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Monthly Archive: October 2009

Friday

30

October 2009

1

COMMENTS

Leftwing Dictator Forced On People Of Honduras By Barack Obama

Written by , Posted in Foreign Affairs & Policy

One of the most disgraceful episodes in American foreign policy has come to an end.  Intent on destroying Honduran democracy, President Barack Obama sided with fellow leftwing thug Manuel Zelaya after he was legally removed from office for trying to subvert his nation’s democracy.

Thanks to intense pressure and bullying from our contemptible government, along with the rest of the world’s thuggish dictators like Hugo Chavez, the interim government of Honduras, which sought only to survive until scheduled elections this month, has caved and allowed for the possibility of Zelaya’s return.

“Tonight I am pleased to announce that … I authorized my negotiating team to sign a final accord that marks the beginning of the end to the political situation in the country,” interim President Roberto Micheletti said in a televised address.

The agreement appears to soften Micheletti’s previous stance that the Supreme Court — which has already rejected Zelaya’s reinstatement — decide the issue.

Instead, the high court would make a recommendation, but the final decision would be left to a vote in Congress.

Sanity and the rule of law may yet prevail if their Congress, like their Supreme Court, rejects this bullying.  And bullying is obviously what led Micheletti into the deal, as his primary motivation is undoing the damage outside thugs are trying to do to the people of Honduras:

Micheletti called the pact a “significant concession” on his part. He also said that one of the provisions of the pact requires foreign powers to drop sanctions and reverse aid cutoffs imposed after the coup, and send observers to the upcoming elections.

This White House has done everything it can to restore the thug to power.  It has revoked the visas of all members of the Honduran Supreme Court, stirred up international pressure, revoked aid, installed sanctions and just generally opposed democracy. Micheletti’s primary concern appears to be the people of Honduras and democracy. The primary concern of Barack Obama is protecting leftist strongmen. Disgraceful.

TRINIDAD-AMERICAS-SUMMIT-CHAVEZ-OBAMAThugs of the world, unite!

Wednesday

28

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Bat Strong; Ball Go Fast

Written by , Posted in The Courts, Criminal Justice & Tort

Ridiculous lawsuit alert:

A Montana jury has found the maker of Louisville Slugger baseball bats failed to adequately warn about the dangers the product can pose, awarding a family $850,000 for the 2003 death of their son in a baseball game.

…Brandon Patch’s family argued that aluminum baseball bats are dangerous because they cause the ball to travel at a greater speed.

They argued their 18-year-old son did not have enough time to react to the ball being struck before it hit him in the head while he was pitching in an American Legion baseball game in Helena in 2003.

Pitching is dangerous, as I can attest after more than my share of close calls in my now finished career.  This is not news to anyone, and no silly little warning label that no one will ever read is going to make this more obvious than it already is. Anyone who has ever taken their life in their hands and stepped on the mound knows this already.  It’s a statistically small but very real risk that comes with the game, of that same type that comes with any sport.

The death of a young player is tragic, but so are silly lawsuits that seek to assuage grief by falsely assigning blame.

Wednesday

28

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Not All Businesses Cowing To Administration Bullying

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

Bullying is a favored tactic of this administration.  They’ve set their sights on insurance, pharmaceuticals, and energy, among many others. Don Blankenship of Massey Energy is not intimidated:

The reality, which many Americans may not realize, is that CEOs, presidents and shareholders of publicly traded companies fear that if they are clear in expressing their opinions in opposition to legislation like cap-and-trade, the government of the United States of America will exercise “extra scrutiny” in its regulation of their companies. Certainly, domestic energy companies like Massey can’t withstand much extra scrutiny or retaliatory regulation from the government.

However, the truth is the truth and lies are lies. Neither politicians nor government nor the media can change that. In Spain, an economics professor calculates that green jobs schemes have destroyed more than 110,000 jobs in that country, or 2.2 jobs destroyed for every one created. The CEO of the world’s largest renewable energy company, Eon, is warning the EU that further cuts to CO2 emissions will only raise the cost of energy, putting the region at a competitive disadvantage and driving production overseas.

The truth about global warming alarmists in the business community who say Congress must pass laws immediately to stop the planet from warming is that they are driven more by pursuit of profit than pursuit of science and real atmospheric temperatures. These companies lie for profit and at the expense of American families’ budgets, American’s homeland security, and the quality of the world’s air and water.

You see, they know cap-and-trade will hurt the American economy. That it will cost American jobs. That it will increase our dependency on foreign energy. And yes, they know that it will increase global pollution by moving production to unregulated countries like China. They also know the world is cooling. They know that cap-and-trade won’t lower the earth’s temperature. To those saying otherwise I say simply, “You lie.”

Wednesday

28

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

See What You're Missing, Honduras?

Written by , Posted in Foreign Affairs & Policy

If only Honduras had bowed to the bullying of the Obama administration, they could have this to look forward to:

Last week, President Ortega inadvertently provided the best defense yet of the Honduran decision this summer to remove Manuel Zelaya from the presidency. Nicaragua has a one-term limit for presidents, and Mr. Ortega’s term expires in 2011. However, the Nicaraguan doesn’t want to leave, and so he asked the Sandinista-controlled Supreme Court to overturn the constitutional ban on his re-election.

Last week the court’s constitutional panel obliged him. The Nicaraguan press reported that the vote was held before three opposition judges could reach the chamber in time for the session. Three alternative judges, all Sandinistas, took their place and the court gave Mr. Ortega the green light. Mr. Ortega has decreed that the ruling cannot be appealed.

Huzzah for leftwing dictators!

Tuesday

27

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Monday

26

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

We're All Gonna Die! Pt. 24

Written by , Posted in Energy and the Environment

We’re all gonna die…unless we give up meat.

People will need to consider turning vegetarian if the world is to conquer climate change, according to a leading authority on global warming.

In an interview with The Times, Lord Stern of Brentford said: “Meat is a wasteful use of water and creates a lot of greenhouse gases. It puts enormous pressure on the world’s resources. A vegetarian diet is better.”

…Lord Stern, the author of the influential 2006 Stern Review on the cost of tackling global warming, said that a successful deal at the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen in December would lead to soaring costs for meat and other foods that generate large quantities of greenhouse gases.

Just in case we had forgotten why we revolted and overthrew our “Lords”, Lord Sternly Stupid here set out to remind us.

And isn’t amazing how the recommended changes to “save the planet” always happen to match up perfectly with the leftist lifestyle? That couldn’t possibly be by intent, now could it? Naaaaaw…you silly wingnut denier, it’s for the planet.

Sunday

25

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Friday

23

October 2009

1

COMMENTS

Nancy Pelosi: Constitutional Questions Are Not Serious

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Every piece of legislative problem solving ought to start by answering a simple question: under what Constitutional authority do we act?  Given that the Constitution is a document of enumerated powers, a specific empowerment should be found to support the action. Not only does Nancy Pelosi disagree, she and her office thinks it’s ridiculous to even ask:

The exchange with Speaker Pelosi on Thursday occurred as follows:

CNSNews.com: “Madam Speaker, where specifically does the Constitution grant Congress the authority to enact an individual health insurance mandate?”

Pelosi: “Are you serious? Are you serious?”

CNSNews.com: “Yes, yes I am.”

Pelosi then shook her head before taking a question from another reporter. Her press spokesman, Nadeam Elshami, then told CNSNews.com that asking the speaker of the House where the Constitution authorized Congress to mandated that individual Americans buy health insurance as not a “serious question.”

“You can put this on the record,” said Elshami. “That is not a serious question. That is not a serious question.”

Exit question: Ideally, ought this attitude constitute an impeachable breach of her oath to “bear true faith and allegiance to the [Constitution]?”

Hat-tip: Yid with Lid

Friday

23

October 2009

1

COMMENTS

New Brilliant Dem Idea: Medicare All Around

Written by , Posted in Health Care, Welfare & Entitlements

Many of the problems with health care can be traced back to Medicare.  The third-party payer system, in which Medicare is the biggest single purchaser, means that the patient is not the customer.  This leads to all manner of undesirable outcomes, including excessive death due to negligence and price inflation.

David Goldhill is a self- described left-leaning democrat and businessman whose father died from an easily preventable, hospital caused infection. After his father’s death, he spent a year and a half learning everything he could about health care delivery and why there are so many practices in health care that are intolerable in other businesses. He rejects the almost religious devotion many have to the idea that health care is just so fundamentally different from other sectors, and instead believes that our insistence on treating it different is what ultimately causes so many of its ills.  It is clear from his exploration (video from a recent Cato hosted Hill event) that one of the primary culprits is Medicare.

In addition to its distortionary impact on the delivery of health care, Medicare is also fiscally unsound.  In the coming decades costs are set to balloon out of control, leaving trillions in unfunded liabilities.  None of this is a problem for democrats.  In fact, they love Medicare so much, they want to expand it!

Strategically they’ve discovered that the public is more likely to accept the expansion of something they are familiar with than the “public option,” even though it would serve largely the same function.  Naturally, politics is all that matters to democrats, so with this discovery they’ll now begin ramming a universal medicare plan down our throats, and to hell with the consequences.

Wednesday

21

October 2009

0

COMMENTS

Congress Gets Techie

Written by , Posted in Government Meddling

At first it looked like one of the typical throwaway resolutions that come out of Congress everyday praising everything from the flowers to puppies, but then I realized that this particular resolution is an excellent illustration of the fundamental flaw of the state-centered conception of society.  Here’s what H. Res. 558 does:

Supports the designation of the week of December 7 as National Computer Science Education Week. Encourages: (1) identification by schools, teachers, researchers, universities, and policymakers of mechanisms for teachers to receive cutting edge professional development so that they can provide sustainable learning experiences in computer science; (2) exposure of students to computer science concepts; and (3) opportunities for females and underrepresented minorities in computer science. Supports research in computer science to address what would motivate increased participation in such field.

The resolution also notes that “computer science is transforming industry, creating new fields of commerce, driving innovation in all fields of science, and bolstering productivity in established economic sectors.”

Wow, good thing Congress is on the ball! What if they hadn’t acted and we never gave computer science the attention it deserved?  Oh wait, I almost forgot, the transformation of industry by computer science began over 30 years ago.

Where was the congressional resolution that motivated Bill Gates?  Or the one that encouraged businesses to embrace information technology? Or that brought personal computers into almost every home in America?  There were none!

I did my undergraduate studies in Computer Science at a university that ended in the words “Institute of Technology.”  No congressional resolution pointed me toward that field.   Society itself directed me there as people already saw how important it was.

Political bodies are incapable of being at the forefront of these kinds of changes, which occur organically in competitive markets.  Central planners are rarely even aware of them until after the fact.  Yet not a single member of congress voted against this silly endeavor, in part because they know how unserious these resolutions typically are, and no one wants to be “against technology.”  Still, it betrays an attitude toward social advancement – that important innovations come from the top-down – which is fundamentally flawed.