Thursday, July 26, 2012

A 'Twilight Zone-like' paradox....

There where two interesting headlines on Drudge Report today.  The first:


Rahm welcomes help from Farrakahn, ignores anti-Semitic remarks [sic]










For the last two Mondays, black men in dress suits and bow ties fanned out across violence-plagued Chicago neighborhoods — first Auburn-Gresham, then South Shore — to form a human wall of protection against any sudden outbreak of gunfire.
The army of men, know as the Fruit of Islam, were led by Farrakhan, who ordered the show of force in response to last month’s brutal murder of seven-year-old Heaven Sutton. 
Emanuel’s decision to steer clear of Farrakhan’s history of anti-Semitic remarks is a far cry from the 1994 controversy that followed former Mayor Richard M. Daley’s private meeting with Farrkakhan. [sic]
During the meeting, Daley prodded Farrakhan to work out his differences with Jewish leaders in talks arranged by the Commission on Human Relations. Daley even hinted that if those conversations did not take place, the Nation of Islam would have trouble winning the city approval needed for its planned development along the 79th Street commercial strip. (emphasis added) 
So, if I understand correctly the Nation of Islam, the same Nation of Islam whose leader is know for his anti-Semitic rhetoric is being allowed to patrol the streets of Chicago in the stead of the Chicago Police Department.  


Aside from the internal paradox of a Jewish mayor allowing the Army of the Nation of Islam to patrol city streets, there is this little gem...


The Nation of Islam did win city approval for its planned development along the 79th street commercial strip.


Which leads to the next headline:



Emanuel goes after Chick-fil-A for boss’ anti-gay views









On Wednesday, the tag team of Emanuel and Moreno joined the chorus, citing Cathy’s anti-gay views. The only question is whether they have a legal leg to stand on.
“Absolutely not,” said former Ald. William Banks (36th), the longtime chairman of the City Council’s Zoning Committee who presided over a massive re-write of the city’s 1957 zoning ordinance.
“Any alderman can hold a development issue for virtually any purpose. But if he’s doing it for the wrong reasons — if he’s citing a gay rights issue — there’s nothing illegal about that.” 
Moreno said he has an ace in his back pocket if he runs into legal trouble: traffic and congestion issues caused by the store that have been the subject of behind-the-scenes negotiations for the last nine months.


Hmmmm.... The Nation of Islam, a know group of anti-Semitic racists, can be approved for commercial development and even patrol the streets of Chicago instead of the Chicago Police Department, but Chick-fil-A cannot open a restaurant in Chicago because they support traditional family values.


WTF?  (Winning the Future?)


Dat ain't right....





Friday, July 13, 2012

More Proof of Obama's Economic Ignorance...

You really can't make this stuff up....

Obama: Romney not necessarily qualifies to think about "economy as a whole"

CBS THIS MORNING
July 13, 2012 7:05 AM


Here is the quote that proves once and for all that Obama is the least qualified person to even discuss the economy, much less try to lead it:


"When some people question why I would challenge his Bain record, the point I've made there in the past is, if you're a head of a large private equity firm or hedge fund, your job is to make money. It's not to create jobs. It's not even to create a successful business - it's to make sure that you're maximizing returns for your investor. Now that's appropriate. That's part of the American way. That's part of the system. But that doesn't necessarily make you qualified to think about the economy as a whole, because as president, my job is to think about the workers. My job is to think about communities, where jobs have been outsourced.  [Emphasis added]
Yes, the President of the United States of America believes that:

  1. A by-product of successful businesses is not jobs, but profit.
  2. He doesn't need to think about creating a positive business climate, he needs to creates jobs.
Let's look at these statements:


 It's not to create jobs. It's not even to create a successful business - it's to make sure that you're maximizing returns for your investor. 


So your goal as a private equity firm is not to create a successful business?  While I agree, in principle, that a PE firm's main goal is to make a profit, I think BHO believes they make money by buying companies, closing them and selling their assets.  Certainly, Bain did not do this.  They bought companies and turned them around [or in some cases, funded start-ups] and eventually sold them for huge profits.  


BHO clearly does not understand that successful companies hire employees (or in his Marxist terminolgy "workers").  BHO has never run a business.  Aside from Valerie Jarrett, who parlayed her position as Commissioner of the Department of Planning and Development under the Daley administration into the CEO of The Habitat Company [to the tune of $800,000 per year) none of his close advisers have had a job in the private sector, much less had to turn a profit.  


... my job is to think about the workers.


Really?  I thought his job, at least as outlined in the constitution was to be the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces and to "preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."  He doesn't seem to understand how his policies have business leaders frozen in their tracks.  It is his policies that are setting the foundation of this economy.  History will show that under BHO, the government intrusion into the affairs of business through the regulatory agencies (EPA, OSHA, DOT, EEOC, HHS, etc...), the implementation of the largest tax increase in the history of the world with the Obamatax, and his continued bashing of the free enterprise system is undermining the U.S. economy.  














Thursday, July 12, 2012

He's Baaaack...

Alan Grayson for Congress (?)



This Alan Grayson?



Yes, that Alan Grayson....



According to ActBlue.com, a Democrat fundraising website and opensecrets.org, he's raking in the money....


Of course, he is getting big time backers.  Like Anthony Weiner:





"One fry short of a happy meal" response:





I doubt he was the dumbest man in congress, but he is certainly the dumbest man in this race:





Alan is clearly in denial...





The truth (mostly):


Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Big Government Logic............


Vilsack sets aid for livestock producers, but holds firm on ethanol

By Rita Jane Gabbett on 7/11/2012

Meatingplace.com

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack announced programs to aid farmers and ranchers hit by this year’s drought and urged Congress to work faster on the farm bill to free more disaster aid tools, but he held firm on the need to continue making corn-based ethanol. 
Asked by Meatingplace on a conference call if USDA would support easing the Renewable Fuel Standard if the corn crop continues to deteriorate, Vilsack said, “We are not at that point. Certainly the renewable fuels program is an extraordinarily important aspect of our efforts to rebuild and revitalize the rural economy. The reality is, we are still looking at the third largest corn crop on record and we are still looking at a very large soybean crop … . So, at this point, we have no plan to adjust the Renewable Fuels Standard.”
USDA earlier today cut its corn crop estimate by 1.8 billion bushels to 12.97 billion bushels and lifted its average farm price forecast for corn by $1.40 per bushel at the top end to a range of $5.40 to $6.40. Corn futures for July delivery traded around $7.34 per bushel at midday on the Chicago Board of Trade. ....
 [Emphasis added ]
First, I didn't know that the renewable fuel program was designed to "rebuild & revitalize the rural economy".  I thought we needed to use ethanol for all the reasons the greenies have said, "Lower our dependence on foreign oil, lower green house gases, etc...."


But, my point in posting this is to point out that the USDA on one hand reduces the corn crop estimate by 1.8 billion bushels and on the other hand the USDA says they are not going to reduce the Renewable Fuels Standard.  Which means there will be 1.8 Billion fewer bushels of corn available for our food supply.  The "Smartest People in the Room" at the Department of Agriculture are choosing to feed our cars rather than feed our people  with corn.  


Which leads to the obvious question, "Why don't we pump actual oil from the ground for our cars and eat the corn?"

A Short History of Congress's Power to Tax


A Short History of Congress's Power to Tax

The Supreme Court has long distinguished the regulatory from the taxing power.

By PAUL MORENO

I find it amazing that until the early 1900's (nearly half the country's history) there were no federal taxes aside from tariff's on foreign goods.  It's astonishing that even until the 1930's there were relatively few federal taxes.  It seem that it was the left's 20th century hero (not to be confused with BHO, the left's 21st century hero), FDR was the one who got the ball rolling.  I suppose that should come as no big surprise.  Another great read is, The Forgotten Man, by Amity Shlaes

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

What's wrong with Democrats?

Example #1:




Typical Democrat thinking.  No accountability, just put in your time and you'll be rewarded.  It sounds like a union...

The New Media Model

How does a Podunk like me get to interact with people so much smarter than myself?


Easy, you email them.

So last night I was watching Hannity interview Dick Morris.  As per usual, Morris ignored Hannity's final question and commandeered his last minute on the show to highlight something, he wrote about in his book, "Screwed".  He mentioned how Hillary Clinton is about to sign an Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on July 27th, 2012 and how it will effect our 2nd amendment rights here in the U.S.  

I got a little spooked about my right to bear arms, so I Google 'Arms Trade Treaty' and I see that The Heritage Foundation has a released a background report called The  U.N. Arms Trade Treaty's Criteria for the Transfer Pose Problems for the U.S. the same day Dick Morris is talking about it.  So Dick's comments must have some validity, right?

I read the report and did not see any mention of the 2nd Amendment issues Dick Morris discussed.  So, I did what any curious citizen would do.  I emailed the author, Ted R. Bromund, Ph.D.  I mean, he is only a Senior Research Fellow in Anglo-American Relations with The Margret Thatcher Center for Freedom, a Heritage Department.

I sent the following (cryptic) message at 9:28 PM EDT, July 9, 2012:

Dr. Bromund, 
I saw Dick Morris state on Hannity tonight, July 9, 2012, that U.N. Arms Trade Treaty could be used as a “back door gun regulation”.  
I did not reach that conclusion when I read your report. 
Do you have an opinion?  Back door gun regulation or not?
I figured I would get the obligatory, "We have received your correspondence and will get back to you shortly" auto-response.  

Well, much to my surprise, at 9:37 AM EDT, July 10, 2012, I received the following:

Dear Mr. Xxxxxx, 
Thanks for your note. I'm answering from my personal account, as I'm at the UN ATT conference now and Blackberry is a tedious way to type a reply. 
I've addressed this question in a number of pieces: 
1. The U.N. Arms Trade Treaty’s Criteria for Transfers Pose Problems for the U.S.2. http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/12/effects-of-the-un-arms-trade-treaty-on-the-us 
And will be writing a blog about it later today (if UN work allows). 
In short, I would say that my view is that the foreign policy reason for opposing the ATT are more salient than those related to the 2nd Amendment. But there are reasons to be concerned about the treaty's domestic impact. That is sometimes framed as a sort of 'black helicopter' issue, which is ridiculous. The much more realistic concern is 'death by a thousand cuts': that the ATT will require or facilitate administrative restrictions, or be used as a legal source by judges of a transnationalist bent, in ways that will restrict the effective use of 2nd Amendment rights, without being 'gun confiscation.'
I didn't see Dick Morris's appearance, but I hear [sic] about it.  In my view, exaggerated concern about the domestic effects of the ATT is self-defeating, in that it is too easily dismissed as silly, and because it detracts from the foreign policy issues.
 Best, Dr. Bromund
I have to say, I LOVE technology.  The internet is the great equalizer.  Just as the printing press contributed to to England's hold over the colonies, so will the internet free us from the political class.

Here I am writing to one of the foremost experts in International Security Studies from the comfort of my living room and I get an authoritative answer some 12 hrs later.  Amazing.

In addition, I would say you should go sign the petition on Dick Morris' website, as the ATT is a horrible deal for the U.S., but one would expect that when our current regime believes it is 'managing the decline of the U.S.", not building up the U.S. as has been our policy for most of the last 236 years.


How to ensure permanent 8-9% unemployment...


The following is from:


If one wanted to ensure permanent 8 percent to 9 percent unemployment, one might try the following:
1. Run up serial $1 trillion deficits
2. Add $5 trillion to the national debt in three and a half years
3. Impose a 2,400-page, trillion-dollar new federal takeover of health care, with layers of new taxation, much of it falling on the middle class and employers, even as favored concerns are given mass exemptions.
4. Scare employers with constant us/them class warfare rhetoric about a demonized one-percenter class and its undeserved profits; constantly talk about raising new taxes and imposing regulations, ensuring uncertainty and convincing employers of unpredictability in regulation and taxes. You cannot convince a country to go into permanent near-recession, but President Obama is doing his best to try.
5. Appoint a bipartisan committee to study the fiscal crisis and then neglect all its recommendations.
6. Subsidize failed green companies, while denigrating successful gas and oil concerns, as well as putting rich oil-and-gas federal leases off limits.
7. Vastly increase unemployment insurance, disability, and food-stamp constituencies, while promising all sorts of mortgage, credit-card, and student-loan bailouts.
8. Borrow hundreds of billions for stimulus programs that are not shovel ready, but are rather aimed to bail out state budgets, pensions, and unions.
9. Federalize elements of non-profitable private companies, while threatening to shut down profitable plants for supposed union or environmental incorrect behavior.
10. Do not address changing the above policies, but rather blame others for such self-induced stagnation.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

Why are the Chinese building ghost towns in foreign countries?

There's been a lot written about ghost towns in China. 
Now, state-owned China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC) has built a town in Angola. And it's fairly empty.
Just outside Angola's capital city of Luanda is Nova Cidade de Kilamba a residential development of 750 eight-story apartment buildings, a dozen schools, and more than 100 retail units, reports the BBC's Louise Redvers.

Here is the story
Here are the pictures.

Weird.  Suspicious.  Evil?