Saturday, November 28, 2009

Our President and the Emperor



Our young President's naiveté is showing.

And, I would be surprised to hear the Emperor and Empress were not a little bemused as well.

Friday, November 27, 2009

Recommended Reading

Health Care: Missing the Forest for the Trees

The linked article by Janet M. Orient, MD, has a number of perceptive observations about the health care legislation bills currently active in Congress.

Definitely worth reading.

Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Adm. Mullen sailing the PC seas

Navy SEALs accused of punching accused Falluja plotter

There is something bad wrong with the Navy admiralty.  In my mind, it began with Adm. Zumwalt who began tearing down two centuries of naval tradition. 

Now, we have three valiant Navy Seals up on charges.  And, for what?

Three U.S. Navy SEALs face criminal charges after the alleged mastermind of one of the most notorious crimes against Americans in Iraq [Ahmed Hashim Abed] accused them of punching him after his capture, the military said Wednesday.

Abed was punched?  So he says.  But, Abed watches the news from this country.  He knows our government is PC to a fault.  He knows he can cause a lot of trouble for his captors just by making the statement.

Adm. Zumwalt started the Navy's decline and Adm. Mullen—by allowing this travesty on his watch—is protracting it.

Monday, November 23, 2009

Proof of Global Warming Chicanery

The widely suspect and now debunked 'hockey stick' graph, published by the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, has been exposed through a series of e-mails between researchers.

Other news sources (e.g., Reuters) are maintaining this revelation is merely 'awkward but not a game changer' as the evidence for global warming is overwhelming.

Overwhelming? Yeah, sure. Just like the 'rigorous' reindeer study or the 'proof' that the entire Antarctic continent underwent warming. [link]

Perhaps those same writers ought to stop and consider whether the so-called 'evidence of global warming' is rather 'proof of global chicanery.'

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Hot Air in Copenhagen?

Irwin M. Stelzer of the Hudson Institute has an opinion piece in the Weekly Standard1 analyzing the activities leading up to Copenhagen 2009.  You know; the U.N. sponsored fraud aimed at transferring wealth from the Developed Nations—mostly the U.S.—to the Rest of the World.

Stelzer was doing pretty good until he inserted the following clinker near the end of the article:

Too bad the Copenhagen delegates won’t consider an alternative to centralized U.N. control: private sector investment, backed by carbon taxes or an effective trading scheme that puts a price on carbon and thereby levels the playing field between carbon-free technologies and carbon-intensive ones.

What Stelzer seems to have a blind spot for is:  If  using carbon-free technology was inherently advantageous, it would attract private sector investment  on its own.  Free market dynamics would ensure it.  Instead, Stelzer falls back on the Socialist idea of using government intervention to force an outcome.

What a bummer.

1Hot Air in Copenhagen, Stelzer, Irwin M., The Weekly Standard, November 23, 2009, pp. 14-16.

Friday, November 20, 2009

The Obama Administration



Obama the candidate told us we could see what his administration would be like by looking at the people he surrounds himself with.

It is plain to see he was truthful about that.

But, not much else.

Just one year since being elected Obama has visited twenty countries.  More than any other President at this time in office.

So, how can a President take so much time away?  How can a President be so detached from the business of governing?  Who is doing the work of the Executive branch?

Could it be the thirty-two Marxist czars he has surrounded himself with?  Could it be the President is merely the front man for certain Unions and Marxist-Socialist organizations?

Thursday, November 12, 2009

Non sequitur

Feds move to seize 4 mosques, tower linked to Iran

This action is non sequitur given the recent news.  Shias are not perpetrating suicidal jihad.

First, we have a shooting at Fort Hood.  Next, we have our President showing up at an Indian affairs meeting where he gives an Oh, by the way.   There was a shooting.  Now, this.

What are we to think?  Does our government have their eye on the ball?

Sunday, November 08, 2009

Lindsey Graham—Wrong as wrong can be

GOP's Graham steps out on a limb on climate change

"If I can create legislation that would allow this country to stop buying so much foreign oil and make us safer — plus find a solution to the carbon pollution hurting our planet — that would be a good use of my time, " Graham told McClatchy . "If that costs me my job, it would be well worth it."

The first part of Graham’s statement is fine.  The part about carbon—a reference to the farcical meme perpetrated by a small cadre of U.N. strap-hangers—is as wrong as wrong can be.

Graham added: "But I don't think it will cost me my job."

Don’t be so sure.

Thursday, November 05, 2009

H. R. 3200 Unconstitutional

H. R. 3200 and similar legislation, if enacted into law, will very likely be declared unconstitutional. 

Simply stated, legislation of this type amounts to Congress establishing the Federal government as a national health insurance regulator; an authority nowhere granted to Congress by the Constitution.

That said, it does not mean Congress has no role to play in the current health insurance reform debate.

Currently, purchase of health insurance is subject to anti-competitive barriers erected by the several in states; such purchases being limited to those policies licensed within the purchaser’s state by that state’s insurance commissioner.  No other policy may be sold in any given state.

It is here that Congress has a role to play.  And, it is simple and straightforward:  The framers of the Constitution intended for Congress to eliminate trade barriers between the states when they wrote Article I, Section 8; the ‘commerce’ clause.  And, the restrictions on which policy may be sold in any given state meets that criteria.

So, Congress should scrap H. R. 3200 and instead enact legislation that will prevent states from using licensing laws as barrier to out-of-state insurers.  Simple, straightforward and, most importantly, constitutional.


Update:   HR 3200 has been replaced by HR 3269 introduced 10/29/2009.  It is made of the same stuff as the former bill except it now consumes four reams of paper.