This sort of tampering, ideological bias, and conspiracy is not unique to
climate change, but is present across multitudes of 'scientific' fields. It is
likely an inevitable consequence of government funded research. As we saw with
the swine flu, a 'crisis' pushed by 'experts' and 'scientists', these claims
deserve the most stringent scrutiny and skepticism.
The gusher of money that has flowed into climate research does not, by
itself, impeach the conclusions reached by the scientists. But it does make
clear just how much their professional fortunes became tied to the notion of
climate catastrophe. It was the fear of catastrophic climate change, after all,
that unleashed the rising ocean of money by which their research came to be
funded. Findings that might call the hysteria into question would also,
perforce, put at risk the flow of funds into their field.
Patients and doctor happy with one system, neither happy with another. Notice
the cost is the same, although the insurance company gets away with paying less.
In fact, it makes little sense for these sorts of routine visits to even be
covered by insurance, insurance companies are useless middle men, theoretically
valuable only for massive medical bills in the case of rare illness or accident.
11/27/09 Wal-mart closes a store in Canada in response to the unionization of
its workforce there. Thus, prices remain low for all of us, especially the
poorest Americans! A shame the company cannot be more blatant about its
anti-union policy, but must converse in innuendo due to archaic labor law.
Can the Postal Service be Saved?
With Losses Mounting, Postal Service Seeks Autonomy, Pushes to Cut Saturday
Service; Rep. Danny Davis Calls for a Bailout
11/19/09 CBSnews
It's been an ugly few years for the United States Postal Service.
The quasi-government agency announced this week that it lost $3.8 billion in the
most recent fiscal year, which ended September 30th. It also delivered less mail
- 26 billion fewer pieces less, a nearly 13 percent drop from the previous year.
The bad news follows losses totaling $7.8 billion in 2007 and 2008.
The Postal Service, as it is quick to point out, is legally prohibited from
taking tax dollars. But in order to stay afloat, the agency has been actively
borrowing from the U.S. Treasury: At last count, according to Postal Service
spokeswoman Yvonne Yoerger, it owes the government $10.2 billion.
Private enterprise could perform the service for free, with no government
funding or borrowing and with lower prices for consumers with better service. It
is a win-win situation, except for the postal unions and their politicians
allies.
Jamaica vs. Singapore (in 1965, both were equal
in wealth, today one is richer than the other)
The American ^| 11/19/2009 | Josh Lerner Of the 178 countries studied, Jamaica ranked 170th in the burden of complying
with tax regulations. The ranking reflects not just the cost of the taxes
themselves, but also the administrative burdens associated with complying with
the tax code. The World Bank's analysis suggests that the total cost of
complying with all tax laws in Jamaica amounts to just over one-half of gross
profits for the typical entrepreneur.
Similarly, when the cost of registering property is compared, Jamaica ranked
108th out of 178: the cost of registering property equaled 13.5 percent of the
value of the property. (By comparison, the ratio in the United States is 0.5
percent of the value.) The high cost of registering property means that fewer
people register their holdings, which in turn leads to less-secure property
rights.
The question of whether the Federal Government has the power to force consumers
to buy designated regulated products or face jail time (if one doesn't pay the fines)
is not a serious question according to the speaker of the house.
Michael Fumento puts the 'swine flu' in perspective with some real statistics.
It has cost the nation billions of dollars, needlessly scared parents and
paralyzed schools. The politicians, media, and some aspects of the medical
establishment were as wrong about this crisis as they have been about other 'crisises',
health, environmental, and otherwise. Anytime we hear politicians or their 'experts' talk about
imminent crisises that need to be addressed immediately we should be wary and
watchful. Their past tract record is quite poor.
Perhaps we should instead follow the advice of Lao Tse:
A wise leader has said, "I will not try to change things, and the people
will be transformed by themselves; I will be fond of tranquility, and the
people will by themselves become correct. I will not pursue riches, and the
people will by themselves become rich; I will manifest no ambition, and the
people will become as natural as uncarved wood."
The smoking excuse is especially interesting. Obesity and age are becoming
acceptable reasons to deny care to control costs.
(Added to 'British Healthcare')
Ron Paul delivers some articulate arguments against government interventionism
in the healthcare industry. This interview also delves into foreign policy, the
letter mentioned is summarized in this article, the officer's conclusions make
sense, IMO:
Foreign Service officer and former Marine captain says he no longer knows why his nation is fighting
10/09 Washington Post
He concluded, he said in his resignation letter, that the war "has violently
and savagely pitted the urban, secular, educated and modern of Afghanistan
against the rural, religious, illiterate and traditional. It is this latter
group that composes and supports the Pashtun insurgency."
With "multiple, seemingly infinite, local groups," he wrote, the insurgency "is
fed by what is perceived by the Pashtun people as a continued and sustained
assault, going back centuries, on Pashtun land, culture, traditions and religion
by internal and external enemies. The U.S. and Nato presence in Pashtun valleys
and villages, as well as Afghan army and police units that are led and composed
of non-Pashtun soldiers and police, provide an occupation force against which
the insurgency is justified."
And it should be no surprise that the city -- and Manhattan in particular --
suffered the biggest loss in terms of taxable income.
The average Manhattan taxpayer who left the state earned $93,264 a year. The
average newcomer to Manhattan earned only $72,726.
More than 1.5 million state residents left for other parts of the United States
from 2000 to 2008, according to the report from the Empire Center for New York
State Policy. It was the biggest out-of-state migration in the country.
In the Seattle area, where most workers are located, business costs are
relatively high, partly due to the presence of unions. Sanford said the recent
decision by Boeing's North Charleston workers to reject union representation
made a difference to Boeing, which has suffered a series of employee strikes in
recent years. "They proved to Boeing that this is a right-to-work state,"
Sanford said.
Perhaps Boeing will escape the fate of the other industries bankrupted by the
unions, ie the
airline industry, mining industry, and steel industry and
most recently the automakers.
This idea that 'government can create jobs', a fallacy rooted in the disastrous
'New Deal', is still prevalent. These jobs are artificially created, for every 1
government created job, many more private sector jobs are lost due to punishing
taxation, excessive regulation, and legal malfeasance.
See, when
the government spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left
in the hands of taxpayers, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into
pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs.
A popular haunted house in Simi Valley that attracts thousands of children
each Halloween has been shut down because the city deemed it an unsafe
structure.
Will a young, healthy, childless individual or couple buy health insurance costing 7.5 percent of their income as required by Obama's health legislation? Not until they get sick. Then, they can always buy the insurance -- and the Obama bill requires the insurance companies to give it to them. And, if the premiums come to more than 7.5 percent of their income because they are now sick, no problem. Obama will subsidize it.
The insurance companies surely know their business better than politicians, even
as the Obama administration has demonized the insurance companies' analysis of
his plans, which basically illustrate the Obama health plan represents the
equivalent of a massive tax increase.
There is no question that the issue of preexisting medical conditions is a
problem, but it is a problem is caused by government requiring employers (via tax
breaks/incentives legislated in the 50s) to fund the healthcare of their
workers. Since people switch jobs frequently they often end up paying exorbitant
amounts for their preexisting conditions. Without these employer incentives,
surely people would purchases insurance outside of their employers which they
could take with them from job to job. One of the many unintended consequences of
government interventions into the health insurance market.
The six agents, wearing SWAT gear and carrying weapons, were with - get this- the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Kathy and George Norris lived under the specter of a covert government investigation for almost six months before the government unsealed a secret indictment and revealed why the Fish and Wildlife Service had treated their family home as if it were a training base for suspected terrorists. Orchids.
That's right. Orchids.
Speaking of fallacious 'crimes', here is a recent one on the trumped up
charge of 'insider trading', which as previously discussed should not, IMHO,
be a crime
and benefits the economy by producing more accurate stock prices.
Mr. Rajaratnam was charged with four counts of conspiracy and nine
counts of securities fraud. United States Magistrate Judge Douglas F. Eaton
set bail at $100 million.
Group asks police and military to lay down arms in response to orders deemed
unlawful
10/18/09 LVRJ
Launched in March by Las Vegan Stewart Rhodes, Oath Keepers bills itself as a
nonpartisan group of current and retired law enforcement and military personnel
who vow to fulfill their oaths to the Constitution.
More specifically, the group's members, which number in the thousands, pledge to
disobey orders they deem unlawful, including directives to disarm the American
people and to blockade American cities.
I can add some commentary to this, since I know Stewart quite well, having
attended numerous events with him and seen him speak. He is an articulate
speaker, and an intelligent constitutional scholar, having taught hours of
classes on the constitution. He is not a conspiracy theorist and is a genuinely
nice guy. Despite the inaccurate depictions of this LVRJ article, the
aims of this group are admirable and I wish them the best of
luck.
IRVING TOWNSHIP, Mich. – Each day before the school bus comes to pick
up the neighborhood's children, Lisa Snyder did a favor for three of her
fellow moms, welcoming their children into her home for about an hour before
they left for school.
Regulators who oversee child care, however, don't see it as charity.
Days after the start of the new school year, Snyder received a letter from
the
Michigan Department of Human Services warning her that if she
continued, she'd be violating a law aimed at the operators of unlicensed
day care centers.
Big Oppressive government in Michigan is symptomatic of the states
problems. These licensing laws assume state bureaucrats have both better
knowledge of how day care centers should be run and welfare of other
parent's children. Both premises are mistaken, IMHO. And let us not forget
the kids most hurt are the poorest kids who now get no daycare.
Sen. Thomas Carper (D.-Del.), a member of the Senate Finance Committee, told
CNSNews.com that he does not “expect” to read the actual legislative language of
the committee’s health care bill because it is “confusing” and that anyone who
claims they are going to read it and understand it is fooling people.
“I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the
legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my
life,” Carper told CNSNews.com.
Lawmakers were given just hours to examine the $789 billion stimulus plan,
sweeping climate-change legislation and a $700 billion bailout package before
final votes.
While most Americans normally ignore parliamentary detail, with health care
looming, voters are suddenly paying attention. The Senate is expected to vote on
a health bill in the weeks to come, representing months of work and stretching
to hundreds of pages. And as of now, there is no assurance that members of the
public, or even the senators themselves, will be given the chance to read the
legislation before a vote.
Imagine if, seemingly overnight, the state government said that your car did
not get enough miles per gallon to be street legal. It wouldn’t matter that it’s
brand-new and much more fuel-efficient than the old gas-guzzling convertible you
drive on the weekends.
Imagine, too, that the state won’t tell you the models of cars it tested to set
the universal standard which suddenly makes your vehicle obsolete.
This is, in essence, what the California Energy Commission did to the hot tub
industry last year when it mandated that spas meet the efficiency standards for
appliances — a regulation called Title 20.
The law threatens to make half of all new spas in California out of compliance.
This outcome has manufacturers sweating over the future of their businesses and
angry about what they see as the unfairness of it all.
This is an interesting article getting into the specifics of how liberal
environmentalists seriously damaged an industry. The results of their policies
did not even help the environment, even if one excepts their tenuous premises of what
defines 'helping the environment'. :)
This will only stop if the interested parties become awake and alive about what
the government is doing to their livelihoods and families. When Spa owners
understand the massive tax being levied on their objects of enjoyment by the
government. When environmentalists realize their efforts, while laudable, are
riddled with mistaken premises, and that the results of their policies don't
achieve their own stated desired results, and in fact, often achieve the
opposite.
Finally, this article is symbolic of why California is a 'failing
state':
Now, incredibly, California, which has been a natural target for immigration
throughout its history, is losing people. Between 2004 and 2008, half a million
residents upped sticks and headed elsewhere.
Yet California politicians would rather take taxpayer money from productive
business and citizens to fund polluting 'solar power' :
The number of solar panels in the state has risen from 500 a decade ago to
more than 50,000 now. California generates twice as much energy from solar power
as all the other US states combined.
Documentary film director Michael Moore, who has become a millionaire thanks
to the profits from his movies, told CNSNews.com that “capitalism did nothing”
for him.
But what is missing is a direct infusion of cash from Obama or the US
government, say local residents and members of the extended Obama family, some
of whom say they have relayed funding requests through e-mails and letters to
Washington. That expectation might come as a surprise in the United States,
where such gifts are not an obligation and Obama is not considered a
particularly wealthy man. But in Kenya, where politicians are often judged by
how much financial help they funnel to family and tribe, the lack of cash
donations from the president has caused some consternation.
The Poverty in Africa is thus explained, an exploitation of the people by those
in government, a definition of socialism.
There is a pressing matter that demands your immediate attention. The US
government plans to administer the H1N1 vaccine to millions of Americans this
fall. This will likely include health workers, government workers, students and
faculty, office workers, and from there the scope will likely increase.
This becomes extremely troubling when one considers the following:
The H1NI vaccine is not undergoing rigorous testing as it is being rushed to
market.
In 1976, the US government, along with the media, scared people into getting
vaccinated against the Swine Flu. 25 people died from the vaccine and only 1
person actually died from the Swine Flu.
Earlier this year Baxter Laboratories, one of the major producers of the H1N1
vaccine, was responsible for releasing samples contaminated with bird flu to
European labs. The controversies surrounding another producer, GlaxoSmithKline,
also warrant an investigation.
During the first Gulf War, American soldiers were given an untested anthrax
vaccine. 25% of the 697,000 veterans of this war are now afflicted with "Gulf
War Syndrome." The symptoms of this disorder are terrible and although as
of yet not
directly linked to the anthrax vaccine, there are those who postulate it was at
least partially a result of an ill-advised vaccination campaign.
The H1N1 virus is still mutating. A vaccine that is currently being developed
may be ineffective in a few months time.
Earlier this year, the World Health Organization declared the Swine Flu a global
pandemic, a 6 out of 6 on their severity scale. The Obama administration
recently estimated that 90,000 Americans will die from the Swine Flu this year.
There is a great deal of fear-mongering coming from the media and government
outlets. It is being used to get the majority of Americans to accept a shot in
their arms. Some believe the 'Swine Flue' is nothing more than a normal variant
of the many other types of 'regular' cyclic flu, but given a scary name along
with newfound media hype has become transformed into more of a political and sociological
phenomena than medical entity.
Billions of dollars of your tax dollars have been spent. Hundreds of millions of
doses of vaccine have been ordered. This vaccine is about to make its way to
market. Even if the vaccine is not "mandatory," it is not hard to envision a
scenario where not accepting the shot results in government penalties, or a
mandatory quarantining at a hospital or other facility, or even jeopardizing
one's employment. Taking the shot will likely lead to "unforeseen" side effects,
infection, and accepting whatever other additives are contained within the shot.
The decision should be simple. If enough people decide that they will not allow
anyone to force an injection upon them, then the government and pharmaceutical
companies will get a clear signal that our bodies belong to us. Reclaim your
freedom and encourage others to do the same.
My best advice would be as follows:
٠Exercise frequently - biking, running,
walking, sports, or light weight training.
٠Reduce the consumption of alcohol,
caffeine, and other drugs.
٠Improve your diet by eating natural,
organic foods - especially fruits and vegetables.
٠Do not use Purell when unneeded - exposure
to daily germs builds up your immunity.
٠Try to reduce stress and find a spiritual
center - this will be difficult but necesarry.
I reiterate, do not take the vaccine!
Please verify the information being presented here for yourself. Do some of your
own research into this pressing matter. My motive is to inform as many people so
that we can save as many lives as possible. I believe that this Swine Flu is not
nearly as dangerous as the vaccine about to be administered.
I wish you and your family and friends the best of health in these troubling
times.
Sincerely,
Kyle C. Hunt
PS - Related research: RFID implants (via injection), MK-Ultra, Operation
Paperclip, New World Order, American Eugenics
For as long as humans have been alive, we have taken to gazing at the stars. We
revel in their beauty and become filled with a sense of awe. And even though
they are so grand and we are so small, we find our own piece of heaven in their
light. They connect us back to our origins and help to tell our eternal story.
Once upon a time, our ancestors would sit around the camp fire to recount the
legends of old. These stories were written across the night's sky and passed
down to us as mythologies and constellations. The stars helped to explain who we
are, how we got here, and where we are going.
As fate would have it, a new type of star has been created. It has come along
and stolen the attention of the human mind. We no longer go out and look at our
distant relatives as we once did. The stars of old have been replaced by sports
stars, movie stars, TV stars, superstars, pornstars, and all of the other
"stars" that serve as distractions to steal and degrade our conscious awareness.
Night after night, humans sit in front of their televisions and computers to
watch these stars. The stars tell them about love and loss, life and death,
victory and defeat, and all of the other human conditions. The people ride the
waves of emotions created by these stars. They are connecting with the world
vicariously; they are not involved in any creative act of their own.
Unfortunately, most of the myths told by these stars are not for the betterment
of humanity. These stars have poisoned our bodies, minds, and souls with their
warped reality. We have become infected with their greed, jealousy, and lust. We
have been fooled into thinking of these stars as beautiful and heroic, envying
and emulating them without realizing how beautiful each one of us truly is.
It does not have to be like this. If we remember our origins, we will no longer
need the "stars" of today. Each one of us is a star that can shine brightly.
When we radiate our love, we are able connect with all that is, all that was,
and all that will ever be.
Let's look at the facts. CBS News has
posted the transcript of the president's speech, which says: "There are also
those who claim that our reform efforts would insure illegal immigrants. This,
too, is false. The reforms -- the reforms I'm proposing would not apply to those
who are here illegally."
If Democrats wanted to eliminate allegations such as Joe Wilson's, they could
simply rewrite H.R. 3200 to say: No illegal immigrant can shop at the Health
Insurance Exchange.
Rep. Dean Heller, a Nevada Republican, offered
precisely that amendment during a House Ways and Means committee vote in
July. It said that to "utilize the public health insurance option, an individual
must have had his or her eligibility determined and approved" through two
existing verification programs already used by the federal government. One is
called
SAVE, and checks immigration status, and the other is called
IEVS,
which is used in conjunction with Social Security.
In a party line vote, Democrats rejected Heller's amendment.
One likely reason why Democrats shot down Heller is that they're under
pressure from the left to include -- or at least not explicitly exclude --
illegal immigrants. That would mean rejecting any requirement that applicants'
eligibility as citizens or legal immigrants be verified.
So, when Joe Wilson said "You Lie!" during the presidents speech, he actually
had a valid point, what the president was saying was not true. Of course, Wilson
was rude and impolite, we can hardly applaud the means by which he exposed
Obama's falsehood. Another point is that a lie is, by definition, an untruth
that the sayer knows is untrue. It is not a lie to be mistaken. We must give
Obama the benefit of the doubt that he may not have known about the amendment
battles in congress regarding illegal immigration in the house bill, or would
have supported aspects of the Republican amendment. After all,
in a thousand page bill, there is much that one will not be aware of; in fact,
there is probably no one that is aware of it in its entirety; it is a god-awful
collection of special interest interests and do-gooder advocations; but... so
goes all roads to socialism.
"The land grab is spear-headed by the BBC. The scale and scope of its current
activities and future ambitions is chilling," he said. He also highlighted the
BBC Trust's "abysmal record", citing the example of the "overt recklessness" of
the trust's failure to question why BBC Worldwide was allowed to acquire a
majority stake in the Lonely Planet travel guides.
Regulators, he said, are intervening too much, which is leading to a fall in
innovation and creativity.
The answer, he said, is for regulators to intervene only on evidence of "actual
and serious harm" and in the interest of consumers, "not merely because a
regulator armed with a set of prejudices and a spreadsheet believes that a bit
of tinkering here and there could make the world a better place".
What about NPR and PBS here in the US? Surely they are guilty of the same
travesties.
Translation: If your company is deemed "critical," a new set of regulations
kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when
the government would exercise control over your computers or network.
Other sections of the proposal include a federal certification program for "cybersecurity
professionals," and a requirement that certain computer systems and networks in
the private sector be managed by people who have been awarded that license.
Government continues to expand its powers, threatening the viability of the
Internet. The licensure requirement for 'cyber security professionals' is no
different than the current licensure requirements for medical professionals,
doctors, pas, nurses etc...
Yet another giant company has plunging sales, soaring debt, and is weighed down by massive labor costs. Will taxpayers have to pay for another federal bailout? Alas, it's already in the cards because this company is the U.S. Postal Service, which has estimated losses of $7 billion this year.
With email grabbing ever more market share from snail mail, USPS's finances are steadily deteriorating. What should federal policymakers do? They can't give USPS the General Motors treatment and nationalize it, because it's already government-owned. And they can't reform postal markets with a "public option" because that's what the USPS already is.
Instead, Congress and President Obama should deregulate postal markets and privatize the USPS. It's true that such pro-market reforms are not in vogue these days, but Obama claims that on economics, he doesn't want to "get bottled up in a lot of ideology … my interest is finding something that works." For postal reform, that means injecting competition by allowing "private options" in the marketplace.
We know that postal deregulation works because it's already in place abroad. Postal services have been opened to competition in Britain, Finland, New Zealand, and Sweden. In those countries, private operators are starting to challenge former monopoly mail providers, particularly on business mail delivery.
The bad news is that we've still got a 700,000-worker behemoth to deal with. We can let entrepreneurs into the market to bring new efficiencies to letter delivery, but we still need to downsize the USPS. In most industries, businesses facing declining markets can radically cut costs and innovate to survive. But the USPS can't do that effectively because it is beholden to members of Congress and their parochial concerns.
“Forecasting death is an inexact science,”they say. Patients are being
diagnosed as being close to death “without regard to the fact that the
diagnosis could be wrong.
“As a result a national wave of discontent is building up, as family
and friends witness the denial of fluids and food to patients."
In the United States, thankfully it is still family members who make most of
these hard decisions not the government and not doctors who through single payer
systems become an
extension
of the government.
If Democratic lawmakers thought all the furor over President Obama's health
care plan expressed this month at town hall meetings was dying down, they might
be in for a surprise Saturday.
That's when citizens are planning anti-"Obamacare" rallies across the country
Saturday in all 435 congressional districts.
And their message is clear: We will not stand for socialized,
government-controlled health care.
A substantial portion, if not a majority, of these protestors are Ron Paul
supporters, who have continued their activism since the 2008 election. A small
but intensely vocal minority, their numbers are growing and they continue to be
responsible for a number of
antics and
accomplishments.
Hospitals in border cities, including Detroit, are forging lucrative
arrangements with Canadian health agencies to provide care not widely
available across the border.
Agreements between Detroit hospitals and the Ontario Ministry of Health and
Long-Term Care for heart, imaging tests, bariatric and other services
provide access to some services not immediately available in the province,
said ministry spokesman David Jensen.
The Karmanos Institute is one of several Detroit health facilities that care
for Canadians needing services not widely available in Canada.
Canada, for example, has waiting times for bariatric procedures to combat
obesity that can stretch to more than five years, according to a June report
in the Canadian Journal of Surgery.
Annual NHS sickness levels are 10.7 days a year per employee - higher than
the public sector average of 9.7 days and 50 per cent higher than the private
sector average of 6.4 days.
Statistical differences between the private and public sectors are always of
interest :)
The drugs ranged from birth control pills to powerful heart medications to
horse tranquilizers often used by body builders. Sandra Guiterrez, who is not a
licensed pharmacist, was charged with three counts of furnishing dangerous drugs
without a prescription after the raid of El Arcoiris pharmacy, where she worked.
Most of the drugs were purchased by Guiterrez in Mexico and being sold for above
market value at the small pharmacy, said Lt. George Castro of the department’s
Violent Crimes Unit.
Castro said investigators are also looking into allegations that surgical
operations were being done in the back room of the pharmacy. He said the alleged
surgeries were minor and included lancing boils or removing an infected tooth.
Such operations operating outside the umbrella of the medical industrial complex
surely benefited the many customers that utilized it and would be an asset to
the healthcare system, IMO. 'Entrepreneur' rather than 'criminal' is perhaps a
more fitting title for Miss Guiterrez.
The new rule, which was posted on the FDA's Web site Wednesday, clarifies
existing regulations explaining how patients can receive access to drugs in
development for various conditions as well as providing additional so-called
expanded-access programs to allow more patients to have access to therapies
under development.
The rule also allows companies and researchers to charge patients for the
experimental treatments, potentially allowing more start-up or smaller firms to
participate in expanded-access programs. However, the FDA said the cost of an
investigational drug used in clinical trial "is an anticipated cost of drug
development and should ordinarily be borne by the sponsor."
If companies or researchers charge for the cost of manufacturing and providing a
drug as part of an expanded-access program, they aren't allowed to make a
profit.
At least the FDA is taking steps in the right direction, but it still isn't
enough. It appears there is still excessive red tape which makes accessing these
experimental drugs prohibitive for some and the regulation which states drug
companies cannot make profit from these new drugs surely will cost many lives.
A $200 back-to-school giveaway for needy kids sparked a mad rush for money on
the streets of New York on Tuesday.
"It's free money!" said Alecia Rumph, 26, who waited in a Morris Park, Bronx,
line 300 people deep for the cash to buy uniforms and book bags for her two
kids.
"Thank God for Obama. He's looking out for us."
The no-strings-attached money went to families receiving food stamps or
welfare.
When the people find
that they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.
"They tell us that we're just supposed to comply, but my instincts kicked in and
I did what's best to stop the guy," the 30-year-old Nicholson told The Seattle
Times. "I thought if I let him go he would rob more banks and cause more
problems."
The man ran, and Nicholson chased him for several blocks before knocking him
down with help from a passerby. Nicholson then held the suspect, Aaron J. Sloan,
29, until police arrived.
Nicholson's reward? Two days after the failed heist, he was fired.
"Our policies and procedures are in the best interests of public safety and are
consistent with industry standards," Foster said in a statement to FOXNews.com
on Monday. "Money, which is insured, can be replaced. Lives cannot."
Seattle Police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb echoed Foster's sentiment.
"It really doesn't matter if you're a bank teller or a citizen walking down the
street. Generally speaking, it's best to be a good witness," Whitcomb told
FOXNews.com. "And quite honestly, this is also true for people who are off-duty
police officers too."
Sloan, 29, has a lengthy criminal history, including convictions for theft and
robbery. He remains jailed on $1 million bail, officials at the King County
Prosecuting Attorney's Office said. Charges related to the attempted robbery
have not yet been filed.
Rosenbaum, fittingly a Rabbi, has sold kidneys to people for over a decade. Now
he is going to jail along with scores of other 'conspirators' and middle men.
I wonder how many lives he saved over the decade? Should we not instead be
giving this man a medal? Is it a stretch, or even offensive, to call him a
modern day Raoul Wallenberg?
The summary of this is that it appears political appointees
of powerful government agencies are threatening to cut off 'stimulus' funds to
the states of elected representatives that criticize the Obama administration.
Of course it is a misnomer to even call them 'stimulus'
funds, because it is unlikely they will stimulate anything, besides political
capital for those who waste it on various special interest constituencies.
But this story is important because it illustrates what
happens when the government has
power and the corruption that
must follow it.
President Obama gave a recent speech in Africa where he
slammed corruption, but endorsed aspects of socialism. He and many on the left
do not appear to see that the two are inseparable to the point of being defined
by each other. And with this story, and
others, we are seeing his own administration is
falling prey to corruption's temptations that come with power.
“I understand the state needs money, but to put pressure
on the small guy or the moderate guy that’s struggling, it’s not going to do any
good,” said Mike Suriani, who owns an electrical supply company in South
Providence.
In Suriani’s case, it may have been a bookkeeping error that
landed him in the three-hour line.
How about 'stimulus' to cancel these sales taxes during an
economic downturn?
A government survey in 2007 found that about 1 out of 11 Americans, more than
20 million, meditated in the past year. And a growing number of medical centers
are teaching meditation to patients for relief of pain and stress.
Known as caloric restriction, the diet has all the normal healthy ingredients
but contains 30 percent fewer calories than usual. Mice kept on such a diet from
birth have long been known to live up to 40 percent longer than comparison mice
fed normally.
Would the same be true in people? More than 20 years ago, two studies of rhesus
monkeys were begun to see if primates responded to caloric restriction the same
way that rodents did.
In terms of deaths, 37 percent of the comparison monkeys have so far died in
ways judged to be due to old age, compared with 13 percent of the dieting group.
Dr. Weindruch and his statistician, David Allison of the University of Alabama,
Birmingham, said the dieting monkeys were expected to enjoy a life span
extension of 10 percent to 20 percent, based on equivalent studies started in
mice at the same age.
The article goes on to describe the many limitations of the
study and its ambivalence since the study is in its infancy. Still, the previous mice
experiments were interesting and it certainly would not be surprising to see
some benefits in monkeys and humans.
It is clear many medical problems in humans can
be in part attributed to exccess caloric consumption, or stemming from the
underlying root cause thereof. An interesting study, impossible in monkeys and humans too
for that matter, would be to look at benefits from this kind of diet that were
voluntary vs involuntary. Similar to the previously mentioned analogy of who is
better off, the gambler that has conquered his gambling addiction, or a gambling
addict who has never gambled?
Swami Sivanada has written in his books that always staying
just a little bit hungry is the key to a healthy eating, diet, and life. Easier said than done!
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Writing grants is big business and university scientists chase the funding, not
the other way around. 'Consensus' becomes defined by the bureaucrats at the NIH
and other government institutions.
TracFone Wireless wants to
give cellphones to Coloradans who receive public assistance.
If approved, the
plan by TracFone Wireless in Miami would make Colorado the 17th state it has
settled into with free cell service for the indigent, a form of wireless welfare
that proponents say taps into one of the last untapped markets for the telecom
technology.
In Colorado, it's called LITAP
— the Low Income Telephone Assistance Program — and is available to anyone
receiving aid from any of six welfare funds: Colorado Works Assistance (TANF),
Supplemental Security Income, LEAP, Aid to Needy Disabled, the Old Age
Pension Fund and Aid to the Blind.
Statewide, about 65 percent of
those eligible participated in Lifeline last year.
The money — more than $800
million in subsidies were paid last year for low-income phone service across
the country — comes from the Universal Service Fund, a tax on all telephone
lines. Of that amount, Coloradans received nearly $3.2 million in low-income
subsidies.
They proclaim that every man is entitled to exist
without labor and, the laws of reality to the contrary notwithstanding, is
entitled to receive his "minimum sustenance" — his food, his clothes, his
shelter with no effort on his part, as his due and his birthright. To
receive it — from whom?
Democrats want to ram through one of the greatest raids on private income
and business in American history.
7/20/09 WSJ
Democrats are bidding to
impose an unrepealable European-style welfare state in a matter of weeks.
Mr. Obama's February budget
provided the outline, but the House bill now fills in the details. To wit,
tax increases that would take U.S. rates higher even than most of Europe.
Yet even those increases aren't nearly enough to finance the $1 trillion in
new spending, which itself is surely a low-ball estimate. Meanwhile, the
bill would create a new government health entitlement that will kill private
insurance and lead to a government-run system.
The AMA signs its members up to be civil servants.
7/20/09 WSJ
Other industry
lobbies such as the insurers and drug makers have made the same calculation,
putting their short-term self-interest -- usually ensuring that government
programs remain generous (enough) -- ahead of the long-run threats. It can't
last.
Some doctors
realize as much. A coalition of 17 state medical associations and three
specialty organizations is poised to break with the AMA over its Washington
work. Another group of state hospital associations is at odds with their
Beltway representatives over the deal cut with the White House to help
defray universal coverage with $155 billion in across-the-board Medicare
cuts.
The Following letter was sent to Senator Levin, Senator Stabenow, and
Congressmen Levin (my district):
Congressmen Levin,
As a new Michigan resident, I have enjoyed my brief time in Michigan living in
your district and am happy to call it home. However, I have been following the
new national health care bill with increasing trepidation. As a physician I am
concerned that the new expanded government health care programs will adversely
impact both my practice and my patients. My experiences with the VA, NIH, and
state run clinics, combined with reports and discussions with colleagues practicing overseas have convinced me that increasing government
control of healthcare leads to decreased access to care and substandard care for
patients and unfavorable work conditions for physicians.
I am concerned this bill would weaken the US health care system, perhaps
irreparably and threaten to bankrupt our country when the spending is already
out of control in Washington. In addition, many physicians run their practices as
small businesses and the added taxes being proposed would substantially weaken
our shrinking bottom line.
For these reasons I make the following pledge to you (and be sure I will follow
through). If you vote yes on this bill I will not only vote against you in the
next election, I will pledge a donation to your opponent.
His hospital is one of ten in America with the resources and expertise
to perform MR-guided brain surgery.
But before making a final decision, Meg was referred for a second
opinion to London's National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery - one
of Britain's leading centres.
'Opting for surgery in America was expensive - £50,000,' says Meg. 'I
needed to be sure no British surgeon could offer me the same hope.'
Unlike in Southampton, the London consultant recommended surgery. But
he admitted that Meg stood a far better chance in the U.S. as the equipment
was so superior.
'I've no doubt that, without my operation, I'd now be dead. Britain is
gradually catching up with America. But, sadly, we still don't yet have the
same high level of technology. I wish everyone could have the same chance I
had.'
The growing success of Switzerland, Luxembourg and Ireland at attracting
multinationals is
causing disquiet in European centres such as London.
Since the start of 2008, WPP, Shire, Regus, Henderson, Charter, Beazley, Brit
Insurance and UBM have all announced that they are moving their tax base out of
the UK.
So wildlife officials sparred with Bob for years, according to legislative
testimony. His permit, they said, allowed him to sell live crayfish only to
licensed commercial operators. He sold them to people from his roadside stand
anyway. The state stripped him of his permit and took him to court.
On a sweltering morning in 2003, after months of warnings, authorities
stormed the greenhouse with a court order and chlorine bleach. Some wore
bulletproof vests and carried guns.
"They poisoned them and hauled a bunch off and dumped them out in the desert,"
Bob says. He had as much as 300 pounds of crayfish at the time.
In February, the president directed the Energy Department to update
its energy conservation standards for everyday household appliances such as
dishwashers, lamps and microwave ovens. Laws on the books already required
new efficiency standards for household and commercial appliances. But they
have been backlogged in a tangle of missed deadlines, bureaucratic disputes
and litigation.
The administration already had released new standards on commercial
refrigeration. Lamps were next.
The company has filed a notice with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stating that it wants to reorganize itself as a "Canadian public company" in order to take advantage of decreasing Canadian corporate tax rates.
Now the IRS gets 40% of nothing!
|
6/21/09 (By Travis)
While at the Sivanada Yoga Ashram in Canada I heard a very nice Satsang
regarding an interesting perspective on thought. As discussed,
controlling our thoughts is more important than controlling our actions, because
when we control our thoughts we control our actions by stopping the ultimate
root of that action. In addition, besides controlling our actions, we control
our own overall happiness and lessen our overall suffering. We are also then
capable of new positive actions that we may not have even thought of before. So,
for instance, instead of being very rigid and saying, "I will not steal." and
measure ones success based on action (ie not stealing). If one is able to not
even have thoughts of stealing, eliminating those negative compulsions, then one
will not only not steal, but also will see improvement throughout ones entire
life and will be a happier, more caring, and enlightened being when interacting
with others.
And this was the basic point of the lecture. When we are able to change our
thoughts, through concerted effort of some kind, we brighten the lives of those
around us. In other words, by not changing our thoughts we are having a
negative effect on those around us, even if we don't engage in 'actions' we
consider bad.
Upon reflection, if we consider thought in this way, it provides powerful
motivation to further control our mental processes, quiet the mind, and make
positive changes.
6/20/09 A libertarian minded Ron Paul supporter is just what Connecticut needs.
Plus he has a great quote in this article:
At an investment conference last month, Schiff compared the United States to
a massive Ponzi scheme, saying the U.S. Treasury must constantly issue new debt
to refinance existing IOUs, tapping China and other overseas buyers for funds.
"I don't know why we have Bernie Madoff in jail," he quipped, alluding to the
convicted mastermind behind the biggest Ponzi scheme ever. "We should appoint
him secretary of the Treasury."
|
Because of all the Federal programs and other state programs, it is not entirely
true that getting rid of CalWorks would result in no
welfare in California. But it would be a great first step and would probably
result in the largest reduction of poverty in the state's history. Notice the
remarks of the people running CalWorks. IMHO, I doubt the program is in any real
jeopardy.
The battle appears to be gearing up against the massive government expansion
into healthcare proposed by the Democrats. I am glad to see the AMA coming out
against it:
Forget the battlefield radios, the combat PDAs or even infantry hand signals.
When the soldiers of the future want to communicate, they’ll read each other’s
minds.
In the future, we will be able to access the internet, email, text, perform
calculations, access any information and perform nearly any task by merely
thinking about it. While I doubt the defense department will impact the
commercialization of the product (where the real advances will take place), it
does make you wish you lived in the future!
For decades, the nation’s biggest antitrust cases have centered on technology
companies. And they have all been efforts by the government to deal with
powerful companies with far-reaching influence, like AT&T, the telephone
monopoly; I.B.M., the mainframe computer giant; and Microsoft, the powerhouse of
personal computer software.
You create a product and you are targeted by the government for 'anti-trust',
which are politically charged witch hunts, in most cases. Thomas Edison should
have been targeted for government action the moment he created the light bulb,
as he owned 100% of the market.
Rep. Alan Grayson was standing in the middle of Disney
World when it hit him: What Americans really need is a week of paid vacation.
So on Thursday, the Florida Democrat will introduce the Paid
Vacation Act — legislation that would be the first to make paid vacation time a
requirement under federal law.
The bill would require companies with more than 100 employees
to offer a week of paid vacation for both full-time and part-time employees
after they’ve put in a year on the job. Three years after the effective date of
the law, those same companies would be required to provide two weeks of paid
vacation, and companies with 50 or more employees would have to provide one week
The United States is dead last among 21 industrial
countries when it comes to mandatory R&R.
France currently requires employers to provide
30 days of paid leave.
A job killing bill if ever there was one and offered in the midst of
a recession.
|
Judicial police chief Wilmer Flores Trossel said
authorities found 24 Toyota vehicles on a property in eastern Venezuela
belonging to Globovision president Guillermo Zuloaga. They raided the property
after receiving an anonymous tip.
"The owners of the residence will have to explain what these
vehicles are doing there and why they aren't in a dealership," he said.
Human Rights Watch on Thursday criticized Chavez's government for investigating
the station. The organization's Americas director, Jose Miguel Vivanco, accused
the government of using the probe to harass critics.
(Added to
'Chavez')
Besides people holding yard sales, the law applies to
thrift or consignment stores, charities, flea markets and people who sell on
auction Web sites, the handbook says.
The commission studied thrift
stores nationwide in 1999 and found that 69 percent were
selling products that had been recalled, banned or
failed to meet safety standards, according to the
handbook.
Freedom is man's birthright. Freedom is knowledge, peace and bliss. In every
heart, there is this desire for freedom, this all-consuming passion for liberty.
Freedom is the birthright of man.
Political and economic freedom is essential for the welfare of a people.
Real
freedom is lordship over oneself. Still the mind. Herein lies freedom and bliss
eternal. Real freedom is freedom from egoism and desires, freedom from thoughts,
likes and dislikes, freedom from lust, anger, greed and pride.
|
5/12/09 (By Travis)
The panic regarding 'Swine Flu' continues, with
a plane being diverted here in the United States with the ridicule even
traveling as high as the
vice president
of the United States:
WASHINGTON
(AP) - One day after saying he wouldn't travel in tight quarters because of the
swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to
Delaware.
Iraq will kill three wild boars in Baghdad Zoo to ward off the new flu
sweeping the globe, officials said, despite experts' advice that people are
spreading the virus, not pigs.
The worst panic of all appears to have taken place in
Egypt:
CAIRO – Egypt's government was
hoping to look strong and proactive in the swine flu scare with its decision
to slaughter all the country's pigs, after taking heavy criticism at home
for poor planning and corruption in past crises.
But instead, some Egyptians
called the move a knee-jerk overreaction that even the
World Health Organization
said was unnecessary.
Egypt, which has no swine flu cases, is the only country in the world
to order a mass pig slaughter in response to the disease. The move mirrored
Egypt's battle with
bird flu, in which the government killed 25 million birds within
weeks in 2006.
Many accused the government of not taking precautions when bird flu first
appeared in Asia in 2003. When the first case appeared in Egypt in 2006, the
government carried out mass bird culls, but the disease has killed more than two
dozen people since.
The good news is that we can learn from these stories, as it illustrates the
propensity of governments and media to exaggerate, inflame, and take ill advised
actions in response to a supposed 'crisis'.
The same pattern takes place in response to the 'war on poverty', war on 'global
warming', or any other so-called 'crisis' that 'requires' government
intervention. In my personal opinion, most of these crisis are unintentionally
manufactured, just as the 'swine flu' was manufactured.
Even in the rare event that there is a legitimate crisis, the people themselves
are surely more apt at adapting and finding workable solutions to the problems.
Government intervention never solves what is perceived as the problem, and
creates many new problems as corollary.
Earlier this month, the United States Chamber of Commerce handed out its annual "Spirit of Enterprise" awards to those members of Congress who voted with the Chamber 70 percent of the time on its most important legislative initiatives of 2008. The only four Republican senators who did not receive the award were Jon Kyl, Jeff Sessions, Jim Inhofe and me - four of the most conservative members of the Senate.
What were the conservative offenses? We opposed the failed bailouts and stimulus. Which explains why many liberal Democrats scored higher, including Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton.
The Republican who scored lowest of all - that is, the Republican lawmaker supposedly least aligned with the nation's business community - was Ron Paul, a strong constitutionalist famous for his strict adherence to a free- enterprise libertarian philosophy.
There is, in these facts, an important insight into the current unpopularity of the Republican Party. In an era of corporate welfare - which is lately taking on the characteristics of 1930s-style corporatism itself - the interests of big business are veering away from the interests of economic freedom and toward the interests of big government. Many Republicans in the past decade have followed a similar course, and the party - and our country - have paid dearly for the wrong turn.
In March, Italy's intelligence services warned in a report that rising
unemployment and the credit crunch could help crime syndicates tighten their
tentacles around vast swaths of the nation's business sector, including
supermarkets, real estate and tourism.
A main engine of the mob's recent strength—the age-old practice of
loan-sharking—is thriving as banks hoard cash, allowing the Mafia to elbow
in on legitimate businesses.
The mobsters are poised to "acquire control of businesses in
difficulty, especially through their consolidated practice of
loan-sharking," as well as to "snap up assets put on the market by
enterprises experiencing liquidity crises," the intelligence report said.
In Rome, Camorra men or those in their employ have been spotted
hanging out at pawnbrokers' auctions to learn which businesses might be in
financial straits, said
Carabinieri Lt. Col. Roberto Casagrande. Those businesses would then
be approached—and offered a loan they could scarcely refuse.
The Camorra offers shaky businesses attractive interest rates,
calculating that the businesses will end up part of its economic empire if
the owner falls behind on payments,
Roberti said.
It appears that the mafia is providing a valuable service to many Italian
businesses. They are able to make loans like this because they are able to
enforce contractual loan agreements made illegal by the government through
mainstream financers and their loaning framework is outside the current
burdensome and archaic regulatory framework of modern governments. For
example, no one can require, as the US government does, that the mafia lend
a certain percentage of their loans to 'low income persons' or minorities.
But while rainwater may seem like a global common, nowadays it depends on
where you live: By capturing rainwater, some homeowners are breaking the law.
This has put city and state governments in an awkward position—smack in the
middle of competing water users and advocates, often from within their own
agencies, of conserving water to protect supplies.
While laws about rainwater collection are often murky, Colorado's are quite
clear: Homeowners do not own the rain that falls on their property.
A legal fight erupted last August in Utah—which, like Colorado, had a blanket
ban on rainwater collection—when car dealer Mark Miller wanted to capture
rainwater on the roof of his dealership and use it to wash cars. Utah's
legislature just passed a bill last month, which now awaits the governor's
signature, that would allow catchments up to 2500 gallons—but Dietze thinks that
won't be the end of it. After all, he manages the Utah House, the university's
model sustainable home, whose 6500-gallon rooftop rain collector breaks even the
new state law.
Entrepreneurial homeowners provide some alleviation from the water shortages
caused by government regulations and 'public' ownership of water supplies, but
even that is under attack.
A proposed bill that would give the president widespread power to shut down the Internet in the event of a cyberattack could have sweeping implications on civil liberties. The days of an open, largely unregulated Internet may soon come to an end.
A bill making its way through Congress proposes to give the U.S. government authority over all networks considered part of the nation's critical infrastructure. Under the proposed Cybersecurity Act of 2009, the president would have the authority to shut down Internet traffic to protect national security.
The government also would have access to digital data from a vast array of industries including banking, telecommunications and energy. A second bill, meanwhile, would create a national cybersecurity adviser -- commonly referred to as the cybersecurity czar -- within the White House to coordinate strategy with a wide range of federal agencies involved.
If you're planning a major purchase via the Internet, you might want to do it
quickly. Congress is expected to introduce a bill this week that would require
Amazon.com, L.L. Bean, Cabela's and other online merchants to collect sales tax
on all online purchases and return that money to the state in which the
purchaser resides.
While rationing may permit the government to save on costs and
thereby restrain health care budgets, putting patients on
waiting lists is not cost-free. One study that examined over
1,400 Swedes on a waiting list for cataract surgery found that
5.2 million kronas were spent on hospital stays and home health
care for patients waiting for surgery.28
That was the equivalent of what it would have cost to give 800
patients cataract surgery.
A
recent study that examined over 5,800 Swedish patients on a wait
list for heart surgery found that the long wait has consequences
far worse than pain, anxiety or monetary cost.29
In this study, the median wait time was found to be 55 days.
While on the waiting list, 77 patients died. The authors'
statistical analysis led them to conclude that the "risk of
death increases significantly with waiting time."30
Another study found a mean wait time of 55 days for heart
surgery in Sweden and a similar rate of mortality for those on
the waiting list.31 Finally, a
study in the Swedish medical journal Lakartidningen found that
reducing waiting times reduced the heart surgery mortality rate
from seven percent to just under three percent.32
So the Treasury has decided that banks like Goldman Sachs (GS),
which claim they're ready to cut a check and repay TARP, won't be allowed to
return the money just yet. Only once it's determined that such a move would
be "in the national interest," whatever that means, will they be able to do
it.
In other words, if it makes another systemically important bank look
bad, then they'll have to keep the money.
The government has given all this loan money to banks and is now
retrospectively attaching conditions. In effect, the government is exerting
a form of ownership over the banks. Luckily some had foresight:
Conservatives gathered in cities across the US today in "tea party" protests to rail against their income tax obligations, in what organisers are billing as the emergence of a mass, conservative grassroots movement to counter President Barack Obama and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
The protests occurred on the day when Americans' income tax returns and cheques are due with the federal government, and protesters were motivated by resentment at having to pay income taxes to fund the massive corporate bailouts and stimulus spending the White House says is necessary to right the economy.
The catch-all name of the protests is a reference to the 1773 Boston tea party, an iconic event in American history in which American colonists dumped British tea into Boston harbour to protest a tea tax levied by Parliament.
"The main theme is that we're frustrated with government spending," said Eric Odom, a Chicago-based internet activist who helped organise the protests. "It's completely out of control. There's no accountability, there's no transparency."
Odom said protests were scheduled in 760 cities in all 50 states and Washington DC.
At a cold and rainy gathering across from the White House today, protesters described themselves as true American patriots holding off
creeping socialism and fascism.
"We're alarmed at the spendthrift attitude of the government," said Thomas Cranmer. "The Obama government, the Senate and the House are just absolutely out of control."
Organisers and participants insisted the protests were independent of the Republican party, which has at every turn attacked the Obama administration's budget and economic stimulus policies.
Everyone from President Barack Obama on down to fans has criticized how
college football determines its top team. Now senators are getting off the
sidelines to examine antitrust issues involving the Bowl Champion Series.
Behind the push for the hearings is the subcommittee's top Republican, Sen.
Orrin Hatch of Utah. People there were furious that Utah was bypassed for the
national championship despite going undefeated in the regular season.
The subcommittee's statement said Hatch would introduce legislation "to
rectify this situation." No details were offered and Hatch's office declined to
provide any.
In the House, Rep. Joe Barton of Texas, the top Republican on the Energy and
Commerce Committee, has sponsored legislation that would prevent the NCAA from
calling a football game a "national championship" unless the game culminates
from a playoff system.
Only 53% of American adults believe capitalism is
better than socialism.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey
found that 20% disagree and say socialism is better. Twenty-seven percent
(27%) are not sure which is better.
If only 20% of Americans believe socialism is better than capitalism, then why
do we have Medicare, Medicaid, HUD, Department of Education, and the hundreds of
other federal agencies? Why do we have socialized healthcare and socialized
insurance schemes? Why have we treated this economic crisis with socialized
schemes (transferring wealth from one group to another)?
|
4/12/09 (By Anonymous)
Obituary
After a long struggle with illness, Capitalism was finally laid to rest in 2008.
They claimed it was suicide, but some believe it was a particularly greedy
cancer that claimed his life. Regulators operated for hours but could not halt
his ultimate demise. He passed away, almost unnoticed by the public who had
revered him all his life but will be deeply mourned by every hard working
entrepreneur and young Americans everywhere. He is survived by Socialism and
fresh government doctrines bearing his name though certainly not his spirit. In
lieu of flowers, contributions can be accepted at the Bailout Charity,
Washington D.C. or can be sent directly to AIG or an executive or union member
of your choice.
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On the first Friday of Lent, an elderly female parishioner of St. Cecilia
Catholic Church began unwrapping pies at the church. That's when the trouble
started.
A state inspector, there for an annual checkup on the church's kitchen,
spied the desserts. After it was determined that the pies were home-baked,
the inspector decreed they couldn't be sold.
The chairman offers to write a
check, now, with interest. He's been sitting on the cash for months and has
felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate
pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama
team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money
back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened
with "adverse" consequences if its chairman persists. That's politics
talking, not economics.
Andy
Beal, a 56-year-old, poker-playing college dropout, is a one-man toxic-asset
eater--without a shred of government assistance.
A self-described "libertarian
kind of guy," Beal believes the government helped create the credit crisis.
Now he finds it "crazy" that bankers who acted irresponsibly are getting
money and he's not.
Then came a shocker: Amid one of
the most reckless lending sprees in history, regulators focused on the one
bank that refused to play along. Beal's moves confused and worried them, and
so they began to probe him with questions. "What are you doing?" he recalls
them asking. "You're shrinking yet you're raising capital?"
Despite its
aversion to credit then, the bank occasionally had to buy mortgages to meet federal low-income-lending requirements.
The
proposed $131.8 billion budget that lawmakers will vote on increases
spending by 9 percent and includes roughly $7 billion in higher taxes.
“We made the tough choices,” Paterson said. “If the Legislature can maintain
this [spending] discipline over the next few years,..
Raising
spending by 9% in a recession is maintaining 'spending discipline'.
According to
Mayor Bloomberg, 40,000 (5% of the total pop of 730,000)people in New York
pay 50% of the city's taxes.
At least one
of these 40 thousand has
said they are leaving:
RUSH:
Governor Paterson, if this is the case -- if you don't care about the
revenue that you confiscate from me -- then call off your audit dogs,
because I've been audited for 12 straight years by New York State and New
York City! I've been audited 12 straight years. So call off your audit dogs,
if you don't care about the money that you were confiscating from me for
your wards of the state! So a governor -- a governor of a state! -- has
actually told reporters that he's so happy I'm leaving, he would have raised
taxes even sooner if he knew that would have forced me out of New York
State. I'm wondering: Has a governor of any state ever said anything like
that about a private citizen? Are you just as happy with all the other New
Yorkers who are going to leave, Governor Paterson? Because there will be
others.
Governor Paterson, do you know that you have an exodus on your hands from
Long Island, and for a long time you've had an exodus on your hands from
Long Island moving to southern states like North Carolina and Florida
because they're sick and tired of the property taxes, the state taxes, the
city taxes, and all the other taxes? So are you going to be happy that other
taxpayers decide to leave New York, or just me? Just me? What an honor! What
an honor. Folks, is there any other private citizen, any other -- who is not
a criminal; you know, who is an upstanding citizen, a man for the ages. Is
there any other governor who has ever excitedly said, "If I would have known
he was leaving the state, I would have raised taxes sooner," or what have
you? Hubba hubba. You know, I haven't even cracked any David Paterson jokes,
unlike others in the media have.
Elected members
of the United States congress praise a tyrant and dictator that has
destroyed the great nation of Cuba and spread suffering and death to many
other countries in south America and Africa.
On March
31, billionaire Francois-Henri Pinault was trapped in a taxi in Paris for an
hour by staff from his PPR luxury and retail group who were angry about
layoffs. Riot police intervened to free him.
Should we be
optimistic and assume these workers are just bipolar, praising their boss
equally as much when he hired them? French labor law, which makes it difficult to fire and heavily
regulates working conditions, perhaps contributed to this unfortunate mob
mentality.
The next time you considering using an "FDA-approved" medical device
or pharmaceutical, remember this simple truth: In America, the Department of
Health and Human Services will certify a fictitious review company headed by
a dog!
If the GAO can pull this off after running the sting on just 3
companies, imagine how many of the 6,300 IRBs are certifying fraudulent,
dangerous or outright deadly medical devices and pharmaceuticals right now!
What this fiasco really shows is that the medical device oversight
system in America today is a complete joke.
Under existing law it is illegal for a living
donor to be given cash, but the Singapore government has proposed
legislative amendments that would allow financial compensation to kidney
donors.
We applaud the government of
Singapore for taking, what appears to be, steps in the direction of ending
the government caused organ transplant waitlists.
In fact, reducing meat
consumption to the amount eaten by the bottom 20 percent seen in the study
would save 11 percent of men's lives and 16 percent of women's, according to
the study.
"The consumption of red meat
was associated with a modest increase in total mortality," said Rashmi Sinha,
lead author of the study in the March 23 issue of Archives of
Internal Medicine.
The AIG
bonus firestorm is a diversion from real issues , but it puts the ghastly
political classes who make U.S. law on display for what they are: ageing
self-serving demagogues who have spent decades warping the U.S. political
system for their own ends. We see the system up close, law-making that is
riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship.
What makes
the 110 storehouses around the country remarkable is that they are part of a
system run almost entirely by volunteers. They grow the food on Mormon-owned
farms, and package it at the storehouses. Volunteers drive trucks and
deliver the food to distant wards - what Mormons call their sanctuaries - if
recipients live more than 30 miles from a storehouse. As the recession has
deepened, the church says it has seamlessly kept up with demand that
increased 20 percent over the past year. But the intensely private church
declined to say how many people or how much food that represented.
During the Great Depression,
the current concept of storehouses was formally established. The
then-president of the church, Heber J. Grant, said that he had a revelation
from God about the welfare system created by the New Deal.
"Our primary purpose was to
set up, insofar as it might be possible, a system under which the curse
of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and
independence, industry, thrift and self-respect be once more established
amongst our people," Grant said, according to church officials.
China
vehicle sales surged 25 percent in February, the first gain in four months,
after the government cut taxes on some models, helping the country extend
its lead as the world’s largest auto market this year.
The tidy towns and mountain vistas of Switzerland are an unlikely
setting for an oil boom.
Yet a wave of energy companies has in the last few months announced
plans to move to Switzerland -- mainly for its appeal as a low-tax corporate
domicile that looks relatively likely to stay out of reach of Barak Obama's
tax-seeking administration.
In a country with scant crude oil production of its own, the virtual
energy boom has changed the canton or state of Zug, about 30 minutes' drive
from Zurich, beyond all recognition. Its economy was based on farming until
it slashed tax rates to attract commerce after World War Two.
The Chinese and Swiss are giving us lessons in
'stimulus'.
U.S.
financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been
told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners.
They must let shareholders vote on executive pay packages. They must lower
dividends, cancel employee training and morale-boosting exercises, and
withdraw job offers to foreign citizens.
Some
bankers say the conditions have become so onerous that they want to give the
bailout money back.
Other
institutions like Johnson Bank of Racine, Wisconsin, initially expressed
interest in seeking bailout funds but have now changed their minds.
A growing
chorus of industry experts is warning that asking weak banks to carry out
the government's economic and social policies could increase the drain on
the public purse. These experts say that the financial assistance, while
helpful in the short run, could require weak banks to engage in lending
practices that will lose them even more money, and that the government
inevitably will become more heavily involved in dictating how banks do
their business.
Such
commands are echoes of the 1990s, when Fannie and Freddie tried to balance
dueling mandates that required them to both make a profit for their
shareholders and to serve a public mission of increasing homeownership.
The
state is trying to shut down a New York City doctor's ambitious plan to
treat uninsured patients for around $1,000 a year.
Dr.
John Muney offers his patients everything from mammograms to mole removal at
his AMG Medical Group clinics, which operate in all five boroughs.
"I'm
trying to help uninsured people here," he said.
His
patients agree to pay $79 a month for a year in return for unlimited office
visits with a $10 co-pay.
But
his plan landed him in the crosshairs of the state Insurance Department,
which ordered him to drop his fixed-rate plan - which it claims is
equivalent to an insurance policy.
Muney
insists it is not insurance because it doesn't cover anything that he can't
do in his offices, like complicated surgery. He points out his offices do
not operate 24/7 so they can't function like emergency rooms.
"I'm
not doing an insurance business," he said. "I'm just providing my services
at my place during certain hours."
He
says he can afford to charge such a small amount because he doesn't have to
process mountains of paperwork and spend hours on billing.
"If
they leave me alone, I can serve thousands of patients," he said.
The
state believes his plan runs afoul of the law because it promises to cover
unplanned procedures - like treating a sudden ear infection - under a fixed
rate. That's something only a licensed insurance company can do.
"The
law is strict on how insurance is defined," said an Insurance Department
spokesman.
A
possible solution that Muney's lawyer crafted would force patients to pay
more than $10 for unplanned procedures.
They
are waiting to see if the state will accept the compromise. Still, Muney is
unhappy because, he said, "I really don't want to charge more. They're
forcing me."
One
of his patients, Matthew Robinson, 52, was furious to learn the state was
interfering with the plan.
"The
whole point is, he [Muney] found a way of paying his rent, paying his
workers, and getting to see patients for the price," said Robinson.
"How
can the state dictate you've got to charge more?"
Supporters say flat-fee plans
let doctors strip away insurance company costs and red tape to make everyday
medicine more accessible and less hectic. Critics fear they siphon
much-needed primary care doctors from insurance networks and raise questions
about equity - especially models that promise to make doctors more available
to the fee-paying patients. The American Medical Association ays retainer
practices raise ethical concerns but also expand health care options.
This story is of great interest
because it illustrates how and why government regulations are driving up the
price of health insurance and hurting the poorest of the poor. Of course, we
might question why it would even be an issue for a doctor(s) to offer
'health insurance' in this way? It might be a great business model and lower
costs and increase access to care.
The problem is that health
insurance is a misnomer, it is not insurance, it is a social safety net, a
socialist scheme of sorts, in which wealth is forcibly transferred from one
segment of the population to another. The social planners in each state
constructing the complex insurance regulations are influenced by an unholy
alliance of subconscious altruistic egoism, and special interest advocacy,
such as the the trial bar, preexisting insurance companies, and the various
subspecialty medical lobbies.
Which raises a final point. The
AMA is not quite sure how to react to this, for a variety of reasons, but
they are certainly not overly supportive. We should not forget that
physician lobbying groups often represent a considerable hindrance as we
pursue a stateless healthcare system, ironic, as doctors and their patients
both have the most to gain, in my opinion.
liberty-page.com An excellent
compilation of news stories detailing the failings of socialized medicine in
other countries, even more extensive than
exists on this site.
Two interesting graphs, bear in
mind Switzerland has the next freest healthcare system in the world besides
our own:
Perhaps this is a reason why the
United States leads the world in cancer survival:
Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion
budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in
our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held
by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents -- from
George Washington to George W. Bush -- combined. It reduces defense spending
to a level not sustained since the dangerous days before World War II, while
increasing nondefense spending (relative to GDP) to the highest level in
U.S. history. And it would raise taxes to historically high levels (again,
relative to GDP).
Chávez said that "were it not for the attacks, the lies, manipulation and
exaggeration of the mistakes of the government" by the private media, the
popularity of his government would be 80 percent instead of 60 percent or 70
percent, as he claims to have.
White rice, the staple for many Venezuelans, can now
only be sold at a price of 2.15 bolivares (.07p) per
kilo. Private companies insist that production of that
kilo costs 4.41 bolivares (.14p) and that government
regulations are impossible to fulfil and companies will
quickly go broke. Companies that are dedicated to rice
production must ensure that 80 per cent of their efforts
are dedicated to white rice. The new regulations set
production percentages, as companies were rebranding
their products to avoid the government controls, like
flavouring the rice, as the price restrictions apply
only to white rice.
"Forcing companies to produce rice at a loss will
not resolve the situation, simply make it worse," said
Luis Carmona of Polar, a rice company that has been
singled out by the government for trying to sidestep
restrictions.
There is little question that rice will soon be in short supply in
Venezuela. However, the question is, why don't we apply learned lessons from
Venezuela's rice experiment to Health Care in this country?
Why does Medicare
set prices which have no relation to supply, demand, or value to the
consumer?
WASHINGTON (Feb. 24, 2009) — Eight days after a chimpanzee kept as a pet
attacked and critically injured a Connecticut woman, the U.S. House of
Representatives passed the Captive Primate Safety Act, H.R. 80, introduced
by U.S. Reps. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore., and Mark Kirk, R-Ill., to stop
interstate commerce in primates as pets. The bill passed by a vote of 323 to
95. The bill now moves for consideration to the U.S. Senate, where the
effort to pass the legislation is being led by U.S. Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif.,
and David Vitter, R-La.
Reminiscent of the Terri Shaivo case, our elected representatives focus on
the important stuff.
The FDA has effectively banned a naturally-occurring form of vi3tamin
B6 called pyridoxamine by declaring it to be a drug, reports the American
Association for Health Freedom. Responding to a petition filed by a drug
company, the FDA declared pyridoxamine to be "a new drug."
Now, any nutritional supplements containing pyridoxamine will be
considered adulterated and illegal by the FDA, which may raid vitamin
companies and seize such products. See the history of FDA raids on vitamin
companies here: http://www.naturalnews.com/021791.html
Pyridoxamine occurs naturally in fish, chicken and other foods
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_B6), putting the FDA in the strange
position of banning a substance from dietary supplements even though it is
already present in the food supply.
(Added to 'FDA Tyranny')
Rush delivers some red meat to
the CPAC delegates. However, underneath some of the rhetoric is a stirring speech
on the principles of liberty and freedom:
Fitch estimates that the U.S. tech industry is carrying a cash balance of
around $260 billion, one of the largest among all sectors. However, around
$100 billion of that money is overseas, Fitch says, meaning it cannot be
used in the United States for acquisitions or share buybacks without
being repatriated and incurring a tax hit.
Why not get rid of this tax hit for some added 'stimulus', instead of the
worthless billions pledged impoverishing our citizens (welfare), thrown down
the never ending toilet of public education funding, destroying the
viability of our private banking sector, or the hundreds of other democrat
pet pork projects in the current passed stimulus bill.
What is going to bring up the depressed real estate market, stock market,
and hence bring the recession to a gradual end is going to be when prices
sink low enough where bargains are purchased by those with cash, these tech
companies and especially foreign investors.
Reminiscent of Mao's 'Cultural Revolution', or the 'Black Book of
Communism's' documentation of the Soviet Unions use of public schools to
develop familial informants. Only less so.
The United States plans to offer more than $900 million to help rebuild
Gaza after Israel's invasion and to strengthen the Western-backed
Palestinian Authority, U.S. officials said on Monday.
The money, which needs U.S. congressional approval, will be
distributed through U.N. and other bodies and not via the
militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, said one official.
In my opinion, another example of the state department playing chess,
prolonging the socialism and corruption present in the PA and perpetuating
the suffering of the Palestinian people and likely resulting in even further
conflict with Israel. Plus, besides all this harm, what about the billion
dollars being spent from American taxpayers in the midst of a recession?
The company also declined to answer questions about reports that the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission was examining Apple's conduct in
disclosing Jobs' health problems, which will keep the widely respected
executive sidelined till at least June.
Why is the health of Steve Jobs, a private citizen, the business of the SEC?
Rush delivers a hilarious, yet poignant monologue. My only regret is that
NPR is not mentioned, now that is where the big (taxpayer) money is in
radio!:
CLINTON: We either ought to have the Fairness Doctrine or we ought to have
more balance on the other side, because essentially there's always been a
lot of big money to support the right-wing talk shows, and let's face it,
you know, Rush Limbaugh is fairly entertaining, even when he's saying things
that I think are ridiculous. I never minded having somebody be heard who
disagreed with me. But if you only have one side like this blatant drumbeat
against the stimulus program, this doesn't reflect the economic reality
we're facing.
RUSH: All right, now, this is not accidental. This appears to be
coincidental. Go on a leftist host show and here comes the question do we
need some type of enforced media accountability. Has this nerd never heard
of the First Amendment? That's constitutionally not permitted! Enforced
media accountability is not permitted by the US Constitution. But it's not
just coincidental that Clinton shows up and has this question asked, and has
this answer. Here's a former president now in favor of the Fairness
Doctrine. We've had members of Congress, from Dick Durbin, to Tom Harkin,
Maurice Hinchey, they're getting ready to do something. They won't call it
Fairness Doctrine, they'll go at it in a much more stealth way, but they're
only going to go after a certain element of media, and that's conservatives
on talk radio.
RUSH: One more thing. Bill Clinton knows this. "All the big money's in
talk radio." What big money? Where does this money come from? All the
money in talk radio comes... Do you know where the money in talk radio comes
from, Snerdley? Where does...? (interruption) Well, wait a second, wait a
second, wait a second. Well, you're getting closer as you keep taking these
wild guesses. I asked Snerdley, "Where does all this big money in talk
radio come from, in any radio?" He said, "From advertisers, from big
business, from commerce." Yeah. Where does that come from? Where does
that money come from? From the audience, exactly right, the people that
buy.
Mr. President, the big money in radio or the big money in Super Bowl or the
big money in American Idol or wherever you want to go that there's big
money, in the private sector, the big money comes from our audiences. The
big money comes from listeners. Without them there wouldn't be any money.
We don't run around fundraising. We don't run around asking for donations.
Listeners! Loyal, lovable, totally appreciated listeners who purchase
products and services advertised on radio. There is no "big money." There's
no George Soros here as there is in Air America. There's no party behind
talk radio, as with Air America and the Democrat Party. There's no big
money here at all. There's certainly not any big money like you got, Mr.
President, from the ChiComs and your illegal campaign donations. We in talk
radio don't engage in crooked real estate deals.
We didn't bring in people to our studios for coffee and shake 'em down,
promising not to criticize them on the radio if they will just pay us off.
We don't bring in interns here and start using cigars in nefarious ways. We
don't have massage parties here in our broadcast studios. Well, I can't
speak for some of the long-haired, maggot-infested FM types and what they're
doing in their studios. (laughing) But I haven't had one visit from a ChiCom
advertiser. I haven't had a guy that owns a Chinese restaurant in Little
Rock walk in to some office with $200 million in unsigned money orders for
me for big money. I haven't people from Dubai, from the United Arab
Emirates, from Saudi Arabia pay me 150 to $400,000 for a speech ripping my
own country while I'm in theirs! I don't do things like this, Mr.
President. My money, our money comes (just as government's does) from the
American people -- and our money is puny compared to yours. Clinton Global
Initiative? We don't have anything like that. What big money, Mr.
President?
But, as The Post's Charles Hurt has reported, slipped into the
stimulus bill is a provision establishing a new $3 billion emergency fund to
help states pay for added welfare recipients, with the federal government
footing 80 percent of the cost for the new "clients."
Plus, the bill would reward states for increasing caseloads, even if
the growth came because the state had loosened its requirements for
recipients to work.
This is radical change. States that succeed in getting people off
welfare would lose the opportunity for increased federal funding. And states
that make it easier to stay on welfare (by, say, raising the time limit from
two years to five) would get rewarded with more taxpayer cash. The bill
would even let states with rising welfare rolls still collect their
"case-load reduction" bonuses.
In short, the measure will erode all the barriers to long-term welfare
dependency that were at the heart of the 1996 reform.
By some estimates, the stimulus bill contains roughly $250 billion in
welfare spending, another $6,700 for every poor man woman and child in this
country, along with the erosion of the 1996 reforms. It can be counted on to
"stimulate" the loss of another generation to welfare dependency.
As a state senator, Barack Obama opposed the 1996 welfare reform. As a
candidate for president, he praised its results. Where does he stand now?
Does he really want to return to welfare as we knew it before 1996 and put
millions more Americans on the public dole?
This 'Welfare' Provision is probably the worst
aspect of this 'stimulus' bill and will probably, IMO, end up hurting the
poorest of the poor Americans for decades to come.
Another article.
Law enforcement authorities in this East Texas town of
1,000 people seized property from at least 140 motorists between 2006 and
2008, and, to date, filed criminal charges against fewer than half,
according to a San Antonio Express-News review of court documents.
Virtually anything of value was up for grabs: cash, cell
phones, personal jewelry, a pair of sneakers, and often, the very car that
was being driven through town. Some affidavits filed by officers relied on
the presence of seemingly innocuous property as the only evidence that a
crime had occurred.
Linda Dorman, a great-grandmother from Akron, Ohio, had
$4,000 in cash taken from her by local authorities when she was stopped
while driving through town after visiting Houston in April 2007. Court
records make no mention that anything illegal was found in her van and show
no criminal charges filed in the case. She is still waiting for the return
of what she calls “her life savings.”
Dorman’s attorney, David Guillory, calls the roadside stops
and seizures in Tenaha “highway piracy,” undertaken by a couple of law
enforcement officers whose agencies get to keep most of what is seized.
<.>
Tenaha Mayor George Bowers, 80, defended the seizures, saying they allowed a cash-poor city the means to add a second police car in a two-policeman town and help pay for a new police station. “It’s always helpful to have any kind of income to expand your police force,” Bowers said.
“A problem that was created by building up of too much
debt will not be solved with yet more debt,” Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday,
making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance
the federal stimulus package.
<.>
The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is
“what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where
it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your
political connection is to those in power.”
A decade ago U.S. government spending was 34.3 percent
of GDP, compared with 48.2 percent in the euro zone—a roughly 14-point gap,
according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. In
2010 U.S. spending is expected to be 39.9 percent of GDP, compared with 47.1
percent in the euro zone—a gap of less than 8 points. As entitlement
spending rises over the next decade, we will become even more French.
The $9.7 trillion in pledges would be enough to send a
$1,430 check to every man, woman and child alive in the world. It’s 13 times
what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to
Congressional Budget Office data, and is almost enough to pay off every
home mortgage loan in the U.S., calculated at $10.5 trillion by the Federal
Reserve.
The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which goes into effect Feb.
10, is meant to protect children from lead-laden products. But when the U.S.
Consumer Product Safety Commission gave libraries two options, get rid of
all your children’s books or ban anyone under 12 from entering the library,
librarians across the country waited for the punch line. But it never came.
“I was speechless,” said Mary Beth Revels, director of the St. Joseph
Public Library. “To know it wasn’t a joke and those were our choices.”
<.>
But local motorcycle shops that sell kid bikes aren’t so lucky. They
will not be allowed to sell motorcycles to children as of Feb. 10.
Motorcycles contain lead parts on the batteries and various other
areas of the engine.
“It’s so stupid,” said Mike McBride, owner of McBride’s Yamaha on the
Belt Highway. “You’d have to suck on an engine case for hours a day to get
any lead out of it.”
This morning, radio host Bill Press brought up the recent closing of
liberal station Obama 1260 when speaking with Michigan Sen. Debbie Stabenow,
and talked about whether there needs to be a balance to right-wing talk on
the radio dial.
BILL PRESS: Yeah, I mean, look: They have a right to say that. They’ve got a
right to express that. But, they should not be the only voices heard. So, is
it time to bring back the Fairness Doctrine?
SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I think it’s absolutely time to pass a
standard. Now, whether it’s called the Fairness Standard, whether it’s
called something else — I absolutely think it’s time to be bringing
accountability to the airwaves. I mean, our new president has talked rightly
about accountability and transparency. You know, that we all have to step up
and be responsible. And, I think in this case, there needs to be some
accountability and standards put in place.
BILL PRESS: Can we count on you to push for some hearings in the United
States Senate this year, to bring these owners in and hold them accountable?
SENATOR DEBBIE STABENOW (D-MI): I have already had some discussions with
colleagues and, you know, I feel like that’s gonna happen. Yep.
Although Obama has been publicly opposed to reinstating the fairness
doctrine, conservative radio has talked nonstop about the fear of it
returning (or perhaps something like it with another name) while there's a
Democrat in the White House and a Democratic majority in Congress.
UPDATE: A commenter points out that Stabenow is married to Tom Athans, a
liberal talk radio executive.
It appears to me that some Democrats in the house and senate remain
interested in pursuing blatant violations of freedom of speech and trampling
the basic human right of free expression.
|
Posted
2/5/09 (By Travis)
One question I would like to ask: where would the capital that is being
sucked up by the massive issuances of government debt be, if it wasn't in
the government debt? In other words, isn't all this government debt
financing sucking
money out of the private sector, drying up much needed capital, and further
depressing the stock market? Anyone looked at any numbers on this?
This follows on the recent post
'Beginning
Meditation'. These subtitles are more categorical then substantive, as
it is not really useful to think of meditation/prayer and
spiritual/religious practices as having benchmarks or labeling oneself as a
'beginner' or 'advanced' in any comparative sort of way. We just do the best
we can at all times and are always are right where we are. First timers are free to try these so-called
'intermediate' exercises too and regular practitioners might find the
beginning ones more useful. The best bet is to try a number of techniques
and stick with what you like, or, perhaps even better, create and improvise
on your own.
I gratefully acknowledge the
teachers, friends, and authors who have taught me many of these techniques.
We start by assuming we are
where we left off in 'Beginning
Meditation'; we have been sitting for about 5-10-15 minutes and have
completely relaxed our body, breath, and mind. If you do not feel relaxed
enough or 'deep enough', you can try 'autosuggestion'/self hypnosis, and
repeat in your mind, "I am feeling very relaxed and calm", "my body is
relaxed", "my mind is clear", "my breath is easy".
Others have said it can
be useful to visualize a relaxing place or a scene.
Once relaxed, now we are ready
to begin any number of exercises. Stick with one for as long as you like or
try several during a single meditation; combinations can be especially
effective. It is possible to jump into these quicker
with practice and if you find the beginning 'warm-up' too boring you can
start strait here. When doing these exercises the mind will stray many, many
times, just gently chide it, sort of laugh at it, and guide it back.
1) Focus on God
In this exercise, one focuses on
God for the entire remainder of the meditation/prayer. Ones
conception of God is, of course,
entirely subjective. The name itself is even irrelevant, you can use
whatever word you like such as 'emptiness', 'OMM', 'goodness' depending on
your background. It is worth attempting this exercise even if one is an
atheist, polytheist, or another religious tradition because we are not
attempting to prove or acknowledge the existence of God with this exercise,
but to stimulate the neural pathways which combine thoughts of peace, love,
omniscience, interconnectedness, and consciousness. For many people God is
the
'common denominator' which allows simultaneous activation of these multiple
pathways producing the desired effect. If God intrinsically contains
negative connotations then picking another symbol (such as joy) or trying a
different exercise is recommended. The idea is to clear ones mind of
everything besides God and experience just thoughts of Him for as long as
preferred. Sometimes it might be difficult or overwhelming to focus on God
in aggregate, and so feel free to sort of 'break God down' (a strange
concept!) into parts or aspects and focus on these separately before trying
to combine them again.
2) Focus on subtle vibrations of
your body/mind/energy
Try to focus on your whole body
at once, or parts and traverse from gross feeling to subtle, feeling the
smallest broadest nature of what makes up your solid body, even to the point
of using ones imagination to feel cells and individual molecules and atoms vibrating.
It may not be possible to feel cells or individual molecules vibrating, but
to attempt to do so may be
the best way to attain the desired effect of the exercise. Trying to feel
subtle energies or vibrations within the body can be a powerful meditation,
especially when combining this exercise number 1.
3) Focus on your consciousness
Some might consider this an
aspect of God, but in this exercise try to focus on what awareness itself
feels like. In other words, we are sort of presupposing there is an
underlying commonality in all awareness, regardless of what particular
thought or emotion the awareness happens to be directed at.
4) Observe the mind
IMHO, this is one of the best
exercises. You take the role of a third party observer and simply watch your
thoughts and mind. Pretend you don't know what you will experience or think
of next, be surprised! This self monitoring of the mind increases awareness,
allowing you to view yourself as a more objective third party observer. It
also decreases attachment.
5) Observe the thoughts/feelings in
the
mind as they come from God
This is the same as number 4,
except we presume everything we are observing comes from God. Our observed thoughts,
feelings, and experiences, are 'holy', containing message, meaning, and
experiential value, stemming directly from the
almighty.
6) The observer is God
Taking numbers 4 and 5 one step
further, we observe our mind, but we feel that 'we' or 'I', or 'it', the
observer, IS/ARE God.
7) Surrender to God
A powerful emotional exercise;
here we set all sense of self, pride, self worth, and judgments aside, and
mentally throw
ourselves at the feet of God, pledging our lives in service to God,
renouncing all possessions, relationships, self love and attachments in
favor of total God devotion. Not my will, but thy will. This is the path of Bhakti Yoga, yoga of devotion, perhaps the strongest path in Yoga.
8) Focus on subtle movements in your body
This is best done supine, spread eagle on the ground, the body and mind must be
relaxed multiple times (sometimes tensing each part before relaxing is
helpful) and the mind must be very quiet. Sometimes holding ones breath is
necessary. Occasionally small motion can be felt especially in
the feet perhaps because the distance from the center of gravity may act as
a lever. This may be related to the Cranial-Sacral rhythm, primary
respiration mechanism described in the Osteopathic literature, or fluid
movement in the body related to either cerebral spinal fluid motion or blood
flow from the arterial pulsations, or some other mechanism.
9) Focus on an area between and slightly superior to the two eyes on the
forehead, or the heart/center
of the sternum. These are called prominent 'chakras' in yogi philosophy,
which appear to match anatomically with nervous plexuses. It is sometimes taught
to focus on the 'third eye' if you are an intellectual person and the heart
if you are an emotional person. Trying to block out everything
except the feeling in one of these 2 areas is a good meditative exercise
regardless.
10) Focus on the area about an inch off the skin, or just off the skin
simultaneously, in areas of the body, such as the bilateral forearms, then
encompassing the whole body. Around
the skull is probably the best place to start, or the spinal cord. Try to
subtract the normal sense of feeling from your body and observe what is
left. Eastern philosophy calls this the 'energy body. It may appear somewhat
bizarre to try to feel something outside your body, as by
definition your nerves only run to your skin. However, regardless, this
meditation can have good affect.
Which brings us to the conclusion, these exercises can be done regardless of
whether one believes in them. In other words, even if one does not believe
in God, attempt the exercises with God as a focus. The same with 'feeling
cellular or molecular vibration' and 'feeling areas outside the skin'. All of this is not done
for accuracy, but to activate certain areas of the brain. Do not feel one is
being 'blasphemous', for example, by meditating that you are God observing
your thoughts, or that your observed thoughts are stemming from God. These
exercises are designed to increase higher thought processes, and give us
separation from our normal sense of self and emotional entrapment. It
appears existential types of thought activates neural areas and predisposed
mindsets which facilitate positive
progression and revelation.
As always, immediately after or even during meditation/prayer, monitor the
effects of the exercises on your mind, thoughts, and emotions. Continue this
throughout the day and observe changes in sleep patterns. This feedback is
important because it increases motivation to continue these practices!
Timothy Geithner [nominated for Treasury Secretary] admitted making
“careless mistakes” not paying Social Security taxes 4 out of the past 8
years while working for the International Monetary Fund (IMF), an
international employer that does not pay Social Security taxes.
How much? Geithner paid $34,023 in back taxes and $8,679
in interest.
No doubt, the US tax code is a bit confusing. The
latest figures I can find indicate the total number of pages
of federal tax rules rose to 54,846 in 2003. In 1913 we had
400 pages. I’m guessing no one has ever actually read all
the rules.
These two stories, from supposed leaders of our government, remind me of
these two quotes:
The income tax created more criminals than any other single act of
government.
Barry Goldwater
There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has
is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough
criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it
becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation
of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the
kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively
interpreted and you create a nation of law-breakers-and then you cash in on
the guilt.
-Ayn Rand
"Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is
it's an opportunity to do things you couldn't do before."
So said White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel in November, and
Democrats in Congress are certainly taking his advice to heart. The
647-page, $825 billion House legislation is being sold as an economic
"stimulus," but now that Democrats have finally released the details we
understand Rahm's point much better. This is a political wonder that manages
to spend money on just about every pent-up Democratic proposal of the last
40 years.
We've looked it over, and even we can't quite believe it. There's $1
billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn't turned a profit in 40
years; $2 billion for child-care subsidies; $50 million for that great
engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts; $400 million
for global-warming research and another $2.4 billion for carbon-capture
demonstration projects. There's even $650 million on top of the billions
already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons.
There was $29 billion for Bear Stearns, $345 billion for
Citigroup. The Federal Reserve put up $600 billion to guarantee
money market deposits and has aggressively driven down interest
rates to essentially zero.
The list goes on and on. All
told, Congress, the Treasury Department, the Federal Reserve and
other agencies have taken dozens of steps to prop up the
economy.
Total price tag so far: $7.2 trillion in investment and
loans. That puts a lot of taxpayer money at risk. Now comes
President-elect Barack Obama's economic stimulus plan, some
details of which were made public on Monday. The tally is
getting awfully close to $8 trillion.
Schools, universities and child care centers would receive $150 billion
in new spending in the stimulus package scheduled for a vote in Congress.
The flood of spending continues. Everyone is getting bailed out; everyone is
getting a piece of the pie. And by 'everyone' I mean special interests.
Banks, mutual funds, CEOs and top executives, schools and universities, roads, bridges, construction
companies, auto companies, unions, teachers unions. Everything and everybody
is 'too big to fail'.
The result is the unprecedented takeover and injection into large sections
of the economy by the Federal government.
Or we could move in a different direction.
So, assuming that we need to do 'something', admittedly a pretty big
assumption, what should we do? Taking the positives from Rush Limbaugh's
tongue in cheek
plan gives us Rep. Paul Broun's
plan:
Under Broun’s plan, every legal resident who filed a tax return in 2008
would receive a check for $8,895.75.
But Broun is calculating this using only one (the next) of these
never-ending 'stimulus' bills. How much would each taxpayer get if we considered all spending,
all stimulus bills combined?
130.6 million people filed tax returns in 2003. Government will have spent
upwards of $8 trillion dollars bailing out all these folks and spreading all
this money around.
Dividing the two together gives us: $61,000 per income tax filer! Many
families have multiple income tax filers so to put it mildly this would be
quite a bit of stimulus, on average worth about two years salary, and
nearly half the price of an average home!
People could spend this paying off their mortgages, sending their kids to
school, or whatever they saw fit. The market would distribute this money in
an equitable way, leaving out the politician middle men, leaving out the
destruction of the banking system, auto industry, and education industry,
and the many other industries that are being taken over, nationalized,
regulated, and the multiple other forms of mischief being foisted upon the
American economy by Republican and Democrats alike.
Meditation/prayer, offers great
opportunity to calm the mind, increase happiness, knowledge and wisdom, and
become successful, with success being self defined. In fact, without regular
practice of this in some form or another it is likely that extensive
spiritual/religious advancement and the above benefits in plenty may be
unattainable. A scientific examination and literature review of the benefits
of meditation will (hopefully) be forth coming in the near future. However,
if one accepts the benefits of prayer/meditation or at least is willing to
give it a shot, how does one start?
First, the position. Any
position where one is comfortable and able to focus will do. Any standard position of prayer, if one is coming from a
particular religious background is fine. The classic position is to sit on
a pillow cross
legged, hands can be folded in ones lap, draped
over respective knees or one can place them in the 'chin mudra' position on
the knees with palms facing up and thumb and index fingers touching.
One can lay down, supine, sort
of spread eagle on the ground, but be wary of a wandering mind, plus falling
asleep! A spread eagle supine position is probably best as a fallback pose
after body discomforts mount after a long sitting meditation.
The first step is to close the
eyes and focus on the breath and general relaxation of the body and mind.
Breathing should be through the nose with deep slow abdominal breaths. Spend
a minute or so just focusing on the breath.
My personal preference is to begin
meditation by total body relaxation through segments. In this method you
start with one of your toes and feel and relax each toe, moving to the foot,
feeling different parts of the foot and relaxing it, then relaxing the whole
foot. Moving onto the leg in the same way and then the other foot and leg.
Then feel and relax both lower extremities. Do the same for all parts of the
body, with special intention to internal organs. The face is the hardest to
relax, pay special attention to the eyes. Besides the general relaxation
benefit, you are also igniting normally dormant neural pathways, which if
activated over time can result in increased general perception of ones body
even when one is not meditating.
After all parts of the body have
been relaxed, try to relax the brain itself, the skull, the blood vessels in
your brain, and finally your mind, so that one is completely calm and
relaxed, both physically and mentally. Complete this process at your own
speed, but generally this 'warm-up', if you will, should take between 5-10
minutes. You can spend another minute or two just working on relaxing the
mind and then return and spend a few minutes focusing on the breath, so
that the entire awareness consists of nothing but soft and gentle
breathing. Sometimes focusing on the tip of the nose, as the air goes in
and out can be beneficial. And then you are done! Spend another minute
slowly coming out of the meditation, wiggling the extremities etc..
Another exercise worth trying is
to clear the mind of all thoughts entirely, even of the breath, or even of
thoughts of relaxation. Thinking 'of nothing' is quite
hard to do, with success measured in the seconds. This is indicative of the
control the lower thought processes have over us and how little free will we
actually have. With practice it is possible to think 'of nothing' for
longer.
It is important to monitor how
one feels immediately after a meditation. You should feel relaxed, clear
headed,
less anxious, and more motivated. If you are able to meditate like
this once in the morning right after getting up and once in the evening
before bed, for an entire week, you might notice significant
differences in your everyday experiences at work, personnel life, and even
sleep patterns. It
is probably advisable to start slow, without excess ambition, try to
meditate like this for a week to give it a fair shot, and then you can
decide if it's worth doing regularly or deepening your practice.
This beginners guide is just a
recommendation. Any beginner can skip this and start with the more advanced
(forthcoming) meditative exercises instead.
For the three-quarters of a million people with a neurological condition,
however, waiting 18 months to see a consultant and 10 months to have an MRI
scan in order to secure a diagnosis is now the norm."
Petróleos de Venezuela has faced its own difficulties. It claimed it
produced about 3.3 million barrels a day throughout most of 2008. But other
sources like OPEC, of which Venezuela is a member, place the figure closer
to 2.3 million and show a fall of about 100,000 barrels a day from a year
earlier. When Chávez rose to power a decade ago, Venezuela was producing
about 3.4 million barrels a day.
In recent years, Chávez has preferred partnerships with national oil
companies from countries like Iran, China and Belarus. But these ventures
failed to reverse Venezuela's declining oil output. State-controlled oil
companies from other nations have also been invited to bid this time, but
the large private companies are seen as having an advantage, given their
expertise in building complex projects in Venezuela and elsewhere in
years past.
"Chávez is celebrating the demise of capitalism as this international
crisis unfolds," said Pedro Mario Burelli, a former board member of
Petróleos de Venezuela. "But the irony is that capitalism actually fed his
system in times of plenty," he said. "That is something Chávez will discover
the hard way."
Hong Kong has been named the world's
freest economy for the 15th year in a row,
according to an annual report released Tuesday
by the conservative
Heritage Foundation and the
Wall Street Journal that warns against
government intervention amid the
global economic crisis.
The
Chinese territory, known for its low taxes and
looser regulations, was followed by Singapore,
Australia,
Ireland and
New Zealand, according to this year's
Index of Economic Freedom.
European countries again accounted for
half of the top 20 economies considered free or
mostly free, with
Switzerland at No. 9 and the U.K. at No.
10.
However, the U.S. slid one notch to sixth
place, dinged for increased
government spending and
tax revenue as a percentage of gross
domestic product, one of the survey's authors
said.
"There is no escaping the fact that the freer the economy the more it
flourishes," he said.
America's state and local governments have a new proposal for the Obama stimulus plan: Slip in an Internet sales tax. The National Conference of State Legislatures estimates that states could wring another $30 billion out of consumers if Washington will allow them to force out-of-state Web merchants to collect sales taxes.
Employees at the Regal Brandywine Cinemas say the vice president-elect
and his wife, Jill, tried to attend the 7:45 showing of "The Curious Case of
Benjamin Button" at the theater on Concord Pike but left after they were
told the movie was sold out.
Remarkably, none of the other moviegoers appeared to
notice. Employees said nobody mobbed Biden or called his name or asked for
an autograph.
"It didn't seem many people recognized him," said
employee Becky Gingrich, 21. "Honestly, I think people were just too wrapped
up in themselves to notice."
A hidden message about equality in the USA. As long as we keep our political
leaders subservient, unimportant, and unnoticeable, we will be relatively
well off. This story reminds me of this previously posted story:
I recently had opportunity to listen to The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne on audio CD and
thought it was excellent. It approaches the path to
enlightenment/happiness/success, whatever one wants to call it, in the genre of self help,
with some emphasis on financial success, mixed with liberal
doses of
eastern philosophy, but using western syntax, with almost historical perspective.
Certainly this unique format facilitates passage of valuable truth to those
who otherwise might not receive it.
The general theme is that our thoughts make up who we are, what we attract
to us, and therefore what will
transpire in the future. By changing our thoughts, a very possible
phenomena, we can change our future, change who we are, and increase our
happiness.
If we worry about something excessively, we are increasing the likelihood
that this bad event will transpire, by its constant addition to our thoughts. But the reverse is also true; if we
don't worry about a future event at all, if we believe a positive outcome
has already
transpired, if we act as if we have already achieved a goal, then we shall
no doubt achieve it.
Like attracts like is another premise; negative thoughts attract
negative outcomes, doubt attracts failure, jealousy attracts insecurity,
while desires, addictions, and vices attract unhappiness. Indeed, the mind
is so interconnected, the neural pathways crisscross and interconnect on
such a dizzying level, that one can see how this would be true. In fact,
this paradigm is merely expressing in a different way the eastern law of
Karma.
But again, the reverse must also true. Positive thoughts attract positive
outcomes. Humility results in exultation, love of others produces reciprocal
love, putting oneself last often results in triumphant personal
success and happiness.
These sorts of patterns can even be seen in the medical field, although one
has to be careful how one expresses perception. Although there are
many cases of strength, perseverance, and positive motivations in patients, it is also likely that
many patients in the hospitals and clinics were predisposed to their health problems
by their unhealthy lifestyles, stemming from unhealthy mental states,
stemming from unhealthy thoughts.
An ER attending once told me that many of the people in the ER or trauma
rooms for shootings, stabbings, and fights received their just rewards, as
their injuries were often caused by self defense of their victims or revenge
for abhorrent transgressions; he even went so far as to suggest women in
after being battered by their significant others had a great
deal of responsibility for their situations. "They are not angels," he
offered.
You can see how this sort of worldview can be perceived as insensitive and
callous. Indeed, this brusqueness transpires even at Yoga Ashrams, where
adverse events causing an individual great pain are brushed off by others
without empathy as Karma, in
the vein of, "you deserved it."
This sort of cynicism is rooted in the reality of 'like attracts alike' and
'thoughts create our world and future', but should not result in diminished
compassion for people suffering as a result of these laws, but rather an
increase in our efforts to help them understand the root causes of their
situations and how they can break adverse cyclic patterns in their lives.
In fact, sufferings and undesirable events
we personally experience are ideally viewed as joyous reminders of improvements we need to
make in our own lives.
There were some chapters diverted to focus on financial wealth. A delicate
digression because financial wealth is certainly subservient to
overall happiness and well being, although the latter can also indirectly
predispose to the former, a phenomena The Secret seizes on. After all, there is no shortage of
miserable wealthy people. Neurosurgeons, for example, amongst the wealthiest
of doctors, in terms of financial earnings, have the highest divorce rate in
the medical profession. The point is that positive thoughts: visualizing,
asking, believing, can result in increased personal success and happiness,
and indirectly, financial plenty. Many, although of course not all, people
who have achieved great financial success are good people, kind and generous
souls, who have achieved a measure of control over their thoughts and
attracted their success (including in their particular cases some
combination of wealth creation, job creation, and technological
advancement/discovery) by their love of others, emotional control, and
strength of their higher mind. People of great wealth
often give large sums back to their communities and to charitable projects.
Is it not true, the more that is given the more that is received? These
folks are practicing the lifestyle they likely had before they became
wealthy: the lifestyle, and I am speaking of mental lifestyle, which created
their wealth for them in the first place.
Happiness is created, it is not taken from anyone, there is not a set amount
of happiness and suffering in the aggregate human spirit, and neither is
their a fixed amount of financial wealth in the pie. Wealth can be
created,
literally out of thin air, by anyone.
Industry, thrift and self-control are not sought because they create wealth, but because they
create character.
- Calvin Coolidge
Like any good work, there are subjective criticisms worthy of
mention. The emphasis on material wealth, if not viewed in the context of
more general happiness and success could be a turn off. Certainly a
penniless hermit can be more 'successful' and happier than the richest
businessmen, and wealth should rarely be a primary focus, but a thoughtless
possible byproduct of self improvement. And, as mentioned,
it is also important not turn the realities of natural law into judgment
against others. Just because someone has applied these methods of changing
and monitoring thoughts and other practices leading to a successful and
happy life does not make him or her better than anyone else. After
all, it is still unclear to what extent our own volition can drive this
positive change.
The author tells a compelling story about a young woman who believes she is
ready for a relationship, thinks about this future reality, prays for it,
accepts it as fact, but does not meet her life partner until she really
begins to believe it; parking her car on one side of the garage, and moving
her clothes to one side of the closet. If not explained with proper context
these actions can seem reckless, a feckless gamble. For example, should one
not wear a seatbelt because the mere inherent thought or action invites a
wreck? Similarly, monetary charity cannot be driven by desperate want
for material value. It must be given with the intention of receiving nothing
in return, as part of a habit rather than a one time event, only then,
paradoxically, might one be rewarded.
This leads us to, perhaps, my strongest criticism of The Secret, which is
the indirect emphasis on the specific nature of requests. For example,
praying for a certain amount of money or meditating on the success of ones
business, even attempting to align oneself with the 'energies' of a certain
residency or graduate position. :) While such practices can be beneficial, they
skirt dangerously around predisposition of subconscious arrogance, resulting
in the superimposition of one's
own will over God's; despite The Secret's admission that the 'how', how the the
fulfillment of short term goals comes to pass, is best left to the universe itself.
It appears self evident that we are often mistaken about our own role in
this interconnecting computing human matrix. We allow our short term
personal likes and dislikes and desires to shape our intentions and
aspirations for the future; reminiscent of the country song 'thank God for
unanswered prayers'. Surrender to a more objective decisions maker, which
can be called God's Will, chance, energy, good, etc... would be a better
option. I don't think short term prayer, energy alignment, and thought
synchronization are ill-advised, but just that they should be coupled with more
objective, general, and long term intention and surrender.
A last point, which is brought up more as a discussion than a criticism, is
the mechanism by which synchronizations and 'like attract like' thoughts and
benefits occur. The more 'scientific' mechanisms were discussed in 'Good
Karma, Bad Karma', yet it appears Byrne subscribes to neither of these,
although I doubt she would argue their existence and effect. She seems to
implicate a more existential spiritual mechanism. What the 'Celestine
Prophecies' refer to as spiritual coincidences of sorts, which appear to
have both meaning and message. In other words, she is saying our thoughts
affect a most fundamental energy/vibration, which in turn create the future
and present around us, including observed improbable coincidences and connections,
both good and bad, if it's even worth judging them as so. Additionally, when
our minds are most calm and peaceful the prevalence of said
events/coincidences, including positive coincidences apparently unrelated to
our base energies/thoughts/personalities, appears to increase.
This may seem a bit fantastic, but I have always
believed
there exists a close relationship, even perhaps a degree of synonymousness,
between randomness, coincidence, free will, and God's will, and Byrne
describes her observation of phenomena resulting from this eclectic mixture,
without fleshing out the exact mechanism. In the end, we might even question
the ultimate value of such naked purist intellectual inquiry.
In conclusion, I think this book is a worthy read/listen. It approaches
common direction from a different path. In the vein of Dr Amen, in his
title, 'Change your Brain Change your
Life' (although he is taking the
pharmaceutically
route, a complimentary path with its own value), Byrne's 'change your thoughts change your life' is even more illuminating,
especially upon investigation into how one might accomplish this goal. Surely only through
positive spiritual practices, deep introspection, focused intention, and
meditation/prayer can significant change be achieved.
An interesting article because it is so detailed. First
it details all the policies the Bush Administration put in place to increase
home ownership.
So Bush had to, in his words, "use the mighty muscle of the federal
government" to meet his goal. He proposed affordable housing tax incentives.
He insisted that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meet ambitious new goals for
low-income lending.
"We absolutely wanted to increase homeownership," Tony Fratto, his deputy
press secretary, recalled him saying. "But we never wanted lenders to make
bad decisions."
As mentioned, Bush was just more or less continuing or expanding the
policies of President Clinton. However, instead of blaming the Bush
Administration for the massive 'good intentioned' interventions into the housing market, which
spent taxpayer money encouraging the present housing crisis, the New York
Times believes the opposite, that Bush did not regulate the markets enough,
a surprising conclusion, given what transpired, IMHO:
"This administration made decisions that allowed the
free market to operate as a barroom brawl instead of a
prize fight," said L. William Seidman, who advised
Republican presidents and led the savings and loan
bailout in the 1990s. "To make the market work well, you
have to have a lot of rules."
But Bush
populated the financial system's alphabet soup of
oversight agencies with people who, like him, wanted
fewer rules, not more.
In his study
on "thickening government," NYU Prof. Paul Light found that some government
agencies have 32 layers of management, compared to five layers in most
well-run companies.
Take something
relatively innocuous, like the requirement in the 1996 Health Insurance
Portability and Accountability Act to maintain the privacy of patient
information. One effect is lots of forms -- over $1 billion worth annually.
Compliance also stifles important activity: For example, research on
heart-attack recovery at the University of Michigan slowed to a crawl when
only one-third of the sample bothered to complete the necessary HIPAA
paperwork.
The
Congress shall assemble at least once in every Year, and such Meeting shall
(be on the first Monday in December,)
As you can see, the
founders were concerned that
Congress would meet too little, now we have truly swung the opposite way. As
Michael
Badnarik stated in his
classes on the constitution: "Go Home! Leave us along and Go Home!"
I know there are many reasons to be pessimistic these days. The world seems
to be going to hell and the walls keep closing in. It appears we are being
sacrificed as pawns in one gigantic chess game being played by the same
hand. And although you might be staring down the edge of an abyss, losing
any sign of light, there is much reason to be happy and hopeful.
This world is beautiful. It is a gem in space. There is the sky, which
presents us with the magnificent colors of the rainbow every day it rises
and sets. It extends into the infinite, passing through our atmosphere, into
the solar system, and traveling onward through all the galaxies of the
universe. And then there is the land, with its massive mountains, deep
caverns, scorching deserts, lush forests, and fertile plains. It has long
been our home since we moved out of the beautiful waters of this planet,
sparkling in their peace and raging in their fury. They hold mystery in
their depths and beckon us to explore.
All of the realms of this giant sphere are teeming with life. There are
creatures of all sorts, participating in the cycles of life and death. They
are wondrous creatures of such complexity that one can almost miss their
beautiful simplicity. They are all playing the game of energy and evolution.
They change over time to meet new needs with incredible innovation. And one
of the most fascinating beings in the Animal Kingdom is the human. It is an
advanced ape that has been able to use complex communication, imagination,
and compassion to become one of the most successful life forms on the
planet. It has been able to take nest building and the gathering of
resources to incredible heights of complexity to better provide for itself
and its community. And in that communal setting, the human has been able to
evolve by leaps and bounds. Ideas are able to be shared, wrongs righted, and
a sense of worth developed through the coming together of humans. Being
helpful creatures of high intelligence, they are glad to be serving
something bigger than themselves.
But what most humans no longer understand is how connected they are to all
that is around them. They fail to see that all of the people and things
around them are an integral part of them, and that they are intimately
connected to all that is, ever was, or ever will be. It is their universe
and it responds to their will. Things are only as they would like to see
them. But recently, the human has become confused, forgotten his origin, and
lost his sense of connectedness and power. One could blame the rulers, some
form of manipulation, or the system that controls them all, but none of that
really matters.
What does matter is where every human wants to go from here. There is a
blank slate upon which humanity can write its destiny. There are many
choices that can be made by each individual that will have massive effects
upon the whole. The will of an abstraction of thought, a non-living human
invention such as government, holds no power of the will of a fully realized
human who has grabbed the reigns of control and put itself in the driver's
seat. When the human does this, he becomes an actor on the stage of life, no
longer relegated to a bit part in some morality play. With the power of its
will, the human is able to become the creator of reality, painting the
pictures of its dreams.
I am optimistic as to what humanity will create. The odds may look bad, but
it is never smart to bet against the human spirit. It is has a great
history, but it is not the one that people read in textbooks, but rather the
great family tree of all that came before. Since the beginning of time,
every single thing has happened in such a way as to give rise to you, and
for you to be here experiencing the beauty of it all. Not one of your
ancestors ever dropped the ball going back to the beginning of time, even
beyond when we were but a single-celled organism making its way in this
universe, going back to the genesis of it all.
Amazing thing can happen if the human reconnects with its roots. It sees
that it too began as single-celled life. And at that stage, it knew of the
connectedness of all things. It still does, but is unable to explain in it
the language it learned later in life, which the humans invented later in
their evolution. It is something much more basic and more primal. It is what
the human feels deep in its heart when it has emotions. How wondrous that
the human sheds water droplets when it is sad and laughs when it is happy.
To better describe that which cannot be spoken, these "feelings," artists
have come along to paint the picture of life with vibrations of all sorts,
affecting all of our senses. They are the magic makers.
And even if all those things you fear will happen do come to pass, there is
no need to worry! At the end of this life, you will return from where you
came - your true home. Everything you might think you will lose does not
matter there. These objects, the materials of this world, do not matter in
the world of the spirit. But what do I know? I have only had but twenty five
years on this planet. And yet, even if it were to all end tomorrow, I would
be glad I got to see and experience it, to play my part, with all of the
good and bad and the ups and downs. These are the things that help us to
understand that we are but frequencies of energy vibrating in space, making
music with each other and with the universe.
Do what you know is right and you will not be led astray. You will be a hero
of the human race and shining star in the sky. Peace is achievable, but is
not some state of affairs external to yourself, rather the state of being
within you. Peace be with you.
