Barack Obama says he “shocked” by what Reverend Wright’s speech. Blah Blah Blah.
It begs the question, “Is he stupid”? He claims superior judgement required to be President, but apparently it took twenty years to figure out his spiritual mentor is a kook. It took the rest of us about 10 seconds to figure it out. Over the last couple of days, my suspicions have been reinforced BIG TIME, and finally Barack is catching on.
Honestly, I don’t think he is stupid. I think that he thinks that we are.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Election on April 29th, 2008
I was wondering today, how much of the profits being reported (demonized) by “Big Oil” comes from government mandated and subsidized ethanol? How much extra profit can be attibuted to regional blends that decrease the supply and decrease competition? These are good questions that those who want the government to solve the rising prices of gasoline.
UPDATE:
An analysis shows that ethanol profits are at at an 8 month high
Citigroup Global Markets analyst David Driscoll said in a research note that average distilling margins were about 18 cents per gallon as prices for ethanol held at about 8-month highs (LINK)
I’m betting that this margin does not include subsidies.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Free Markets on April 29th, 2008
Lawyers are claiming that Guantanamo is driving the terrorist insane (LINK).
It takes a nut case to be a terrorist in the first place!
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Common Sense on April 27th, 2008
I drove past a car parked in NYC with a bumper sticker that said,
I want choice, I vote Democrat
We all know what choice this person wants. They want the choice to terminate pregnancy after having sex with someone…either because they don’t want to raise a child or because they don’t want to raise a child with their partner.
Is that the most important choice in the world?
You can avoid this whole “choice” by not having sex in the first place. I know that’s just crazy talk, but Democrats think that irresponsible sex is more important than other choices. Many of the choices they try to take away from me are far more important than sex.
The most important one is the freedom of speech. Without the freedom of speech, all other rights will soon disappear. Campaign finance laws are possibly the most un-Constitutional laws passed in my life time. These laws I blame on Democrats and John McCain and other wishy-washy moderate Republicans.
Another important choice is how will defend yourself and your family. Let’s face it. The police are overstretched. The slogan on the side of their car says, “To Serve and Protect”, but it should say “To Sweep Up and Investigate”. There was a case several years back that set a precedent that police officers where not bound to enter a dangerous situation. In other words, if my family is being threatened by a maniac, then the police officers can put their own safety before mine. So if the police are under no obligation to protect you, then you must be prepared to protect yourself.
I do not own a gun, but I will always fight for my right to own a gun.
If you own a business, do you get to decide the terms of employment? Yes an no. There are minimum standards that the government mandates. Minimum wages tell you how much you must pay an employee…even if that employee is worth next to nothing. Young workers are often in need of serious training. In some industries, it takes years to get somebody to the point where they are worth their salaries. But this choice is not yours because the government tells you how much you must pay someone and it is the Democrats who are pushing for a “living wage”. It is also the Democrats who push for mandated benefits like maternity leave. This is not an argument against such policies, but you can’t say that it is your choice as an employer to provide these benefits.
Do you get to choose your car? Yes and no. The cost of you car is driven up by government regulation. Regulations on safety and efficiency may or may not be good, but that is not your choice. That is a government mandate pushed by Democrats.
If the Democrats have their way, you will soon be forced to own medical insurance. You may may be young, healthy and intelligent, but it will no longer be your choice as to weather you spend your money on health insurance or pay for some other expense…like let’s say car insurance or paying off debts.
The Democrats have already pushed though legislation that will soon make your current light bulbs a thing of the past. The federal efficiency standards for light bulbs will make incandescent lights a thing of the past. Apparently, that’s not a choice you can make yourself.
The list goes on and on. Democrats are pro-choice for sluts, but anti-choice for everyone else.
UPDATE: Someone whose opinion I respect thinks that last line was a bit much. There are many who get abortions for reasons other the sexual promiscuity. He is right and I could have worded in a way that better illustrated by point.
Drudge has highlighted (LINK) a very interesting article about the near extinction of humans. The theory suggests that humans almost went extinct 70 thousands years ago.
Tiny bands of early humans developed in isolation from each other for as much as half of our entire history as a species
This got me thinking about the theory of evolution and people who are always trying to keep the next species from going extinct.
If humans did nearly go extinct and lived in isolation from one another, evolution theory suggests that over many years, those groups would develop differently. Because some adaptations are better than other, these groups would each evolve according to the environment that they ended up in. Eventually, the groups were blended back together (more or less), but with a variety of new traits. This has made our species diverse (a goal of every liberal) and better to survive the next challenge.
It makes me wonder if the near extinction is what caused humans to evolve to what we know today….how do we know we aren’t doing great damage by some of our endagered animal policies. For instance, if we round up all the wolves and relocate them in Yellowstone National Park, we are subverting the process that made humans great. How do we know we are not messing up what would have been an extrodinary evolutionary process? People who believe in Evolution and poo-poo “Inteligent Design” should at least pause here to think about the unintended consequences.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Common Sense on April 26th, 2008
A 2007 estimate for the real cost of ethanol is $6.89 per gallon. In the process, ethanol production raises the price of food, does nothing to reduce our dependence on foriegn oil and probably increases the amount of CO2 released into the atmosphere. How can that be? Ronald Cook lays it out in a comprehensive summary of ethanol (link).
Congress has decided to use our tax payer dollars to raise the price of food, increase the cost of motor fuels, and promote global warming. One could make the case Congressional action has also increased malnutrition, hunger, and disease. And why did Congress fund this immoral program? Because our politicians leaders are locked in a nasty battle for political power. It was a politically expedient decision. A pop-culture solution.
We have heard from the Democrats that Iraq is a recruiting tool for more terrorist, and therefore George Bush’s policies are making us less safe. Apparently this is just another liberal fantasy. Accoring a new audio tape released by Ayman al-Zawahiri “Muslims for failing to support Islamist insurgencies in Iraq and elsewhere” (LINK)
After 9/11, we were all waiting for the next attack. It hasn’t come, and I don’t think this it is for a lack of effort from our enemies. Our offensive war may have had difficult times, but it has kept the enemy on the run. Our soldiers are dying for this cause and that is a tragedy. I feel an undescribeable sense of gratitude to our warriors. They are on the front lines taking the heat, but returning fire 10 fold.
Clintonian appeasement (Oslo accords), half-hearted actions (bombing an aspirin factory) and withdrawal at the first sign of a fight (Somalia) led to attack after attack. Yet, according to both Democrats that is exactly what they will do to keep us safe.
According to The Guardian (LINK), rice prices are on the rise globally.Â
Robert Zeigler, director general of the Philippines-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), [elitist] warned urgent action was needed by governments [always a crisis]…”The market (alone) is not going to provide a solution that is acceptable” [acceptable to whom?]…“($1.2 billion) not a huge amount.”
A little research tells me that China’s rice production fell from 1999 to 2003. (REF)Â I don’t know all the details because I am not an expert in Chinese agriculture, but according to US Dept. of Agriculture,
Government incentives, including direct subsidies to rice farmers and the abolishment of agricultural taxes in most provinces, encouraged farmers to increase rice area in 2004 and 2005 after dropping to a record-low level of 26.5 million hectares in 2003. (LINK)
So let me see if I have this straight. The communist government of China tries to manipulate its market, and now there is a food shortage. The Elitist at the Rice Research Institute therefore thinks that Americans should cough up over a billion dollars (of which his group will see much) to fix the problem.
Summary: The one billion Chinese Communists messed around with the market. The market is out of balance. More intrusion into the free market in the only “acceptable” solution to elitist in some international rice research group. Americans should fund the international group so that they can help feed the hungry people of the far east…even though China screwed it up in the first place. This will allow China to continue to place emphasis on manufacturing products for the United States. They will soak up as much oil as possible in the process and kill the demand for American unskilled workers. Meanwhile American skilled workers are forced to pay for the competition’s subsidized lunch ticket while simultaneously pay more for gas, oil and food.
Does that sound “acceptable” to you?
George Bush has taken the mushy middle ground again. This time he is moving to the center on the Global Warming Scam. It is just more evidence that Bush is not a conservative.
Will this get him any kudos from the left? Hell no! He has already funneled billions of dollars in governement drug programs, AIDS programs and education, and still he get nothing but hate from the left.
But, there is good news. The target dates are far off. By the time 2025, the world will have changed dramatically.
Think about where we were 17 years ago (1991):
- The DOW closed over 3,000 for the first time ever.
It is now over 12,000
- My computer had a 250 meg hard drive.
My latest computer has a 500 gig drive.
That is 2000 times more space.
- Windows 3.0 had not been released yet.
Us PC guys still lived in a DOS world.
- The Internet was a college thing. AOL for DOS was launched.
The Windows version didn’t come out until 1993
- My cell phone came in a bag and was too expensive to actually use except for emergencies
- The communist still controlled the Soviet Union
- Michael Jordan had not yet won an NBA Championship
- Hardly anyone outside of Arkansas ever heard of Bill and Hillary Clinton.
Now we can’t seem to get rid of them.
- A gallon of gas cost $1.09 after coming down from a war time high of $1.34 (REF)
- George Bush was President
Wait, that’s a bad example
- I had no grey hair, no kids and no wife.
I was worried that I was slightly over 190 lbs (now 210).
In 17 years, we will be looking back, wondering how we go so fat, asking President Chelsea Clinton why she is going to honor a George Bush committment when it is absolutely freezing…of course old people are always cold.
The Democrats have tried to impose socialized medicine for years. Hillary Clinton led the charge in 1992. The Johnson Administration successfully passed Medicare and Medicaid. The Truman Administration failed to pass a mandatory universal health insurance.
Now the Democrats are trying mandatory health insurance again. Be warned. Once these programs start, they are very difficult to get rid of…even if they are a complete failure. More likely, they grow in scope and in financial backing. The supporters of failed programs always claim that they need more money.
Can you imagine the outcry if someone even proposed eliminating Medicaid or Medicare? Advocates of such cuts would be demonized as heartless Nazis.
Other programs are just foot-in-the-door policies. The Child Health Insurance Proram (CHIP) program is a prime example of a foot that the Democrats are always trying to expand on. To a Democrat, somone who earns 3 times the poverty level is poor enough to receive CHIP money and rich enough to tax as “wealthy”.
That leaves us with a serious problem. The Democrats keep trying. All they need is one generation to agree to their socialist policies and that program will be forced on generations to come. Would anyone agree to the current social security program today? It is a horrible plan, but there are very few politicians who even discuss the problems and ideas for solutions are near extinct. It would never pass today, but it will never be reduced either.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Free Markets on April 20th, 2008
Barack Obama tried to compare his relationship to Bill Ayers (a homegrown terrorist honored by liberal academia) to Tom Colburn. Once again, this brings Senator Obama’s judgment into question.
Michelle Malkin makes a great analogy. (LINK). Bill Ayers is more like Eric Rudolph.
is a cold, unrepentant SOB, who set off bombs at the 1996 Olympics, at an abortion clinic, and at a lesbian nightclub. Like Ayers, Rudolph lived as a fugitive for a long time before his capture.
But Conservatives don’t honor his passion
And let’s ignore the fact that, instead of holding him up as a radical-chic hero, no one on the Right likes Eric Rudolph and many of us would like to see him get a dose of that capital punishment we bloodthirsty reactionaries are always slavering for.
Excellent points worth repeating over and over until everyone hears it.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Election on April 19th, 2008
Rising food prices caused by rising fuel prices and ethanol production is an unintended consequence of environmental policies. They may be unintended, but completely predictable…at least by people who do not view policy decisions on an emotional level.
98% of historians in a survey say that Bush is a failure (LINK). It’s hard to get 98% of any group to agree on anything. Does that tell us more about Bush or “historians”. Could it be that historians are all locked away in liberal academia enclaves. I think Osama Bin Laden has access to more diversity of thought then people stuck in college caves.
Among the reasons given for his low ratings: ….alienating many nations around the world
Let’s review this one “reason”…France moved right with closer ties to the US. Germany moved right with closer ties to the US. Italy was a supporter in Iraq until Berlusconi was defeated…and now he is back. Australia has been a close ally. Great Britian had a left wing government that work closely with the Bush administration, until a more conservative government took over. Columbia is an ally (next to volatile Venzuela).
Who did the Bush administration alienate? Oh yeah, ruthless dictators and the left wing press in foreign countries. My bad.
Ronald Reagan gave this speech in 1961. It could have been yesterday. It is amazing how little has changed. (LINK)
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Free Markets on April 14th, 2008
An Obama supporter after a run-in with Chelsea Clinton,
It’s difficult not to be charmed by someone so well-spoken. (LINK)
Obviously, he likes when people speak well. I am betting that he is not a big George Bush fan.
He likes the smooth candidate with no experience and socialist ideas. He likes the 20 something whose major accomplishment is being a Clinton. Don’t you just love the way liberals make decisions?
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in
Election on April 13th, 2008
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