Thursday, October 22, 2009
Butch the Rooster
John the farmer was in the fertilized egg business. He had several hundred young layers (hens), called "pullets," and eight or ten roosters, whose job was to fertilize the eggs. The farmer kept records and any rooster that didn't perform went into the soup pot and was replaced. That took an awful lot of his time so he bought a set of tiny bells and attached them to his roosters. Each bell had a different tone so John could tell from a distance, which rooster was performing. Now he could sit on the porch and fill out an efficiency report simply by listening to the bells. The farmer's favorite rooster was old Butch, and a very fine specimen he was, too. But on this particular morning John noticed old Butch's bell hadn't rung at all! John went to investigate. The other roosters were chasing pullets, bells-a-ringing. The pullets, hearing the roosters coming, would run for cover. But to Farmer John's amazement, Butch had his bell in his beak, so it couldn't ring. He'd sneak up on a pullet, do his job and walk on to the next one. John was so proud of Butch, he entered him in the Boone County Fair and Butch became an overnight sensation among the judges. The result . . . The judges not only awarded Butch the No Bell Piece Prize but they also awarded him the Pulletsurprise as well. Clearly Butch was a politician in the making: who else but a politician could figure out how to win two of the most highly coveted awards on our planet by being the best at sneaking up on the populace and screwing them when they weren't paying attention?
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Where is the Middle Class?
Obama's Middle Class Betrayal
A Commentary By Howard Rich
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
As much as the Beltway chattering class refuses to admit it, Barack Obama's electoral victory last year had nothing to do with his oft-repeated, generic pledge to bring "hope and change" to Washington, D.C. Sure it sounded good at the time, but Americans have always voted based on their wallets and pocketbooks – not lofty-sounding campaign promises or rhetorical flourishes.
The real key to Obama's victory a year ago – indeed his "signature" issue – was his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.
"You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime," Obama promised tens of millions of Americans making $250,000 or less. In fact, candidate Obama promised the middle class billions of dollars in tax cuts, part of his whole "spread the wealth around" plan.
"If you're a family that's making $250,000 a year or less, you will see no increase in your taxes," Obama promised. "Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your personal gains tax, not any of your taxes."
Never mind the fact that Obama's plan would have hit income and payroll providers especially hard, rendering "middle class tax relief" irrelevant to the millions of workers heading toward already-crowded unemployment lines.
No matter how you look at it, though, what a difference a year makes.
As an unprecedented string of multibillion-dollar government bailouts and a viral explosion of new discretionary spending continues to wreak havoc on the deficit, does it really surprise anyone to learn that Obama's "middle class tax cut" was the very first thing to wind up on the cutting room floor?
Of course not. "Class warfare" may have succeeded in getting Obama elected, but it cannot pay for the political promises Obama has made with our borrowed billions.
But that is just the beginning of the great middle class betrayal. Not only are middle class American families getting no tax relief, Obama administration officials are refusing to rule out the possibility that taxes on middle class families will actually increase in an effort to help the government pay for all of this new spending.
So much for Obama's plan to "bleed the rich" in order to fund middle class tax relief – now everyone must bleed as the President and his Congressional allies scramble to pay for all that "hope and change" they've created.
Aside from the obvious demerits of "Robin Hood-style" tax policy (it's never a good idea to go after the people creating the jobs, is it?), the reality is that Obama's now-scrapped middle class "tax cut" would have barely made a dent when compared to costly new government mandates being forced upon American families.
For example, according to an unreleased report prepared by Obama's own Treasury Department, the cost of the administration's "cap and trade" energy tax on the typical American household came out to $1,761 a year. On top of that, we learned this week that the latest multibillion-dollar proposal to "reform" the health care industry would cost the typical American family of four over $4,000 a year by the time the plan is fully implemented.
Altogether, that's nearly $6,000 a year in additional energy and health care costs being heaped on American families struggling to make ends meet during one of the worst recessions in our nation's history – again, with no tax relief to offset the additional financial burden.
Based on these numbers, it seems clear that the American middle class was (and is) nothing but a means to an end for Obama. It also seems clear that rich or poor, Obama's plan to "rescue" the American economy involves taxing all of us back to the Stone Age.
A Commentary By Howard Rich
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
As much as the Beltway chattering class refuses to admit it, Barack Obama's electoral victory last year had nothing to do with his oft-repeated, generic pledge to bring "hope and change" to Washington, D.C. Sure it sounded good at the time, but Americans have always voted based on their wallets and pocketbooks – not lofty-sounding campaign promises or rhetorical flourishes.
The real key to Obama's victory a year ago – indeed his "signature" issue – was his promise not to raise taxes on the middle class.
"You will not see any of your taxes increase one single dime," Obama promised tens of millions of Americans making $250,000 or less. In fact, candidate Obama promised the middle class billions of dollars in tax cuts, part of his whole "spread the wealth around" plan.
"If you're a family that's making $250,000 a year or less, you will see no increase in your taxes," Obama promised. "Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your personal gains tax, not any of your taxes."
Never mind the fact that Obama's plan would have hit income and payroll providers especially hard, rendering "middle class tax relief" irrelevant to the millions of workers heading toward already-crowded unemployment lines.
No matter how you look at it, though, what a difference a year makes.
As an unprecedented string of multibillion-dollar government bailouts and a viral explosion of new discretionary spending continues to wreak havoc on the deficit, does it really surprise anyone to learn that Obama's "middle class tax cut" was the very first thing to wind up on the cutting room floor?
Of course not. "Class warfare" may have succeeded in getting Obama elected, but it cannot pay for the political promises Obama has made with our borrowed billions.
But that is just the beginning of the great middle class betrayal. Not only are middle class American families getting no tax relief, Obama administration officials are refusing to rule out the possibility that taxes on middle class families will actually increase in an effort to help the government pay for all of this new spending.
So much for Obama's plan to "bleed the rich" in order to fund middle class tax relief – now everyone must bleed as the President and his Congressional allies scramble to pay for all that "hope and change" they've created.
Aside from the obvious demerits of "Robin Hood-style" tax policy (it's never a good idea to go after the people creating the jobs, is it?), the reality is that Obama's now-scrapped middle class "tax cut" would have barely made a dent when compared to costly new government mandates being forced upon American families.
For example, according to an unreleased report prepared by Obama's own Treasury Department, the cost of the administration's "cap and trade" energy tax on the typical American household came out to $1,761 a year. On top of that, we learned this week that the latest multibillion-dollar proposal to "reform" the health care industry would cost the typical American family of four over $4,000 a year by the time the plan is fully implemented.
Altogether, that's nearly $6,000 a year in additional energy and health care costs being heaped on American families struggling to make ends meet during one of the worst recessions in our nation's history – again, with no tax relief to offset the additional financial burden.
Based on these numbers, it seems clear that the American middle class was (and is) nothing but a means to an end for Obama. It also seems clear that rich or poor, Obama's plan to "rescue" the American economy involves taxing all of us back to the Stone Age.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
A Must Read
A must read.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul
For those with company paid health insurance, when they drop you and pay the fine (cheaper) you'll be in the same boat as everyone else. For Medicare, you already know you're going to lose benefits. When 15 to 20 million illegals join the program who do you suppose will pay for that? 40 million new members, zero new doctors, you do the math. If they don't hear from the voters you get what they want you to have!
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul
For those with company paid health insurance, when they drop you and pay the fine (cheaper) you'll be in the same boat as everyone else. For Medicare, you already know you're going to lose benefits. When 15 to 20 million illegals join the program who do you suppose will pay for that? 40 million new members, zero new doctors, you do the math. If they don't hear from the voters you get what they want you to have!
Bridge to No Where
Our $2 Trillion Bridge to Nowhere
Americans believe Washington squanders half of every tax d
By STEPHEN MOORE
If you want to know why Americans are so fearful of a government takeover of the health-care system, take a look at the results of a new Gallup poll on government waste released Sept. 15. One question posed was: "Of every tax dollar that goes to Washington, D.C., how many cents of each dollar would you say is wasted?" Gallup found that the mean response was 50 cents. With Uncle Sam spending just shy of $4 trillion this year, that means the public believes that $2 trillion is wasted.
In a separate poll released on Monday, Gallup found that nearly twice as many Americans believe that there is "too much government regulation of business and industry" as believe there is "too little" (45% to 24%).
Perhaps most significantly, in both of these polls Gallup found that skepticism about government's effectiveness is the highest it's been in decades. "Perceptions of federal waste were significantly lower 30 years ago than today," say the Gallup researchers. Even when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 with the help of the antigovernment revolt of that era, Americans believed only 40 cents of every dollar was wasted, according to Gallup.
These results are in some ways surprising because voters just elected a president who promised expensive government expansion almost across the board—from health care to foreign aid to housing to energy policy. Mr. Obama was the first president elected since Lyndon Johnson who didn't even pretend to want to cut the size of government.
Now there's a powerful voter backlash against the Bush-Obama agenda of bailouts, stimulus plans and trillion dollar-plus deficits. The rage began with the bank bailouts last fall. It grew with the $787 billion stimulus bill, which was little more than a refill of the budgets of every left-wing program Democrats have wanted to throw money at for 40 years. The nearly $100 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler—some $300,000 for every auto job saved—was a bridge too far for debt-weary voters. When Mr. Obama then released his 10-year budget plan—which even he admitted would double the national debt with $9 trillion of new borrowing over the next decade—he was lighting a match in a munitions factory.
There are several political lessons we can learn from the Gallup results. One is that Republicans' strategy of creating a unified bloc of "no" votes to Obama spending initiatives like government-run health care and the cap-and trade-energy bill is in line with where voters are. The Washington establishment is dead wrong: Americans don't want bipartisan cooperation in supersizing the government right now. Pollster Frank Luntz tells me that Republicans can kill ObamaCare by relentlessly hammering home one message: This is a government takeover of health care. "Americans hate that idea," he says.
But the polling suggests something even bigger: Americans are in the mood for a radical shrinking of government in order to reduce debt and waste. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats should be talking nonstop about how to achieve this goal.
First, they should push for a 15% cut in every federal agency budget before the debt cap is raised later this year. Given that most agencies saw their budgets expand by more than 50% in the past year, according to the House Budget Committee, this is hardly going to throw programs into the poor house.
They should also propose an immediate freeze on federal pay and benefits until the budget is balanced—even furloughs of federal workers to save money. A new report from the Cato Institute shows that federal pay packages are nearly twice as generous as those in the private sector for jobs that require similar skill levels. They should call for the elimination of hundreds of useless and obsolete agencies like the Legal Services Corporation. Finally, they should demand that every penny of TARP money repaid by banks should go into a fund to reduce the debt—rather than allow the Obama administration to create a new slush fund for pet projects.
Over the last decade, the federal government has become bloated and inefficient. Voters are on to the scam. Mr. Obama keeps calling federal spending an "investment," but Americans apparently feel this is the worst investment they've ever made. They've come to regard Washington as a $2 trillion Bridge to Nowhere. They are right.
Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
--- The trick is calling your Reps and telling them to quit spending and reduce the bottomless pit government has become. Look up their phone numbers for the local offices and call them, calling their DC office works too IF enough people do it.
Americans believe Washington squanders half of every tax d
By STEPHEN MOORE
If you want to know why Americans are so fearful of a government takeover of the health-care system, take a look at the results of a new Gallup poll on government waste released Sept. 15. One question posed was: "Of every tax dollar that goes to Washington, D.C., how many cents of each dollar would you say is wasted?" Gallup found that the mean response was 50 cents. With Uncle Sam spending just shy of $4 trillion this year, that means the public believes that $2 trillion is wasted.
In a separate poll released on Monday, Gallup found that nearly twice as many Americans believe that there is "too much government regulation of business and industry" as believe there is "too little" (45% to 24%).
Perhaps most significantly, in both of these polls Gallup found that skepticism about government's effectiveness is the highest it's been in decades. "Perceptions of federal waste were significantly lower 30 years ago than today," say the Gallup researchers. Even when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 with the help of the antigovernment revolt of that era, Americans believed only 40 cents of every dollar was wasted, according to Gallup.
These results are in some ways surprising because voters just elected a president who promised expensive government expansion almost across the board—from health care to foreign aid to housing to energy policy. Mr. Obama was the first president elected since Lyndon Johnson who didn't even pretend to want to cut the size of government.
Now there's a powerful voter backlash against the Bush-Obama agenda of bailouts, stimulus plans and trillion dollar-plus deficits. The rage began with the bank bailouts last fall. It grew with the $787 billion stimulus bill, which was little more than a refill of the budgets of every left-wing program Democrats have wanted to throw money at for 40 years. The nearly $100 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler—some $300,000 for every auto job saved—was a bridge too far for debt-weary voters. When Mr. Obama then released his 10-year budget plan—which even he admitted would double the national debt with $9 trillion of new borrowing over the next decade—he was lighting a match in a munitions factory.
There are several political lessons we can learn from the Gallup results. One is that Republicans' strategy of creating a unified bloc of "no" votes to Obama spending initiatives like government-run health care and the cap-and trade-energy bill is in line with where voters are. The Washington establishment is dead wrong: Americans don't want bipartisan cooperation in supersizing the government right now. Pollster Frank Luntz tells me that Republicans can kill ObamaCare by relentlessly hammering home one message: This is a government takeover of health care. "Americans hate that idea," he says.
But the polling suggests something even bigger: Americans are in the mood for a radical shrinking of government in order to reduce debt and waste. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats should be talking nonstop about how to achieve this goal.
First, they should push for a 15% cut in every federal agency budget before the debt cap is raised later this year. Given that most agencies saw their budgets expand by more than 50% in the past year, according to the House Budget Committee, this is hardly going to throw programs into the poor house.
They should also propose an immediate freeze on federal pay and benefits until the budget is balanced—even furloughs of federal workers to save money. A new report from the Cato Institute shows that federal pay packages are nearly twice as generous as those in the private sector for jobs that require similar skill levels. They should call for the elimination of hundreds of useless and obsolete agencies like the Legal Services Corporation. Finally, they should demand that every penny of TARP money repaid by banks should go into a fund to reduce the debt—rather than allow the Obama administration to create a new slush fund for pet projects.
Over the last decade, the federal government has become bloated and inefficient. Voters are on to the scam. Mr. Obama keeps calling federal spending an "investment," but Americans apparently feel this is the worst investment they've ever made. They've come to regard Washington as a $2 trillion Bridge to Nowhere. They are right.
Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
--- The trick is calling your Reps and telling them to quit spending and reduce the bottomless pit government has become. Look up their phone numbers for the local offices and call them, calling their DC office works too IF enough people do it.
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Scouts to no longer bring penknives on camping trips
Scouts to no longer bring penknives on camping trips
Scouts will now be a little worse prepared after they were banned from carrying their traditional penknives due to the fears of those in charge of health and safety.
By Chris IrvinePublished: 10:44AM BST 06 Sep 2009
Scouts used to be allowed to carry sheath knives on their belts
New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations.
Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools.
Related Articles
· Scouts face reduced activities or higher subs after new £1.5m water bills
· Scouts train anti-terrorism badge
· Cubs and scouts rejecting traditional badges for modern pursuits
· Scouts introduce recycling badge
· Scouts refuse to allow boy who won't swear to Queen
· Students told not to throw mortar boards due to safety risk
At one point Scouts were allowed to carry a sheath knife on their belt as part of their uniform although this is no longer the case. In recent years the Scout Association guidance has been that parents should carry knives to camps or meetings.
Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades, wrote that the growing problem of knife crime meant action had to be taken.
"Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife," he wrote. "The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK.
"I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required."
Troops leaders however have said the decision is "very sad". Sheila Burgin, from 4th Sevenoaks Scout Group in Kent, said: "Scouts by law are allowed to have Swiss army knives. I think this is going too far – you just don’t know when a Scout will need a knife.
"It is also suggested that the leader keeps control of the knives when they go camping, but I think that is completely wrong. The first Scout Law is 'The Scout is to be trusted'. Scouts love having knives and using them properly. There is nothing wrong with it."
Miss Burgin, who offers lessons in carving using penknives, added: "If you teach children to use a knife properly they won’t abuse it. If someone wants to cause harm they will do it anyway. It is a real shame it has come to this."
A Scouts spokesman said: "We believe that young people need more places to go after school and at weekends, where they can experience adventure without the threat of violence or bullying and the need to carry weapons.
"Scouting helps to prepare young people with valuable life skills, while keeping them safe by not carrying knives."
Meanwhile a school has banned giving out goldfish as prizes at its fetes after it was criticised by animal welfare societies.
John Porteous, the headteacher of Turton School, in Bromley Cross, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, has pledged that they will not hand out goldfish as prizes after coming under fire from the Captive Animals' Protection Society (CAPS) and RSPCA.
Scouts will now be a little worse prepared after they were banned from carrying their traditional penknives due to the fears of those in charge of health and safety.
By Chris IrvinePublished: 10:44AM BST 06 Sep 2009
Scouts used to be allowed to carry sheath knives on their belts
New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations.
Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools.
Related Articles
· Scouts face reduced activities or higher subs after new £1.5m water bills
· Scouts train anti-terrorism badge
· Cubs and scouts rejecting traditional badges for modern pursuits
· Scouts introduce recycling badge
· Scouts refuse to allow boy who won't swear to Queen
· Students told not to throw mortar boards due to safety risk
At one point Scouts were allowed to carry a sheath knife on their belt as part of their uniform although this is no longer the case. In recent years the Scout Association guidance has been that parents should carry knives to camps or meetings.
Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades, wrote that the growing problem of knife crime meant action had to be taken.
"Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife," he wrote. "The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK.
"I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required."
Troops leaders however have said the decision is "very sad". Sheila Burgin, from 4th Sevenoaks Scout Group in Kent, said: "Scouts by law are allowed to have Swiss army knives. I think this is going too far – you just don’t know when a Scout will need a knife.
"It is also suggested that the leader keeps control of the knives when they go camping, but I think that is completely wrong. The first Scout Law is 'The Scout is to be trusted'. Scouts love having knives and using them properly. There is nothing wrong with it."
Miss Burgin, who offers lessons in carving using penknives, added: "If you teach children to use a knife properly they won’t abuse it. If someone wants to cause harm they will do it anyway. It is a real shame it has come to this."
A Scouts spokesman said: "We believe that young people need more places to go after school and at weekends, where they can experience adventure without the threat of violence or bullying and the need to carry weapons.
"Scouting helps to prepare young people with valuable life skills, while keeping them safe by not carrying knives."
Meanwhile a school has banned giving out goldfish as prizes at its fetes after it was criticised by animal welfare societies.
John Porteous, the headteacher of Turton School, in Bromley Cross, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, has pledged that they will not hand out goldfish as prizes after coming under fire from the Captive Animals' Protection Society (CAPS) and RSPCA.
Monday, August 17, 2009
TECH (NEW)
I bought a new Chevy Silverado and returned to the dealer yesterday because I couldn't get the radio to work. The salesman explained that the radio was voice activated. 'Nelson,' the salesman said to the radio. The radio replied, 'Ricky or Willie?' 'Willie!' he continued and 'On The Road Again' came from the speakers. Then he said, 'Ray Charles!', and in an instant ' Georgia On My Mind' replaced Willie Nelson. I drove away happy, and for the next few days, every time I'd say, 'Beethoven,' I'd get beautiful classical music, and if I said, 'Beatles,' I'd get one of their awesome songs. Yesterday, some guy ran a red light and nearly creamed my new truck, but I swerved in time to avoid him. I yelled, 'Ass Hole!' Immediately the radio responded with, "Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, Barack Obama." Damn I love this truck......
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