Obama regime makes another move against States Rights
Regardless of your opinion of the ethics of the death penalty, it has alway been seen as a power legally exercised by the individual states. Some states have it, other don’t, but it is up to each state to decide.
Not so under the Obama regime. Our Dear Leader‘s “Justice” department has instructed the DEA to seize state government’s supply of sodium thiopental. That is part of a three drug cocktail typically used in lethal injection executions. By having the DEA seize this drug using rather sketch “concerns” about the way the drug was imported, which interestingly enough, the DEA/Justice department will no longer discuss.
If our Dear Leader doesn’t like the fact that some states still carry out the death penalty, he should have the guts to come out and say it, rather than hiding behind DEA raids where the agency refuses to discuss the reasons behind the agency seizing the property of state governments.
Quote of the Day
Filed under: economy, energy, Our Dear Leader, Politics, Taxes
“…that when it comes to some Democrats and particularly the President, “high gas prices are not an unintended consequence of their policies: it is the means by which they will accomplish their goal.” Their goal is to raise the price of gasoline so that you reduce your consumption of it.”
Bonus quote from the same article:
“…high gas prices are an economy killer, so even if there is some modest increase in tax income from that tax hike in general, the drag on the economy will mean reduced taxes in other areas. Again, they are depending on you being too stupid to see through all of this.”
Monday Book Pick: Rogue Warrior
Rogue Warrior by Richard Marcinko
Given that the Navy anti-terrorism group, which consists of SEAL Team Members and was originally called SEAL Team Six, I’m repeating the book pick from 12/29/08
This is the autobiography of the founder of SEAL Team Six, the Navy’s anti-terrorist unit.
Written in prison to pay off his legal fees. Considering one of his jobs in the Navy was to piss off Admirals, hardly surprising.
I still say the Admirals that put there should be brought up on charges. He is exactly the kind of psycho SOB (and I mean that in a good way) that you want doing the jobs he did.
The Rules of Building, Making and generally mucking about…
I just though this was really, really cool.
Keynes vs. Hayek: Round 2
Ayn Rand Meets Charles Schultz
Quote of the Day
“Should I tell you the most damning thing I ever heard about the Soviet block? Just before the wheel finally came off in East Germany you couldn’t get a shredder for love nor money in West Germany. The STASI were shredding at a rate to keep all Europe in hamster bedding till 2050 and true socialism couldn’t keep up with the demand for shredders so they had to buy them from the West.”
— Nick M.
Quote of the Day
We have an election coming up. We also have $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf bread coming up. I do not expect the real unemployment rate to fall, although there will be frantic attempts to make it look lower, largely through statistical manipulations based on the definition of unemployment: if you’re not looking for work, you aren’t unemployed even if you have no job and never again expect to find one. As more give up looking, the unemployment rate goes down. And since the unions do not intend to lower their wages and perks, and the states are out of money, there will be “furloughs” among public employees including teachers. You can manipulate those numbers so the “furloughed” are not unemployed. It promises to be an interesting summer, but it will end with $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf bread. Look for the price of a can of beans to get higher. Look for the price of Top Ramen to rise…
This will continue so long as the current economic and foreign policies continue.
Happy Lenin’s birthday (a.k.a “Earth Day”)
Yup, it’s time for the annual Lenin’s Birthday post.
Yup, “Earth Day” is on Lenin’s Birthday. Not a coincidence, given that the “founder” of Earth Day was much more a “Watermelon” than an actual environmentalist.
Watermelon: Thin layer of green of the outside, red to the core.
The celebrations start with a round up of predictions from the very first “Earth Day” back in 1970.
“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — George Wald, Harvard Biologist
“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day
“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University
“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” — Life Magazine, January 1970
“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist
Ok, Ehrlich was sorta right on this, if you restrict his predictions to modern Communist China, where they are showing the typical communist/socialist contempt for the environment.
“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
Now we get to my personal favorite, although probably not Al Gore‘s…
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist
It wouldn’t be Lenin’s Birthday with out this clip of the late George Carlin discussing “Saving the Planet.”
Quote of the Day: Lenin’s Birthday Edition
Environmental policy is not driven by tree-hugging activists, earnest liberal bloggers, or ecologically minded citizens. Instead, it flows from the lobbyists and executives of well-connected multinational corporations and built-for-subsidy startups that see profit in the loan guarantees, handouts, mandates, and tax credits Congress creates in the name of saving the planet.