Ed regarded his father with affection. "He has one quality of genius", Ed would say. "He is always wrong. If a man makes a million decisions and judgments at random, it is perhaps mathematically tenable to suppose that he will be right half the time and wrong half the time. But you take my father—he is wrong all of the time about everything. That is a matter not of luck but of selection. That requires genius."
John Steinbeck
from About Ed Ricketts
Rugged individual Mark Bubonic savoring this year's Independence (Government ) Day Parade.
"The parade that just passed was not filled with individuals, but with government. Displayed this morning before the onlookers that lined the streets were government police cars, government fire trucks, government soldiers, government school marching bands, government officials plus those who politick to become one, and floats adorned with waving princesses that represent designated government boundaries. Almost the entire marching regalia consisted of government and the force of government.
The only thing that appears to be missing is individuals and their liberties in shackles being dragged down the street."
"Well, they had a lot of the things they found in his possession. They had the map, you know, that marked the route of the parade. They had statements from the bus driver and the taxicab driver that hauled him somewhere."
Henry Wade
"He's half African American. Whether that will make any difference, I don't know. I haven't heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white?...I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas . . . .He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful."
Ralph Nader
2008 Presidential Candidate
"We are turning into a nation of whimpering slaves to Fear—fear of war, fear of poverty, fear of random terrorism, fear of getting down-sized or fired because of the plunging economy, fear of getting evicted for bad debts or suddenly getting locked up in a military detention camp on vague charges of being a Terrorist sympathizer."
Hunter S. Thompson
"Extreme Behavior in Aspen"
February 3, 2003
"America... just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable."
Hunter S. Thompson
Here's an interesting letter from the Hudson Star Observer:
Dear Editor,
The local apparatchik intelligentsia (writer is referring to the school district) and their minions have started their quest to spread their propaganda. Their graft collectivist minds have been relentless in trying to push their propaganda into the minds of the citizenry. They are even doing it on your dime they acquired through legal plunder. They have the help of the local newspaper and local cable television station.
They have a highly paid media consultant on their staff. They have started parading their minions and subordinates past you in order to try and assimilate your mind into their collective way of thinking. They have a ferocious determination to stop their enemies. They stoop so low as to use children in the pushing of their agenda. They are cunning and deceitful and can disguise their mechanisms and motives. And coming they are.
If you suggest a doubt as to the morality of this group, it is boldly said that “You are a dangerous innovator, a Utopian, a theorist, a subversive and you would shatter the foundation upon which society rests.” Do not be deceived. You must become educated and determined to obtain information from other sources than the mainstream avenues. By doing so, you will have the ability to easily recognize and ascertain the propagandist’s agenda. They will become exposed.
When they approach calling for their $100 million school referendum within the upcoming year, ask yourself these questions: Will your home values have gone up? Will your salary have gone up? Will your groceries have gone up? Will gasoline prices have gone up? How much is this going to cost me per month on my property taxes? Can I afford it?
Read more...
FYI:
apparatchik: A communist who was a member of the administrative system of a communist party
intelligentsia: Intellectuals, usually referring to professionals such as writers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, professors, scientists. The intelligentsia is a middle stratum between the bourgeoisie and proletariat.
fruit cake: A participant in the www.ontheborderline.net blog.
"Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits - a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage."
Hunter Thompson
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
"In 2006, at least 46 out of 100 senators were millionaires, they are most likely out of touch not only with the working class but with the educated midlle-class experiences as well."
Nan Mooney
(Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents
"Middle class couples earn enough for home ownership in a neighborhood inhabited by other members of their class; college educations for the children; and such enriching experiences as vacation trips, psychotherapy, fitness training, summer camp and the consumption of 'culture' in various forms."
Barbara Ehrenreich
Author of Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class
"When we read about the middle class squeeze, we tend to think blue collar -- the machinist who used to make $25 an hour now making $15, the vocationally trained worker whose job just got cut. But what about the social worker who makes $30,000 a year, the environmental scientist who makes $40,000, the college professor who makes $50,000? The rules of the game have changed. The educated professional middle class experience no longer guarantees two cars in every driveway, or even the driveway itself. Instead we face relatively low-paying jobs in fields requiring a high-cost education, increasing mortgages, student-loan and credit card debt, less employer or government help with health care, retirement, education and child care, and an overall higher cost of living. As the gap between the rich and the middle class widens, a huge segment of that once-comfortable center section is finding that reality means plummeting financial and emotional security and lack of control over our lives."
Nan Mooney
author of (Not) Keeping Up With Our Parents
"Invading Iraq in response to 9/11 would be like Franklin Roosevelt invading Mexico in response to Pearl Harbor."
John Kerry
FRESNO, Calif. - A top adviser to John McCain said another terrorist attack on U.S. soil would be a "big advantage" for the Republican presidential candidate, drawing a sharp rebuke Monday from both the presumed GOP nominee and Democrat Barack Obama.
Charlie Black, already in the spotlight for his past lobbying work, is quoted in the upcoming July 7 edition of Fortune magazine as saying such an attack "certainly would be a big advantage to him." Black said Monday he regretted the comment.
Black is also quoted as saying the "unfortunate event" of the assassination of former Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto in December 2007 "helped us."
"Does the Republican Party want our votes, no strings attached--to court us every two years, and then to say, 'Don't call me; I'll call you'--and to not care about the moral law of the universe?...Is that what they want? Is that the way the system works? Is this the way it's going to be? If it is, I'm gone, and if I go, I will do everything I can to take as many people with me as possible."
James Dobson
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. - As Barack Obama broadens his outreach to evangelical voters, one of the movement's biggest names, James Dobson, accuses the likely Democratic presidential nominee of distorting the Bible and pushing a "fruitcake interpretation" of the Constitution.
The criticism, to be aired Tuesday on Dobson's Focus on the Family radio program, comes shortly after an Obama aide suggested a meeting at the organization's headquarters here, said Tom Minnery, senior vice president for government and public policy at Focus on the Family.
The conservative Christian group provided The Associated Press with an advance copy of the pre-taped radio segment, which runs 18 minutes and highlights excerpts of a speech Obama gave in June 2006 to the liberal Christian group Call to Renewal. Obama mentions Dobson in the speech.
"From a certain point of view—let's call it, for shorthand purposes, the libertarian point of view, or the view associated this year with Ron Paul—every dollar that government spends comes at the cost of freedom. The premise of this view is that government and freedom are opposites—that all government is oppression. By this way of thinking, limited government is simply limited oppression, differing in magnitude but not in kind from tyranny. Interestingly, this notion does not come originally from any libertarian thinker or friend of freedom. It comes from Machiavelli, the great analyst of open and hidden power, of force and fraud. From Machiavelli's point of view, there's no difference between just and unjust government, which are the same phenomenon called by different names. All government, whether considered to be just or unjust, is oppression. Just government is the kind we happen to agree with and profit from, and unjust is the opposite kind."
Charles Kessler
Editor, Claremont Review of Books
Read more...
Stumbled across an interesting website -- Flame Warriors by Mike Reed -- that has some excellent cartoons with insightful definitions explaining various participants in the blogosphere. The cartoon tittled "Xenophobe" reminded me of what goes on over at the www.ontheborderline.net blog when someone wanders on to that blog and ties to interject debate on a post. Here's the definition for the picture above...
Xenophobe is usually a long-term discussion forum participant and he thinks of the forum as his private compound. Xenophobe regards new forum arrivals as mentally deficient and perhaps even having criminal tendencies, and they are invariably approached with suspicion and condescension. Xenophobe will mount a furious attack if a Newbie has the temerity to make critical observations about the forum's social dynamics, or questions its prevailing opinions.
"[Iran is] already sitting on an awful lot of oil and gas. No one can figure why they need nuclear, as well, to generate energy."
Vice President Dick Cheney
---
Here's a quick geopolitical quiz: What country is three times the size of Texas and has more than 300 days of blazing sun a year? What country has the world's largest oil reserves resting below miles upon miles of sand? And what country is being given nuclear power, not solar, by President George W. Bush, even when the mere assumption of nuclear possession in its region has been known to provoke preemptive air strikes, even wars?
If you answered Saudi Arabia to all of these questions, you're right.
Ran across a couple of interesting stories in the Wall Street Journal this week concerning the battle over over the selection of a European consortium to to build the next generation of mid-air refueling tanker for the US military. Boeing lost out in the bidding and the US Government Accountability Office has found some irregularities in the bidding process.
Here's what some of the concerned parties have to say in the battle:
"The decision by the [U.S. Air Force] to purchase Airbus tankers reinforces the openness of U.S. markets and is the most recent example of the growing willingness of the U.S. to look to global sources for vital equipment.”
Bob Stevens
CEO Lockheed Martin
(These would be the "free market" perspective of the deal.)
"The Air Force's decision in February ignored serious implications for the national security and readiness of our country ... I'm pleased that the GAO recognized the importance of protecting our nation's war fighter and industrial base."
U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell
Democrat – Washington state
(Obviously Cantwell is a liberal democrat who is no doubt a proponent of the teachings of Karl Marx and obviously anti-capitalism. No doubt she is being a political puppet to her home state. But wait...)
"It has been clear all along that the process was flawed, as evidenced by the clear recommendations made by the GAO. This is a great victory for Boeing, Washington state and every American who values our nation's economic and homeland security."
Congressman Dave Reichert
Republican - Washington
(This must be a misprint! A Republican Congressman bringing up the "homeland security" issue. Trying to scare the children. Well, he is from Washington -- the home state of Boeing.)
"The American worker who...pays for the defense of the free world ought to be able to make [equipment for] the defense of the free world.”
Duncan Hunter
California Representative
Ranking Republican on the House Armed Services Committee
(What? A Republican standing up for the workers of the world...at least the United States. He sounds so Marxist.)
"Senator McCain helped steer a tanker contract to a European company for which seven of his campaign advisers and fundraisers then lobbied -- a bidding process the GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, is now saying was full of errors."
The Democratic National Committee
(No, I though McCain was through with this campaign contribution slime.)
Looks to me like the ideology is getting stripped away in favor of the local constituents. Likewise, the "free market" sounds good in theory, but it looks like it will get trumped by politics.
Here's two related articles from the WSJ of the tanker issue:
Air Force Contract Review Fuels
Critics of Bid to Buy From Abroad
Democrats Press McCain on Defense Deal
Dear Fruitcake Lady: Like all my friends in cyberspace, I want to be perceived as an intellectual giant who knows everything about politics, human behavior, rocket science and how the working of honeybees is related to the teachings of Karl Marx. However, I don’t want to follow the path of many of my fellow bloggers and post a bunch of unsubstantiated rumors that are forwarded to me by other friends who are too lazy to check the facts and click “send” of information that their friends who are too lazy to check the facts click “send.” I blog on the site called www.ontheborderline.net and I would like to bump noggins in the intellectual stratosphere of intellectual giants that roam that blog. I certainly would not want to be thought of as a simpleton or knee-jerk puppet who posts hearsay because I can’t string together lengthy paragraphs that invoke the objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand and accuse others that disagree with me of being communists or RINOs.
That said, a friend e-mailed me this and I think it needs to be checked out but it raises some very interesting questions… I picked this up via an email today, not sure of the ultimate origin nor have I completely checked for citation the references to the constitutional requirements and law. Here’s it is:
Barack Obama is not legally a U.S. natural-born citizen according to the law on the books at the time of his birth, which falls between “December 24, 1952 to November 13, 1986″
1. Presidential office requires a natural-born citizen.
2. The child must be born to two U.S. citizen parents - OR -
3. If only one parent was a U.S. citizen at the time of your birth, that parent must have resided in the United States for at least ten (10) years, at least five (5) of which had to be after the age of 16.”
4. Barack Obama’s father was not a U.S. citizen
Conclusion: Based upon the asserted fact that Obama’s mother was only 18 when Obama was born, she thus failed the “at least “5 years prior to but “after” age 16 portion of the test, ergo he fails the test.
Do you think I should post this?
Signed Donttreadonme
Dear Don’t: The fact that you can actually post something on an internet blog attests to the fact that you can actually take the time to Goggle the Internet to see if what you have been e-mailed has had its credibility challenged. Always remember that there are at least 35 million of frustrated high schools drops like yourself sitting in basements across American trying to prove they are political wonks with the divinely-inspirec ability to provide original insights into the contemporary debates of local, state, national and global politics. Of course, most of you Tom Paine wanabees type with one finger, buy 12-packs of beer for less than $5, smoke cigars that cost more than $5 and hope your wives will someday let you try out the free sample of Viagra they got from your doctor at your last physical. If you publish this information ontheborderline, you will raise the above mentioned number to 35 million + one.
I suggest you consult the website www,snopes.com, if you are concerned about Mr. Obama’s qualifications to be President of the United States. A check into Snopes will quickly show you that this is false information and will save you from looking like some idiot with duct tape over his lips standing outside the annual school board meeting. Here's the link to Snopes.
Signed The Fruitcake Lady
"America, the world's richest and most powerful nation, must be the world's leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and minimizing the risks that climate change poses to the environment and security. Yet America and its allies cannot solve this problem alone."
Martha Marks
Founder of Republicans for Environmental Protection
"The environment is too important of an issue for us to allow political extremists to divide Americans.
While some Republicans have forgotten that conservation is conservative, the environment is not a matter reserved for Democrats. Republicans and Democrats have traditionally collaborated on major environmental initiatives like passing the Clean Air Act, the National Environmental Policy Act and the Clean Water Act. Minnesota enacted the Clean Water Legacy Act of 2006 with bipartisan support. With our future at stake, we cannot afford having the environment treated like a partisan football..."
Brian H. Davis
Read more: Best policy is made at equator, not poles.
"We all watched with interest as the United States Treasury ... guaranteed the purchase of Bear Stearns at a 95 percent discount. According to a Treasury department memo, the American taxpayers will be on the hook for $30 billion (and probably a great deal more). We were informed that this was necessary to help solve a 'liquidity crisis.' A liquidity crisis is when Ole drills a hole in the stern of his boat to drain the water that is rushing in from a hole in the bow of his boat. Drilling a hole in the Stearns of this economy will have the same result."
Vance Opperman
Twin Cities Business magazine
June 2008
Read more @ We All Deserve a Bailout
"Public skepticism that Republicans share Americans' environmental values raises an important question. Have Republicans abandoned their roots as the party of Theodore Roosevelt, who maintained that government's most important task, with the exception of national security, is to leave posterity a land in better condition than they received it?..."
"...Republicans should not allow the fringes of the party to set a radical agenda that no more represents the mainstream of Republicans than environmental extremists represent the mainstream of the Democratic Party. Only by faithfully fulfilling our stewardship responsibilities can we expect to remain the majority party."
John McCain
New York Times Editor
Read more of Nature Is Not A Liberal Plot.
Here's an interesting combination of stories. One is an editorial from the June 10, 2008 Wall Street Journal by Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass). He discusses President Bush's plan to sell nuclear power technology to the Saudis. This would be the Saudis that sit on the largest oil reserves in the world and have sunshine about 365 days a year. It's the same technology for which Bush is rattling sabers of Iran. Gee, weren't there like 18 Saudis among those 911 hijackers?
Story two: The Saudis coincidentally are planning to increase oil production. Could it be for the nukes? Could it be because of the upcoming Presidential election? Gee, I'm starting to sound like a conspiracy theorist. I forgot, the Saudis are our friends.
Read on...
From the Wall Street Journal:
Editorial link: Why Is Bush Helping Saudi Arabia Build Nukes?
"Last month, while the American people were becoming the personal ATMs of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Saudi Arabia signing away an even more valuable gift: nuclear technology. In a ceremony little-noticed in this country, Ms. Rice volunteered the U.S. to assist Saudi Arabia in developing nuclear reactors, training nuclear engineers, and constructing nuclear infrastructure. While oil breaks records at $130 per barrel or more, the American consumer is footing the bill for Saudi Arabia's nuclear ambitions."
From China View:
Read more @ UN chief: Saudi Arabia to increase daily crude output by 200,000 barrels
RIYADH, June 15 (Xinhua) -- UN chief Ban Ki-moon said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia had pledged another crude output increase in July to meet rising demand in the world market. Saudi Arabia, the top producer of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has promised to raise its daily output by 200,000 barrels in July, Ban said after a visit to the country. The oil powerhouse has said it would increase output by 300,000 barrels a day in June during a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush's last month.
“You know, I think the main purpose of the Army, Navy and Marine Corps is to get poor Americans into clean, pressed, unpatched clothes, so rich Americans can stand to look at them.”
Elliot Rosewater
“Working like a madman, he ripped the skin from the haunch of the dead beast, cut a slice of the warm flesh, and bolted it as a dog might have done. After that, he went at the carcass more carefully, cutting off the best of the meat and placing it in a pile on the snow, strip after strip of juicy venison. Then, with a cry that was more like a dog's bark, he started up, knife in hand, and faced the tall man whose shadow had fallen across him as he worked…”
“Put the knife down, Sebald,” said the tall man quietly.
“Robin – Robin of Locksley!” Sebald gasped. “Master, I was starved.”
“And like to be hanged,” said Robin of Locksley. “For this is death, Sebald, if a forester find one head of deer taken.”
“If I die of a rope, or of hunger, what difference is there? Sebald asked doggedly. “Look you, Master Robin, when this winter began I had a wife and two little ones. But because I feel ill, a thing no serf may do, Guy of Gisborne turned us out of our hut and gave our shelter to Walter the Bald. A serf who cannot work, said Guy, shall neither eat nor shelter on his lands, and they drove us out, the wife and the children with me, though the little ones were all unfit.”
“True,” said Robin, nodding. “Guy of Gisborne is a hard man, and cruel. But it is death to touch the deer, Sebald.”
“Death? What is death but a kindness?” Sebald asked. “For so my wife found it when the cold wrapped her round and she fell asleep, never to wake more in this world. So the child Freda found it, for a least she will hunger no more, and now only the boy Waltheof is left me, and he a-crying with bitter hunger. By the Rood, Master Robin, if I hang, I hang with a full belly, and the boy shall have one more good meal!”
There was a look of pity in Robin’s eyes. “Where is the boy?” he asked.
“There” – Sebald pointed along the way he had come – “in the hollow of a dead elm, wrapped in such rags as I could find him that he might not die of the cold.”
“Then you harbour in the forest?” Robin asked.
Sebald nodded. “Else I must go back to Guy of Gisborne, being his man,” he answered. “And to go backs means lashes on the back, and labour from morn to night, with more lashes at the end of it, since I am all unhandy and slow, and so they call me the dolt, Master Robin. I tell you” – his voice rose to sudden fierceness – “there is no justice…”
from The Adventures of Robin Hood
by E. Charles Vivan
More on Robin Hood.
The Man With The Hoe
Bowed by the weight of centuries he leans
Upon his hoe and gazes on the ground,
The emptiness of ages in his face,
And on his back, the burden of the world.
Who made him dead to rapture and despair,
A thing that grieves not and that never hopes,
Stolid and stunned, a brother to the ox?
Who loosened and let down this brutal jaw?
Whose was the hand that slanted back this brow?
Whose breath blew out the light within this brain?
Is this the Thing the Lord God made and gave
To have dominion over sea and land;
To trace the stars and search the heavens for power;
To feel the passion of Eternity?
Is this the dream He dreamed who shaped the suns
And marked their ways upon the ancient deep?
Down all the caverns of Hell to their last gulf
There is no shape more terrible than this--
More tongued with cries against the world's blind greed--
More filled with signs and portents for the soul--
More packed with danger to the universe.
What gulfs between him and the seraphim!
Slave of the wheel of labor, what to him
Are Plato and the swing of the Pleiades?
What the long reaches of the peaks of song,
The rift of dawn, the reddening of the rose?
Through this dread shape the suffering ages look;
Time's tragedy is in that aching stoop;
Through this dread shape humanity betrayed,
Plundered, profaned and disinherited,
Cries protest to the Powers that made the world,
A protest that is also prophecy.
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
Is this the handiwork you give to God,
This monstrous thing distorted and soul-quenched?
How will you ever straighten up this shape;
Touch it again with immortality;
Give back the upward looking and the light;
Rebuild in it the music and the dream;
Make right the immemorial infamies,
Perfidious wrongs, immedicable woes?
O masters, lords and rulers in all lands,
How will the future reckon with this Man?
How answer his brute question in that hour
When whirlwinds of rebellion shake all shores?
How will it be with kingdoms and with kings--
With those who shaped him to the thing he is--
When this dumb Terror shall rise to judge the world,
After the silence of the centuries?
In 1899 an American schoolteacher, Charles Edward Anson Markham (1852-1940), who used the penname Edwin Markham, was inspired by an 1863 painting to write a poem. The painting was "L'homme à la houe" by the French artist, Jean-François Millet (1814-1875); the poem was "The Man with a Hoe".
The poem quickly became as famous as the painting. Both continue to be moving testimonies to what the too prevalent inhumanity of humanity can cause.
"Trickle down creates and thrives on war. War profits do not trickle down they land on the workers drip by drip, but inflation keeps them at the faucet trying to survive. Those of us who call ourselves "peace people" do what we can issue by issue. We try, but only if we can cut off the serpent’s head will real peace arrive. The serpent is greed and it feeds at the trough of Trickle down Economics."
David Truskoff
"If a baseball player slides into home plate and, right before the umpire rules if he is safe or out, the player says to the umpire — 'Here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. If a lawyer was arguing a case before a judge and said, 'Your honor before you decide on the guilt or innocence of my client, here is $1,000.' What would we call that? We would call that a bribe. But if an industry lobbyist walks into the office of a key legislator and hands her or him a check for $1,000, we call that a campaign contribution. We should call it a bribe."
Janice Fine
Dollars and Sense magazine
"If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals–if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the Tories. The basis of conservatism is a desire for less government interference or less centralized authority or more individual freedom and this is a pretty general description also of what libertarianism is.
Now, I can’t say that I will agree with all the things that the present group who call themselves Libertarians in the sense of a party say, because I think that like in any political movement there are shades, and there are libertarians who are almost over at the point of wanting no government at all or anarchy. I believe there are legitimate government functions. There is a legitimate need in an orderly society for some government to maintain freedom or we will have tyranny by individuals. The strongest man on the block will run the neighborhood. We have government to insure that we don’t each one of us have to carry a club to defend ourselves. But again, I stand on my statement that I think that libertarianism and conservatism are traveling the same path."
Ronald Reagan
Reason Magazine July 1975
"I have said publicly, and I will again, that unless he proves me wrong, he is a Marxist."
Tom DeLay 
"...Now in the dialogue of American politics, there are few classic—and loaded—charges. "Appeaser" is one. "Isolationist" is another. And "Marxist" would have to be right up there with those two. I think to call someone a Marxist, you have to provide some evidence that he 1) believes capitalism is based on exploitation and 2) is calling for a worker's revolution.
DeLay didn't provide any evidence of either, probably because that is not an accurate reflection of Obama's views, which seem to be well within the mainstream of Democratic policy for the past quarter century. And his biggest policy idea, a cap-and-trade system to reduce climate emissions, is not noticeably different than the plan offered by John McCain. And certainly all those Wall Street folks sending him money don't think Obama's a Marxist.
Such campaign season silliness aside, it is certainly true that Obama has chosen to pursue government solutions rather than market solutions to problems such as possible climate change, healthcare, Social Security solvency, income inequality, the trade deficit, and education. Compare those views with those of Bill Clinton, who cut capital gains taxes, pushed free trade, and floated the idea of having the government invest Social Security dough in the stock market..."
James Petokoukis
Read more @US News & World Report.
...and even more.
A current post by Chris @ ontheborderline -- Drowning in water bill -- too. -- points out that the New Richmond Municipal Water Utility has filed for a rate increase with the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin.
Chris points out that Jeff Holmquist -- the editor of the New Richmond News -- doesn’t have to worry. Not only does he not live in New Richmond he doesn’t have to pay their water bills either, kind of like the $93,000,000 Million dollar boondoggle him and his paper pushed.
Chris fails to mention that he also doesn't have to worry about higher water bills, because he also doesn't live in New Richmond. From some of the lies and slander posted at the On The borderline site, it is evident the Chris might have a nose long enough to reach for Hudson to New Richmond.
"Unable to win by labeling Democrats ''liberals,'' Republicans don't know what to do. Labeling worked before. Why isn't it working now? The answer is that it only works in combination with superior ideas, which you then contrast to those of your ''liberal'' opponent. You can't do that credibly unless you have embraced those ideas and sought to implement them. Republicans traded in their ideas in favor of gaining and keeping power as their sole objective. The party wants credit for giving lip service to its abandoned ideology while it practices cave-in politics.
John McCain has promised to bring Democrats into his Cabinet and work with Democrats in Congress. Does that mean ideas don't matter? Does it mean that when Democrats disagree with him he will embrace their ideas just to get along? If so, why should voters vote Republican? They might as well vote for Democrats and get their liberalism straight-up.
Which of the principles articulated by Ronald Reagan, and the conservative revolution he led, does the GOP believe has failed? Lower taxes? Reduced spending and smaller government? Self-reliance? Strong defense? Defeating our enemies so they will fear and respect us, instead of appeasing them in hopes that they might like us? If such principles remain valid, why don't more Republicans articulate them?"
Cal Thomas
Read more.
"This is the golden age of capitalism. The wealth is more expansive and deeper than in the past – not four hundred or a thousand rich, but tens of thousands."
Leonard Riggio
Head of Barnes & Noble
Son on NYC cab driver
"America excites an admiration which must be felt upon the spot to be understood. The hopefulness of her people communicates itself to one who moves among them, and makes him perceive that the graver faults of politics may be far less dangerous there than they would be in Europe. A hundred times in writing this book have I been disheartened by the facts I was stating; a hundred times has the recollection of the abounding strength and vitality of the nation chased away these tremors."
Lord Bryce
"The American Commonwealth"
"Right now we have an unemployment rate of 5% and headline inflation topping 4%. We have economic growth of 0.6%, extremely low consumer confidence and weakening consumer spending, small business optimism at a 28-year low, and of course a housing market that is showing declines in excess of 20% in some parts of the country.
These are hardly statistics to celebrate, but they are a far cry from the crises of the 20th century. Next time someone compares the present to the Great Depression, stop them. Between 1929 and 1932, the Dow Jones index went to 41.22 from 380.33, a decline of 89%. Today's hang-wringing about a 20% decline in the major indices (much of it since recouped) doesn't come close.
The unemployment rate in 1933 was 24.9%; seven years later, after the intensive efforts of the New Deal, it stood at 14.6%. Even adjusting for changed methodology since then, today's jobless situation hardly compares. While the recent collapse of Bear Stearns shocked Wall Street, in 1933 alone 4,000 banks failed, and millions not only lost their homes but were rendered homeless.
It is also common today to hear comparisons to the stagflation and grim economy of the 1970s. Here too perspective is in order.
For all the present talk of volatility, in 1973 and 1974 the economy expanded 10% in the first quarter of 1973, contracted 2.1% in the third quarter, went up 3.9% in the fourth quarter, went down 3.4% in the first quarter of 1974, then up 1.2% in the second quarter – continuing like a bouncing ball for another year.
The unemployment rate went from 4.9% in 1973 to 8.5% in 1977, and then nearly broke 10% in 1982. Meanwhile the stock market went from 1067 in January 1973 to 570 in December 1974, a drop of 46%. And there was double-digit inflation and a sharp rise in the price of oil, which represented a higher percentage of consumer spending than today."
Zachary Karabell
Who Stole The American Spirit
Read more @ Wall Street Journal.
"...In 17 years of practicing law I'd never been accused of ethical or professional lapses. Since my arrival in Washington, however, I've been called corrupt and unethical, and labeled as everything from a Klansman to a Nazi (my last name seems to generate that latter pejorative) for my work at the Department of Justice.
All of these charges were levied because I dared to take a different view of the law than the political left in the area of civil rights, voting and election law. Those outside Washington cannot conceive how far advocacy organizations, party activists and congressional staffers are willing to go to personally destroy anyone who doesn't agree with their political agenda.
In 2001, I joined the Justice Department as a career lawyer in the civil rights division. True enough, I had been warned the division was a cauldron of left-wing political activism. In fact, in a 1990s redistricting case, a federal judge criticized the career lawyers of the division for behaving like the in-house counsel of the ACLU. He said that "the considerable influence of ACLU advocacy on the voting rights decisions of the United States Attorney General is an embarrassment."
The reputation of the division was well-deserved. From the very first day on the job it was clear that my new colleagues were offended by my presence. Indeed, I eventually learned from a few friendlier lawyers in the division that it was a miracle I had been hired: The career staff would discard qualified applicants if they saw anything that suggested conservative leanings..."
Hans A. Von Spakovsky
Career counsel to the Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the Department of Justice
Read more: Anatomy of a Beltway Smear Campaign.
A long pause. A very long pause. “Where do the Mermaids stand?,” says I.
“Yes. You see, I am a Mermaid.”
“There are no such things as Mermaids.”
“Oh, yes, I am one!”
She did not relate to being a Giant, a Wizard, or a Dwarf. She knew her category. Mermaid. And was not about to leave the game and go over and stand against the wall where a loser would stand. She intended to participate, wherever Mermaids fit into the scheme of things. Without giving up dignity or identity. She took it for granted that there was a place for Mermaids and that I would know just where.
Well, where DO the Mermaids stand? All the “Mermaids”—all those who are different, who do not fit the norm and who do not accept the available boxes and pigeonholes?
Answer that question and you can build a school, a nation, or a world on it.
What was my answer at the moment? Every once in a while I say the right thing. “The Mermaid stands right here by the King of the Sea!” says I. (Yes, right here by the King’s Fool, I thought to myself.)
So we stood there hand in hand, reviewing the troops of Wizards and Giants and Dwarfs as they toiled by in wild disarray.
It is not true, by the way, that mermaids do not exist. I know at least one personally. I have held her hand.
---
Robert Fulghum
All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten
"There was once a day when conservatism was driven by principles: smaller government, less-intrusive government, strong national defense, fiscal sobriety. But in the years since that day, the putative heirs to Reagan have trampled not just those principles, but also principle itself.
The ideology that wanted small government now presides over expanded government, the one that wanted less intrusion now seeks to regulate bedroom behavior, the one that demanded strong national defense has run the military into the ground, the one that championed fiscal sobriety turned a $236 billion budget surplus into a $400 billion deficit. And if thoughtful conservatives see the disconnect, if they have the intellectual integrity to find it shameful, the newsflash is, thoughtful conservatives no longer predominate their ideology.
No, that honor goes to unthoughtful conservatives, the loud, proudly ignorant voices of talk radio, books and television of which Kevin James is now the poster child. Matthews kept asking him to explain the sins of Neville Chamberlain and he kept crying, "appeasement! appeasement!" clinging to the words like a drowning man to a raft.
That's what people like him do. They are geniuses at rhetoric ("War on Christmas," anyone?) that rouses the rabble and lets them feel aggrieved, while simultaneously having the intellectual heft of cotton balls. But they can no more step beyond that rhetoric than Gilligan could step off his island. There is no there there."
Leonard J. Pitts, Jr.
