Monthly Archives: June 2010

Media, Politics

‘Reinventing’ The Media

Lost in the Gulf Oil Disaster news last week was the probing in Washington of ways to prop up the legacy news media. Since the word ‘bailout’ has become a hot button among Americans, the administration has come up with a more benign word to describe it. They call it reinventing the media, which is nothing more than a money shift from you to the media via more taxes.

Taxing internet websites and the technology used to access them. What?

As this article explains, the sending up of trial balloons for policy issues or potential legislation is used to test the waters for public acceptance. And to see what form of deception is needed in order to screw the public and do something they don’t want anyway.

For now, the idea of the gadget tax has been dropped. But has the motive behind it?

Despite the retreat on the electronics tax, it appears Mr. Leibowitz and his staff have not abandoned the opinion that the problems facing journalism can and should be solved by government – even if the exact form this control would take is open to negotiation. As the Obama administration has demonstrated its willingness to ignore negative public opinion in order to expand government involvement in areas such as health care, it is important for Congress to step in and deflate the FTC’s latest trial balloon. Government subsidies will destroy, not save, journalism.

Does funding the press, in any way shape manner or form, fall within the scope of responsibility of the federal government?

Link: EDITORIAL: FTC dodges Drudge Tax questions – Washington Times.

Uncategorized

sSide Order

‘Freedom Flotilla’ sing-a-long.

Jail officers astonished by inmate’s contraband

Police in Wenatchee are surprised at the amount of contraband an inmate was able to smuggle into the jail rectally. The Wenatchee World said the man internally carried a cigarette lighter, rolling papers, a baggie of tobacco the size of a golf ball, a smaller baggie of marijuana, a 1-inch smoking pipe, a bottle of tattoo ink and eight tattoo needles.

Sgt. John Kruse said the volume of contraband left officers wondering.

A dogs day at the lake, the video.

And live from the ocean floor, Spillcam.

China, Economy, Europe, Organized Labor, Politics

U.S. Debt Poised to Overtake GDP

Hellooooo! Eh, no problem. According to VP Joe Biden, the stimulus bill was an absolute success.  Maybe so for labor unions, and government workers. The latter being the only job sector that has grown.

When government grows government jobs, it is adding overhead to an already broke company, or rather, country. Who pays their salaries? You do. Government employees and government jobs don’t make money, they consume it.

What happens next? Picture a snowball at the top of a hill. For the last couple years, economists were warning about out-of-control spending, deficit spending. So is China, a major benefactor of the dreamers in Washington.

The government is gambling with the future of the country, or more accurately, the future of your children and grand children. They claimed that all this spending was needed to jump-start the economy. Realists were warning that the debt is heading to an unsustainable point. They warned that when interest rates begin to rise from their all-time low, that we wouldn’t be able to make the interest payments on the debt, let alone the debt itself.

The problem is not where to get more tax revenue. The problem is where to find the guts to cut spending. Realists were telling Washington to look at Greece and Europe to see what we can expect to happen here IF we don’t roll back spending.

Well, it is starting. Interest rates on our debt is poised to rise. The time to get real has come. The time has come to put all our dreams of a socialist utopia behind us and realize the truth of the matter that, just like you and your household can’t live beyond your means, the country can’t either.

Link: U.S.’s $13 Trillion Debt Poised to Overtake GDP: Chart of Day – Bloomberg.com.

Media, Politics

Limbaugh Gets Married, Again

1 Comment

Well, I wish him luck. Better luck than the previous three. What is most amusing is all the hoopla that the Left is making over the fact that Rush got Elton John to play at his wedding.

I guess it is because John is a flaming liberal, by US standards, and Limbaugh is the polar opposite. Missing in their hysteria and another chance to use his name in hopes of maybe riling up the lemmings, is the possibility that Rush or his bride happen to like his music.  Along the same line, they apparently don’t figure the possibility that John likes to play music for a price. It is good old-fashioned free-market capitalism at work. Not only that, but you could figure on Rush doing something rather spectacular at his wedding and for his bride. I’d take Elton John over a DJ any day.

Rush didn’t play the piano, and John didn’t talk politics. Gee, I guess it’s just too bad that a good time was had by all.

Media, Politics

Helen Thomas Retires

Whether she retired or was fired really doesn’t matter. Her take on Israel is not new and everyone she works with knows it. Still calling Israel Palestine, she may as well be the spokesperson for Hamas or correspondent for Al Jazeera.

Hello there my pretty! One thing about Helen that always amazed me. She’s the only famous person I know that could play the wicked witch of the west without much makeup.

Energy, Politics, Uncategorized, United Nations

Demand For Biofuels Hurting Poorer Nations

This is not a new subject, just an example of what happens when governments fail to learn from their mistakes. It’s what happens when foodstuffs are used in biofuel production.

Families from Pakistan to Argentina to Congo are being battered by surging food prices that are dragging more people into poverty, fueling political tensions and forcing some to give up eating meat, fruit and even tomatoes.

With food costing up to 70 percent of family income in the poorest countries, rising prices are squeezing household budgets and threatening to worsen malnutrition, while inflation stays moderate in the United States and Europe. Compounding the problem in many countries: prices hardly fell from their peaks in 2008, when global food prices jumped in part due to a smaller U.S. wheat harvest and demand for crops to use in biofuels.

But it goes even further than that. In terms of the carbon footprint created in producing biofuels compared to that of fossil fuels, fossil fuels out-green biofuels. So how smart is it to do unnecessary harm to the environment while increasing food prices and hurting the poorer nations around the world?

More of history repeating itself happens when governments refuse to learn how markets operate and what happens to them when the government steps in with taxes and price controls.

Argentina’s government has responded with higher taxes, export limits, controls on supermarket prices of meat, wheat and corn, subsidies to food producers and pay hikes of 30 percent for union workers. The moves have temporarily eased the pain but beef producers have thinned their herds in response to government intervention and the price of meat has doubled in the last year.

“Before, we would eat meat three times a week. Now it’s once, with luck,” said Marta Esposito, a 45-year-old mother of two in Buenos Aires. “Tomatoes, don’t even talk about it. We eat whatever is the cheapest.”

The environmental movement really has to come clean on what their goal is. Is it to help the environment, or is it to handicap the United States?

Link: Surging costs hit food security in poorer nations |  Fossil Fuels Out-Green Biofuels |  United Nations Warns Of Food Fight

Florida, Pensacola, Uncategorized

Bee Pee In The Hot Seat

Now that crude oil from BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig is finally reaching the Florida Panhandle, the slow moving train wreck is becoming reality for what is referred to as The Emerald Coast.

I guess we can look forward to President Obama coming here to show how he feels our pain.

RicksBlog solicited alternative definitions for BP, formerly known as British Petroleum. Apparently, my suggestion did not meet his editorial standards. Actually there were two. One verbal, one visual.

What do you think of them?

Beyond Pissed

and

Immigration, Politics

Mr. President, Whose Side Are You On?

Border divides Obama, Arizona Governor. That was the headline of a front page story in the dead tree version of today’s Pensacola News Journal. After having hosted Mexico’s President Felipe Calderon in Washington, where both presidents gave the collective ‘bird’ to the American people at a special joint session of congress over Arizona’s illegal immigration enforcement law, it is apparent that my president, in his heart, is on the wrong side of the border.

There is an obvious symbiosis on the issue of illegal immigration where these two are concerned.

For Calderon, the billions of dollars in remittances that Mexicans (not Americans, Mexicans) send back to Mexico helps to keep his sorry country from total collapse. Calderon refuses to utter the word ‘illegal’ when it comes to his citizens crashing the border. He uses a word associated with animals, migration. He says his people are migrating into this country. Some would describe it as invading. You know, to go with the lower life form reference of Calderon, kind of like termites or locusts invade. With similar results. Destroying all State economies in its path.

For Obama, illegals are a political tool. Otherwise known as undocumented Democrats. This commander in chief is more concerned with protecting and defending political power than the sovereignty, safety, and security of the United States of America.  In his world, Gov. Brewer should just sit down and shut up. And from what I’ve seen of Gov. Brewer, that’s not going to happen.

The media and the Left have a political angle on it all as well. They try to intimidate republicans by suggesting that trying to enforce the law regarding illegal immigration will lose the Hispanic vote forever. In other words, looking at demographics, they believe that would make the Republican party a minority party forever. When your political opponent, and that’s what these parties are nowadays, is digging himself into a hole, you stand back and let them. Or give them a bigger shovel. When it comes to America remaining American, who is it that is digging themselves into a hole? Democrats or Republicans?

Ann Coulter has opined on the notion that enforcing the law is tantamount to shooting yourself in the foot. Making the point as only Ann can . . .

The media have been crowing that Republicans will lose the Hispanic vote forever if they support enforcing laws against illegal immigration, such as the Arizona law. To great fanfare, a poll was released last week showing that 67 percent of Hispanics oppose the Arizona law.

The headline on that poll should have been: “One-Third of Hispanics Support Arizona Immigration Law Despite Frantic Media Campaign to Convince Them It’s a Racist Plot Against Hispanics.”

Incidentally, 67 percent of Hispanics also vote Democrat. The exact same percentage of Hispanics who oppose the Arizona law voted for Obama over John McCain — who was championing amnesty for illegals.

Suck up to Hispanics with insane amnesty proposals; get one out of three Hispanic voters. Do the right thing and defend the country’s borders; get one out of three Hispanic voters. … Promise to make every Tuesday “Ladies’ Night”; get one out of three Hispanic voters. Offer them a choice between “Extra Crispy” and “Original Recipe”; get one out of three Hispanic voters.

Now maybe we can concentrate on securing not only Mexico’s border, but more importantly, our border.

Links: Facing off over illegal immigration, Arizona Gov | Did you plug the hole with a blue dress yet, Daddy?