Socailism in America, some appear to want it. Really.

Okay, I have to admin that I find this shocking:

Really? Have we failed our founders so miserably? Have we not taught the lessons of the wars we have fought, including the Cold War? My oldest brother used to say (not joke, but say) "do you know why they tore down the Berlin Wall? We lost." For those that don't get it, we are so much like the old Soviet Union that there was no point in keeping the wall up. Don't agree? Fine, but think about some of the laws passed and held up as Constitutional, like McCain Feingold or that unbelievable Supreme decision about eminent domain.

It makes me sad.

More climate lying investigated

Investigation! Of course, I doubt anything will come of it, but at least they're making a show of this embarrassment to actual science. Professor Mann is responsible for the totally discredited "hockey stick" temperature graph that Al Gore seems to think is real.

Obama admits to demonizing banks

In this article in the LA Times, our President said this in response to a question from Senator Blanche Lincoln (D-Arkansas)

"So the point I'm making -- and Blanche is exactly right -- we've got to be non-ideological about our approach to these things. We've got to make sure that our party understands that, like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning, so we can't be demonizing every bank out there. "

I ask, then, which banks is it okay to demonize? Isn't that an admission that he's been demonizing some already? Isn't he saying that the demonizing of banks is an ideological action that they need to discontinue? That his and their natural ideological methodology is to demonize banks (and other industries/businesses)?

And wait, there's more:

"like it or not, we have to have a financial system that is healthy and functioning." Do I need to comment on that, really? Really? REALLY? He acknowledges that his party might not like it if the financial system is healthy. Wow.

This is how our President sees things, and admits it, and the LA Times reports it, and yet, we hear crickets from everybody except Rush Limbaugh?

Take the A Train

So, Ohio's getting 400 million dollars from the federal kitty to start this Cincy to Cleveburg rail thingy (I love how the Governor calls it "a major step toward modernizing our state’s transportation infrastructure" like trains are more modern than cars or something. Like Streetcars are a step into the future in Cincinnati, right?).

So, allow me to ask a fairly long convoluted, leading question: if my country and state has spent and spends gajillions on the highways that allow me to drive to and from Cincinnati to Cleveland starting my trips any time I would like (530 mi. round trip) in about 9 hours (round trip) at a gas cost of about $50.88 (530mi @ 25mpg X $2.40 a gal), why, pray tell, would I ride a train that only leaves 4 times a day for $76.00 (round trip) that takes 12 hours (round trip) and that will cost my country and state additional (although admittedly fewer, but additional nonetheless) gajillions?

I'm just askin'.

Now don't think I haven't thought this through. I know that there will be "new jobs" (only they will be even more government (union) jobs), that there will be economic development along the rail line (at stations, one of which is likely within walking distance of my work, although it won't help me get here or anywhere), blah blah blah. What the reality is is that the economic development is only a shift: what about the jobs lost along the highway corridor? Oh, sure, those jobs won't be lost, you say, people will still be driving:. How can you lose that many car passengers to the rail, based on the rosy (and way overestimated, IMHO) passenger predictions and not lose highway drivers and the $$ they spend along I-71? Will, suddenly, new people be traveling? Nope.

What about the side trips? If I'm driving to Cleveland for something, I'm more likely to head over to something else to do in that part of the state and spend money, or make a weekend of it, right? Lost internal tourism dollars.

Most folks, when making their personal travel decisions will be primarily concerned with the above calculation. I know (by the number of Smart cars) that some use environmental impact as their primary cost/benefit analysis, but that is an extreme minority. That is reality, which is where this discussion needs to take place.

Ultimately, I just think it's hilarious that the "progressives" are looking to the past and calling it looking to the future. We replaced trains with highways for a reason. Amtrak is a losing proposition for a reason (and yes, the taxpayer subsidy to them is peanuts compared to highway dollars) so why try to replicate and grow a failed model?

Remember, this will be subsidized by tax dollars, as public transportation is, I get that, but even after the subsidy it is still more expensive and time consuming than driving: what would it cost if it was run only as a free enterprise, profit-making business?

**Update*** this writer from the Plain Dealer sees the boondoggle, too.
**Update*** this video from Reason TV sees the boondoggle, too, too.

Watchdogs Rule

See, I have nowhere else to put this stuff, as I am avoiding the political on facebook, per the sidelong suggestion of my boss.

The stimulus jobs created/saved is a big fat lie: this business is on the gov't website as having received over 200gs, but didn't.

As the man said, "You lie."

*Update*

This Michigan Congressman has some numbers on his website, although it's not clear where he got them.

Man Caused Global Warming is a scam, duh,

....and we have more pressing things to worry about, apparently. I think it's perfectly natural that if I can't feed my kids, I don't really care that the global temperature might be up another fraction of a degree in one hundred years.

... and then there's this guy's admission that the science wasn't settled (the numbers weren't verified).

... and there's more fuel to the fire that our climatologists have been cooking the data.

... and two of the most populous nations aren't going for the failed Copenhagen accord, anyway.

Thanks, D r u d g e, for the links, just passing the knowledge along.

Teleprompters Rule, baby.

Our Prez talks to 6th graders

Church is place for profundity and it's opposite!

Well, yet another wonderful Sunday spent in worship, and some nuggets to get me started on some tangents: it's the Adult Onset ADD, as I like to call it. I remember a girl I dated my senior year telling me she always ended up thinking about sex in church: well, I get distracted, too. Yesterday, our pastor started with a comment about his friend and colleague that was killed in the Haiti earthquake, which led to his pronouncement that the missions in Haiti are about Health Care. Yes, partially, true, but I have a feeling we disagree about the reasons and the cause.

Why is Haiti poor? Answer this, and you'll approach an answer about the total lack of health care in the country other than that provided by foreign charities such as UMCOR, which employed the pastors that died in the Hotel Montana. Why is Haiti, a beautiful half of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean, so poor? Why are so many of these tropical paradises poor?

A lack or opportunity for the citizens to make a good living starts with the type of government and economy they have, couple with available natural resources. Haiti needs jobs, and jobs come from capitalism, right? All the foreign aid will only go so far until the country can support itself financially. By the people, for the people, and of the people, folks, and that's not what Dessalines, the French, or the Duvalier family had been doing all those long years, nor the current government, although after all the unrest of the past twenty years, they could use a little time to establish some infrastructure, etc.

What it led me to think, distractedly, is that we have so much opportunity here in the US that so many of us can't appear to comprehend. By an accident of birth or (hopefully legal) immigrant parents, we are in a land where our poor would be considered comfortable in Haiti. Any sick person in America can receive indigent care at any number of locations and not die from, say, diarrhea like children in Haiti do, every day. So stop whining that our heath care is sooooo expensive or the system is soooo unfair, or that the government (which is us, right, our tax dollars) doesn't pay enough... you have it sooooo good if you could only see past your nose. You know, the possibility that NOT DYING from say, aggressive cancer could drive me into bankruptcy is certainly better than dying from, well, I'll let UNICEF say it:

Haiti has the highest rates of infant, under-five and maternal mortality in the Western hemisphere. Diarrhoea, respiratory infections, malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS are the leading causes of death.

So shut up about your co-pays and your HSAs and MSAs and your pre-existing conditions and be grateful you aren't sitting on a pile of rocks wondering if you will have food for your children hoping that cough isn't TB. Of course, if you get TB here, no big deal, go to the doctor: in Haiti, good luck with that.

Liturgist, 11:00 service, very nice man, starts off with calling the earthquake "unnatural and we call it a natural disaster," or something very similar. Sir, in trying to sound profound, you just sounded like a fool. *update* he got the line from a prayer website, the 9:30 liturgist this week used the same line and I asked her (as I know her a little better) where it came from. She was embarassed that she used the same line! Earthquakes are the very definition of natural, I just heard an expert say that there were over a million a year. According to this Ask a Scientist post, it could be waaaay more than that. The idea that earthquakes aren't natural is laughable. Prayer FAIL.