Peter Schweizer’s book, Throw Them All Out documents in lurid detail that congressmen and congresswomen are prostitutes, but cheaper.
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Paraphrasing my dad who was paraphrasing Milton Friedman, government does everything inefficiently, so don’t ask them to do more than you must. It’s not about the morality of what government does; it’s about the low quality and horrendous inefficiency.
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Challenges to our civil liberties, overreach of eminent domain, domestic drone surveillance, and attempts by elected officials to knowingly subvert Constitutional rights all attest to the insidious Orwellian creep of government into our lives. It is not obvious to me that we can negotiate our way out of this one. Some problems do not have solutions if you define a solution as a fix with tolerable pain. I suspect that resolution will occur, but it will be something historic. We are in a barrel speeding down the Niagara River toward the Falls. This is not an episode of Batman or McGyver: all palatable solutions have passed. We will experience the Falls up front and personal. Those in power will claim they did their best when, in fact, they were the root cause. Bernanke, one of the reputed world’s experts on the Great Depression, never mentions loose monetary policy in the 1920s as the cause. It is a lie by omission; a profound one at that.
“The PPACA Mandate: The Government’s Best Case” – “We are all familiar with an individual mandate that was authorized by the U.S. Congress and notoriously upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court: the affirmative duty of persons of Japanese descent to report to a Civil Control Station. Korematsu v. United States, 323 U.S. 214 (1943).” And that worked out so well….
Why Is Gasoline Consumption Tanking? – “Even if you dismiss the recent plunge as an outlier, the declines in retail gasoline deliveries are mind-boggling. If you look at the data from 1983 to 2011 on the link above, you will note that delivery declines align with recessions.”
Lead Cooled fast Small modular reactor design could be a ‘SUPERSTAR’ – “‘Small modular reactors, or SMRs, are small-scale nuclear plants that are designed to be factory-manufactured and shipped as modules to be assembled at a site. They can be designed to operate without refueling for 15 to 30 years. The concept offers promising answers to many questions about nuclear power–including proliferation, waste, safety and start-up costs.'”
Dealing with the Dreaded CEL (check engine light) – “‘the five most common causes of a check engine light and what you should do about them…’ The list: faulty oxygen sensor, loose or faulty gas cap, faulty catalytic converter, faulty mass airflow sensor, bad spark plugs and/or wires.”
If You See Something, Shut Up – “M. Zudi Jasser is a physician, a U.S. Navy veteran, an American patriot and a Muslim who does not hold with those who preach that Islam commands its followers to take part in a war against unbelievers.” The film is The Third Jihad.
Ditch the Textbooks – “The majority of the modern management texts are written by theorists who render the content into endless seas of meaningless terminology. A better idea is to forgo textbooks altogether.”
Charles Murray, Author of ‘The Bell Curve,’ Steps Back Into the Ring – “Publishers, forget about carefully reasoned, nuanced discussions of the issues of the day—that stuff is for college professors, or yuppies off yammering away in their salons. If you print politically oriented books and you want to make the big bucks, you need to think like a boxing promoter and stage fights that will get attention. And nothing, but nothing, draws hype like a match-up between liberal pundits and the man they love to hate, the belligerent behind the The Bell Curve, the warrior against welfare, the proudly politically incorrect Charles Murray. Mr. Murray’s newest book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010 (Crown Forum), makes a pretense of making nice. It bills itself as an attempt to alleviate divisiveness in American society by calling attention to a growing cultural gap between the wealthy and the working class.”
Can you change your partner in marriage? – “Ultimately, though, she said it was necessary to accept the other person. She knocked on the square wooden table and said ‘You can round off the corners, but your spouse will still have the same basic shape.‘”
The Kodak Moment – Unleashed from Scarcity, Editing Becomes More Important – “There is a burden in … abundance, a pain we’ve all experienced. It’s the burden of whittling down the flood of photos into a coherent and efficient package. Because there isn’t a barrier at the input end anymore, we have to erect that barrier later, or the insanity of fifteen photos of the same mountain, the same animal, the same sunset, the same flower, or the same family smiling becomes clear. We only need one or two good ones. We don’t need them all. In fact, maybe we don’t need most of them.”
Why caring for my aging father has me wishing he would die – “[O]wing to medical advancements, cancer deaths now peak at age 65 and kill off just 20 percent of older Americans, while deaths due to organ failure peak at about 75 and kill off just another 25 percent, so the norm for seniors is becoming a long, drawn-out death after 85, requiring ever-increasing assistance for such simple daily activities as eating, bathing, and moving. This is currently the case for approximately 40 percent of Americans older than 85, the country’s fastest-growing demographic, which is projected to more than double by 2035, from about 5 million to 11.5 million. And at that point, here comes the next wave–77 million of the youngest Baby Boomers will be turning 70.”
The Real Trouble With the Birth-Control Mandate – “Critics are missing the larger point. Why should the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) decree that any of us must pay for ‘insurance’ that covers contraceptives?“
Obamacare vs the Catholic Bishops – “There is some tragic irony to all this. We should not forget that many religious leaders have long-supported increasing the role of the state in health care and the economy at-large, perhaps thinking that conscience clauses would protect their institutions against any undue interference. Well, they were wrong; what the state giveth, the state taketh away. If you invite the state to ‘assist’ more and more of your activities, it will eventually start telling you how to do things. … Economic ignorance among religious leaders comes at a very high cost to their own good works.”
