Demotivator - Sunday, January 3, 2010

* Computer named "Man of the Year" in Time Magazine. (1983)

* It's also Festival of Sleep Day!

About Mike Leach...

There is plenty of ambiguity regarding exactly why former Texas Tech football head coach Mike Leach was fired. Tech officials and their apologists claim Leach "abused' the player. Leach claims he just told the trainers to "find someplace dark" for the player to be put; "one place was just as good as another," said Leach.

With the release of e-mails among Tech administration officials regarding Leach's contract negotiations in 2008, the likely motivation for the firing begins to appear. The negotiations had been tense, with Leach's agent asking for more than the administration wanted to pay. The negotiations apparently turned nasty. In an e-mail dated January 9, 2009, from athletic booster Jim Sowell to Chancellor Kent Hance, Sowell made the following statement:

"I hope he [Leach] doesn't sign, that gives us a full year to find another coach after we fire him after next season...."

Although I could be wrong, it looks as though Tech administration had Leach's termination planned for almost a year prior to its execution.

Demotivator - Friday, January 1, 2010

For Christmas, my daughter got me the Demotivator calendar from despair.com. Each month has a "demotivating" slogan, with daily demotivating tidbits. The slogan for January: "Economics - The science of explaining tomorrow why the predictions you made yesterday didn't come true today."

Here is the first daily posting for January 1, 2010:

* It's New Year's Day and It's Epoch! (1970)

* Edwin Hubble announces the existence of other galaxies. Alien species thriled to finally be legitimized. (1925)

Elections Count

A recent Michael Medved column underlines something important -- every vote counts. Many voters claim that they are disgusted with the two major parties, and vote for a third party candidate. That's exactly what happened in Minnesota. Let's look at the consequences.

* Nearly 500,000 Minnesota voters cast their votes for third-party candidates in the 2008 US Senate Race.
* Republican Norm Coleman won the initial count by 215 votes (out of three million votes cast.) The small margin of victory triggered an automatic recount. In the recount, Democrat Al Franken won by just over 300 votes.
* Al Franken's election gave Democrats 60 Senators -- enough to override Republican filibusters.
* Obama's massive healthcare plan passed the Senate by a count of 60-40, a strict partyline vote.

Essentially, a difference of 500 Minnesota voters in the 2008 US Senate election -- .1% of those who threw away their votes on third-party candidates -- could have stopped the Democrat healthcare legislation. Elections -- and your vote -- count. And the two major parties are demonstrably not the same.

The Sunshine Condiment

From "The Proper Mustard," the newsletter of The Mustard Museum.

FIVE NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTIONS

1. I will use mustard every day.
2. I will be bold and try mustard on all kinds of foods.
3. I will smile whenever I eat mustard - life's too important to be angry when eating the sunshine condiment.
4. I will be more tolerant of ketchup eaters.
5. I will share my mustards with others.

How to Purchase a Country

The Democrat-dominated Senate passed its version of healthcare legislation over this last weekend, with Democrat Ben Nelson of Nebraska providing the 60th "yes" vote. An Associated Press story provides samples of earmarks ("pork") Senators were given for their votes:

* Nelson was able to exempt Nebraska from having to bear any of the added Medicaid expenses the legislation imposes on states. (This maneuver keeps the federal cost of the legislation down by passing it on to the states. Taxpayers still foot the bill.) This means that all taxpayers pay for Nelson's vote. Vermont (represented by Democrat Senator Patrick Leahy and Independent Bernie Sanders) and Massachusetts (represented by Democrats John Kerry and Paul G. Kirk,) received similar special "aid" from the legislation.

* Senator Max Baucus (D-Montana,) chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, had language inserted that provided 2,900 citizens of a small Montana town "special" access to Medicare.

* Senator Mary Landrieu (D-Louisiana) negotiated $100 million in extra aid to Louisiana in exchange for her vote.

* Senator Bill Nelson (D-Florida) tailored a special provision that grandfathered in hundreds of thousands of Florida seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage who would have otherwise lost coverage.

* Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticutt) engineered $100 million for a hospital that's being built by the University of Connecticutt.

Other Democrat special interest groups received special consideration.

As Otto von Bismarck said, "Laws are like sausages. It is better not to see them being made." Fifty-eight Democrats and two Independents sold the American healthcare system -- and the lives of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren -- for the political equivalent of a blue-light special.

Our Version of M. Moore

Journalist, documentarian and film maker Phelim McAleer has suddenly become a thorn in the global warming alarmists' side. And they're not handling it well. In fact, they're resorting to physical force to silence him.



And here's what "the debate is over" means to Al Gore.



This whole climate change conference in Copenhagen has proven very embarrassing for Gore. Go, Karma!

Karma Kicks Gore in the Rear

"Inconvenient truth for Al Gore as his North Pole sums don't add up" blared the headline on a (UK) Times Online news article. Gore finally got called down on one of his bogus claims -- by the scientist whose research he was referencing.

From the article: "Mr Gore, speaking at the Copenhagen climate change summit, stated the latest research showed that the Arctic could be completely ice-free in five years.

In his speech, Mr Gore told the conference: “These figures are fresh. Some of the models suggest to Dr [Wieslav] Maslowski that there is a 75 per cent chance that the entire north polar ice cap, during the summer months, could be completely ice-free within five to seven years.”

However, the climatologist whose work Mr Gore was relying upon dropped the former Vice-President in the water with an icy blast.

“It’s unclear to me how this figure was arrived at,” Dr Maslowski said. “I would never try to estimate likelihood at anything as exact as this.”

Mr Gore’s office later admitted that the 75 per cent figure was one used by Dr Maslowksi as a “ballpark figure” several years ago in a conversation with Mr Gore."

Just How Serious Is Climate Change?

Well, you could say "it depends."

This video by Americans for Prosperity shows what attendees at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen are doing to save the planet from manmade global warmng.

Obama's Ideas on Economics

There has never been a secret about Barack Obama's economic philosophy and intended policies. The following is gleaned from a column by Austin Hill.

Before being elected president, Obama campaigned on, and promised

- to raise taxes on oil companies to get even with them for their so-called “windfall profits;”
- to “reign in” executive salaries;
- to raise the capital gains tax rate;
- to “crack down” on both the insurance, and pharmaceutical industries;
- to raise income tax rates on high-income earners
- to make both healthcare, and a college education, “universal.”

Since becoming President, Barack Obama has,

- alleged that doctors sometimes perform unnecessary procedures merely for the sake of enhancing their salaries;
- sought greater ability for his administration to seize private banks;
- engaged in a public campaign of maligning the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ;
- forced Chrysler into a bankruptcy that defied both bankruptcy law and accounting rules. (Discussed earlier here and here);
- ordered his “Executive Compensation Czar” to mandate anywhere from 50 to 90% salary cuts for executives of bailout-receiving companies

Obama has now been in office nearly a year. His policies (some of which he began influencing before taking office) have had time to begin taking effect. Regardless of what the previous administration might have gotten him into, he is the President, with a Democrat Congress to support and implement his policies.

Recently, the unemployment rate "fell" to 10%. (From 10.2%, it might be noted; economists say the change is statistically neglible. The unemplyment rate when Obama took office was 7.2%) Gold is at an all-time high against the dollar, indicating that inflation may be rearing its ugly head.

Draw your own conclusions. Do Obama's policies appear as though they are designed to inspire confidence in the economy? If you were a business owner, would you borrow money to expand your business, with hopes of increasing your income?

Unfortunately, Obama's policies may be effectively accomplishing the goals of his underlying philosophy -- an increased dependence on, and the resulting increase in the power of, the federal government.

Other People Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XIX

George Will, in his latest column regarding Obama and Afghanistan:

"Obama's second new Afghanistan policy in less than nine months strikingly resembles his predecessor's plan for Iraq, which was: As Iraq's security forces stand up, U.S. forces will stand down."





(Note: yes, I realize I'm hitting the OPSSS,T pretty hard lately. What can I say? More other people are saying smart things.)

Other People Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XVIII

In the wake of the revelations of fraud and mafia-like machinations by scientists selling the idea of manmade global warming, Dr. Ian Pilmer had a pithy observation in a UK news story about him:

“If you have to argue your science by using fraud, your science is not valid.”

Other People Say Smart Stuff, Too - Part XVII

From a recent column by economist Thomas Sowell:

Since this is an era when many people are concerned about "fairness" and "social justice," what is your "fair share" of what someone else has worked for?

Obama's Untold Stories

According to a recent article in Politico, politicians live and die by storylines. Here are seven storylines that Obama and his team don't want the public to absorb:

1. Obama thinks he's playing with Monopoly money.
2. Obama, with his background in academia, has no connection with real people.
3. Obama believes in (and uses) Chicago-style political thuggery.
4. Obama has no real moral courage.
5. Obama sees America as another pleasant country on the U.N. roll call, somewhere between Albania and Zimbabwe.
6. Obama has no more political power -- and possibly less -- than Nancy Pelosi.
7. Obama is in love with the man in the mirror.

Healthcare and the States

A quick update to my post on November 24 regarding Democrat healthcare reform legislation. According to the latest column.by Dick Morris, the extra cost that will be incurred by Texans -- read "higher taxes required so that Democrat can claim a lower cost for their legislation" -- is estimated to be $2.8 billion. Don't fool yourself into believing that a state income tax is not on the horizon if this happens.

How does it feel knowing that we Texans will pay nearly three billion dollars so that Democrats can pay back their political special interest groups?

Global Warming Fraud Exposed

Okay, I wanted to let this story mature a bit before I commented on it. In a nutshell: a hacker obtained e-mails and other documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit – a world-renowned climate change research center.

The unguarded e-mails suggest a couple of things. First, that global warming alarmist scientists around the world manipulated data to support their contention that mankind is responsible for global warming which result in global disaster. One e-mail refers to a “trick” being employed to massage temperature statistics to “hide the decline” (in global temperature.)

Other documents indicate a conspiracy to intimidate and/or blackmail editors at science journals into refusing to publish articles from global warming skeptics. The point that skeptics are "not published enough" in scientific journals has been one of the main arguments made by global warming alarmists. One excerpt:

“This was the danger of always criticising the skeptics for not publishing in the “peer-reviewed literature”. Obviously, they found a solution to that–take over a journal! So what do we do about this? I think we have to stop considering “Climate Research” as a legitimate peer-reviewed journal. Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal. We would also need to consider what we tell or request of our more reasonable colleagues who currently sit on the editorial board…What do others think?”

“I will be emailing the journal to tell them I’m having nothing more to do with it until they rid themselves of this troublesome editor.”“It results from this journal having a number of editors. The responsible one for this is a well-known skeptic in NZ. He has let a few papers through by Michaels and Gray in the past. I’ve had words with Hans von Storch about this, but got nowhere. Another thing to discuss in Nice !”

One article asks if this is "the final nail in the coffin of Anthropogenic Global Warming." Don't count on it. Once politicians get a whiff of a chance to control and tax citizens, it's hard to get them to face reason. What should be an earthquake in the scientific world will likely not get much play in the mainstream media.

More Democrat Deception

In a recent column, Dick Morris discusses healthcare legislation.

The Democrat healthcare legislation in both the House and Senate have been promised to us as providing healthcare to more people "without raising your (middle class) taxes." (Supposedly rich people are footing the bill.) Everything about this legislation smells to high heaven, but Democrats are using a couple of tricks to fool the public.

One trick they are using is to transfer part of the cost to states. Both the House and the Senate bills require that states cover a larger percentage of their people under Medicaid. The House bill requires states to give Medicaid to those whose incomes are less than 150 percent of the poverty level; the Senate version is 125 percent. For most states, this means covering more people.

California, for example, which only covers families earning up to 100 percent of the poverty level, would have to increase its Medicaid spending on poor people by 50 percent under the House version. The federal legislation does not provide funds to cover the entire increase, so what will states have to do to pay for the shortfall? Increase taxes. Washington DC politicians will get the credit for something state governors have to pay the political price for.

The other trick Democrats are using is to push actual implementation of the healthcare legislation back to 2013 (2014 in the Harry Reid Senate version.) Of course, this lets Obama run for reelection before the actual effects of the legislation are felt. More important than that, however, is the fact that taxes to pay for the healthcare will be increased right away.

This trick dilutes the "ten year cost" of the legislation which the Congressional Budget Office uses to calculate a bill's budget impact. If you get money for four years without any expenses, it makes any plan look pretty good, even if the way Democrats are explaining the plan is inaccurate. So any numbers we are told regarding the "budget neutralness" of the legislation are based on deception.
John McCain compared it to buying a house and making mortgage payments for four years before you can move in.

As alarmists do with global warming propaganda, Democrats are deceiving the public. That deception should be the topic of debate before anyone ever considers the legislation.

The Wacky Media

The Associated Press ran a story about a loophole in the huge tax increases on tobacco that Congress passed last spring. Apparently, the tax on "roll your own" tobacco was increased from $1.10 to $24.78 a pound. The loophole is that pipe tobacco, similar in texture and consistency, was spared the monster increase, taxed at a mere $2.83 a pound. Tobacco companies, being both alert and wily, pulled the "roll your own" tobacco off the shelves, repackaged it as "pipe tobacco" and put it back on the shelves, where smokers could buy it without the onerous tax.

Here's where the AP threw me: "Tobacco companies say they're just trying to find a legal way to stay afloat after being saddled with an enormous tax increase. But both the Obama administration and some in Congress say they'll try to come up with a distinction between the tobacco types, closing a loophole that could cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars a year."

That last phrase is odd. The loophole is actually saving taxpayers (i.e., smokers) hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They don't have to pay an exorbitant price (tax) for tobacco. The only entity that it's "costing" money is the government and, by extension, politicians. What's "costing" taxpayers is those same politicians spending money like drunken sailors. Unfortunately, the AP doesn't approach subjects with that outlook.

Taking America Down

It's pretty clear from his actions while in office that Barack Obama believes that America got too big for its britches while George Bush was in office. If we consider the hypothesis that his goal is to take America down a notch -- in all possible ways -- then his continued apologies for America's actions, his weakening of our intelligence network, his weakening of the missile shield in eastern Europe and his latest faux pas, bowing to the emperor of Japan, all make sense. His efforts to lower America's reputation and standing in the world are consistent with the idea that Barack Obama, along with a good many other Liberals in the Democrat Party, want America to become subservient to international powers.

Here is Obama's behavior compared with that of other world leaders:

Interesting Thoughts

A twofer:

In his column "Fox Fever -- The Latest Pandemic" Larry Elder gives a bit of perspective on the supposed Conservative bias at Fox News.

In her column "Election 2009: Change I Can Believe In!" Ann Coulter makes a pithy observation: "...Conservatives are more popular than Republicans. By contrast, Liberals are less popular than Democrats. When Conservatives take control of the Republican Party, Republicans win. When Liberals take control of the Democratic Party, Democrats end up out of power for eight to 12 years."