president?

There is a tragic flaw in our precious Constitution, and I don't know what can be done to fix it. This is it: Only nut cases want to be president.
- Kurt Vonnegut

Education: An Absolute Disgrace

Just in time for Christmas is a report that says 25% of high school grads can't answer enough basic questions correctly to get them in the Army. This at a time when almost every politician is clamoring to raise the pay of America's teachers.

That's like giving a tip to the guy who works on my car - when he returns it to me in worse shape than it was, and missing one wheel.

And what does it say not only for their future success as individuals, but for the success of our economy, when public schools can't turn out students with enough knowledge to even pass a military entrance exam? It's ain't rocket science.

Coincidentally, I found a Facebook profile of an acquaintance (name removed) who listed her education. Can you spot anything wrong?

It has been said to never criticize without offering a solution; here we go:

- Make high school more rigorous - for both students and teachers.
- Remove so-called tenure from public K-12 education.
- Introduce an apprentice program for teachers such that they work as teacher's aides for their first year alongside good teachers.

Report: Nearly 1 in 4 Students Fails Military Entrance Exam - FoxNews.com:

"Nearly one-fourth of the students who try to join the U.S. Army fail its entrance exam, painting a grim picture of an education system that produces graduates who can't answer basic math, science and reading questions, according to a new study released Tuesday.

The report by The Education Trust bolsters a growing worry among military and education leaders that the pool of young people qualified for military service will grow too small.

'Too many of our high school students are not graduating ready to begin college or a career — and many are not eligible to serve in our armed forces,' U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told the AP. 'I am deeply troubled by the national security burden created by America's underperforming education system.'

ALL THINGS HARRY: Obituary printed in the London Times

ALL THINGS HARRY: Obituary printed in the London Times: "Obituary printed in the London Times - Interesting and sadly rather true.

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;

- Why the early bird gets the worm;

- Life isn't always fair;

- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I'm A Victim

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone.

If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing

- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Congressmen and Senators prepared for the job?

No wonder the economy is in the tank. With 141 provisions in the tax code that are temporary and requiring constant congressional maintenance, no business nor corporation can plan beyond a year or two. That's just crazy.

Perhaps as a requirement for admission to congress, each member should be required to take at least one business overview course. Clearly, they focused on social studies in school (and probably had a Marxist teacher), not accounting nor math.


'Temporary' Tax Code Puts U.S. in a Lasting Bind - WSJ.com:

"This means that if the compromise passes largely intact, the U.S. will have no permanent regime governing levies on salaries, capital gains and dividends, the Social Security tax, as well as a slew of targeted breaks for families, students and other groups. This on top of dozens of corporate-tax provisions that already were subject to annual renewal.

The level of uncertainty, unusual for developed nations, complicates planning and discourages hiring and investment, many economists and corporate executives say.

'I haven't seen anything like it, and it's hard historically to find anything like' the current and pending negotiations, says Mortimer Caplin, an Internal Revenue Service commissioner in the Kennedy administration who at 94 is just three years younger than the income tax itself. 'This Congress has left an awful lot up in the air.'

We Want YOU, Say Hacktivists … but Is It Legal?

Not so interesting an argument here. The modern kids - ungrateful little bastards all - have decided to disrupt the flow of commerce around the world. Nice, real nice. And their cause? Free speech concerning Wikileaks and the dissemination of private an confidential information.

The way I see it, free expression is a great thing - but only if the ideas you're expressing are yours. These children have taken into their heads that all information must be freely expressed. That's just ridiculous, and doesn't allow for any sort of editing on the part of author - which is something that all responsible authors do. More importantly though, they're stealing information that doesn't belong to them and passing it along. That's not just theft, it's also espionage.

So here we have a generation that thinks everything should be free and out in the open. This means they have no experience with reality.

What should happen to them? Give them a dose of the reality they shun. Prison is a good place to start.

FoxNews.com - We Want YOU, Say Hacktivists … but Is It Legal?: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

What is Capitalism?

Someone reacently asked me this question; I thought I had a pretty good answer:

Capitalism is how freedom earns its living.

Not bad for a bass player. :-)

Angry Democrats Could Punt on Tax Cuts Deal - FoxNews.com

What angers the Democrats? The estate tax, or rather the repeal of it. Bush suspended it entirely, but Obama has it returning in 2011 at a rate of 55%. The GOP whittled it down to 35% in this latest deal. But the Dems are having a conniption about it not being the higher rate.
Isn't it morally despicable to tax the accumulated wealth - on which taxes were already paid - of a dead person?
The Democrats have no shame.


Angry Democrats Could Punt on Tax Cuts Deal - FoxNews.com:
"Under current law, the estate tax, which was
repealed for 2010, is scheduled to return next year with a top rate of 55 percent. Obama's package would set the top rate at 35 percent, and each spouse could exempt up to $5 million from taxation.

Overall, officials said, the plan could increase federal borrowing by $900 billion.

The lower estate tax emerged as the biggest obstacle among many House Democrats. Pelosi called it 'a bridge too far.'

Unemployment and depression

A 13-month extension on unemployment benefits. That's on top of the 99-weeks of approximately $300-per-week the unemployed get now. Obama argues that it will stimulate the economy because those people will spend the money. That's liberal logic for you.

The truth that has emerged is that the unemployed no longer look for work because they now get 3 years of benefits. That means it's 3 years of people not trying to get work, and probably aren't counted in the 9.8% unemployment numbers that are killing Obama's presidency.

The cost of unemployment is a HUGE drag on the economy because it adds mightily to the federal deficit, and therefore the debt. But the real cost of increased unemployment is the human cost - loss of pride in doing anything productive. And, the complacency and loss of skills in that time frame make people lose their competiveness, and make them complacent. A policy of the government paying you not to work is just bad policy. It leads to nothing good, certainly nothing in the American ethos.

So once again, Democratic leadership constitute what Jimmy Carter called a "national malaise." Only this time, they not just contribute to it, they cause it.

Where's my Prozac.

Obama Announces 'Framework' for Deal With Congress to Extend Bush-Era Tax Cuts - FoxNews.com: "

Mullen: Go Gay or Go Away

I find this outrageous. It was bad enough when the US Military designed a maternity uniform (not kidding), but this is beyond the pale. Not because I am anti-gay, but because once again, the tail wags the dog. It begs the question: who must conform?

The homosexual population of the US is something like 1% , yet here we find the highest ranking member of the military saying that the other 99% can stuff it if they don't like it. That's as PC as it gets, and has no place in what Mullin himself calls a "meritocracy," much less an effective military.

At the same time, Mullin was heard to request additional money for a revision to the standard uniform, to include feathers and a stiletto heel. 



Mullen: Troops Who Balk at Change in Gay Service Policy Can Find Other Work - FoxNews.com:

"Military members who have a problem with a change in policy to allow gays to serve openly may find themselves looking for a new job, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned Thursday.

Flat Tax and Health Care: Taking Away Government's Power?

I was just reading the article below about how one politician or another is thinking about doing away with tax-exempt status for health insurance that's provided by employers.

I'm no fan of employer-based health insurance, as I think it has remolded the entire health system in a bad way. I mean, the top-end admin costs just to administer such plans for employers (human resources departments have burgeoned because of it), and then the burden it places on doctors and others who provide health care (their admin staffs have exploded just to make sure they are paid) add exponentially to the cost of just seeing a doctor for a cold. And they don't pay it, we do.

But it is the way of health care now, and the politicians are looking for more creative ways to tax the piss out of us. Health care is on the plate, and they're trying to fix the overspending economic mess THEY caused by taking away the tax-exempt status of health care. They've already done it with health care spending accounts, now they're looking at the plans themselves.

One might think politicians just don't want anyone to have health care.

But I digress.

My thought actually is to take away politicians' power by removing their authority to tax individual things. Enter the flat tax.

If we have a flat tax, doesn't that mean that all deductions go away? But doesn't it also mean that politicians can no longer monkey with the tax code they use hammer us all the more? Seems like it to me. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Of course they can still invent new taxes, but the point is that those new tax proposal will have to see the light of day through congressional debate, rather than being hidden in a 2000-plus page abomination like the health care bill.

So if a flat tax takes away government's power - here's to it!

Job-Based Health Care Benefits Could Be Chopped With Deficit - FoxNews.com: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Am I crazy? - Insider Probe Focuses on Supply-Chain Data

I swear I'm not going rogue. I mean, I'm not developing schizophrenic scenarios where the government in black helicopters are coming after us. My aluminum beanie remains on the shelf.

However, I'm left to wonder about this: I'm wondering if this isn't one of Obama's socialist attacks on capitalism? The thing that is stuck in my craw is how the left is committed to change from within; change that involves drastic measures, and change that is so dramatic as be called a revolution. Obama has tried it several times in the 2 years he's been president (Health care debacle, anyone?), and I'm just wondering if this isn't one more onslaught.


Insider Probe Focuses on Supply-Chain Data - WSJ.com:

"Wall Street analysts have been left bewildered in recent days, as federal prosecutors begin to home in on insider-trading cases that appear to involve routinely published information about public-company supply chains.

TSA pat-down leaves Michigan man covered in urine

TSA pat-down leaves Michigan man covered in urine:

"A bladder cancer survivor from Michigan who wears a bag that collects his urine said a security agent at a Detroit airport patted him down so roughly, it caused the bag to spill its contents on his clothing.

Too Big to Fail?

Back when we had the beginning of our current financial crisis, there were people talking about how some businesses were "too big to fail." We found out how untrue that was. In fact, it seemed that their size predetermined failure: they were like juggernauts, like the Titanic - so large they weren't nimble enough to change quickly to market events.  So the government stepped in and rescued them.

But now, we have a government that is so large that it, like the "too big to fail" financial institutions, cannot support itself.  Nor can it be responsive to just about anything with the kind of quickness that would make a response relevant.

It's obvious that some things will crush themselves under their own weight.  We saw it in the financial sector, the housing sector, and now the government sector. We must slim down the government before it collapses, because these days, the rescuers are Chinese.

How do we do it? Start by eliminating and consolidating departments.  Businesses know well that reorganizations are in order every few years to ensure efficiency.  The problem with government is that people rise to positions of authority who don't have a clue about any of this; They're happy to let staff sit around because they can brag about the size of their "empire." They ought to brag about its efficiency. But complacency rules the day in government, because pay and professional survival are tied more to work politics than to performance.

Education, for example, is known to be best handled at a state level.  So why do we even have a Federal Department of Education? The Department of Energy was created as a response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s.  They now deal with atomic energy.  But we haven't had a new nuclear energy plant built in this country in nearly as long - over a generation.  So what's their excuse for being?  And that's just to start.  It's common knowledge that current White House staff levels are in the hundreds of employees.  But during the most crucial crisis of the last few  generations - World War Two - how many staff do you think FDR had? About 45.

We've got to cut back government and start living up to our country's promise - namely, opportunity.  Let the free market do the things at which the government now fails over and over and over. But they're complacent. Don't rock the boat. Raise taxes.

At some point, everyone has to pull their heads out of wherever it is, stand up and do the things that are good for the future of the country.  America is just too special to be allowed to run down, or worse, be taken over by a foreign economic power because of our lust to spend money for nothing.

But wouldn't it be a crushing irony, that our insatiety for cheap things built the very economic power that would eventually overtake us. The communists always said enemies are best conquered from within.

US Military in Mexico? Not such an Outside Idea.

A hundred years ago, Pancho Villa started raiding towns on the US-Mexican border. It caused so much havoc that the US sent an expeditionary force of several thousand men under General "Blackjack" Pershing to put an end to it. They never did catch Villa, but it put a cramp in his style.

Back then, Villa was more of a local annoyance than what we have today - a nationwide threat in the onslaught of traffic in drugs, illegals and crime - which affects every American throughout the country. Even worse, Mexico as a sovereign nation is on the precipice of collapse. And it's never good for a country to have an unstable neighbor right next door. What emerges from the power vacuum can never be predicted.

There are many things we should do. First and foremost, stop the drug cartels. Next (or even simultaneously), enact policies that make it profitable for American companies to put their manufacturing in Mexico rather than China. This will give the Mexicans a reason to a) not get involved in the drug trade, and 2) not come to the US illegally looking for work. It's one thing to go to kill the drug cartels, but it'll never stay dead unless the regular Mexican folks have an honest option to make a living.

But to be sure, the stabilization of Mexico and her sovereignty is good security policy for the US.

Now let's see what the White House does. Right.

Perry Suggests U.S. Should Consider Sending Military to Mexico - FoxNews.com: "

Democrat Math

"'My friend [Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky] has offered some legislation to extend all them all [tax cuts], costing $4 trillion,' the Nevada Democrat said.

I love it. It "costs" $4 Trillion. Well, Harry, I think it actually means you have $4 Trillion less of Americans' money to throw away.

Democrats Still Struggle on Extending the Bush Tax Cuts - FoxNews.com:

Inverted Body Scanner Image Shows Naked Body In Full Living Color

Inverted Body Scanner Image Shows Naked Body In Full Living Color:

Of course, if they all looked like the pic on the right, I'd have no trouble with it. 

California DA Vows to Prosecute Airport Screeners Who Touch Travelers Inappropriately

FoxNews.com - California DA Vows to Prosecute Airport Screeners Who Touch Travelers Inappropriately: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

Why Profile for Air Travel

Finding a terrorist is like looking for a needle in a haystack. So why not figure out a way to make the haystack smaller? Profiling will do just that, by dramatically reducing the number of people who get scrutiny.

Intensive searching of all American citizens as they try to use air travel is not only a violation of due process rights, but as an effective matter, it baloons the size of the population that will be searched - 99%-plus unnecessaily.

The government runs it.  With their track record, does anyone think it's smart?

An Ellis Island for Terrorist Control

How many more freedoms will the Obama Administration take away from everyday Americans before we realize we're not free and also not safe? The pat-downs do nothing but violate the US Constitution because they violate the reasonable search and seizure clause; there is no just cause to search everyone without a credible threat. But that aside, it's also ineffective.

Why is this ineffective? Because the threat is not from passengers who are American citizens and originating their flights from the US. The documented threats have come from foreigners outside the US who hate Americans. Richard Reid and the diaper-bomber were that. So how often does it have to happen before American officials get it through their thick heads they're looking in the wrong place? Americans with white skin and outside the ages of 18-45 are just not doing this stuff.

Ah, political correctness, I forgot. Everyone has to be treated equally as they sing Kumbaya and drink bottled water from mountain springs.

The dreaded P-word must be brought to bear: Profiling must be used, because it's the most powerful weapon in our arsenal. It's also the smartest. It's also the least intrusive to the greatest number of people. (Hmmm, might have a Marxist idea going there, but I digress...). Simply out, we know who these people are.  Let's look for them.

There's no question that more than a few people will be insulted when they are profiled. However, that's just how the dice roll; they are unlucky enough to be born of the same race as those who would harm us. But if they are people of good will, they will understand. And,  this policy works under the 4th Amendment, because these individuals are of the ethnic makeup of ALL of those who did prior bombings.

That we don't so this is just so damned stupid.

As a side thought, maybe it's why we haven't found Osama Bin Laden; I guess the administration, in it's zeal to not make anyone feel bad, is looking for an 80-year-old white man with bad teeth and speaks cajun rather than a 6-foot-5-inch tall Muslim terrorist of Saudi descent with dark skin. Yeah, that makes sense.

OK, even if you won't profile, at least make some attempt to stop foreigners from bombing incoming international planes. Here's an idea: 100 years ago we had ports of entry like Ellis Island and Locust Point to control the incoming flow of people. Frankly, it was to control the spread of disease and protect Americans from epidemics. In its day, Ellis Island was the foremost public health hospital of its kind in the world. Today, Americans need the same kind of protections, except in this era, from the disease of terrorist air passengers.

Let's build a big airport in Maine, where all international European flights must land and be searched. The people don't even have to get off the plane - send a bomb-sniffing dog down the aisles and through the cargo bay. If the bomber sets off the bomb during this search, well, at least it didn't happen over a densely populated area. I feel bad for the dog, though.

The plan has to be something like this because the threats are clearly aimed at the US from outside. We can't do the searches outside of the US because it's not our sovereign territory. So perform this non-invasive, yet thorough search on our own soil.

It's such a simple idea, no wonder the politicos and bureaucrats can't get their intellectually-paralyzed brains around it.

TSA Boss: New Pat-Downs Are More Invasive - FoxNews.com:

The Democrats and Illegals

Here's how the Democrats have treated those in the country illegally:

Congressman Bob Etheridge (D-NC) Assaults Student on Washington Sidewalk

Gov't Fails Latest Test of Trust in Gulf

Who does this surprise?

FOXNews.com - AP: Gov't Fails Latest Test of Trust in Gulf: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

The cleanup is on us

One can talk about special interest this and special interest that, but in the end, it is the government who holds all the power.  It is government who makes the laws and decides on policy. Special interest doesn't.  Special interest throws around a lot of money in the hopes of influencing those laws and policies, but in the end, it's the government who accedes to the money and the will of the special interest and gives them what they want.  This is called corruption.

Our government is corrupt. If they needed to apply different policies and didn't because they were bought off, that's corruption. Doesn't matter who was bought, doesn't matter what administration did it, doesn't matter what party did it. What matters is that it needs to change. 

The gulf right now is a mess because of this corruption. BP had a terrible accident, but the cleanup should have been initiated by the government in office at the time of the disaster because it's their frigging JOB.  No matter how many fingers get pointed at past administrations, it is now on Obama's shoulders and his response is miserable. He's had 2 months to initiate cleanup, and has done virtually nothing. Except point fingers and say he's going to find out who's "ass to kick." Might I suggest he kick his own?

But ultimately, it's now up to the voters to clean up not just the gulf, but to clean house in Washington and get some decent people in there who care about more than just their party and themselves.

Common Sense? No, Immigration and Unemployment Nonsense

What sense does it make to have a nearly 10-percent unemployment rate while sending American jobs overseas, and at the same time defend an illegal influx of unemployed foreign nationals who are looking for the same work as Americans?

Somewhere, someone needs a kick in the head.

Business as susual in Congress

Envoy had business ties to Pelosi's husband - Washington Times

Since 1991, Mr. Pelosi's real estate partnership investments with Mr. Tsakopoulos have netted him between $1.4 million and $9 million, according to Mrs. Pelosi's personal financial disclosure statements. In 1993, Mrs. Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis joined the business, AKT Development Corp., which was founded by her father, becoming its president in 1997.

Craig Holman, legislative representative for Public Citizen, a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group, described the appointment of ambassadors as a "favoritism system based on money." He said that in this case, Mrs. Pelosi should have mentioned her family's business ties to the Tsakopoulos-Kounalakis family during the confirmation hearing.

"It would have been better if there was a conflict of interest to clear the air," he said.

"Unions have priced themselves out of a job."

Los Angeles, Toledo, Other Cities and States Press Municipal Labor Unions to Cut Pension and Health-Care Costs - WSJ.com

Verizon shelves plans for future FiOS rollouts, relocations to Massachusetts set to boom -- Engadget

Is this an unintended consequence of the health care law? Verizon already announced that they were taking a billion-dollar charge due to ObamaCare's requirement to insure all it's employees. But has it affected Verizon's ability to conduct business? Probably, since communication companies are capital investment-heavy operations, and if that capital has to be moved to health insurance, it has to come from somewhere - either increased prices or operating capital.

So if you were waiting for FIOS, thank Obama and the Democrats for not getting it.

Verizon shelves plans for future FiOS rollouts, relocations to Massachusetts set to boom -- Engadget

an Associated Press report notes that the operator has canned all public plans about expanding its FTTH home network, though it will continue to build-out where it had previously announced service (Washington, D.C., New York City and Philadelphia, namely).

China issues media rules for stories on Google

This is the kind of thing that makes me long for the old days - when we stood up for and only did business with entities supportive of American ideals. To wit, why are we sending billions upon billions of dollars to China in trade when this is how China treats their people? It's not only disgraceful of China to do this, but extra disgraceful of us here in America to enrichen them with huge business contracts. But not so for Google.

Having gotten a taste of China's information policies firsthand, Google pulled the plug.  Mucho kudos to them; Now, there's an American international company  that behaves as it should.

Google is in the minority. Despite China's distasteful practices regarding individual freedom, business is booming. I recently needed to make a purchase of an audio mixing console. I decided to "buy American,"or at least European, and was sad to discover that all of the companies who have manufactured in western countries for the last few decades have moved all of their manufacturing operations to China. This includes venerable American companies such as Peavey, located in Meridian Mississippi, but also sound equipment staples such as Soundcraft in the UK.

The companies hide behind the "realities of modern business" (one company posted that on their web site), but even so, do the realities of business trump the broader economic values of supporting the home economy? Only to the short-sighted.

More on this, including a solution, in an upcoming rant.

China issues media rules for stories on Google | Relevant Results - CNET News

The list of instructions, obtained by China Digital Times and published by The Washington Post, underscores the degree to which the Chinese government attempts to control the spread of information more than anything Google has ever said about search censorship. The list contains specific details on which types of stories can be published and asks media outlets in China to purge reader discussions from their pages that attack the government's view.

Obama Treats Allies Like he Should Treat Iran

I think the pressure from the healtcare debacle has gotten to Obama. he seems a little detached from reality.

FOXNews.com - Reports: Netanyahu 'Humiliated' by Obama Snub

For a head of government to visit the White House and not pose for photographers is rare. For a key ally to be left to his own devices while the President withdraws to have dinner in private was, until this week, unheard of. Yet that is how Benjamin Netanyahu was treated by President Obama on Tuesday night, according to Israeli reports on a trip viewed in Jerusalem as a humiliation.

Is National Healthcare A Model for Internet Access?

This government seems to have the intent of giving everything to everyone for free. This time, at question is the internet - should access to it be free for everyone in their homes? And further, should the government fund a build-out of a competing system to the currently private enterprise?

Let's take a moment to note that everyone can already access the internet for free at their public library.

But even beyond that, it just goes to show how out of touch the government really is. For example, while the government is arguing for public construction of an internet that is about 10 times faster than what exists - and is satisfactory today- the hottest computer item these days are netbooks - small, inexpensive computers which are suited primarily for e-mail and internet browsing - tasks not at all reliant on super-fast internet. In other words, not needed.

This is typical of bureaucrats without a clue: let's throw technology at it. In this case, a solution which creates problems rather than solves them.

Why is it bad? For one, it places a requirement on businesses to relinquish bandwidth for which they have already paid (to the government, I might add) in order to provide unnecessary service (ultra high speed internet where modem speeds are adequate). For another, it takes away valuable bandwidth from spaces which need more already (the DOD, for example). For a third, why should people spend money to internet and phone companies when the government is giving this away for free? Fourth, there is no reason for the existing companies to maintain, much less improve, their services when others are flocking to the government's free service. Fifth, when the government system gets rolling (with the huge number of people certain to use it), the commercial system is sure to sag in performance. Sixth, the government is yet again meddling in a private market.

These are all excellent reasons to scrap the plan, all sure to fall on deaf progressive ears. The hallmark of the Democrats: let's see how much we can muck up a profitable competitive market. Shameless, they are. Power-hungry, too.

Who Hates the National Broadband Plan? - Reviews by PC Magazine

Are you ready for more Internet? That's the question that U.S. regulators will soon be asking, as Reuters is reporting that the Federal Communications Commission is set to reveal the National Broadband Plan on March 16.

While some details of the plan remain to be seen, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski has already mentioned a few of the key highlights that the FCC will be recommending to Congress. These include a goal to connect 100 million Americans to 100 Mbps Internet within 10 years and the desire for television stations to give up unused spectrum to assist a growing market for wireless services, amongst others.

What is new, or perhaps unexpected, is some of the backlash that's coming back at the FCC from affected parties, including the very consumers that the National Broadband Plan is, in theory, designed to help.

...The FCC's National Broadband Plan isn't a complete boon for wireless companies--the FCC is also allegedly proposing a free (or low-cost) nationwide wireless network. The details of this plan haven't been released beyond that generalized description. However, the hint of it has been enough to rile up various mobile providers.

Not only would the government suddenly jump into the business of competing against established carriers, but--worse for consumers--said competition could dissuade mobile providers from caring as much about the general upkeep of their networks. For carriers, the question is this: Why invest in a paid-for network if everyone's flocking to the free solution just around the corner?

 ... A smattering of Internet responses from consumers reacting to some of the talked-about ideas in the National Broadband Plan reveals a fear that government regulation could stifle competition or otherwise enjoin U.S. policy with network performance. Here are a few examples of the general Web response to the FCC's thoughts:

"This will result in government takeover of the industry. It won't happen overnight, but incrementally. They already have the name for it: National Broadband, like National Health Care. They'll build infrastructure, increase access, give free access to "the underprivileged", and work with the big providers to squeeze out competition (corporate fascism)." --ebystrom

The Huge Scandal that probably won't be

There is a real problem with something done by the White House concerning upcoming elections that going very much under-reported: they tried to manipulate the elections. Many would say that this is just politics as usual, and therefore not a scandal at all. Except for the fact that what the White House did is a felony.

I think people have become too jaded, too accustomed to corruption such that we think it's business as usual.  But stop and think: do you really want your vote to count? Or do you prefer the thinking of Stalin: "It's not who gets the most votes, but who does the counting."

I'm talking about the White House's attempt to buy off Representative Joe Sestak.  The Democrats are so concerned about the midterm elections that they didn't want him running against the far-from-a-shoe-in Senator Arlen Spector. The White House, according to Sestak, offered him a high position in the government in exchange for his promise not to run against Spector.

In a normal sort of world, the outcome wouldn't matter, the two of them being in the same party.  However, Sestak has been critical of the Obama Administration and is opposed to the Obama-backed health care bill.

Wow, this is really HUGE stuff; maybe normal for Chicago, but not so for the free society we believe America to be.

Stay on top of this, and keep urging others to do the same. Keep on your elected officials, too, so it doesn't get buried in all the other trash put out by what now passes for "government."

FOXNews.com - GOP Lawmaker: White House Job Offer to Sestak Would Have Been a 'Crime'

A GOP lawmaker says that the White House committed a "crime" if it offered Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak a federal job in exchange for dropping his primary challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter, D-Pa.

"That would be a crime to offer anybody a federal job," Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, told Fox News on Friday.

For example, the California Republican said it would be a crime if he offered a staff job to anyone to help him win an election.
"It's the same for the executive branch," he said. "You can't promise ambassadorships to contributors and even worse, you cannot manipulate the races by saying we'll give you something else if you drop out. You can't do it."

Sestak, who is aggravating Democratic leaders by challenging Specter for the Senate nomination in Pennsylvania, said last month that the White House dangled a federal job in front of him last summer in an attempt to entice him to drop out of the state's Democratic primary.

Chock Full O' Nuts

The White House seriously wants to be judged in the upcoming election on on its performance relating to healthcare. Seriously, read below. Hubris has always been known to be a bad thing, but I say bring it on!

FOXNews.com - White House Challenges Republicans to Use Health Care for 2010 Election

Expressing an increasing confidence that a massive health care overhaul will pass Congress -- despite dire warnings from Republicans about its impact on Democrats in November -- White House officials on Sunday dared the GOP to bring it on during this fall's 2010 midterm election.

Pelosi: We Know Best

So the lead democrat in the house is saying: "Disregard the people's will." Unbelievable, and that is un-American.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi urged her colleagues to back a major overhaul of U.S. health care even if it threatens their political careers, a call to arms that underscores the issue's massive role in this election year.

source: FOXNews.com - Pelosi: Lawmakers Should Sacrifice Jobs for Health Care

Frank: Partisanship is out of control in Congress - wtop.com

This is unbelievable - Frank says partisanship is out of control, then lambasts Bayh for not staying to change a rule that will ensure strengthened partisanship.

Frank: Partisanship is out of control in Congress - wtop.com

AMHERST, Mass. (AP) - U.S. Rep. Barney Frank of Massachusetts said Tuesday that Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh is right that partisan politics on Capitol Hill are getting out of control, but Frank said his fellow Democrat could do more to change that by staying in Congress than by stepping out of politics.

"I don't understand how you make things better from the outside. I share the frustration, but I would have hoped he would have stayed around and voted to change the filibuster rule," Frank said

http://www.wtop.com/?nid=104&sid=1889885

Public Policy Polling: Fox leads for trust

When I was studying journalism, one the professors said a valuable thing: that no one can report a story without editing it.

I think all media outlets all have an agenda, but in my own experience, Fox does less of the "gatekeeping" than the other major news outlets.

With that said, one of the worst things I believe any news outlet can have is a political agenda. I am against any enterprise which holds the public trust - particularly those involved in dissemination of information - in taking any position. It leads to people developing a skewed perception and therefore inaccurate way of thinking about the world. Some call this "wrong-headed."

We saw it happen with the 2008 election: if one relied solely on the major broadcast news sources, he'd come away with the sense that Obama offered the greatest hope for the future, and would change everything for the good.

One year after he was elected, Obama has demonstrated nothing of the sort. He is really just another politician looking to control things the way he wants to. His actions have alienated young voters. Youthful political particpants are vulnerable to this sort of thing because they have virtually no experience with the workings of the world, and therefore haven't learned what liars and ideologs polticians can be. In Obama and the Democrats, they learned.

Had these voters watched Fox (rather than derided them as harshly as they did), they would have had a different perspective: one that was not entirely negative, but raised serous questions into Obama's readiness and comport for the office. Wisdom is the key.

The point is, when a news outlet doesn't ask hard questions and take an oppositional stance - whether they support a candidate or not - they will never learn the truth about anything. Intellectuals like to talk about the postmodern idea of deconstruction, in which oppositional stances are taken particularly for the sake of critical analysis, but in Obama, they didn't do this. I guess they were too busy enjoying that shiver up their leg.


Public Policy Polling: Fox leads for trust

Liars.

The other night I was watching an NBC News "expose" regarding the state of the health insurance industry.  The show was part of the dateline franchise and was called "Critical Condition." One of the reports involved a young girl, Nataline Sarkisyan, diagnosed with and treated for leukemia, but who ultimately died because, as NBC's Ann Curry wanted us to believe, because she didn't receive a liver transplant.

Several things were just so outrageously wrong, they had to be lies.  They involve the claimed costs, and the reasoning for the liver transplant.

First off were the cited costs. CBS said the treatment, a bone marrow transplant which is the usual course for leukemia, can cost $700,000.00. I have done video work regarding leukemia, and have been close to those treating the disease. I know how involved the procedure can be.  But, Wow, I thought, that's expensive.   So I checked.  The actual numbers for a bone marrow transplant range from $50,000 to $200,000 for the really complex ones. So how can CBS be so wrong? Because they wanted to be.

First off, journalism isn't rocket science.  Meaning, no one's life is at stake if a few numbers are wrong.  They think that the important thing is to make your point.  However, with the backdrop of Obama's healthcare reform initiative, which specifically addresses costs, don't these numbers have a special meaning? And isn't accuracy especially important because of it?

It looks like NBC News was trying to fire up viewers to feel as though costs are completely out of control.  If one accepts $700K for a BMT, than that assumption would be true.  But if a BMT (a pretty involved procedure, by the way), is correctly marked at $50K, the whole issue looks different. And I haven't addressed the liver transplant yet.

The girl's family insisted that she receive the liver transplant recommended by her physician.  Note that the discussion didn't go into issues such as why her liver had failed.  Point-of-fact, the poor girl was dying, and her organs began to fail. A liver transplant might have extended her life for a few weeks, but no more. In the end, her insurer approved the new liver, but Natalione dies before the procedure could be performed.

I'm not discussing whether or not she deserved it.   But I will say, had she received a new liver then died a few weeks later, that the liver she used would have been unavailable to someone who was less ill, someone whose life could have been saved for years. It's not like we send out to WalMart for a liver; they are hard to come by. This mode of thinking is called triage, and is, at best, difficult. It's life and death. But it has to be done to favor the greater good over the lesser.

So, what should we think about NBC? They munged up all the facts, bending  them to suit. The story was very compelling, and made the health insurer look mean and evil. But the bottom line is that they did everything reasonable to save the girl's life. At no additional cost to the family.

People die. But family members need to accept that it's seldom someone else's fault. The mother of the girl and the tone of the story definitely went that way.

The clarion call of the media used to be Accuracy, but no more. I am reminded on a line from the film, 12 Monkeys - "there's no right, there's no wrong, there's only public opinion."

The moral of the story: Distrust the media.

Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

Corporate rivals of Checchi were reluctant to speak on the record about the no-bid contract awarded to his firm because they feared possible retribution by the Obama administration in the awarding of future contracts.

"We don't want to be blackballed," said the managing partner of a consulting firm that has won similar contracts. "You've got to be careful. We're dealing here with people and offices that we depend on for our business."

Still, the rival executive confirmed that open bidding on USAID's lucrative Afghanistan "rule of law" contract was abruptly revoked by the agency earlier this year.

"It's a mystery to us," the managing partner said. "We were going to bid on it. The solicitation (for bids) got pulled back, and we do not know why. We may never know why. These are things that we, as companies doing business with the government, have to put up with."

As a candidate for president in 2008, then-Sen. Obama frequently derided the Bush administration for the awarding of federal contracts without competitive bidding.

"I will finally end the abuse of no-bid contracts once and for all," the senator told a Grand Rapids audience on Oct. 2. "The days of sweetheart deals for Halliburton will be over when I'm in the White House."

FOXNews.com - Obama Administration Steers Lucrative No-Bid Contract for Afghan Work to Dem Donor

Health Care Countdown: Young People Could Bear Brunt of Insurance Mandate

So you kids wanted change, and voted for it and got it. How does it feel? Perhaps you feel a bit "lighter;" you should.

Winston Churchill said that anyone who is young and not liberal has no heart, but anyone who is older and not conservative has no brains. Something to that.

Now, chillun, what have we learned?

FOXNews.com - Health Care Countdown: Young People Could Bear Brunt of Insurance Mandate:

"Young adults are in for a wake-up call if health care reform passes.

For the first time ever, the federal government is going to require that everybody obtain health insurance coverage. For those who have insurance through their employers, the so-called individual mandate may have very little impact. But for young adults, many of whom are not currently covered, the health care bill will add a new and costly expense to their budgets.

'The Census Bureau tells us there are 18 million people between the ages of 18 and 35 who are uninsured -- roughly half of the uninsured population are younger people in that age group,' said Anne Kim, with the non-profit think tank Third Way.

The individual mandate has teeth to it, and anyone who refuses to get coverage will be fined under the health care package."