Look no further than the VA Hospitals to see the outcome when you mix health care with politics: VA hospital may have infected 1,800 veterans with HIV
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Health Care on June 30th, 2010
Share on FacebookJames Watt of WattsUpWithThat.com exposes more idiocy from “green” Congressmen. He looks into the claims on this gem of a web site put out by Rep. Ed Markley (a big champion of the environment). The web site claims that Australia is having a once in a millennium drought with a major cause being global warming.
Watt points out one HUGE problem. Australia has seen an increase in rain fall as the globe has warmed. It’s just one of the inconvenient facts.
The problem in question is the level of the Murry River. It’s low and the global warming alarmist respond to their cue as usual. They jump to the same conclusion no matter what the issue. It’s hot…Global Warming. It’s cold…Global Warming. It dry…Global Warming. Floods…Global Warming.
Watt points out some of the possible reasons why river levels are down
• More farm dams have reduced run-off by between 660 and 2,400 gigalitres (Gl) per year
• Groundwater pumping has reduced run-off by 327 gigalitres per year
• regrowth from the bushfires in early 2003, when over a million hectares of native forest was burnt, could reduce run-off by 430 gigalitres by 2020
• new plantations could have further reduced inflows by 1,100-1,400 gigalitres per year
• farmers have increased the water holding capacity of their soil by adopting minimum tillage.
Who do you believe…They smug guy who is certain and has the same answer no matter what the question…or the skeptical guy who questions the knee jerk reaction and provides a variety of explanations? Can’t you just feel the whole thing slipping away from these Watermelon* Environmentalist. Let’s just hope they fail in their final efforts before their ship sinks.
*Watermelons are green on the outside and red (communist) on the inside.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Global Climate Change on June 30th, 2010
Drudge has a siren blaring that the Supreme Court has decided for gun rights. That’s the good news. The bad news is 4 out f 9 Justices believe the states can over-ride the Constitutional rights of individuals.
How do the liberal judges decide that abortion is an individual right to privacy that the states can’t touch, but owning guns is not?
It’s easy from the conservative point of view. Abortion is not a privacy issue. After all, the government has passed ObamaCare and taken away your right to privacy for every medical procedure EXCEPT abortion. Again, the liberals are inconsistent.
I guess it comes down to who values consistency and principal. Decision for liberals are based on feelings (and power)…not principal…and therefore they have no consistency.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in The Law, Judges, Lawyers and other snakes on June 28th, 2010
Paul Krugman (the hard-left economist from the New York Times) worries about a long depression. Krugman is a hyper-Keynesian. He believes that government spending will save the economy. He worries that states cutting budgets will lead to even worse unemployment.
What Krugman never acknowledges is the public/private employment situation has gotten wildly out of balance.The average public sector jobs now pay nearly double what people in the private sector make and come with benefits for live. These are the jobs that Krugman is worried about losing. These are the jobs that I believe are driving us into the ditch.
People with a leftist/statist perception of the world worry about jobs. I worry about wealth. They want to create jobs. I want to create wealth. Jobs will come when people get back to the business of creating wealth.
To understand my perspective, you need to understand wealth. Wealth is creating something of value where there was none before. It is easy to understand in the world of manufacturing. You can start with raw materials, forge it into steel, machine it into a shape and bring it to market for others to use. A lump of minerals is transformed into a tractor which improves a farmer’s productivity. That form of wealth creation has many jobs associated with it.
On a larger scale, the way to grow the economy is to create more wealth. We can create more wealth by being more productive. Creating jobs that do not create wealth is just a form a charity. I can give a man a job to dig a hole in the ground…and I can give another a job to fill the hole, but it would be more productive if I just give them the cash and tell them to go get training in a field that needs them. Building turtle tunnel under a highway does not create wealth. It is not different then giving a man money to dig a useless hole. The Obama stimulus was loaded with useless jobs that failed to stimulate the economy.
I believe this to be a fundamental flaw of liberals and progressives. They view wealth as something to be scorned. They bemoan the profits of oil companies and drug companies. They demonize banks which finance wealth creation. They long for the days when people rode bikes and purchased food from local farmers. (Isn’t it strange that people who want to take a step backward in transportation and energy call themselves “progressive”). Our president says his energy plan “electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket” (LINK).
How can needless spending on energy create more wealth? It can’t.
To side with our president, you must believe that spending on green initiatives will transform the way we use energy to a form that is more efficient then our current model. This is a long term objective, but we don’t need a long term strategy. We need wealth creation now. Secondly, you must believe that the lawyers who run Washington know more about energy creation than the engineers and scientist. Trust me…the lawyers and politicians don’t know squat. They created the Department of Energy back in the 70s to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. Since that time, we have become more dependent and that trend will continue with the policies of the current administration. Their stated goals and their intentions are less than worthless. They are a drain on the people who go to work everyday to create wealth.
So back to Paul Krugman. What he never acknowledges is that we need to create wealth. If we are to avoid a depression, we need to wealth. The government needs to stop steering the economy (a job they are miserable at) and should take the position of unbiased arbitrator between citizens. The government should strive to reduce roadblocks to innovation and small business, the policy of “too big to fail” needs to stop, and we need to stop worrying about jobs for government workers who drain capital from those who create wealth.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Economics on June 28th, 2010
Many people have heard about and are discouraged by the Voting Rights case in Philadelphia where the Obama Justice Department dropped a case against the New Black Panthers in what was obviously voter intimidation. That case was outrageous, but have you heard of Ike Brown?
Brown was the head of the Democratic Party in Noxubee County, a majority black county. The party ran the Democratic primaries, which served as de facto general elections, and Brown made no secret about his desire to see every government office in the county held by a black officeholder. Brown ran a Tammany Hall-style political operation. During one election, he literally stuffed illegal ballots he knew were marked for black candidates through an optical scanner in front of a crowd of angry citizens shouting provisions of Mississippi law at him.
The Bush Justice Department investigated and sued Ike Brown. The Obama Justice Department dropped the case. Most Americans would be outraged by this (if the media ever decided to do their jobs).
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in corruption,Liberal Bias,Obama Administration,The Law, Judges, Lawyers and other snakes on June 28th, 2010
Our wonderful government is taking broad powers so that they can avoid another financial disaster. What a joke. The government told us the Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were in great shape right before they collapsed. Will the geniuses do better next time? It the same stupid geniuses!
The government is broke. In the last year alone they spent over a trillion dollars more than their receivables. The genius at the White House said all this spending would keep the unemployment rate down to about 8%…it’s now around 10% and has been for a while.
The geniuses in Congress were suppose to oversee Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two prime sources of problems that led to the melt down in the first place. They created the incentive to loan to people who couldn’t afford homes. The geniuses thought that home ownership was a good wealth building mechanism for us little people, so they used their collective pea brain to subvert the markets and force banks to make bad loans. That didn’t work out so well.
How can Congress talk about financial reform without including these two monsters? Apparently, this only makes sense to the geniuses in Washington.
We must face this as a nation. The people we have been sending to Washington are slick, but they are not smart. They are arrogant, but they are not smart. They are power hungry, but they are not smart. Smart people would realize that central control has never worked and will never work.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Congress on June 25th, 2010
Fans react to Landon Donovan’s winning goal in the 91st minute. It’s great to see such enthusiasm.
People tell me soccer is boring. It is to them because they don’t know that they are looking at. They say there is no scoring, but basketball has scoring…lots of scoring…and I think it is a total bore. In soccer, it is exciting every time you get near the goal. Hitting the post is thrilling and heartbreaking at the same time. Compare that to basketball. When someone bounces a basketball of the rim, no one worries because you know there will be another shot in about 30 seconds.
Every shot, every point, every pass is a huge bore…until there are 2 minutes left in the game. A good soccer game is like the last 2 minutes of a basketball game, only it lasts for 90 minutes. Come to think of it…sometimes the last 2 minutes of a basketball game lasts for 90 minutes.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Common Sense on June 24th, 2010
Finally, someone with power in our government has stepped up to the plate and told the President he does not have the authority
A federal judge in New Orleans has blocked a six-month moratorium on new deepwater drilling projects that was imposed in response to the massive Gulf oil spill.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration,The Law, Judges, Lawyers and other snakes on June 22nd, 2010
This whole General McChrystal flap amazingly hits the news on the same day that we learn that Congress will skip creaing a budget for 2011.
You cant have a budget deficit without a budget! Thats how you fix that problem.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Liberal Bias,Obama Administration on June 22nd, 2010
I really don’t want advice from Obama on how to be a good father. If I was as busy as the President (should be), I wouldn’t spend my free time playing golf and basketball. I’d be with my kids.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration on June 21st, 2010
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in The Law, Judges, Lawyers and other snakes,video on June 21st, 2010
The price of oil is such a mystery. There are so many factors. A booming world wide economy (consumption) drives the price up. Tension in supplier nations drives the price up. Disaster drives the prices up. The OPEC Cartel manipulates the supply. Oil futures help business to hedge against future spikes. It’s so confusing and that is why I have no comment on the following chart.
UPDATE: I put very little stock in these studies, but the NY Post has a piece about a report from Harvard estimating that President Obama’s agenda will cause gasoline prices to surge to over $7 per gallon. It begs the (conspiracy) question: Is there market manipulation going on right now so the President can pass his agenda? The last time the price of oil went sky high, the American people demanded more drilling. That is the exact opposite of what the President wants. So why is the price of oil so low?
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Economics on June 18th, 2010
President Obama had a 20 minute meeting with BP. After the meeting, BP’s stock rose 10%.
Ow…that ass kicking must of hurt.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration on June 16th, 2010
Matt Laurer asked President Obama if he had spoken directly to Tony Hayward, the CEO of BP. He responded:
I have not spoken to him directly and…and here’s the reason, because ah my experience is when you talk to ah ah a guy like ah BP CEO, he gonna say all the right things to me. I’m not intersted in words. I’m interested in actions.
Really? Someone who says “all the right things to me” sounds more like speaking to a politician than a CEO.
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Obama Administration,video on June 15th, 2010
According to climate scientist Mike Hulme, the IPCC did not have a broad based consensus supporting their theory on global warming.
The actual number of scientists who backed that claim was “only a few dozen experts,”
Read more:
Posted by: The Elephant Owner in Global Climate Change on June 15th, 2010
