Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Talk is Cheap
Friday, December 19, 2008
Time for Some Comic Relief
"...Taken during a 1980 photo shoot by Occidental College pal Lisa Jack, the snapshots show that the freshman was already showing off the quiet confidence of a future president.
"He was very charismatic even then," Jack recalled of the brief encounter at her off-campus Los Angeles apartment.
"He was really cute. What else does a 20-year-old girl remember?" she told Time, which published the rare shots in its year-end issue that names the president-elect 2008's Person of the Year. "He was a little nervous," she said. "You can see he's just posing, initially, and as the shoot goes on, he starts to come out. ..."
Wow, careful Cynthia you may trip over your tongue.
Frankly, I think he looks like Ricky Ricardo. Can you say, babaloo??!!
Monday, December 15, 2008
Honey I Think We Took A Wrong Turn
Thank you for your letter regarding the current automobile manufacturer crisis. I applaud your fortitude in opposing bailouts or loans and your thoughtfulness in offering a different tack. I am sure that local car dealers are frustrated with having too many unsold vehicles on their lots. This no doubt stems from the credit crunch precipitated by the Democrats’ mismanagement of Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac and somewhat to the high price of many domestic vehicles, which is part of the broader automaker problem. Unfortunately I believe that offering a consumer tax credit to purchase those vehicles is only a short-term band-aid which will not cure the bigger disease in the industry. Additionally, it once again uses the federal tax code for social engineering, something that I loathe.
There is no doubt that cars made by the Big-3 are too expensive. The problem does not stem from corporate jets and bigwig bonuses. One factor is too much intrusive federal (and state) regulation of automobile standards. These ridiculous rules put too much of a burden on the carmakers, thus preventing them from making cars that people actually want to buy and can afford. The standards don’t really save lives or the environment. Secondly, union influence over the automakers’ business practices has become too onerous and too expensive. This has only happened because the federal government has empowered the unions thusly. The total benefit packages for autoworkers are insane and financially unsustainable. There is absolutely no reason for workers to have this much influence over private businesses. And they wouldn’t, save for the Congress- mostly liberal Democrats. Other than egregious safety violations or abusive tactics, workers should have no further say in how a private company runs its business. If they don’t like it, they can find a job elsewhere.
So both of the major reasons for the failure of the automakers falls back in the lap of the federal government. The last thing we need is for the feds to try and fix the situation! The best thing that they could do is to get out of the mess. Strip the unions of their unreasonable power and rescind the insane regulations. Then hands off! Let the automakers go through Chapter 11, reorganize, dump the old union contracts and get about building cars that Americans actually want at prices they can afford and that compete with other manufacturers. This talk about the Big-3 being too big to fail is silliness. We are not talking about failing; we are talking about reorganizing and emerging stronger and more competitive. Many airlines have successfully navigated this process. Maybe the federal government should consider it. When I was taking flying lessons the instructor taught me that when a plane is stalling and going into a spin I had to take my hands off of the controls to let the plane stabilize. That violates all of your natural instincts. But trying to fight the spin is certain death. We need the federal government to do the same thing in this, and many other situations. Unfortunately, the nature of the government and politicians is to always try to do something in every situation. After all, isn’t that what we hired them for? To simply do nothing seems irresponsible, right?
I seriously think that we would all be better off to send the President, Supreme Court, House and Senate home and pay them to sit there and do nothing for two years. For as we learn in medicine, first do no harm. The private market is a great thing when allowed to work unfettered. However, it has not been allowed to work freely in the automobile industry for many, many years. It’s time to get back on the right road.
By the way, I believe that these principles should also be applied to the health care system. Ah, but that’s another topic for another day.
Thanks for your service Congressman!
Doctor, Heal Thyself
The federal government lacks the constitutional authority and power to fund or manage emergency rooms (not to mention that is is busted, it has no money). They are a horribly ineffiencient and expensive avenue for delivering family medicine to the needy. The feds have already made a wreck of the health care system and any further meddling by them will only greatly worsen the situation. Let's clean up the tort system, get malpractice premiums and product liability costs down and reduce the union driven cost of labor. Give people portable medical savings accounts which unties insurance from employment. Finally, relink payment between the actual consumer (patient) with the provider so that people can shop for insurance and shop for care to find the best care for the best price. Let the market actually work and get the artificial, inflationary constraints of government out of the equation. For those that still need help with basic medical care let the states figure out the best way to help deliver it, but not through emergency rooms.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Climbing Pyramids
No More Blood From Turnips
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Hello...Hello, Is There an Echo in Here?
Barry, We Hardly Knew You
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Please Wake Up Paul Revere!
State of Stupidity
Friday, December 05, 2008
It's Time to Pay the Piper
The real culprit here is easy credit and the false demand driven by it. This is true for individual families, corporations and government at every level. The current collapse has been inevitable for decades. And there is plenty of blame to go around. Those responsible for extending such credit are culpable as are the people and institutions who kept lapping it up and spending this fake money like there was no tomorrow. With regard to the national debt we would say, well we just owe it to ourselves. When that was actually true it was still a bad thing because it would strap our children and grandchildren with a horrendous tax burden to service the debt. But now, we actually owe a huge chunk of our national debt to foreign powers such as China, not necessarily good friends and who certainly don’t have America’s best interests foremost in their plans.
This addiction to credit and wild spending is every bit as powerful a force as addictions to tobacco, alcohol, drugs, sex and gambling. And every bit as hard to shake. It sneaks up on you so gradually and by the time you realize that you have a problem you are probably past the point that you alone can do anything to stop it. For decades our society has been driven by the relentless push to achieve and acquire, achieve and acquire. Keep up with the Joneses. We are bombarded constantly and everywhere by Madison Avenue marketing exhorting us to buy, buy, buy! More, more, more! You deserve it-NOW! Don’t wait, use the plastic. Have it today. Pay for it, well, never. Tomorrow never comes. Twelve months same as cash. No payments no interest for a year. We are pressured by our co-workers, neighbors, friends, relatives, children and their peers. We must keep up appearances. We have to have the newest, flashiest and fastest. This easy credit has put people in houses, cars, big-screen televisions and clothing that they cannot really afford and should not be buying. This same mind-set also applies to corporations and governments. The sky-rocketing demand for all of these goods and services has been built upon a precarious house-of-cards for many years. Fake credit providing fake money driving fake demand creating fake business growth creating fake jobs with fake income and resulting in fake tax revenues culminating in a fake economy with a fake GDP and fake growth rate. Well, the predictable explosion of the comical mortgage market was the card on the bottom. When it was pulled out the whole house has come tumbling down. Sadly, this has been obvious for years. It had to happen. It needed to happen. Like a drug addict, at some point someone has to take the needle away and let the patient go through the horror of withdrawal. It’s ugly and painful, but it’s the only way to ultimately survive. Then, after it’s over someone must always watch out to stop the addict from going back to the drug.
For many years the hole in the bottom of the boat was small enough that we could just bail the water out and stay afloat. Adding more fake money and credit to cover the bad worked for a while. Now the hole in the bottom of the boat has become so large that bailing will no longer work. We have to plug the hole first. That means no more easy credit, no more borrowing. We must cut back on spending and go to a cash-only, pay-as-you-go basis. That applies to individuals and families, corporations and governments from your city all the way up to the federal government. We cannot print any more funny-money lest we risk creating hyper-inflation which will only greatly exacerbate the problem, not solve it. People must go back to my grandparents’ budget strategy. You live below your means, save money and pay cash for the things that you really need and at a level that you can really afford. That will mean smaller homes, modest cars, fewer vacations, smaller television sets and non-designer clothes for many. It will also mean understanding delayed gratification. You save for things that you really want and put off buying them for years until you can pay cash for them. That’s right, 23 year-old college graduates don’t deserve to buy a BMW, a 5-bedroom house, Fila sneakers and 70-inch home theaters for probably another 20 years. So sorry. These federal bailouts and loans must stop. They only serve to forestall the inevitable correction that our businesses and economy must go through. If we don’t, the problems will only fester and grow bigger beneath the surface to erupt later in a much bigger disaster. Let’s get our national withdrawal over with and reset the economy on saner foundations. Pay now or pay later. The price will be much greater and more painful if we wait until later.
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Little Green Men
I hereby nominate Algore as Ambassador Plenipotentiary of Global Warming for Life to the planet Mars on behalf of all of the people of Earth.
Enjoy the trip and your stay!
Who's Coming to Town, Santa or Scrooge?
And with all of this going on, if Joe the Plumber misses one payment on his credit card they call out the National Guard to haul him in. Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander? How is he supposed to look his children in the eye and explain why this will be a bleak Christmas? The feds are passing out money like candy. Dad, go get some for us! We average Joe’s are supposed to pay for all of these bailouts, keep our family budgets in balance and dare not delay, much less miss any payments. Don’t do what the feds do, do what they say. Don’t follow their lead. Duh, McFly, they’re not leading! They’re not following. They are floundering. How on Earth are we supposed to teach our children fiscal responsibility when our esteemed ‘public servants’ are completely reckless and irresponsible with our cumulative national milk money? In the corporate world they would all be hauled up on charges for gross negligence, mismanagement and embezzlement.
Can anyone, or everyone say Enron?
Monday, December 01, 2008
Dinosaur Death Groans
Monday, November 24, 2008
Belly Up To The Bar
I would like to formally apply for a $1,000,000.00 personal bailout. This amounts to only 0.000013513% of the total $7.4 trillion committed federal bailout money to date. This bailout will allow me to stabilize my personal finances and remain solvent while I continue to make my mortgage and other debt payments. That in turn will help prevent these institutions from going under and requiring further federal assistance. In addition I will be able to continue my federal income tax payments to fund your $7.4 trillion bailout of these institutions.
God Bless America!
Get Thee Behind Me satan!
Cutting Noses To Spite Faces 101
(Letter to the Editor, November 22, 2008)
In regard to the changes and layoffs due to the failure of the county sales tax issue, I have a suggestion. It is probably not going to happen, but if you took the 100 highest-salaried people in both the city and county governments, including M******l Hospital and Utilities, and reduced their salaries by 25 percent, they would still have very comfortable incomes, and it would help many of their co-workers keep their jobs.
With the economy down, I do not know why governments should not share in the slowdown, as the people affected are the people paying the salaries."
Yet another envy letter in the class-warfare rage so accelerated by the most recent election. I believe that this poisonous tone set by the election of Barack Obama will greatly eclipse any up tick in racism, real or perceived. His proposal comes with no hard numbers from any financial analysis or substantiation of any of his assertions. It is merely an uninformed knee-jerk response born of a ‘have’ vs. ‘have not’ mentality.
He does not tell us how much money would be saved by reducing the salaries of 100 people by 25% relative to the loss of revenues and budget shortfalls. Would it really make much difference at all? And his argument does not take into account how many people would leave and what the cost of replacing them and training the new employees would be. People who have based their lifestyles on a certain income are not going to just sit by and do nothing if that salary is arbitrarily reduced by 25%. Would he? An organization cannot attract, hire and hold on to quality people if it pays well below the prevailing market rates. If positions can be eliminated, then do so; but don’t try to hold on to people on the cheap. It won’t work. If you look into the budgets of the organizations referenced you will find that many cuts and changes have already taken place. These organizations and their employees are doing their part and feeling the pain, even though their financial plight is due to national and global economic realities totally beyond their control.
The most telling comment was his remark that after reducing these salaries by 25% he feels that these people would still have comfortable incomes. This idea that one person has the right and authority to determine would someone else ought to earn is downright heinous. This mindset has infected far too many in this country and it will do us in. People who study hard, work hard and take risks many times wind up doing very well financially. I don’t understand why people think that by punishing them all the rest are somehow magically benefited. If you kill the locomotive the train stops and everyone riding in the passenger cars get nowhere. Folks with disposable income invest some which creates and grows businesses thus leading to jobs for all the rest. Not to mention paying more taxes for government to dole out to others. They also spend some of that income on consumer goods, which again creates jobs for people who sell those products, manufacture those products and ship those products. If you take disposable income away from people who have earned it, you may be insuring your own unemployment in the process. A rising tide does indeed lift all boats, all of the liberal caterwauling to the contrary notwithstanding.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Name's Not Bond, Not James Bond
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
A Fixed Point of Reference
OK, we could say that only encounters and activities that harm neither party are allowed. If either or both parties are harmed the activity is illegal. We are now faced with defining harm. And we are now right back where we started from. How do we define harm? Remember, the aggressor in our scenario argues that he was not harmed. His concern for his victim is nil. If there are enough of these aggressors in the society, when the vote on the definition of harm comes, how do we think they will vote? We have made no progress.
Well, let’s look to our history and traditions for guidance. Oops, this is a new society with no historical tradition. Well some things are just so heinous that they are obviously wrong. Based upon your opinion that may be the case. And it may be the opinion of most members of society, but probably not all. And I would agree that some things are so bad that it just seems to make sense that they should be disallowed. But we are still relying upon the vote of the majority. It’s that tyranny of democracy thing again and such decisions don’t have real lasting power. They are relative and change over generations. It’s hard to order society when the targets keep getting moved around.
It’s beginning to look like we need some sort of outside supreme force to set some absolute truths and guardrails to guide our lawmaking process. These would be non-changing non-negotiable tenets. The only rules which meet those requirements that I know of come from God. But now we must decide whose God and which spiritual writings we accept. The good news here is that most of the recognized religions of the world have many similar absolute teachings on the basics of human life. That’s not to say that people and people groups over the years have not distorted and misapplied these teachings and caused harm to come to people. However, that is not a failing of the teachings but rather of human nature. That we sometimes abuse the doctrine does not indict or nullify the usefulness of the doctrine.
So I say that the only and best solution is for our society to select (yes by popular vote understanding the whole democratic tyranny thing but realizing that there really is no bad choice here for the reason stated in the last paragraph, whew) one of the religious doctrines, base their constitution and laws upon it and stick with it. Period. There really is no other rational choice. It’s the best path available to imperfect human beings in my opinion.
For the United States of America that choice is the Christian religion, derived from Judaism. These are the principles codified in our Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Class is in Session
Monday, November 17, 2008
The Wedding is Over, Time to Toss the Rice
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Tidbits
- It's time to celebrate America's first half-white president.
- With the slide toward the all-encompassing nanny-state cradle-to-grave federal government I do believe that Barack Obama would like to come and hold my penis for me when I pee.
- If 67 million people cast a foolish vote, it is still a foolish vote.
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Hey Buddy, Get a Bucket and Bail!
Obama's Thugs Have Come Home to Roost
Sunday, November 09, 2008
Nothing Succeeds Like Success
Saturday, November 08, 2008
Signs of the Times
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Speaking of Birth Certificates...
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Obituary or Birth Certificate?
R.I.P. United States of America
1776-2009
Our 220 year experiment in constitutional republicanism is now drawing to a close. We face a ‘fundamental transformation’ into some vague poorly defined brave new world. After 40 years of pathetic public education and welfare payments we will now reap the results of government of the uninformed, by the uninformed and for the uninformed. The ‘something-for-nothing’ crowd has succeeded in selecting the most liberal, radical, socialist and inexperienced president in American history. The prospects for the safety and well-being of the ‘New America’ are chilling. Rather than uniting the country this election has the potential to be drastically polarizing, further accentuating the divide between producers and takers, haves and have-nots and, yes black and white. The Obama team constantly raised the race issue, while all the time claiming it was McCain. I do not believe that this issue is now settled, but rather heightened. I lost count of how many times I heard the chant, “He’s black, it’s our turn, we don’t care (or probably even know) what he stands for.” Unity my…as…k me later.
Please know that I have no intention of playing the dutiful role of ‘loyal opposition.’ The only thing that I am loyal to is Truth. I do however absolutely oppose the new administration. I firmly believe that Barack Hussein Obama is evil and evil must be vigorously opposed at every juncture. His personal belief about abortion and babies born alive after failed abortions is sufficient for me to clearly brand him as evil. No other issue is needed. And no other belief mitigates or negates that position. As such I must fight to utterly and completely politically destroy him and his policies as fast as I can. There is no virtue in dancing with the devil. While I pray for his and his family’s safety and that he would have a genuine transforming encounter with Christ, beyond that I must pray that his administration succeeds no more than the builders of Babel. The damage which could be done in the next few short years could take decades to undo, if at all. The legacy which he could leave in the federal judiciary will last for generations.
So who now protects and defends the Constitution?
Here is what we face:
-Further abridgement of the First Amendment: The ‘Fairness Doctrine’
-Further abridgement of the Second Amendment: Confiscatory taxes and registration requirements on the purchase and ownership of guns and ammunition with the intent of ultimately disarming the citizenry
-Abridgement of the Fourth Amendment: Unreasonable search and seizure and not being secure in our homes as witness the unprecedented assault on ‘Joe the Plumber’ and various media figures and outlets that dared to speak against the O
-No guarantee of life for unborn children and even children born alive after failed abortions
-Further Abridgement of the Fifth Amendment: The Kelo decision revisited?
-Further ignoring the Ninth and Tenth Amendments
-Open borders and unfettered illegal immigration leading to an invasion and assault upon our sovereignty and treasury of unparalleled proportions
-Gutting our national defense making us more vulnerable in a dangerous world
-Negotiating with and appeasing terrorists
-Socialist economic policies which will destroy the engine that pulls the train of prosperity
-An acceleration of the blatantly unconstitutional policies of the federal government including socialized healthcare, Medicare, Social In-security, a federal minimum wage and most federal programs and spending
-A federal judiciary filled with judges who legislate from the bench and shred the Constitution with no check or balance by the Congress and President
I hereby withdraw any allegiance, respect, loyalty and recognition for the new Obama administration, Congress and the federal judiciary. I consider myself a citizen of the ‘Old America’ living in exile within the borders of my sovereign state. Barack Hussein Obama is NOT MY President; he is the President of the thugs and hoodlums who elected him. I know; I stood on a major street corner last night waving McCain signs while carloads of young thugs and hoodlums drove by flipping us off and shouting obscenities about John McCain. These are the people you can thank for putting B.O. in the White House. Just another reason to raise the voting age to 25, and maybe require property ownership to vote, as well as not allowing people to vote who don’t pay taxes or receive welfare. Well, just a fleeting thought.
So, as our freedoms and liberties dissolve, wealth, business and jobs flee offshore, our enemies circle the wagons, the takers fleece the producers and the feds nationalize and bail out everything in sight; I urge the true American patriot remnant in exile to keep their collective powder dry. We once fought a war to overthrow tyranny and retain the right to do so again if, God forbid that is ever necessary. Short of that we must do everything within our power to retain and regain our Constitutional guarantees. And may God have mercy upon us all. God Bless you and God Bless America. God save the republic!
“Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God”
--Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Friday, October 31, 2008
The Suitcoats are Coming, the Suitcoats are Coming!
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Up in Smoke
Two for the Road
First: The voting age should be raised to at least 25. Based upon the discussions that I have had with kids in the 18-24 voting demographic and interviews that I have heard on the radio, I don't think that they are ready to vote. That's not a slam at them, they just don't have the life experiences yet to understand what is at stake and how things work. They haven't bought a house, started a family, really paid income taxes or held a job for very long. Many are still in school, not always the best training ground for life. At this age many are still struggling with their religious philosophy. I have heard the argument that we shouldn't send kids off to fight in a war if they can't vote. I don't buy it. If they can vote and go to war at 18, why can't they drink until 21? We have our kids do things all the time without allowing them to participate in the decision process. And now the military is all-volunteer, not draft-based. Each one of these policies should be based upon its own merits.
Second: We must, as a first step in tax reform (hopefully culminating in a national sales tax, not a V.A.T.) abolish the temporary emergency WWII policy of employer income tax withholding and have people actually write the checks and mail them in every year to pay their federal income taxes. The cry for reform would instantly drown out everything else. And we will instantly discover that the politicians don't really trust the people to pay their own taxes. Well, guess what, we don't trust the politicians to do much of anything!
So there, that's a start.
Love is in the Air!
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Now is the Time for All Good Men
This anti-constitutional orientation infects all three branches of the federal government and sadly both political parties, though I would judge that there is a much greater dose of it in the Democrat party. Lord Acton was quite right when he observed that, “Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Judge R. Barclay Surrick of the federal district court in Philadelphia stated in his dismissal of Democrat Philip Berg’s suit questioning the birth certificate of Barack that we mere people have no standing to raise constitutional issues about our candidates running for President. His belief is that only the Congress has such standing. Are you kidding?! So our only recourse against constitutional infractions is to wait for Congress to bring the issue forth? They are as guilty and complicit or more of such heinous constitutional infractions as Obama. That’s tantamount to me handing a pistol to a thief breaking into my home in the dead of night and begging him to arrest himself! We the people through our states own the Constitution. We do indeed have standing. The federal government does not own and is not a party to the constitution. The states wrote it and created the federal government to serve the needs of the states and at their pleasure, not vice versa. The states are not mere governmental subdivisions of the federal government. The federal government is charged to provide for the common defense and promote the general welfare of the states and the people through the very specific enumerated powers and restrictions within Article I, Section 8 and the various amendments. And that’s it! It is NOT carte blanche for the federal government to tax, spend, regulate and run every minute aspect of American life.
Now is the time for the people acting through their states to rise up and enforce the absolute tenets of the constitution upon the federal government. We must not be intimidated. The states can amend the constitution and call a constitutional convention. I hope it does not come to a convention. Let me say that I am not an advocate of state secession, but I do think that states should consider ways that they can reign in a rogue federal government and perhaps operate as more sovereign, independent states while remaining within the republic. States choosing not to participate in unconstitutional federal programs would become laboratories of liberty which would attract or repel people and industry based upon their success or failure. As a parting thought I pray that we do not take up arms over these issues as we did in 1775 and 1860. That course of action though is the final recourse of a people oppressed by tyranny. It is for this reason that the Second Amendment was written into the Bill of Rights. History teaches that one of the first actions taken by a despot is to confiscate the people’s arms. What better way to protect himself from forced removal? The American people must never cede that right. Let’s look back to our very own Declaration of Independence for guidance from our Founding Fathers:
…”We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”…
And a few final thoughts from Thomas Jefferson, the liberal’s favorite Founding Father:
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants."
"Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."
God save the Republic!
October 29, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
When Judges Won't Judge--Punt
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
What Happened?
The Preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
(The Preamble is a general statement of purpose and intent for the document that follows. It confers no authority or power.)
U.S. Constitution - Article 1 Section 8
Article 1 - The Legislative BranchSection 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
(“Welfare” in this clause does not refer to what we think of today as welfare. It is not a handout or redistribution of wealth. )
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
(Regulation of commerce among the several States referenced in this clause does not empower the Federal Government to micromanage every facet of every business transaction in the country. It does not empower the Federal Government to buy private businesses or assets. It does not empower the Federal Government to set up government owned, managed, mandated or run business enterprises.)
To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;
To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;
To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;
To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;
To provide and maintain a Navy;
To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And
To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.
U.S. Constitution - Amendment 16
Amendment 16 - Status of Income Tax Clarified
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several States, and without regard to any census or enumeration.
(The above language is the full extent of powers and authorities granted to the Federal Congress. Period. There are no more. Any other power or authority to act is reserved to the People acting through the States, as below.)
U.S. Constitution - Amendment 9
Amendment 9 - Construction of Constitution
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
U.S. Constitution - Amendment 10
Amendment 10 - Powers of the States and People
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
(There is no authority or power to be found above for the Federal Government to establish, run or mandate such things as Social Security, Medicare, welfare, a federal minimum wage, health care or spending for a huge majority of the things in the current federal budget.
So what are We the People (referenced in Amendments 9 & 10) going to do? Nothing? I pray to God, no.)
Prescription for Healthcare
One factor in cost is the high price of labor in the United States, driven to a large part by the labor union movement. It’s fine for people to organize and negotiate for the best salaries and benefits they can get. But they must then understand that these costs of business must be passed along in the price of the product or service of their industry; in this case healthcare. As William F. Buckley, Jr. would exhort, “He who says A must say B.”
Another factor is the expense of discovering and developing new medications and treatments. This is a very lengthy and costly process driven partly by government regulation and oversight (which does help to protect us). It is also driven by the fact that the easy drugs and treatments have already been discovered. The new ones are more complex and much more costly to bring to market.
Finally, is the cost of liability protection built into every level of the healthcare system. This includes doctors’ malpractice insurance and product liability protection for pharmaceutical companies, medical equipment manufacturers and hospitals. These costs are driven to astronomical levels by trial lawyers and the tort system. Fair compensation for bona fide errors is one thing; headline grabbing settlements are quite another.
So while we evaluate better ways of paying the healthcare bill, let’s not lose sight of the factors driving the rising cost. Labor unions, government regulation of research and development of new drugs and treatments and liability tort reform must be part of the equation or we are simply putting a bandaid on a gapping wound.
Historic Election
Monday, October 13, 2008
The Silent Scream for Justice
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Klaatu Barata Nikto
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Sign of the Times
Saturday, October 04, 2008
Wake Up! The Empty Suits are Coming!
Friday, October 03, 2008
Is Anybody There, Does Anybody Care, Does Anybody See What I See?
At one o’clock in the afternoon, Mountain Daylight Time;
With the flourish of his pen President Bush dissolved the political bands which have connected this federal government to the Constitution which formed it. What was for over two centuries is no more. The United States of America no longer exists in the form into which we born. Our elected servants have jettisoned our Constitutionally based representative Republic and what will replace it is anyone’s guess. All that can be said is that our freedoms, liberties and Constitutional protections have vanished before our very eyes today. The constraints placed upon the federal government by Article 1, Section 8 of the now defunct U.S. Constitution have been nullified and tossed out with the rest of the document. Truly we are now sailing dangerous stormy seas with no rudder. We don’t even have a skiff made of paper.
Who will constitute the new government to replace the one which just passed away? When will it be created? What form of government will it be? Our best guess based upon the private market take-over bill that was enacted today is that it will be a socialist collective state. No doubt people of a liberal redistributionist mindset will seek to form and control the new government. Beyond that we cannot speculate at this time. The coup d’etat is still too fresh in our minds.
One must surmise that all of the laws and institutions of the old government are now null and void. The federal court system, Social Security, federal income taxation and the Internal Revenue Service no longer actually exist. Who now commands our military assets and personnel? These are sobering questions which must be quickly and thoughtfully resolved so as to attempt to maintain peace and order among the people.
The next few months and years will be a time of uncertainty and ideological struggle among the differing factions within the populace as we attempt to find our way in the dark with no light, save the One from Heaven to guide us. Let us fervently pray for peace and wisdom to prevail during the coming conflict. As we look forward to a new government we should pause to look back and reflect upon the guidance of those who formed our first government upon this continent. While we have now tossed out their handiwork it would seem prudent to a least feign deference to their collective knowledge and wisdom to inform us. The States, which formed the first federal government now hold the highest power in the land and they must act collectively in the best interests of the People to maintain stability and lay the framework for a new federal government, if they so choose.
May God have mercy upon us all.
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Wake Up!
Monday, September 29, 2008
Mad Hatter's Disease (Ban CFL's!)
Pass the Tea and Hold the Tax
The federal income tax code is an abomination! The amount of non-productive, non-wealth generating time and expense wasted to keep records and receipts, fill out and return forms and comply with this monster is a national disgrace! The sense of fear and intimidation that the I.R.S. instills in good American citizens is a crime. The federal tax code is nothing more than a vehicle for slimy, filthy, corrupt and crooked politicians to manipulate the economy and redistribute wealth. Mark my words, the Boston Tea Party was a result of tactics very similar to these. Please do something before the American people have to forceably overthrow a rogue federal government!
Please save us from ourselves!!!!!!!!!!!
May God have mercy upon us all.
The No-Humor Man
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Can You Hear Me Now?
I maintain that these devices really have not delivered on their promise of simplifying our lives. Think about your P.C. There’s enough computing power in a modest priced home P.C. to easily manage a manned trip to the moon, but what has it really done for you lately? Does it free up all of those mundane, time-consuming tasks so that you have more leisure time to spend recreating with your family? Be honest. Most people spend mindless hours checking silly emails, surfing the internet for useless news or occasionally writing a paper. Not to mention the hours a week spent just to keep the darn thing running right. Quick, how many unread emails do you have in your inbox? 3421? When are you going to get around to reading all of that riveting information? Think of all of your P.C. applications. Every time you want to try to do something you have to run out and buy another application. There’s no guarantee that it’s actually going to do what you need done. It takes weeks of studying the manual (if you can find one and if it’s not full of typo’s and if it’s written by someone in the U.S.A. who actually can compose a complete sentence in English) and experimenting with all of the complex ‘shortcut keys’ and ‘keystroke combinations.’ (Shift-Alt-Z, while tapping your right foot and sticking out your tongue) Then you get to manually enter your three years worth of data because of course it doesn’t talk nice with other applications or even earlier versions of itself. Then you discover that it doesn’t really generate the report that you need. These applications are written by geeks from Mars who have never seen daylight and design them like an M.C. Escher painting, stairways going ever upward in perpetual circles but never actually going anywhere. They are mind-numbingly complex but in the final analysis don’t do much for you that you couldn’t do quicker and better with a legal pad, calculator and #2 pencil. The end result is always mediocre and lacking some important component that you really wanted included. Not to mention that they don’t talk to each other very well at all or to other computers and applications out there in the internet. Why can’t we just tell the computer in plain English what we need and have it do it? Let it go out on the internet and find some way of getting the job done without our time, input and oversight. Let us know when it’s done and give us a result in the format that we want.
While we’re at it can we please eliminate the cryptic messages and nonsensical keys on these devices? What happened to ‘On/Off?!’ Eliminating that was simply un-American. Does anybody know what that triangle with a vertical line in the middle means on my fax machine?? Who dreamed up this stuff? How about my favorite internet browser message, ‘Done, but with errors on page.’ What are the errors? Are they important? Is something important being left out? Do I need to fix it? Can I fix it? Ballpean hammer please. Why does Windows give me those error messages with numerical codes? Where is the secret decoder book? I have called Microsoft and they don’t even know what they mean. And for us baby-boomers could someone please make screen text that can be read without a giant magnifying glass?! And what’s with those microscopic keys that can only be operated by using a sewing needle to tap them? I sense a conspiracy between the manufacturers, optometrists and physical therapists. OK, take a breath.
Bottom line; we have become slaves to our technology rather than making our technology serve our needs and make our lives better. We blindly chase after the newest, smallest, fastest devices with the most functions per cubic inch. We’re so overwhelmed and frazzled with the dizzying onslaught of information that we can’t sleep at night. We take Ambien to fall asleep and Red Bull to wake up. Headache, heartburn and high blood pressure medication flies off of the shelves hand-over-fist. So ask yourself; with all of this techno-help are you making more money, enjoying more leisure time and having more fun? I didn’t think so. Here’s my parting advice, TURN IT OFF! (if you can find the right button, lol)
Fire When You See the Whites of His Eyes!
Monday, September 22, 2008
There is No There There
Friday, September 19, 2008
BOO!
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian, U.K.
Yes, we Americans are about to elect John McCain & Sarah Palin.
Thank God!
Barack Hussein Obama is not running for President of the World.
Please keep your pig-headed ideas out of our election. We yankees do not want to be anything like you people in the old, decrepit world which neither produces or accomplishes anything. And then when you get in a pickle you hide and wait for us to come pull your collective chestnuts out of the fire.Your socialist/communist day has passed.
Get the hell out of our way or be rolled over!
Monday, September 08, 2008
It's 3 A.M.--Who is Your President?
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Monday, August 25, 2008
Thinking Can Be Taxing
The rub is that he really knows that I am technically correct, but that to admit so would begin unraveling a huge quilt leading to the undoing of 50 years of progressive chinks (chunks) in the Constitution. The result would be a federal government about 10% of its current size and power. The States’ power would thus grow proportionally. And it’s much easier to control one capital than it is fifty. Also, under this scenario the importance of Presidential, Congressional and Senatorial races would be greatly diminished. The importance of which party controls the federal government is likewise less critical. There would be very little mischief for them to meddle in and much less damage that they could do to our pocketbooks and our freedoms.
What we are rapidly approaching is a return to simple democratic majority rule, which is of course tyranny of the majority over the minority. Since we have strayed so far from the actual text of the Constitution it has become almost meaningless to many politicians. Why not just take out a lighter and finish the job? Without our constitutional moorings the federal government is free to do anything it pleases without repercussion. That is why it does matter so much these days which party is in power and why these national elections matter so much. Conservatives tend to meddle less than liberals in our pocketbooks and freedoms, but it would be far better to remove the ability and temptation altogether.
Let’s return to the actual Constitution as it is written. And at the same time return to the constitutionally required flat-tax rate for all citizens equally under the law; or just pass a Constitutional amendment to institute a national sales tax (not a V.A.T.).
Barack Hussein Obama/Biden
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Boss, I Demand a Raise!
Monday, August 18, 2008
Obama Bumper Snickers
Monk for McCain
No Change, Never
OCD’s Against Obama:
Because Change is Just Too Scary
Because Change is, Well, Change
Anything but Change
Because Change is Too Unpredictable
Why Would Anyone Ever Change?
Because Change Changes Things
Change is Just Too Much to Bear