Monday Book Pick: Kildar
Kildar by John Ringo
The second book in the Ghost series. The story of how a wayward, Tango killing, ex-SEAL, buys a valley in Georgia (the country, not the state) and stumbles on a lost tribe of dedicated warriors who farm between battles.
The Wisdom of Dr. Pournelle
I’ve posted very insightful comments by Dr. Jerry Pournelle before.
Here are couple more. First on is on the economy.
“Unemployment is over 10%. It wasn’t supposed to get that high. TARP was supposed to fix that. . . . If the health care bill passes, it will fundamentally convert these United States into a different kind of popular democracy, which generally means rule by a unionized bureaucracy organized to vote. Once that much of the economy is run by government, economic recovery as many hope for will simply be impossible. Permanent unemployment at 7% or so; median income perhaps 10% higher than it is now, but not much higher; and a long period of stagflation. Reluctance to take on new employees, and great incentive to export jobs. Is this a picture of the future? We will have to see, as Congress debates the health care and carbon tax bills. . . . With Detroit a ruin and manufacturing industries on the ropes, small business is the only possible engine of recovery from what they don’t call a Depression; so the Congress is going to add an 8% tax on employing people. We already have the longest period of increasing unemployment since the Great Depression; I presume we are going for a really big record setting period of increasing unemployment. . . . The incentives are now to the job black market — hire illegal immigrants who don’t have to have health insurance — or to export the job if that can possibly be done.”
Next up this on target observation about Health Care and politics.
“I would have thought that the Obama administration is at least as responsible for the US response to the Swine Flu problem as the Bush administration ever was for the New Orleans response to Katrina, but the media are not reporting it that way. I wonder how those who stood in long lines for hours only to find that there is no vaccine feel about the government’s coming takeover of the entire health care system? Will the new health care system work more smoothly than does, say, FEMA? Is there any reason to think so?”
Update: Let’s not forget Dr. Pournelle’s Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy
Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.
Friday B-Movie Pick: The Foot Fist Way
Oh my! I studied Tae Kwon Do back in the 70’s and 80’s and there is a lot more truth to this film than I am comfortable thinking about. It is very funny in spots and in the end, a story of a man finding his center and confidence in who he is, and being able to pass that message on to others.
A key reason why the same sex marriage vote failed in Maine
A vote on the legality of same sex marriage in Maine overturned the law passed by the legislature on same sex marriage. So, once again marriage in Maine is legally only between a man and a woman.
Every time this issue comes up for a vote before the people, heterosexual marriage is affirmed and same sex marriage is voted down. Even in very “liberal” states such as California. When this issues was up for a vote in Oregon, a fairly liberal state in 2004, the ballot issue banning same sex marriage passed by more votes that George W. Bush received. Hmmm….could it be that some good “liberal” democrats don’t support same sex marriage? Could it be that it isn’t just “far right social conservative religious bigots” that are voting against same sex marriage?
Here is a dirty little secret that many good liberals either don’t know or won’t admit. There are several traditional core democrat constituent groups that are more than just a little bit “social conservative” and are strongly opposed to same sex marriage. These constituent groups include Roman Catholics, the elderly and blacks.
The left won’t address this issue in their own ranks. Instead, they will engage in hate speech and mean spirited attacks against their traditional “Emmanuel Goldsteins.”
If the proponents of same sex marriage were really and truly serious about their cause, they would first start to address their opponents in their own liberal house hold and then reach out to those are in agreement with their cause, like the Libertarians.
A loss for the democrats does not equal a win for the GOP
The democrats and their tame pets in the media (MSNBC & CNN are pushing the DNC talking points early and often) are spinning like tops on crack trying to downplay just how bad last night’s elections were for the democrats and our Dear Leader.
Virginia went big for BHO one year ago and was considered a solid blue state. After one year of of total democrat control over the executive and legislative branches, not only did the democrat loose his election bid, so did the Lt. Governor and the Attorney General, both democrats, to Republicans.
Pennsylvania was also a state that went for our Dear Leader a year ago, and has turned. Statewide elections went predominantly to Republicans.
Then there is New Jersey. The state that is challenging Chicago for the title of capital of political corruption and a solid democrat state. Despite multiple visits by Obama and Joey Biden to support their good friend, the sitting democrat governor, the Republican won. What is even cooler is that Gov. Elect Christie made his chops by fighting corruption in New Jersey.
These victories were not so much the result of the message of the GOP as they were the actions of the DNC and our Dear Leader. The swarms of new democrat voters who were “inspired” by BHO a year ago stayed home, and centrist voters who are not happy with the direction the country is heading in came out to vote instead.
The one election everyone had their eye on that the GOP lost was the one the GOP was the most involved in. The infamous NY23 election. As NPR’s Mara Liasson pointed out, there was no primary election. The state GOP selected a candidate that was more in line with the party platform of the DNC that the democrat candidate did! When fiscal conservatives, the core base of the GOP, objected and put forth a candidate from the Conservative party. What did the NYS GOP do when the Conservative candidate do when the Conservative candidate proved to be more popular than their liberal choice? They pulled her from the race, but left her name on the ballot, and then supported the democrat in a fit of ‘salted earth’ tactics.
The democrat, who was to the right of the Republican candidate, ended up winning over the Conservative candidate with a margin of victory that was smaller than the number of votes the Republican received.
So, in the NY23 election, the Republican party worked to make sure the democrat candidate won.
Not a stirring recommendation for the GOP.
Are you feeling “stimulated?”
It seems that most Americans are feeling screwed, good and hard, rather than stimulated by the democrats‘ porkulus package.
For a few prime examples of just how the American tax payer is getting screwed, let’s look at some of the highlights of a list the Washington Examiner put together.
– $430,000 to repair a bridge in Iowa County, Wis., that carries 10 or fewer cars per day.
– $800,000 for the John Murtha Airport in Johnstown, Pa., serving about 20 passengers per day, to build a backup runway.
– $219,000 for Syracuse University to study the sex lives of freshmen women.
– $2.5 million in stimulus checks sent to the deceased.
– $6 million for a snow-making facility in Duluth, Minn.
– $380,000 to spay and neuter pets in Wichita, Kan.
– $300 apiece for thousands of signs at road construction sites across the country announcing that the projects are funded by stimulus money.
– $1 million to study the health effects of environmentally friendly public housing on 300 people in Chicago.
Snow making in Minnesota? $300 a pop for a sign? I wonder how many bids were collected that lovely bit of pork?
$219,000 to study the sex lives of first year college girls? What does a truck load of beer, another of wine coolers and a couple of small video cameras cost?
Here is the reality of the Porkulus that our Dear Leader and the democrats forced on American people, 2.7 million jobs lost and hundreds of thousands more being lost each month. Addressing this problem clearly isn’t a priority for the White House or the democrat leadership in congress.
President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.
The Georgia nonprofit’s inflated job count is among persisting errors in the government’s latest effort to measure the effect of the $787 billion stimulus plan despite White House promises last week that the new data would undergo an “extensive review” to root out errors discovered in an earlier report.
About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren’t saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press.
Monday Book Pick: She Murdered me with Science
Filed under: Monday Book Pick, Pulp, Science Fiction
She Murdered Me with Science by David Boop
A delightful mix of hard boiled dective story and good old fashioned pulp science story, with a dash of Jazz thrown in for flavor.
Ya, ya. I know it’s Tuesday. I’ve been busy.
Translating ObamaSpeak Park 4
The latest in a public service, translating the words of our Dear Leader and his cronies into standard English.
When a democrat uses the term “deficit neutral”, that translates into English as “your taxes are going to get raised through the roof!“
Obama’s ‘Calculator Abuse’
According to ABC News’ Jack Tapper, Jared Bernstein, chief economist and senior economic advisor to the vice president, used the term “Calculator Abuse” when a reporter did some basic arithmetic the the federal government’s own numbers. The government’s own numbers show what the reporter pointed out, $160 billion spent divided by 1 million jobs “created or saved” means that each of those jobs “created or saved” cost the US taxpayer $160,000 per job. Once again, Team Lightbringer responded with a classic defense, “Who are you going to believe? Me or that lying calculator?”
As we know know, the term “jobs created or saved” is a scam created by our Dear Leader to hide the truth from the American People. It has become so obvious that even CBS “News” has been forced to report on it.
Ace goes into much more detail on how the Obama administration knew it was a farce from day one and were much more concerned with creating the illusion of economic growth where there is none.
When the WH demanded that those who received Spendulus money “report” back on how many jobs were “saved or created,” they insisted upon a nonsensical rule: If a single dollar of Spendulus was spent on an employee’s salary, whether that employee was a new employee or an old one, that gets counted as a job “saved or created.” If he’s a new employee, that job was created. If he’s an existing employee, that job was saved.
For $1.
Yes, $1. Because the nonsensical rules the White House told these people to count “saved or created” jobs by simply stated: If any employee’s salary is paid, in whole or in part (any part!), count that as a job “saved or created” by the spending.
And then report that number back to us.
Note that the White House’s rules do not seek to discover which jobs really were “saved or created.”
The harsh reality of the current economy, the worst since Jimmy Carter, and its effects on the average American just doesn’t matter to our Dear Leader.
Michelle Malkin has more details on the “jobs created and saved” scam.
President Barack Obama’s economic recovery program saved 935 jobs at the Southwest Georgia Community Action Council, an impressive success story for the stimulus plan. Trouble is, only 508 people work there.
The Georgia nonprofit’s inflated job count is among persisting errors in the government’s latest effort to measure the effect of the $787 billion stimulus plan despite White House promises last week that the new data would undergo an “extensive review” to root out errors discovered in an earlier report.
About two-thirds of the 14,506 jobs claimed to be saved under one federal office, the Administration for Children and Families at Health and Human Services, actually weren’t saved at all, according to a review of the latest data by The Associated Press.
Update: Even the way far left leaning Boston Globe has noticed that the White House numbers have no connection of reality. It is interesting to listen to the Globe reporter try to spin this White House scam as a “mistake.” There is no mistake. Team Lightbringer knew that the porkulus wouldn’t actually create any actual jobs, so they came up with “rules” that would make it appear that some actual benefit was was created by that massive spending bill.
Halloween Friday B-Movie Triple Play Day!
Time to wrap up the Halloween series with a triple play of classics.
Young Frankenstein, Mel Brooks and Gene Wilder wrote this amazingly funny movie. One of the comedy films of all time, and filmed in glorious Black and White with a lot of the original lab props from the first Frankenstein film.
Innocent Blood, vampires, mobsters, cops, comedy and casual nudity from Anne Parillaud. There is a lot to like in this film.
An American Werewolf in London, a lighthearted look of what can go wrong when you don’t stay on the road and don’t “ware the moon.” Just remember Jack, he didn’t mean to call you meatloaf. Big bonus: Jenny Agutter!