I was saddened today to hear of the death of Ted Kennedy. He lived his life as a self-indulgent frat boy, cowardly let Mary Jo Kopechne die while he worried about his political future, was a drunken philanderer, and was a poster boy for all things wrong with Democrat politics. His usefulness to Republicans was enormous - he was a living, breathing illustration of all we opposed.
Now in death the Democrats are trying to get a health-care bill passed that had no hope while Teddy was alive. As is always the case with Democrats, the facts didn't change, but emotions rule. However, here are the facts.
What they don’t have to pay for, people always want in abundance. Lost in the universal healthcare discussion is that our existing public options, Medicare and Medicaid, are already bankrupt (And Social Security is operating in the red). Not only bankrupt, but without drastic changes their unfunded liabilities (equal to the World’s GDP) will bankrupt future generations of Americans.
Over 70 percent of Americans like their health insurance, and with good reasons. The World Health Organization rates our health system the most responsive to medical needs in the world. Compared by outcomes, we have the highest survival rates for cancers and other life threatening illnesses. That’s the essence of what you want in a healthcare system: fast, effective service. Although the Canadian system is the darling of our Left, Cleveland, Ohio is known as the “hip replacement center of Canada.”
Unlike Democrats, Republicans have sound ideas for gaining Universal Healthcare. First, end the tax subsidy for employer provided healthcare, then give tax credits (vouchers for the poor) for purchasing health insurance. Health insurance then would be available and portable – you could change jobs without losing it.
Important Republican health insurance reforms are fought by Democrats, since Democrats are owned by the trial lawyers and the teacher and public employees unions. Republicans would dump the lawyers and let medical experts examine damage claims and award compensation. Malpractice insurance adds enormous costs and invites lawsuits, but even worse, threats of lawsuits make doctors examine and prescribe defensively and wastes billion of dollars.
Besides trial lawyers, unions are the other special interest group Democrats pander to, and they will fight to hang on to an accident of World War II, tax-subsidized health insurance, that never should have been allowed in the first place.
Democrats want special interests out of healthcare unless they contribute to Democrats.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Democrats Plan to Tax and Spend us to Prosperity
Representative Lynn Woolsey, Democrat, represents one of the most liberal districts in California. Her district includes storied Marin County, just accross the Golden Gate from San Francisco, but oddly stretches in its gerrymandering way up to include The Sea Ranch on the far northern tip of Sonoma County. How or why she picked The Sea Ranch to do a town-hall meeting is a real conundrum. It is sparsly populated - only a couple of hundred full-time residents - and far from the main-stream news media. In fact, our local weekly newspaper, the Independent Coast Observer, appears to have provided the only news coverage.
Several friends and neighbors asked me - begged me - to attend and ask Ms. Woolsey questions. Unfortunately, I was the parking czar for our annual Art in the Redwoods and had committed myself to running the parking the same afternoon as Ms. Woolsey's visit.
So I read the report of her visit, then sent the Independent Coast Observer editor the following commentary and questions I would have presented had I been able to attend:
Edidtor
I’m sorry I missed Lynn Woolsey’s love fest at The Sea Ranch and her message to everyone that they have rights to unlimited health care and to have someone else pay for it. Of course I had several questions I wanted to ask. The first and most important: “Ms. Woolsey, since Medicare and Medicaid are already bankrupt failures, why do you want everyone in them?”
Then, “Thank you for avoiding the question, Ms. Woolsey. You know Mr. Obama says he will fund universal health care by eliminating the thirty percent of Medicare and Medicaid costs that are due to fraud, waste, and abuse. Despite the fact that all politicians say they will do that, it never gets done – it just gets worse. Why isn’t Mr. Obama already eliminating the fraud, waste, and abuse to demonstrate that he can do it?”
“Thanks for ducking that question too. Ms. Woolsey, you, Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Obama, and other Democrat leaders say that opposition to health care reform is an “Astroturf” rather than “grass-roots” movement. However, John Sweeney, president of the National AFL-CIO, said that 250,000 union workers nationwide are being trained to advocate for health care reform. Is 250,000 paid and trained union thugs your idea of a Democrat grass-roots movement?”
“Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Obama now admits the deficit will be two trillion dollars larger in the next ten years than his previous estimate - nine trillion instead of seven trillion dollars - an almost thirty percent increase. With Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid now running deficits, tax revenues decreasing steadily, and China and other lenders worried about our falling credit worthiness, what sense is there in spending us into a deeper hole?”
“Ms. Woolsey, thank you and Democrats for demonstrating total lack of knowledge of economics.”
Several friends and neighbors asked me - begged me - to attend and ask Ms. Woolsey questions. Unfortunately, I was the parking czar for our annual Art in the Redwoods and had committed myself to running the parking the same afternoon as Ms. Woolsey's visit.
So I read the report of her visit, then sent the Independent Coast Observer editor the following commentary and questions I would have presented had I been able to attend:
Edidtor
I’m sorry I missed Lynn Woolsey’s love fest at The Sea Ranch and her message to everyone that they have rights to unlimited health care and to have someone else pay for it. Of course I had several questions I wanted to ask. The first and most important: “Ms. Woolsey, since Medicare and Medicaid are already bankrupt failures, why do you want everyone in them?”
Then, “Thank you for avoiding the question, Ms. Woolsey. You know Mr. Obama says he will fund universal health care by eliminating the thirty percent of Medicare and Medicaid costs that are due to fraud, waste, and abuse. Despite the fact that all politicians say they will do that, it never gets done – it just gets worse. Why isn’t Mr. Obama already eliminating the fraud, waste, and abuse to demonstrate that he can do it?”
“Thanks for ducking that question too. Ms. Woolsey, you, Nancy Pelosi, Mr. Obama, and other Democrat leaders say that opposition to health care reform is an “Astroturf” rather than “grass-roots” movement. However, John Sweeney, president of the National AFL-CIO, said that 250,000 union workers nationwide are being trained to advocate for health care reform. Is 250,000 paid and trained union thugs your idea of a Democrat grass-roots movement?”
“Ms. Woolsey, Mr. Obama now admits the deficit will be two trillion dollars larger in the next ten years than his previous estimate - nine trillion instead of seven trillion dollars - an almost thirty percent increase. With Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid now running deficits, tax revenues decreasing steadily, and China and other lenders worried about our falling credit worthiness, what sense is there in spending us into a deeper hole?”
“Ms. Woolsey, thank you and Democrats for demonstrating total lack of knowledge of economics.”
Friday, August 07, 2009
Democrats Love to Nazify Republicans
Apparently Nancy Pelosi saw a Republican demonstrator with a sign that had a Swastika overwritten with a red “No.” I would have interpreted the sign as meaning “no national socialist healthcare!” or something of that ilk, but it was definitely against, not an endorsement of, socialism.
(For those who are abysmally ignorant of history, also known as “Democrats” for short, Nazi is short for National Socialist, and no clear-headed thinker has ever concluded that Republicans are socialists. Or that the party of freedom, responsibility, and individualism would ever put itself in the hands of a power-mad demagogue. Republicans leave all those sorts of things to Democrats.)
Democrats use of Nazi imagery also reared its ugly head in Washington state, where Congressman Brian Baird, D-Vancouver said of anti-government healthcare demonstrators, "What we're seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics."
Perhaps Congressman Baird was confused about which were the Republicans and which the Democrats in a video of union thugs forcing demonstrators from a Democrat Townhall meeting in Tampa.
I had hoped that the Democrats would stop smearing Nazi imagery on Republicans after President Bush (“Bush-Hitler”) completed his presidency, but Democrats are still falling back on it at any sign of opposition. (Here’s a very large gallery of Democrats invoking Nazi imagery about President Bush)
Democrats are enormous hypocrites. They're whining about a poster of Obama as The Joker, but no one was upset when Vanity Fair ran a picture of President Bush as The Joker.
Democrat hypocrites are a coalition of special interest groups, and for many years for almost any occasion they have made very vocal appearances carrying mass produced signs – their unions in particular perform as “Rent a Mob” agencies.
Alice and I went to a Republican rally in Walnut Creek circa 1996 featuring Speaker Of The House Newt Gingrich. As we approached the venue, the Lesher Center for the Arts, well supplied union-employed demonstrators and activists for other causes were waving their professionally printed signs and chanting in unison. Alice and I were early, so we went among the demonstrators and started arguing with them and disrupting their chants by being more energetic and animated than they. At one point we were interviewed and photographed by a crew from Time Magazine, and also by reporters for the Oakland Tribune and other East Bay papers. The demonstrators were visibly upset that the two of us were getting all the attention of the news crews.
We discovered our notoriety when the phone rudely awoke us as we slept in the next day, Sunday morning. Alice answered and after verifying that she was Alice Combs, the caller said:”You’re not nice people,” and hung up. A moment later the phone rang again, only this time it was a Livermore friend asking if we had seen the Sunday Tri-Valley Herald: “Your pictures are on the front page!”
News about the Pope probably bumped us from Time, but pictures of us made the front pages of the Oakland Tribune, Tri-Valley Herald, and Contra Costa Times the following day.
(For those who are abysmally ignorant of history, also known as “Democrats” for short, Nazi is short for National Socialist, and no clear-headed thinker has ever concluded that Republicans are socialists. Or that the party of freedom, responsibility, and individualism would ever put itself in the hands of a power-mad demagogue. Republicans leave all those sorts of things to Democrats.)
Democrats use of Nazi imagery also reared its ugly head in Washington state, where Congressman Brian Baird, D-Vancouver said of anti-government healthcare demonstrators, "What we're seeing right now is close to Brown Shirt tactics."
Perhaps Congressman Baird was confused about which were the Republicans and which the Democrats in a video of union thugs forcing demonstrators from a Democrat Townhall meeting in Tampa.
I had hoped that the Democrats would stop smearing Nazi imagery on Republicans after President Bush (“Bush-Hitler”) completed his presidency, but Democrats are still falling back on it at any sign of opposition. (Here’s a very large gallery of Democrats invoking Nazi imagery about President Bush)
Democrats are enormous hypocrites. They're whining about a poster of Obama as The Joker, but no one was upset when Vanity Fair ran a picture of President Bush as The Joker.
Democrat hypocrites are a coalition of special interest groups, and for many years for almost any occasion they have made very vocal appearances carrying mass produced signs – their unions in particular perform as “Rent a Mob” agencies.
Alice and I went to a Republican rally in Walnut Creek circa 1996 featuring Speaker Of The House Newt Gingrich. As we approached the venue, the Lesher Center for the Arts, well supplied union-employed demonstrators and activists for other causes were waving their professionally printed signs and chanting in unison. Alice and I were early, so we went among the demonstrators and started arguing with them and disrupting their chants by being more energetic and animated than they. At one point we were interviewed and photographed by a crew from Time Magazine, and also by reporters for the Oakland Tribune and other East Bay papers. The demonstrators were visibly upset that the two of us were getting all the attention of the news crews.
We discovered our notoriety when the phone rudely awoke us as we slept in the next day, Sunday morning. Alice answered and after verifying that she was Alice Combs, the caller said:”You’re not nice people,” and hung up. A moment later the phone rang again, only this time it was a Livermore friend asking if we had seen the Sunday Tri-Valley Herald: “Your pictures are on the front page!”
News about the Pope probably bumped us from Time, but pictures of us made the front pages of the Oakland Tribune, Tri-Valley Herald, and Contra Costa Times the following day.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Democrat Politicians Learn Fast
Democrat politicians learn some things fast, anyway.
They’re clueless about healthcare, global warming, or spending within their means. But a couple of raucous town hall meetings have sent them whining for the phones. The “Tele-Townhall” is now their townhall of choice because it gives them total control over their audiences.
There won’t be any more mocking in Arkansas, flaring tempers in South Florida, disruptions in Connecticut, pandemonium in Pennsylvania, or Pelosi accusing protestors of “carrying Swastikas.”
Barbara Boxer complains right-wing protestors are "too-well dressed." (See the video here)
Obama wants supporters to snitch on opponents of Obamacare by emailing "fishy" emails and "evil blog posts" to flag@whitehouse.gov . I immediately got with the program and emailed each and all of my posts on healthcare last night. I invite you to click on my "healthcare" label at the bottom of this post and do the same.
Democrats decided to "demonstrate" back, except after they organized the event and directed how attendees should look - carry signs to demonstrate their support - they forgot that their featured Senator couldn't be there. But they think they can run healthcare?
When Democrat Rep. Doggett was "dogged" at a town hall in Texas, he said "don’t give up or give in to them," just before the Democrats gave up on in-person townhalls.
Last night I found a call recorded on our answering machine from Mike Thompson, Democrat, Representative for my northern California congressional district, to join in a “live” townhall via telephone. Mike caught on quick. That’s the last we’ll see of him.
Thompson is doing the same thing a Democrat does in Washington to control the "communication."
He doesn’t need us for much anyway. He gets more than enough campaign contributions from just two deep feeders at the public trough, the teachers and public employees unions.
Now all he will hear from us is what he wants to hear.
They’re clueless about healthcare, global warming, or spending within their means. But a couple of raucous town hall meetings have sent them whining for the phones. The “Tele-Townhall” is now their townhall of choice because it gives them total control over their audiences.
There won’t be any more mocking in Arkansas, flaring tempers in South Florida, disruptions in Connecticut, pandemonium in Pennsylvania, or Pelosi accusing protestors of “carrying Swastikas.”
Barbara Boxer complains right-wing protestors are "too-well dressed." (See the video here)
Obama wants supporters to snitch on opponents of Obamacare by emailing "fishy" emails and "evil blog posts" to flag@whitehouse.gov . I immediately got with the program and emailed each and all of my posts on healthcare last night. I invite you to click on my "healthcare" label at the bottom of this post and do the same.
Democrats decided to "demonstrate" back, except after they organized the event and directed how attendees should look - carry signs to demonstrate their support - they forgot that their featured Senator couldn't be there. But they think they can run healthcare?
When Democrat Rep. Doggett was "dogged" at a town hall in Texas, he said "don’t give up or give in to them," just before the Democrats gave up on in-person townhalls.
Last night I found a call recorded on our answering machine from Mike Thompson, Democrat, Representative for my northern California congressional district, to join in a “live” townhall via telephone. Mike caught on quick. That’s the last we’ll see of him.
Thompson is doing the same thing a Democrat does in Washington to control the "communication."
He doesn’t need us for much anyway. He gets more than enough campaign contributions from just two deep feeders at the public trough, the teachers and public employees unions.
Now all he will hear from us is what he wants to hear.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
"Birthers" vs. "Truthers" and "TANGers"
Liberals are enjoying ridiculing Republicans who have doubts that Barack Obama is a natural born American. I don't share those doubts, but I was interested in the proof the Left says is conclusive, for a reason I will disclose a bit later in this post.
In the case of the Los Angeles Times (click here for the article), the proof is obvious: Obama's birth certificate.
In the case of the Los Angeles Times (click here for the article), the proof is obvious: Obama's birth certificate.
I admit when I saw Obama's "birth certificate" I was underwhelmed, since it is a modern bare-bones form without any of the things I hoped to see: attending physician, hospital, certificate number, certifying signature and stamp, &etc. In other words it looks exactly like a modern form that anyone could have filled out on a laser printer. With the Certificate No. redacted (the form notes that "ANY ALTERATIONS INVALIDATE THIS CERTIFICATE") it really does not prove anything, and I can understand why the dubious would want more.
A radio host on NPR said that Liberals have proven that Obama was not born in America. According to the host, Liberals say you can't believe anything Ann Coulter says, and Ann says Obama was America-born.
It's not like Conservatives have a monopoly on conspiracy theories, since in number and fantasy the Left is far ahead. The "Truthers" inhabit a realm to which only the truly delusional can go. Since anyone who doesn't agree with them is part of the conspiracy, in their point of view there is no valid rebuttal to their beliefs - sorry, I mean their "facts." But just for the curious, here's one of many excellent debunkers (click here) of the "9/11 Truthers." All part of the conspiracy, don't you know.
The "TANGers" claim to fame is that their leader, Dan Rather, still believes his Texas Air National Guard letters were legitimate.
Before that was the "October Surprise." when soon to be Vice-President George H. W. Bush was flown to Paris in an F-111 supersonic Air Force fighter bomber, arranged to not have the hostages held by Iran released before the Reagan/Carter election, and was whisked back to Washington.
Many people, including some of my best friends, continue to say that Bill Clinton didn't lie when he said that he "never had sex with that woman." Oral sex, you see, is not sex.
Even though it's called sex.
I wish my friends realized that their defense of Clinton's lies eliminates a big part of the sex lives of gays, lesbians, bi-sexuals, transgenders, and even adventurous heterosexuals. It cuts sex in San Francisco by more than half.
Then there are Lefties who avere that Moncia Lowinsky was part of a Republican plot. That would be a dream come true for me - Republican leaders as devious as Democrats. Think of the brilliance and planning it would take to recruit a young Jewish Democrat capable of crossing the nation, procuring an internship, catching the eye of the President, and getting him to drop his pants in the White House and decorate a blue dress.
Hillary believed Bill "didn't have sex with that woman" and blamed it all on a vast right-wing conspiracy.
For ever looney right-wing conspiracy theory the Left has ten even loonier.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
OBAMA: JOE BIDEN IS AN ASSet
Obama said: "Joe Biden is an Asset"
"Folksy" Joe Biden is an asset, but to whom? Certainly at this time, when Republicans are taking the momentum off the Democrat's mad rush towards socialized heathcare and economically ruinous "tax charade" environmental protection, Biden's comments are a welcome distraction causing Democrats to lose their focus and to expose their lack of credibility.
In terms of credibility, how credible is the Obama Administration when it rushes to declare "Joe Biden is an asset" as once more his remarks cause them to make embarrassing denials and explanations?
Folksy Joe already said Democrats didn't understand how bad the economy was, and that even if they did everything right they had as equal a chance of failure as success.
Actually, this was one of the few times Folksy Joe got it right.
For a small compilation of Folksy Joe's dumb remarks, click on the "Joe Biden Dumb Remarks" label below (and find out why I nicknamed him "Folksy Joe")
Several months ago I posted this comment in reply to a comment from a Biden supporter. I enjoyed rereading it so much, that just had to add it to this latest:
"Folksy" Joe Biden is an asset, but to whom? Certainly at this time, when Republicans are taking the momentum off the Democrat's mad rush towards socialized heathcare and economically ruinous "tax charade" environmental protection, Biden's comments are a welcome distraction causing Democrats to lose their focus and to expose their lack of credibility.
In terms of credibility, how credible is the Obama Administration when it rushes to declare "Joe Biden is an asset" as once more his remarks cause them to make embarrassing denials and explanations?
Folksy Joe already said Democrats didn't understand how bad the economy was, and that even if they did everything right they had as equal a chance of failure as success.
Actually, this was one of the few times Folksy Joe got it right.
For a small compilation of Folksy Joe's dumb remarks, click on the "Joe Biden Dumb Remarks" label below (and find out why I nicknamed him "Folksy Joe")
Several months ago I posted this comment in reply to a comment from a Biden supporter. I enjoyed rereading it so much, that just had to add it to this latest:
The Main Stream Media overlooked one of Biden’s many “Dan Quayle” moments, when Biden didn’t know that his Democrat saint, FDR, was not president when the stock market crashed in 1929, and that television was still over a decade away.
What do you think? Isn’t Biden’s comment dumber than Dan Quayle not knowing that, unlike the plural “potatoes,” the singular has no silent “e”?
Democrats called Dick Cheney a "Chicken Hawk" because of five student deferments that kept him from being drafted. I wonder what Joe Biden will be called? He also had five student deferments, then was classified 1-Y (undraftable except in a national emergency) because of childhood asthma.
In "Promises to Keep," a memoir that was published last year and became an instant best-seller after he was tapped as Obama's running mate, Biden never mentions his asthma, recounting an active childhood, work as a lifeguard and football exploits in high school.
Isn't this the same Joe Biden who is so proud of his vitality?
With the political and military acumen that typifies Democrats, Joe Biden pronounced the “surge” a failure just as it was proving just the opposite. Joe Biden on the surge: "The surge isn't going to work either tactically or strategically,” Biden told the Boston Globe last summer. “Tactically it isn't going to work because ... our guys go in and secure a neighborhood, but because we don't have enough troops, we have to turn it over to the Iraqis, and they can't hold it or won't hold it."
More Democrat wishful thinking? They wanted the surge to fail in the worst way.
When asked by George Stephanopoulos if he had said “The presidency is not something that lends itself to on-the-job training,” concerning whether Obama was ready to be President, Joe Biden said one of the few things he has gotten right: "I think I stand by that statement."
I’ll bet he won’t stand by it today.
That was one of the few signs Joe Biden has shown of having any sense. While he was dumb enough to get caught for plagiarism, he was doubly dumb by plagiarizing an ineffective British Labour leader, Neil Kinnock. For those who protest that Biden’s plagiarism was accidental, we have voluminous evidence that Biden is a stranger to truth from his undergraduate days: "Within days, it was also discovered that as a first-year law student at Syracuse Law School, Biden had plagiarized a law review article in a class paper he wrote. Though the dean of the law school in 1988 as well as Biden's former professor played down the incident of plagiarism, they did find that Biden drew 'chunks of heavy legal prose directly from' the article in question. Biden said the act was inadvertent due to his not knowing the proper rules of citation, and Biden was permitted to retake the course after receiving a grade of F, which was subsequently dropped from his record.
Biden also released his undergraduate grades, which started off poorly and remained unexceptional. Further, when questioned by a New Hampshire resident about his grades in law school Biden had claimed falsely to have graduated in the 'top half' of his class, (when he actually graduated 76th in a class of 85), that he had attended on a full scholarship, and had received three degrees. In fact he had received two majors, History and Political Science, and a single B.A., as well as a half scholarship based on financial need.
Note to Obama: Silence is Golden
The New York Times that wouldn’t let the Bush Administration keep classified information secret, now wants to give cover to an Obama Administration that can’t keep its mouths shut.
It starts at the top, of course. Obama put his foot in it when he stupidly said the Cambridge, Massachusetts cops “stupidly” arrested Gates. He not only put his foot in it, he then shot himself in the foot because he let all the air out he was trying to pump into creating socialized healthcare.
Just when he had everyone’s attention focused on healthcare, he made himself his own distraction.
Now a video just surfaced via the Drudge Report of Obama complaining to Randi Rhodes on “Air America” that the Bush Administration rushed legislation through before anyone had a chance to even read it, let alone debate it.
Talk about the “pot calling the kettle black.”
This cliché means that Obama is a hypocrite, and has nothing to do with race, quite unlike Obama’s remark about the Cambridge police officer.
The number one loose tongue, however, is and remains “Folksy” Joe Biden. Who can forget his “The government has to spend to keep from going bankrupt”? Liberal pundits were quick to come to his defense: “You know, it sounds funny, but the Vice President is right.”
Then California is in great shape because the California Legislature has spent like a New Jersey politician for the past decade. As California tax revenues went down, California public employment went up. Medi-Cal went up. Anything and all things Californians said they needed – except tax cuts – were funded and immediately became sacrosanct, never to be cut, let alone eliminated.
After being ridiculed for his remarks about our economy, Folksy Joe then brought ridicule on the economy that serves as a model for Democrats, Russian socialism.
“They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable," Biden said in the interview.
"I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold," he said in an interview to The Wall Street Journal published Saturday.
Biden said Russia's economic difficulties are likely to make the Kremlin more willing to cooperate with the United States on a range of national security issues.
Not any more, Folksy Joe.
It starts at the top, of course. Obama put his foot in it when he stupidly said the Cambridge, Massachusetts cops “stupidly” arrested Gates. He not only put his foot in it, he then shot himself in the foot because he let all the air out he was trying to pump into creating socialized healthcare.
Just when he had everyone’s attention focused on healthcare, he made himself his own distraction.
Now a video just surfaced via the Drudge Report of Obama complaining to Randi Rhodes on “Air America” that the Bush Administration rushed legislation through before anyone had a chance to even read it, let alone debate it.
Talk about the “pot calling the kettle black.”
This cliché means that Obama is a hypocrite, and has nothing to do with race, quite unlike Obama’s remark about the Cambridge police officer.
The number one loose tongue, however, is and remains “Folksy” Joe Biden. Who can forget his “The government has to spend to keep from going bankrupt”? Liberal pundits were quick to come to his defense: “You know, it sounds funny, but the Vice President is right.”
Then California is in great shape because the California Legislature has spent like a New Jersey politician for the past decade. As California tax revenues went down, California public employment went up. Medi-Cal went up. Anything and all things Californians said they needed – except tax cuts – were funded and immediately became sacrosanct, never to be cut, let alone eliminated.
After being ridiculed for his remarks about our economy, Folksy Joe then brought ridicule on the economy that serves as a model for Democrats, Russian socialism.
“They have a shrinking population base, they have a withering economy, they have a banking sector and structure that is not likely to be able to withstand the next 15 years, they're in a situation where the world is changing before them and they're clinging to something in the past that is not sustainable," Biden said in the interview.
"I think we vastly underestimate the hand that we hold," he said in an interview to The Wall Street Journal published Saturday.
Biden said Russia's economic difficulties are likely to make the Kremlin more willing to cooperate with the United States on a range of national security issues.
Not any more, Folksy Joe.
Friday, July 24, 2009
Blue Dogs are not Pelosi’s “Amen Choir”
(Click on this for a larger, although still completely unintelligible chart of the Democrat plan for Obama Care)Democrat leaders want to do something that I would like them to do.
That’s usually not a good idea for Democrats.
Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and the usual Liberal Democrat leadership suspects are frustrated that the “Blue Dogs” (conservative Democrats) on Waxman’s House Energy and Commerce Committee want to exercise their rights to shape the Obamacare Bill more to their liking. (Link here)
Democrat leaders are appalled they would do that. If the “Inner Nancy” were allowed to speak, she would say to the Blue Dogs: “You mutts are here to approve my legislation, so keep your paws off. Now ‘sit!’”
Queen Nancy knows she’s the power behind the throne, and so does Obama.
Fortunately for taxpayers, and recipients of the best healthcare in the World, the Blue Dogs know their constituents didn’t elect them to be Liberal lapdogs. They know that the Republicans they replaced will be replacing them soon if they support Pelosi’s Liberal San Francisco Democrat agenda.
Democrat leadership would like to bypass the Blue Dogs on Waxman’s committee and have their healthcare bill voted on by the whole House. I whole-heartedly endorse this Democrat strategy.
Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats will defeat Obamacare when the full House votes, resulting in a double ding against Democrat leadership: an embarrassing defeat for Obama and Pelosi, destroying their healthcare reform credentials, and total alienation of the Democrat’s conservative wing. The Blue Dogs will lose all trust in their leaders, but their constituents will wonder why they elected them instead of Republicans in the first place?
As Democrats do the same to the United States that they’ve already done to California, a lot more voters will be asking the same question.
That’s usually not a good idea for Democrats.
Nancy Pelosi, Henry Waxman, and the usual Liberal Democrat leadership suspects are frustrated that the “Blue Dogs” (conservative Democrats) on Waxman’s House Energy and Commerce Committee want to exercise their rights to shape the Obamacare Bill more to their liking. (Link here)
Democrat leaders are appalled they would do that. If the “Inner Nancy” were allowed to speak, she would say to the Blue Dogs: “You mutts are here to approve my legislation, so keep your paws off. Now ‘sit!’”
Queen Nancy knows she’s the power behind the throne, and so does Obama.
Fortunately for taxpayers, and recipients of the best healthcare in the World, the Blue Dogs know their constituents didn’t elect them to be Liberal lapdogs. They know that the Republicans they replaced will be replacing them soon if they support Pelosi’s Liberal San Francisco Democrat agenda.
Democrat leadership would like to bypass the Blue Dogs on Waxman’s committee and have their healthcare bill voted on by the whole House. I whole-heartedly endorse this Democrat strategy.
Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats will defeat Obamacare when the full House votes, resulting in a double ding against Democrat leadership: an embarrassing defeat for Obama and Pelosi, destroying their healthcare reform credentials, and total alienation of the Democrat’s conservative wing. The Blue Dogs will lose all trust in their leaders, but their constituents will wonder why they elected them instead of Republicans in the first place?
As Democrats do the same to the United States that they’ve already done to California, a lot more voters will be asking the same question.
Rebuttal of Physicians for National Health Program Myths
(Click on this chart of "Obama Care" to see what a bureaucratic jungle the Democrats are planning. It will be more costly - naturally, it's a government program! - with the compassion of the IRS and the efficiency of the DMV.)A friend and neighbor sent a "copy and paste" essay to our local weekly newspaper, The Independent Coast Observer (ICO). This week they published my rebuttal, which is not complete since, unlike the article I'm rebutting, I'm actually gathering facts and including links to their sources. The following is my rebuttal so far:
The ICO could have saved over 1,000 words by just printing this link instead of the Open Space “Facts about single-payer care” article which was provided word for word by the very biased Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). However, since the ICO promoted the PNHP position, fairness and balance would indicate allowing space to point out its egregious errors and omissions. Here are just a few:
Myth: 50 million Americans (16%) are uninsured. Truth: The Census Bureau (2005) reports the number is 47 million. Of the 47 million, approximately 10 million are illegal aliens. Even Michael Moore agrees that being “an American” matters to get health insurance. Discussing “Sicko” on ABC’s “Nightline” Moore said: “That’s the only preexisting condition that should exist. I am an American. That’s it.”
Another 17 million make more than $50,000 per year (well above the median household income of $46,326). Why are households with above the median income uninsured? Forty-five percent of the uninsured will only be that way for less than four months according to the Congressional Budget Office, and 60% say they are in excellent or very good health. (Link here)
The Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit, puts the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That is a much smaller figure than the media report. Kaiser’s 8.2 million Americans (2.7%) chronically uninsured only includes those uninsured for two years or more.
Myth: Private insurance administrative costs are high, and most are unnecessary. Truth: Medicare’s administrative costs are much higher than private insurance, and include far more unnecessary expenditures. (Link here) In 2005, Medicare's administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453.
Medicare’s costs are higher even though what the public plan advocates claim as Medicare costs do not even include enormous Medicare expenses, the largest of which is Medicare fraud and waste. Researchers at Dartmouth estimate that waste (including fraud) consumes about one-third of Medicare's costs. That is, to deliver $100 of frugal care, Medicare spends $150, $50 of which is for unnecessary use.
Knowing Americans are weak in math, advocates of a public plan assert that Medicare has administrative costs of 3 percent (or 6 to 8 percent if support from other government agencies is included), compared to 14 to 22 percent for private employer-sponsored health insurance (depending on which study is cited), or even more for individually purchased insurance. Why the difference? It’s simple math. Medicare patients are older and consume more expensive medical services than the average private insurance policy holder. When you divide the Medicare administrative cost numerator by the very large total cost denominator, you get a smaller administrative cost percentage, even if total administrative costs were identical for Medicare and private insurance.
This is compounded by Medicare not being charged or allocated costs that private insurers bear, such as state “premium taxes” that average two percent, and depreciation, maintenance and repairs, and utilities costs for offices in public buildings.Excluded Medicare administrative costs (from the American Medical Association Proposal for Reform) (Link here):
• Tax collection to fund Medicare—this is analogous to premium collection by private insurers, but whereas premium collection expenses of private insurers are rightly counted as administrative costs, tax collection expenses incurred by employers and the Internal Revenue Service do not appear in the official Medicare or NHE accounting systems and are overlooked
• Medicare program marketing, outreach and education
• Medicare program customer service
• Medicare program auditing by the Office of the Inspector General (which is costly but does little to eliminate the enormity of Medicare fraud)
• Medicare program contract negotiations
• Building costs of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) dedicated to the Medicare program• Staff salaries for CMS personnel with Medicare program responsibilities
• Congressional resources expended each year on setting Medicare payment rates for services
Myth: Medical bills contribute to half of all personal bankruptcies. Truth: Mortgage and rent payments, automobile payments, insurance, unemployment, over-exuberant credit card use, etc., “contribute” as much or more to personal bankruptcies than medical bills. (Link here) When other researchers analyzed the Harvard study that concluded half of all personal bankruptcies were related to medical bills, they found that only 17 percent were, and concluded that “medical debt is like any other debt -- a cause but not the most important cause of bankruptcy.”
The ICO could have saved over 1,000 words by just printing this link instead of the Open Space “Facts about single-payer care” article which was provided word for word by the very biased Physicians for a National Health Program (PNHP). However, since the ICO promoted the PNHP position, fairness and balance would indicate allowing space to point out its egregious errors and omissions. Here are just a few:
Myth: 50 million Americans (16%) are uninsured. Truth: The Census Bureau (2005) reports the number is 47 million. Of the 47 million, approximately 10 million are illegal aliens. Even Michael Moore agrees that being “an American” matters to get health insurance. Discussing “Sicko” on ABC’s “Nightline” Moore said: “That’s the only preexisting condition that should exist. I am an American. That’s it.”
Another 17 million make more than $50,000 per year (well above the median household income of $46,326). Why are households with above the median income uninsured? Forty-five percent of the uninsured will only be that way for less than four months according to the Congressional Budget Office, and 60% say they are in excellent or very good health. (Link here)
The Kaiser Family Foundation, a liberal non-profit, puts the number of uninsured Americans who do not qualify for current government programs and make less than $50,000 a year between 13.9 million and 8.2 million. That is a much smaller figure than the media report. Kaiser’s 8.2 million Americans (2.7%) chronically uninsured only includes those uninsured for two years or more.
Myth: Private insurance administrative costs are high, and most are unnecessary. Truth: Medicare’s administrative costs are much higher than private insurance, and include far more unnecessary expenditures. (Link here) In 2005, Medicare's administrative costs were $509 per primary beneficiary, compared to private-sector administrative costs of $453.
Medicare’s costs are higher even though what the public plan advocates claim as Medicare costs do not even include enormous Medicare expenses, the largest of which is Medicare fraud and waste. Researchers at Dartmouth estimate that waste (including fraud) consumes about one-third of Medicare's costs. That is, to deliver $100 of frugal care, Medicare spends $150, $50 of which is for unnecessary use.
Knowing Americans are weak in math, advocates of a public plan assert that Medicare has administrative costs of 3 percent (or 6 to 8 percent if support from other government agencies is included), compared to 14 to 22 percent for private employer-sponsored health insurance (depending on which study is cited), or even more for individually purchased insurance. Why the difference? It’s simple math. Medicare patients are older and consume more expensive medical services than the average private insurance policy holder. When you divide the Medicare administrative cost numerator by the very large total cost denominator, you get a smaller administrative cost percentage, even if total administrative costs were identical for Medicare and private insurance.
This is compounded by Medicare not being charged or allocated costs that private insurers bear, such as state “premium taxes” that average two percent, and depreciation, maintenance and repairs, and utilities costs for offices in public buildings.Excluded Medicare administrative costs (from the American Medical Association Proposal for Reform) (Link here):
• Tax collection to fund Medicare—this is analogous to premium collection by private insurers, but whereas premium collection expenses of private insurers are rightly counted as administrative costs, tax collection expenses incurred by employers and the Internal Revenue Service do not appear in the official Medicare or NHE accounting systems and are overlooked
• Medicare program marketing, outreach and education
• Medicare program customer service
• Medicare program auditing by the Office of the Inspector General (which is costly but does little to eliminate the enormity of Medicare fraud)
• Medicare program contract negotiations
• Building costs of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) dedicated to the Medicare program• Staff salaries for CMS personnel with Medicare program responsibilities
• Congressional resources expended each year on setting Medicare payment rates for services
Myth: Medical bills contribute to half of all personal bankruptcies. Truth: Mortgage and rent payments, automobile payments, insurance, unemployment, over-exuberant credit card use, etc., “contribute” as much or more to personal bankruptcies than medical bills. (Link here) When other researchers analyzed the Harvard study that concluded half of all personal bankruptcies were related to medical bills, they found that only 17 percent were, and concluded that “medical debt is like any other debt -- a cause but not the most important cause of bankruptcy.”
(Medical bills - and fraud, waste, and abuse - have already contributed totally to one significant bankruptcy: Medicare.)
Myth: We pay for national health insurance, but don't get it. Truth: Workers pay 2.9 percent of their earnings into Medicare, which is already bankrupt (technically, not until 2017 when its mythical trust fund runs dry, but Medicare is already paying out more than it is taking in, even though the first Baby Boomer doesn’t start Medicare until 2011). The Medicare rate will have to be raised to 13.4 percent just to maintain promised benefits. (Link here)After adding on the inadequate12.4 percent for Social Security, workers will have to pay 25.8 percent of their pay (not tax deductible) before paying income, property, and sales taxes, plus exorbitant energy taxes to fund the futile battle against natural climate change.
Myth: Despite spending far less per capita for health care, Canadians are healthier and have better measures of access to health care than Americans. Truth: The 2002-03 Joint Canada/United States Survey of Health concluded, on average, health status in Canada and the U.S. is approximately equal. However, Canadians suffer long waits for many surgical procedures.
The Canadian Supreme Court struck down Quebec's law that prohibited private medical insurance, finding against having to wait a year for hip-replacement surgery. In finding for the plaintiffs, Canada's high court said, "The evidence in this case shows that delays in the public healthcare system are widespread, and that, in some serious cases, patients die as a result of waiting lists for public healthcare...(and endure)… physical and psychological suffering that meets a threshold test of seriousness. Many patients on non-urgent waiting lists are in pain and cannot fully enjoy any real quality of life. The right to life and to personal inviolability is therefore affected by the waiting times." (Link here)
The rest of the PNHP article was similarly replete with misinformation which I will expose in even greater depth on my website (I'm working on it!)
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Deficits for Dummies
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general for the government’s financial bailout programs, says that a series of bailouts, bank rescues and other economic lifelines could end up costing the federal government as much as $23 trillion– a staggering amount that is nearly double the nation’s entire economic output for a year.
Since the unfunded liability for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is triple Mr. Barofsky’s bailout estimate – more than the entire World’s economic output for a year – it’s interesting how Democrats and their enablers in the Main Stream Media avoid mentioning it. On the contrary, faced with Mr. Barofsky’s report and enormous unfunded liabilities, the Democrats want to blow trillions more on healthcare and energy “reform.” Their logic is probably that since their hole is so big, no one will notice they are still digging.
Unfortunately for Obama and his Prosperity Thieves, we will notice when the Democrats’ borrowing and spending causes “stagflation” – the old Carter era word for a stagnant economy coupled with inflation. Our taxes will go up along with unemployment, while tax revenues drop as total income falls. Inflation will eat up our investment values and property values will stall or fall.
Then, to compound the agony, the best healthcare system in the World will be trashed, and our industries and lifestyles will be destroyed in a futile attempt to stop natural climate change. We'll be a little bit warmer as we stand in long lines waiting for rationed healthcare to deny us hip replacement surgery because while we were waiting we became too old or feeble to pass the bureaucratic approval standards: "If you had hip replacement surgery five years ago, you would be OK, but now your body has deteriorated so much because of physical inactivity that an operation would be waste of scarce Universal Healthcare dollars."
Don't tell me this won't happen. I've already seen it happen to my buddy Arthur in England. His scheduled hip replacement was rescheduled year after year because England's National Health Service ran out of funds each year for surgeries to correct "non-life threatening" conditions, until finally a hip replacement wouldn't do him any good because of muscular atrophy.
You're next.
Since the unfunded liability for Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security is triple Mr. Barofsky’s bailout estimate – more than the entire World’s economic output for a year – it’s interesting how Democrats and their enablers in the Main Stream Media avoid mentioning it. On the contrary, faced with Mr. Barofsky’s report and enormous unfunded liabilities, the Democrats want to blow trillions more on healthcare and energy “reform.” Their logic is probably that since their hole is so big, no one will notice they are still digging.
Unfortunately for Obama and his Prosperity Thieves, we will notice when the Democrats’ borrowing and spending causes “stagflation” – the old Carter era word for a stagnant economy coupled with inflation. Our taxes will go up along with unemployment, while tax revenues drop as total income falls. Inflation will eat up our investment values and property values will stall or fall.
Then, to compound the agony, the best healthcare system in the World will be trashed, and our industries and lifestyles will be destroyed in a futile attempt to stop natural climate change. We'll be a little bit warmer as we stand in long lines waiting for rationed healthcare to deny us hip replacement surgery because while we were waiting we became too old or feeble to pass the bureaucratic approval standards: "If you had hip replacement surgery five years ago, you would be OK, but now your body has deteriorated so much because of physical inactivity that an operation would be waste of scarce Universal Healthcare dollars."
Don't tell me this won't happen. I've already seen it happen to my buddy Arthur in England. His scheduled hip replacement was rescheduled year after year because England's National Health Service ran out of funds each year for surgeries to correct "non-life threatening" conditions, until finally a hip replacement wouldn't do him any good because of muscular atrophy.
You're next.
Friday, July 17, 2009
"Folksy Joe" Biden, Humorist
This was the Drudge Report headline link July 17, 2009 to “Folksy Joe” Biden: 'WE HAVE TO SPEND MONEY TO KEEP FROM GOING BANKRUPT'
Here’s what Folksy Joe said at an AARP event in Alexandria, Va.:
“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable. It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”
“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.
“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”
Just above Folksy Joe’s headline, Drudge linked: CBO: Federal budget is on unsustainable path..., in which the Director of the Congressional Budget Office explained that current spending, and the resultant enormous increase in public debt, has put “…the federal budget … on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.”
Just above the CBO Director’s report, Drudge linked: UPDATE: Senator quashes department's bid for cartoonist... The Treasury Department had wanted to hire a cartoonist to “… conduct two, 3-hour Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace [and] the close relationship between humor and stress.”
The ad was cancelled when they found they didn’t need to hire a humorist, they could just have someone read Folksy Joe’s remarks at their meetings.
Here’s what Folksy Joe said at an AARP event in Alexandria, Va.:
“And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable. It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”
“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.
“Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.”
Just above Folksy Joe’s headline, Drudge linked: CBO: Federal budget is on unsustainable path..., in which the Director of the Congressional Budget Office explained that current spending, and the resultant enormous increase in public debt, has put “…the federal budget … on an unsustainable path, because federal debt will continue to grow much faster than the economy over the long run.”
Just above the CBO Director’s report, Drudge linked: UPDATE: Senator quashes department's bid for cartoonist... The Treasury Department had wanted to hire a cartoonist to “… conduct two, 3-hour Humor in the Workplace programs that will discuss the power of humor in the workplace [and] the close relationship between humor and stress.”
The ad was cancelled when they found they didn’t need to hire a humorist, they could just have someone read Folksy Joe’s remarks at their meetings.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Good Ideas for Health Care Reform
There are a lot of good ideas for reforming health care.
Unfortunately, the Democrats don't know any.
Healthcare should be reformed to improve portability, affordability, and availability.
The Democrats, a wholly owned subsidiary of the labor unions, will never bite the bullet for real reform, which simply is to end the exemption of employer-provided healthcare from income taxation.
From my readings of taxation documentation, it is abundantly clear that all compensation is taxable, except that which is excluded by Congress. Why some is excluded has everything to do with politics, and nothing to do with tax equity. The same congress people that mount soapboxes and proclaim their progressive principles never give a thought that exempting employer-provided healthcare is the largest and one of the most regressive special interest tax breaks.
Employees who think they're getting a good deal by having their employers provide healthcare should think again. For example, I worked for Lockheed Corporation after retiring from the Air Force. As a military retiree, I had lifetime medical coverage for myself, my wife, and children until they completed college or turned 18 if they didn't go on to college. Lockheed also insisted on providing me and my family healthcare, and when I told them I was already covered and that they could just pay me what they would be paying for healthcare, they said they didn't work that way. So there I was, getting something of no value to me, getting no use from a "benefit" that had its cost deducted from my compensation. In essence, I was forced to pay hundreds of dollars a month for nothing.
Another example. A Lockheed co-worker had a great offer of employment with a Silicon Valley hi-tech company, but couldn’t take it because his wife had a medical condition that would make it impossible for him to get health insurance when he left Lockheed.
Just at Lockheed there were examples galore of employees not getting full value or control from their Lockheed-provided medical coverage.
Hoever, when you enter the world of the self-employed you find that employees provided health care by their employers don't have a lot to gripe about, since they get tax-subsidized healthcare, and the self-employed don't. To further rub it in, the self-employed also get to help subsidize the healthcare of others through their taxes and their higher healthcare premiums (since they don't have the clout with the insurers of the big employers).
Unfortunately, the Democrats don't know any.
Healthcare should be reformed to improve portability, affordability, and availability.
The Democrats, a wholly owned subsidiary of the labor unions, will never bite the bullet for real reform, which simply is to end the exemption of employer-provided healthcare from income taxation.
From my readings of taxation documentation, it is abundantly clear that all compensation is taxable, except that which is excluded by Congress. Why some is excluded has everything to do with politics, and nothing to do with tax equity. The same congress people that mount soapboxes and proclaim their progressive principles never give a thought that exempting employer-provided healthcare is the largest and one of the most regressive special interest tax breaks.
Employees who think they're getting a good deal by having their employers provide healthcare should think again. For example, I worked for Lockheed Corporation after retiring from the Air Force. As a military retiree, I had lifetime medical coverage for myself, my wife, and children until they completed college or turned 18 if they didn't go on to college. Lockheed also insisted on providing me and my family healthcare, and when I told them I was already covered and that they could just pay me what they would be paying for healthcare, they said they didn't work that way. So there I was, getting something of no value to me, getting no use from a "benefit" that had its cost deducted from my compensation. In essence, I was forced to pay hundreds of dollars a month for nothing.
Another example. A Lockheed co-worker had a great offer of employment with a Silicon Valley hi-tech company, but couldn’t take it because his wife had a medical condition that would make it impossible for him to get health insurance when he left Lockheed.
Just at Lockheed there were examples galore of employees not getting full value or control from their Lockheed-provided medical coverage.
Hoever, when you enter the world of the self-employed you find that employees provided health care by their employers don't have a lot to gripe about, since they get tax-subsidized healthcare, and the self-employed don't. To further rub it in, the self-employed also get to help subsidize the healthcare of others through their taxes and their higher healthcare premiums (since they don't have the clout with the insurers of the big employers).
As usual, the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute have intensively studied this issue and proposed thoughtful solutions. The Cato proposal of Large Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) would be a perfect reform: it would be portable, flexible, only involve tweaking the existing HSA legislation, and would reintroduce market forces into healthcare to promote competition and affordability.
To learn more, go here for the Cato Institute analysis and proposal, and here for the Heritage Foundation.
You'll never get this information from Democrats or the Main Stream Media because they know that knowledge is power, and to them Americans' ignorance is bliss.
We Beat Global Warming!
"The Group of Eight industrialized nations joined with developing countries in agreeing Wednesday that average global temperatures shouldn't increase by more than 2 degrees Celsius in a significant new acknowledgement in the fight against global warming."
Thirty years of NASA satellite measurement show that, as of June 2009, we are essentially back to the temperatures of 1979. For those wishing to dispute the satellite numbers, they come from the same NASA that gives us James Hansen, the Apostle of Man-Caused Global Warming.
Thirty years of NASA satellite measurement show that, as of June 2009, we are essentially back to the temperatures of 1979. For those wishing to dispute the satellite numbers, they come from the same NASA that gives us James Hansen, the Apostle of Man-Caused Global Warming.This is wonderful news, since even the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has steadily reduced their warming estimates: "In 1996 a new IPCC prediction was for an increase of 0.8 degrees to 3.5 degrees Celsius by 2100 - less than half the warming in twice the time."
This was followed by: "A U.S. government survey of the global climate model literature predicted even less warming - between 0.5 degrees and 2.0 degrees Celsius by 2100."
James Hansen, whose 1988 pronouncements started the clamor for action to prevent global warming, wrote in the 1998 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that "the forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with accuracy sufficient to define future climate change."
Now Hansen is even more forthright:
This was followed by: "A U.S. government survey of the global climate model literature predicted even less warming - between 0.5 degrees and 2.0 degrees Celsius by 2100."
James Hansen, whose 1988 pronouncements started the clamor for action to prevent global warming, wrote in the 1998 Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that "the forcings that drive long-term climate change are not known with accuracy sufficient to define future climate change."
Now Hansen is even more forthright:
Mr. Hansen, I'm sure you have his number, so would be so kind as to tell Mr. Gore all this so we can get on to solving real problems?Urging caution regarding “implausible” and “unduly pessimistic” IPCC climate scenarios, NASA’s Hansen opts for observations to guide his forecasts of a 0.75ºC temperature rise by the year 2050.
NASA’s James Hansen, who is widely credited as being the “father of global warming” recently wrote that the climate change scenarios put forth in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) 2001 Third Assessment Report (TAR) “may be unduly pessimistic,” and that the IPCC extreme scenarios are “implausible.” In fact, he argues, the observed trends in atmospheric carbon dioxide and methane concentrations for the past several years fall below all IPCC scenarios, so consequently future temperature rise will most like be about 0.75ºC during the next 50 years.
Hansen makes these claims in articles including “Defusing the Global Warming Time Bomb,” which appeared in the March Scientific American. He bases his conclusions on simple empirical evidence that he considers more precise and reliable than model results “because it includes all the processes operating in the real world, even those we have not yet been smart enough to include in the models.”
Like Medicare/Medicaid and Social Security unfunded liabilities of over $80 trillion, and they come due long before 2100.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Al Gore's Twenty Feet-In-Mouth Problem
Going shopping with Al.Some things are so obvious they're hard to see.
For example, the most dramatic part of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" was the scenes of flooded city streets and the ominous prediction of a 20-foot rise in sea levels by 2100. According to Al, this was the most damaging aspect of global warming, and the reason that "Something must be done, and it must be done now!"
Al continues to beat the panic drum, now comparing inaction on stopping global warming to inaction on stopping Nazi Germany. And the reason we must do it now, of course, is that awful flooding is eminent.
What else could make us join his march to save the world at great expense and loss of economic progress? The threat that the growing season will be longer? That crops will grow better and make better use of water resources? That the thundering herds that voted for global warming with their feet by moving south won't have to move as far now? That the world may become as warm as during the Holocene Climate Optimum of 5,000 to 9,000 years ago, when civilization began and thrived?
Maybe Al intends to rally us to the cry, "Turn back the Industrial Revolution!" He wants us to repudiate the mastery of energy that enabled us to transition from man power, t0 animal power, then wind and water power, and now to the unlimited, inexhaustible power of the atom.
To do that, Al knows that he has only one threat capable of generating unthinking panic. Just as in the Bible God sent The Deluge, Al has invoked The Sea Rise. And just as God had to get the deed done quickly - make it rain for forty days and forty nights - so Al too must make the future bleak, if not for ourselves then for our grandchildren.
A twenty-foot rise in a hundred years should do the trick.
However, Al has a problem, the snowline altitude.
The snowline altitude is the altitude of the lowest elevation interval in which minimum annual snow cover exceeds 50%. This ranges from about 5,500 metres above sea-level at the equator down to sea level at about 70° N&S latitude, depending on regional temperature amelioration effects. Permafrost then appears at sea level and extends deeper below sea level polewards.
As most of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets lie above the snowline and/or base of the permafrost zone, they cannot melt in a timeframe much less than several millennia; therefore it is likely that they will not, through melting, contribute significantly to sea level rise in the coming century. They can, however, do so through acceleration in flow and enhanced iceberg calving.
The fact that the Antarctica and Greenland snowlines will prevent rapid ice cap melt for thousands of years is so obvious that it is easy to overlook. Right, Al?
Without the rapid and massive melting of these ice caps, sea level increases will largely be limited to the thermal expansion of the oceans. As any fool soon learns from comparing the volume of the oceans to the solar energy necessary to drive expansion, this too is a long, slow process.
This is not to deny that sea levels rise during warming, since it has been often mentioned in my previous blog posts that they have risen over 400 feet in the past 18,000 years since the end of the last Ice Age, an average of two feet per century. My point in constantly revisiting this is that previous greater warming of much greater ice sheets did not produce the sea level increases predicted by Apolcalyptic Al.
If not then, why now, Al?
Thursday, June 18, 2009
The Government Giveth, Then Taketh Away
The following appeared at the end of a news article about how rural Democrat legislators felt their concerns were being ignored by the Obama Administration and Democrat leaders. In particular, the Democrat’s energy bill would greatly increase the cost of electricity in rural areas, which get roughly 80 percent of their electricity from coal-fired power plants.
That’s the same thing we say in California about our budget problems. If we have to take money from the schools, we’ll make it up later. If California has to borrow tax revenues from cash-strapped counties and cities, California will pay it back as soon as possible.
I remember Popeye’s buddy Wimpy would approach Rough-House, the owner and operator of The Rough House Café, and importune him: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Or the fellow who constantly wined and dined a beautiful señorita, then reported to his friends that: “She said she’d love me mañana, but mañana never came.”
So it is with the Democrat leadership. They’ll take care of the people – if there are no other more “important” things that need to be taken care of first.
In California, that comes down to just being able to pay the bills as they come due.
With the trillions being spent in Washington, D.C., I’ll bet that not being able to pay the bills is going to cause a lot of promises to be broken.
It will cost every North Carolinian somewhere in the neighborhood of $2,400 to $3,000 a year in just the electrical surcharge,” said Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who hails from a state Obama carried last year and would like to win again. “That’s a surcharge larger than their annual electric bill.”
A White House official said the administration is committed to alleviating any disproportionate burden on rural states. “The president has been clear that if there is a disparate impact on certain regions during the transition period, families and businesses should be compensated — the Waxman-Markey legislation includes provisions that do just that,” the official said.
That’s the same thing we say in California about our budget problems. If we have to take money from the schools, we’ll make it up later. If California has to borrow tax revenues from cash-strapped counties and cities, California will pay it back as soon as possible.
I remember Popeye’s buddy Wimpy would approach Rough-House, the owner and operator of The Rough House Café, and importune him: “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
Or the fellow who constantly wined and dined a beautiful señorita, then reported to his friends that: “She said she’d love me mañana, but mañana never came.”
So it is with the Democrat leadership. They’ll take care of the people – if there are no other more “important” things that need to be taken care of first.
In California, that comes down to just being able to pay the bills as they come due.
With the trillions being spent in Washington, D.C., I’ll bet that not being able to pay the bills is going to cause a lot of promises to be broken.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Global Climate Change in United States - Don’t look at the man behind the curtain!
The Washington Post highlighted the work of government scientists: Climate Change Already Affecting U.S., by David A. Fahrenthold, Washington Post Staff Writer, June 16, 2009. The government report the Post examined, "Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States," covers much of the same ground as previous analyses from U.S. and United Nations science panels. It finds that greenhouse-gas emissions are "primarily" responsible for global warming and that rapid action is needed to avert catastrophic shifts in water, heat and natural life.”
In other words, it’s nothing new, except the Democrats need something to help them pass their mammoth bill to impose a cap on emissions, and government scientists and the Washington Post are eager to help.
An excerpt from the report concerning sea level rise caught my attention, since Al Gore has predicted that sea levels will rise twenty feet by 2100.
Sea levels have been rising along most of the U.S. coast over the past 50 years, increasing up to eight inches in some places. That trend is expected to continue as warmer temperatures melt glaciers and cause the ocean to expand like a wooden door on a hot day. Some of the worst-hit areas are expected to be along the East Coast, owing to a confluence of rising seas and subsiding land. Seas might rise 2.3 feet near New York City and 2.9 feet in Hampton Roads.
I found it interesting that in the past 50 years sea levels increased “up to eight inches in some places.” Why “in some places,” instead of in all places? Could the answer be found in the “subsiding land?”
As all should know, but apparently few do, sea level rise is natural, not unusual. Since the end of the last Ice Age, a mere 18,000 years ago, sea levels have risen over 400 feet, or an average of over two feet per century. Since the end of the Little Ice Ages in 1850, the average increase has been seven inches per century. If the trend “in some places” in the past 50 years continues, that would be about 16 inches for a century. How much of that is sea levels rising, and how much is subsidence?
I delved into the underlying report for an answer and found this:
Significant sea-level rise and storm surge will adversely affect coastal cities and ecosystems around the nation; low-lying and subsiding areas are most vulnerable.
High rates of relative sea-level rise have already resulted in the loss of 1,900 square miles of Louisiana’s coastal wetlands during the past century, weakening their capacity to absorb the storm surge of hurricanes such as Katrina. Shoreline retreat is occurring along most of the nation’s exposed shores. Recent estimates of global sea-level rise are 3 to 4 feet in this century, with higher relative sea-level rise in areas where the land is subsiding (sinking), including most of the Atlantic Coast and Gulf Coast of the United States.
There it is! Look to Louisiana for proof! So let’s do just that.
At “Wetland Loss In Louisiana,” we find that global warming is not the problem, and that the problem began over 200 years ago as “wetlands in the United States have been drained, dredged, filled, leveled and flooded for urban, agricultural, and residential development (Mitsch and Gosselink 1993). Because of these activities, 22 states have lost 50% or more of their original wetlands. The problem in Louisiana is somewhat different–wetland growth and deterioration have been naturally occurring here for thousands of years.”
Simply stated, the sediment deposited on the Mississippi River delta naturally compacts under its own weight and subsides. Before channels were straightened and confined with levies, newly added layers of sediment compensated for compaction and subsidence. However, manmade alterations stopped this natural process long before the specter of global warming was raised.
The same process has been identified in other deltas, such as Bangladesh, where efforts to control flooding have caused flooding problems to worsen as natural compaction and subsidence expose low-lying shores to storm surges. The storms are no stronger or frequent, and the sea level increases are normal and natural, but the natural storm barriers are not being replenished.
This apocalyptic government scientist report trumpeted by the Washington Post takes an effect – sea level increases – and assigns it an erroneous cause – manmade global warming. Sea levels are rising naturally, and have been at varying rates for the past 18,000 years. The current rate of rising sea levels has not increased, even though natural climate change has caused the United States temperature to increase about one degree Fahrenheit in the last century.
The rest of the report displays the usual unwarranted alarmism about normal climate change. It’s like the government scientists and Washington Post reporter and editors were born yesterday, and their only instructor about weather was Al Gore.
Sunday, June 07, 2009
Liberals Use Statistics to Lie About California Taxes
In fact, California ranks 18th among the states in percentage of personal income paid to state government, and its presumably beleaguered wealthiest 1 percent, according to Citizens for Tax Justice, pays just 7.4 percent of their income to the state, while the poorest Californians pay 10.2 percent.
So prattles Harold Meyerson, in a May 29, 2009 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, How the Golden State got tarnished.
To take the second part of Meyerson’s statement first, the Citizens for Tax Justice table he referenced was updated, and he overlooked the update. Instead of 10.2 % for the poor, and 7.4% for the rich, the table shows an effective tax rate for the poorest 20% of 11.1%, and 7.8% for the wealthiest 1%.
Meyerson conveniently overlooks some details in the study which aid him in distorting its results. The study says the wealthiest 1% only pay 7.8%, that is arrived at by deducting a "federal reduction offset" of 2.4% from the 10.2% the rich actually pay, which apparently adjusts the tax rate of the rich for the federal taxes saved by paying state taxes and itemizing deductions.
The poor only pay 0.1% percent of their "income" for income tax, but about 7% for sales and excise taxes. What the study doesn't even hint at is that the poorest 20% receive untaxed transfer payments (food stamps, rent subsidies, aid to dependent children, WIC, etc., plus their own "federal reduction offset," the Earned Income Tax Credit) that usually more than double their "income," but which are not reflected in their "base" for wealth and cost comparisons such as tax equity. Also this lowest 20% rarely pay federal income taxes (and get more back than is withheld), and often don't pay FICA/Medicare either.
As is the case with most of these agenda-serving studies, the author compared apples to oranges and produced a lemon.
Now for the first part. Meyerson apparently found a table he liked that showed Californians are 18th in the percentage of personal income paid to state government. However: "At 8.25%, California has the highest state sales tax, which can total up to 10.25% with local sales tax included."
Another table shows that California has the 2nd highest personal income tax rate at 9.3%, slightly lower than Vermont's 9.5% (although the California rate can be higher because some local governments can add taxes).
Then I found a table that showed California #9 in per capita state taxes paid. Interestingly, I found that Wyoming was #2, ranked higher than California even though Wyoming had a much lower sales tax, no personal or corporate income taxes, and lower gas and cigarette taxes. What's the story here?
The answer surprised me, and showed me how some analysts used statistics to pull the wool over over taxpayer eyes. Wyoming produces a lot of coal and gas, and is paid royalties by the companies that extract it. These royalties are lumped into the state tax receipts, then the total is divided by the Wyoming popultation, making it look like Wyoming folks are among the highest taxed in the nation when the opposite is true. This also appears in statistics for other resouces rich states like Alaska, South Dakota, and Louisiana, and makes states like California look like they are not taxed as highly in comparison.
As a Californian born and raised, I know we pay a lot of California taxes. Our problem is not that California taxes us too little, but that California spends too much, particularly on entitlement programs. Some Californians want that to continue, and feel that Californians, particularly the wealthy, should be taxed even more. Apparently they think California has a captive tax base, even as wealthy Californians and businesses move to more tax-friendly environs.
I'm sure as our tax base shrinks because of this exodus, our Liberal brain trust will answer by proposing even higher taxes. And wait for Obama to bail California out.
Friday, June 05, 2009
Nancy Pelosi Must Investigate Her CIA Allegations
Nancy Pelosi said the CIA lied to her and Congress in briefings concerning waterboarding. What is she doing about it?
She can’t be doing nothing. Congress can’t be doing nothing. Congress must investigate all serious allegations of misconduct by the CIA, especially since Congress has CIA oversight responsibilities. In this case, the person bringing the allegation, the Speaker of the House, is the person in Congress most involved with security responsibilities.
Can she accuse the CIA of lying to her, and then not investigate? Even if she says she can, Congress can’t. Lying to Congress is a criminal offense and such allegations must be pursued.
It’s not a matter of choice, it’s the law.
She can’t be doing nothing. Congress can’t be doing nothing. Congress must investigate all serious allegations of misconduct by the CIA, especially since Congress has CIA oversight responsibilities. In this case, the person bringing the allegation, the Speaker of the House, is the person in Congress most involved with security responsibilities.
Can she accuse the CIA of lying to her, and then not investigate? Even if she says she can, Congress can’t. Lying to Congress is a criminal offense and such allegations must be pursued.
It’s not a matter of choice, it’s the law.
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Solar Bottom Line is Bottomless Pit
Obama poses before a bottomless money pit, also known as the huge solar installation at Nellis Air Force Base, NevadaThe New York Times has a Green Inc. section, motto: Energy, the Environment and the Bottom Line. In a May 27, 2009 article, Obama Touts Clean Energy Achievements, by Kate Galbraith, the clean energy achievement being touted by Obama was the 140-acre, 70,000 solar panel installation at Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. The cost of this monument to taxpayer waste is $100 million to provide Nellis with about 30 percent of its electrical needs at a savings of $1.2 million per annum. Doing the math, that's an 83-year payback period, except that "Solar panels have an effective lifespan of about 20 to 25 years, and their value and wattage output decrease steadily over time."
In other words, there is no pay-back for the Nellis solar-cell investment. The Bottom Line is that the government has paid $100 million and will receive back approximately $20 million in value, for a loss of over $80 million (the solar-cell installation will have operating costs in addition to the initial investment, and these operating costs will increase the net loss).
In 20 to 25 years the solar panels will need replacement at a cost of $100 million, ignoring inflation, and will then probably be providing only 20 percent of Nellis' power needs unless Nellis is closed, shrunk, or defies modern trends and holds the line on power consumption.
If you still believe solar power is the answer, you're a Democrat or a fool (please excuse the redundancy).
In other words, there is no pay-back for the Nellis solar-cell investment. The Bottom Line is that the government has paid $100 million and will receive back approximately $20 million in value, for a loss of over $80 million (the solar-cell installation will have operating costs in addition to the initial investment, and these operating costs will increase the net loss).
In 20 to 25 years the solar panels will need replacement at a cost of $100 million, ignoring inflation, and will then probably be providing only 20 percent of Nellis' power needs unless Nellis is closed, shrunk, or defies modern trends and holds the line on power consumption.
If you still believe solar power is the answer, you're a Democrat or a fool (please excuse the redundancy).
UPDATE: Writing of Democrats and fools, the Nevada Democrat website reported Obama's visit to Nellis' solar extravaganza, and there I find that savings will be "almost a million dollars a year," so it's even worse than I initially reported. It seems Democrats would be trying to hide this from public view instead of publicizing it. Apparently they think everyone is as challenged mathematically as they and Obama. But let's make this very easy for them: $100 million cost divided by $1 million saved per year equals 100 years to recover the cost. Except solar cells must be replaced every 20 to 25 years.
And our President is happy about this!
Monday, June 01, 2009
CO2 Tail Can't Wag Climate Change Dog
A May 15 letter to our local weekly paper, the Independent Coast Observer of Gualala, California, referred to one of my letters and began: “A previous letter falsely stated that increased CO2 concentrations can’t initiate a warming trend.” The writer then followed this by admitting that the Vostok ice core samples proved that solar cycles initiated previous temperature increases and subsequent CO2 rise (an inconvenient truth Al Gore got backwards), “but that is not the case in our present warming trend.”
That’s false. Our current warming trend began over 400 years ago, long before atmospheric CO2 increased significantly (Moberg et al, published in Nature, Vol. 433, No. 7026, pp. 613 - 617, 10 February 2005). From the end of the Little Ice Ages, approximately 1860, until 1940, the global temperature increased about 0.6º C. From 1940 to present, it’s only increased 0.4º C, and the Globally Averaged Satellite-Based Temperature of the Lower Atmosphere from January 1979 through April 2009 has only increased 0.2º C. The past four years show a cooling trend; 2008 was the 14th coldest year of the past 30, and 2009 could be even colder.
Returning to the Vostok ice core samples, they not only proved solar intensity initiated warming and subsequent CO2 increases, but equally as important showed that increased CO2 levels do not prevent cooling. That’s right. In every instance, as CO2 remained high, cooling began, and then CO2 levels decreased as the cooling oceans absorbed it.
These facts make logical sense. CO2 is only four percent of greenhouse gases, compared to water vapor which is over 90%, and it would be foolish to attribute warming to a trace gas instead of to the extensively documented prowess of the sun. Solar fluctuations result in heating and cooling of the oceans, and the warmer or cooler oceans release or absorb CO2.
The CO2 tail can’t wag the climate change dog.
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