Drug are BAD!

Usually...unless prescribed by a good, licensed doctor.

Pulling the wagon, or riding it? Hmmmmm...

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out
of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person
must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody
anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work
because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other
half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is
going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of
any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."
~~~~ Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931

James Joyce was really ADHD?

With eyes turning to Irish things, James Joyce comes to mind.  His stream-of-consciousness prose brings to one's attention the amber hued liquid so 'enjoyed' by that ethnic demographic...like the amber hued orb on the walking stick of John Hammond.  And then the Brundle Fly arises connected by Jeff Goldblum, and Scarface because of her.  Yet the female connection is lost when Yeti the long haired denizen of the Himalayas, yet the Yeti, who would hardly speak English.  That's the class that no one in America seems to take anymore, all the 'language arts' supplanting that designation that brought dread and a feeling of melancholy so great to the students trodding the hallways, so slowly like sloths in the jungle.  The Jungle...mmm...steak, hamburgers, chops, warm grilling weather and the sounds of pool water splashed out by giggling, squealing children leaping into the humid air.  But what of the chemistry to keep the water so pure?  Once the field of mysticism, Alchemy...gold from lead, and the European proscriptions that led to Jews having names alluding to gold.  The foil that covers six first stage LEMs on the lunar surface today, and one that burned up spraying gold molecules over such a vast area of the Earth so many years ago, the decade of the sixties ending in that year of the unlucky 13th mission to the Moon.  1970, April, a month of nastiness given Columbine, Hitler, Waco, Lincoln, Titanic, Tax Day and such.  Months derived in etymologist's dreams from Rome and Greece, then usurped by Julius Caesar and Caesar Augustus.

Economic Development and US

From Thomas Sowell's book "Applied Economics", "All the numerous interacting factors behind economic development make it virtually impossible that different parts of the world would all have equal development, and therefore equal standards of living, at any given time. Yet the puzzlement, unease and dissatisfaction caused by seeing large economic disparities between societies have created demands for explanations - usually without creating an equal demand for years of study of the historical, geographical and economic factors behind these disparities. Instead, there has been a demand for simple and emotionally satisfying explanations, especially melodramatic explanations with ideological overtones...to solutions favored by those inclined toward controlling other people's lives."

Teachers - Unions - Budgets and US

I am a teacher in a public school in Michigan.  I teach students about economics.  This is a story about teachers, and economics.  Very interesting...  Just click the title (above).     Long story shorter, I am an over-paid teacher.  There is no debating this from an empirical stand point.  If some want to demagogue the issue, this is a free country.  However, they are wrong.  My principal woud have hundreds of resumes from qualified teachers on his desk in a week should I be hit by a bus.  Don't mistake my actions, I am very happy and thankful to be cashing those checks.  (Like today, payday.)  Lastly, the salaries and compensation packages of all public 'servants', of those who are paid with tax dollars, are available in your school district's administrative offices.  Becareful, you'll be stonewalled by the staff asking inane and obstructive questions about your motivation and reason for this inquiry.  Just say, "FOIA".  (Freedom Of Information Act)

Recession Over? Or are we still...

This is one for the ages. Literally! Here is an economic report that provides a good background and interesting perspective on the challenges involved in making the call. IS it or is it NOT? http://www.investorsinsight.com/blogs/john_mauldins_outside_the_box/archive/2010/02/15/is-the-recession-over.aspx

Unemployment in the US graphically

Check out the map.  And just sit back and cry...

Haiti, Why?

OP-ED COLUMNIST


The Underlying Haitian Tragedy

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: January 14, 2010

On Oct. 17, 1989, a major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 struck the Bay Area in Northern California. Sixty-three people were killed. This week, a major earthquake, also measuring a magnitude of 7.0, struck near Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The Red Cross estimates that between 45,000 and 50,000 people have died.

This is not a natural disaster story. This is a poverty story. It’s a story about poorly constructed buildings, bad infrastructure and terrible public services. On Thursday, President Obama told the people of Haiti: “You will not be forsaken; you will not be forgotten.” If he is going to remain faithful to that vow then he is going to have to use this tragedy as an occasion to rethink our approach to global poverty. He’s going to have to acknowledge a few difficult truths.

The first of those truths is that we don’t know how to use aid to reduce poverty. Over the past few decades, the world has spent trillions of dollars to generate growth in the developing world. The countries that have not received much aid, like China, have seen tremendous growth and tremendous poverty reductions. The countries that have received aid, like Haiti, have not.

In the recent anthology “What Works in Development?,” a group of economists try to sort out what we’ve learned. The picture is grim. There are no policy levers that consistently correlate to increased growth. There is nearly zero correlation between how a developing economy does one decade and how it does the next. There is no consistently proven way to reduce corruption. Even improving governing institutions doesn’t seem to produce the expected results.

The chastened tone of these essays is captured by the economist Abhijit Banerjee: “It is not clear to us that the best way to get growth is to do growth policy of any form. Perhaps making growth happen is ultimately beyond our control.”

The second hard truth is that micro-aid is vital but insufficient. Given the failures of macrodevelopment, aid organizations often focus on microprojects. More than 10,000 organizations perform missions of this sort in Haiti. By some estimates, Haiti has more nongovernmental organizations per capita than any other place on earth. They are doing the Lord’s work, especially these days, but even a blizzard of these efforts does not seem to add up to comprehensive change.

Third, it is time to put the thorny issue of culture at the center of efforts to tackle global poverty. Why is Haiti so poor? Well, it has a history of oppression, slavery and colonialism. But so does Barbados, and Barbados is doing pretty well. Haiti has endured ruthless dictators, corruption and foreign invasions. But so has the Dominican Republic, and the D.R. is in much better shape. Haiti and the Dominican Republic share the same island and the same basic environment, yet the border between the two societies offers one of the starkest contrasts on earth — with trees and progress on one side, and deforestation and poverty and early death on the other.

As Lawrence E. Harrison explained in his book “The Central Liberal Truth,” Haiti, like most of the world’s poorest nations, suffers from a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences. There is the influence of the voodoo religion, which spreads the message that life is capricious and planning futile. There are high levels of social mistrust. Responsibility is often not internalized. Child-rearing practices often involve neglect in the early years and harsh retribution when kids hit 9 or 10.

We’re all supposed to politely respect each other’s cultures. But some cultures are more progress-resistant than others, and a horrible tragedy was just exacerbated by one of them.

Fourth, it’s time to promote locally led paternalism. In this country, we first tried to tackle poverty by throwing money at it, just as we did abroad. Then we tried microcommunity efforts, just as we did abroad. But the programs that really work involve intrusive paternalism.

These programs, like the Harlem Children’s Zone and the No Excuses schools, are led by people who figure they don’t understand all the factors that have contributed to poverty, but they don’t care. They are going to replace parts of the local culture with a highly demanding, highly intensive culture of achievement — involving everything from new child-rearing practices to stricter schools to better job performance.

It’s time to take that approach abroad, too. It’s time to find self-confident local leaders who will create No Excuses countercultures in places like Haiti, surrounding people — maybe just in a neighborhood or a school — with middle-class assumptions, an achievement ethos and tough, measurable demands.

The late political scientist Samuel P. Huntington used to acknowledge that cultural change is hard, but cultures do change after major traumas. This earthquake is certainly a trauma. The only question is whether the outside world continues with the same old, same old.

Privitization

So now the big stink in the Wayland Union Schools is whether to privatize the custodial services. In other words, to put a wanted service into the hands of 'greedy, money grubbing capitalists who are just out to make a profit'. The profit motive is the best of a bad situation in this world. It forces all to acknowledge the facts of Scarcity and Competition. Very likely we would find that the custodial services will be as effectively provided at a lower cost given that several companies are vying for our business. If one firm isn't providing the quality expected, then move on to the next one. Status Quo is a morass of stagnation and union hegemony.

Islam, "I kill you!" ~Jeff Dunham

Great website... so contemporary! http://www.thereligionofpeace.com/

Detroit success story! No...not really...

Sometimes one must see the opposite thing to know the true thing. So, one must see what happened to a city with a population of 1.8 million and had the highest median income of any city in America, that now has a population below 900K. The beauties of socialism... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hhJ_49leBw

Ted Knows....

Ted Nugent, coming a long way from wango tango... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCHtw6WbbnM

Tis the Season

Tis the season to worship Santa Claus, to put idols of him everywhere, to sing of his omniscience and omnipresence, to offer up our small children to his surrogates in malls, to do penance in the long lines at checkouts, to forget the real reason of Christmas...

Healthcare and YOU

"Can Congress make a law so large that Congress itself cannot lift it?" Whoa, wait, that was the question about God... But here it is! "It shall not be in order in the Senate or the House of Representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection," a section of the healthcare reform bill says. So it is a one-way valve, a ratchet, a 'once done, never undone'. Or a Xerxes as my wife says...

Dr. Charles Krauthammer RULES!

Dr. Krauthammer is on Fox News. He is an M.D. and a lawyer and is paralyzed from the neck down. Dr. Charles Krauthammer spoke to the Center for the American Experiment. He is a brilliant intellectual, seasoned and articulate. He is forthright and careful in his analysis, and never resorts to emotions or personal insults. He is NOT a fear monger nor an extremist in his comments and views. He is a fiscal conservative, and has received a Pulitzer Prize for writing. He is a frequent contributor to Fox News and writes weekly for the Washington Post. Summary of his comments: 1. Mr. Obama is a very intellectual, charming individual. He is not to be underestimated. He is a cool customer who doesn't show his emotions. It's very hard to know what's behind the mask. The taking down of the Clinton dynasty was an amazing accomplishment. The Clintons still do not understand what hit them. Obama was in the perfect place at the perfect time. 2. Obama has political skills comparable to Reagan and Clinton. He has a way of making you think he's on your side, agreeing with your position, while doing the opposite. Pay no attention to what he SAYS; rather, watch what he DOES! 3. Obama has a ruthless quest for power. He did not come to Washington to make something out of himself, but rather to change everything, including dismantling capitalism. He can't be straightforward on his ambitions, as the public would not go along. He has a heavy hand, and wants to level the playing field with income redistribution and punishment to the achievers of society. He would like to model the USA to Great Britain or Canada. 4. His three main goals are to control ENERGY, PUBLIC EDUCATION, and NATIONAL HEALTHCARE by the Federal government. He doesn't care about the auto or financial services industries, but got them as an early bonus. The cap and trade will add costs to everything and stifle growth. Paying for FREE college education is his goal. Most scary is his healthcare program, because if you make it FREE and add 46,000,000 people to a Medicare-type single-payer system, the costs will go through the roof. The only way to control costs is with massive RATIONING of services, like in Canada. God forbid! 5. He has surrounded himself with mostly far-left academic types. No one around him has ever even run a candy store. But they are going to try and run the auto, financial, banking and other industries. This obviously can't work in the long run. Obama is not a socialist; rather he's a far-left secular progressive bent on nothing short of revolution. He ran as a moderate, but will govern from the hard left. Again, watch what he does, not what he says. 6. Obama doesn't really see himself as President of the United States, but more as a ruler over the world. He sees himself above it all, trying to orchestrate & coordinate various countries and their agendas. He sees moral equivalency in all cultures. His apology tour in Germany and England was a prime example of how he sees America, as an imperialist nation that has been arrogant, rather than a great noble nation that has at times made errors. This is the first President ever who has chastised our allies and appeased our enemies! 7. He is now handing out goodies. He hopes that the bill (and pain) will not come due until after he is reelected in 2012. He would like to blame all problems on Bush from the past, and hopefully his successor in the future. He has a huge ego, and Dr. Krauthammer believes he is a narcissist. 8. Republicans are in the wilderness for a while, but will emerge strong. Republicans are pining for another Reagan, but there will never be another like him. Krauthammer believes Mitt Romney, Tim Pawlenty & Bobby Jindahl (except for his terrible speech in February) are the future of the party. Newt Gingrich is brilliant, but has baggage. Sarah Palin is sincere and intelligent, but needs to really be seriously boning up on facts and info if she is to be a serious candidate in the future. We need to return to the party of lower taxes, smaller government, personal responsibility, strong national defense, and state's rights. 9. The current level of spending is irresponsible and outrageous. We are spending trillions that we don't have. This could lead to hyperinflation, depression or worse. No country has ever spent themselves into prosperity. The media is giving Obama, Reid and Pelosi a pass because they love their agenda.. But eventually the bill will come due and people will realize the huge bailouts didn't work, nor will the stimulus package. These were trillion-dollar payoffs to Obama's allies, unions and the Congress to placate the left, so he can get support for #4 above. 10. The election was over in mid-September when Lehman brothers failed, fear and panic swept in, we had an unpopular President, and the war was grinding on indefinitely without a clear outcome. The people are in pain, and the mantra of change caused people to act emotionally. Any Dem would have won this election; it was surprising it was as close as it was. 11. In 2012, if the unemployment rate is over 10%, Republicans will be swept back into power. If it's under 8%, the Dems continue to roll. If it's between 8-10%, it will be a dogfight. It will all be about the economy. I hope this gets you really thinking about what's happening in Washington and Congress. There is a left-wing revolution going on, according to Krauthammer, and he encourages us to keep the faith and join the loyal resistance. The work will be hard, but we're right on most issues and can reclaim our country, before it's far too late.

Iconoclast? Xenophobe? Or just a traditional American?

DIVORCE AGREEMENT by John J. Wall... THIS IS SO INCREDIBLY WELL PUT AND I CAN HARDLY BELIEVE IT'S BY A YOUNG PERSON, A STUDENT!!! WHATEVER HE RUNS FOR, I'LL VOTE FOR HIM. American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since the late 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. Here is a model separation agreement: Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them). We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .. You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security. We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N...but we will no longer be paying the bill. We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find. You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is an individual's responsibility and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World. We'll practice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag. Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you Answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years. Sincerely, John J. Wall Law Student and an American P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Barbara Streisand, & Jane Fonda with you. P. S. S. And we won't have to press 1 for English.

Slavery, the ULTIMATE human right

If an individual wants to sell himself into slavery, or 'indentured servitude', who are we to prevent it? To devote oneself completely, totally selflessly, accruing the value of one's services and talents and giving that value gained in the sale of one's self to a loved one, what greater sacrifice? What greater love than this? So we paternalistically slap his hands as we see him reach for the flame on the stove... But he's not a child and knows the result yet proceeds because only by reaching through the flames can the flames be stopped and prevented from burning the whole house down. Right to Self, one’s ultimate property right, is the fundamental basis of ALL property rights. And what of the individual who would sell one of his kidneys? Or Corneas? Let's not be too presumptuous about other's motivations when they are literally in a survival mode. In a perfect world, these choices would not have to be made. But until that world happens...

WOOD NEWSRADIO 1300

Rush, Sean, and a few others... http://www.woodradio.com/cc-common/ondemand/player.html?world=st&site_id=1236&stream_id=1165

What exactly IS poverty?

The critical attributes of poverty, of absolute poverty, is the lack of the bare necessities to carry on life (biological functions, and rudimentary psycho-social activity). These are usually defined as food, clothing and shelter. I was struck with the challenge of finding agreed upon criteria, for the preceding and a somewhat objective measuring stick. Then I found that the World Bank utilizes a threshold of less than $1 per person per day. This means about 1.1 billion people live in ‘extreme poverty’, whereas in the US it is around $10 per person per day. Wow…and that number must have changed it's trend DOWNWARD and started to increase due to our Global Economic Downturn. Given that objective measure, then the question is how much food, clothing and shelter is available to the individual at a total cost per day of less than $1? A reasonable assumption would be ‘not much’ if any, no saved resources, no ‘luxuries’. Ask our fearless leader's half-brother found in a shanty outside of Niarobi, Kenya. A life outside, no potable water, sanitation, healthcare is a joke, no self-determination as no resources exist to allow one any real choice…at least Gilligan seemed to have an unlimited supply of red shirts and white hats. Enjoy whatever you have, for if you read this, you are rich.

Now THIS was the flu!

Wow...

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/influenza-epidemic/records-list.html

This is the message that the Maroochydore High School Queensland, staff voted unanimously to record on their school telephone answering machine. This is the actual answering machine message for the school. This came about because they implemented a policy requiring students and parents to be responsible for their children's absences and missing homework. The school and teachers are being sued by parents who want their children's failing grades changed to passing grades - even though those children were absent 15-30 times during the semester and did not complete enough school work to pass their classes. The outgoing message: Hello! You have reached the automated answering service of your school. In order to assist you in connecting to the right staff member, please listen to all the options before making a selection:

1. To lie about why your child is absent - Press 1
2. To make excuses for why your child did not do his work - Press 2
3. To complain about what we do - Press 3
4. To swear at staff members - Press 4
5. To ask why you didn't get information that was already enclosed in your newsletter and several flyers mailed to you - Press 5
6. If you want us to raise your child - Press 6
7. If you want to reach out and touch, slap or hit someone - Press 7
8. To request another teacher, for the third time this year - Press 8
9. To complain about bus transportation - Press 9
10. To complain about school lunches - Press 0
11. If you realize this is the real world and your child must be accountable and responsible for his/her own behaviour, class work, homework and that it's not the teachers' fault for your child's lack of effort: Hang up and have a nice day!
12. If you want this in another language, move to a country that speaks it.

Thank God for Hopkins! We must be in a time-bubble...our parents care (with few exceptions) and our students are a pretty decent lot!

The 545 People Responsible For All Of U.S. Woes

Ostensibly from Charley Reese, probably with some modifications since he retired in 2008... Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them. Have you ever wondered why, if both the Demicans and the Republicrats are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes? You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don't write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don't set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don't control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country. (I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank. I excluded all but the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislation's responsibility to determine how he votes.) A CONFIDENCE CONSPIRACY Don't you see how the con game that is played on the people by the politicians? Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party. What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of Tip O'Neill, who stood up and criticized Ronald Reagan for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating appropriations and taxes. The Speaker of the House is the leader of the majority party. She and her fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto. REPLACE SCOUNDRELS It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 235 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist. If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in Iraq, it's because they want them in Iraq. There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take it. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation" or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.Those 545 people and they alone are responsible. They and they alone have the power. They and they alone should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided they have the gumption to manage their own employees.

Isaiah 53:5 (NIV) 5 But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.