology and neither did the mainstream media party.

Instead a boycott of Rush's advertisers and the stations he appeared on was organized.  This did cause some fiscal issues for Limbaugh, but nothing he couldn't weather.  Some of the stations were hit very hard, as the boycott wrongly targeted block advertisements.  Overall the boycott did not have the desired effect of shutting down his pulpit.  In fact the rebound that took place shows that businesses are more interested in number of people they can reach than ideology.  In fact one of the former advertising companies took quite a hit in sales.  Another company is reported to been denied advertising by Rush because of their participation in the boycott.

I think it was a tempest in a teapot, and a peek into the intolerance the progressives show to opinions that deviate from their ideological narrative.  I am just glad to see bullying failed.

I should have never switched to Verizon. #NSA twitter.com/SirPatStew/sta…
— Patrick Stewart (@SirPatStew) June 7, 2013

Deceit or Editing? Censorship rears its head.

I was surprised to see a bastion of Liberal news and Obama support actually come out with a condemnation article. Although, the scandal cascade has produced some alarming revelations.

When I went back to review the NYT editorial today, I was perplexed.  It did not read the same.  Sure enough for some reason a red pen came out and toned down the harshness.  Or censored?


NewsDiffs tracked the changes.  The Daily Caller picked up on the changes as well and wrote about it as well.

I can see editing for verification, spelling, punctuation and brevity.  Content?  Not so much.

Obamacare is pretty funny... Until you realize how real it is.

IPCC dead wrong. Will this matter to the zealots?

I have actually been waiting for this to hit the interwebs.
Link:  IPCC's Global Warming Hypothesis Fails Ultimate Test - No Tropical 'Hotspot' After 17 Years of Immense CO2 Emissions

Link:  Sorry Global Warming Alarmists, The Earth Is Cooling.

Once upon a time I seized upon the Global Warming and touted the dogma to friends and family.  I was likewise worried about the population and world resources.  A funny thing happened.  Mt. Pinatubo erupted and belched up more "greenhouse" gasses then peoples produced.  Yet, the environment adapted.

I found out the Ozone hole had not been created, but discovered and assumed to been created.

There was this book, the Ultimate Resource, "As a particular resource becomes more scarce, its price rises; this rise of price creates an incentive for people to discover more of the resource, ration it and, eventually, develop substitutes."

I decided to learn more about Malthusians, and slowly began to get a more positive outlook for the planet.

As far as science goes the attempt to silence research and debate fell flat.  Emails were leaked, showing how money driven the whole debacle has become.

I hopefully see a time when we will actually be looking at measurements and data and critical hypothesis.  Al Gore might just have to get a real job...

What if the Obama Administration shows how corrupt it is and no one cares?

With quite some glee the I-told-you-so crowd, has been re-broadcasting the troubling IRS, DOJ, Benghazi scandals.  With little or no change in how the electorate perceives him.  We are gobsmacked by this.

So why the disconnect?  Simple the ongoing hysteria from the right for the last five years.

From a marine holding an umbrella to every mis-speak or mis-action. The birther nonsense, "you didn't build that" etc.

As an American and practicing Catholic I have any number of concerns about this administration. To whit:

• Its absolute and total love affair with abortion, up to and including support for murdering children who have already been born.  In this, it expresses the sole non-negotiable core value of the Dem leadership.
• Its obvious and deep hostility to the Catholic Church, expressed in the HHS Mandate, which aims to tell Catholics “Stay out of our bedrooms” while simultaneously frogmarching us in and forcing us to pay for what is done there.  I’m happy to stay out of everybody’ bedroom.  But don’t then stick a .45 in my ribs and make me buy your contraceptives for you.  Buy your own contraceptives.
• Its utterly arrogant claim to be able to secretly and unilaterally decree the murder of anybody on planet earth it decides is an enemy of the state, including American citizens.
• Its utterly arrogant claim to be able to secretly and unilaterally decree the indefinite detainment of anybody on planet earth it decides is an enemy of the state, including American citizens.
• It is utterly arrogant for the IRS, on Obama’s watch, to be intimidating political enemies with demands that they not protest at abortion clinics and with inquiries into the content of their prayers.
• It is utterly arrogant for the Obama administration DOJ to be leaking information to smear whistleblowers.
• It is utterly arrogant for the Obama Administration to spy on and intimidate the press.

There are other things, but these things alone are sufficient, I believe, for anybody who cares about American liberty and about the Catholic faith to be adamantly opposed to this Administration.

Nix v. Hedden

In 1893 It was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States that affirmed the lower court ruling that the tomato should be classified as a vegetable rather than a fruit.

So by law the Tomato is a Vegetable.  Genetic evidence has shown that the tomato is a fruit.  Thankfully, you will not be incarcerated for treating a tomato one way or the other.  Neither, will you be considered a less than understanding person as well.

Just because the law of the land makes the Tomato a vegetable does not actually make it one.


Hmmmm, I wonder what else that applies too...

Our stupid government by the people.

It makes no difference if your Democrat or Republican.  You are going to spend money, inefficiently and decry the other side for doing the same.

Government is too big and slow and needs to be small.  The Federal government is a huge problem and getting bigger every year.  Our elected officials are so corrupted they do not discern between a reduction in the rate of increase and a cut in spending.

Yet, we vote the same jokers in and our liberal media decry when groups like the Tea-Party want to limit government.

Lets take a simple idea to reduce our spending in the US.  Get rid of paper dollars and put coins into play.  This is pretty simple to do and with some great fiscal benefit.   Boom save 5.6 Billion dollars!

Better still, lets get rid of the Penny. Consider that the U.S. spent almost $120 million to produce less than $50 million of circulating currency.  So let's make that coin go away, like our military did overseas and we the people did for the half-penny.

These two things would be quick and easy to do with long term benefits.

Will this happen?  Probably not... Why?  For the same reason we elect idiots.

What do we want from a president?

I keep reading how the right hates Obama.  More often it is equated to racism on the part of Conservatives, which, to me, confusing.  I have never come across a conservative who feel race is of any importance  rather words and deeds.  We tend to dislike Obama's policies, leadership, elitism and ideology.  On a personal level I am uncomfortable with the lavish lifestyle he has adopted.  

Going back through time I find there are quite a few decisions our leaders on both the right and left who I agree and disagree with.  President Obama is the first that I have difficulty pointing to something done that I applaud.

Which makes me wonder what is desired from a leader of the US? What do we want from a president?

Experience comes to mind.  Someone who has worked in the private sector and public in management or leadership.   CFO or CEO plus time as a Governor of a State are excellent on the resume for president.

Someone who stands on principle, and able to articulate that vision. Ignores the polls for decisions is an offshoot of that.

Able to negotiate. Understands where to compromise.

Thick skinned to critics.  Able to clearly state why an action was given,  so you can disagree but not dismantle said reason.

Sincere, trustworthy and ethical.

Which presidents are close to the ideals?  Reagan, Eisenhower, Truman are who comes to the top of my head with John Adams.

Stuff that makes me feel smug.

87 percent of the US supermarket meat (including beef, pork, chicken, and turkey products) tests positive for normal and antibiotic-resistant forms of Enterococcus bacteria. Between 2003 and 2011, antibiotic use on US livestock farms soared from 20 million pounds per year to 30 million pounds - a jaw-dropping 50 percent leap. These facilities now suck in 80 percent of the antibiotics consumed in the United States. The great bulk of these drugs are used not to treat sick animals, but rather to make them grow faster and keep them alive until slaughter under tight, filthy conditions. Link

• In 1998, the USDA implemented microbial testing for salmonella and E. coli 0157h7 so that if a plant repeatedly failed these tests, the USDA could shut down the plant. After being taken to court by the meat and poultry associations, the USDA no longer has that power.
• In 1972, the FDA conducted 50,000 food safety inspections. In 2006, the FDA conducted only 9,164.
• In the 1970s, the top five beef packers controlled about 25% of the market. Today, the top four control more than 80% of the market. 
• In the 1970s, there were thousands of slaughterhouses producing the majority of beef sold. Today there are only 13.
• The average American eats over 200 lbs. of meat a year. Link

Consumer Reports investigation: Talking turkey ➜ goo.gl/fVx6E
What’s bugging your meat? Shit and antibiotics, probably ➜ goo.gl/U5Kzr
The truth about your food with filmmaker R. Kenner ➜ goo.gl/y9mkg
Pharm Foods ➜ goo.gl/B4vEB
The video the meat industry doesn't want you to see ➜ goo.gl/IT2eN
Antibiotics and the Meat We Eat ➜ goo.gl/wduUI
US meat supply massively contaminated with superbugs ➜ goo.gl/g7IP3

Polling the peoples. Is it news?

Obama's Approval Rating on These Three Key Issues Has Tanked

• On the economy, 53 percent disapprove of Obama’s job performance, while only 41 percent approve.
• Obama’s approval rating on “gun policy” is also 41 percent. Meanwhile, 52 percent disapprove.
• And as the immigration debate continues to flare on Capitol Hill, only 40 percent approve of Obama’s handling of the issue. Fifty percent disapprove.

Here is the news.

Electric Light Orchestra - Here Is The News (Official Music Video). Watch more top selected videos about: Electric Light Orchestra

I am not a fan of the 24 hour news networks.  Even less so over the last decade, where the need to share information has gone to the wayside for gaining market share.

In the USA we get Fox, CNN and MSNBC are our "big three" listed in the order of viewership.

Recently we had tragedy at the Boston Marathon.  If you wanted information the online sources provided this instantaneously.  Twitter feeds and social media had video pictures in unprecedented numbers.  Thanks to the HD camera in every phone people were able to identify loved ones and suspects, in some cases a bit to rabidly.

Where did the news agencies fit in?  Coverage for those interested in traditional media, could glom onto the next few days non-stop and not learn to terribly much.  Until the reporters started getting sourced information.

Cable TV is all about ratings.  You need people watching in order to sell advertising space.  Gathering more and more viewers is no longer an option, the market being saturated.  So you need to gain a core group of ratings that will bolster you during non-newsworthy events.  Fox started this by having an ideology when it comes to opinion shows.

The other two followed this example but more left of center, until MSNBC jumped off the cliff

News is evolving with less centralized control of information.  I can find more by checking hashtags as the trend then waiting for the networks, and the newspapers and magazines have dropped to the point of novelty.  NBC's Chuck Todd, commenting on meet the press let us know that Obama hates the uncontrolled media that we have.  No wonder, when you consider the way AP has become an arm of the White House.

Unless the Government seizes control of the Internet in a way that cannot be circumvented, the flow of information will continue.  My hope is that the dissemination  of that information will evolve as we connected types age.

Already, I lament the Trolling and Meme mentality we have seen.  Out from under the oppression of the controlled flow of information, we need to have discussion and debate, not winning for your choir.

Rachel Carson, killer of over sixty million people

Link to story BY DOCTOR ZERO

Who is the worst killer in the long, ugly history of war and extermination? Hitler? Stalin? Pol Pot? Not even close. A single book called Silent Spring killed far more people than all those fiends put together.

Published in 1962, Silent Spring used manipulated data and wildly exaggerated claims (sound familiar?) to push for a worldwide ban on the pesticide known as DDT – which is, to this day, the most effective weapon against malarial mosquitoes. The Environmental Protection Agency held extensive hearings after the uproar produced by this book… and these hearings concluded that DDT should not be banned. A few months after the hearings ended, EPA administrator William Ruckleshaus over-ruled his own agency and banned DDT anyway, in what he later admitted was a “political” decision. Threats to withhold American foreign aid swiftly spread the ban across the world.

The resulting explosion of mosquito-borne malaria in Africa has claimed over sixty million lives. This was not a gradual process – a surge of infection and death happened almost immediately. The use of DDT reduces the spread of mosquito-borne malaria by fifty to eighty percent, so its discontinuation quickly produced an explosion of crippling and fatal illness. The same environmental movement which has been falsifying data, suppressing dissent, and reading tea leaves to support the global-warming fraud has studiously ignored this blood-drenched “hockey stick” for decades.

The motivation behind Silent Spring, the suppression of nuclear power, the global-warming scam, and other outbreaks of environmentalist lunacy is the worship of centralized power and authority. The author, Rachel Carson, didn’t set out to kill sixty million people – she was a fanatical believer in the newly formed religion of radical environmentalism, whose body count comes from callousness, rather than blood thirst. The core belief of the environmental religion is the fundamentaluncleanliness of human beings. All forms of human activity are bad for the environment… most especially including the activity of large private corporations. Deaths in faraway Africa barely registered on the radar screen of the growing Green movement, especially when measured against the exhilarating triumph of getting a sinful pesticide banned, at substantial cost to an evil corporation.

Those who were initiated into the higher mysteries of environmentalism saw the reduction of the human population as a benefit, although they’re generally more circumspect about saying so in public these days. As quoted by Walter Williams, the founder of the Malthusian Club of Rome, Alexander King, wrote in 1990: “My own doubts came when DDT was introduced. In Guayana, within two years, it had almost eliminated malaria. So my chief quarrel with DDT, in hindsight, is that it has greatly added to the population problem.” Another charming quote comes from Dr. Charles Wurster, a leading opponent of DDT, who said of malaria deaths: “People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them, and this is as good a way as any.”

Like the high priests of global warming, Rachel Carson knew what she was doing. She claimed DDT would actually destroy all life on Earth if its use continued – the “silent spring” of the title is a literal description of the epocalypse she forecast. She misused a quote from Albert Schweitzer about atomic warfare, implying the late doctor agreed with her crusade against pesticide by dedicating her book to him… when, in fact, Schweitzer viewed DDT as a “ray of hope” against disease-carrying insects. Some of the scientists attempting to debunk her hysteria went so far as to eat chunks of DDT to prove it was harmless, but she and her allies simply ignored them, making these skeptics the forerunners of today’s “global warming deniers” – absolutely correct and utterly vilified. William Ruckleshaus disregarded nine thousand pages of testimony when he imposed the DDT ban. Then as now, the science was settled… beneath a mass of politics and ideology.

Another way Silent Spring forecast the global-warming fraud was its insistence that readers ignore the simple evidence of reality around them. One of the founding myths of modern environmentalism was Carson’s assertion that bird eggs developed abnormally thin shells due to DDT exposure, leading the chicks to be crushed before they could hatch. As detailed in this American Spectator piece from 2005, no honest experimental attempt to produce this phenomenon has ever succeeded – even when using concentrations of DDT a hundred times greater than anything that could be encountered in nature. Carson claimed thin egg shells were bringing the robin and bald eagle to the edge of extinction… even as the bald eagle population doubled, and robins filled the trees. Today, those eagles and robins shiver in a blanket of snow caused by global warming.

The DDT ban isn’t the only example of environmental extremism coming with a stack of body bags. Mandatory gas mileage standards cause about 2,000 deaths per year, by compelling automakers to produce lighter, more fragile cars. The biofuel mania has led resources to be shifted away from growing food crops, resulting in higher food prices and starvation. Worst of all, the economic damage inflicted by the environmentalist religion directly correlates to life-threatening reductions in the human standard of living. The recent earthquake in Haiti is only the latest reminder thatpoverty kills, and collectivist politics are the most formidable engine of poverty on Earth.

Environmental extremism is a breathless handmaiden for collectivism. It pours a layer of smooth, creamy science over a relentless hunger for power. Since the boogeymen of the Green movement threaten the very Earth itself with imminent destruction, the environmentalist feels morally justified in suspending democracy and seizing the liberty of others. Of course we can’t put these matters to a vote! The dimwitted hicks in flyover country can’t understand advanced biochemistry or climate science. They might vote the wrong way, and we can’t risk the consequences! The phantom menaces of the Green movement can only be battled by a mighty central State. Talk of representation, property rights, and even free speech is madness when such a threat towers above the fragile ecosphere, wheezing pollutants and coughing out a stream of dead birds and drowned polar bears. You can see why the advocates of Big Government would eagerly race across a field of sustainable, organic grass to sweep environmentalists into their arms, and spin them around in the ozone-screened sunlight.

Green philosophy provides vital nourishment for the intellectual vanity of leftists, who get to pat themselves on the back for saving the world through the control-freak statism they longed to impose anyway. One of the reasons for the slow demise of the climate-change nonsense is that it takes a long time to let so much air out of so many egos. Calling “deniers” stupid and unpatriotic was very fulfilling. Likewise, you’ll find modern college campuses teeming with students – and teachers – who will fiercely insist that DDT thins egg shells and causes cancer. Environmentalism is a primitive religion which thrives by telling its faithful they’re too sophisticated for mere common sense.

The legacy of Silent Spring provides an object lesson in the importance of bringing the global-warming con artists to trial. No one was ever forced to answer for the misery inflicted by that book, or the damage it dealt to serious science. Today Rachel Carson is still celebrated as a hero, the secular saint who transformed superstition and hysteria into a Gospel for the modern god-state. The tactics she deployed against DDT resurfaced a decade later, in the Alar scare. It’s a strategy that offers great reward, and very little risk. We need to increase the risk factor, and frighten the next generation of junk scientists into being more careful with their research. If we don’t, the Church of Global Warming will just reappear in a few years, wearing new vestments and singing new hymms… but still offering the same communion of poverty, tyranny, and death.