Tuesday, July 14, 2009

One more bit before I go...

Tax increases on "the rich." Yea right.

In the middle of a recession and with rising unemployment, Democrats have been letting it leak that they want to raise U.S. tax rates higher than they've been in nearly 30 years in order to finance government health care.


Every detail isn't known, but late last week Ways and Means Chairman Charlie Rangel disclosed that his draft bill would impose a "surtax" on individuals with adjusted gross income of more than $280,000 a year. This would hit job creators especially hard because more than six of every 10 who earn that much are small business owners, operators or investors, according to a 2007 Treasury study. That study also found that almost half of the income taxed at this highest rate is small business income from the more than 500,000 sole proprietorships and subchapter S corporations whose owners pay the individual rate.


Read the whole thing. Cry. Scream. Tear your hair out.

A new study by the Kaufman Foundation finds that small business entrepreneurs have led America out of its last seven post-World War II recessions. They also generate about two of every three new jobs during a recovery. The more the Obama Democrats reveal of their policies, the more it's clear that they prize income redistribution above all else, including job creation and economic growth.


Honestly, you gotta read it all.

On last bit, though:

Another implication of the Rangel plan is that America's successful small businesses would pay higher tax rates than the Fortune 500, and for that matter than most companies around the world. The corporate federal-state tax rate applied to General Electric and Google is about 39% in the U.S., and the business tax rate is about 25% in the OECD countries. So the U.S. would have close to the most punitive taxes on small business income anywhere on the globe.


Small businesses are screwed. And, unfortunately, small businesses make up the bulk of our economy. But, don't worry. Big business will be protected by our Democratic politicians who are always looking out for the little guy themselves.

Monday, July 13, 2009

Gone Fishing!

Be back end of the week.

Saturday, July 11, 2009

Meet the New Science Czar!

It's a fella named John Holdren. Let's get to know Mr. Holdren:

In a book Holdren co-authored in 1977, the man now firmly in control of science policy in this country wrote that:

• Women could be forced to abort their pregnancies, whether they wanted to or not;
• The population at large could be sterilized by infertility drugs intentionally put into the nation's drinking water or in food;
• Single mothers and teen mothers should have their babies seized from them against their will and given away to other couples to raise;
• People who "contribute to social deterioration" (i.e. undesirables) "can be required by law to exercise reproductive responsibility" -- in other words, be compelled to have abortions or be sterilized.
• A transnational "Planetary Regime" should assume control of the global economy and also dictate the most intimate details of Americans' lives -- using an armed international police force.


How come we don't know about any of this? Because Czars are merely appointed by the President, and don't go through any sort of vetting or confirmation.

Now, I know some are going to doubt the truth of this, so let me quote a few actual quotes from Holden's actual book.

In today's world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children

And this:

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

And this good one about a "Planetary Regime":

Perhaps those agencies, combined with UNEP and the United Nations population agencies, might eventually be developed into a Planetary Regime—sort of an international superagency for population, resources, and environment. Such a comprehensive Planetary Regime could control the development, administration, conservation, and distribution of all natural resources, renewable or nonrenewable, at least insofar as international implications exist. Thus the Regime could have the power to control pollution not only in the atmosphere and oceans, but also in such freshwater bodies as rivers and lakes that cross international boundaries or that discharge into the oceans. The Regime might also be a logical central agency for regulating all international trade, perhaps including assistance from DCs to LDCs, and including all food on the international market.

The Planetary Regime might be given responsibility for determining the optimum population for the world and for each region and for arbitrating various countries' shares within their regional limits. Control of population size might remain the responsibility of each government, but the Regime would have some power to enforce the agreed limits.


This from Forbes:

Unfortunately, Holdren doesn't appear to have an adequate understanding of the economic process through which these technological advances are achieved. He seems to think new technologies arise full-blown from government agencies and university laboratories.

Holdren early on exhibited an unlovely tendency to try to enforce ideological conformity on his fellow scientists and activists. Back in 1972, he and Ehrlich disagreed with environmentalist Barry Commoner on whether population or technology was worse for environment. This dispute exploded into the public when Commoner disclosed a letter Ehrlich and Holdren had sent to numerous scientific colleagues revealing that the two had pressed Commoner not to debate in public which of the factors was most important because that would undermine the realization of environmental goals.

Commoner was outraged that the two wanted to shut down debate and enforce an environmentally correct united front. If this is what Holdren would attempt to do to an errant fellow environmentalist, it's no surprise the fury he visits upon those who don't accept the environmental litany of doom, such as Bjorn Lomborg, author of TheSkeptical Environmentalist.


Don't debate in public. Transparency, you see. Free and open inquiry. Facts and evidence not obscured by politics and ideology. Wasn't that what Obama said?

Friday, July 10, 2009

Pup picture- last week

How's that Hope and Change coming?

Not so good:

Democrats have complemented their smiling encouragements with behind-the-scenes threats. After retaking the House in 2006, the party made clear that companies that did not hire Democratic lobbyists would not get a hearing in Washington. The ruling party is now seeing the fruits of its bullying. These days, a meeting of health-care lobbyists is better described as a reunion of Senate Finance Chairman Max Baucus's former aides. Health-care lobbying has been turned on its head: The new cabal of Democratic lobbyists does not exist to protect the industry from Congress. It exists to present Democratic ultimatums to business.

When Senate Republicans last month hosted a meeting to discuss reform ideas, Mr. Baucus's office called in a block of these Democratic lobbyists to deliver a message. "They said, 'Republicans are having this meeting and you need to let all of your clients know if they have someone there, that will be viewed as a hostile act,'" reported one attendee to the Baucus caucus. Message to companies that don't agree with their Beltway lobbyist: Pull a Rick Scott (the former hospital executive running ads critical of ObamaCare), and you'll be sorry.

All these actions -- the White House meetings, the strung-out negotiations, the muzzling -- have been taken with one aim: To buy silence. President Barack Obama is committed to a public option. Liberal Democrats intend to make the private sector fund their plans. They figure by the time they drop a bill that contains odious elements, it'll be too late for any industry player -- big or small -- to cut a Harry & Louise ad.


If we take a short trip in the way-back machine, we are reminded that Obama promised something else. I seem to recall hearing (endlessly) that folks were tired of politics as usual. Obama was something different.

The promise of an Obama presidency, if it resembles his two year campaign which is no guarantee (i.e., see G. W. Bush) may be one that will be more mechanical and machine-like that will not interfere with every day people's lives but will assist when necessary and regulate or oversee not in large proportion but in smart ways. Hopefully and more than likely, it will be one with less cronyism and more competence. The Obama era hopefully brings a paradigm shift of politics with an adjustment towards inclusion and a stamp on unity of purpose for all Americans, reminiscent of Kennedy's era when Americans of all demographics wanted to serve the public.

One of the more striking excerpts from what was a remarkable speech was when Obama said with empathy and reconciliation, "Let's remember that it was a man from this state who first carried the banner of the Republican Party to the White House, a party founded on the values of self-reliance, individual liberty and national unity. Those are values that we all share. And while the Democratic Party has won a great victory tonight, we do so with a measure of humility and a determination to heal the divides that have held back our progress. As Lincoln said to a nation far more divided than ours, 'We are not enemies but friends though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection.' He continued, "And to those Americans whose support I have yet to earn, I may not have won your vote tonight but I hear your voices. I need your help and will be your president too."


Well, that was so-much bullshit, now wasn't it?

Thursday, July 09, 2009

Summer Arrives Tomorrow

Oops, sorry. No that's been cancelled. I had noticed the weather predictions were calling for a "heat wave" of 85 degrees for tomorrow. But that's been downgraded to a high of 81.

Heat wave. Of the normal average high temperature.

Congrats. We've finally warmed to the average. Or, we will (hopefully) tomorrow.

Today's racist post

From The Mackinac Ceneter:

Imagine a city where all the major economic planks of the statist or "progressive" platform have been enacted:

A "living wage" ordinance, far above the federal minimum wage, for all public employees and private contractors.
A school system that spends significantly more per pupil than the national average.
A powerful school employee union that militantly defends the exceptional pay, benefits and job security it has won for its members.
A powerful government employee union that does the same for its members.
A tax system that aggressively redistributes income from businesses and the wealthy to the poor and to government bureaucracies.
Would this be a shining city on a hill, exciting the admiration of all?


Well, this city, of course, is Detroit. Says Tom Bray:

Detroit, remember, was going to be the 'Model City' of Lyndon Johnson's Great Society, the shining example of what the 'fairness' of the welfare state can produce. Billions of dollars later, Detroit instead has become the model of everything that can go wrong when you hook people on the idea of something for nothing - a once-middle class city of nearly 2 million that is now a poverty-stricken city of less than 900,000."


Detroit is our future.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Crappy Puppy pic



More to come.

"Summer" Reading?

I put summer in scare quotes, because it's just not warm up here.

Despite that, I can still do some "summer" reading. I picked up a collection of Ray Bradbury short stories (many of which I've read already) and I'm enjoying that. And, I just got a library notice that a book I reserved is ready. "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress."

Can't wait!

Is it safe to turn on the teevee?

Is the Michael Jackson stuff over?

Tuesday, July 07, 2009

All ironical and shit

Like a free ride, when you've already paid. But, just today I was wondering what ManBearPig had been up to lately. Apparently, anti-climate change folks (like me) are the Nazis. And, Al Gore is Winston Churchill.

“It will either be ’what were you thinking, didn’t you see the North Pole melting before your eyes, didn’t you hear what the scientists were saying?’ “Or they will ask ’how is it you were able to find the moral courage to solve the crisis which so many said couldn’t be solved?’.”


erm. Ok. But, you know, first they came for the icebergs, and I wasn't an iceberg ... yada yada yada.

FTR, temperature in Michigan today? Upper 60's. Average temp? 81.