Blatant, pt. 3

From a USA Today article:

"Giuliani's departure leaves former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as McCain's only GOP rivals...."

It's not news; it's propaganda.

Why can't we all just get along?

...like my cute pets do?
Queueing up patiently for milk.

Daily late-afternoon cuddle.

Bubba shares his bed.

Nationalized Healthcare

Here's an AP story from last year:
"Rare identical quadruplets born in Montana
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
Identical quadruplet girls born to Canadian couple in Great Falls, Montana
Babies, all in good condition, weighed between 2.15 and 2.6 pounds
Doctor: Chances of giving birth to identical quadruplets about one in 13 million
Girls born in Montana because Calgary hospitals were at capacity"

The BBC adds: "Health officials said they checked every other neonatal intensive care unit in Canada but none had space."

So, not only are there incredibly long waits for MRIs, hip replacements, and such - you have to wait to have your babies, too! But babies are notoriously stubborn about waiting for the bureaucrats to accommodate them.

I think a lot of people think that if the US nationalizes health care, the system will be pretty much just like it is now, only free! Are people really that naive? And think of our neighbors to the north - if the US ends up getting nationalized health care, too, where will the Canadians get their urgent care from?

Another Casualty of the War on Drugs

It doesn't often come up in conversation, but a lot of people are surprised that I am against the "War on Drugs" and in favor of decriminalization. One of the reasons is that the Drug War's victims tend to be poor minorities - there is a disproportionate number of minorities in prison for drug-related offenses. Here is a terrible story of the tactics used in the Drug War and a woman who was "collateral damage."

Free Market?

From an excellent article by Jeffrey Tucker of the Mises institute, "How Free is the 'Free Market'?"

begin quote:
The argument goes like this:

Until now we've lived in a world of laissez-faire capitalism, with government and policy intellectuals convinced that the market should rule no matter what. Recent events, however, have underscored the limitations of this dog-eat-dog system, and reveal that simplistic ideology is no match for a complex world. Therefore, government, responding to public demand that something be done, has cautiously decided to reign in greed, force us all to grow up, and see the need for a mixed economy.

All three claims are wrong. We live in the 100th year of a heavily regulated economy; and even 50 years before that, the government was strongly involved in regulating trade.

The planning apparatus established for World War I set wages and prices, monopolized monetary policy in the Federal Reserve, presumed first ownership over all earnings through the income tax, presumed to know how vertically and horizontally integrated businesses ought to be, and prohibited the creation of intergenerational dynasties through the death tax.

That planning apparatus did not disappear but lay dormant temporarily, awaiting FDR, who turned that machinery to all-around planning during the 1930s, the upshot of which was to delay recovery from the 1929 crash until after the war.

Just how draconian the intervention is ebbs and flows from decade to decade, but the reality of the long-term trend is undeniable: more taxes, more regulation, more bureaucracies, more regimentation, more public ownership, and ever less autonomy for private decision-making. The federal budget is nearly $3 trillion per year, which is three times what it was in Reagan's second term. Just since Bush has been in office, federal intervention in every area of our lives has exploded, from the nationalization of airline security to the heavy regulation of the medical sector to the centralized control of education.

With "free markets" like this, who needs socialism?
-end quote
read the whole article here

Blatant, pt. 2

Sunday, Jan. 20
from an AP report on Yahoo news:

"GOP presidential race turns to Florida

By LIZ SIDOTI, Associated Press Writer
2 hours, 33 minutes ago
MIAMI - The Republican presidential race turned to Florida on Sunday, ever more chaotic and contentious as four candidates began a 10-day sprint to win the state and momentum heading into the de facto national primary next month.

A fifth candidate, Fred Thompson, weighed the future of his bid after a disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina."

If you keep on reading the article, you'll see no mention of the "sixth" candidate. Apparently coming in 2nd in NV and getting more votes than the "fifth candidate" or even the "fourth" one in other primaries isn't enough to get you a mention.

It's like being in one of those creepy futuristic movies where the government and media collude to hide or distort events from the public. Thank goodness we don't live in a place like that! I'm sure this (like all of the other recent examples from various media outlets) is just some random oversight.

Blatant

There were 6 candidates at the SC debate, but only 5 are mentioned in this AP article. Who is left out? Ron Paul. Even though he got more votes than Rudy in Iowa and more than Fred in NH. The unspoken message by the reporter: Ron Paul is so marginal that he's not worth mentioning. Augh!

Here are the total votes cast so far (in Iowa and NH):
1. Romney 103,755 30%
2. McCain 102,361 29%
3. Huckabee 66,876 19%
4. Paul 29,648 9%
5. Giuliani 24,151 7%
6. Thompson 18,712 5%

Happy Birthday to NCLB!

Wow, you're already 6 years old! I remember when you were just a gleam in President Bush's eye. And aren't you special?! Not many 6 year olds cost their "parents" 24 billion dollars per year.

Says Neal McCluskey of the libertarian Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom:

"Six years of No Child Left Behind, and what do we have to show for it? Stagnant reading achievement, slowed math improvements, declining academic performance versus competitor nations, and narrowed curricula, all for the bargain price of about $24 billion per year, or a 40 percent increase over fiscal year 2001."

Cato education expert Andrew Coulson adds:

"It's the NCLB's birthday, and you can cry if you want to. And if you have kids in school, or about to enter school, you might want to."

"[W]hat do you get for the law that's done nothing? Barely a month ago, two separate sets of international test results were released, allowing us to see how U.S. academic performance has changed since NCLB was enacted. ... The tests were PIRLS (Program on International Reading Literacy Survey) and PISA (Program on International Student Assessment)."

"Across grades and across subjects, student achievement has either stagnated or declined -- and that's despite the infusion of tens of billions of dollars of new spending in each of the past six years."

"Mainstream lawmakers outside D.C. acknowledge the unconstitutionality of NCLB, pointing out the Constitution does not authorize federal involvement in education. In 2005, a task force of the bi-partisan National Conference of State Legislatures declared: "The task force does not believe that NCLB is constitutional."

"But as we know, in the Alice In Wonderland world of DC, failure is rewarded with... more money and more power. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are proposing "reforms" for NCLB that would increase federal power and lavish even more money on this failed, doomed, unconstitutional and idiotic boondoggle."

My, how NH has changed

In 1996, NH republican voters chose Pat Buchanan in the primary. What an independent bunch of of voters willing to look outside the establishment and return to more fiscally conservative government! So I thought surely Ron Paul would fare well here, especially after getting 10% in Iowa, where the voters tend to be much more conventional. Well, despite our best efforts


Ron Paul only got about 8 or 9% of the vote. Wow. What surprise! And one situation has come to light that gives me a sinking feeling - some people in Sutton, a town next to ours, noticed that it was reported that there were 0 votes for Ron Paul, even though they knew they had voted for him. Apparently the town made a mistake in reporting their numbers to the state. That one was easy to catch - but what if there are more "mistakes" like that? It's a depressing scenario.

Here's a new article I read today that describes a lot of the characteristics that I have noted about Dr. Paul, both in watching him in appearances and in conversing with him during lunch (scroll down for that)!

Catnip Duet

Lovey and Jazzy play with their new catnip toys, ignoring Bubba's whining and Scott's - um - percussive noises until it's finally too much.

Talk about commitment

If you've looked through my blog you know I'm an enthusiastic Ron Paul supporter, and I feel like I've made good efforts to spread the word - letters to editor, talking to friends, this blog, etc. Well, I'm a real lightweight. A guy knocked on my door today and handed me a piece of Ron Paul literature - and he's from Colorado! He drove all the way out here to help promote Ron Paul for the primary here next week. Wow.