Hope and Clueless

On the political/social scene, things have been so crazy lately that it defies imagination. When I sit down to try and blog about it to vent a bit, my blood pressure starts to rise way out of proportion. And of course, my current job situation (in the belly of the beast so to speak) makes it a bit difficult to take part in Tea Party Demos. So what to do?

Obviously the main-stream media (now the state-controlled media) is of little value and this is very dangerous since the Founders were counting on the media to keep the citizenry well informed as a vital part of our republic. Luckily, we do have some limited alternatives. Fox News has stepped forward to establish a beach head and althought the loony-left discounts them; the ratings speak for themselves. I also had to restart my subscription to National Review (allowed to lapse during Bush's first term).

And as usual, Wes Pruden has an interesting column this week that sums up the off-year election results in VA and NJ. If we thought the Clinton white house was in constant campaign mode, the current effort by BHO and his socialists makes theirs look like a freshman government project.

To quote Pruden:

"Mr. Obama continues to campaign for the job the rest of us thought we gave him a year ago. The day after the Republicans sent wake-up calls from Virginia and New Jersey, he was back on the stump, working up a sweat -- or at least a gentlemanly perspiration -- and breathing hard against George W. Bush."

Followed by this:

"Some of this was even true. Americans had, in fact, gone to the polls the year before, and had in fact cast ballots for "the future they wanted to see." Very few voters ever cast ballots for a future they don't want to see. But the rest of his stump speech was a good deal of the windy exaggeration expected during a campaign. But like it or not, Mr. Obama is the president now, and the opportunities and failures at the White House are his. George W. is back home in Texas, where he no longer frightens women and horses. We've still got record deficits, two wars and now our allies don't know what to believe. Someone should break the news, gently, to the president that the election is over and he won."

And who can't help but get down-right chilled when they see Pelosi open her mouth and cast those loony deer-in-the-headlights eyes at the camera. Pruden finishes with:

"Nancy Pelosi and her purveyors of fairy-tale economics in the House understand this. The longer Congress takes to create the vast bureaucracy to "reform" health care, the greater the likelihood that common sense and a righteously angered public will kill the evil scheme. Most people look at the $1.05 trillion - that's trillion, with a 't,' not a 'b' - health care "reform" and see a debt to crush their grandchildren. The Republicans got a lesson in the elections, too. The natives are restless; Barack Obama's windy eloquence and his 25-cent promises of hope and change are stale and getting a little moldy. Even credulity has its limits. But winning in spite of themselves won't be enough to resurrect the Republican corpse. Unattended corpses get moldy, too."

May the Lord have pity on us.

Obama's America (Listen to the lyrics)

Country Boys will survive.

Right on the Money (no pun intended)

One of the joys of visiting back home is having the opportunity to read the local papers in Charlottesville and Richmond. Other than covering local events which is about all that local papers are good for, its no wonder the print media in this country is in trouble.

The local paper in C'ville, The Daily Progress (aka The Daily Regress) is about what one would expect from a progressive college town rag; overtly liberal with lots of bleeding-heart commentary and letters to the editor. But they do surprise you once in a while. Today's editorial page had the latest from Thomas Sowell; "Utopia Versus Freedom". This is perhaps the most succinct description of what the MIC intends to do with healthcare. It is a must read. Here's an excerpt:

"Let's go back to square one. The universe was not made to our specifications. Nor were human beings. So there is nothing surprising in the fact that we are dissatisfied with many things at many times. The big question is whether we are prepared to follow any politician who claims to be able to "solve" our "problem."

and this sums it up nicely:

"Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom." We have heard that many times. What is also the price of freedom is the toleration of imperfections. If everything that is wrong with the world becomes a reason to turn more power over to some political savior, then freedom is going to erode away, while we are mindlessly repeating the catchwords of the hour, whether "change," "universal health care" or "social justice." If we can be so easily stampeded by rhetoric that neither the public nor the Congress can be bothered to read, much less analyze, bills making massive changes in medical care, then do not be surprised when life and death decisions about you or your family are taken out of your hands-- and out of the hands of your doctor-- and transferred to bureaucrats in Washington."

We are doomed so for the masses, go ahead and jam down another quarter pounder, bag of Doritos, and a super-sized soda, and get back to American Idol. For those who still have a lick of sense, repeat after me; range time, ammo, canned goods.

Dissent over at the American Chemical Society

Nice to see that some main stream scientists are finally paying attention to the global warming (aka climate change) nitwittery and calling the doom naysayers bluff. Keep their feet to the fire guys; excellent work.

Coulter on Obamacare

Nice piece on Obamacare from Ann Coulter. Here is a sample:

"But politicians are more interested in pleasing lobbyists for acupuncturists, midwives and marriage counselors than they are in pleasing recent college graduates who only want to insure against the possibility that they'll be hit by a truck. So politicians at both the state and federal level keep passing boatloads of insurance mandates requiring that all insurance plans cover a raft of non-emergency conditions that are expensive to treat -- but whose practitioners have high-priced lobbyists. As a result, a young, healthy person has a choice of buying artificially expensive health insurance that, by law, covers a smorgasbord of medical services of no interest to him ... or going uninsured. People who aren't planning on giving birth to a slew of children with restless leg syndrome in the near future forgo insurance -- and then politicians tell us we have a national emergency because some people don't have health insurance." Ann Coulter, 7/22/2009.

Virginia Boy Does Good

After several months of speculation we finally see a formal announcement that Francis Collins has been nominated by the MIC to head the NIH. This has been rumored for some time now and the word on the street was that the delay in the announcement was due in part to his need for a little extra time to finish up his latest book and get it to the publisher before once again becoming a Federal employee.

As you might expect, the fact that Collins has no problem proclaiming that he is something as subversive as a "CHRISTIAN" is causing wailing and gnashing of teeth from the progressive libtards both in and out of the scientific community. I say TOUGH SHIT. I've had the honor of interacting with this guy back when he was still director of the NHGRI and based on his track record to date, I doubt you will see anything out of the ordinary; certainly nothing as ridiculous as Hansen getting arrested. How on earth does this guy keep his Federal job?

Cal Thomas does an excellent job of exposing the left's hypocrisy; go read it ! And another good read is Collins commencement address at Virginia in 2001.

If I were him I am not sure I would agree to serve under the MIC particularly with the likes of this zero, but I think the NIH will be well served to have Collins at the helm and I think he has the style and common sense not to let his faith affect the job at hand. God speed Francis !

Pimp My Ride.........

You might remember those "Money for Guns" schemes from the 1990s where the major city police would pay cash if folks would turn in their guns. It quickly became obvious that the street urchins were turning in grandpa's old rusty rods and using the cash to upgrade their semi-autos and buy body armour. Way to go libtards !

A similar plan is being offered by the MIC to boost car sales. See this excellent story over at American Thinker for coverage of the "Cash for Clunkers" program.

What If You Could Turn Off The Internet

Imagine if you will the howling we would have heard from the progressive ranks if Bush would have proposed this legislation while he was still in office; the ability of the Executive to shut down key parts of the internet during a world-wide cybersecurity crisis. Surely something this sinister must have originated from deep within the undisclosed Cheney security complex.

ARRA and Comperative Effectiveness Research

I've been extremely busy this spring taking care of family and normal business but extra busy helping out my agency increase the ranks of the dependent classes by handing out ARRA funds. I quickly came to the conclusion that this has little to do with jobs or economic recovery and everything to do with keeping the Democrats in office. There is candy in this legislation for constituencies that don't even exist yet !

Which leads me to the topic of Comparative Clinical Effectiveness Research (CER). This was in ARRA simply because it was part of Daschle's book, but when he was canned early on for tax stupidity someone forgot to remove it from the bill.

Sandy Szwarc over at Junkfood Science does an excellent job of describing just what the progressives plan to do with this data as they move forward dismantling the best health care system in the world. We can only hope there is enough spine remaining in the Senate to save us from this nonsense.

1819: America's First Housing Bubble

"The Panic of 1819 lasted about three years — the Great Depression lasted well over a decade. When looking for solutions to our current mess, we should study a winning team; instead we seem determined to channel FDR, the same arrogant fool who took an economic downturn and stretched it into a decade-plus tragedy."

Fascinating analysis of America's first major post war financial crisis, the panic of 1819 by C. J. Maloney . This is a must read. If only the majority of morons in this country had only a mild interest in history. No such luck; it most likely would interfere with keeping up with American Idol.

Here's another nugget:

"The men of 1819 realized that a "free market" in order to work must be just that — free. They had in them what we completely lack: a trust in the American people to manage their own affairs. A trust in "free markets" is, at base, a trust in the people. Many look at freedom as a luxury today — one that we can't afford and dare not try. Our trust in ourselves is dead, but it wasn't always."

Go read the whole thing and between trips to the range, work in tutorials with your children (assuming they are old enough not to be bothered with nightmares).