Monday, May 31, 2010
Israel Ship Boarding
Hypothetical:
What would happen if the Arabs laid down their weapons against Israel?
No more bloodshed.
What would happen if Israel laid down its weapons protecting themselves against the Arabs?
Israel would be slaughtered. Men, women, boys, girls, babies. Every last one of them. And the murdering stupid idiots think they would be doing it in the name of Allah.
I think I'm now understanding what is political correctness. It's not what is right. It's what pleases the majority.
I'm watching CNN and the reporter is showing video footage of the Jewish soldiers being attacked upon landing on the boat. While the footage is being shown, she says, "We have to find out what happened". In other words, I have to find out what the group think is, so I can then report the "truth".
Of course there are the usual demonstrations around the world from these mohammedian assholes. Geez, who would have thought that would happen. I'd like to be in their circle of discussion. I'm sure stories are circulating that each one of the "peace activists" killed at least 5 Jews with their bare hands.
If there was no video that was made public immediately, what do you think would have been the "real truth" told by these lying bastards?
All that makes them happy is their hatred and misery. Why don't you Arabs, if you're so magnanimous, give Palestine a state? No, can't do that. It's more fun to hate and kill people.
One more thing: How do feel now, my dear Jewish friends, who voted for Obama? I'm sure he stands behind Israel, don't you? And I'm sure that these violent demonstrations that will come in the US will be soundly denounced by "The One".
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Commercial Real Estate
Most over valued region in San Francisco gets a taste of the commercial real estate bust. $3 trillion in loans starting to implode at a faster rate. Why commercial real estate will plunge FDIC insured banks into closure. Bought for $415,000 per apartment unit.
For more
For more
Can you imagine? Buying a property for almost $1 billion, that makes no common sense, on the hope that in the future it will go higher in value. And banks were giving these loans.
Banks should have to be viable like any other business. If they give bad loans, they should pay the price. Take away government insurance for depositors. That only allows the banks to take on unnecessary risk.
What does that word mean?
I may not like their politics, but I love their products. Google that is.
My web browser is "Chrome". And like other web browsers, they probably all offer this little trick:
If, when reading an article, and you don't understand a word, highlight it (left click and drag mouse over the word), then right click and you'll be given the option to search "Google" for that word. After reading the definition, go back to reading the rest of the article.
You know, it's such a small thing, but I think it's another way the internet is making us smarter. Before, when reading a book, I may go to the dictionary to find the definition, but I had to be motivated to do so.
Meltdown?
Mervyn King, the Bank of England Governor, summed it up best: "Dealing with a banking crisis was difficult enough," he said the other week, "but at least there were public-sector balance sheets on to which the problems could be moved. Once you move into sovereign debt, there is no answer; there's no backstop."
After the dotcom bust, Alan Greenspan slashed US interest rates to (then) unprecedented lows, which helped dull the pain, but only at the cost of generating the housing bubble that fed sub-prime. It is not so different to the Ponzi scheme carried out by Bernard Madoff, except that unlike his hedge fund fraud, this one is being carried out in full public view.
For more
I was shocked in the 90's to see a Europe that we helped economically for decades, living so high while contributing so little in defense. Our spending provided a measure of safety for their cradle to grave socialism and six week vacations and a welfare system that brought a flood of muslims that do not share western values.
After the dotcom bust, Alan Greenspan slashed US interest rates to (then) unprecedented lows, which helped dull the pain, but only at the cost of generating the housing bubble that fed sub-prime. It is not so different to the Ponzi scheme carried out by Bernard Madoff, except that unlike his hedge fund fraud, this one is being carried out in full public view.
For more
Here's one of the comments from the article which is succinct:
I was shocked in the 90's to see a Europe that we helped economically for decades, living so high while contributing so little in defense. Our spending provided a measure of safety for their cradle to grave socialism and six week vacations and a welfare system that brought a flood of muslims that do not share western values.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Casa Adelita's
Sunday, May 23, 2010
CA--US Venezuela
From Maggie's Farm
How is it that the nation’s most populous state at 37 million, one that is the world’s eighth-largest economy and the country’s richest and most diverse agricultural producer, a state that had the fastest growth rate in the 1950s and 1960s during the tenures of Democratic Governor Pat Brown and Republican Governors Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan, should become the Venezuela of North America?
Californians pay among the highest income and sales taxes in the nation, the former exceeding 10 percent in the top brackets. Unemployment statewide is over 12.2 percent, higher than the national average. State politics seems consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it. Against national trend, union density is climbing from 16.1 percent of workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002. Organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states. In addition, unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. When state employees reach critical mass, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government.
How is it that the nation’s most populous state at 37 million, one that is the world’s eighth-largest economy and the country’s richest and most diverse agricultural producer, a state that had the fastest growth rate in the 1950s and 1960s during the tenures of Democratic Governor Pat Brown and Republican Governors Earl Warren and Ronald Reagan, should become the Venezuela of North America?
Californians pay among the highest income and sales taxes in the nation, the former exceeding 10 percent in the top brackets. Unemployment statewide is over 12.2 percent, higher than the national average. State politics seems consumed with how to divide a shrinking pie rather than how to expand it. Against national trend, union density is climbing from 16.1 percent of workers in 1998 to 17.8 percent in 2002. Organized labor has more political influence in California than in most other states. In addition, unfunded pension and health care liabilities for state workers top $500 billion and the annual pension contribution has climbed from $320 million to $7.3 billion in less than a decade. When state employees reach critical mass, they tend to become a permanent lobby for continual growth in government.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Cuba, AZ law "brutal violation"
Well-known bastion of freedom blasts Arizona law as “brutal violation of human rights”
BY ED MORRISSEY
PRINTER-FRIENDLY
Maybe Raul and Fidel Castro didn’t want to wait for the Obama administration to apologize first for Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, as they did to China earlier this week. Instead, they got a jump start on the bandwagon by having their puppet parliament pass a resolution calling the bill “racist and xenophobic,”
For more
BY ED MORRISSEY
PRINTER-FRIENDLY
Maybe Raul and Fidel Castro didn’t want to wait for the Obama administration to apologize first for Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law, as they did to China earlier this week. Instead, they got a jump start on the bandwagon by having their puppet parliament pass a resolution calling the bill “racist and xenophobic,”
For more
Obama will not speak about the uprising for democracy in Iran. He backs down on protecting Eastern Europe to be friends with Russia. Cuba, he will allow access to all Americans. But woe unto you Israel for building on your own land. And Arizona, too bad we can't kick them out of the union. Obama will certainly go down as the worst president this country has ever elected. These coming midterm elections cannot come soon enough.
Feds not process illegals from AZ
Top Official Says Feds May Not Process Illegals Referred From Arizona
FOXNews.com
A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
AP
FILE: John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This article was updated at 4:36 p.m. on May 21. See editor's note at the bottom of the article.
A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.
"I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton told the newspaper.
The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws.
Immigrant rights' supporters around the country took to the streets on May 1 to protest Arizona's new immigration law which seeks to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants. Take a look at the massive protests.
The law, which criminalizes being in the state illegally and requires authorities to check suspects for immigration status, is not "good government," Morton said.
In response to Morton's comments, DHS officials said President Obama has ordered the Department of Justice to examine the civil rights and other implications of the law.
For more
FOXNews.com
A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
AP
FILE: John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
This article was updated at 4:36 p.m. on May 21. See editor's note at the bottom of the article.
A top Department of Homeland Security official reportedly said his agency will not necessarily process illegal immigrants referred to them by Arizona authorities.
John Morton, assistant secretary of homeland security for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, made the comment during a meeting on Wednesday with the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune, the newspaper reports.
"I don't think the Arizona law, or laws like it, are the solution," Morton told the newspaper.
The best way to reduce illegal immigration is through a comprehensive federal approach, he said, and not a patchwork of state laws.
Immigrant rights' supporters around the country took to the streets on May 1 to protest Arizona's new immigration law which seeks to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants. Take a look at the massive protests.
The law, which criminalizes being in the state illegally and requires authorities to check suspects for immigration status, is not "good government," Morton said.
In response to Morton's comments, DHS officials said President Obama has ordered the Department of Justice to examine the civil rights and other implications of the law.
For more
About keeping that health Plan
Wall Street Journal
By SCOTT GOTTLIEB
President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It's clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama's plan.
The health-reform law caps how much insurers can spend on expenses and take for profits. Starting next year, health plans will have a regulated "floor" on their medical-loss ratios, which is the amount of revenue they spend on medical claims. Insurers can only spend 20% of their premiums on running their plans if they offer policies directly to consumers or to small employers. The spending cap is 15% for policies sold to large employers.
For more
By SCOTT GOTTLIEB
President Obama guaranteed Americans that after health reform became law they could keep their insurance plans and their doctors. It's clear that this promise cannot be kept. Insurers and physicians are already reshaping their businesses as a result of Mr. Obama's plan.
The health-reform law caps how much insurers can spend on expenses and take for profits. Starting next year, health plans will have a regulated "floor" on their medical-loss ratios, which is the amount of revenue they spend on medical claims. Insurers can only spend 20% of their premiums on running their plans if they offer policies directly to consumers or to small employers. The spending cap is 15% for policies sold to large employers.
For more
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Way to go Steve Jobs
Apple sucks.
Bible Thumper OK. But not this.
Money says they'll now do the PC thing and remove Bible Thumper. Any takers?
Bible Thumper OK. But not this.
Money says they'll now do the PC thing and remove Bible Thumper. Any takers?
Rodent
On Yahoo's News, this is one of the main stories.
But reaction to my previous post, well, what I've learned, is you will hardly hear a murmur from the MSM.
But reaction to my previous post, well, what I've learned, is you will hardly hear a murmur from the MSM.
Fuck You, Calderon
Not only do the Democrats fail to figuratively stand up for America, but they literally stand up for and applaud those who seek to condemn it. Worse, it is condemnation from the foreign leader whose own country is a primary source of our illegal immigration issues.
For more
This is our congress of the US? Shame, shame on us.
This, from Michael Costello:
Migrants on the Move in Mexico” details the abuse faced by Central American migrants, who cross the southern border between Guatemala and Mexico, usually en route to the US.Each year, tens of thousands of migrants make the trip.
Many lose limbs from accidents on trains they board to head northward. Women and girls report sexual violence. And - far worse than asking suspected illegal immigrants about their US immigration status, as the new Arizona law will require police to do - many Central American migrants to Mexico accuse Mexican officials of demanding bribes or flat-out stealing their cash.
"Migrants in Mexico are facing a major human rights crisis leaving them with virtually no access to justice, fearing reprisals and deportation if they complain of abuses," Rupert Knox, Mexico Researcher at Amnesty International, said. "Persistent failure by the authorities to tackle abuses carried out against irregular migrants has made their journey through Mexico one of the most dangerous in the world."
Lately, as drug violence has soared, migrants have also been increasingly the victims of kidnapping.
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Greece-Euro-Gold
Revenge of the Gold Bugs
—Monty
Tyler Durden over at Zerohedge is a "gold bug", but until recently I've never found his arguments about the desirability of gold all that compelling. But with the Euro diving faster than a holed submarine and Europeans stampeding each other to buy up all the gold they can get their hands on, I may have to revise my opinions. Gold is trading at nearly $1250 an ounce and going higher.
This may mean that the Euro bailout has failed a week after it was begun. The markets took a look, raised their eyebrows, and continued shorting the Euro. No one seems to believe that it can succeed. The huge numbers of Europeans looking for gold bespeaks a deep lack of confidence in the Euro, and a belief that hard times rather than recovery lie ahead. Countries like Greece and Portugal are getting caught in a fatal spiral: they must implement draconian austerity measures to bring down public spending, but this in turn slows down the economy, which reduces the public and private coffers. These countries are bound to the Euro and so cannot devalue their own currencies; deflation -- and all the terrible social and political upheaval that follows -- is their only option. (We might speak of "growing their economies" as an alternative, but for deeply uncompetitive countries at the periphery of the Eurozone, this isn't an option either.)
Greece is casting about for someone to blame their troubles on (besides themselves, that is) and have settled on...the Americans! (Or at least US investment banks.) To me this simply means that Greece is trying desperately to open some safety valves so that their own population have some outlet for their anger besides the government. To the investment community, it's simply another sign that the Greeks either will not or cannot pay their debts.
And via Instapundit, we get this story that indicates how low the trust in the European Central Bank (ECB) has fallen in the investment community. The so-called "nuclear option" -- where the ECB directly intervenes into the bond markets of the Euro nations and backstops them -- violates a core ECB tenet of "independence". The EU bureaucrats are completely ignoring their own rules and regulations now; it's panic-time in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin.
The EU may yet slap on enough bandages and sticking-plaster to stop the bleeding for a time, but the wounds are probably mortal. Many analysts both here and in Europe seem to think that the main question now is not if the Euro will collapse, but when.
How should Americans feel about the demise of the Euro, if it comes about? It's possible that a Euro collapse could trigger a wave of sovereign defaults all across Europe, and the ripples would inevitably fetch up here. It could tip us over from a really bad recession into an all-out global depression (if indeed we are not already in one).
Posted by Monty
—Monty
Tyler Durden over at Zerohedge is a "gold bug", but until recently I've never found his arguments about the desirability of gold all that compelling. But with the Euro diving faster than a holed submarine and Europeans stampeding each other to buy up all the gold they can get their hands on, I may have to revise my opinions. Gold is trading at nearly $1250 an ounce and going higher.
This may mean that the Euro bailout has failed a week after it was begun. The markets took a look, raised their eyebrows, and continued shorting the Euro. No one seems to believe that it can succeed. The huge numbers of Europeans looking for gold bespeaks a deep lack of confidence in the Euro, and a belief that hard times rather than recovery lie ahead. Countries like Greece and Portugal are getting caught in a fatal spiral: they must implement draconian austerity measures to bring down public spending, but this in turn slows down the economy, which reduces the public and private coffers. These countries are bound to the Euro and so cannot devalue their own currencies; deflation -- and all the terrible social and political upheaval that follows -- is their only option. (We might speak of "growing their economies" as an alternative, but for deeply uncompetitive countries at the periphery of the Eurozone, this isn't an option either.)
Greece is casting about for someone to blame their troubles on (besides themselves, that is) and have settled on...the Americans! (Or at least US investment banks.) To me this simply means that Greece is trying desperately to open some safety valves so that their own population have some outlet for their anger besides the government. To the investment community, it's simply another sign that the Greeks either will not or cannot pay their debts.
And via Instapundit, we get this story that indicates how low the trust in the European Central Bank (ECB) has fallen in the investment community. The so-called "nuclear option" -- where the ECB directly intervenes into the bond markets of the Euro nations and backstops them -- violates a core ECB tenet of "independence". The EU bureaucrats are completely ignoring their own rules and regulations now; it's panic-time in Brussels, Paris, and Berlin.
The EU may yet slap on enough bandages and sticking-plaster to stop the bleeding for a time, but the wounds are probably mortal. Many analysts both here and in Europe seem to think that the main question now is not if the Euro will collapse, but when.
How should Americans feel about the demise of the Euro, if it comes about? It's possible that a Euro collapse could trigger a wave of sovereign defaults all across Europe, and the ripples would inevitably fetch up here. It could tip us over from a really bad recession into an all-out global depression (if indeed we are not already in one).
Posted by Monty
Journalism 101-Gov Christie
Journalism 101 (Jersey Style)
By Alan Caruba
Many years ago I sat in the office of the managing editor of The Star-Ledger, then and now New Jersey’s largest circulation daily newspaper. I had been working at the Morris County Daily Record. By way of proving my worth, the editor asked me to do a series on pets.
I wrote a four-part series that exposed a fair amount of chicanery involving the New Jersey Humane Society and the American Society for the Protection Against Cruelty to Animals. “You don’t understand,” said the editor. “I wanted something along the lines of Jane and her pet duck.” I didn’t get hired and shortly thereafter I became a public relations flack.
My years as a journalist on weekly and daily newspapers taught me a lot about the way being a reporter inevitably creates a sense of hubris regarding what the reader should be told. There’s a real feeling of power in writing an article or, better still, a column that says, in effect, this is the truth.
This is particularly true of journalists who cover the state house or, at the highest level, the White House. Either way, reporters who also write columns soon conclude they know how to run the state or the nation better than the person elected to do the job. They like being close to power without being responsible for the tough decisions.
The former Governor, Jon Corzine, a multi-millionaire and former Goldman Sachs executive bought a seat in the U.S. Senate by outspending his opponent, grew bored there, and then repeated the process to become Governor of New Jersey. He was so allied with the civil service unions and so liberal that the Garden State, along with California, became the poster child for poverty. The Star-Ledger was his cheerleader much of the time.
To the horror of the newspaper and astonishment of the nation, the deeply blue State elected a Republican, Chris Christie. And not just a Republican, but a genuine conservative who looked at the State’s economic mess and determined to reverse it.
Christie had amassed an impressive record as a U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, putting a large number of its corrupt politicians in jail.
At a recent Trenton press conference, a political reporter for the Star Ledger, Tom Moran, asked Gov. Christie if he was being too “confrontational” with the Democrat majority in the legislature and the Governor let him have it. The YouTube video went viral to the point that Fox News commentator, Sean Hannity, shared it with his audience.
It was a gem; a real politician explaining that he had been elected precisely to put an end to the way the wealthy, corporations and lots of regular folks were fleeing New Jersey, a State with the nation’s highest property taxes, sales taxes, and every other tax imaginable. At one point the Star Ledger restricted YouTube from showing the video even though it was still available on its own website.
In the Sunday, May 16 edition, Moran fired back with a column titled, “Gov. Chris Christie’s ‘confrontational tone’ may cause him to lose needed partners among N.J. Democrats.” Christie would not be Governor if a lot of Democrats had not voted for him.
Some previous Moran columns were titled, “Gov. Christie may have picked a fight he’s ‘almost certain to lose’ with N.J. Supreme Court nominee.” “Picking fights, forcing change: Gov. Chris Christie’s first 100 days” And “Gov. Christie and Democrats are on a ‘collision course over this year’s budget.”
Like daily newspapers all over the nation, the Star Ledger is losing circulation, in part due to the availability of real facts and informed commentary available on the Internet. The other part of that equation is that people began to realize just how biased their local daily was.
The die-off of newspapers is gaining momentum, along with formerly respected weekly news magazines like Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News and World Report, all of whom are appallingly liberal in content and which continue to tell lies about “global warming”, et cetera. Newsweek is up for sale.
Moran has a right to his opinions, but they clearly inform his reporting as well. He should do one or the other, but not both. Ironically, Moran left the Star-Ledger for a job on the public relations side of the desk, but soon returned to his job as a political reporter.
No doubt he will be churning out both “news” stories and columns for Christie’s term in office and, no doubt, more readers will decide to drop their subscription.
© Alan Caruba, 2010
POSTED BY ALAN CARUBA AT 6:10 PM
By Alan Caruba
Many years ago I sat in the office of the managing editor of The Star-Ledger, then and now New Jersey’s largest circulation daily newspaper. I had been working at the Morris County Daily Record. By way of proving my worth, the editor asked me to do a series on pets.
I wrote a four-part series that exposed a fair amount of chicanery involving the New Jersey Humane Society and the American Society for the Protection Against Cruelty to Animals. “You don’t understand,” said the editor. “I wanted something along the lines of Jane and her pet duck.” I didn’t get hired and shortly thereafter I became a public relations flack.
My years as a journalist on weekly and daily newspapers taught me a lot about the way being a reporter inevitably creates a sense of hubris regarding what the reader should be told. There’s a real feeling of power in writing an article or, better still, a column that says, in effect, this is the truth.
This is particularly true of journalists who cover the state house or, at the highest level, the White House. Either way, reporters who also write columns soon conclude they know how to run the state or the nation better than the person elected to do the job. They like being close to power without being responsible for the tough decisions.
The former Governor, Jon Corzine, a multi-millionaire and former Goldman Sachs executive bought a seat in the U.S. Senate by outspending his opponent, grew bored there, and then repeated the process to become Governor of New Jersey. He was so allied with the civil service unions and so liberal that the Garden State, along with California, became the poster child for poverty. The Star-Ledger was his cheerleader much of the time.
To the horror of the newspaper and astonishment of the nation, the deeply blue State elected a Republican, Chris Christie. And not just a Republican, but a genuine conservative who looked at the State’s economic mess and determined to reverse it.
Christie had amassed an impressive record as a U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, putting a large number of its corrupt politicians in jail.
At a recent Trenton press conference, a political reporter for the Star Ledger, Tom Moran, asked Gov. Christie if he was being too “confrontational” with the Democrat majority in the legislature and the Governor let him have it. The YouTube video went viral to the point that Fox News commentator, Sean Hannity, shared it with his audience.
It was a gem; a real politician explaining that he had been elected precisely to put an end to the way the wealthy, corporations and lots of regular folks were fleeing New Jersey, a State with the nation’s highest property taxes, sales taxes, and every other tax imaginable. At one point the Star Ledger restricted YouTube from showing the video even though it was still available on its own website.
In the Sunday, May 16 edition, Moran fired back with a column titled, “Gov. Chris Christie’s ‘confrontational tone’ may cause him to lose needed partners among N.J. Democrats.” Christie would not be Governor if a lot of Democrats had not voted for him.
Some previous Moran columns were titled, “Gov. Christie may have picked a fight he’s ‘almost certain to lose’ with N.J. Supreme Court nominee.” “Picking fights, forcing change: Gov. Chris Christie’s first 100 days” And “Gov. Christie and Democrats are on a ‘collision course over this year’s budget.”
Like daily newspapers all over the nation, the Star Ledger is losing circulation, in part due to the availability of real facts and informed commentary available on the Internet. The other part of that equation is that people began to realize just how biased their local daily was.
The die-off of newspapers is gaining momentum, along with formerly respected weekly news magazines like Newsweek, Time, and U.S. News and World Report, all of whom are appallingly liberal in content and which continue to tell lies about “global warming”, et cetera. Newsweek is up for sale.
Moran has a right to his opinions, but they clearly inform his reporting as well. He should do one or the other, but not both. Ironically, Moran left the Star-Ledger for a job on the public relations side of the desk, but soon returned to his job as a political reporter.
No doubt he will be churning out both “news” stories and columns for Christie’s term in office and, no doubt, more readers will decide to drop their subscription.
© Alan Caruba, 2010
POSTED BY ALAN CARUBA AT 6:10 PM
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Greece Syndrome
Greece Syndrome Defined
The fiscal equivalent of Stockholm Syndrome:
A term used to describe a paradoxical psychological phenomenon wherein government officials express adulation and have positive feelings toward unsustainable union contracts that appear irrational in light of the danger or risk posed by such contracts to the government.
Our politicians are hostages, they just don't know it. Hence, our federal jobs policy is geared towards subsidizing unsustainable state and local union contracts which states and local governments cannot afford:
Despite President Obama's pledge for honest budgeting and billions of dollars in stimulus money spent to save teachers' jobs, the Education Department is asking for off-the-books emergency funding to keep local districts from laying off school teachers next school year.
Education Secretary Arne Duncan sent Democratic lawmakers a request Thursday to pass a $26 billion emergency supplemental to fund up to 300,000 teachers' jobs that he says will otherwise be lost in the fall.
It never ends. When do we get to stop subsidizing jobs we "saved or created"?
This is nothing more than a subsidy to teachers' unions to put off the hard fiscal decisions which must be made in order to put state and local budgets on a self-sustaining basis.
In many, if not most, of these school districts, the teachers' unions have rejected compromises which could have saved these jobs without federal subsidies, but would have required modifications to benefits which are unaffordable.
I have documented this problem in Rhode Island in numerous posts.
Once again, I have been proven right about the charade we call "jobs saved or created" under the Stimulus Plan.
Here's my prior analysis from February, commemorating the one-year anniversary of the Stimulus Plan), One Year Ago I Saved The Economy:
....[a]t most, we had subsidies to state governments to perpetuate completely unsustainable budgets drowning in union-related labor costs and pensions, and infrastructure projects notorious for cost overruns. No jobs were created or saved; unless of course the federal government is going to continue to subsidize these jobs indefinitely.
And it has come to pass.
Forcing state and local governments to get their fiscal acts together is not anti-teacher or even anti-union. The current system is a house of cards which will collapse unless serious reforms are enacted. Delaying those reforms through federal subsidies treats the symptom, but not the disease.
The Obama administration is suffering from Greece Syndrome. The end will not be pretty. It will be local bankruptcies, broken promises to retirees, and social unrest.
Update: Here is an excerpt from a reader letter at Powerline blog about Chris Christie's attempt to restore fiscal sanity in New Jersey.:
I think you have to have lived in NJ for a while to really appreciate what Christie is trying to do. You might be surprised to learn that there are four branches of government in NJ: executive, legislative, judicial, and NJEA (NJ Education Association -- the teachers' union). Of the four, the last one is the most powerful. Never in the 30 years that I have been here has anyone had the cojones to face off with the NJEA.
For more
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Another Fuhrman Story
I love Dr Fuhrman's success stories
Interview with a Nutritarian: Gary
On January 2, 2010, Gary was fed up with being an unhealthy artist and art professor so he attended a New Year’s Eat to Live Kick Off that I hosted in my hometown. Something “clicked” that day that permanently transformed Gary’s thinking about nutritarian eating, and he’s now on the path to long term, weight loss and health success. Welcome to Disease Proof, Gary!
What was your life like prior to discovering Eat to Live?
I was addicted to food, especially sweets and desserts. I would overeat and get seconds and thirds until I was absolutely miserable. I was also, at one point in my life, about 75 lbs overweight.
For more
Saturday, May 8, 2010
By Alan Caruba, Islam
By Alan Caruba
We are now nearly nine years passed the attack on September 11, 2001 that killed some 3,000 Americans in the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and seventeen years since the first attack, a car bomb, failed to bring down the Twin Towers.
Jihadists have been killing Americans for a long time; from the 1983 attack on the Beirut Marine barracks to the attacks on U.S. embassies in Africa, the attack on the USS Cole, the recent Fort Hood attack, and now the abortive car bomb attack in Times Square.
Why are we still asking why?
Why is the mainstream press publishing headlines such as the Associated Press gem, “NY car bomb suspect cooperates, but motive mystery” or USA Today’s “Motive of NYC car bomb suspect remains a mystery.”
Why does the press continue to speculate or to publish the now standard “explanations” that the terrorist, whether it be Major Nidal Malik Hasan who killed 13 Fort Hood soldiers while yelling “Allahu Akbar” or the latest manifestation, Faisal Shahzad, who tried to kill countless Americans in Times Square on Saturday evening.
Every other reason than Islam is offered and this opinion-shaping process is getting old.
Since 2002 the U.S. has tried dozens of Muslims involved in various plots.
It’s not some odd mental derangement. It is Islam.
It is not all Muslims, many of whom have ample reason to fear the jihadists in their midst, but there have been enough jihadists and more than enough terrorist events worldwide to recommend a united front against them.
It can be argued that more Muslims have died at the hands of the jihadists than “infidels”. A website, www.thereligionofpeace.com, has recorded 15,247 Muslim terrorist incidents since 9/11 and yet all manner of U.S. officialdom keeps saying there must be some other reason than Islam.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s first response was that the car bomb might have been put in Times Square by “somebody with a political agenda who doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” How detached from reality is the Mayor? Having asked, it’s worth noting that he also once proposed putting windmills on top of all the city’s buildings to generate electricity.
No one is more skilled at denying reality than Muslims themselves. Dawn, a leading Pakistani newspaper, followed the breaking Times Square bomber story. “We are shocked, why did he do this?” asked one man in the street in Peshawar.
Did it have anything to do, as Dawn reported, with the fact that “In the 1980s, when Shahzad was a child, Peshawar was a staging post for the mujahideen who fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, a place frequented by Osama bin Laden and swollen by a morass of two million Afghan refugees”?
Dawn interviewed Advocate Kifayatullah Khan, a former member of the provincial bar council. “He said the family believed that Shahzad had been framed. ‘The entire family is highly educated and enlightened. The villagers don’t believe that Shahzad could act in such a manner.’”
As any observer will tell you, an advanced education is often a component of the jihadist’s decision to use terror against America. Major Hasan and even 9/11 pilot, Mohammed Atta, were college graduates and Shahzad was a 2000 graduate of the University of Bridgeport (CT) with a degree in computer science who is a naturalized American.
Islam is in confrontation with every other religion worldwide and has been since the seventh century. It lacks any theological impetus toward tolerance. Its holy book, the Koran, heaps calumnies on Jews, Christians, and “those without a book”, Buddhists and Hindus. Any criticism is justification for threats and worse. It sanctions the killing of infidels and apostates,
It is the state religion and the highest legal authority of Middle Eastern nations that have proven resistant to any true modernization beyond the adoption of Western technology. All, with the exception of Turkey, are dictatorships or monarchies though Iraq, liberated by U.S. intervention, is moving slowly toward democracy.
Despite a long history of terrorist acts in New York, Bali, Madrid, London, Mumbai, and in the nations of Israel, Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Russia, Iraq, Thailand, Indonesia, and Sudan, some people and elements of the nation’s media keep asking why!
For now and into the immediate future, it would be a good idea if the U.S. State Department stopped giving out visas like lollypops to Middle Easterners and others from predominantly Muslim nations.
It would be a good idea if the Department of Homeland Security would begin paying more attention to Arab visitors as well as native-born and naturalized Arabs in America instead of members of the Tea Party.
It would be a good idea of the U.S. military would take off the politically correct blinders and stop blathering about “diversity.”
It would be a good idea if we stopped listening to the eyewash of the Council on Arab-Islamic Relations and other apologists for Islamic terrorism.
At some point Americans have to stop asking why we are targeted.
We know why the car bomb was set to kill Americans in Times Square. We know why the Christmas Day bomber came close to killing those on the airliner. And we know that militant Muslims will try again.
For seven of the last nine years the Bush administration kept Americans safe from further attacks through vigilance and the preemptive use of power. Since the advent of the Obama administration in 2009, terrorist incidents have increased.
Worried about terrorism? We now have a president who, in his book, Audacity of Hope, wrote: “The stories of detentions and FBI questioning and hard stares from neighbors have shaken their [Arab-Americans'] sense of security and belonging.... I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.”
© Alan Caruba, 2010
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Arizona-Tougher Sanctions
As I write, I have my papers on me – and not just because I'm in Arizona. I'm an immigrant, and it is a condition of my admission to this great land that I carry documentary proof of my residency status with me at all times and be prepared to produce it to law enforcement officials, whether on a business trip to Tucson or taking a stroll in the woods back at my pad in New Hampshire.
Who would impose such an outrageous Nazi fascist discriminatory law?
Er, well, that would be Franklin Roosevelt.
But don't let the fine print of the New Deal prevent you from going into full-scale meltdown. "Boycott Arizona-stan!" urges MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, surely a trifle Islamophobically: What has some blameless Central Asian basket case done to deserve being compared with a hellhole like Phoenix?
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Monday, May 3, 2010
Open Letter To Amer. Jews
Ben Shapiro is a 26 year old syndicated columnist. At the time he was hired, he was the youngest in the country. He is a graduate of UCLA and Harvard Law School. He's also an Orthodox Jew. You can find more of his columns at www.Townhall.com
An Open Letter to American Jews
Ben Shapiro
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
"American Jews, I have one request of you: please pull your heads out of your posteriors."
Dear American Jews,
I write to you as a charter member of the tribe. I'm not only Jewish, I'm religious. I'm married to an Israeli girl (she'll receive her citizenship next year and she is a proud soon-to-be American). I go to synagogue regularly, keep kosher, keep the Sabbath.
American Jews, I have one request of you: please pull your heads out of your posteriors.
I mean that in all sincerity. Your continued support for Democrats and an administration that is openly anti-Semitic is a disgrace. Your embrace of a party that seeks to hamstring Israel in the name of a wholly fictitious Middle East peace process is contemptible. Your loyalty to a president who consistently sides with Palestinian and Iranian mass murder-supporters is disgusting.
Your backing of a man who has spent his life surrounding himself with the worst anti-Semites America has to offer -- Jeremiah Wright, Rashid Khalidi (former Palestinian terrorist spokesman), Louis Farrakhan ("I don't like the way [Jews] leech on us"), Samantha Power, Robert Malley, to name a few -- is nothing short of reprehensible. Rahm Emanuel's presence in the Obama cabinet doesn't ameliorate Obama's anti-Semitism -- it just provides it convenient cover. Al Sharpton wrongly called Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell "house negroes"; Emanuel is a kapo.
Even as you continue to buttress a president who seeks the destruction of your co-religionists, you demonstrate your myopia by rejecting the tea party movement and evangelical Christian Israel-supporters.
The tea party movement is your ally for three important reasons. First, it supports capitalism against the forces of socialism -- and capitalism keeps America strong enough to provide Israel with a hand against its evil adversaries. Second, American Jews are, by far, the highest-earning religious group in the United States -- the tea party fights for your right to keep your money. Third, the tea party stands against government overreach -- and in an era when government overreach promotes anti-religious secularism, Jews must stand with the tea party.
Your rejection of evangelical Christians is even more idiotic. Evangelical Christians are the only major voting bloc preventing President Obama from breaking ties with Israel. When Janet Porter, an evangelical Florida talk show host, heard about Obama's anti-Israel tyranny, she responded by asking her listeners to buy dozens of yellow roses to send to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office as a show of support. The price per dozen: $19.48, in honor of the year of Israel's founding (1948). Over 14,000 flowers were delivered. Meanwhile, Adm. James Jones, Obama's national security adviser and the man who brought Jew-hater Zbigniew Brzezinski into Obama's inner circle, was busy telling anti-Semitic jokes before the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
"But they want to convert us!" many American Jews shout. Not all Christians do. But for the rest -- so what? Would you sacrifice the support of millions of good-hearted Christians because they want to discuss Jesus with you? If your own belief system is so fragile, the weakness is yours, not theirs. While you expend energy whining about Jehovah's Witnesses who show up at your door with a Bible, Obama supports radical Muslims who would show up at your door with a gun -- or, as in the case of Daniel Pearl, a butcher's knife.
Now, I understand, American Jews, that most of you don't care about Israel.
I understand that you're more concerned about a woman's unconditional right to abort her unborn child (which Judaism rejects) than you are about Israel. Fine. Understand that you have removed yourself from the vast river of Jewish history in favor of a chimerical morality that values libertinism over liberty.
I understand that many of you -- all of you above age 70 -- still think FDR is alive. He isn't, but Jimmy Carter is.
I understand that some of you still think that conservatives and Republicans are the same folks they were during the 1950s, when they banned you from country clubs. They aren't.
The simple fact is this: There is only one mainstream political ideology in this country that asks you to check your principles and cultural history at the door in the name of the greater good -- leftism, the same ideology that virtually exterminated Judaism in Russia and Europe. While the left exploits your adherence to bagel-and-lox Judaism by appealing to your watered-down and perverted "tikkun olam" sensibilities, you are enabling your own destruction. The same people who urge you to reach out to terrorists will be the first to sacrifice you to those terrorists' tender mercies. The same people who urge you to worry about same-sex marriage rather than religious freedom will be the first to take your religious freedoms away.
I love you, my brothers and sisters. That's why I'm writing to you. Time is running out; the clock is winding down. Pick a side.
>>>Copyright © 2010 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Dennis Prager, Tea Parties
Why Left Talks About 'White' Tea Parties
By Dennis Prager
Opponents of the popular expression of conservative opposition to big government, the tea parties, regularly note that tea partiers are overwhelmingly white. This is intended to disqualify the tea parties from serious moral consideration.
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Trillion Dollar Fraud
I've got to admit. This is just something I can't wrap my brain around.
The trillion-dollar fraud
Why is the Fed so opposed to being audited, and what does it have to hide?
By John R. Talbott
Commercial banks, by law, have to hold a certain percentage of their deposits as cash at the Federal Reserve. From January 1959 until August 2008, the total of these reserves held by the commercial banks at the Fed grew from $11.1 billion to $46.2 billion. At no time during this almost 50-year period did the total bank reserves held at the Fed exceed the minimum required by law by more than $2 billion.
But since August 2008, these bank reserves held at the Fed have exploded to more than $1.2 trillion (as of March 2010), even though only $65.6 billion was required to be deposited by law.
This increase in excess reserves resulted directly from the Fed's policy of dramatically increasing the quantity (and lowering the quality threshold) of assets it bought in the marketplace. During the past 20 months, the Fed has tripled the size of its balance sheet by acquiring more than $1.5 trillion of new assets, more than $1 trillion of which are mortgage-backed securities.
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Hotshot Sniper
A BRITISH Army sniper has set a new sharpshooting distance record by killing two Taliban machinegunners in Afghanistan from more than 1 miles away.
Craig Harrison, a member of the Household Cavalry, killed the insurgents with consecutive shots — even though they were 3,000ft beyond the most effective range of his rifle.
“The first round hit a machinegunner in the stomach and killed him outright,” said Harrison, a Corporal of Horse. “He went straight down and didn’t move.
“The second insurgent grabbed the weapon and turned as my second shot hit him in the side. He went down, too. They were both dead.”
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Get Rich Slowly
This is one of my favorite blogs on the internet. I entered a video contest at this blog and below is a video of one of the winners.
The owner of the blog "Get Rich Slowly" listed all the entrants to his contest. This link is to the page in which my video is listed with some of the other contestants. (My video's in the third column, second down.)
The owner of the blog "Get Rich Slowly" listed all the entrants to his contest. This link is to the page in which my video is listed with some of the other contestants. (My video's in the third column, second down.)
Homeschool to Harvard
Here is the most amazing part of the story: The first classroom of Dakota’s life will be inside the hallowed halls of Harvard. This fall she will fence for the Harvard team- one of America’s best. Only an elite 1% (30,000) of the best of the best high school seniors dared apply to Harvard. Virtually every one was #1 in their class, or a world-class scholar/athlete, or had perfect S.A.T. scores. Out of 3 million high school seniors headed to college, and those 30,000 applicants, only 1500 or so will attend Harvard. That is the lowest acceptance rate in college history. To be accepted at one or two Ivy League colleges is rare- to all, an almost impossible feat!
Here's the whole story
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Citizen Gore-Iowahawk
OPENING SEQUENCE
Camera slowly zooms in between the security fence of a huge seaside mansion looming over the storm-tossed Pacific. Dissolve to a melting arctic ice floe, on which sits a distraught polar bear. As the camera pans back, we see it is a snow globe held in a man's hand, inside an opulent study paneled in Amazonian hardwood. Close-up of the man's lips, which whisper "Seagate." He drops the snow globe which crashes onto a priceless Persian rug in front of a roaring fireplace. In silhouette, a nurse enters the study and hurriedly covers his motionless body in a blanket. He expels one last mighty death fart, and is gone.
PROJECTOR
NEWSREEL NARRATOR
NEWS on the MARCH! In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a stately pleasure dome decree. Today, almost as legendary, is California's Montecito, the world's largest private environmental pleasure ground. Here a private mountain was commission and successfully built! 500,000 trees, 70,000 tons of cement, and 14 acres of seal fur carpet are the ingredients of this regal domain. Painting, pictures, Oscar statues, the very stones from many another palace from Earth's finest antiquities! A collection so vast it can never be appraised. Enough for 100 eco-museums, the loot of the planet. Montecito's livestock: the whales of the ocean, the fowl of the air, the beasts of the plain and jungle. A private Noah's ark of the world's rarest creatures awaiting the feasting table of Montecito's lord and ruler! Like the Pharaoh, he leaves many stones to mark his grave. Since the pyramids, Montecito is the costliest monument man has built to... himself!
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