June 30, 2013

Rare bird spotted in U.K.--and you'll never guess what happened next

You can't make this stuff up.

A couple of bird-watchers in the U.K. spotted a bird that hadn't been seen there in 22 years--and only the 9th time since 1846.  Supposedly the fastest flier in the bird world.  So really a cool critter.

Word spread quickly, and birders from all over the U.K. started heading for the site.  Over 40 had arrived and were watching as...as the poor bird was killed by a wind turbine blade.

As I said, if you made this up it would sound too contrived for anyone to believe it.

One wonders whether this event might possibly cause fans of wind power to re-examine their "solution" to energy production.

Sorry, don't know what I was thinking there.

Coddling detainees at Gitmo, part gazillion; (Don't read if you have anger problems)

The Community-Organizer-in-Chief absolutely excels in one thing:  If he can't get what he wants directly, he's great at finding a way to accomplish his goal by indirect means.

Case in point:  Obummer promised his lefty/Dem supporters that during the first six months of his presidency he'd close the prison at Guantanamo. Unfortunately no one wanted the Islamic jihadist inmates transferred to their state, and Obozo wasn't willing to let the military try 'em.  Nor was he willing to take the political heat of just turning 'em loose and sending 'em all back to their native countries, since they had this funny tendency to go right back to trying to kill Americans--even though all the detainees were all so totally innocent when they were captured, dontcha know.

So Obozo put the word out to the Pentagon:  Spoil the hell out of the "detainees," regardless of the cost.  (Link is to a badly-written article in the NY Post but don't hold it against 'em.)

So the detainees got a $750,000 soccer field, a 10,000-book library of Islamic books (administered by a Muslim librarian, of course); even their own clerics to preach to them in Arabic.  And of course every detainee is issued a Koran, paperback or hardback--along with a little hammock to keep their holy book from touching the ground when not in use.

And of course they got lots and lots of food--specially prepared to Islamic religious standards.  In fact they ate so much great food that they were gaining weight (poor darlings).

Lots of weight.

Now, most normal folks wouldn't regard this as a problem a prison would bother trying to solve.  But the Islamophilic civilians at the Pentagon apparently decided this weight problem was so damned awful that they took funds away from military operations and ordered a bunch of exercise equipment for the detainees.

You can't make this stuff up.  But wait, it gets even better:

As you could have guessed, the detainees complained that the equipment was made in the USA, and petulantly refused to use it.

At that point if I'd been the military commander at Gitmo I would have told the detainees in no uncertain terms to fuck off, and put any detainee who was overweight on 900 calories a day--for their own good, of course.  And I would have dared Obozo to fire me for that initiative.  But I'm pretty hard-ass about crap like that.

Instead, the civilian-run Defense Department ordered that the American-made fitness equipment be replaced with equipment made in Muslim countries.  At Lord knows what cost.

But of course all this expense is a win-win for Barry, since all the expenses at Gitmo come from the defense budget.  So money he forces the DoD to spend on hammocks for Korans and soccer fields and Islamic meals and Islamic fitness equipment (and and and...) is money the Defense Department can't use for training or *military* equipment.

If Americans complain about the huge sum spent to run the facility--reportedly $800,000 per detainee per year--Barry can say "Hey, I tried to close it right after I first took office but those obstructionist Republicans wouldn't let me!"  (Doesn't matter that Democrat congresscritters were equally opposed to closing Gitmo.)

At that point it becomes "win-win-win."  "Any problems we have are entirely--say it with me: entirely--the fault of George Bush and the Republicans in congress."

Hoo-eee this guy is good.  Compared to Barry, Huey Long was an amateur.  (Bonus to anyone under 40 and not from Louisiana who knows who that was.)

Who said...?

Who said this:
Let me say this as simply and plainly as I can:  Transparency and the rule of law will be the touchstones of this presidency.
That line was from Barack Obama's first inaugural speech, January 21, 2009.


Was this the same administration that promised to post the text of all bills on the internet *three days prior* to voting on final passage?

Nah, couldn't be.

June 29, 2013

Watch as Norwegian guy uses Adobe Illustrator to show alleged Obozo "long-form birth cert" was an amateurish forgery

Apparently lot of folks who live in other countries follow U.S. presidential politics with more than passing interest.  In fact, with more interest than fully half the U.S. electorate.  A guy in Norway--name of Kjetil Eilertsen--seems to be one of those.

Way back in April of 2011, when King Barry's minions were gearing up for the 2012 election they were facing a much more savvy opponent than RINO John McCain, and it looked like a tough fight.  So they were trying to solve several little inconsistencies in Barry's background:  For one, his SS number was originally issued to a dead guy from Connecticut.  Second was not being able to produce any proof he was born in Hawaii as he'd claimed.

So there was a lot of surprise when the White House suddenly uploaded to its official website a document they claimed was Obama's long-concealed "long-form birth certificate."

Of course skeptics wondered why--if Obama had had this document all along--he hadn't posted it before the 2008 election and settled the question.  The release of this magic bullet three years after it was most needed gave it a presumption of forgery.  But of course the logic of this argument got no traction whatsoever against the media's adoration of Duh Won.

In any case, many people were curious to see what the alleged certificate showed, and one of those people was Kjetil.  He downloaded the .pdf from whitehouse.gov, opened it with Adobe Reader, and saw what everyone else saw--everything perfectly normal, saying what Barry had claimed all along.  But wait...

Kjetil happened to do design work, and owned a different Adobe product from the free reader that everyone has.  The product--Adobe Illustrator--is far more powerful, and is used to create an manipulate graphics.  In fact, if a document has been saved in "unflattened form" it's trivially easy to use Illustrator to manipulate any layers or objects it contains.

Opening the pdf using Illustrator, Kjetil found that the document on the White House's own, official website wasn't just a single-layer, as it would have been had it been scanned from a paper copy.  Instead it contained numerous layers.  In fact, ten of 'em.

Kjetil then used Illustrator to turn off these layers one at a time.  (To watch him do this pull up this Youtube vid--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7k8T7tjTEg  --it's a bit boring for the first 3 minutes but gets to the point at 3:10.) 

As each layer is turned off, one or more blocks of information vanish--leaving a rectangular hole. 

Now if you're proficient with Illustrator you instantly knew what this meant.  But since only one percent or so of the public falls in that category I'll explain: 

It shows quite conclusively that the alleged "birth certificate" was not scanned from a real document but was created--fabricated--by cutting and pasting from scans of other documents.

In other words, it's a forgery. 

But shocking as that is, that's not the most disturbing thing.  Can any of you guess why?


Even more disturbing than the forgery is that *no one* in the circle of advisors Obama selected to create this forgery *knew enough to ask a real expert* if a document forged with Illustrator could be detected by the same program.

If this doesn't hit you like a hammer consider this:  These super-smaht advisors to the president--his most inner circle--had only the most superficial grasp of the tools they were using...and weren't savvy enough to ask someone with real expertise in the field.  (Through several layers of cutouts, of course.)

And then you think...Wow, this explains SO much about the cluelessness, the amateurishness, the ineptitude of the Obama gang, in virtually every area:  Giving Queen Elizabeth an iPod loaded with his speeches, giving British leaders DVDs that wouldn't work on players from their region;  "Cash for Clunkers;"  making what he claimed were "recess appointments" while the senate was still in session and literally dozens more.

These people remind me of the moron who murdered his girlfriend and then sent texts to himself from her cell phone to make it appear that she just needed some time alone, thanks.  He was stunned to find that the cell towers determined both phones were within a few feet of each other when the texts were sent.

Now let me quickly add that because of the connivance and cover of the corrupt U.S. media, this revelation of a *really* amateurish forgery (Kjetil posted his YouTube vid in 2011) never gained traction.  So they got away with it.  So if you look at it from that standpoint, they knew exactly what they were doing:  They knew they didn't have to worry about being sloppy because the media would cover for 'em.

If that's the case, what does it say about the contempt they have for the mental ability of the American public?

I'm about convinced that a ban on gun ownership would work. Just one thing....

I'm about to be convinced that the liberals/Democrats/socialists who want to ban private gun ownership are right.

I mean, I realize the second amendment appears to give citizens the right to keep and bear arms, but the amendment's authors prolly didn't really mean that to be taken literally.  They probably just meant it as some kind of metaphor.  Yeah, that's probably it.

And surely none of the founders could have imagined gangs of heavily-armed, drug-pushing low-lifes running our biggest cities, killing innocent kids in drive-by shootings. And I'm sure they didn't consider the possibility of teen suicide by gun, or accidents.

So on balance I'm about ready to agree that guns oughta be banned.

Just show me one thing and I'll sign off:  Libs tell us passing laws banning private gun ownership will prevent all those deaths of innocents.  (As Barry says, "If we can save just one child....")  But before we ban guns, why not try banning some other deadly scourge first and see if it actually works?

Guns at least have some utility for honest, law-abiding citizens.  Most street drugs don't.  So why not pass a law banning the possession and sale of street drugs first, and see if that puts an end to drug-related crimes and drug deaths?

What?  You say street drugs are *already* illegal??

Gedouttahere!  You mean we still have billions of dollars of drug-related robberies and thefts, and thousands of deaths by drug overdose every year despite a ban on the possession and sale of illegal drugs??

Wow, that's...so totally unexpected.

Wait...I think I may have a clue to the reason:  Seems to me that Democrats pushing to ban private gun ownership are implicitly making the crucial assumption that criminals would respect a law banning guns even though they completely ignore other laws.

Hmmmm...  Could it be that key assumption is wrong??

June 28, 2013

Dem-controlled California senate passes bill requiring permit to buy ammo--liberals ecstatic

The California senate has passed a bill that would do several things that might interest you.

Oh, you say you don't live in CA so this is of no interest to you?  Think again, because it shows how fast things can turn to shit in your own state if liberals win a majority of the seats in the legislature.

The bill (SB53 for those who want to read for themselves) 
  1. would only allow you to buy ammunition if you have an "Ammunition Purchase Authorization;"
  2. levies a fee--carefully not specified--on people who apply for the newly-required "Authorization" to buy;
  3. would force every person or business selling ammunition to apply for a state license to do so; 
  4. would force all sellers to maintain a detailed list of names and other information on every buyer, including thumbprint;
  5. would force sellers to turn the above information over to the state essentially immediately.
Alarmed yet, campers?

Or are you still in that sweet, comfy slumber, believing the liberals/Democrats/socialists when they reassure you that they really, really support the second amendment and would never, never try to take away your nasty ol' guns.  Even though they blythely reject any parts of the Constitution they don't like.

Barack Obama decided you should use less electricity, but he couldn't slap a federal tax on that wonderful commodity without being impeached.  Oooh, what to do?  So he cleverly, cannily did it by indirect means:   Had his EPA jack up their regulations enough to force utility companies to shut down dozens of coal-fired powerplants.

The laws of supply and demand acting as they do, prices are already going up.  Bingo.

Same with guns:  A majority of Democrat pols have decided you shouldn't own any.  Unfortunately they lost a case in the Supreme Court that would have effectively done that.  But they realized the obvious: without ammunition, a gun is pretty useless.  They can't outlaw ammunition, but they realized that making it prohibitively expensive would accomplish the same end.

It would not surprise me an iota if some diligent sleuth were to eventually discover--decades from now--that a dozen CA state senators were promised hundreds of thousands of dollars of campaign contributions by any of a dozen big socialist organizations in return for passing this abominable bill.

But regardless of whether there's outright corruption  (in politics?  surely not!), the effect is the same.

Whooo, doggies!  We are being played, played, played.  And most of you have no idea it's happening.  Too caught up in American Idol, I guess.  Or your kid's soccer league.  Or "Real Housewives of L.A."

It's okay...your kids will be perfectly happy having the government run their lives.  After all, some super-sophisticated European philosopher just wrote that capitalism forces people to make so many decisions that it makes us all crazy.


June 27, 2013

What's Snowden's real mission?

Young people are often--shall we say, not well-grounded in reality.  That is, not having had certain experiences, their assessments of how things really work are...not necessarily accurate.

I'm guessing no one over, say, 40 will take issue with this.  If you're under that age and find this statement callous, demeaning, insulting or similar and would like to discuss it, feel free to comment.  But as I say, older people will back it up.

The point of this preamble is Edward Snowden, the 20-something "intel analyst" for the NSA who's told the world that our government is spying on Americans' phone calls and emails.

There's no doubt that Snowden is a strange cat.  I understand that a young, idealistic guy might have been horrified to discover his employer was spying on Americans, and decides to blow the whistle.  And if he'd confined his revelations to that, the story would be over.

Problem is, Snowden didn't do that.  Instead, he went a great deal further, gratuitously telling the Chinese that the U.S. had managed to tap a fiber-optic cable on the ocean floor and to intercept communications the Chinese had reason to believe were protected.  (For the record, cutting into an optical cable on the ocean floor is a pretty challenging problem.)

In a second non-domestic revelation Snowden told the Russians that the U.S. had intercepted communications to and from Putin when he took a trip outside Russia.

While this probably didn't surprise the Russians, the obvious question is, if Snowden is trying to arouse Americans against NSA spying on *us*, why reveal other, unrelated intel to the Russians and Chinese?

Some analysts have speculated that the whole Snowden episode is actually an elaborate disinformation ploy, designed to divert the attention of the American public from some other, more potentially damaging issue facing the Obamoids.  Sorry, can't buy it, because Obozo takes more of a hit to his popularity from the spying revelation.  So no way.

Second:  Mainstream publications have now printed that Snowden took the Booz Allen job specifically to gather more info on U.S. intel gathering techniques.  I have no way of knowing if that's true, but if it is that would pretty well put him on the "traitor" list as far as I'm concerned.

Finally, I think Snowden--like many or even most young people today--probably laughs at the very idea of allegiance to ones country.  Far too many young people seem to have bought into the socialist/leftist/"progressive" propaganda that being a "citizen of the world" is far superior to identifying as a citizen of just one nation.

For someone who believes this, the only cure is bitter experience--and even that doesn't always work.

Look at all the American actors and actresses who absolutely *swoon* over how dreamy Che Guevara was, ignoring the reality that he seems to have been a psychopathic killer who got off shooting victims in the head at point-blank range.

But...but...but...revolutions are SO COOL, comrade!  Power to the people!  To each according to his need!  The people, united, cannot be defeated!

Chances are, Snowden will eventually realize it would have been better to stay here and go to [spit!] the NY Times or similar with his stop-the-presses story.  But meanwhile the Left will lionize him.

Obama appoints open gay who is now "Acting Secretary of the Air Force"


How fast is it going south?  Consider that Obama has appointed the first openly gay man as the acting Secretary of the Air Force.

Obozo appointed Eric Fanning to Undersecretary in August of last year.  Fanning was confirmed by the senate just ten weeks ago.  Then four days ago, when the Secretary of the AF retired, Fanning became "acting" Secretary of the Air Force.

Now, is there anyone on the planet who thinks Obozo *didn't know* Fanning's sexual orientation when he appointed the guy as Undersecretary?  Of course not.  And does anyone believe Obama didn't know, at that time, within a week or so of when the full Sec AF was planning to retire?  Same answer.

This was hardly an accident, but instead a very carefully-calculated move by Obozo--the most likely purpose being to reward his gay supporters.  But I think it will have two other, more detrimental effects:

First, I think there's little doubt that it will harden the opposition of fanatical Muslims, who regard homosexuality as forbidden by the Koran and who execute their own citizens for such acts.  For an American president to appoint one as head of one of the branches of our armed forces reinforces the belief of Muslims that America is hopelessly corrupt.

Keep in mind that the Obama administration is normally so scared of offending Muslims that they told the military to order soldiers not to touch copies of the Koran unless they were wearing gloves.  So in other cases they're really sensitive to this.  But not this time, apparently.

Why did the Obama administration suddenly lose its fear of offending Muslims?  This leads to the second effect:  I believe this was done with the full knowledge that it would have a detrimental effect on morale in the U.S. armed forces.  It was one thing for Democrats to spearhead a law that gays could serve in any military position as long as they didn't openly behave in a way detrimental to the military mission--the "Don't ask, don't tell" law signed by Clinton.  But to appoint an open gay to the top slot in the AF--even if temporary--sends a very clear message to the guys who constitute 80% of the force--and 99% of the fighting forces.

Attorney sues Texas--again--to bar enforcement of its voter-ID law

Like many states, Texas passed a law requiring people to show a photo-ID to vote.  Predictably, an attorney filed suit claiming this violated federal law because it was way too much of a burden on members of certain racial minorities to make 'em get a photo ID.

Just not fair.

I mean, lots of illegal aliens don't have a driver's license, so unless they could buy some other form of ID, under the new law those nasty Texas citizens weren't gonna let 'em vote there.

Like I said, just not fair.

In response to the lawsuit, as has happened dozens of times to virtually every state that's passed a law requiring photo-ID to vote, a panel of 3 federal judges ordered Texas not to implement its new law unless the court said it could.

Then just three days ago the Supreme Court issued an opinion declaring Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional (Shelby County v. Holder).  Because the lower court's injunction used as its authority that exact section of the VRA, shortly thereafter Texas announced it planned to begin enforcing its voter-ID law.

Now--as you knew would happen--a Virginia attorney has filed a new lawsuit to prevent Texas from requiring voters to show a photo-ID.  In effect the guy is saying "Ignore the USSC decision because...unfair!"

But in reading the attorney's complaint I saw something bizarre: he notes that the court that granted the original injunction stated that its reason for doing so was that Texas had "failed to demonstrate that its particular voter ID law lacks retrogressive effect.”

That seemingly-innocuous phrase implies that the Voting Rights Act either required--or that later courts held that there was an implicit requirement--that any state seeking to enact any measure whatsoever to reduce vote fraud would have to prove that every proposed measure had no "retrogressive effect."

This is a huge and outrageous burden.  If a citizen believes a law infringes on his or her constitutional rights, let them come forward with any evidence they have and let it be heard in open court.  But to require a state to prove the *absence* of "retrogressive effect" is like requiring you to prove that you *didn't* pour yourself a drink when you were home alone last Tuesday.

You say "I don't have any booze in the house"?  How do you prove that that was true last Tuesday?

It's absurd.  And if this requirement is in the actual VRA, it should have been ruled unconstitutional a month after congress passed it.

Given the PC idiocy of congresscritters I wouldn't be surprised if they actually includee such a provision, but I suspect that would have been a bridge too far even for the morons in congress back when they passed the VRA.  It's more likely that the current requirement was created by some leftist judge out of thin air and liberal activism.

In watching this chain of events, can there be ANY doubt among rational people that liberals, Democrats and socialists want to totally open our borders to all, bring in a zillion aliens and let 'em all vote? 

PC insanity, part gazillion

Paula Deen has been in the news recently.  Not being a fan, the only impression I had was that it was for allegedly making some sort of racist remark. And now as a result, the companies that sold her cookbooks or had other commercial dealings with her have said they'll end their business relationships with her.

I was curious as to what she'd done to cause the Establishment to destroy her career. Turns out that in a deposition last month, Deen related that in 1986 she was working as a bank teller and was held up at gunpoint by a black man.  She went on to say that when she went home that evening and told her husband--in the privacy of their home--about the event, she used "the N-word" to describe the robber.

In a sane world, this would be a non-event.  I can understand the PC police coming down on people who make racist comments today or recently but come on:  twenty-seven years ago??

Then I think:  Wait, this is the same type of thinking that demands that our soldiers in the field not touch copies of the Koran unless they're wearing gloves.

Insanity.

June 25, 2013

IRS harassment of conservative orgs happened at a dozen offices--all coincidence of course

Remember that story a long, long time ago about the IRS delaying action by conservative groups seeking tax-exempt status for as long as three years, while waving liberal groups through in three weeks?

I'm not sure when that happened--the so-called "news" shows don't mention it anymore and it seemed to only last a few days, so...I dunno.  But I seem to remember a high-level IRS supervisor named Lois Lerner assuring us peasants that this was all much ado about nothing, and that the problem was "confined to one rogue office in Cincinnati" and "entirely done by a few front-line employees."

Sound familiar at all?

Well, no matter.  Turns out an organization that's filed suit against the IRS claims to have evidence that the delaying tactics and outlandish, outrageous demands for all manner of information having zero to do with the sought status were done by--not one rogue IRS office but a dozen different offices of the IRS.

But do not suspect, citizen, that this policy might have been hatched by someone higher up the chain, like Washington.  Seriously.  Its appearance in a dozen IRS field offices was nothing more than a bizarre coincidence, like people who say something bad about King Barack and then the next day get notified that they're being audited.

All pure coincidence, citizen.

Oh, and here's another item of interest:  There's this nutso Leftist organization called Netroots--they push Democrat policies all the way, very hard left.  Since IRS employees insisted to conservative organizations that THEY couldn't advocate for any particular point of view (literally, that's what they told 'em), one blogger was curious as to whether Netroots has tax-exempt status--seeing as how it relentlessly pushes the Dem/socalist/Left-wing crap 24/7.

Yep, they're tax-exempt.

But you'd already guessed that, eh?

Remember, citizen, all animals are equal...but some animals are more equal than others.  You got a problem with that?

Government agency orders man not to plant or water flowers on public property in D.C.

Suppose that in 1800 you told John Adams that barely 200 years later a government entity would order a citizen to stop planting flowers in Washington spaces.  Somehow I doubt Adams would have believed that possible.

But of course, in this new age of all-powerful government, it's not even barely surprising.

A guy named Henry has been planting flowers around the world for something like 34 years.  Unfortunately he had the misfortune of landing in D.C., where he planted flowers in 176 barren flower boxes at a Metro station.

Naturally this angered the self-styled gods who dictate every action in the Metro, and they threatened the man with “arrest, fines and imprisonment” if he dared to weed, water or otherwise tend to more than 1,000 morning glories and other flowers whose seeds he planted.

You think this is satire, that it can't possibly be real.

Apparently you haven't been paying attention in this, Barack Obama's version of Amerikka, where no one is to take as much as a breath without asking permission from some government bureaucrat.

Oh, wait, could it be the Metro had already planned to plant its own flowers in those barren boxes?

Oh yeah, citizen.  Just like IRS gruppenfuhrer Lois Lerner was actually just picking applicants for tax-exempt status at random, and they all just happened to be conservatives.


Bureaucrats insist volunteers are really employees, effectively shutting down innovative business

This is a wonderful country, and most of the people are pretty wonderful.

Unfortunately, far too many government bureaucrats seem to be shitheads.

Notice carefully that I didn't say "all"--the folks in our armed forces are great and I know a few government employees who seem pretty decent.  Unfortunately...well, let's illustrate:

Rhea Riner founded an innovative children’s consignment clothing business--parents furnish their outgrown kids clothes on consignment and volunteer to help run the sale.  In return for their voluntary help with the sale they get the first look at what's available and can get some good deals.  The sales last a day or two and act roughly like garage sales.

Enter those oh-so-predictable bureaucrats from the U.S. Dept of Labor.  Those dickheads concluded that Riner's volunteers are legally “employees” under the provisions of the so-called Fair Labor Standards Act.  As such, the feds ruled the volunteers had to be paid.  And not just a nominal amount, but federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.

And of course anyone who pays wages to a "statutory" employee has to go through withholding, file monthly or quarterly forms with the IRS and remit withheld income tax as well as Social Security and medicare taxes.  In fact as all of you surely know, the employer has to match the "employee's" SS and medicare tax. And then there's unemployment tax--for a volunteer you couldn't fire anyway, since they're volunteering!  And don't even get me started with Workers' Compensation insurance.

Basically the ruling has killed her innovative business.

If I was an attorney I'd take on that suit in a second.  She didn't hire the volunteers, doesn't literally tell 'em when to show up or when to quit.  The only test of "employment" the volunteers meet is they're working.

Like all volunteers.

Now, I'm sure there are lots of hidden details in this story, but to me the point is pretty clear:  Just like the county health inspector in, I think, Oregon, who harassed some ten-year-old for selling lemonade in her front yard without a permit, these shitheads have NO sense of proportion or reason.  Their nutty insistence on classifying volunteers as employees clearly shows they've run out of useful, reasonable shit to do.

Fire them.  Fire every government employee who participated in this outrage in any way.  And take away their pensions.

People like this are like flies.  All former military know the rest of the sentence.

If a fucking bureaucrat can arbitrarily claim a volunteer is an employee, language and common parlance are meaningless.  Hell, if they get away with that, what would keep some pencil-dick from claiming each of us peasants derives an imputed income of $100,000 a year simply be virtue of living in a country where you can own private property (some kinds, anyway, and for now)?

June 24, 2013

Senators add 1,190-page amendment Friday, brag that you'll have 75 hours to read it before senate vote

Imagine watching a video of a horrible auto accident, in slow motion.  One vehicle is an SUV with 8 kids in it, and they're wiped out by a drunk who runs a red light, killing or horribly injuring all aboard.

You know how it will end but are forced to watch each frame.

That's how I feel as the U.S. senate gets ready to vote on the immigration "reform" bill today.

Specifically:  Republican senator Bob Corker helped draft a thing called the "Hoeven-Corker border security amendment" to the laughably-misnamed immigration "reform bill."  The amendment runs 1,190 pages.  The authors of the thing introduced it last Friday--i.e. 3 days ago.

Corrupt Democrat senate majority leader Harry Reid plans to bring the whole bill up for a vote today.

But hey, not to worry, citizen:  As the amendment's RINO author helpfully noted on Friday, senators would have a whole 75 hours to read the thing before having to vote.  So, y'know, they'd have a great chance of catching all the little woolyboogers the Dem leadership have slipped into the thing at the last second.

You know, things like the little $100-million-per-year slush fund that will advertise the wonders of Las Vegas to foreign visitors, that an amendment inserted by Harry Reid would rescue from expiration and make perpetual.

Here's Corker's exact quote:
By filing cloture today [Friday] on this amendment it is going to give everybody in this body and in the nation the opportunity to read this piece of legislation for 75 hours before the cloture vote occurs.
And he is NOT being critical or sarcastic.  He's implying this should be plenty of time for GOP senators and their staffs to fully check this piece of shit for ghastly consequences.

If you worked around the clock you'd have less than four minutes to completely read each page, check its coded references to other bills and then try to look for problems.

Less than four minutes per page, when the consequences are trillions of dollars and giving the Dems guaranteed electoral wins for at least the next fifty years or so.

Sounds perfect.

And as far as having enough time for we the people to be advised of ghastly loopholes by a handful of conservative senators, and then being able to let our own senators know what we thought about the bill...hahahahahaha!  Not possible, citizen.  Besides, why should senators listen to ordinary peons anyway, right?

Someone many years ago said people get the government they deserve.  I realize that's a huge oversimplification, since a lot of good, hardworking Americans who didn't vote for any of these bastards or their policies are going to suffer for the majority who did.  I truly feel sorry for you, and your kids.  But at some point, when professional pols on both sides have either sold out or folded to threats of blackmail, policies can no longer be changed by elections.

Originally the law and the Constitution were supposed to catch bad politicians, remove them and jail 'em, but gradually congress and presidents quietly changed the *effective* rules, so that government now ignores both law and Constitution.

Hey, nothing lasts forever.  It was a good run while it lasted.  And from my sea-side home in a delightful country with great people, I'll watch the implosion by satellite.

June 23, 2013

Stealthy, last-minute amendment inserted in senate immigration bill

Just yesterday I posted a piece on the tendency of corrupt congresswhores--yes Harry Reid, I'm specifically talking about you--to use massive bills like Obozocare or the laughably-misnamed immigration "reform" [spit] bill to slip in cryptic one-sentence amendments that will fetch them millions of dollars in "campaign contributions" and related goodies.

I explained how clever, cunning congresswhores sneak these corrupt gifts to donors past the public by cloaking their effect in lengthy references to subsections of other bills--references that would take a dedicated researcher hours to track down (and to what purpose?).  I made up some examples to illustrate. 

But now just a minute ago, in one of those amazing gifts from somewhere, the Net provided a real-time example: 

On page 66 of the amended immigration bill--in a section dealing with law enforcement--the following newly-added provision now appears:
CORPORATION FOR TRAVEL PROMOTION.—Sec- 9(d)(2)(B) of the Travel Promotion Act of 2009 (22 U.S.C. 2131(d)(2)(B)) is amended by striking ‘‘For each of fiscal years 2012 through 2015,’’ and inserting ‘‘For each fiscal year after 2012."
Say what?  Does anyone other than the person who drafted this know what this amendment is supposed to do?  Of course not--it's impossible to tell without chasing down the reference to the "Travel Promotion Act of 2009."  But one would think that since it was inserted in a section titled "Border Security and Other Provisions” under the subsection “Additional U.S. Border Patrol and U.S. Customs and Border Protection Officers” that it's presumably related to these functions somehow.

I mean, why else would the authors put the amendment in that section?

Well someone took the time to run down Section 9(d)(2)(B) of that 2009 law, and here's what's up:  That act authorized the Treasury Department to spend $100 million every year on promoting travel to selected parts of the U.S.  It created a government-run public relations campaign, which was to end in 2015.

The single-sentence "stealth amendment" would extend this little $100-million-per-year honeypot indefinitely.

So guess who inserted this stealthy little contribution-fetcher. 

Why, Democrat senate majority leader Harry Reid and RINO senator Dean Heller, both from Nevada.

Now one can see why Reid and Rino Heller put the fetcher in the section they did:  The heading of the section they put it in would lead the ordinary reader to think it couldn't be what it is--a way to extend a little $100-million-per-year slush-fund forever.

Let's wrap up this little civics lesson with a couple of political truths:  First, because this was inserted by the senate majority leader, if any senator were to call attention to the true effect of this stealthy amendment he'd lose any committee assignment more significant than the committee to study typefaces or such.  So once that amendment's inserted it's as good as passed into law.  A slam-dunk.  Nice.

Second:  Of course Reid will claim it's a good amendment.  (Duh.)  But if you really believe it does a good thing that most people would support, senator, why didn't you openly discuss its purpose in open session?  Could it be because too many of us peasants would see what you were really doing?

Finally, why put the stealth change in a section that has exactly zero to do with the purpose of your last-second amendment?

[Let me add that I'm well aware that the Travel Promotion Act was funded by a tax on international visitors, so didn't cost U.S. taxpayers anything.  Commendable as that is, that's not at all the point.  Also, I'm aware that Heller is a nominal Repub, but in fact he's a plant, a ringer:  As has been documented extensively elsewhere, Heller ran on a platform of opposing amnesty but within weeks of winning he suddenly began supporting it.]

June 22, 2013

Doesn't any member of congress actually *read* bills before they pass 'em?

It's been a cliche in Washington for decades that virtually no senator or representative actually reads the bills they pass.

Reason is, congresswhores are all very important people with lots of demands on their time.  Why should they take many hours of their oh-so-precious time to actually read a bill when they can have a staffer brief them on what the significant provisions are their intended effect.

There are only a dozen huge things wrong with this:  First, it's quite likely that a lot of congresswhores don't bother taking the time to get fully briefed by their staff analysts either, for the same reason they don't read the damn bills:  Takes way, way too much time.

Second:  If you've ever read the text of a passed law you know the damn things are absolutely loaded with references to numbered subparagraphs on far-away pages, sometimes even numbered 'grafs of other laws.  Stuff like "Notwithstanding the provisions of section 9(f)(3)(iii), any grants awarded under this act shall be deemed tax deductible under the provisions of Public Law 96-124(4)g(iv)."  Unless you have a comprehensive, searchable database of the complete code of federal regulations--and a lot of time--the normal reader can't really easily determine the effect.

As a result, lots of things get passed that no one ever knew about except the leaders of the majority party and the member who actually drafted and submitted the language.  (And the party leaders only know because the drafting member has to tell them what he's doing.  If he doesn't do that he'll never get a decent committee assignment again.)

Example: Say a company wants to take a tax deduction for some investment that the tax code doesn't consider deductible.  Company head "bundles" $200,000 or so for the party that has majority control of both houses and the WH, and voila! a single sentence is added to a sure-to-pass amendment in some 2000-page bill--say, Defense or a farm bill--stating that companies located in state X and making chrome-plated left-handed widgets can deduct all expenses incurred in doing Y.  Except that's disguised as a waiving of the provisions of section 3.5(f)8(iii) of Public Law 98-xxx, so no one even bothers checking the reference.

The longer a bill gets, the easier it is to hide stuff like this.  For example, last I heard Obamacare is now 2300 pages long, and the so-called immigration "reform" bill is over 1100.  That much gobbledygook offers a LOT of space for shady provisions to hide.

For example, take the senate version of the immigration bill.  According to senator Jeff Sessions a slew of new amendments were "dropped on the Senate floor” on Friday. “Members and staff have only until Monday afternoon to read through this modified proposal.”

Sessions charged that one of the amendments would allow aliens who overstayed their visa to still apply for a green card and become a citizen--in effect creating permanent amnesty.

“It is permanent lawlessness,” Session said. “Joined with existing language that restricts future enforcement, it guarantees unending illegal immigration.”


Sessions also noted that under the reform bill that failed in 2007, amnesty applicants had to pay up to $8,000 in fines or penalties, but the current bill cuts this to just $2,000 — and even this amount “subject to numerous waivers."

But not to worry, citizen:  senators have until Monday to discover the scores of little surprises deliberately inserted into this abomination by the Democrat leadership at the last minute.  That's plenty of time, eh?

June 21, 2013

Gallup: 41% of small businesses have frozen hiring due to Obamacare, 19% have cut workers

One of the things that neither the incompetent community organizer nor Harry Reid cares about is small business.  And it's pretty simple: 95% of the folks who own and run small businesses are NOT big donors to pols--cuz' they're too strapped to live large.

With that background, we note that a recent Gallup poll showed that 41% of small businesses said they'd stopped hiring because of Obamacare.  Another 19% had actually laid off workers to avoid getting saddled with huge and unpredictable costs--and presumably in some cases to get under the cutoff for the number of employees that will trigger the full cost on employers.

You stupid congresswhores knew this would happen.  And once we finally had a chance to read your damn bill--after you passed it (thanks, Nancy)--we warned you this would happen.  But by then it was too late, eh?

Now worried owners are doing just what any rational being would do, and Democrat pols profess to be absolutely surprised, shocked, by this revelation!

Don't worry, dudes:  All you need to do to fix this is pass another law requiring that everyone with over $20,000 of net assets start a small business and hire ten people, and voila!  unemployment will vanish, the economy will boom and everyone will vote Democrat for the next 50 years.

Did I hear a small voice say such a bill might not be constitutional?  Gimme a break!  You jerks didn't give a goddam about the constitutionality of Obamacare, so why worry now?  Hell, even Barry's own handpicked attorneys had to argue that the penalty for not buying mandatory health insurance was NOT a penalty but was instead a tax, in order to get the damn thing past the court.  Ignoring, of course, that the Constitution requires that all tax measures must originate in the House, and this didn't. 

But again (ahem), "What difference does it make at this point?"  (Thanks, Hillary!)

But hey, why fret about a few million more unemployed folks?  You pols are set for life, and you can keep approving borrowing a trillion bucks a year from China, so you can pass laws extending unemployment benefits for another 52 weeks.  And then another after that.

Hey, it's all good in the land of Democrat control of the senate, White House and Ministry of Propaganda (thanks MSM!).


Amnesty set to pass senate with no border security

If you haven't been following the maneuvering on the so-called immigration "reform" bill you've missed one of the most cynical, cunning displays of arrogance, brazen lying and in-your-face betrayal that it's been my misfortune to see in many years on this planet.

The game works like this: Dems want amnesty, while most Repubs--recalling that the 1986 amnesty was supposed to be a one-time deal, and that Dems had blocked LAWS previously passed requiring the building of a secure border fence--wanted a bill that would require that the border actually be secured before amnesty was given.  But senate Democrats used their majority to defeat every Republican amendment that would require that.

Instead Dems have crafted a bill that grants amnesty without securing the border first.  The bill merely requires that Homeland Security set *goals* for apprehending border crossers, with no penalty if those goals aren't even remotely met.

So...the path is clear for senate Dems to pass a "reform" bill that simply grants amnesty to 11 million illegals, without taking any meaningful steps to secure the borders.  Which means we'll get *another* round of amnesty in another ten or 15 years.

Hey, business as usual for Democrats.

Oh, and I see the Congressional Budget Office has calculated that legalizing 11 million new Democrats will increase unemployment as the new citizens displace American workers.  But no matter: Dems will just vote to give the newly unemployed more weeks of unemployment benefits, so...problem solved!

And don't worry about how it'll be paid for, because Bernanke is printing $85 Billion in new bucks every month, and they've gotta spend it on *something.*

Nice knowing you, amigos.

June 20, 2013

State sen. passes crap law, company leaves, pol says "Not our fault!!"

Politicians have an infinite capacity to both fail to see logical results of the crap they pass, and to be able to deflect any blame for those consequences--even if this requires swearing that the Earth is flat.

Example:  Two months ago the legislature of Connecticut passed a law outlawing the sale of semi-automatic rifles in that state.  (For those unfamiliar with guns a semi-automatic fires one shot each time the trigger is pulled.)

After that bill passed, a Connecticut company that makes semi-automatic rifles said That's it, we're leaving.  Of course this made zero difference to the lawmakers.  After all, the company only had 42 employees, so no big deal, right?

Well yesterday the company announced they'd found a more receptive climate in South Carolina and would be moving forthwith.  Which prompted statements from two CT pols.

Democrat senator Richard Blumenthal said...aw, who cares?  The guy's a corrupt idiot, and quoting anything he said would be a waste of both your time and mine.

Second quote is from state senator Beth Bye, who championed the new gun-ban law.  She said the new law did not prevent the company from manufacturing their products in CT, but merely banned the company from selling its products there.

She said, “[Company] can still manufacture and sell its weapons in the United States, they just cannot be purchased in Connecticut.  There is nothing in our new state law which prevents them from manufacturing and selling weapons.  So the decision to move is entirely theirs."

You have to have some acquaintance with that weird language known as "politico-gobblespeak" to fully appreciate what Beth was really trying to say there: 
"The loss of 42 productive, taxpaying jobs has absolutely nothing to do with that that bill I pushed into law.  The fault is entirely with the arrogant owner, who was absolutely free to keep his workers' company in our gun-fearing, gun-hating, gun-demonizing state.  After all, my new law didn't outlaw *making* his sinister, kid-killing product here (though I would encourage all other states to ban the purchase of such guns in their states too).  In fact I cannot imagine why he would want to leave such a business-friendly state as ours!
Of course she couldn't literally say those words because then everyone would recognize the hypocrisy.

The absolute giveaway for the "arrogance" factor was the part where she said the company could still sell its weapons in the rest of the U.S.  Damn, that's mighty generous of her--seeing as how she's a state senator and has no impact on the federal picture.  But one has no doubt at all that if she could, she'd ban all such guns outright.

Sure wish one of these pols would have the courage of their convictions and post a big ol' sign in their yard saying "We hate guns and have NONE in this home!" 

I'd love to see how well that worked, even in low-crime Connecticut.

Obama gives key to bringing warring sides together ??


Your president went to Belfast, Northern Ireland recently where he gave a speech. 

If you're under 35 or not up on overseas politics you need to know that for three decades Belfast was the main site of a long battle between Catholics and Protestants.  Northern Ireland was (and is) part of Great Britain, and the fight was mostly over whether it should become part of the adjoining Irish Republic, which is Catholic.  Ireland served as the source of arms and recruiting for this three-decade war, which made wide use of terrorist tactics like car bombs and attacks on unarmed civilians.  After 3,500 deaths the sides realized no end was in sight and the conflict finally ended (essentially) in 1998.

Here's what Obama said (search site for "segregated"):
[S]egregated schools and housing, lack of jobs and opportunity -- symbols of history that are a source of pride for some and pain for others -- these are not tangential to peace; they’re essential to it. If towns remain divided -- if Catholics have their schools and buildings, and Protestants have theirs -- if we can’t see ourselves in one another, if fear or resentment are allowed to harden, that encourages division. It discourages cooperation.
So in effect he's telling his audience that opposing religious groups need to mingle, go to school together, live in mixed communities and so on.  And I'm thinking, that was really a good speech.  What he said was SO perceptive, so...COOL!  The Dems who called him a "Lightworker" were spot-on!

In fact, it was SO good that I'm looking forward to him making this same speech in the middle east to Sunnis and Shiites--who I'm sure will be equally impressed with his enlightenment and insight.  After all, if it's good advice to two subdivisions of Christianity it should be equally relevant to two opposing sects of Islam, right?

So what do you think the odds are that he'll tell Muslims the same thing? 

Ain't gonna happen.  Because doing so would call attention to their barbarity, use of terror tactics, and intolerance.

And Lord knows Obama can't have that.

NYC bill would ban cops from identifying a suspect's age or race??

A member of the NYC council has introduced a bill that would ban police from identifying a suspect’s age, gender or...race.

Think that'd make it a lot harder for cops to identify and catch crooks?  Sorry, citizen, you don't get to vote on the thing.

And to add insult to injury, the bill’s sponsor, Jumaane Williams (Democrat), and Speaker Christine Quinn have said they will bypass normal committee process and bring the measure directly to a vote of the entire council.

Bypassing normal procedure, y'say.  Wow, that sounds SO familiar!  Now where have I seen arrogant, fascist politicians bypass normal legislative procedures to jam crappy, society-wrecking laws down the peoples' throats before?

Oh yeah:  That's how NY gun-hating Democrats passed the law banning magazines holding more than 7 rounds--by suspending the statutory three-day comment period that would have given the public a chance to know what they were getting ready to do.

And of course that same rape of normal legislative procedures is also how Obama's Democrats passed Obamacare--by bribing two senators and then using a trick called "deemed passed" to consider the thing passed when it actually hadn't.

But nothing to see here, citizen.  Just politics as usual, Democrat-style.

June 19, 2013

IRS scandal must be fiction because...

I've been seeing lots of comments on other blogs on roughly the following lines:

A: "I think all this stuff about the IRS targeting conservative organizations is just stuff made up by conservatives to tarnish president Obama.  After all, if it was directed from the top, surely some mid-level employee would spill the truth rather than taking the fall for the higher-ups.  So it doesn't make sense that it's real."

But thinking about that, it seems t' me that no mid-level gov't employee will be willing to come clean because if one does, he'll never get another job in government.  While those who keep silent are very likely to be rewarded in perfectly legal ways, via promotions or plum assignments.

Also there's the fear of one's kids being harmed:  Almost all the schools in DC have large numbers of kids of govt employees, and if word got out that a kid's parent was "anti-Democrat" or "anti-Obama" that would likely lead to some serious harassment.

So I think the only way to get a lower-level employee to 'fess up is to seriously threaten 'em with jail time.  And I don't see enough Repubs having the determination to do that, since it would mark them as "mean."

If only the GOP congresswimps were one-tenth as mean as the MSM portrays 'em to be, this whole problem would be solved pretty quickly.

Oh well.

June 18, 2013

Leftists slant a story to favor Dems, part gazillion

If you were writing a story titled "Who are the wealthiest members of congress?" would you start the story by naming the second-wealthiest member?

If the top two were close, maybe.  But how about if the wealthiest member was worth six times more than the second-wealthiest.  Does it make any journalistic sense to name the much-less-wealthy member first?

If you're a writer for a leftist rag, it most certainly does make sense.  Here are the two opening 'grafs: 
Eric Cantor and Nancy Pelosi are once again the two wealthiest members of the House leadership, according to just released financial disclosure reports for all members.

Cantor saw his minimum personal wealth rise slightly to nearly $4.4 million in 2012, and Pelosi is worth at least $24.4 million, according to their annual reports.
If you're a "skimmer" reader--as research shows most people are--the placement of Cantor's name as the opening two words leads you to believe he's the wealthiest.  And not only that, in the second sentence the article again leads with the Republican's name, helpfully adding that Cantor's wealth rose in 2012, while no mention is made of how Pelosi's wealth may have changed.
 
I realize most people would consider this name-the-second-guy-first to be quite trivial, but it illustrates something that happens hundreds of times every day.  Because there is absolutely no logical reason to write the story that way.

Normally "news" stories lead with the biggest revelation.  But Politico didn't.  And it wasn't an accident.

All Democrat pubs do this ALL the time.  The only thing noteworthy here is that the technique was so obvious.
 
One imagines a very brief moment of internal debate where the "reporters" thought, "If we do the usual and shill for the Dems by putting the Republican first and the six-times-richer Democrat member (Pelosi) second, our covering for the Dems is gonna be obvious"--before the loyalist side said "So what?  First, none of the rubes are gonna notice; and second, what difference does it make if a few do?"

Just another small example of how Leftist editors and writers slant stories to make Dems look better.

CAIR got tax-exempt status reinstated despite failure to file required report for 3 years

Ever heard of an IRS Form 990?

Unless you're a tax attorney or run a non-profit, probably not.  It's an exhaustive report (12 pages) that every non-profit org must submit to the IRS every year in order to keep their tax-exempt status.

This status is absolutely CRUCIAL to an organization's ability to get donations because it's what lets donors take a tax deduction for their donation.  Lose that and most non-profits would have a much harder time raising funds. 

You'd think an organization that failed to file a 990 would automatically lose its tax-exempt status.  Particularly if it failed to file for three years in a row.

Of course it won't surprise you to learn that under the corrupt hand of Duh Won some tax-exempts are more equal than others. 

F'rinstance, if your org had the words "Tea Party" in its name, Holly Paz, Lois Lerner and the rest of the IRS scofflaws would simply sit on your application for years.  Ah, but if you were a group favored by the Obozo administration such minor slips were ignored.

Specifically, the "Council on American-Islamic Relations" (CAIR) didn't file the required 990 for three years in a row and the IRS shrugged.  (The organization had its exempt status revoked in 2011 for other reasons.) In fact, just before the 2012 election the IRS quietly reinstated the crucial tax-exempt status, despite the organization's willful failure to file the required disclosure for 3 years.

You'd think that for the IRS to reinstate CAIR's tax-exempt status, the organization would have to have filed the missing returns.  But CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper, gloating about the crucial reinstatement, claimed not to know anything about what paperwork, including tax returns, had been filed to regain the exempt status.

By law, the nonprofit group must make copies of its tax returns available to the public. Several news outlets, including Politico and USA Today, have asked CAIR for copies of its missing 2007-10 returns, but CAIR has been unable to produce them.  Curiouser still, CAIR's latest tax return is only a partial filing — covering the period from Aug. 9, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2011.


If you or I fail to file required shit with the IRS we quickly get a nasty letter threatening to seize our property unless we file and/or pay up.  (I once got such a letter over a whopping five-dollar underpayment!)  But if you're an Islamic organization able to steer millions of foreign dollars to Obama and the Dems, you can figuratively tell the IRS to fuck off with no apparent consequences.

We are no longer a nation of laws.  To put it another way:  Connected organizations can flout the law without any consequences.

AT&T iPhone4s and 5s will soon send you "presidential alerts"??

When I first saw this I thought it had to be satire.  Could not possibly be real.

AT&T is issuing a "software update" for its iPhone 4S and 5 that will enable users to get emergency alerts from the government.  These will include three classes of alerts:  "imminent threats," like floods and such; "Amber alerts;" and..."presidential alerts"???

Say what??

You can see why I thought it had to be satire.  I couldn't imagine anyone with an ounce of political savvy trying to do something like that.  But of course, I forget where we are!

By what perversion of justice did Odumbfuck just grab the ability to speak directly to us from our phones?  Did you agree to that?  No, citizen, you didn't.  It was rammed down your throat just like Obamacare.

Oh wait...On reading further on AT&T's website I see that phones have a menu setting that will allow their owners/users to turn off the alerts if they don't want to see 'em.  (Assuming you know where to look, of course.)

Ah, well, guess that's not so bad after all, eh?

Ooops.  Turns out you'll be able to use that menu switch to decline all EXCEPT "presidential alerts."

So sure enough, AT&T will force you to get "presidential alerts" and no way to opt out.

Cute, huh.

June 17, 2013

Amnesty and RINOs

Below are two statements by two U.S. senators about what the Republican party needs to do re the amnesty bill (i.e. so-called immigration "reform").

1. "If we don't pass immigration reform, if we don't get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way, it doesn't matter who you run in 2016. We're in a demographic death spiral as a party and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community in my view is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don't do that, it really doesn't matter who we run."

2. "There'll never be a road to the White House for the Republican Party" if immigration overhaul fails to pass."

One of the senators was a nominal republican, the other a Democrat.

The big question:  Can you tell which one was which?

Might as well flip a coin, eh?  And what does that tell you about the guys the Lying Media have proclaimed "leaders" of the Republican party?

Funny, isn't it?  Stories in the Lying Media make a show of being "for the Little Guy" and against big business.  And there's no doubt that the LM are pushing the hell out of amnesty--because they know, as does anyone with an IQ over 80, that adding 11 million (or 16 or 20 or 30 million) new Democrat voters will ensure Dem control for at least the next several decades, if not longer.  But the LM also runs stories claiming the biggest supporters of amnesty are Big Business, since more folks in the labor force will likely put downward pressure on wages.

So wait...if that's true, doesn't the Lying Media's huge, unswerving support for amnesty mean they're really fine with lower wages for the working man?  Doesn't it mean they'll be helping Big Business--they guys they supposedly think are ruining the entire world??

Hypocrisy, anyone?  Or are they so eager to help Democrats/socialists win elections that they're more than willing to overlook little trifles like being logically inconsistent?

Oh, the first quote was from RINO Windsey Gwaham.  The second was from New Jersey Democrat senator Robert Menendez.

June 16, 2013

"Pathological altruism"

Ever hear about some government program that was designed to make some problem better, but actually ended up making things worse--sometimes a LOT worse?

From what I've seen that would be most of 'em.  (Then again I'm a bit cynical that way, so....)

To give just one of many examples:  People who wished to reduce suffering by children of poor single mothers who'd been abandoned by the biological father came up with AFDC and its many variations.  Poor girls quickly saw this as free money for having kids.  Result:  an exponential increase in the number of births to single mothers--with all the social pathologies that brings.

The weird thing is, this exact result was easily predicable by neutral analysts--and was in fact loudly predicted.  But the folks pushing the programs quickly shouted down all objections with cries of "greedy rich!" and "raacist!"

Well someone's finally given this a formal name:  "pathological altruism."  If you offer to help a friend move and accidentally break an expensive item, your altruism probably isn't pathological; whereas if your brother is addicted to painkillers and you help him obtain them, it is.

Altruism is linked to empathy--almost universally regarded as a positive trait.  But these two factors can also lead to the phenomenon of co-dependency, in which I care for you so much and want to help you so much that I help you do things that *everyone else can see* are harmful to you.

The professor who wrote this paper says there have been almost no scientific studies of co-dependency, and speculates that this might be because of fears that the results of such studies might be used to--as the author carefully phrases it--"discount the importance of altruism."

I translate that from PhD-speak as "would be used by opponents of more government social spending to oppose new programs."  OMG, can't have that!

Take another example:  Sociologists had long noted what ordinary people had known forever:  that neightborhoods where more residents owned their homes were cleaner, had more family stability and far less crime.  The decidedly illogical conclusion?  All these were *effects* of ownership.

At that point it took just seconds for someone to propose that government create programs that would enable more folks to own instead of renting. The government-backed Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae then changed their rules to allow previously-unqualified people to get government-backed mortgages.  Normal risk rules for lending were ignored because the government guaranteed the notes.  When economic conditions faltered, many lost their homes or found themselves with properties worth less than they'd paid.

Some analysts believe much of the Left's support among the non-poor comes from appeals to altruism.  As their media friends paint it, the Left is altruistic while its opponents are selfish. That sense of moral superiority makes it easy to justify a huge variety of programs that most neutral observers can easily see as flawed.

But self-declared altruism always won.

Perhaps if the concept of "pathological altruism" gains momentum, it might be possible to have a more reasoned discussion of future government proposals.

Father of the year?

A Tennessee man is being taken to court for failing to pay child support.

It would be a common story except this guy's fathered 22 kids by 14 women.  (And yes, that's obviously using "fathered" in the purely biological sense.)

In a rational society, after he sired number two without paying support for his first, guy would be thrown in jail for a year and been given a court-ordered vasectomy.  But of course, the folks running this doomed society have decided that a) kids don't need fathers; and b) people can have as many kids as they like and not worry about supporting those kids, because taxpayers will pick up the cost.

And of course, our betters assure us virtually daily that there are NO negative consequences what. so. ever. to this.

Guy sounds like a perfect Democrat voter.

June 15, 2013

Kids books that use animals "confirm racist, heteronormative, patriarchal norms"

You knew this was gonna happen.

You know those cute childrens books that have talking animals as the main characters?  Berenstain bears, "Arthur the Aardvark," that sort of thing?  Bet you thought they were cute, fun and maybe even educational for kids, eh?

Oh no, citizen!  According to a paper by two Canadian professors such books are nothing less than sinister propaganda vehicles.

The two claim kids' books use anthropomorphized animals to "reinforce socially dominant norms” like nuclear families and gender stereotypes.  “[M]uch of young children’s media reproduces and confirms racist, colonial, consumerist, heteronormative, and patriarchal norms,” they wrote.

Why do I imagine these two would not be a bit outraged if a kids book was "homo-normative" or depicted a matriarchal society? 

Next up:  Sociology prof claims ice-hockey "reproduces and confirms racist, colonial, consumerist, heteronormative, and patriarchal norms."  Whereas football and baseball confirm all but the raacist thing. 

Oh, and all professional sports that don't have women players are sexist.

More people believe UFO's are aliens than believe....

You knew this but I wanted to make it official:  Recent surveys show the percentage of Americans who believe UFO's are alien spacecraft is seven times higher than the percentage that trust the federal gummint to "almost always do the right thing."

Admittedly, a full 24 percent of respondents said they thought the fed gummint did the right thing "most or almost all the time," but that's hardly a rousing assessment, since it means thee-quarters think the gummint manages to do the wrong thing most of the time.

Either way, no surprise.

I'm waiting for the poll that asks, Do you believe either congress or Mr. Obama are deliberately pushing policies that will destroy free enterprise or freedom as we've known it in the past?"

Democrats trust Obama--here are some of the reasons

Democrats apparently trust Obama.  Here are a few of the reasons:

"As soon as I take office I will close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo."  (Last I heard it's still open.)

He said spending $800 Billion (borrowed from China) on "shovel-ready jobs" --a.k.a. the Stimulus Program--would reduce unemployment to around 5 percent.  (Unemployment stayed at almost ten percent for a couple of years--or even higher, depending on whether you believe the official figures.  VP Biden later admitted "There were no shovel-ready jobs.")

$26 Billion in gummint grants to so-called "green energy" companies--virtually all owned by Obama cronies, and virtually all of which quickly went bankrupt--most after giving sweetheart bonuses to their founders.

"If you like your health care, you'll be able to keep it."  How's that working out for ya?

Had his minion, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice, hit every one of the big five Sunday morning news shows to tell everyone in the country that the attack on the "consular annex" in Benghazi was the result of a "spontaneous demonstration" about a bad video on the internet, that got out of control.  (Later this was shown to be wrong, but served the vital purpose of injecting confusion at a critical time.)

He's directed his FBI to avoid finding any evidence that high-ranking IRS execs conspired with Obama officials to abuse conservative organizations.

Expanded the program of using armed drones, which are now used to kill Americans overseas, without trial.

Yeah, really trustworthy guy, that one.