Saturday, April 02, 2011
Mark Steyn rips media dishonesty of 'parties working together' meme
Yet, despite all this opposition. The law still exists.
Friday, April 01, 2011
April fools
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) announced today, in the first of a series of stunning announcements, that its television subsidiary the Public Broadcasting System (PBS) will be replacing the defunct Bill Moyers Journal with a new weekly program, Ann Coulter's Far Out Journey.
The Coulter show is one of several dramatic changes to the public broadcasting network composed of PBS and its corporate sibling National Public Radio (NPR). The changes are the result of major upheavals in the wake of the firing of NPR commentator Juan Williams and covert 60 Minutes-style videos from journalist James O'Keefe showing NPR executives entertaining financial offers from "donors" they believed to be representing the Muslim Brotherhood. The shift in approach is also a direct consequence of the Republican and Tea Party victories in the U.S. House and Senate in the 2010 elections.
What's wrong with our economy?
When you have more people in the wagon than pulling it, you have a problem....
If you want to understand better why so many states—from New York to Wisconsin to California—are teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, consider this depressing statistic: Today in America there are nearly twice as many people working for the government (22.5 million) than in all of manufacturing (11.5 million). This is an almost exact reversal of the situation in 1960, when there were 15 million workers in manufacturing and 8.7 million collecting a paycheck from the government.
It gets worse. More Americans work for the government than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined. We have moved decisively from a nation of makers to a nation of takers. Nearly half of the $2.2 trillion cost of state and local governments is the $1 trillion-a-year tab for pay and benefits of state and local employees. Is it any wonder that so many states and cities cannot pay their bills?
Every state in America today except for two—Indiana and Wisconsin—has more government workers on the payroll than people manufacturing industrial goods. Consider California, which has the highest budget deficit in the history of the states. The not-so Golden State now has an incredible 2.4 million government employees—twice as many as people at work in manufacturing. New Jersey has just under two-and-a-half as many government employees as manufacturers. Florida's ratio is more than 3 to 1. So is New York's.
Even Michigan, at one time the auto capital of the world, and Pennsylvania, once the steel capital, have more government bureaucrats than people making things. The leaders in government hiring are Wyoming and New Mexico, which have hired more than six government workers for every manufacturing worker.
Seriously, think about this in terms of your own home. You cannot have more people working inside your home than you bring home to pay them.
It's really that simple.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
Wednesday, March 30, 2011
Thank you Dr. Doe
Once again, if you are of a mind to believe that the rich don't pay enough, give me your take on how much this corporatist, asshole should pay.
I finished that return on the heels of a single mom who received a $2,200 refund on total income of $4,200.
It bothered me because if you were to listen to a liberal, you'd think the rich doctor would be a scourge on society and the latter is a victim of a rich guy who doesn't pay enough in taxes.
Yet, here's the backgrounds of both.
One of the two came from an established, wealthy family went to Northwestern for an undergraduate degree in English, the other came from an upper middle class home and attended Ohio State and received a degree in engineering.
One pursued a career as a professional student and server while the other went to UC med school for the next three-four years. Oh, and the latter racked up $360,000 in student loans for the hope of being an MD one day.
One went hopping from job to job and got pregnant out of wedlock. The other spent three years after med school to work a 80-100 hour work weeks as a resident for a whopping $40,000 a year.
As far as I'm concerned, the doctor wasn't the product of some ultra rich sweat shop owner. He just did the things that it takes to be successful in life. And guess what? He is.
Where as the woman from privilege had lots of advantages, chose not to use them, and now she's a welfare recipient. But to hear a liberal talk, you'd think the doctor spends his whole day conjuring up ways to screw some poor folks so he can buy a yacht (which he wouldn't have time to enjoy anyway).
It's hard to feel sorry for a guy making nearly a mil a year, and I don't. But instead of persecuting him for simply doing the things that make you successful, I just want to thank him.
So thank you Dr. Doe for not knocking up some skank and leaving her for society to take care of.
Thank you for not showing up in court every week on some drug possession or B&E charge.
Thank you for driving a car with insurance.
Thank you for not faking a disability claim the rest of us can fund the rest of your life.
In general, thank you for being a contributor to society and not a consumer.
And it seems to me that, given the times, we all ought to be applauding this guy.
Oh, by the way, how much should this guy pay so that it's fair for the skank?
Membership has its privileges
Members of Congress have immunity from many routine parking tickets in the District of Columbia, but that doesn’t mean they can’t try to rack up fines.
According to a Roll Call survey of vehicles parked on Capitol Hill and at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport, as of mid-March, lawmakers were carrying at least $15,000 in outstanding tickets — ranging from expired meters to speeding camera violations — and potentially thousands of dollars more.
Three-quarters of those tickets, worth about $11,500, were in default at the time of the survey, having gone more than 60 days, and in some cases years, without payment.
Roll Call canvassed Congressional parking facilities, as well as a special Members-only parking lot at the airport, and reviewed about 300 vehicles displaying a House- or Senate-issued Member parking tag.
Information on parking violations was obtained from the District of Columbia’s public ticket database, which is searchable by license plate and includes information on minor violations.
While many vehicles registered a single ticket, valued at as little as $20, a handful of automobiles reported several hundred to thousands of dollars in unpaid tickets.
Roll Call’s inquiry appears to have led some offenders to pay up.
Aides to Reps. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.) and Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.) said the lawmakers repaid their respective tickets after being contacted by Roll Call.
The District’s database showed Weiner received nearly $2,180 in tickets from 2007 to early March, including some instances in which he appears to have incurred multiple violations at the same time, such as failing to display current tags while parked in a taxi stand zone.
More.....
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Teaching today
It was the semester from hell. In my 20 years as an adjunct faculty member, I had taught in the Ivy League and at community colleges, in Brattleboro and Bangkok, in undergraduate and graduate schools. Never had I seen such extraordinarily bad behavior in my students.
It began the first night of the graduate class, spring semester 2010, when the students attacked the syllabus for being too demanding (although it was premised on previous syllabi for the same course at the same institution). The evening went steadily downhill. I'll spare you the gruesome details, but the next day I got a call from an administrator asking me to deal with the complaints that some students had registered about me and the course. The charges they'd made were ludicrous and easily explained, but I was stunned.
The situation seemed to improve somewhat after I invited students to write down anonymous feedback, positive or negative, about anything they wished to share with me. A student collected the notes in an envelope. We set up class norms, agreeing that we would listen respectfully and give culturally sensitive feedback. I also suggested that anyone who found the course too onerous should drop it. Enrollment fell significantly.
The bad behavior did not. Sometimes it was passive-aggressive, but much of it was just plain aggressive. It got so bad that a few students apologized to me on behalf of their colleagues. "I've never seen such disrespect for a teacher," they said. I could have hugged them for their kindness. Instead I thanked them, went home, and had a good cry.
Read the whole thing........
When you've lost the AP
Here is a look at some of Obama's assertions in his address to the nation Monday, and how they compare with the facts:OBAMA: "Our most effective alliance, NATO, has taken command of the enforcement of the arms embargo and no-fly zone. ... Going forward, the lead in enforcing the no-fly zone and protecting civilians on the ground will transition to our allies and partners, and I am fully confident that our coalition will keep the pressure on Gadhafi's remaining forces. In that effort, the United States will play a supporting role."
THE FACTS: As by far the pre-eminent player in NATO, and a nation historically reluctant to put its forces under operational foreign command, the United States will not be taking a back seat in the campaign even as its profile diminishes for public consumption.
Read the rest of their fact check here.........
Why are working people resisting unions?
Deric Golden has what he calls his dream job, fixing small flaws on the sedans being churned out at the Hyundai factory here.
So when two organizers from the United Auto Workers knocked on his apartment door one day, hoping to get him to sign a union card, he quickly sent them packing.
"I told them I didn't work at the plant," said Golden, 29. "I just wasn't interested."
It's the same story in town after town along the southern tier of Auto Alley, a corridor that runs north-south along interstates 75 and 65 from Lexington, Ky., to Montgomery.
Foreign automakers — including Honda, Kia, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen — are placing their U.S. factories in this region because of generous state and local incentives and a workforce famously resistant to unions.
Still, this is the region that Bob King, president of the UAW, calls a key battleground that could alter the future of the industry's labor movement. And it's workers like Golden whom the union must win over.
But hey you've done so much for Detroit.
More.....
Reagan v Govt Socialist Plans
Blue state exodus - African American edition
Apparently, there's a lot of blacks more than happy to live near them................
Two milestones in the long, painful decline of the blue social model were reached this week and reported, of all places, in the pages of the very éminence grise of the monde bleu: the New York Times.
The first was a piece of national and historical news: The Census reported that waves of blue state blacks fled the stagnant job opportunities, high taxes and rotten social conditions of the mostly blue northern states to seek better lives for themselves in the south. The second milestone was local and literary: Bob Herbert, for many years the only regular Black columnist on the New York Times‘ op-ed page, has written his last column before stepping down.
The Census story is a shocker. First, according to the Times, the Blacks leaving tend to be the “younger and better educated”. Second, the three states Blacks left in largest numbers don’t just include snake-bit Michigan; the other two are Illinois and New York. Within those states, Chicago and the city of the New York (widely considered among the most successful cities in the country) are the places Blacks are deserting. 17 percent of the Black flight from Big Blue is from the Empire State; after almost a century of trailblazing social policy, New York State has succeeded in creating the most hostile environment for Blacks in the country.
It's the story of "progressive" governance. The day a government shifts it's focus from the people who pay tax to the ones who use them is the very day the exodus begins.
I can provide more scientific evidence of this than a "progressive" can global warming. Yet do you think they care about the former?
More.....
Roads and public safety
Ten people with felony histories were on probation at the time they were arrested on suspicion of murder and attempted murder during the last nine months in Colorado.The Denver Post reported Sunday that court files for each of the 10 suspects show they were repeatedly given the chance to continue probation rather than going to prison after instances in which their probation could have been revoked.
The crimes the 10 suspects are accused of include the fatal shooting of a college football player in Boulder, the mutilation death of a 16-year-old Denver girl and the slaying of a Weld County sheriff’s deputy.
The newspaper reported that probation has become a more attractive option than prison because it’s less expensive. It costs taxpayers $35,000 per year to put someone in state prison. Probation costs $9,000 a year.
“I know how serious and upsetting it is to us – especially the officers in the field – when cases end tragically like this,” said Tom Quinn, director of the state’s Division of Probation Services. He said the department will consider implementing a review process in cases where people on probation are accused of violent crimes. The department does not have such a review now.
Probation officers in Colorado are supposed to have only 25 cases when they’re in charge of supervising high-risk offenders, but that limit is often waived, the Post reported.
Let me ask the question. Does Colorado spend money on Medicaid? how about welfare? public health?
I'm thinking the families of all those murder victims think those felons should have been behind bars.More...
Monday, March 28, 2011
Who did they vote for? #10967
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Life in "Progress" City - New Orleans edition
As the Crescent City closes in on five dozen murders within the first three months of 2011, law enforcement officials gathered at a crime summit downtown Saturday afternoon, hoping to stop the violence."The crime rate is unacceptable," said Crimefighters founder Irv Magri. "It's unacceptable in a civilized society."
The meeting, organized by Magri's group, comes a day after the U.S. Justice Department issued two new reports on crime trends in New Orleans and the NOPD. Among the recommendations were that the homicide division improve training and hire more officers."They have told me nothing that I haven't known and seen and complained about," said Magri, retired NOPD officer. "Let me just tell you, this is not politically popular for me to say. But what we need to do is raise the standards for the NOPD officers, dramatically."
The Justice Department's first report last week slammed the NOPD for deeply rooted patterns of violating people's rights. But officials at Saturday's crime summit believe the tide is turning.
"Certainly we've seen some pretty grim recent events with the Department of Justice, with some of the latest murders, but I am optimistic that we're going to get better," said Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman. "I think the leadership in the police department, Superintendent Serpas and the mayor, are committed to change."
NOPD officials say that's what they're working toward, with efforts like ramped up training. But District Attorney Leon Cannizzaro says solving New Orleans' crime problem will take more than a reformed police department.
When you run a city that caters to the under class should it be a surprise that this is what you get?
Life in "Progress" City - Costa Mesa edition
To solve a looming pension crisis and budget gap, city officials here said, they needed to take drastic action. And everyone agrees on one thing: they did.I know reader Becky did a sentence there and they left. Like anyone else who has the means will.......Nearly half of this city’s workers were told late last week that, come September, they would probably be out of a job. Nearly every city department will be eliminated. More than a dozen tasks will be outsourced, including graffiti removal, firefighting, building maintenance and street cleaning.
Unlike the drama that played out over the last two months in Madison, Wis., the battle over public workers in this bustling suburb and upscale shopping mecca in the heart of Orange County is happening at lightning speed.
Layoff letters went out last week to more than 200 of the city’s roughly 450 workers, sending many of them into a panic as they scurried to look for new jobs. The move will, in one great swoop, reinvent municipal government here, and perhaps lead the way for other cities.
More....
What if a Bushie had pulled this?
Staffers with Vice President Joe Biden confined an Orlando Sentinel reporter in a closet this week to keep him from mingling with high-powered guests gathered for a Democratic fundraiser.
Reporter Scott Powers was the designated “pool reporter” for the vice president’s Wednesday visit to the massive Winter Park, Fla., home of developer and philanthropist Alan Ginsburg. The veep hadn’t arrived yet but most of the 150 guests (minimum $500 donation) had. They were busy noshing on caprese crostini with oven-dried mozzarella and basil, rosemary flatbread with grapes honey and gorgonzola cheese and bacon deviled eggs, before a lunch of grilled chicken Caesar and garden vegetable wraps.
Not so for Powers. A “low-level staffer” put Powers in a storage closet and then stood guard outside the door, Powers told the DRUDGE REPORT. “When I’d stick my head out, they’d say, ‘Not yet. We’ll let you know when you can come out.’”
And no crustini for Powers, either. He made do with a bottle of water to sip as he sat at a tiny makeshift desk, right next to a bag marked “consignment.” Powers was closeted at about 11:30 a.m., held for about an hour and 15 minutes, came out for 35 minutes of remarks by Biden and Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida Democrat, and then returned to his jail for the remainder of the event.
Powers’ phone didn’t work in the closet, but his Blackberry did, so he fired a picture of his impromptu prison to his editors, who posted a short blog item on the lack of freedom of the press under the veep’s control.
Government heroin
I explained to her that it's difficult to claim that someone is "emancipated" when they still live at home.
What struck me was the comment she made as she was leaving my office.
"They expect us to use our home equity to fund his college!"
Since I had about a hundred tax returns to finish, I really didn't think about what she was saying. But think about the implication of her comments.
She's not willing to use her assets to educate her kid but she expects the rest of us to do it for her.
While it's easy to pick on her for this comment, it's actually more prevalent for people who are trying to shield a parent's assets so they can put their parent in a nursing home paid by.... anyone.... anyone..... anyone.... the taxpayer.
It's actually one of the more unseemly side effects of government involvement in our lives.
Seriously, why should you save money for anything when the government will be there to bail your ass out?
Why shouldn't this woman expect the taxpayer's to pay for her kids tuition when her tax dollars are being spent on health care for the indigent or some inflated pension for a public sector worker.
So I have a solution, let's all keep our own money and pay for our own shit. At least we get the middle man out of the equation.
Where's welfare in this article?
As soon as the child was born, she was taken from her mother. Both were addicted to heroin, Clermont County officials said.
The girl weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces that day in 2009, but her weight dropped as she coped with tremors while withdrawing from the drug over the next couple weeks.
"I spent several days with her while she was still in the hospital," said Denise Strimple, 60, of Tate Township, the child's foster mother for the last 16 months. "I held her and cuddled her and let her know somebody loved her."
Known as Baby H to protect her identity, she is among an increasing number of children being removed from parents accused of using drugs in the Greater Cincinnati area.
Baby H was part of a 78 percent rise in two years of children taken from parents in Clermont County because of abuse or neglect, up from 132 in 2008 to 235 last year, said Tim Dick, deputy director of Clermont County Children's Protective Services.
About 41 percent of last year's cases involved drug abuse by parents. Of those 97 cases, 71 involved opiates such as heroin, Dick said. Marijuana was the second-most problematic drug. "Four years ago, cocaine was the drug of choice," Dick said. "Opiates have overtaken that. Heroin is cheap, and it's readily available."
In Butler County, the number of children removed because of drug or alcohol abuse by a parent increased by 68 percent in two years, said Jeff Centers, director of Children Services. Last year, 264 kids were removed for such reasons, up from 219 in 2009 and 157 the year before.
You know what's missing from this article?
The prevalence of welfare in these families.
Let's face reality for a second. When your food, clothing and housing are supported by the state what does that leave you?
TIME.
TIME.
And more TIME.
See, if these people were out looking for employment, they wouldn't have TIME to sit around all day getting high.
But if you are a family, Here's a partial list of all the governmental programs you have access to.
ADC
Food stamps
Unemployment
Subsidized housing
Medicaid
Earned income credit
General welfare
Free school lunches and breakfasts for the children.
When you add all that up, you can spend your whole day not doing shit.......... except getting high and screwing, which provides us with the derelicts of the future.
The conventional wisdom is that democrats are the party of compassion.
Exactly what's so compassionate about a newborn shaking from withdrawal tremors?