Eidelblog

How can people calling themselves a "civilization" tolerate this?

2012-01-18T19:34:00.003-05:00

David Belniak deserves to be pulled out of his jail cell and skinned alive. The Mormons have a good scripture: "Wo unto the liar, for he shall be thrust down to hell." It's a pretty good supplement to, "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

Are you paying attention, Debra A. Tuomey? You serpent, you of a generation of vipers, how do you think you will escape the damnation of hell?

Relativity physicists need to talk to the USPS, who apparently can defy time

2012-01-06T17:54:00.003-05:00

My expected package has a latest status of processing in White Plains at 6:25 p.m. today, when it's, uh, only 5:54.

Believe me, I would have gone with anyone else. It took two days for the package to get out of California, and I still curse whatever postal worker decided to take one of my Netflix rentals home last week. (When it took three days to arrive back instead of the usual one, what else could it be.)

What is so wonderful about the 14th Amendment?

2012-01-03T20:32:00.000-05:00

Alex Knapp criticizes Ron Paul for opposing the 14th. Actually, Ron Paul is completely correct. It's one of the most dangerous amendments just because of how it changed government, and more so because so many people think it's wonderful.

SECTION 1.

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside. No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Did Knapp ever read that the 5th Amendment already specified "nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law"? So then why did the 14th do something so superfluous? Well, under the guise of giving citizenship to freed slaves, this made federal citizens out of everyone. Everyone was now under the now-legitimized jurisdiction of the federal government, whose ramifications should be clear to any believer in liberty.

Knapp defends the so-called "Incorporation Doctrine": "It's the Incorporation Doctrine that prevents states from imposing religious doctrines in schools. It's the Incorporation Doctrine that prohibits states from abridging free speech. The Incorporation Doctrine that provides that states have to provide fair trials and compensation for eminent domain. It's the Incorporation Doctrine that says that state governments infringe on the right to bear arms."

The actual truth: it's the ID that allowed the future Department of Education to indoctrinate our children with the government's own idols. It's the ID that forbids states from abridging free speech so that the federal government can do it. It's the ID that allows the federal government to make a mockery of judicial proceedings, freeing the guilty while keeping the innocent imprisoned, and forcing people like Suzette Kelo out of her home. It's the ID that empowered the federal government to rob peaceful people of weapons to defend themselves.

What conservatives like Knapp don't understand is that Ron Paul isn't about federal rights versus states' rights. Ron Paul knows that government has no rights of its own, only powers it takes from the people. Ron Paul knows that the essence of history is, as Murray Rothbard titled his book, man versus state.

SECTION 2.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several states according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each state, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a state, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such state.

This was a grand loophole to punish a state. Voting districts today are punished by the pork barrel system. Before, a state could be punished with reduced representation under the made-up pretense of denying certain men the right to vote.

SECTION 3.

No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any state, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any state legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any state, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Put simply, members of the Confederacy's government could not be part of the federal government -- unless they were friendly with a super-majority of Congress. Let's not kid ourselves: crony politics was as much a part of government then as today.

SECTION 4.

The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any state shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

"shall not be questioned" was one of the biggest screwings ever of the American people. The non-rebel states incurred their war debt, and that was that: now all federal citizens were responsible for it.

SECTION 5.The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

This clause was never used until the 13th Amendment. Supposedly it's a supplement to Article I's "Necessary and Proper" clause, but then at best it's superfluous. In fact "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation" has always been a blank check for Congress to do whatever it wants, legitimized by "law." Conservatives should love this! They cling so much to "We must follow the law," except when they don't like it.

So there you have it: I've just played by conservatives' game, falling back on the Constitution, and it only goes to show how that document is contradictory and anti-freedom at best. It does nothing to protect my freedom, instead subjecting me to to the whims of a government I never agreed to. Me? Since a few years ago, I side with Lysander Spooner.

The awesomeness of Drew Brees

2012-01-01T14:08:00.002-05:00

I'm not much of a football fan anymore, but for Drew Brees to break a record set by Dan Marino, untouched since 1984, is amazing. And just as I was wrapping up this post, he made his 451st completion, breaking Peyton Manning's record set back in 2010!

He's a phenomenal athlete, but more importantly, a real class act. There has been criticism that the Saints shouldn't have "run up the score" so he could break Marino's record. I find it ludicrous that a team should stop trying to score if they're so far ahead. In fact, if they're indeed so far ahead that additional points wouldn't matter to them, then likewise losing by 20 or 200 wouldn't matter to the losing team. And the Falcon's Mike Smith showed his own class by blaming no one but the Falcons for not being good enough.

"If winning is not important, then Commander, why keep score?"

All you need to know about Brees' unrivaled sportsmanship is what he said after:

This record isn't about one person. There may just be one person that goes on the ledger, but it's really about the team. I want every man years from now, hopefully a lot of championships from now, to be able to look back and say I blocked for that guy when it happened or a guy on defense say that they had a big stop that gave the ball back to those guys. I want a receiver to say that they caught 50 balls that year for 600 of those yards. I want everyone to feel like they were a huge part of this.... I wish I had 150 of the [game ball] to give out to the team and everybody in the building. I guess we could cut it up. I don't know. I guess the ball itself is not as important to me as the memory, because that's something that will live forever."

Now what was the point of this commentator's idiotic statement earlier, "In fairness, Tom Brady isn't far behind"? How the hell does "fairness" fit here? (That's actually was prompted me to write this post.)

And just in time to win "Stupidest Criminal of 2011"

2012-01-01T10:29:00.001-05:00

Cops: Man tried to use $1M bill at NC WalmartThe headline says almost all. The idiot even asked for change.

The socialist conception of "justice"

2011-12-30T19:56:00.003-05:00

Simply put, it is to take from those who have created and/or invested, and give it to those who simply demand it.

I have special reason to be angry over this, as someone who's had his property stolen despite no crime and no charges. It comes down to "the law" ready to shoot you if they can't take what's rightfully yours. After half a year, Jacob Ostreicher hasn't been charged, tried or convicted. Yet Bolivia's government is going to auction off his rice holdings, "so that it doesn't go bad." We should not be surprised that the quantity of rice is being understated, and we should have every expectation that Ostreicher will be freed but not see a dime.

"A judge in September ordered Ostreicher's release on bail, then six days later revoked that decision." The judge finally reached an agreement on his cut, no doubt.

To hell with Evo Morales -- God strike him down dead like every tyrant deserves.

Please, please, people, don't wait another day to check your home's fire safety

2011-12-27T23:02:00.004-05:00

You may have heard of the horrible house fire in Stamford, Connecticut, that killed a grandfather and three young girls. Millions of our hearts go out to the survivors. I fear that some level of government will enact new "safety laws," which I don't deny will be borne of the best of intentions, but like any other government attempt at safety, they'll merely make people complacent with "good enough." It also opens the door into exactly how a government will enforce these rules. Inspections? Submitting photos?

There are basic rules about fire safety. I'm a strong believer that each room needs a smoke detector, including basements and garages. It may be too late by the time a hallway smoke detector picks up smoke from a bedroom. Test them every few months, and replace batteries every six months. A few extra dollars is well worth it here.

I'll never forget an article reprinted years ago in Reader's Digest that warned you can't rely on smoke to wake you up. One man woke up but found himself paralyzed from having already been deprived of oxygen.

Fire extinguishers. We keep a heavy-duty model in the kitchen, and a mid-sized model by the fireplace. Eventually they lose charge and must be replaced, but isn't it worth it? A small investment can save your life, or at least prevent bad property damage. Some years back, I came home to find my mother used the hand-held model we had in our old kitchen -- after she put the frying pan and its grease fire in the sink, then sprayed everything with water. Luckily the fire didn't spread beyond the sink, allowing her to use the fire extinguisher. Some baking soda, and putting the cover on the pan, would have done just fine.

I personally prefer battery-operated smoke detectors. I don't trust that wired detectors will always have power, when an alkaline battery will last well beyond the recommended six months. The exception seems to be AC-powered, interconnected detectors that are mostly found in newer houses, but I say again that you're trusting a lot in uninterrupted power.

I went out and purchased carbon monoxide detectors immediately after hearing of Weird Al Yankovic's parents. There are models that detect both smoke and CO, and a few dollars more can buy one with a digital display. It makes me feel much better to run the fireplace with our Kidde reading a flat zero.

The real tragedy of the Stamford fire is that, as is currently reported, burning embers were placed outside. Never leave anything burning unattended, even if you're awake, even if you're sure the fire can't spread. Charlie once told me about adults at a Boy Scouts camp, real idiots who wanted to keep the coals live overnight so a fire would be easy to start in the morning! Good lord, didn't those turd-brained imbeciles ever read the Boy Scouts Handbook? It's a poor Scout who doesn't learn that if you're not attending to the fire, you can't trust it to stay controlled. By contrast, I once went to a camp where our Eagle-badged hike leader was later fired. I wasn't feeling well from a higher-altitude hike, and a friend walked back with me. But the rule was firm: the leader was responsible for us and was not to leave us alone. That was a good camp.

South Korea in fact should send a delegate of sorts to Kimmy the Kook's funeral

2011-12-24T13:22:00.003-05:00

In response to the North Korea government's latest idiocy, South Korea should RSVP that they couldn't have found a better representative of South Korea's feelings: mold some cow dung into a little statue of Kim, as befitting that bastard's nature. I don't suppose it could be sent COD.

Of course AFP would blame North Korea's problems on everything but communism

2011-12-22T20:29:00.000-05:00

Is this really so unbelievable, when mainstream news apologizes for every collectivist and tyrant?

N. Korea's new leader faces ruinous inheritance

Ready or not, North Korea's youthful new leader will inherit an economy in ruins, a malnourished population -- and a political system that effectively rules out life-saving reform.

Kim Jong-Un, the 20-something "great successor" to his late father Kim Jong-Il, had no known military or administrative experience until singled out as heir apparent around three years ago.

"This is hardly a country that can be ruled by a novice leader," said Wednesday's Korea Herald in Seoul.

Describing the North's "wretchedness", it cited food and energy shortages, meagre foreign investment, corruption, repression, military privileges and "a false sense of pride" in being a nuclear power.

The communist North in the 1960s grew faster than capitalist rival South Korea. But the loss of crucial aid as the Soviet Union disintegrated accelerated a downward spiral in the 1990s.

Of course, the news will not mention the collectivism that has forced an entire nation into poverty. It won't mention that Kim Jong Il spent countless millions on Bentleys and bottles of Louis XIII, then squandered billions on a military while millions of people have starved to death.

Of course the news won't mention the tyrant who bankrupted his nation while threatening his nation's biggest aid donors. The news will blame Mother Nature and capitalism:

Famine which began in the mid-1990s killed hundreds of thousands and severe food shortages persist.

UN aid chief Valerie Amos has urged the world to reduce "terrible" levels of malnutrition. Amos, who visited North Korea in October, said six million people urgently need food aid.

It's the West's fault for not just handing over money, right? How could we possibly blame the bellicose butt-crumb bastard who promised to abandon nuclear weapons (not technology but weapons) in exchange for fuel and food, then revealed his lie as a way of extorting more (surprising no one with two or more functioning neurons)?

UN agencies say they have monitoring in place to ensure food reaches the neediest and not the army. But donations to UN programmes have dwindled because of irritation at Pyongyang's missile and nuclear ambitions.

Irritation! Of course the lies and deception, the decades-long attacks on South Korea, have nothing to do with it.

Private markets sprang up in the North after the state food distribution system largely collapsed during the famine years.

And there is no famine now -- so why is North Korea still in such dire need of food? It couldn't be from communism that has killed 100 million people in the last century, could it?

Kim Jong-Il experimented with limited market reforms in 2002 but rolled them back in 2005, apparently for fear of losing control over the economy.

I should not have to explain this.

But several analysts say full-scale economic liberalisation would threaten the very raison d'etre of a regime which theoretically provides its people's needs from cradle to grave.

Indeed, a wonderful system that where most North Koreans are born into, live in, and die in almost unimaginable poverty.

US academic and researcher Stephan Haggard says he has found that North Koreans involved in the market have more negative perceptions of the regime than their peers.

And will this Haggard conduct another study where he discovers that water is wet?

Biswas described the North's economy as a "basket case" amid a sea of rising East Asian prosperity.

"The pursuit of Stalinist economic policies has inflicted devastating suffering on the North Korean population," he wrote.

Biswas said the likeliest future policy was maintaining the status quo, meaning little chance of significant economic progress.

Should the country move gradually towards economic liberalisation and detente, "significant improvements" in living standards could be achieved by 2020.

Finally, some truth.

God in heaven, is "Simon Martin" Jimmy Carter's pen name?

Let it be known: the name "Best Buy" itself is false advertising

2011-12-21T19:42:00.001-05:00

I've never trusted Best Buy, and I never will. I can never forgive them for wasting my time more than once. Previously I've blogged that there's bad customer service, atrocious customer service, and Best Buy. I still would sooner pay more at Amazon, not just for the convenience of delivery, but because Best Buy is notorious for not having things in stock. Every Best Buy ad should be treated as "quantities severely limited." And thankfully, because the store was either out of stock or the staff were completely unhelpful, I've never purchased a single thing from Best Buy and hence haven't had to worry about them losing my item needing repair.

But this takes the cake. It's one thing to cancel customers' orders because of a website mistake, which people complain about from time to time on Deals Woot. Store X posts a product with an erroneous price, people swarm to buy it, and what person who understands business will insist that the store honor a clear error? When Home Depot's site some months back featured a large washing machine for $150, of course that wasn't the true price, and orders were necessarily canceled. "If it's too good to be true."

Best Buy, however, made it a point to advertise these prices, and there was nothing until the recent cancellation e-mails to indicate the products were out of stock. Good lord. "Game on, Santa"? People would have done better to believe in Santa delivering the products.

For more stuff to make you facepalm, look at Consumerist's related links:

Best Buy Loyalty Rewarded With Deeply Annoying Retail Experience

Hurry To Best Buy For Free Nonexistent Shipping

Best Buy Sells You Appliances, Then Sells Them To Someone Else

Nice people you have working for you, FedEx

2011-12-20T18:15:00.002-05:00

"It's hard to find good help" doesn't begin to describe this. Check this out. I can't wait for FedEx's explanation. As a matter of publicity, they'll have to fire the driver, but so what? Who will he screw over next time? I swear to heaven, this world is filled with people who should be exiled into black holes.

It's not an isolated incident. The FedEx rep hung up on me as part of their screwing me over, when I desperately tried to find the package on Christmas Eve. Several years later, I still don't use them deliberately, like when someone sends a parcel without telling me their courier of choice. If I order something that uses different shippers, I've paid extra to use a different carrier, and I've also not placed the order if FedEx is the only option.

If it's true that Kim Jong Il has died, then it's a great day

2011-12-18T22:19:00.002-05:00

May Castro and Chavez be right behind him on the way to hell, that goddamn son of a bitch.

I don't ascribe to the belief that you shouldn't cheer anyone's death. I am charitable in that I have compassion for good people in unfortunate situations, but I'm not so charitable that I don't feel happy about the deaths of truly evil people.

Happy birthday to Kirk Douglas

2011-12-08T23:44:00.002-05:00

May you live to 120!

He was born poor in the same upstate region of New York as my father, and he's a prime example of not letting what you're born into dictate the limits of your life. There just aren't any more actors like him.

But this is the most important thing to note about a very fine man: "In addition, Douglas has been a long-time humanitarian and a benefactor of the Los Angeles Mission shelter, where he and his wife, Anne, were on hand last month to help serve 4,000 Thanksgiving dinners to the homeless."

Jesus, Nichole Scherzinger has to be absolutely brain-dead

2011-12-08T20:57:00.004-05:00

God damn that fucking moron. What fake tears, what a lack of courage.

I hope Rachel Crowe keeps her chin up despite this rigged bullshit. (Notice how the host was pressing for a quick decision, with plenty of time left to create drama.) With a few years of careful study, she could go from supremely talented to utterly phenomenal. Bless that poor girl's heart.

This new bullshit called the "MF Global rule"

2011-12-05T22:41:00.000-05:00

Like Sarbanes-Oxley, the new "MF Global rule" is an overreaction, utter nonsense, and another power-grab by the feds.

"The new rule will limit how the brokerage industry can invest customer money, largely barring firms from using client funds to buy foreign sovereign debt. It also prevents a complex transaction that allowed MF Global, in essence, to borrow money from its own customers."

The problem with MF Global wasn't that it invested in sovereign debt, but that it stole money from its clients (it's theft when you take something without the owner's permission) to cover its proprietary desk's losses from sovereign debt investments. It was already a crime to take clients' money for the firm's own trading. But take some regulators who have an agenda of usurping more control, and other regulators who want to ban the effect because they don't understand the cause...

The problem with Enron and WorldCom wasn't a lack of regulatory oversight, but a lack of prosecution. Fraud was already a crime, and Sarbanes-Oxley has done nothing to prevent additional fraud. In fact, as Stephen Bainbridge has pointed out, SarbOx hinders U.S. capital markets, especially IPOs, and encourages public companies to go private so they can escape the costly regulation. Larry Ribstein notes a study "that SOX makes it cost less for a public firm to acquire a private target than for a private target to do an IPO because the public firm can apply its existing SOX infrastructure to the newly acquired firm." And his conclusion is more than compelling: "rules designed to make the markets safe for ordinary investors have ended by excluding them." Such is the inescapable effect of government regulation. Government control.

At best, the "MF Global rule" does nothing to protect investors. At worst, it's opening the door. Look what's next: "Bart Chilton, a Democratic member of the commodities commission, is pushing for Congress to create an insurance fund for futures industry customers."

This will no doubt work just as well as the FDIC fund, which is now all but completely tapped after all these bank failures (thanks to new FDIC mark-to-market requirements that forced otherwise solvent banks to close). If this insurance fund is created, we can expect the CFTC to create rules that effectively force some brokerages to close.

Has it really been 40 years?

2011-11-29T20:05:00.000-05:00

There are some songs simply timeless, some artists simply ageless. And I can't believe that, despite my musical upbringing almost exclusively of classical music, opera and jazz, I hadn't heard it until the 2010 Super Bowl.

I just can't find any truly memorable music released in the last couple of decades, not since about the time Freddie Mercury died. And as I've delved into 60s and 70s rock, I've discovered how much of today's pop and contemporary "music" has been borrowed from foundations laid decades ago.

Sam Brownback did a nice job in proving he's a miserable piece of shit

2011-11-27T21:56:00.000-05:00

This is a good lesson for young Emma Sullivan: don't give in to this modern Nazi.

Consider, people, that Brownback has staff specifically looking for what's said about him online. It doesn't matter that Sullivan didn't even say what she joked she did. Brownback is such a paranoid megalomaniac that he's forcing her to apologize. This is beyond Orwellian thought crime. On top of it is a high school principal who clearly isn't thinking for himself and probably doesn't need his arm twisted to force an apology. He's probably all too happy to make this a lesson on how to be a good citizen: turn over your property at the state's demand, and shut the hell up lest you anger your overlords.

If Brownback wanted to do the world a favor, this fucking asswipe would go to some warzone he supported sending Americans to, and have his own goddamn guts blown up. I originally wrote "brains," but he clearly has none.

There, will that paragraph get Brownback and his staff to come after me? Or do they only have the guts to go after a teenage girl? There is a judgement after this life, and if it has any justice at all, every last one of those cowards will roast in pain for the rest of eternity.

Evidently Yahoo News editors don't think about article placement

2011-11-22T19:29:00.002-05:00

If they did, they wouldn't have done this:

If workers don't like working Black Friday hours, they have the freedom to quit

2011-11-16T23:54:00.000-05:00

There's clearly a demand for big price cuts at crazy hours just hours after Thanksgiving dinner, and stores need workers to fill that demand. There's no complaining: you do what the job asks, or you quit and work somewhere else. Let's be plain: these "petitioners" claim that Black Friday "encroaches" on the holiday, but in fact they're looking for laws that encroach on people's freedom -- the freedom to have a business that provides goods and services when people want, with employees who are willing to work as needed. These "laws" benefit workers who want employment on their own terms (violating the companies' property rights), while hurting other workers who are willing to work the crazy hours.

When I was young and still living at home, I quit a job that initially said nothing about weekends. When Memorial Day weekend's Saturday and Sunday were sprung on us with two days' notice, my supervisor reminded me about a previous weekend where I refused to show up (also sprung on us at the last minute). He didn't write me up, but this time, he said, "There will be repercussions." It's a poor leader who employs threats rather than inspiration. So I thought about it -- thought about the bait-and-switch that we first hires would quickly be promoted to supervisors, thought about another supervisor stealing my HTML work and claiming it as his own. The pay just wasn't worth it, so I handed over my badge, told him they're asking too much, and walked out the front door. My ultimate satisfaction was that they lost the outsourcing account not long afterward. Most staff were dysfunctional, back-stabbing and incompetent, and management wasn't interested in creating discipline.

But that was a confluence of many bad circumstances. If the pay and job are worth it to the worker, a good one will do what's needed. This is also an employer's market, and good jobs are not easy to come by. My employer's annual reporting requirements mean a lot of January days where I work a full day, come home to work 3 or 4 more hours, then get up at a quarter to 6 the next morning to repeat the process. Last winter, being snowed in one day allowed me to work from 6:30 to 11. It goes with the territory. Last month, we rolled out a new database, the product a year's labor of love and hate. There were times even at the beginning where I'd come home, have dinner quickly with my wife, then set to work for the rest of the night. The final 10 days meant a week of working past 10 every night, all throughout that weekend, and talking with our Hong Kong colleagues until midnight Sunday to see their initial reaction. I was perfectly free to give notice anytime I wanted to quit.

There's a point where you're no longer a kid and need the job more than quitting. (There's no "realization" because you already know it so well that you don't need any epiphany.) You might wonder about year-end bonuses, but you work anyway instead of whining about being away from your family. One of my friends works amazingly long hours and responds on his BlackBerry from 5 to 11. That's part of being a corporate lawyer. He once told me that his youngest daughter asked why he doesn't come home sooner, and he explained that it's so they can have their house and visit places on vacation.

Retail workers should similarly have certain expectations about what's required, based on their job functions and seniority. If you're low on the totem pole, expect to be required to work. When starting out as a computer phone jockey, I worked my share of holidays: Thanksgiving swing shift when I wasn't home at all for dinner, Christmas morning starting at 8, and one time on New Year's Eve (a customer on the phone reminded me when it passed midnight). It was part of the job.

"Tonight, we have had the privilege of witnessing the greatest exhibition of guts and stamina in the history of the ring."

2011-11-13T01:21:00.000-05:00

I was going to give credit to Marquez, who tactically was superb and certainly close. He might have won had his corner not lulled him into fighting the 11th and 12th so carefully, telling him he was winning. However, he showed himself to be the most delusional boxer on the planet, even more than Joel Casamayor, and worse, a poor sportsman. He was lucky one judge even called it a draw, but I expect he'll get new T-shirts, "I beat Manny Pacquiao three times."

Marquez would do well to take advice from Miguel Cotto, who said in a pre-recorded post-fight presentation, "I took my defeat like a man." That guy has every reason in the world to be bitter, yet he's doing what a real man would do: fight again, with stronger safeguards to ensure the cheating bastard can't do a repeat performance. In all truth, I don't know why anyone bothers to give Margarito so much as the time of day.

But the title of this post doesn't refer to the main event. I'm talking about Miguel Alvarado, who tonight personified courage by giving everything he had in the 10th (final round) to win by TKO. In the 30 years I've watched boxing, I've never seen such a comeback.

And as an example to Marquez, Breidis Prescott took his loss to Alvarado like a man. No excuses, no delusions.

Thou shalt pay thy taxes to The One, lest thou incurrest his wrath

2011-09-18T12:24:00.000-04:00

What a picture for Yahoo News to use.

From the first moment Obama pushed his "jobs bill" (i.e. jobs for his political supporters with the cost of others' unemployment), he said it would be "paid for." Yesterday he continued to claim, "And it will not add to the deficit. It will be paid for." The truth came out the morning after the original announcement: it's all about tax hikes. As part of a "deficit reduction plan" Obama would have us believe is unrelated, "Obama to propose 'Buffett tax' on millionaires". How dare people believe that they're entitled to the fruits of their labor, how dare they believe that they get to keep their wealth as the reward for their successful decisions!

Anytime a politician says anything close to "largely by raising taxes on wealthier families," every working American had better hang on to his wallet. USA Today spins it as "going after tax breaks for oil companies and the owners of corporate jets." Bill Clinton said on October 19, 1992, "I will tell you this: I will not raise taxes on the middle-class to pay for these programs." How did that work out for us? I was a teenager yet saw through the lie right away. His "shocking" tax hike proposal a mere four months later was shocking to me only because it didn't come sooner. Even the New York Times called it his "plan to raise the taxes of almost all Americans in order to lower the Federal budget deficit."

And beyond the immorality of taking someone's money by force to give to others, Obama's plan is accounting fraud. John Watson at American Thinker pointed out:

The president's new "Jobs Bill" will take over $400 billion from taxpayers over ten years to pay for it, but the expenditures will be authorized right away. There is, however, an inconvenient truth about which the president has failed to remind us: today's Congress cannot bind a future Congress. Therefore, if the government wants to spend $400 billion right away, then they need to find a way to cut $400 billion of spending right away, not by some non-binding ten year ruse. To do otherwise only increases today's deficit.

This scheme would supposedly add 2.7% to a $15 trillion economy. There's just one problem: it wouldn't work for the same reason the $787 billion stimulus didn't work. It's the worst economics: $400 billion in tax hikes means taking $400 billion from spending or savings that would have happened in other forms. Bastiat's lesson on broken windows is economics' quantum singularity from which there is no escape.

Hurricane Irene was hype?

2011-08-29T22:45:00.001-04:00

To this idiot and others, I say a hearty go fuck yourselves in hell. Limbaugh's idiocy needs no comment. This jackass mentions that "Hurricane Irene was downgraded to a tropical storm" -- no kidding, because hurricanes by nature lose power once it started going over land. It was still strong enough to get to Vermont and cause the worst flooding there in 75 years. Look at this picture, worthy of a San Francisco earthquake.

That's hype? Just because its eye hit Long Island, 15 miles to the east of the boroughs, suddenly Irene was no big deal?

A few dozen people have so far died from Irene. I don't want to count the guy who drowned when he and friends tried to raft down the swollen Croton River. I'm talking about trees crashing through houses, and a hero who died trying to save a little boy.

Those deaths are hype?

We were watching the news coverage until 1 a.m. Sunday morning, awed by scenes from North Carolina to Long Island, whether it was a Maryland dam in danger of breaking, or someone reporting from a flooded Hoboken street. Then the main computer's UPS woke us around 4 when it started beeping, telling us we hadn't been spared from losing electricity. Power didn't come back to our street until 8 tonight, and the news just said there are still 600,000 without power in just Connecticut. Meanwhile we hung out at a relative's business for the day to charge cell phones and get online, if anything so I could connect to the office and get some work done.

Rivers have overflowed, flooding people's basements as well as roadways. One of our neighbors is still pumping out his basement, and it was so dire that without electricity, he used a gas-powered generator that another neighbor was kind enough to lend.

This is all hype?

No roads were flooded in my immediate vicinity, but I've never seen the rivers or reservoirs so high. Even old-timers haven't. We've all seen trees fallen on on power lines, but not like this. It was a shame to see some fine, majestic ones, and shocking to see some large ones. You just don't appreciate the strength of a storm until you've seen a two-foot-diameter tree snapped like a toothpick. There was a large one lying across my neighborhood's main road, blocking one lane and part of the other. There was a fellow hacking away with an axe, so I went to see if we could move it. Three guys in a pickup passed by, and without a chainsaw or towing chains, they at least figured they'd add their muscle. This 20-foot length must have weighed a literal ton. Five strong guys, yet we could budge it only enough to clear the partially blocked lane. Then the local fire chief happened by, and he called in a crew with suitable cutting equipment.

The Ramapo River actually flooded the New York State Thruway, which was reopened only this afternoon. The Passaic River is still rising at this time, and the news showed a storeowner's shop half-submerged. People at a couple of hotels in Parsippany had to be rescued when flooding occurred overnight -- that's right, a day after the storm. The Bronx River had risen so much that my commuter rail's service had to be suspended. The southern half is operational again, but not the northern half I use.

But didn't we hear, Irene was just hype.

Doesn't the Daily News have a proofreader?

2011-08-22T22:08:00.003-04:00

Obama: the most delusional president ever

2011-08-21T14:33:00.000-04:00

A bad economy with (despite) massive increases in federal debt? Blame others, preferably Bush. Low approval ratings? Blame Congress:

"This past week your popularity hit a record low," Mason said. "What does that say to you?"

"Well, what it says to me is I'm the President of the United States and when people aren't happy with what's happening in Washington, that I'm gonna be impacted just like Congress is," Mr Obama said. "And you know, I completely understand that, we expected that.

So at my next year-end review, I can expect to be judged according to everyone else's performance?

Russell Means, peace be with you

2011-08-18T23:35:00.003-04:00

I'm saddened to hear that he has inoperable throat cancer. He's facing it with great courage.

Don't cry, Ms. Adrienne Ives: you did the right thing

2011-08-18T23:31:00.000-04:00

You're a good mother. You truly love your daughter, because you know she needs to face justice. But don't cry for her. Cry for the man who was murdered, the people hurt in the riots, and those who lost property.

By God, if I had done anything remotely like that little bitch, I'd have begged the police to lock me away forever before my father could get his hands on me. Then again, there was never any danger of that, because the old man taught me better. He wasn't perfect, because he believed in a government safety net, but ultimately he believed that damaging other people's property was wrong, and an able-bodied person should work for his bread.

I was a teenager when he told me about his teenage brush with the law. He and his friends wanted to prove they were big men, so they broke into a store one night to steal cigarettes. They were caught and hauled in front of the judge. What punishment they received, my father never said. His style of parenthood was that we never dared to ask about his life, instead accepting that he'd tell us things whenever he felt like it. But he did say that the judge asked him what kind of grades he was getting in school. "A's and B's." The judge asked, "Why not all A's?" That might have been just the thing to spur my father to do well. He graduated third in his high school class. It was the height of the Depression, and there was no money to go to college, but at least the diploma and good grades got him a job in a mail room.

For growing up poor and during the Depression, raised by an abandoned mother and her blind sister, he never once resorted to the "hooliganism" (what an understatement!) in the UK. Look at what Chelsea Ives "allegedly" got herself into, despite her advantages of loving parents and promising future publicity.

Our world of lies: Obama blames Bush (again), and the Fed is given credit for nothing

2011-08-10T23:00:00.000-04:00

Obama says he "inherited" the financial crisis. "We do have a serious problem in terms of debt and deficit, and much of it I inherited," says the first U.S. president under whose leadership the federal government has been running $1 trillion deficits for each of his first three years. Bush certainly carries blame for getting the car up to speed, but Obama mashed the accelerator.

"When you have problems in Europe and in Spain and in Italy and in Greece, those problems wash over into our shores," says the idiot who thinks those three small economies (not even $4 trillion combined), who aren't even the United States' largest trading partners, somehow have enough pull that their crises will wreck the largest in the world.

And then after yesterday's "rally," which didn't erase Monday's losses, the media was typically quick to congratulate the Fed. "Stocks soar after Fed pledges low rates into '13" claimed the AP headline. And what happened today? Oh sure, sure, four-plus percent drops in the three main U.S. indexes shows just how optimistic the markets are about continued low interest rates.

The Fed was already flooding the world with dollars. That isn't helping now and never did, but they have to keep printing dollars to finance Obama's deficits. You know it's bad when China, the country of $2 trillion of bad loans, can now justifiably tell us to get our house in order. Look at what's happened in the three years since I pointed out that China's in worse shape, look at the utter disaster that the American people have so far allowed: trillion-dollar federal deficits, bailouts for irresponsible home buyers, and a belief that boosting the economy means paying the unemployed to stay unemployed -- while raising taxes on the people producing the most.

If the UK rioters are just thugs, why is Cameron so anxious to appease them?

2011-08-10T22:18:00.004-04:00

You really are an idiot, David Cameron.

The riots are literally close to home for my family in suburban London. What used to be a quiet area now has thugs close enough (not on that street or adjoining, but close) that my family is afraid to leave the house.

There is no reason for things to have gotten beyond the first burned car, but what do you expect when a society is disarmed, and the police are doing zilch? This is what happens when people surrender their right to self-defense in favor of relying on government to save them. I would never trust police to shoot looters and vandals on sight, because as a general rule the police are not accountable for their actions, but I would trust homeowners and shopkeepers to defend themselves and their property. Every one of these criminals deserves to be butchered alive, then impaled around town on stakes.

Here are the most telling pictures I've seen on Yahoo News. No comments or captions are necessary.

Obama is running the highest deficits since WWII, and Axelrod blames...the Tea Party

2011-08-07T21:43:00.001-04:00

Yeah. Nobody in that God-forsaking administration will ever admit that it's spending, not the fact that we don't rape enough pocketbooks. But what can people expect when a plurality feel "entitled" to create a political monstrosity that's empowered to take the property of others? The beast produces nothing on its own, so it never has to feel obliged to control its appetite.

Look at the budget projections and the unjustified optimism that, for example, we'll get a $535 billion jump in revenue from 2012 to 2013. Tax revenues will more than double in the next 10 years? These are using the same methodology by which the CBO projected budget surpluses for years after 2000: assume rosy economic growth for perpetuity, act surprised when tax increases don't yield expected revenue, and malign anyone who believes in keeping the fruit of his own labor.

Let's put the budget scenario in visual terms. It took me no time to make after copying and pasting the CBO's data into OpenOffice, but apparently the CBO couldn't be troubled (or didn't want to make the situation more obvious).

And Obama had the audacity to claim the other day about this "debt ceiling bill" lie, "It's an important first step to ensuring that as a nation we live within our means."

"Before we ask college students to pay more for their education, let's ask hedge fund managers to stop paying taxes that are lower on their rates than their secretaries." Here's a free clue for Obama: hedge fund managers pay far more in a year than a lot of people pay in their entire lives, because of students who think they're entitled to free things, then cry when jobs don't fall into their laps.

This demonstrates exactly what's wrong with our country

2011-08-07T14:55:00.001-04:00

Watch the whole thing.

You have someone brain-dead who feels entitled to a college education paid for by others, including a stipend for rent. Now because he was living with his girlfriend, he figured he could spend the rent stipend on himself.

But it gets better: the girlfriend stopped paying rent, meaning she was stealing from the landlord and trying to defraud her boyfriend.

To top it off, here's an ex-judge turned private arbiter who says a couple of good things, but ultimately she's too stupid to realize that all this came to be only because people are forced to pay for the lives of others.

No doubt the boyfriend will graduate, further devaluing four-year degrees the same way central banks inflate currency. Today, a B.A. or B.S. has as much weight as a high school diploma once did. In my junior year, I talked with a professor about whether the "business concentration" option offered any advantage in getting a financial services job versus the standard theory-based economics B.A. He advised me not to worry, saying it's graduate degrees that lock you into a particular field, and the first four years are to "develop critical thinking skills." That's something for the teen years, but after all, "society" can't risk kids doing anything so challenging that they can't finish high school, right? So high schools continually dumb down graduation requirements, and colleges have followed the same path. Why not, when there's a steady supply of students so unprepared yet able to get loans and grants?

Happy birthday, Lucy

2011-08-06T23:22:00.002-04:00

So few will ever come close to the humor, wit, class and business savvy of Lucille Ball, who was born 100 years ago today.

"Americana" means nothing without including "I Love Lucy." Contrary to any polls that say otherwise, it is the greatest comedy show ever. Today it still makes us laugh and cry, a snapshot of time when "funny" did not require being salacious or vulgar. Think about how much is still a part of us after six decades, whether it's "eeyewww!" as only she could do it, her and Vivian Vance working the candy conveyor belt, or the two pretending to be Martians.

Yet she had a film career before and after. I grew up knowing her only from her eponymous show, and after her passing, I read a wonderful piece that Bob Hope penned to remember her. She may have been "Queen of the B [movies]," but when the studio asked him who he had in mind for a co-star, he said, "I chose Lucy."

She hosted "Three's Company" to look at its best episodes, which was more than fitting. That show, and many others, owe so much to her pioneering of misunderstandings and physical comedy.

Bubba Smith, RIP

2011-08-03T21:18:00.000-04:00

I am saddened to hear of his passing.

To hell with you, Verizon

2011-08-03T20:23:00.004-04:00

After 10 years, and many thousands of dollars I paid for a service I generally liked, your idiot and his equally moronic supervisor dare to insult me?

Verizon, you still don't seem to get it: you can't just rely on the iPhone to lure new customers. You have to keep your existing customers happy.

"Brett," you are complicit in attempted theft. I'm completely serious that you can shove your beloved Alias right up your lying ass.

Addendum: this isn't the first time I've been displeased, though not as pissed. When I started my current job, I faxed in the form to get the corporate discount. It was never applied, and I could never get a hold of anyone who knew about it. Then we got a new account rep, who signed me up right away. "OK," I asked, "what about a credit for these months I should have gotten a discount?" After all, it was their fault. The response: silence.

A rhetorical question on the media's double-standard of reporting terrorists' motivations

2011-07-31T22:22:00.001-04:00

Why, when a killer or would-be killer is white, do investigators and the media always look for connection to "right-wing" "Christian" "extremist" groups, refusing to accept that the person may have acted alone? Much is made of Anders Behring Breivik's politics, but not his doping up. (There you go, Billy: he probably needed the drugs to feel brave enough to substitute murder for his inability to think.) There are calls to classify the English Defence League as "extremist," because Breivik supposedly contacted them. This logic would accuse someone of money laundering based on receiving Nigerian scam e-mails. After the Oklahoma City bombing, the Michigan Militia and other "paramilitary groups" were the new bogeyman, notwithstanding the MM had reported Timothy McVeigh to the FBI (who paid no attention and effectively allowed, intentionally or not, McVeigh to continue on).

Yet when it's a Muslim, almost immediately it's invariably said that there's no evidence the person had religious motivations or ties to other groups.

Houssein Zorkot. Mohammad Alkaramla had "personal problems." Regarding the deadly attack earlier this year in Rio de Janeiro, "Police stressed, however, that there was no concrete evidence that the attack had either a religious or a political motive." Someone made a Wikipedia page for Naveed Afzal Haq, whereas someone else more properly titled the page about the Empire State Building shooting of 1997. Mohammed Taheri-azar. Hesham Hadayet opened fire at LAX's El Al counter, which naturally was downplayed as having no religious motivation. John Mohammed and Lee Malvo, the D.C. beltway snipers. Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad and, just months later, Nidal Malik Hasan. There were four Newburgh men who banded together to bomb synagogues -- but of course they weren't tied to anything beyond themselves, and the judge even blamed the feds for making them into terrorists.

So we again see the double-standards of political correctness, which by nature defies reality. I haven't heard of any home-based terrorism in Ireland for a very long time, but I have a feeling that when English targets were bombed, and the suspect was Irish Catholic, then the investigators immediately had a good idea of the motivation and the overall movement.

Addendum: the world has idiots who have to ask, "For Christians who think of their faith as preaching peace, how to explain the faith-sanctioned killing of the Crusades?" and mention "Or consider the Ku Klux Klan's burning crosses." I get annoyed by such non-thinkers who are essentially demanding justification of why 2 plus 2 don't equal five -- it's obvious to any thinking person that the Crusaders and KKK aren't followers of Jesus Christ by any means. Ergo there's nothing "faith-sanctioned" about the two groups.

"canada is in trade surplus and does not need china to fund its debt." -- oh really?

2011-07-23T18:21:00.000-04:00

A Canadian court is handing a Chinese national back to his government, which any thinking person realizes is a death sentence. "Lai's lawyer, David Matas, said Lai's brother and his accountant both died in prison of unexplained causes and argued to Shore on Thursday that the same fate could await Lai."

Some idiot wrote in the comments: "robby and arthur show ignorance of canada.canada is in trade surplus and does not need china to fund its debt. on the other hand china desperately needs canadas oil ,timber, and natural resources."

A trade surplus. Really? This is news to the rest of the world: "Canada reported a trade deficit equivalent to 814 Million CAD in May of 2011." This was a narrowing after April's widening.

But perhaps this person is talking only about trade between China and Canada. Oops, he's still a moron: Canada imports almost four times (in CND terms) from China as it exports to China. Ordinarily I'd just call the person "misinformed," but I call him an outright moron for calling others wrong, when data establishing the truth is so easily obtained.

And what does China do with the surplus? Well, that's in part how China gets Canadian dollars to acquire operations in Canada that develop natural resources. China doesn't prop up national debt for Canada like it does for the U.S. While the Canadian dollar for quite some time now has been over a 1:1 ratio with the U.S. dollar, China would prefer to continue with U.S. Treasuries -- at the very least to help preserve the value of all they've bought so far.

There's nothing wrong with China buying up Canadian holdings, though. Canadians by and large buy the same inexpensive China-made plastic goods, electronics, textiles, etc., that Americans do. And in return, they sell to China natural resources (or the rights to develop the natural resources) that Canadians wouldn't be able to use themselves.

Big Brother Obama is watching you

2011-07-16T20:11:00.000-04:00

Yahoo News is using the below. What the hell is someone smoking, or do they no longer care about hiding what Obama really is?

To catch future Casey Anthonys, people are willing to damn us all to more of a police state?

2011-07-13T23:28:00.000-04:00

Billy notes the hysteria overcoming so many people, that people outraged at Casey Anthony's release are going full speed ahead into things they haven't reasoned out. As often as our courts free the clearly guilty, or sentence them to nothing significant, it's better than these heavy-handed ideas that condemn us all. People just don't understand the weapon they seek to wield, and that weapon is called "government."

A Republican in Virginia's state legislature once pushed a bill that would have criminalized not reporting a miscarriage within 12 hours. It should have been numbered HB666. Don't you know, this is all to protect the rights of the unborn, lest some woman have an abortion and claim it's a miscarriage, or induce a miscarriage intentionally. Actually, women have more miscarriages than they realize, because it's so early that they didn't realize they were pregnant in the first place. (Thanks to HJ for telling me this. She's not an OB/GYN but knows more about practical pregnancy.) What happens when a woman has been trying to get pregnant but has a weak uterus, and a neighbor who dislikes her, or some punk kid looking to cause any trouble, happens on a piece of gossip?

Most long-time Utah residents may have forgotten the Lehi tragedy of the late 1980s. I was very young, but a local TV news' title "Lehi, a town in crisis" is forever imprinted on my memory. I don't call it a "tragedy" because of anyone who may have been abused. I call it a tragedy because once the allegations flew, it became a 20th century version of the Salem witch trials. In the end, one man was convicted of sexually abusing his two children, and even that was extremely suspect. All you need is someone willing to make false accusations against someone else, especially out of a sense of righteousness rather than malevolence, and a God-damned modern Torquemada, like Mike Nifong, who will prosecute regardless of evidence. I know this personally.

I used to say, "Bad law ties down people. Good law ties down government." After learning that there is no need for law -- to be more specific, statute -- I now understand that any man-made law always has the purpose, ulterior or obvious, of the law-makers and their supporters controlling other people. There is always the highest law, more of a commandment actually, that is simply summed up in that no one should infringe on others' lives, liberty and property. But rather than follow a ten-word principle of not harming others, most people accept public schools' conditioning to "follow the law" however blindly, and resultingly they put up with a bad law until it's repealed or finally struck down. Depending on my neighbors to have the will to recognize bad laws, let alone resist them, is a faith I justifiably no longer have. I once knew a real idiot who said a law always stands until it's repealed, ignoring two centuries of courts ruling laws unconstitutional. And that's playing by government's game: depending on courts to nullify bad laws is relying on the wolf to condemn the fox.

When we realize the simple nature of the highest law, it's not difficult to understand that man-made laws are unnecessarily complex. Whether intentionally or unintentionally, they improperly define objects, ideas and especially intent. The superb Pacino movie "And Justice for All" touches on an innocent man's failed appeal, because it was submitted a mere three days after the deadline. That's justice? But the defined procedures claim it is.

Ayn Rand wrote:

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against—then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. 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 enforced nor objectively interpreted—and you create a nation of law-breakers—and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.

Does it matter whether people of clearly evil intentions or goody two-shoes are the ones pushing tyranny? Actually the former is preferable: it's easier to identify and expose the clearly bad people. The latter are useful idiots who argue "for the good of the people," "for the children," "for generations unborn," and "for the country."

Henry David Thoreau wrote,

After all, the practical reason why, when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? — in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable? Must the citizen ever for a moment, or in the least degree, resign his conscience to the legislator? Why has every man a conscience, then? I think that we should be men first, and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think right.

He was a man of extraordinary conscience. The story has it that, after he was jailed for refusing to pay the poll tax, Ralph Waldo Emerson visited him in jail: "What are you doing in there?" Thoreau replied, "What are you doing out there?"

Upton and Chu can rot in hell

2011-07-11T12:43:00.000-04:00

I thought Billy Beck was a little more restrained on Fred Upton than he's wont to be, but with Steven Chu he's back to regular form.

Of course the media is an apologist for this:

The provision requires that by 2012, lightbulb manufacturers produce bulbs that generate the same amount of light but use less electricity to do it. It would not outlaw incandescent bulbs, nor mandate production of the curlicue-shaped compact fluorescent bulbs. The new energy-efficient bulbs, which hit hardware and drugstore shelves this year, are similar in appearance to the old bulbs—they have the familiar shape and cast the same warm light. They are more expensive than the old bulbs but last longer and have the net effect of saving consumers money, according to the Energy Department, which estimates that the bulb law will save Americans $6 billion annually in energy costs.

This is logic from an Orwellian nightmare. The law's proponents are half truthful in claiming that it doesn't directly outlaw the bulbs, glossing over the simple truth that outlawing the manufacture of something is tantamount to outlawing the product itself. They know most Americans are stupid enough to swallow that, and the lie about saving money in the end.

There is a special place in hell for these devils and their minions.

The Minnesota shutdown: "I weep for them as I would a burglar's accountant."

2011-07-06T21:40:00.001-04:00

My comment over at Three Sources.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Philip Contos: at least he died in his freedom

2011-07-03T14:04:00.001-04:00

"The care of every man's soul belongs to himself. But what if he neglect the care of it? Well what if he neglect the care of his health or his estate, which would more nearly relate to the state. Will the magistrate make a law that he not be poor or sick? Laws provide against injury from others; but not from ourselves. God himself will not save men against their wills." - Thomas Jefferson

Contos was riding his motorcycle, without a helmet specifically to protest laws requiring one, and died in an accident. He accepted the risk and harmed no one but himself. If he had plowed into a crowd of schoolchildren, or flipped through a car's windshield, a helmet would have made no difference.

There are many who deserve a Darwin Award, and many who I wish would hurry up and earn theirs before they kill someone else. Contos isn't one of them, though. It is irony that a helmet might have saved his life, but he wasn't doing anything egregiously stupid. There are many who don't wear helmets and yet survive, and enough who wear helmets yet die. Accidents happen. Did T.E. Lawrence or George Patton deserve Darwin Awards? Certainly not -- people have died in vehicular accidents for thousands of years, ever since we learned how to tame animals.

Darwin Awards go to real jackasses like this goddamn idiot, especially because he took someone else with him.

Obamanomics summed up in a picture

2011-06-26T09:54:00.001-04:00

Whatever school this woman went to, it hasn't done her a bit of good

2011-06-17T20:53:00.000-04:00

"Do you know what schools I've been to? How well-educated I am?"

Yeah. This bitch had better realize that of the many millions of Yahoo readers and YouTube viewers, it's probable that at least hundreds of thousands checked out that video, and many thousands take Metro-North's New Haven line. The hundreds who can remember her face should be sure to greet her heartily, "Hello, educated fucker!" Then they should all pretend to make calls, "Guess what, I'm sitting next to the educated bitch who's too good for this train!"

Metro-North is full of yappers and poseurs, and the two combined are the most annoying. If these twits really were so wealthy and important, they'd be chauffeured into the city instead of taking the train. But usually it's men trying to act like big shots in some business deal or contract. One idiot made sure to proclaim so everyone would hear, "This thing's gonna be huge!" Another huffed into his phone, "Don't cross me! Don't cross me or I will break you!" (Dolph Lundgren Syndrome?) I guess this woman decided that the "I'm better than you" card deserved some gender equality.

With everyone, I first try a polite approach. When they get annoyed that I have the temerity to be bothered by their annoying behavior, a few choice words usually cut them down. Then you have the real pieces of work. Wow, has it really been two years since his empty threat? Since then I've seen Guido around a few times. One time he even sat next to me (three-seater row, so there was space between us) and said something about not seeing me in a long time, "Now you're taking my train." I asked, "Sorry, what was that?" He said, "Never mind." All he did was make a couple of quick calls, and he was quiet for the rest of the ride. So much for getting me when I least expect it.

Isn't it so much better to be civilized with others?

These headlines say it all

2011-06-07T22:48:00.002-04:00

These are Yahoo's headlines right now. The more Obama & Co. speak, the more money-movers trust them to screw things up even more.

U.S. companies are sitting on $2 trillion of cash, and with good reason: they don't know when they'll need rainy day funds! The feds, Fed, state and local governments have screwed things up so much that it's a miracle any company that isn't politically connected can make a buck these days.

The repayment of auto bailout loans that isn't

2011-05-28T15:35:00.002-04:00

It's all a bunch of lies. Of course.

I'll use the same criteria I've used many times before: anyone in the private sector, like a bank manager approving a new loan to repay an existing loan, would go to jail for doing the same thing the government does with legal impunity.

What doesn't Romney understand about "Thou shalt not steal"?

2011-05-28T15:30:00.002-04:00

He supports ethanol subsidies, and subsidies are only one thing: theft. It's the forcible taking of one person's property to give to another person, and it matters not a whit how noble the end goal is.

Ask yourself, with subsidies or any other thing government does: if it's such a good idea, why do you have to be forced into it? Why can't your neighbors convince you to join, instead of forming a "government" and making you join in or die?

Justice for Jerome Ersland -- another villified hero

2011-05-27T15:30:00.000-04:00

Like Bernie Getz three decades ago, Ersland did absolutely nothing wrong. He disposed of a worthless piece of shit who didn't deserve to walk among us, and now he's been convicted of first-degree murder.

It would be fitting justice if these jurors someday stare down the barrel of a robber's gun, then have to wonder if they should defend themselves, or if they should chance the robber on the ground should regain consciousness. What was Ersland supposed to do, check for a pulse?

There's an old joke about a reporter asking a policeman why he shot a criminal a certain number of times. "Because I didn't have any more bullets." Ah, yes, police have the authority to use lethal force, but the victim directly threatened does not?

This comment says it all: "As far as I'm concerned, the second these scumbags entered the store with guns is the second they gave up their right to life, liberty, and the persuit of happiness." Look at the video: who had pulled a gun first?

So now Ersland will probably never breathe free air again, while the surviving robber got away. The small solace is that Ersland saved other people in the future from being robbed, even killed, by the punk he put under.

The Treasury made a profit selling 15% of AIG?

2011-05-25T21:17:00.001-04:00

That's what goddamn morons at Reuters, Time and the New York Slimes would have us think. Actually, it's true only from the perspective that a robber profits: the Treasury gained, and taxpayers are stuck with the losses. Is anyone stupid enough to think taxpayers will get that money back in tax rebates, or that the "profit" will be used to pay any of the national debt? Hell no -- it's new-found revenue that the feds can spend. A "surplus."

An utter imbecile at the WSJ actually claimed that "taxpayers win."

Let's look at what happened today. The Treasury dumped 200 million shares on the open market. Reuters reported, "The shares were sold for $29 apiece, just above the $28.73 average price the Treasury will need to break even on its record bailout of AIG during the financial crisis."

Oh really?

There are 1.8 billion AIG shares total, giving it a market cap of $50.81 billion. In November 2008, the feds poured a total of $182.5 billion into AIG. In order to break even, it would actually have to sell each share at $101.39 per share.

Then how can Reuters tell us that the Treasury will break even at $29? Well,

So far, Treasury has raised $5.8 billion of the $47.5 billion it needs to break even on the equity portion of its investment. Treasury cut its stake in AIG from 92 percent, but, by far remains the majority shareholder, with 77 percent. It has another 1.5 billion shares to sell.

Aha! The Treasury is telling us only about its equity portion, ignoring all the warrants that the feds bought with taxpayer money. In the private sector, this would be properly accused as accounting fraud, and any CEO or CFO claiming "We'll break even" would be sent to jail. Of course, the feds have told us how all these banks have repaid TARP loans, ignoring those that haven't, and especially ignoring AIG, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Consider this: after the Treasury's "profit" of less than $9 billion today, it could still sell AIG three times over (like a "The Producers" scam) and still not recover what taxpayers poured into it. And that's assuming the stock price wouldn't plunge, of course. I don't think it's that the Treasury is full of idiots, it's just full of thieves who don't have to care about the consequences of suddenly offering 11% of the shares for sale.

No pigs were harmed in the making of this video

2011-05-23T20:26:00.000-04:00

Clearly this man in a goddamn wheelchair was such a threat that it took two of New York's Bravest to deal with him.

Race is not the issue. The only issue is people empowered by "the state" to use force with near impunity. Sensible people would have cuffed him to his own wheelchair (in case he was faking), then rolled him to the precinct house.

Harold Camping can go to hell, not that he needs any help

2011-05-21T11:49:00.000-04:00

Today is indeed the day of judgement -- for Harold Camping. Let this finally fish this fraud, liar and false prophet.

Camping makes Jesus Christ out to be a liar. In claiming he knows, he's saying the Son of Man wasn't telling us the truth in Matthew 24:36 or Mark 13:32. Tomorrow morning, those two verses should be the only sermon preached throughout the world.

If the Almighty really is warning us through a turd like Camping, such a deity is so unworthy of our worship that I'd sooner go to hell out of principle. If Camping really is right, I'll have excellent company in hell. Could you imagine an eternity of "salvation" next to Camping with his smug self-righteousness? It would be far better to laugh with the supposed "sinners" than cry with such "saints."

It pains me that a good friend has been so caught up in this, deliberately scheduling vacation this last week for what she believes is her last week on the planet. I asked her, why was she bothering to show up to work at all? She could have used her savings to pay this month's rent, food, etc., since after all it no longer matters after today. Right?

Because of my friend and all others he led astray, it would have been better had Camping tied a millstone to his neck and thrown himself into the sea.

Two days: it's amazing Obama took even that long to reverse on Israel

2011-05-19T23:15:00.002-04:00

May 17: Obama vows 'support' for Israel

May 19: Prodding Israel, Obama embraces Palestine borders

Two days after declaring support (which I should point out he had no right to make on my behalf or anyone else's), Obama tells Israel to give land back to the instigators of "Three Wars and an Intifada."

When the Jews began the modern exodus back to Israel in the 19th century, the Arabs in fact didn't care, so long as the Jews settled only on the worst land (after paying well for it, too). It was essentially desert, courtesy of centuries of Arab neglect. Once the Jews cultivated the land back to green, suddenly the Arabs wanted it back. That's it in a nutshell. Balfour as a method certainly didn't make Arabs happy, but it wouldn't have elicited a peep had it been half a century earlier.

My father had spent quite a bit of time in the Middle East. In the early 1960s, Cairo and Tehran were welcome to everyone, and the old man especially liked telling me what a jewel Beirut was. He passed on to me a story from one of his friends, an Arab Christian. This fellow was once on an airplane flight next to an Arab Muslim, who spent the entire time railing against Jews and Christians. Suddenly he turned to my father's friend. "You're not one of them, are you?" My father's friend calmly replied, "I am...Arab!"

Chuck Schumer really is a piece of shit

2011-05-17T23:25:00.001-04:00

Here he is, again preening himself on the news, accusing oil companies of intentionally shutting down refineries.

This is not the first time he's blathered about this.

Actually, shutting refineries during late spring is not new. It happens every year. Refineries must switch over to "summer blend" gasoline, which they do so damn well and so transparently that most people don't realize it. Summer gasoline must be less volatile (i.e. it can't evaporate as easily) because of the greater temperatures. It must also meet additional "environment-friendly" requirements, such as producing less smog. So if anyone's to blame for higher gas prices in warmer weather, it's the feds and their God-damned EPA. The same feds so graciously allowed one, one refinery to be built in 2008. The last refinery before that: built in 1977.

Why don't oil companies simply produce the same warmer-weather blends all year round? Because colder-weather blends are cheaper, thus people will buy more and maximize profits. If oil companies really were trying to "gouge" via higher prices, they would never produce this blend at all. The fact is that, with all the oil companies competing, it's in any given company's best interest to always provide the best blend at the lowest possible price. And that's what they're doing at any given time. A particular company could try producing summer blend year-round, but they've all calculated that it's more efficient to shut refineries temporarily at appropriate seasons to switch blends.

There is so much tripe again about "oil company profits," though nobody was crying a decade ago, or especially two years ago, when oil was cheap and profits were low. Nothing is preventing these idiots from partaking in the profits by investing in these companies who provide us with a valuable product. Any Joe can own shares of Exxon-Mobil or whoever, directly or through a simple mutual fund. (Disclosure: I don't.)

I wonder: has Schumer double-checked his personal investments to make sure he has no shares of these evil companies he rails against?

The tryanny of RomneyCare

2011-05-14T13:06:00.001-04:00

My reply on Facebook to an old schoolmate, who thinks RomneyCare doesn't have a mandate:

Stop with the sophistry already. It's a mandate to have insurance, whether your own or through the state. Tell me how a Massachusetts resident can NOT have insurance and not be penalized? You claim there's no "mandate" yet ignore those who don't want insurance at all.

Look what Romneycare has done, making Boston doctor wait times the longest in the nation. Good job!

How strange, I thought all these years that your church believed in free will. Or don't you remember the history of 160 years ago when you were driven across the continent for not following the laws of men?

There is a special place in hell for Romney. Take care you don't let him drag you down with him.

His reply:

Is it your right, Perry, to demand that I pay for your emergency health care because you don't want insurance?

Please do not insert church into this, by the way. That's sloppy and distasteful, my friend.

PS - You speak of being penalized by choosing not to have health insurance. Do you know who is really penalized? ME. Or the people in your state. Because guess who pays for it when you go to the emergency room without insurance? Yep. Your neighbors. What is freedom-loving and personal responsibility about that?

To which I wrote:

That's a strawman. You're labeling everyone without insurance as the same who go to emergency rooms without paying. I don't demand that you pay for ANYTHING in my life. I will pay for my own health care, thank you very much. By the same token, I don't demand that you pay for anything in my life. THAT, my friend, is the essence of freedom.

You support this MANDATE because of free riders. Perhaps if you stopped paying for them entirely, you wouldn't have to worry about making things "efficient." But the truth is that if you're of low income and could have never afforded health insurance anyway, the Commonwealth will still subsidize your care. So this law did absolutely nothing for the problem of those who'd go to an emergency room and not pay, except to say that it's now ok. What this law DOES do is force healthy people to get insurance, no matter that they would have never gone to emergency rooms without paying.

I'm reminding you of your church's history because so many of your members seem to have forgotten it. (I'm likewise critical of my own denomination.) Or do you not believe in a person's freedom to not buy something he doesn't want?

Every person who claims to believe in Jesus Christ needs to remember one scripture in particular: "Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather. or he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant. Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men. Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God."

In Massachusetts, thou shalt buy health insurance no matter that thou needest it not. Pharaoh has spoken. So it has been written, so it shall be done.

I don't suppose with all his wealth, Romney ever once thought of offering to pay for these destitute people who went to emergency rooms, knowing they couldn't pay.

There is no depth of idiocy to which public schools can't sink

2011-05-11T00:11:00.001-04:00

Now it's war on chocolate milk. However, this war is hardly new: I've personally experienced it in a slightly different form, when I began elementary school in the Bay Area. Back then it needed no excuse. "We're the school and we'll tell you what you'd better damn well do."

Milk was the sole beverage offered with school lunch. I've always found its taste positively horrid, for the same inexplicable reason that I like broccoli and am oversensitive to salt. So one morning, my father prepared a tiny jar with Quik powder for me to bring to school. With that, I could make the school lunch's milk palatable and therefore not waste it. I never had a chance to get away with what that young boy couldn't fathom was a horrible, horrible crime. The next thing I knew, the cafeteria nanny (a mutated den mother) and principal flanked me at the table, demanding to know what I had poured in. It's no exaggeration to say that with the nature of their interrogation (it could be called no other thing), and their cowardice in brow-beating and threatening an excellent student who never caused trouble, I might as well have been smuggling for a drug cartel.

So they put a very quick stop to my father's good idea, and I returned to not taking the pints of milk. The school officials flatly refused my father's reasonable demand of a credit for what I wasn't consuming, and they refused to give any explanation of the most remote plausibility. They didn't merely not try, they didn't want to try to defend their idiocy. "We're the school and we'll tell you what you'd better damn well do." The solution was that I started bringing my own lunch, which sometimes included milk and the same banned Quik, mixed in at home. What was it, that school milk has such a different molecular formula that it would go critical after adding Quik?

As a practical matter, bringing my own lunch was the only solution. As a matter of principle, it was the only solution, being the right thing to do anyway. Freedom, practicality, efficiency and happiness -- is it any wonder the four are inextricable?

Part of the blame rests on the fellow students, who were jealous they couldn't do the same. Once they saw me enjoying a beverage they didn't have, up went their hands. Yet not a thing in the universe prevented their parents from following suit. They didn't because they lacked desire and original thought to improve the conditions of their children, even when someone showed them something they could easily do themselves. No doubt they've grown up to be the most brain-dead of liberals, demanding "equality" no matter that it means bringing everyone to a rock-bottom level.

God knows what would happen if I had been going to school now. One of my oldest friends and I would have been shot by SWAT for play-slashing at each other with pocketknives, no matter that we never hurt each other. (Mr. Borders knew we never meant harm, so he'd just tell us to behave.) Another friend would have been drugged with Ritalin for ADHD, because in boring classes he'd routinely get caught up in the textbook and ignore the teacher's droning. Students are suspended, even expelled, just for having an aspirin. Do any of you think that part's even new? It's been happening for at least twenty goddamn years. Schools sometimes put up the defense that they would be responsible, but that's just the point: reasonable parents don't ask them to take the responsibility in the first place!

Naturally, when my sister fell during PE and broke several bones in her hand, the school disclaimed all responsibility. The officials even had the chutzpah to blame my parents for not buying the optional health insurance. It didn't matter that she was very much physically coerced into playing: refusing meant punishment by running laps or jumping rope, and if you refused to do that because you knew you had done nothing wrong, you'd fail PE. Remember: "We're the school and we'll tell you what you'd better damn well do."

Note to Charlie: power to you, I hope your kids never see a day of public school in their lives.

The passing of a truly great man -- and most of us never knew his name

2011-03-27T23:09:00.002-04:00

Harry Coover, RIP. What home handyman/tinkerer like me never used superglue?

Tonight, I make a different sort of libation.

Whoever you are, "Yuan MU," may you rot in hell

2011-02-21T23:46:00.002-05:00

It should be obvious to anyone who understands and loves freedom that this sonofabitch deserves to burn and suffer for an eternity.

Just read the whole thing, if you can stomach it. This bastard is not just saying it's the right of "the state" to kill whoever opposes it, but he's bragging about being part of the murder at Tiananmen Square. He has blood on his hands.

"Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

2011-02-05T13:42:00.000-05:00

When Eammon Hennessey would be hauled before Judge Ritter, "that old fart," for protesting, he would never plead guilty or innocent, he would plead anarchy.

"What's an anarchist, Eammon?" Judge Ritter would say.

"An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do," says Eammon.

"But we need laws, Eammon," says the Judge.

"Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

The glorious and fearless "Members of the House Law Enforcement and Criminal Justice Standing Committee" of the anointed Utah State Legislature recently debated this. You can listen to the audio here, which includes my friend Charlie's comment starting at 46:20.

"Do I have to pull out a map and make sure I meander my way through and not get within a thousand feet of some of these places? It, it approaches a level of absurdity for somebody who, for my own safety and that of my family and others around me, might choose to carry a weapon."

Do gun control advocates really believe that someone already hell-bent on harming innocent people will pay attention to a law restricting firearms within 1000 feet of anywhere?

"Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

I had posted the opening quote here, talking about what was the safest place on Patriot's Day. No one was shot at gun rights rallies in Virginia, but there were victims at a supposedly gun-free hospital in Knoxville.

Where did Jared Lee Loughner go shooting? Not a gun rights rally. Whether he's crazy or not, he's not stupid. He chose a rally for a politician whose party members are practically deathly allergic to the idea firearms for self defense. The immediate response was to tackle him, whereas had he opened fire at any gathering of gun owners, it would have meant his immediate death -- certainly after he first shot Gifford, and possibly even as he drew his gun.

Arizona now "allows" open-carry. What if Gifford had a reputation for carrying a pistol at her side?

"Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

There were already plenty of laws against shooting civilians. Did they really matter to Loughner? Would it have mattered had he used an illegal firearm purchased off the street, or stuck a shiv in Gifford? Of course not.

"Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

But notice what Eammon said: he didn't say just "laws," but "your laws." There are still rules for civilization, like "Thou shalt not kill" and "Thou shalt not steal." These are based on the fact that behavior contrary to those laws is a violation of others' natural rights. But laws by judges, legislatures and executives, by their very nature, tell innocent people what to do though they're not harming anyone in the first place. "Thou shalt pay a tax, or else." "Thou shalt not open this unapproved business." "Thou shalt beg government for permission to work on your own land."

So again, "Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

Ayn Rand gave us the answer as best as anyone ever could:

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against - then you'll know that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you'd better get wise to it. 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 guilt. Now, that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."

Just about the stupidest liberal alive

2011-01-26T21:44:00.001-05:00

From this on Yahoo:

After two years, Obama has created the 5 million new "green jobs" he promised during the campaign, drastically reduced unemployment, and pulled the U.S. entirely out of the Middle East. Right?

This liberal likely doesn't know what else was happening in 1492: Spain was finally rid entirely of Muslim rule. Spaniards didn't need to entangle themselves in the Middle East, because a caliphate had already been on the Iberian peninsula for hundreds of years.

Look again, "Intercollegiate Studies Institute"

2011-01-17T11:55:00.000-05:00

This civics quiz is pretty good, although a couple of questions have questionable answers.

I scored 32 out of 33. According to the quiz writers, I was incorrect to answer A to this:

30) Which of the following fiscal policy combinations would a government most likely follow to stimulate economic activity when the economy is in a severe recession?
A. increasing both taxes and spending
B. increasing taxes and decreasing spending
C. decreasing taxes and increasing spending
D. decreasing both taxes and spending

But which government? It's a given that government spending continually rises under any president and Congress, so now it's just a matter of which raised taxes. Hoover and FDR had no qualms about massive tax increases in the face of a deteriorating economy. Reagan pushed Congress to cut taxes overall (but as a matter of policy, not "stimulus"), trading that for his signature on social spending bills. George H.W. Bush worked with Congress to raise taxes, though at the beginning of what they hadn't yet realized was a recession. George W. Bush's initial push for tax cuts was likewise at the beginning of what wasn't yet a recession, and the second round of tax cuts was hardly meant as a "stimulus" for the economy. Now we have Obama who, because the latest recession officially ended in June 2009, didn't have a chance to raise taxes. His "stimulus" has been all about spending and increased government debt, with token payroll tax cuts.

So your question is iffy, ISI.

The 2010 Rockefeller Center Christmas tree

2010-12-23T22:58:00.003-05:00

Tomorrow's a day off, so this was my last chance to get a good picture of the tree. I was headed home before it was dark, however.

Once again, the New York Times has no shame and resorts to a lie

2010-12-15T22:22:00.000-05:00

A Google query shows that a lot of liberal blogs picked up on this New York Times tripe. It would be too much to expect that this Leonhardt would have done his actual homework, instead of linking to a liberal hack.

Being a little versed in Reagan's speeches, I could smell something was fishy from what Michelle Malkin has called "the fishwrap of record." Leonhardt took a quote from Reagan's 1964 speech, "A Time for Choosing," where Reagan was referring to Social Security, and -- purposely or in typical liberal ignorance -- merged it with his 1961 speech opposing Medicare.

It would have been too much to expect that Leonhardt would tell the truth, like linking to "The Southern Manifesto" as evidence that "conservatives have often viewed any expansion of government protections as a threat to capitalism." The 101 signers were primarily (perhaps all, I didn't check all the names) Democrats, like the anti-semite Thomas Abernathy.

What a liar Leonhardt is! Or perhaps he'll excuse himself that Democrats were conservatives then, like the Earth's magnetic poles are thought to reverse over time?

The federal income tax, a senator from New York said a century ago, might mean the end of “our distinctively American experiment of individual freedom.” Social Security was actually a plan “to Sovietize America,” a previous head of the Chamber of Commerce said in 1935. The minimum wage and mandated overtime pay were steps “in the direction of Communism, Bolshevism, fascism and Nazism,” the National Association of Manufacturers charged in 1938.

And these warnings were correct, echoed in 1961 when Reagan warned of Medicaid as a way for socialism to get its foot in the door: let government start a small program under the guise of charity, then gradually expand it. "No government ever voluntarily reduces itself in size. So governments' programs, once launched, never disappear. Actually, a government bureau is the nearest thing to eternal life we'll ever see on this earth."

Reagan wasn't perfect. He believed in some government, including one powerful enough to force you to fund a massive defense of the homeland and allies. Nonetheless, he said a lot of good things that any lover of liberty should take to heart. People don't oppose Medicare because they want the elderly to be without health care; we oppose it on the basis of liberty, that a person should not be forced to subsidize the life of another. If you want to save an individual, or the world, open up your own pocketbook and inspire others. I understand the Obamas made a few coins last year, so let them go first.

But it's the very fact that the cause isn't worthwhile, that the administration is inefficient, and/or that there aren't enough people willing to fund the goal, that a government is needed to force people to participate. What rational person today, more than 20 years from retirement, would "invest" any money in Social Security? Or pay into Medicaid and Medicare, considering all their fraud? It's the same with socialized health insurance. Leonhardt talks about "lowering costs," which is because people are forced to pay for a service despite not needing or wanting it. It's certainly true that many healthy people buy health insurance policies they'll never fully use, but that's a risk they take voluntarily. The tyranny and collectivism Obama and the Clintons would lead us into is that all healthy people are needed to pay for everyone else.

"Yet anytime you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we're denounced as being against their humanitarian goals. They say we're always 'against' things—we're never 'for' anything."

"There is no [Social Security] fund, because Robert Byers, the actuarial head, appeared before a congressional committee and admitted that Social Security as of this moment is 298 billion dollars in the hole. But he said there should be no cause for worry because as long as they have the power to tax, they could always take away from the people whatever they needed to bail them out of trouble. And they're doing just that."

"Now it doesn't require expropriation or confiscation of private property or business to impose socialism on a people. What does it mean whether you hold the deed to the—or the title to your business or property if the government holds the power of life and death over that business or property? And such machinery already exists. The government can find some charge to bring against any concern it chooses to prosecute. Every businessman has his own tale of harassment. Somewhere a perversion has taken place. Our natural, unalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation of government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment."

Now contrast the Gipper with Leonhardt's idiocy: "Guaranteeing people a decent retirement and decent health care does more than smooth out the rough edges of capitalism. Those guarantees give people the freedom to take risks. If you know that professional failure won’t leave you penniless and won’t prevent your child from receiving needed medical care, you can leave the comfort of a large corporation and take a chance on your own idea. You can take a shot at becoming the next great American entrepreneur."

In other words, Leonhardt says the government should take care of you, no matter how stupid you are in your life choices -- at the expense of everyone else who was responsible and did make good choices.

The great entrepreneurs were not just risk-takers. They made correct choices, and they never relied on forcing government to save them from their mistakes. Of course, for every Andrew Carnegie, Cornelius Vanderbilt or Steve Jobs are uncountable people who failed. But they didn't fail because of moral deficiency, but simply because they made errors in offering a product or service. That still does not give them the right to force others to give them a safety net.

Just about the biggest stupidity I've seen in suggesting how to reduce the federal deficit

2010-12-05T20:45:00.000-05:00

In the comments for this,

Ways to cut the deficit Lower all politicians salaries by 25%, lower all gas / diesel / heating fuels to $1.00 a gallon, lower property taxes to $100 dollars a year for all houses and let people have to work to pay for their children to go to school so that people are NOT forced out of their houses and on welfare, make illegal aliens pay for the taxes and medical services they have received free of charge, make foreigners pay for their own college education instead of raising the amount to go to college to pay for those whom get free college, make small companies pay a very small tax amount and let all companies take tax deductions for medical care of employees, stop raising taxes and stop making new taxes for reasons that there are ways to provide for without raising taxes. Have several more reasons that would make a candidate for presidential election get elected but won't post them because the politicians would use them for their own nomination. Posted by Dereck

Cutting politicians' salaries: a drop in the bucket of $1.3 trillion.

Lowering property taxes: this actually increases the deficit at municipal levels. But it does nothing for the federal deficit.

"let people have to work to pay for their children to go to school so that people are NOT forced out of their houses and on welfare": this is a non-sequitur.

Illegal immigrants: another drop in the bucket of $1.3 trillion.

Taxes on companies and their health care costs: this does nothing significant for the federal deficit.

"stop raising taxes and stop making new taxes for reasons that there are ways to provide for without raising taxes": this circular claim still does nothing.

But the biggest idiocy is "lower all gas / diesel / heating fuels to $1.00 a gallon." No energy company could survive on that. They'd lose money without...massive government subsidies, which would massively increase the deficit.

The only way to cut the deficit is to cut spending. The primarily spending outlays are entitlement programs (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and welfare), and you can be sure every last one of the recipients will vote to continue the status quo -- everyone else be damned. The nature of government being what it is, namely an institution whose sole function is to force some people to bend to the whims of others (e.g. taxation), you might as well ask the fox to go on a diet while extending him another invitation to the henhouse.

Art Cummings of the News-Times is a God-damned idiot, and I will cheer when his soul burns in hell

2010-12-05T20:19:00.000-05:00

God is truly merciful and forgiving, according to Judeo-Christian scriptures. He'd even forgive this hell-bound piece of shit who supports the theft of other people's property, it's said, when I myself wouldn't consider it for a unit of Planck time.

...the Bush tax cuts and Derek Jeter's contract.

Neither one of those is an earth-shaking matter...

So tax cuts that affect all net taxpayers are not important? Really?

What happens to Jeter will not affect me in the least, but it does affect me when the government decides to rob me of even more of my property. What's more galling is the absurd claim, "Well, the law giving you a tax cut expired." After all, taxpayers are merely prey for government's leeches, and raising taxes (including revoking a previous "cut") is just giving a bigger bag limit to the predators.

Cummings' first idiocy is to ignore that the tax brackets are going up for everyone. They always were. Democrats' efforts were never serious: they knew that Republicans would take a hard line on keeping all the tax "cuts," so Democrats could use that as an excuse that they couldn't extend any tax cuts at all. It's necessary for both parties to increase taxes on everyone, because taxes on "the rich" are nowhere near enough to cover the surge in the federal deficit, a level that previously was only seen during WWII.

Even playing liberals' game, "Bush's tax cuts" only cut taxes for "the rich" by $700 billion. That's not per year, but total. Putting things in perspective, Obama's annual deficits are $1.4 trillion and $1.3 trillion. Taxes on "the rich" for several years wouldn't even come close to covering a single year of the new deficits.

But Cummings' true idiocy is to suggest that people are worse off when the top earners aren't paying the vast majority (and last year, income taxes paid by the top 1% first exceeded what was paid by the bottom 95%, approximately a third of the pot). Why would people be worse off when their neighbors aren't being robbed more? Because the government needs to rob everyone as much as possible to satisfy Obama's fiscal insanity, lest taxpayers in the future will have greater debt burdens?

If he suggests that people benefit from "soaking the rich" because they'll get back more than they pay in, I don't need a government to force a neighbor to pay for my consumption. And I already pay more than I get back.

Therein lies the truth: anyone "worse off" is like a mugger or burglar is "worse off" with fewer victims. Liberals in their innate hypocrisy openly despise "the rich," but inwardly they know that "the rich" are needed to pay the bulk of taxes.

The Rockefeller Center Christmas tree show just isn't watchable anymore

2010-11-30T21:24:00.000-05:00

Tony Bennett last performed two years ago, showing the other performers a thing or two about real vocals. He appeared last year but didn't sing, and in fact he didn't look well.

This year he didn't appear at all, which was a sign of how low the show has gotten. What a continuous train wreck: good talent but bad songs, overacting, fakery (euphemistically called "lip-synching"), self-indulgent screeching, Lennox looking and singing like she's from the Church of Satan, and then Jessica Simpson trying to sing at the end. Not even a few seconds of Mike Bloomberg singing "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" with the Tishman Speyer and NBC chiefs, like last year.

Leslie Nielsen, RIP

2010-11-28T21:39:00.002-05:00

Thanks for all the laughs, and in advance for those yet to come.

Ben Bernanke's "quantitative easing" quackery and "stimulus" smokescreen

2010-11-14T22:37:00.001-05:00

I've been as busy as ever, and in the few blogs I can regularly follow, no one has written about this. The truth doesn't need much thinking to be uncovered.

Helicopter Ben has "wrestled" with how much "aid" the U.S. economy needs from the Federal Reserve, meaning how much in Treasury securities it will buy. The final number: $600 billion, about $100 billion over six months. There are just two problems: it won't work, and it's all a lie to disguise the real reason.

Even playing the Keynesians' game, the U.S. economy has already been in a liquidity trap for a long time. The FFR (already so close to zero) and other interest rates indicate that there's plenty of money and credit floating around, but it's just not moving the economy. I pointed out the liquidity trap (a real one, not the claptrap Krugman has talked about) in December 2008, when the Fed decided to cut the FFR to 0.5%. Since late October 2008, however, when investors were dumping stocks and scrambling for the seeming safety of U.S. Treasuries, the effective FFR started dipping below 0.5%. Therefore, even if Keynesians' delusions about monetary policy had any more than an artificial, short-lived effect, it still wouldn't work for anytime in the last two years.

Now the second part isn't to the level of a Big Lie. It's sadly just the latest one of this financial Reichstag fire:

"There isn't enough money in the world to borrow (there isn't enough that lenders are willing to lend, to be more specific), so the Federal Reserve has been buying U.S. Treasury securities like mad. The overt reason has been so it can drive down mortgage rates, including 30-year rates. It's a cover story so the common American voter won't realize how much new money is being created."

I said that in March 2009. It's actually gotten worse: lenders are completely tapped, even were they willing. There's simply no more money for the federal government to borrow from anyone, whether national governments or individuals. Japan, South Korea and the UK likewise have no more money, and their economies are in trouble. China's tapped and has its own problems.

So the central bank steps in, as the European-American varieties have invariably done for centuries, to create "money" when there isn't any more real money around for the government to seize. In more antiquated times of less accessible information, no cover story was needed. Shopkeepers would eventually feel in their bones that there were more, say, deutche marks floating around, and they'd raise prices accordingly, but it wasn't commonly understood what was really happening. Even as late as the 1970s, the Fed acted with great impunity because so few realized what it was doing.

Today, though most Americans having heard of "the Fed" still don't know exactly what it does, the euphemism "quantitative easing" is employed so that we'll think things are just fine. We're told the central bankers are in control and that there's no inflation, when both are bald-faced lies. The plain truth is that the Treasury has no more money, taxed or borrowed, to keep paying for Obama's agenda. Thus the Fed must create more money in the guise of buying Treasury securities -- a time-honored scheme that should make the most sophisticated money launderer jealous, because it's being done in plain sight.

By law, the Fed supposedly remits (after deducting its expenses) any interest payments back to the Treasury. If that's such a wonderful thing, then why borrow from real creditors in the first place? Because creating this new money creates new inflation, and the federal government is using statistical trickery to claim there isn't any. Housing and technology prices are overweighted, while food and energy are underweighted as needed, to keep the inflation calculations looking legitimate. It also helps the government that stores, trying to keep consumers from getting discouraged at creeping inflation, are charging the same price for reduced sizes.

My friend Mike Pollaro pointed out earlier this year the unspoken truth, that the Fed is already monetizing a quarter of all new debt. In other words, of every dollar of new debt, 25 cents was created by the Fed. Lord knows what it is now, what it will be in several months. A country doesn't need to get to Weimar Germany or today's Zimbabwe to be wrecked by inflation. It only needs enough voters to fall under the spell of a Chavez, who blames the evil capitalists for raising prices. We aren't that far away.

The stupidest phishing attempt of all time

2010-11-07T20:10:00.001-05:00

from Credit Card Team.
reply-to creditcard2010@ymail.com
to
date Sun, Nov 7, 2010 at 8:03 PM
subject Credit Card

This to notify all credit card users that we are undergoing some mentainance
and verifications of credit due to high rate of fraud going on over the world. all
credit card owners are advised to provide their full credit card details for
verification and confirmation of their credit to prove that they are trully the
genuine owner of his/her credit card.

We advise you to fill the below credit card verification form and send it back to
us by replying to this message for further clarifications that you are rightful
owner of your credit and for upgrades.

Please fill:

1)Card Type:
2)Card Number:
3)Expiration Date:
4)Name as it appears on card:
5)Credit Card Verification Number:
6)Zip Code:

Please reply with the required details.

Thank you.

After all, this is Microsoft we're talking about

2010-09-15T22:52:00.000-04:00

Earlier today, when launching IE8 to host an online conference, I was warned "There is a problem with this website's security certificate," with the options to continue anyway or cancel.

OK, so this happens from time to time, but I was hosting a session using Live Meeting.

Oprah, so generous with Other People's Money

2010-09-14T21:37:00.000-04:00

How nice of you, Oprah, taking your studio Down Under courtesy of Australian taxpayers' taxes.

Gold's price peaked at what today?

2010-09-14T21:31:00.000-04:00

Thankfully this just seems to be Yahoo's error, and not the May 6 "flash crash" that still has no definitive explanation.

Connect the dots

2010-09-14T21:06:00.003-04:00

Just now on Yahoo's front page:

Paula Deen's exquisite peach cobbler recipe

2010-08-08T17:10:00.000-04:00

This was a hit last night. I used Land O'Lakes unsalted sweet cream, as is my custom.

Great recipes, Paula. You've done great and deserve it.

Thanks for the music, Mitch

2010-08-03T22:08:00.000-04:00

He passed away Saturday at age 99. Most people have no idea how much he contributed to the music world, and not just the music he personally made. His "Sing Along with Mitch" records were a staple of my childhood; I still have them.

Heavy liability for the ratings agencies, but it's not a free-market solution as some might think

2010-08-02T23:51:00.000-04:00

You may have read that once the new financial "reform" law went into effect, the three major ratings agencies stopped permitting their ratings to be used for new issues. This was completely expected because the three now bear tremendous liability for the "quality" of their ratings (i.e. accuracy).

Normally it's a free market where the ratings agencies aren't protected by the government. The three should absolutely face consequences for giving higher ratings than they know aren't warranted. For example, Mark Froeba testified before Congress about a radical shift in Moody's very culture:

When I joined Moody's in late 1997, an analyst's worst fear was that he would contribute to the assignment of a rating that was wrong, damage Moody's reputation for getting the answer right and lose his job as a result.

When I left Moody's, an analyst's worst fear was that he would do something that would allow him to be singled out for jeopardizing Moody's market share, for impairing Moody's revenue or for damaging Moody's relationships with its clients and lose his job as a result.

But the new "reform" is the feds making the ratings agencies liable for more than they'd have been in a free market. There's no room for mistake now: an honest error bears the same sanctions as fraud. It's like making an auto manufacturer liable for speeding tickets, because after all, they made a car that could travel faster than the law permits. Why should we be surprised that the agencies suddenly balked? The SEC gave them a six-month reprieve, but what will happen after that?

Obama's "reforms" have had the single agenda of driving the private sector out of this or that, which will eventually necessitate the feds stepping in "because the private sector isn't providing what people need." Eventually we'll see insurance premium caps instituted ostensibly to keep costs under control, and when insurers drop their sickliest customers, Obama will claim that the public option is "necessary." Similarly, this "financial reform" will hardly stop at the bureaucracy to "protect" consumers. The road has been paved for a federal agency to give ratings after the ratings agencies have been driven out of business -- and naturally this new body will have governmental immunity.

"the tenacity, sacrifice, and idealism displayed by Guevara"

2010-07-05T10:09:00.001-04:00

The DVD.

The truth:

After the July 1959 overthrow of Batista’s regime, Che presided over the first firing squads and established “Labor Camps” across the country modeled after the Soviet Gulags. He acted as judge, jury, and executioner, of which he personally took pride. He wrote in his essay:

“To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. … These are the procedures of the bourgeois detail. This is a revolution! And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate. We must create the teaching of the Wall!”

To invoke the “Berlin Wall” built by his comrades from Russia, was a testament to the process of dealing with dissidents and the elimination of opposition to the newly formed communist Cuban dictatorship; and eliminate they did.

Through these newly formed Labor Camps, Che ordered the death of hundreds of thousands of helpless Cubans, including women and children as young as 14 years old. He personally executed over 180 individual people, though some say many more fell at his own hands. Special detail at the camps was appointed to deal with the “Gay Problem” as they were imprisoned as well, and journalists were given no free voice as promised.

Following the takeover of the government, this newly formed Soviet-backed regime created a police state that incarcerated a higher percentage of people than Joseph Stalin’s communist regime and executed more people in the first three years than Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime did in its first six years.

How can people today be so utterly ignorant of who that son of a bitch was?

Idiots for the weekend: a Darwin Awards recipient and one close to winning

2010-06-20T23:00:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not talking about the leftist troll Washboard (but check that out for his latest idiocy and cowardice over at my friend Karol's blog). First up:

A woman who realized she was on the wrong Brooklyn subway platform Saturday tried to cross the tracks to the other side - only to be hit by an oncoming train, police said.

Shatonia Spencer, 23, died instantly when she was struck by a Q train pulling into the Prospect Park station, police said.

Upon entering the underground station at Ocean Ave. and Lincoln Place at 5:30 a.m., Spencer mistakenly walked to the northbound platform, police said.

But instead of crossing over to the southbound side, Spencer hopped down to the track bed and then tried to climb up to the southbound platform, police said.

She was attempting to scale the steep platform wall when the train arrived in the station, police said.

The only thing I find sad about such idiots is that they screw up transportation (subway service has to be stopped, roads have to be closed) for everyone else. In this particular instance, my only regret is that though her job was paid for by taxpayers, the city's just going to hire someone new, so it won't save taxpayers any money.

Was that cold for me to say? If so, then why should I express any sympathy for such a complete idiot? Maybe her boss will see the silver lining: someone this unbelievably stupid shouldn't be working for him, so now he doesn't have to worry about firing her.

Even worse are when these stupid people take others with them. At a gas station this evening, a middle-aged bitch at a gas station pulled up next to us, continuing to puff away on her cigarette. She stayed in her car for whatever reason, but her window was still down, so all it would have taken was a flying piece of hot ash... So I quickly finished, hopped in the car and said to my wife, "Let's get the hell out of here."

I thought about going inside to complain to the attendant, but 1) even the owner could do no more than call the police, who'd arrive far too late; and 2) we could have found ourselves trapped inside as the pumps successively turned into fireballs. If we had reported her license plate to the police, she could have denied it.

This woman was lucky. Others are not, and God save us from them.

Where was the "humanity" when this murderer killed an innocent human being?

2010-06-16T19:30:00.000-04:00

Ronnie Gardner: may you suffer horribly until your last breaths, then rot in hell for all eternity, you damned sonofabitch. For what you did, you deserve to have sulfuric acid pumped into your veins.

Only government researchers could be so stupid as to study rats in the subway

2010-06-15T22:51:00.000-04:00

What could be more stating the obvious?

NEW YORK — Rats have infested multiple subway lines in lower Manhattan and often live right in the station walls, according to a rodent expert overseeing what officials say is a new approach to battling rats in the nation's largest subway system.

"We're actually trying to measure what the factors are directly that cause rats to take advantage of certain stations and not others, so we're putting some science into this," said Robert Corrigan, a health department senior research scientist leading the effort.

So how much has this dimwit Corrigan been paid, when Edward Estrella gave the answer for free? Food. Anyone who takes the subway knows that people deliberately throw garbage onto the tracks, and they drop food all over. Now we know about a third factor that's simple disgusting: garbage bags left for days at a time.

Not in this article is that the study also wondered why rats would live in the subway, as opposed to parks and other areas that are more suitable. Here's my free answer: the rats don't know about open spaces and don't need to, because they're living their entire lives in the subway with a steady supply of food.

Here's a novel suggestion: instead of more poison traps, how about taking those MTA workers loafing around in vests and booths and assigning them to take the garbage out, and then sealing up the walls? Rats living inside will have no way to get out and will eventually die, and appropriate materials will contain the decay.

In his marvelous autobiography "An American Doctor's Odyssey," Dr. Victor Heiser wrote about efforts to prevent rats from going from a ship to the docks. The rat is an amazing swimmer, after all, so they'd jump off one ship, swim to a pier, then climb up the wooden supports and onto the docks. The answer was to affix large, thin sheets of metal on the underside of the piers, which were too smooth for rats to climb through. Relatedly, thin sheets of aluminum can be used to seal walls in these "garbage storerooms." Aluminum is plentiful, light, and highly resistant to corrosion. It would need only be thick enough that rats couldn't gnaw through. If the edges are fit snugly (say, an inch deep) into the ceilings, floors and side walls, there would be no cracks for rats to squeeze through. A few coats of flat paint, and presto.

No charge for that, MTA. It took more time to write that out than to think about it.

The boys from Brazil

2010-06-15T20:08:00.000-04:00

May you keep kicking ass, o mighty ones.

At the same time, though, I can't help but fear the defeated North Koreans will return home for labor camps or execution. It's time to defect.

Really, Yahoo, can't your writers be bothered to know what they're writing about?

2010-06-13T20:06:00.000-04:00

The error is self-evident to any fan of the show:

And if that weren't enough, the slideshow says, "The show premiered after Super Bowl XVII in 1983 and stayed in the top 10 rated shows on television for its first three seasons. Ratings took a dive in season four, and in 1986 the series was canceled midway through its fifth season."

Good job, Tom Corbett: now we know you're the corrupt one

2010-05-20T20:30:00.000-04:00

Hat tip to a friend who pointed me to Slashdot, which linked to this story:

Harrisburg, Pa. - The state attorney general's office has issued a subpoena threatening officials of the social networking service Twitter with arrest unless they reveal the names of two bloggers who have been critical of Attorney General Tom Corbett and his public corruption investigation.

The subpoena orders Twitter's custodian of records to provide "any and all subscriber information" pertaining to the accounts "bfbarbie" and "CasablancaPA," including name, address, contact information, creation date, and Internet protocol address.

The accounts have criticized Corbett's use of grand juries, suggesting he used the investigations for political gain and to go after political opponents.

The behavior of miserable bastards like Corbett shouldn't surprise us. Though they cloak themselves in the noble goals of "fighting corruption" and "defending the people," it's no different than one mob crew trying to muscle out another.

What few people understand is that a true monopoly comes only with the blessing of government, which uses force to protect the monopoly from competition. What even fewer understand is that government itself pursues a monopoly -- on violence. Even libertarians talk about "the state" as having "a monopoly on the legitimate use of force," and part of my leaving the libertarian camp was realizing the dangerous implications of that reasoning. So it's only natural that within government, various factions will compete with each other over the ability to wield that force.

No, Ms. Census Bitch, you are being difficult, and you can go the hell away

2010-05-14T20:13:00.000-04:00

A note to the "lady" that I all but physically threw off our property just now:

You left two slips, and that entitles you to complain that you've been coming "quite often"? Come to think of it, you left your name and a phone number, so how about I track you down and leave litter on your front door? How about I come knocking at 8 p.m. when you're preparing dinner?

It's bad enough that my unwilling taxes pay for your job, but you have to give me a high-and-mighty attitude, accusing me of being difficult?

Yes, you goddamn moron, this address is what you see on the front of the house. What do you really think, we like the number? The street sign is wrong?

There are two people who live here, and that's all you need to know. I don't have ten minutes for you. Just go away and never come back.

Kanjorski can shut his goddamn trap anytime now

2010-05-11T21:20:00.000-04:00

Kanjorski was enough of an idiot before, claiming the Fed prevented a meltdown when people pulled $500 billion out of U.S. money market instruments. In fact, the money was not sucked out of the U.S. monetary system, but rather put right back in, because people were dumping money markets in favor of safer U.S. Treasury securities.

But that wasn't enough. Now Kanjorski suggests a cyber attack could have been behind last Thursday's crazy sell-off, when there's no evidence at all. Oh, he doesn't "want to cause any panic or fright" -- just start rumors?

Here's a new blend I recommend for him. It's naturally decaffeinated for complete morons like him that need to cut back.

That's a great choice you made for the Supreme Court, Obama!

2010-05-10T22:11:00.000-04:00

A few minutes ago, NYC's Fox 5 TV channel broadcasted a soundbite from Elizabeth Holtzman, who said Elana Kagen worked on her 1982 campaign and was so saddened over Holtzman's loss that "she [Kagen] drank vodka and cried."

Yes, that is what she said.

Pat Leahy, ever the damn hypocrite

2010-05-10T13:59:00.002-04:00

"The decisions made at the nation's highest court affect the daily lives of all Americans. Our constituents deserve a civil and thoughtful debate on this nomination, followed by an up-or-down vote."

Apparently Leahy doesn't believe that nominees to lower courts deserve the same "up-or-down vote"? He was among the Democrats so solidly opposed to Miguel Estrada that they filibustered him until he withdrew his nomination.

When Alito was nominated, Leahy made the veiled threat, "Filibusters of judicial nominees and in particular of Supreme Court nominees are hardly something new."

But when a president from his party is nominating, the story changes:

"Look, the Constitution says that 51 senators can confirm somebody. It doesn't require 60 senators. I don't think there's going to be any kind of a filibuster. You know, this last year we had about 100 and some-odd filibusters that–totally unprecedented. Actually, that's the lazy person's way out. The American people pay us and, and elect us to vote yes or no, not to vote maybe. Every time you have a filibuster, you're saying, 'I'm not going to vote yes or no, I'm going to vote maybe.' That's irresponsible." - Pat Leahy, April 11, 2010

And earlier this year, he indicated he'd support loosening rules that allow filibusters.

Now here's an interesting Google search result. As of right now, the first hit is:

This morning, following the link yielded a "404 Page not found" error. Then it changed to "403 Forbidden / You do not have access..." Now it's:

Now why would that page have three different results today, and be unaccessible to us? Could it possibly be because of its content, which confirms Leahy is as hypocritical as ever?

Unfortunately for Leahy, Matt Hoy preserved the content for us:

Some Republicans have been taking a quote out of context from Senator Leahy from June 1998 about judicial nominations, replacing his actual words with an ellipse, then distributing it widely and misusing it.

Here is what Republicans keep quoting: "I have stated over and over again ... [ELLIPSE] that I would object and fight against any filibuster on a judge, whether it is somebody I opposed or supported."

What the Republican talking points omit with their ellipse is the essential context of that quote. Senator Leahy's actual comment was made during floor discussion about AN ANONYMOUS REPUBLICAN HOLD on yet another of President Clinton's nominees. Here was his actual comment:

?I have stated over and over again on this floor that I would refuse to put an anonymous hold on any judge; that I would object and fight against any filibuster on a judge, whether it is somebody I opposed or supported; that I felt the Senate should do its duty.?

As my father used to say, "Six of one, half a dozen of the other." What difference does it make if it's an anonymous hold, or a Senator supporting a filibuster? This is the equivalent of "I am confident my client will be found not guilty" (as opposed to "My client is innocent") or "I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinski."

The irony is that Leahy's Senate site is "Verisign trusted," but Firefox knows better.

And right now, his page is back to:

The craziest day on Wall Street in a generation?

2010-05-06T22:16:00.001-04:00

Oh everyday, it's getting closer
Going faster than a roller coaster...

(click the images to see in the original size)

A friend passed along some comments he saw on Slashdot:

"Frankly, I was more comfortable with the concept that the DOW could drop 1000 points in one afternoon due to some obscure overseas debt concerns than I am the idea that the DOW can drop 1000 points in one afternoon because of a fucking typo. I realize that markets and the economy in general are collective illusions to begin with and all that, but do we really need to be reminded quite so forcefully? Might be time to invest my money in something a little more solid, like canned food and ammunition."

"You might be happier with a Whisky and Prostitutes ETF. Consult your broker today."

"It wasn't a typo, it was Bernie Sanders speaking for an hour on the Senate floor today, pushing for a bill to audit the Fed. Everyone who is anyone knows what we will find if we audit the Fed, and it isn't good. Not just for us, but for the world. Which is why Obama threatened to veto this bill, citing national security. The dollar is the world's reserve currency. If all the plebeians of the world found out how utterly worthless our currency is, we would suffer a crash that would make the last one look like a cake-walk. As for Greece, though, that crisis is actually pushing investors back to America."

It was an interesting afternoon, to say the least. Around a quarter to 5, I checked Yahoo Finance and saw the early reports of a trader making a typo, entering "billion" instead of "million." I don't believe that for a second, because such quantities would be entered as Arabic numerals, not written out.

Then there's the problem of share float. Most stocks don't have billions of shares outstanding. P&G does have about 2.9 billion, but then what happens when orders are actually placed? No single entity would have the billions of shares to sell, and moreover, traders looking to buy would see the number and think, "Uh, something's gotta be wrong there."

Even if a single trade did do all this, the markets would have snapped back much faster. If someone's selling something at a huge discount, then buyers will think "Great!" and start snapping it up. Once the supply is gone, the market price will return to normal. Think of strawberries at a grocery store that are mistakenly priced at 10 cents a pound. Once the error is corrected, whether with that supply or a new supply, the price will snap back.

P&G seems to be the current scapegoat, but that raises a couple of questions. So here's another question. P&G is a component of the DJIA, but even if it were completely wiped out, there are 29 other components. One component could plunge to zero, and the others could be down, say, 5%, yet the DJIA would still be 91.8% of its previous value.

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ had similar drops -- but PG is only 1/500th of the S&P 500, and it isn't part of the NASDAQ 100.

But never mind PG. What happened to ACN?

I can't help but feel something sinister happened today, and not in liberals' anti-capitalist way of blaming evil banks and uncontrollable computer algorithms. Whatever happens, look for Obama and his cronies to take advantage of the situation.

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before."

Update: NASDAQ is cancelling trades from 2:40 to 2:50 on a great many stocks, including ACN. The criterium is if "the quote deviated more than 60 percent away from the consolidated last print in that security at about 2:40 p.m."

Happy Jimmy Carter Day!

2010-04-26T22:54:00.000-04:00

Why aren't we Americans celebrating it? The Iranians are.

I recognize that the crash wasn't his personal fault. However, nothing could have better epitomized his entire administration. Botched. Doomed from the start. An utter failure that makes a sworn enemy laugh to this very day. Whatever else we say about him, at least Perot did that right.

Where was the safest place in the country on Patriot's Day?

2010-04-19T21:28:00.001-04:00

Or to state-worshippers everywhere, "Happy Janet Reno Day."

The safest place in the country today was certainly not at the Knoxville hospital (by definition a gun-free zone for everyone but security) where today a gunman today killed one woman and shot two others before killing himself.

The midtown Manhattan skyscraper where I work is always very safe, but for all we know, someone could go postal at any time, and the rest of us would have no effective way to defend ourselves. But at Virginia's Gravelly Point and Fort Hunt parks, peaceable people rallied today in support of gun rights, and that's the last place any criminal would have wanted to try anything. How about that debunking of liberals' illogic about firearms! A few dozen people were armed but did no wrong, and no one died, but with presumably hundreds of people at that Knoxville hospital, three people were shot (one killed) just outside and no one could do a damn thing.

By contrast, those rallying at the National Mall could have easily been victims, today or any other day, because they weren't armed. It would have been simple for a criminal to attack a person or two with a deadly weapon, then get away scot-free in the resulting mayhem while any observers would be largely helpless. Yes, an eyewitness can identify the criminal for apprehension, but isn't it better to deter criminals in the first place?

But I suppose D.C.'s anti-gun laws are indeed good, right? They've done a great job eliminating, say, drive-by shootings, or maybe not. And there are still idiots who think that stronger laws will help them. What's the use when the criminals won't obey?

When Eammon Hennessey would be hauled before Judge Ritter, "that old fart," for protesting, he would never plead guilty or innocent, he would plead anarchy.

"What's an anarchist, Eammon?" Judge Ritter would say.

"An anarchist is someone who doesn't need a cop to tell him what to do," says Eammon.

"But we need laws, Eammon," says the Judge.

"Judge, what good are your laws? The good people don't need them, and the bad people don't obey them."

Today is Patriot's Day, to remember those who took a stand 235 years ago. They turned to fighting only after peaceful remonstration failed. And until today, I never realized that it's the same calendar day that the Branch Davidians were murdered. Just like at Lexington and Concord, the ruling government came to take away all the ammo and arrest certain people for being "dangerous" and "extremists":

24 British nationals were among the 76 fatalities. Two more British nationals who survived the siege were immediately arrested as "material witnesses" and imprisoned without trial for months.[56] One, Derek Lovelock, was held in McLennan County Jail for seven months, often in solitary confinement.[56] Livingston Fagan, another British citizen, who was among those convicted and imprisoned, recounts multiple beatings at the hands of prison guards, particularly at Leavenworth. He claims to have been doused with cold water from a high-pressure hose, which soaked both him and the contents and bedding of his cell, after which an industrial fan was placed outside the cell, blasting him with cold air. He was repeatedly moved between at least nine different facilities. He was strip-searched every time he took exercise, so refused exercise. Released and deported back to UK in July 2007, he still holds on to his religious beliefs.

How many of you knew this, especially those of you who rely chiefly on the mainstream media? Two people were arrested when there was no evidence they had committed any crimes -- otherwise they'd have been charged outright -- and yet imprisoned for months. "We need them to give testimony" is nothing more than an excuse for the government to declare someone a "material witness" and hold him eternally, under the guise of "law" so that "we the people" won't raise a fuss. Writs of habeas corpus and the Fourteenth Amendment's "due process rights" no longer apply at that point, but the public won't care as long as the government convinces them that those being held are dangerous.

There was absolutely no difference between that and what the Crown did to the colonials, and today is worse than 1993. As I wrote in the last comment here, "What do you suppose is about to happen between Washington and several states? When the colonies insisted on their right to govern their own affairs, the Crown asserted its superior authority and punished them further. What set off the powder keg was forcible confiscation of arms, and I can guarantee you the same result should it happen today."

An exercise in futility: "Throw the bums out!"

2010-03-21T10:05:00.000-04:00

My friend Billy Beck writes,

I keep hearing about how this DeathCare deal will be the end of the Democrats in November. I cannot think of a single reason why that should matter, and there are many why it doesn't. (For instance: when this thing is in the bag and done, who do you think is going to come along and take it all apart? Like Medicaid, for instance? {snort} Stop with the comedy, already. You will go to your grave carrying this rock.)

Jack Gargan's movement that began in 1990, and the "Contract with America" nonsense of 1994, really did a lot to restore liberty to this land, huh?

There's a line in Heinlein's novel Friday:

"If the horse can't jump the hurdle, shoot the horse. Keep on doing this and eventually you will find a horse that can clear the jump -- if you don't run out of horses. This is the sort of plausible pseudologic that most people bring to political affairs. It causes one to wonder if mankind is capable of being well governed by any system of government."

This was in an exchange discussing the assassination of bad public officials, but it still applies to Americans' notions of voting out bad politicians. Tea Partiers and other similar groups figure that eventually they'll elect someone "good" and undo what bad people had created. History has shown, though, that this trial-and-error has never worked, and if you think about it a little, there's a very good reason it never will.

Ask yourself what this "hurdle" is. It is governing, which can indeed be done "well" -- in that the people are restrained (to whatever end) by government. It only takes enough force to do that, because "governing" in all cases, without exception, is merely rule. (Note to Billy: it took me until a couple of years ago to realize "in all cases, without exception.") And the last sentence is no problem, because anyone can be "well governed" if he submits.

Libertarians like to talk about "restraining those who violate life, liberty and property," but as an ex-libertarian I must ask, why does a government need to apply to me, since I violate no one's rights in the first place? The very reason, the only reason, for the state's existence is because I and others refuse to surrender our lives, our liberty, our conscience, to the decisions of others. I don't need to force others in anything, because I will use peaceful mutual exchange to get things from others. Virtually all of society, however, cannot get what they want from me without force. Thus they band together, calling it a "government." There is actually no shortage of people who can do that "effectively," whether forming the government in the first place or acting as its "officials," and it's really quite easy to do:

Give us what we demand, cried out the multitude, lest we seize it by force.

And the merchant replied, Depart in peace while ye yet can, for ye have no right to my possessions save with my consent, and as I have done no wrong to any man, none of ye have any authority to seize any of my possessions.

Behold, cried out his neighbors with one voice, that we have declared ourselves a government, and as such we have given ourselves the authority.

The merchant replied, Ye have no authority, for one cannot give authority unto oneself.

That matters not, they replied and began to grumble, for we are a greater number than thee and thy family, and because of our greater numbers, we have decided that thou shalt pay us tribute.

The paradox is that when voters cast their ballots and call it "democracy," they're not setting a "hurdle" for an election winner to follow. It's the election winner that will make them jump hurdles, And when any particular citizen-subject cannot clear the hurdle that has been set for "the people," then the government need have no compunction at all to dispose of him.

Once you understand the nature of government, the futility of voting in someone "good" becomes evident. It isn't possible to receive anything "good" from a system that is fundamentally based on forcing others against their peaceful wills. The only way to make government "better" is to restrain that, and it can't be done from within. It can only be done by individuals on the outside.

Attention idiots and other race-baiters: you can leave the whole planet now

2010-03-20T10:17:00.004-04:00

Many Americans, certainly every black person and race-baiter, has heard about the Wal-Mart "incident" in Turnersville, New Jersey, several days ago: someone got on the PA system and said, "Attention Wal-Mart customers: All black people leave the store now." If you watch the video, some utter moron actually dialed 911 (or said he did) over this!

This morning, the Yahoo News article was updated to say an arrest was made. Right now it doesn't say who, but according to ABC News, Wal-Mart suspected a customer. Fox News merely mentions a 12 p.m. news conference.

From the start, my money has been on a non-employee. It could have been an employee looking to create trouble, but race-baiters not only seize on this very sort of thing, they could have created it themselves using the easily accessible PA systems.

Look at the "victims" to see just how awful and frightening it was (I say that sarcastically):

"It could have led to violence," Arter told Philly.com. "It could have triggered someone who was having a bad day. I don't want to be an innocent bystander to something because of someone's not-so-funny joke."

What "violence" is she talking about? That everyone not black would suddenly round up the black people? Actually, any risk of "violence" was from black people who'd go ape over the announcement and start causing destruction. Oh dear, was that "racist" to say "go ape" about black people? Then how is it appropriate to use that slang for "going crazy" about white people? Just who are the ones making something into a racist term when it isn't?

"I can't go back in," said Patricia Covington, who was also in the store and spoke to Philly.com. "I went to Target instead. I can't bring myself to go back in there."

That's a lot of baloney and illustrates Americans' general stupidity in using verbs they don't understand. She was still physically capable of returning. She simply didn't want to.

She and her friend Sheila Ellington were checking out when they heard the announcement. An attorney, Ellington is also a member of the Gloucester County Minority Coalition.

Both were frightened, unsure of whether the person on the microphone was going to do something violent.

"This voice was controlled and confident," Ellington told Philly.com. "It didn't appear to be a prank."

"Ellington is "an attorney who specializes in bias," and "she told officers she'd like the incident to be reported as a bias incident as well as harassment." I suppose it was pure coincidence that she was right there, being checked out?

Is she enough of a damn fool that she really thought something serious was about to happen? "It didn't appear to be a prank." Did she really think Wal-Mart was starting to organize something? Does she even have two working brain cells to realize that Wal-Mart would never try such a thing, because of the obvious ramifications?

"Controlled and confident" -- how did she know? Or is that just race-baiting spin to make something worse than it actually was?

NPR's naturally sympathetic coverage:

An African-American who was in the Washington Township store at the time says in the Inquirer that it took five minutes for store management to get on the p.a. to apologize.

"We waited and waited. Some people just left their carts in disgust and said they couldn't believe it," Victoria Arter tells the Inquirer.

Five minutes, really? Did she time it? Yet other news accounts say that a manager "quickly" went on the PA.

At least the caption is correct: that other woman says she was there. If the incident happened at 7 p.m., the sun was about to set even though Daylight Savings Time had just kicked in. So that interviewer, and CNN's, went to "the scene of the crime" long after the fact, stupidly looking for soundbites from anyone who could claim, "Yeah, uh, sure, I was there!"

I just noticed a block of text on the left margin of CNN's article: "Wal-Mart Stores Inc." and "Racism and Bigotry" are two separate links on two separate lines, but bunched together so that you'll think they're one block of text.

We'll see in a couple of hours who's been arrested (with my updates, 80 minutes), but I bet if the person had gotten away with it, this racial Reichstag fire would have been more ammo for the race-baiters to use against Wal-Mart: cash payouts (like when Michael Richards' supposed "victims" were looking to get money out of it), promoting a certain quota of black employees as recompense for the "incident" (who by definition are unqualified if they weren't already being promoted), and cushy "advisory" jobs for locals -- like "an attorney who specializes in bias"?

When will James Sikes come clean?

2010-03-14T21:39:00.002-04:00

I will presume that my readers have heard of James Sikes. As of right now, just type jame into Google News' search box, and "james sikes prius" is the third suggested result.

It sounded fishy to me from the start. I IMd a friend on March 8, the day it happened,

The radio news said some guy's Prius outside San Diego started "accelerating out of control" today. The car got up to 90. The driver called 911, and a cop pulled in front of him and braked to slow both cars down. But wait a minute, if the car was still accelerating, what good would that do? And why didn't they tell him to put it in neutral?

It turned out the 911 operator did tell Sikes to shift to neutral, but (the news conflicts here) he ignored it and/or said he couldn't because he was holding his cell phone.

On March 9th, I IMd the same friend,

The more I hear about this, the more I think he was probably caught speeding and made this up. In Southern California, 94 on highways is not much above the norm.

CBS radio news played his 911 call, saying his voice showed terror, but he didn't sound that scared to me.

And that was just the snippet that the mainstream media played for sensationalism and sympathy. The full recording of the 911 call made me smell a rat.

Over at Three Sources, brother JohnGalt linked to Michael Fumento, who's been exposing Sike's lies. I replied,

Thanks for the link, JG. Fumento is the man.

This didn't smell right to me either. At first I thought, "Here's another idiot who doesn't know to push it in neutral," but he was TOLD THAT and yet ignored it. What about the woman who testified before Congress about her Toyota going out of control, yet not so badly that she had time to call her husband? She said she just wanted to hear his voice one last time. Riiiiiight.

From the start, I've been telling a friend that, yeah, there probably are a few genuine cases of a problem, but now everyone's jumping on the bandwagon. The next day, a housekeeper driving her employer's Prius experienced...ta-da! A stuck accelerator!

It's like the swine flu hysteria: a couple of students come back from spring break with the flu, and suddenly entire schools shut down because "hundreds of students complained about flu-like symptoms." On beautiful spring days, no less.

In the San Diego case, the pedal was physically stuck down, the driver said. He also claimed he reached down and tried to pull it back. But an article I saw yesterday very briefly mentioned that when the police examined the car, both pedals were in their resting position.

Humm!

First, 90 mph on a Southern Cali freeway really isn't much faster than normal.

Second, the guy said he was passing a truck when the accelerator stuck.

Third, the cop was coincidentally in the area, or at least close enough for pursuit.

You don't need to be Sherlock Holmes to put it all together: the guy was speeding, saw a cop car or thought he saw one, and figured that "my accelerator stuck" was the way to get out of it, get his name in the news, and maybe get some cash from Toyota. The very moment that the mainstream news^H^H^H^Hpropagandists started the crap, every unscrupulous Toyota owner knew how to extort the company.

There was a guy in the Bronx who recently claimed his new debit card was stolen. A total of $7200 was drained from his account before he alerted Bank of America. His PIN would have also been necessarily stolen, because there were multiple ATM withdrawals. Surveillance cameras showed only that whoever it was wore a hood tightly drawn around his face.

I don't believe the guy for a second. New cards must be activated by calling a number, AND at the least entering the last four digits of your SSN. And if it isn't the phone number registered to your account, you'll probably talk to a live customer service rep and go through further verification. So unless he's had his SSN stolen, and other info to verify his identity, it's basically impossible for a thief to steal and activate the new card.

Bank of America initially refused to reimburse the guy, saying it had every indication of fraud by the customer. But they relented in the face of bad publicity, which was really too bad. Now every BofA customer requesting a new card knows what to do, see?

But now it doesn't look like a way to get out of a speeding ticket. In later comments, Lisa gave these links to Forbes, where Fumento debunked Sikes' claims and reminded us that Sikes "stopped the car on his own," and a Fox News article that shows Sikes as the type I wouldn't trust to discard my used chewing gum.

The NY Daily News has reported:

The story of a runaway Prius appears to be ballooning out of control.

In the wake of a congressional memo that raised doubts about James Sikes' tale concerning his out of control Toyota more than a week ago in California, the 61-year-old now just wants to be left alone.

"We're just fed up with it all," said Patty Sikes, his wife.

Online reports have increasingly called into question aspects of Sikes' claim that the accelerator got stuck and he was unable to stop, and others have delved into his personal finances, revealing that in 2008 he declared bankruptcy with more than $700,000 in debts.

Since the incident, Patty Sikes says she and her husband have received death threats, and that the whole thing has "ruined" their careers.

"Life is just not good anymore," Patty said.

According to the memo, obtained over the weekend by the Associated Press, efforts to duplicate the circumstances with the accelerator described by Sikes to police failed.

"It does not appear to be feasibly possible, both electronically and mechanically, that [Sikes'] gas pedal was stuck to the floor and he was slamming on the brake at the same time," the memo stated, noting that every time they hit the brake the "engine shut off and the car immediately started to slow down."

The investigation did, however, show that the front brake pads had been worn.

"Visually checking the brake pads and rotor it was clearly visible that there was nothing left," it said.

Skepticism over Sikes' harrowing tale, which had him speeding along at upwards of 94 mph on Interstate 8 near San Diego last week, is understandable in the aftermath of the infamous "Balloon Boy" story that saw dozens of media outlets get fooled when the tale turned out to be false.

But as of now, it would appear that Sikes and his wife are not looking for the attention the Heene family allegedly craved.

"Everyone can just leave us alone," Patty Sikes said. "Jim didn't get hurt. There's no intent at all to sue Toyota. If any good can come out of this, maybe they can find out what happened so other people don't get killed."

Other news reports indicate he just wants a new car. Riiiiiight. If my life had been so threatened by a product in good faith, I would have never let this go.

Jalopnik has been revealing even more about Sikes' (alleged) past. This and other exposés explain why Sikes now wants to be left alone. He's been caught.

You should have never pulled this stunt, Sikes. A few people learned the hard way that you're not to be trusted. Now the country -- and people beyond -- know.

Note to ABC: you can all go to hell

2010-03-07T19:23:00.000-05:00

I have no love for Cablevision, whose customer service is actually pretty good, but whose tech support is abysmal. They never could explain the occasional, seemingly random outages for three or four hours at a time (and which for all I know could happen more often, when nobody's home). One time the goddamn idiot "technician" on the phone wanted me to reboot my cable box, completely clueless though I repeatedly said I was getting no signal to begin with.

Cablevision can get away with this because they have a monopoly. It isn't because they're the biggest cable company, but because my home county of Westchester has granted them exclusive "rights" over all cable operations. (Because these aren't true rights, I enclosed that word in quotes. The proper word for what's given to people by government is authority.) But I've stuck with Cablevision for nine years because they have the fastest Internet service for the price. Satellite with DSL wouldn't work for me, and even the new FIOS doesn't look promising for me. Verizon claims to be faster but has to compare their $145 monthly plan for broadband to Cablevision's basic $45 plan.

But regarding the "failed negotiations" between Cablevision and ABC, I have to side completely with Cablevision when I say: fuck you, ABC. Fuck you, assholes. Cablevision has been paying $200 million annually to ABC, and ABC has been demanding $240 million. ABC has pulled the plug on the "negotiations" of the last two years, consequently pulling the plug on ABC broadcasts over Cablevision. I woke up this morning to find that ABC made good on its threat.

ABC's pitiful claims like "Cablevision pocketed almost $8 billion last year" are outright lies. Who the hell does ABC think they're kidding? Cablevision's customers may have paid $8 billion last year, but Cablevision hardly "pocketed" it. Certainly its owners made a profit, as they're entitled to, but the bulk of that $8 billion went to pay for operational costs and licenses -- including licenses to ABC for the right to broadcast the programming.

And why won't ABC note that out of that $8 billion, $200 million went just to ABC? Why won't ABC note that they now want $240 million for what's otherwise standard "free" airwaves broadcasting, including commercials?

The more complete quote is, "Cablevision pocketed almost $8 billion last year", and now customers aren't getting what they pay for." That last part is true: I'm not getting what I pay for, because ABC is demanding too much.

"This follows two years of negotiations, during which we worked diligently, up to the final moments, to reach an agreement."

Fuck you, "Rebecca Campbell, President and General Manager WABC-TV," you execrable lying bitch.

The plug could have been pulled at any other time in those two years. Is it a coincidence that it happened right before the Oscars? Now, I couldn't tell you the last time I watched anything on ABC, and I rarely watch awards shows. However, I wanted to see how Alec Baldwin and Steve Martin would do as co-hosts, and I expected Christoph Waltz to receive Best Supporting Actor for his superb portrayal of a charmingly sinister Nazi "detective."

Well, I'm not throwing an antenna on the roof just for the Oscars, so I'll just have to see what I can get online.

Then you have idiots like this: "Cablevision, the Country's fifth largest cable provider, removed ABC from its channel lineup after failing to come to an agreement over fees." No, ABC blocked Cablevision. ABC controls the broadcasting and stopped its signal to Cablevision. How can people be so fucking stupid? If Cablevision could have kept broadcasting, it would.

And just when I thought Regis and Kelly, the self-centered morons who individually or together are the very definition of "insipid," couldn't be any more lacking in gray matter, here's this exchange between two of the biggest idiots ever on television:

Kelly: Have you seen what’s happening here in New York between Cablevision and WABC? I was reading about it today in the paper and I saw it this morning on the news. I couldn’t believe it.

Regis: Starting Monday here in New York, if Cablevision and Channel 7 don’t come to an agreement, viewers will not be able to watch “Regis & Kelly.”

Kelly: That’s right.

Regis: Just a reminder, Cablevision gets paid by the subscribers and Channel 7 is not paid.

Kelly: They’ve been negotiating this -

Regis: For two years now –

Kelly: And apparently, it’s, you know, I always thought our show is free, but apparently, Cablevision subscribers pay for the privilege to watch this. [Laughter]

So why does Cablevision pay $200 million annually to ABC? Is that a charitable contribution? Goddamn airheads. For all we know, post-mortems on them would prove that's literally true.

It's bullshit like this that prove once again how free markets are the only way to go. Having the option for another cable company would demonstrate that ABC's demand for ~~$200~~ $240 million annually is absurd -- and possible only because the state has destroyed cable competition. Another cable competitor could provide programming à la carte, or at least more channel packages of greater variety, that I and many other viewers want but can't get.

I don't believe the latest unemployment numbers - and neither should you

2010-02-13T19:31:00.001-05:00

I had e-mailed the gist of the following to a couple of friends last Sunday, but I hadn't made a blog post about it until now. Supposedly the U.S. unemployment rate fell from 10.0% in December to 9.7% in January. I didn't and still don't believe it for a second, and anybody who swallowed that guff just doesn't understand how much a monthly drop of 0.3 percentage points really is. It's huge.

I couldn't remember an unemployment drop of that magnitude in recent years. Fortunately, the Bureau of Labor Statistics maintains data going back to 1948. So that you can see how often the U.S. economy sees this kind of drop, I created my own spreadsheet with month-by-month changes on the side, marking drops of 0.3 percentage points or greater.

Such a drop is not unknown, but it hasn't been seen in twelve years (and 1998 was of course right in the middle of red-hot economic expansion). So as much as I'd like to think the U.S. economic situation is improving, I don't buy the feds' final number. The data has been cherry-picked, with the government economists using the household survey while ignoring the payroll survey that shows a net of 20K non-farm jobs lost in December.

Riddle me this, Batman: how can 20K jobs be lost, yet unemployment goes down? Are liberals going to excuse it with the same "people giving up and leaving the labor force" that they used to criticize Bush?

Like I've said before, consider the size of numbers first before accepting them as truth. We're also dealing with the same Obama administration so desperate for good news that it initially projected 3Q 2009 GDP as increasing 3.5% on an annualized basis, only to make an official estimate of 2.8%. And even that was very, very quietly revised to 2.2% for the final number.

Those wonderful Saudi allies against terror

2010-02-11T23:10:00.000-05:00

Like the French in war, the Saudis there when they need you. They couldn't wait for us to send over our military after Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait. When it comes to intelligence operations, well, there's the old saying: "With friends like these..."

From the FCPA Blog:

The case began six years ago with allegations that BAE secretly paid $2 billion to Prince Bandar bin Sultan -- Saudi Arabia's former ambassador to Washington -- in return for inside help selling Typhoon jet fighters to the Saudi government. The SFO opened an investigation but was forced to drop it in December 2006 -- just as investigators were closing in on evidence about money transfers through Switzerland. The SFO later said Saudi Arabia had threatened to end all anti-terrorism cooperation with the U.K. unless the Blair government pulled the plug on the investigation.

"Olympic Village: Athletes Impressed, Taxpayers Angry"

2010-02-11T21:25:00.001-05:00

That title alone is all you need to read to understand the nature of the state, but here are the particulars:

Paid for, thank you very much, by the taxpayers of Vancouver. More than any other project in recent Olympic history, the $1 billion residential complex represents the risks that urban governments face when trying to host one of the world's biggest parties. The city planned to invest about $47 million in the project back in 2006. However, cost overruns and the recession forced Vancouver to step in and bail out the private developers who were charged with financing the project. The city avoided the humiliation of welcoming the world with a half-built Olympic Village, but at a great price: in early 2009, new Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson declared that taxpayers were "on the hook" for the $1 billion project. "What ended up happening was that the city became a bank for private-sector development," says Mark Cutler, director of Olympic Village Development for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, the body that is operating the complex during the Games. (See what becomes of Olympic stadiums.)

"Bank"? A real bank doesn't want to lend if it thinks it won't get repaid. However, taxpayers as a "bank" fits with the denouement of the movie "The Night Stalker": toward the end, Kolchak finds a victim that the vampire was keeping alive. "His own private blood bank."

Pay very close attention: this is how the state invariably works. It doesn't want to kill you, at least not until you can be replaced. Remember what St. Frédéric taught us: "The state is the great fiction by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."

When Salt Lake City began a second Olympics bid in the late 1980s, the contemptible Norm Bangerter, Utah's governor at the time, had no problem turning state taxpayers into human collateral. It was then that I learned that modern Olympics bids mean that developers get an implicit guarantee from politicians that taxpayers will pick up the tab for "cost overruns." What I didn't understand then is that when the state makes you pay for something against your will, you are most certainly human collateral: it isn't just your property being taken (or being promised by someone else to yet someone else), it's your very life being stolen, because you will never get back those moments you spent to acquire that property.

Those who don't understand that morality, or refuse to see it, should still be able to see the practical question: what possible motive do the organizers, developers and other Olympic affiliates have, then, to keep costs under control?

Robert Barney, director of the International Centre for Olympic Studies at the University of Western Ontario, has flatly said, "There has never been an Olympic Games that has made a profit...including federal allotments, municipal allotments, provincial or state allotments, it's always been that a debt has to be paid somewhere." His co-director, Kevin Walmsley, has said, "The Olympic Games are not a profit generator and never have been. What is always consistent is, there are always cost overruns." The facts prove them correct. Forget the lies that politicians, Olympics officials and developers feed us. Their accounting methods in the private sector would land people in jail for fraud.

I commented last October over at Alarming News:

Olympics are corporate welfare. Any infrastructure won't be built based on what actually people want and need, but on politics. If it's done in a free market, then businesses and "organizers" would be putting up their own money, and nobody would be forced into it. The reality, though, is that taxpayers are always implicitly put on the hook for any "cost overruns." They'll share in the debt, but not the profits.

Poor Rio. I hate to say "Better it happen to them than us," but how else can you put it?

Jamie, I've known enough to oppose Olympics since I was 12 years old, when I lived in Salt Lake City during the start of its ill-fated quest. No modern Olympics has ever made a profit, once all costs are taken into account. Check here:

MONTREAL, 1976: Debt: >1 billion (globe and mail; abcnews.com)
LAKE PLACID, 1980: Debt: $11 million
CALGARY, 1988: Debt: $910 million
BARCELONA, 1992: Debt: US$1.4 billion
SYDNEY, 2000: Games billed as self-financing by politicians were a $2.3-billion loss (Auditor General New South Wales Report on Sydney (2000) Olympics)
EXPO

The same link notes that:

Officially, Atlanta made US$10 million, but that excludes the US$1 billion taxpayers spent on infrastructure.

Utah tax revenues post-Olympics have fallen so far short of predictions that the state is facing a US$155 million shortfall, has slashed spending, dipped into emergency funding, and may have to order more employee layoffs. http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,400008943,00.html

It's a very simple point of logic: if hosting an Olympics is such a great moneymaker for developers and city businesses alike, then why are taxpayers needed to guarantee it?

Bastiat wouldn't need to know anything else about our modern world to tell us the simple answer. He would reply, "Developers already know from past Olympics that they can't do it without taxpayers, whether to guarantee the debt or to pay for infrastructure. Do you not see it also?" The developers are just a modern form of protectionist, whom Bastiat described as petitioning to the government, "Thus, since everyone else uses the law for his own profit, we also would like to use the law for our own profit. We demand from the law the right to relief, which is the poor man's plunder."

"A Democratic policy of businesslike retrenchment will go far to roll back the tidal wave that has overwhelmed the party."

2010-02-11T20:02:00.000-05:00

The title is from the end of an op-ed in the New York Times. I'm absolutely serious.

The New York Times in 1894, that is.

A century before the failed "luxury tax" of 1990 and today's MTA shortfalls, the income tax was presented as guaranteed revenue by those whose lives were based on redistribution (giving or receiving), and you didn't have to be a proponent of the state to be skeptical of how much a tax could really produce.

"I have successfully privatized world peace"

2010-02-10T22:19:00.000-05:00

For just this exchange alone, the Iron Man sequel should be incredible. A clip from the trailer:

The Senator: Our priority here is to have you turn over the Iron Man weapon to the American people.

Tony Stark: Well, you can forget it. We're safe. America is secure. You want my property? You can't have it! But I did you a big favor! I have successfully privatized world peace.

Who doesn't, who can't understand the magnificence of Stark's reply? It's his property, and to hell with tin-plated gods who demand it on behalf of "the people." And even though every other human on the planet would be free-riding, Stark was still willing to use his property to achieve world peace -- and more successfully than the state, he pointed out.

Once again we see liberals' "fiscal responsibility"

2010-02-06T14:48:00.002-05:00

Some schmuck, a Democrat, campaigning for local office was touting himself on the local news as fighting for government that's more transparent, more responsible, more accountable. As one example, he fought an 8.9 percent tax increase down to...8 percent. Yeah.

On a national level, the Democrat are again demonstrating their commitment to "fiscal responsibility." That is to say, "fiscal responsibility," as in all cases with government, without exception, means that the government spends, and "we the taxpayers" are given the responsibility of paying for it. Republicans were more than bad enough, raising the national debt "ceiling" whenever they needed more money to spend, and they were in no way hindered by Democrats who were only too eager to join in the frenzy -- including then-Senator Obama.

The House just voted to raise the national debt ceiling by $1.9 trillion to a nearly inconceivable $14.3 trillion. The Senate already passed it, so it's now ready for Obama to sign into law. Since 1917, federal law has set a "debt ceiling" for Congress, which is simply amended by new legislation. Of what use is a restriction when the entity being restricted is the one setting the rule? The analogy "Dad, I need to push my curfew back to 3 a.m." isn't quite right, because that phrasing is one of seeking permission. The federal government's effective tone is "Dad, I'm pushing back my curfew."

The previous increase was via H.R.4314 ("To permit continued financing of Government operations."), sponsored by the execrable Charlie Rangel. It was passed by Congress last December 24th and quietly signed by Obama on the 28th. It was largely ignored by the mainstream media, as was the fact that it was far from the first time Obama broke his campaign promise to wait five days before signing bills, so "the people" can view it. While mainstream news bombarded us with "health care reform" twaddle, H.R.4314 quietly raised the debt ceiling from $12.104 trillion to $12.394 trillion. Democrats were originally seeking $1.8 trillion, so how "fiscally responsible" that was! And "merely" a few hundred billion dollars is no problem, right? The Federal Reserve can always create new money to buy more Treasury bonds.

There's also the nonsense of "PAYGO," that supposedly the feds will be restricted to spending money only as it's coming in: any spending increases must be balanced by spending cuts elsewhere, or by...tax increases. And which do you suppose will happen?

We should not be surprised at any of these lies being fed to us. This is the age where Obama can say with a straight face that he'll use TARP money, by definition borrowed money, to reduce our debt. That never came to pass, of course, and quite the opposite: Obama recently abandoned that idea and wants to lend $30 billion of TARP money to small businesses.

So much for your promises
They died ~~the day you let me go~~ even before you were inaugurated

Even more apropos words are later on, for every idiot who thought Obama could de:

Woke up to reality
And found the future not so bright
I dreamt the impossible
That maybe things could work out right
I thought it was you who would do me no wrong
And now you've given me, given me
Nothing but shattered dreams, shattered dreams
Feel like I could run away, run away
From this empty heart

Lending TARP money is utterly irrational. (It's more importantly immoral because taxpayers will be forced to repay the borrowed money that they didn't want lent out, otherwise they'd be lending it themselves without government prodding them, but that's a subject for another post). As I recently blogged, irrationality with other people's money is because it's other people's money. "Rational" does not mean the decision is always the correct one, but it means the decision was made using a logical, methodical process to avoid systematic errors. Paraphrasing Milton Friedman, government is spending Other People's Money on yet other people, so why should any care be taken how much is spent and on what? The private sector doesn't want to lend to these small businesses for a very good reason: lenders are afraid of not being paid back.

Some time ago, a store owner I know lamented that his credit line was cut to a third of what it was. He's a nice guy, but "nice" doesn't guarantee sales, and his particular business is very dependent on people's extra income to buy non-essentials. Thus it's perfectly understandable that his bank decided not to trust him with a high debt limit. It started questioning his very business model of recycled debt. In a speech last year, Obama claimed that the federal government needed to stimulate lending so that companies can meet payrolls. Ask yourself: how can any sustainable business survive on the idea of perpetual borrowing to meet its obligations? That's understandable for the first few years while it's being established, but not continually. It defies all business sense, but it fits with the idea of government spending being irrational.

Of course, the real answer is for government to stop taxing businesses, which would then not have to worry about borrowing money, but heaven forbid that anyone should keep his own property.

Because as I've said, liberals deserve no mercy

2010-02-03T22:04:00.003-05:00

Work for the last several weeks has been exceptionally busy, but I've been around on other blogs. Check this for the latest from a cowardly, lying troll who departed from here as quickly as he came.

He can never answer anything straight-on. "The Almighty says, don't change the subject: just answer the fookin' question."

Irrationality with other people's money is because it's other people's money

2010-01-06T21:59:00.000-05:00

Over at Alarming News, Von Bek and Walrus were at each other's throats. I disagree with them, but I respect them. Since they're not liberal twits, I know they're interested in actual discourse, so I can be civil as I lay out simple truths:

Von Bek and Mark: I've pointed out before to bryan that, fine, it would be nice to get Osama. However, as in all things, the question is: but at what cost? A million dollars? A billion?

You both have the clear desire to bring him to justice. But how much money — how much of other people's money (for such is the nature of taxation) — are you willing to spend?

I wasn't going to get involved at all but figured I'd make a point about the cost of getting Osama, and then I threw in my two cents about Charles Krauthammer:

No problem, VB. I see that you and Walrus are actively engaged. I agree with some of what each of you say, and I'll let you two keep thrashing it out between yourselves, but I'll just say that Krauthammer is hit-and-miss in my book. He's certainly a smart fellow but too often Doesn't Get It. For example, a couple of months ago he advocated taxing employer-provided health insurance, partially justifying it as "a $250 billion annual loss of federal revenues." My free wake-up call for him is that, uh, that's my money. It's a "loss" to the government only in the same sense that a mugger "loses" money because I fought him off. Krauthammer is advocating a sort of "equality" in that my neighbor got mugged, so I should be mugged too.

Individuals tend to be (but are not always) rational about their own property and circumstances, but we get irrational when we can use other people's resources without permission or effective limitation. This, I've come to realize in the last couple of years, is the unavoidable nature of the state. As Milton Friedman said, when you spend someone else's money on yet someone else, you don't care how much you spend or what you've spent it on, "And that's government." It's the legalized means by which people can irrationally dispose of other people's property.

My dad and I figured Iran was behind the bombing over Lockerbie, and he said if we found out the Iranians did it, he wanted "a fleet of a thousand bombers" to destroy the entire country. Easy for him to say! It wouldn't be his money paying for it, or his own actions to kill people (justified or not, it's different when you do it yourself). I myself always envisioned a squad of Marines finding Osama and playing soccer with his severed head. We can dream of saturation-bombing any suspected hideout, or other grandiose plan that's beyond our personal abilities and wealth.

Would you pay a dollar to see Osama executed in a public spectacle? How about a hundred? A thousand? I wouldn't, though some might even for 10 thousand. You see, at each point we can make a very rational decision for ourselves. But when it's advocating the spending of other people's money, we no longer tend toward rationality. This is particularly true when we choose a few among us to decide how to spend everyone's unequally "contributed" money (taxes), and it's the fundamental reason we're failing in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's no incentive for the decision-makers to make the most rational choices, because it's not their money or their lives on the line. I say this as someone who hated Saddam and originally welcomed our invasion. Now I understand better.

As far as I'm concerned, Osama is only one man, and there's already enough military muscle to keep him in hiding. He's just a figurehead, and any mastermind planning he could do can be (and is) easily done by others, so there's no point in the U.S. government expending any extra resources to get him. However, I'd probably thrown in a five-spot if you passed the plate around. Find 20 million Americans to do the same, and there's $100 million to hire, equip and send in the most elite ex-military hit men for the single objective.

I then found Krauthammer's op-ed on health care that was more miss than hit:

Here is Krauthammer's op-ed I referred to. Like too many conservatives, especially ones of prominence, Krauthammer lost his way in spots. He calls for people to be able to buy insurance from across state lines, but he talks about it in the sense that government "allow" us. Isn't it our right in the first place? So the proper phrasing is that "government should stop prohibiting from exercising their right to peaceful commerce."

What I found odious was his claim, "Insuring the uninsured is a moral imperative. The problem is that the Democrats have chosen the worst possible method — a $1 trillion new entitlement of stupefying arbitrariness and inefficiency."

No, the problem is that he began with a false premise. The only "moral imperative" is that the government stop robbing me to pay for others. He's forgetting that "Insuring the uninsured" is impractical, because not everyone needs insurance (I never had any for virtually all my adult life until I got married, because I was healthy enough and visited doctors maybe once every few years), it is financially impossible because of the costs involved, and it is immoral because it's forcing some to pay for others.

My next comment was a reply to Walrus:

Walrus, while I won't and shouldn't presume to speak for Von Bek, "American" can be used in a different sense. I have a friend who routinely declares that various scum (usually in D.C.) "are not American." Perhaps it was someone featured in the news for getting a bailout, or walking away from an upside-down mortgage and being proud of it. These people are not Americans, either.

"American" in that sense isn't about being born within U.S. borders. "American" means adopting the philosophy of liberty under which this country was founded, the same philosophy that prompted Patrick Henry to say that he wasn't a Virginian, but an American. That standard must be objective and absolute, because even liberals can claim they "love this country." Which country, the one whose national government will pay their mortgages and put gas in their cars? Or the one that declared in 1776 that men have certain rights, enumerated how the British Crown constantly violated those rights, and as such those several states deserve to be separate and free?

There are conservatives who call themselves "proud Americans" but actually care nothing for real liberty. One old-timer stupidly opposes free trade and blames "outsourcing" for unemployment, while another wants to make a deal with Iran. Mark Levin, for all his attacks on Obama socialism, doesn't quite get it. He's actually claimed on his radio show that he supports free commerce, as long as you don't break any laws or fundamental morality. So who gets to decide what is "moral," and what if "the law" infringes upon the individual's liberty (as it tends to do)?

So I have no compunction to lump their kind with Obama, Pelosi, Reid at all. None of them want me to be truly free, only "free" by a limit they determine, which is no real freedom at all. Some want to control what I do with my body, or to another person's body with that person's permission, when no one is being harmed against his will. Others want to restrain me from peaceful trade with willing participants, again harming no one against his will. Yet others want to take my money to wage war in your name and mine, when frankly I'm now tired of it all want no more part of the botched efforts.

Such people can drape themselves in the flag and claim citizenship of this country all they want, but they're far from the "American" philosophy of freedom from which this nation emerged. This is a high bar indeed, and by that standard there are damn, damn few "real Americans" today. It just goes to show how bad this country has become. This is a philosophy that must be consciously adopted, so someone escaping Cuba who comes here for real freedom (to work for himself and not live off the labor of others) is far more of an American in my book than someone who uses "the system" to live off others' taxes.

The "real American" is the single genuinely endangered species on the planet, whose deliberate eradication by the state should worry anyone worried about keeping liberty alive.

Repost: the mostly forgotten role of big government in the first Christmas

2009-12-25T13:19:00.001-05:00

I originally posted this on Christmas Day, 2005. I was reminded of it yesterday by a soundbite from some idiotic socialist liar, accusing those of us who oppose government theft (in the guise of "charity") of being "the kind who would turn Mary and Joseph away."

I liked Scott Johnson's Power Line entry last year on Mary and Joseph hardly being homeless, where he refuted the claims of the ever-ignorant Nick Coleman of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. (Update: it's a fallacy repeated here.) I myself get pretty annoyed by apparent non-Christians (especially self-righteous state-worshippers) who accuse me and other Christians of lacking compassion for the poor just because we advocate limited government. One of my atheist friends used to insist I'm a hypocrite because I stated that government has no role in welfare or other forms of "public charity," that charity must come privately. It stems from a confusion (or worse) that when I say "It's not government's role or duty," it does not mean I oppose private charity.

Scott also reminded us that Herod ordered the inhuman slaughter of all male babies younger than two years old. So when Mary, Joseph and Jesus fled to Egypt, it wasn't after Joseph lost his job or because of any other economic hardship. It was purely because big government, feeling its power threatened, put countless male children to the sword. Having been warned by an angel, Mary, Joseph and Jesus escaped and became refugees.

Until that Power Line entry a year ago, I didn't realize just how much big government -- tyrannical government -- played a part in Jesus' early years. First, Luke 2:1-3 tells how the absolute ruler of the highly centralized, imperialist government decided to perform a census:
And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed.

And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.

And all went to be taxed, every one into his own city.
This was no ordinary census, hardly like those the U.S. Constitution mandates. Augustus' census required each person to return to his town of birth, which was a great inconvenience to many. Not only would they incur great expenses in traveling, but they wouldn't be earning income.

However, as most everyone knows, Mary and Joseph couldn't find a room. Scott was along the right track to say it was like trying to find a hotel room during the Super Bowl, but Jesus wasn't born in a manger because people in a normal market economy were competing for a limited resource. Jesus wasn't born in a manger because government didn't subsidize housing for the poor, or enact price-controls; there literally were no rooms available, apparently at any price. Like Reagan said, government was the problem. By requiring people to travel to their hometowns, the government had artificially created the scarcity of housing! And this has become all but unknown for the last two millenia.

Some consider Christians nuts for their beliefs. Let's consider the leftists who think Medicare can be expanded to everyone, who are surprised that raising taxes doesn't yield the expected revenue, who think taxpayers can provide them with free education, who believe Obama when he says he'll pay down the deficit, who believe that 5% of taxpayers can support the other 95%, who believe the federal government can reduce total debt by spending more borrowed money, who believe the cornswallop that Paul Krugman spews.

And yet it's far-fetched to believe in Jesus as the Christ? It's easier for the Savior of the world to rise from the dead and redeem mankind than for any of those liberal fantasies to be true.