Monthly Archives: May 2010

Hey, lets siphon off even more money from the economy and sink it in a never ending bureaucracy to, you know, help the economy

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Why is every liberal proposal touted that it will help the economy, while at the same time flat out ignoring real ideas that will actually, you know help the economy? I know, this is a rhetorical question.

Case and point, the Michigan State Board of Education and their latest liberal fantasy proposal (emphasis added):

Everything the SBE heard from economists, policy analysts, and stakeholders suggests consensus that:

• Education is the most reliable path to state economic prosperity;

• Education is the way to provide equal economic opportunity; and

• Our current budget priorities and fiscal crisis are weakening Michigan’s commitment to education and long-term economic prospects.

There is broad agreement that the top priority for Michigan is growing the state’s economy. Nothing else is close. It is clear that, by far, the most reliable path to prosperity for each of us, our children and grandchildren, and the state is education attainment.

And what are some of the goals of this new proposal (emphasis added)?

The SBE believes that the basic elements of an effective Michigan education system should be:

• Universal access to quality early childhood programming for all four year old children and universal high quality kindergarten.
• Support for a level of K-12 services (class-sizes, qualified teachers, etc.) comparable to those in place for the 2008-2009 school year.
• Comparable learning infrastructure (physical and virtual) for all students.
• Support to allow all citizens to achieve a level of post-secondary education at a new minimum threshold1.
• Support for higher education institutions at least comparable to peer states, given higher education’s role in economic growth and education opportunity.

The goal is to push four year old kids into pre-kindergarten.

Grab hold of your wallet, the Michigan Stated Board of Education plans to pay for all this with an array of  tax increases:

A few things to note. The proposal calls for taxation of  private pensions and not public pension plans.

Furthermore, what exactly does “Allow local units to increase millages if a share of revenues was used to underwrite general fund or statewide education needs” mean? Does this mean a local school district can raise millages if they send money from their district to the state? It stands to reason, that a district that does this, is by definition a wealthy district. In a wealthy district, it would stand to reason, have wealthier citizens who would be paying even higher taxes under this plan.

What about an alternative?

If the goal is improving the states economy, how about making the state a great place to live and do business? Imagine if the state had a strong voucher system, where parents can sent their children to a school of their own choice. A move like this would would make Michigan a destination state for young families and would be a step in the right direction in stopping the population loss that is killing our economy.

Here is some food for thought: Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Paul Allen, Andrew Jackson, George Washington, John Wayne, Mark Zukerberg (billionaire Facebook Founder), Richard Schulze (billionaire founder of Best Buy), Richard DeVos ( billionaire co-founder of Amway), Thomas Edison, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry Ford, Henry Ford II, Benjamin Franklin, Mark Twain, Dave Thomas (Founder of Wendy’s) are all college drop outs,  never attended college, and in some cases, received very little formal education.

CBO ups health care cost projections

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Now they tell us:

Congressional Budget Office estimates released Tuesday predict the health care overhaul will likely cost about $115 billion more in discretionary spending over ten years than the original cost projections.

The additional spending — if approved over the years by Congress — would bring the total estimated cost of the overhaul to over $1 trillion.

However, this is not surprising.

via CBO ups health care cost projections – Jennifer Haberkorn – POLITICO.com.

Video: SpeedFactory Supercharged SRT8 Challenger

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This is one awesome car:

This Challenger is the world’s first supercharged modern Challenger, making 600HP with the SpeedFactory Stage 3 Supercharger package. SpeedFactory features: Vortech V3 supercharger, SpeedFactory custom tuning, Richmond 3.55 gears, Hotchkis handling kit, Magnaflow catback exhaust, Boze Tach-style forged alloy wheels, Nitto tires and the SpeedFactory Signature package.

Includes a 3 year / 36,000 mile limited powertrain warranty.

Performance: This Challenger makes 600HP, 0-60 in under 4 seconds, 1/4 mile under 12 seconds.

And  a cool video:

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USA Today Is Trying To Make The Case For Higher Taxes

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Stop your complaining, you don’t pay enough taxes:

Amid complaints about high taxes and calls for a smaller government, Americans paid their lowest level of taxes last year since Harry Truman’s presidency, a USA TODAY analysis of federal data found.

Some conservative political movements such as the “Tea Party” have criticized federal spending as being out of control. While spending is up, taxes have fallen to exceptionally low levels.

Federal, state and local taxes — including income, property, sales and other taxes — consumed 9.2% of all personal income in 2009, the lowest rate since 1950, the Bureau of Economic Analysis reports. That rate is far below the historic average of 12% for the last half-century. The overall tax burden hit bottom in December at 8.8.% of income before rising slightly in the first three months of 2010.

Of course, USA Today doesn’t bring up the Democrats anti-business agenda or the fact that that if they raise taxes they will further diminish the amount of money the government takes in.

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According To Some Dutch: After 65 Years It Is Time To Retire WWII And Move On

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The history of free men is never really written by chance but by choice – their choice

Dwight Eisenhower

A bugler blows taps at the close of Memorial Day service at the American Military Cemetery, Margraten, The Netherlands, where lie thousands of American heroes of World War II.

Via Eurosavant:

It’s now early May, the time of year when many West European countries celebrate their liberation at the end of World War II. Today is in fact Liberation Day in the Netherlands, a public holiday, while yesterday was Dodenherdenkingdag – Day for the Remembrance of the Dead. And at a ceremony in The Hague a certain Eberhard van der Laan, a former government minister for the Dutch Labor Party, gave an interesting, even provocative speech (covered here in the Algemeen Dagblad) calling for a line of a certain sort to be drawn under the WWII experience so that society can finally move on. (emphasis added)

The article continues:

The “hook” to Van der Laan’s speech, as it were, was the fact that it has now been 65 years since the end of the war – that’s the standard retirement age, at least within Europe, so why don’t we finally put WWII out to retirement as well? With this, the ex-politician was giving voice to what many in Europe surely have always thought in secret about the War (especially those too young to have lived through it): for how long will we have to keep paying respect, keep letting it influence our lives? (emphasis added)

According to Eberhard van der Laan, the average person need not concern him or herself with studying the history of WWII, it would be best to leave that to the “experts”

OK: So the common, uninformed people should talk about the War less, while researchers should look into it more. In fact, one reason he offered for upping that research effort was to revise any idea that Dutch behavior under occupation could be characterized as a slappe houding, i.e. spineless. Sure, the Dutch were the European champions – other than Germany itself – in ensuring that their Jews were delivered to the Nazi gas chambers. (About 75% of Dutch Jews met this fate; that particular number, however, is nowhere to be seen in the AD article nor, one supposes, in Van der Laan’s speech itself.)

These are the people that Liberals want us to emulate.

Obama: information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment

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Thomas Paine

When no one is buying your agenda (Cap and Tax, Socialized Medicine, Amnesty, Stimulus) lash out at the people who are not buying what you are selling. Via AFP:

“You’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank all that high on the truth meter,” Obama said at Hampton University, Virginia.

“With iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations, — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation,” Obama said.

He bemoaned the fact that “some of the craziest claims can quickly claim traction,” in the clamor of certain blogs and talk radio outlets.

“All of this is not only putting new pressures on you, it is putting new pressures on our country and on our democracy.” (emphasis added)

This is nothing new. Remember the ‘Fishy Emails’?

Ordinary citizens printing, promoting  and sharing information and their points of view is a tradition that reaches back to Colonial America:

Beginning around 1760 and continuing at a quickening pace, the colonists began taking part in a great public argument — about the rights of Englishmen, the nature of civil society, and the limits of power. What began as a trickle of protest grew into a torrent of polemic.

Hundreds upon hundreds of pamphlets were printed in the colonies between 1760 and 1776, providing the intellectual setting for the debate over independence. Those writings — and their authors — played a role that was at least as important as established newspapers in giving expression to the growing political crisis.

The pamphlets were crucial to the rebellion because they were cheap, because they presented provocative arguments, and because it was impossible for the royal authorities to find their authors and stop them. The authors of the pamphlets were not professional writers, nor were they printers. They were lawyers, farmers, ministers, merchants, or — in some cases — men whose true identities are still unknown. It was a well-established practice in colonial times for writers to use pen names, even when writing on non-controversial subjects.

I guess Obama would rather use the “Chicago Way” to silence and discredit his detractors rather than provide an agenda that Americans will support.

Citizen Soldiers Running For Congress: Rocky Raczkowski

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I saw this column by the brilliant Victor Davis Hanson discussing the returning trend of military veterans running for elected office.

The current combat-veteran candidates certainly aren’t the usual state legislators or congressional aides ready for career advancement. Neither are they antiwar liberals who flash their national-security credentials, nor one-issue hawks who want more defense spending. They don’t claim that their combat experience guarantees good governance per se — not after the examples of Murtha or disgraced Republican Duke Cunningham. And they aren’t retired generals used to deference and the spotlight.

So, other than a shared furor at out-of-control spending, government takeovers, and corruption, the 20 or so soldier-citizen candidates are an odd bunch. Some are officers; others are enlisted men. A surprising number were wounded in combat.

The story continues.

For 30 years after 1865, almost no American could get elected to office without prior Union or Confederate Civil War service. And last century, being a World War II veteran was virtually mandatory for any congressional leader until about 1970.

But Iraq and Afghanistan are seen differently from the collective sacrifice and bipartisan efforts of past wars. Our current veterans usually fought in impossible circumstances, where friend and enemy were sometimes indistinguishable. The aims and means of their mission were often questioned — with the public as against the difficult later stages of the wars as they once were for their easier beginning stages.

As a result, these veterans are not saying, “Vote for me because I fought for you,” as much as, “Vote me for because I did my duty, even if some in this country questioned why one would.”

We live in a wartime of economic crisis, crushing debt, and endemic political corruption. Rules, obligations, and laws don’t seem to matter. Personal honor is an archaic, fossilized concept.

But suddenly, amid public malaise, dozens of nontraditional soldier-citizens have stepped forward out of the shadows to argue that right now in America, neither money nor incumbency matters as much as civic duty and the old idea of public service. And unlike most of us, they once put their lives on the line to prove just that.

In South East Michigan we have one such candidate running for Congress, Republican Rocky Raczkowski.

Rocky has served our nation in three (3) wars while in the United States Army for 24 years and he knows that our nation is at war with extreme Islamic fundamentalists who want to end our way of life. Especially considering what we endured as a nation on September 11th, we have no choice but to win the war on terror – decisively.

Rocky is running for Congress in Michigan’s 9th district against the moneyed up Democrat Gary Peters. Gary Peters,  who by the way, voted for Obama’s Stimulus, Socialized Medicine &  Cap and Tax. He defends these votes with the same cliche over and over that theses votes would, you know, help the economy and create jobs.

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I like this quote from Rocky’s web page:

Rocky knows that our government spends too much and has become too intrusive in our daily lives. He has the courage to say “no” to the special interests and will take a simple message from Oakland County to Washington DC – STOP PRINTING MONEY!

Well said.

Sunday Afternoon Links: The Dirt Track Edition

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Some great reading for a bea-u-ti-ful Sunday afternoon.

Greek Motivation – Round Two

Greek Tragedy and Global Crisis

‘Automatic’ Crash Was Predicted!

MI Dem party Chair Mark Brewer brings teh stupid: files complaint about GOP candidate’s trailer

UFO’s over Lapeer?

Looking for just the right “mood” candle?

The dumbing down of America continues

Oakland Schools Judges Green Sacrifices and Awards Prizes to Most Heavily Indoctrinated Green School

Inconvenient but worth it

Fossil Fuel: So, Just How Did Dinosaurs Get 5 Miles Underground?

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With all the discussion of the oil well leak in the Gulf of Mexico, I think this is timely.

Deep water oil drilling. Via Wired.com:

But the real spectacle is below the surface: A drill is plunging down through 4,000 feet of ocean and more than 22,000 feet of shale and sediment — a syringe prodding Earth’s innermost veins. That 5-mile shaft will soon give Chevron the deepest active offshore well in the Gulf. Some land drills have gone deeper,

Everyone knows the traditional story of how oil is formed. You know,  the prehistoric matter, heat and pressure story.
One theory you don’t hear much of in the United States is the one that Thomas Gold put forth in 2001:

When asked what first prompted him to think that oil and natural gas are generated from hydrocarbons present at Earth’s formation, Gold replied, “The astronomers have been able to find that hydrocarbons, as oil, gas and coal are called, occur on many other planetary bodies. They are a common substance in the universe. You find [large quantities of hydrocarbons] in the kind of gas clouds that made systems like our solar system…Is it reasonable to think that our little Earth, one of the planets, contains oil and gas for reasons that are all its own and that these other bodies have it because it was built into them when they were born?” (7)

When the interviewer replied, “That question makes a lot of sense. After all, they didn’t have dinosaurs and ferns on Jupiter to produce oil and gas,” Gold said, “That’s right. Yet, for some reason my theory was not heard. The theory that it was all made from fossils ha[s] become so firmly established that when the astronomers had perfectly definitive evidence on most of the other planets, it was just ignored, especially by the petroleum geologists who had, by then, called these things, ‘fossil fuels.’ So once they had a name, then every body believed it.”(8-9)

Gold’s theory is that microorganisms are converting existing carbon in to oil:

In the abiogenic theory, by contrast, hydrocarbons form perpetually at greater depths from carbon that was present from Earth’s formation, and are then utilized by micro-organisms that convert the short-chain hydrocarbons into longer chains as they move through what Gold called the “deep hot biosphere.” Depending on formation rates, the abiogenic theory might allow for self-renewing petroleum reservoirs, all over the globe, taking petroleum out of the category of “fossil fuel.”

An article in Science today seems to suggest that the abiotic theory is correct. In a fairly dense article entitled “Abiogenic Hydrocarbon Production at Lost City Hydrothermal Field,” researchers Proskurowski et al., find evidence of the abiogenic formation of short-hydrocarbon chains in an area where hydrocarbons would not otherwise be able to form by the biogenic theory. What Proskurowski et al. identified was the formation of carbon chains 1 to 4 carbon atoms in length, with shorter chains forming deeper, and with isotopic signatures ruling out biogenic origins. The conclusion of the article is as follows: “Our findings illustrate that the abiotic synthesis of hydrocarbons in nature may occur in the presence of ultramafic rocks, water, and moderate amounts of heat.”

If this sound far fetched, keep in mind that oil seeps from the ocean floor naturally and there are organisms that literally ‘eat’ the seepage:

“It takes a special organism to live half a mile deep in the Earth and eat oil for a living,” said Valentine, an associate professor of earth science at UCSB. “There’s this incredibly complex diet for organisms down there eating the oil. It’s like a buffet.”

And, the researchers found, there may be one other byproduct being produced by all of this munching on oil – natural gas. “They’re eating the oil, and probably making natural gas out of it,” Valentine said. “It’s actually a whole consortium of organisms – some that are eating the oil and producing intermediate products, and then those intermediate products are converted by another group to natural gas.”

Reddy, a marine chemist at Woods Hole, said the research provides important new clues in the study of petroleum. “The biggest surprise was that microbes living without oxygen could eat so many compounds that compose crude oil,” Reddy said. “Prior to this study, only a handful of compounds were shown, mostly in laboratory studies, to be degraded anaerobically. This is a major leap forward in understanding petroleum geochemistry and microbiology.”

The next time you hear someone talking about “fossil fuels” ask your self  “how did dinosaurs (or if you want to be more accurate, prehistoric sea life) get five miles underground?”

May 8th: Snowfall In Northern Michigan

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You have to watch out for that Global Warming. Via the NWS:

However, colder air began to wrap into northern Michigan by 3 and 4 am, with snow becoming more dominant in the higher terrain of northern lower Michigan. Towards daybreak, nearly all areas at least saw a few snowflakes, although the best snow accumulations remained in the higher terrain. Here is a map of snowfall accumlulations from the morning of May 8th

Snowfall on May 8th