Dollars for Clunkers

UPDATE BELOW

On the TV this evening, Mr Beck was discussing the Fed's $$ for clunkers program.

He noted that on the website associated with this program, there is listed there a "contract" that in effect says that if you use that site, the Government takes ownership of your computer and all data on it, and has the right to access and "listen-in" on all of your communications, e-mails etc. A lawyer guest on the program concurred with him and said that the contract is legal, binding, and irreversible.

DO NOT, repeat NOT, use that webpage auto.gov . For obvious reasons, I have not looked at the site and have absolutely no intention of doing so.

Updated info here. I find it fascinating that once again it takes private enterprise to try and correct what the government program screwed up, and in the process makes a profit AND helps the consumer!!

Just Another Day in DC

Let's see:
The economy is in the toilet
The government is taking over big business
Health Care may soon be socialized
Our allies are dumped on while our enemies are apologized to
The President shows off his true feelings re race relations
and now I find out how much I am spending on staff for Mrs Obama, who has no official status, and who sees nothing to be proud of in this country.
Theo Spark: MICHELE OBAMA'S ATTENDANTS
Oh happy day

Health Care Bill Part 3

There is a gent who is reading the healthcare bill and posting some of his findings here.

Just a few examples:
Pg 22 of the HC Bill MANDATES the Govt will audit books of ALL EMPLOYERS that self insure!!

Pg 30 Sec 123 of HC bill - THERE WILL BE A GOVT COMMITTEE that decides what treatments/benes u getPG 50 Section 152 in HC bill - HC will be provided 2 ALL non US citizens, illegal or otherwise

Pg 58HC Bill - Govt will have real-time access 2 individs finances & a National ID Healthcard will b issued!

Pg 59 HC Bill lines 21-24 Govt will have direct access 2 ur banks accts 4 elect. funds transfer


pg 124 lines 24-25 HC No company can sue GOVT on price fixing. No "judicial review" against Govt Monop

pg 127 Lines 1-16 HC Bill - Doctors/ #AMA - The Govt will tell YOU what u can make.

Pg 145 Line 15-17 An Employer MUST auto enroll employees into pub opt plan. NO CHOICE

Pg 126 Lines 22-25 Employers MUST pay 4 HC 4 part time employees AND their families.

Read more at the link, the WRITE, CALL, SCREAM, YELL (not really.....be polite but forceful.) Let those who work for us in Washington know that you don't want, need or desire them telling you what kind of healthcare you need for yourself or your family.

9-11SURCHARGE

So once again, Albany is stealing our money. They have been using the "9-11" telephone surcharge to buy uniforms, for a statewide wireless network (which is NOT working and has failed its testing), and for the infamous "general fund". And when they are discovered, their solution is to change the name of the tax so we cannot complain that the money is being misused.

What a bunch of thieves!

Math Education then, now, and in the Future

With my thanks, from Nicki at the liberty zone:

Subject: A History of teaching maths

1. Teaching maths in 1970

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Maths In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is 80% of the price. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Maths In 1990

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80. How much was his profit?

4. Teaching Maths In 2000

A logger sells a truckload of timber for £100. His cost of production is £80 and his profit is £20. Your assignment: Underline the number 20.

5. Teaching Maths In 2005

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might fee l as the logger cut down their homes just for a measly profit of £20.

6. Teaching Maths In 2009

A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling license. He is also fined a £100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it deemed too dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another £100 because he is such an easy target. When he is released he returns to find Gypsies have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further £100. While he is in jail the Gypsies cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for £100 cash. They also have a leaving BBQ of squirrel and pheasant and depart leaving behind several tonnes of rubbish and asbestos sheeting. The forester on release is warned that failure to clear the fly tipped rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced £12,000 plus VAT for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.

Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested and fined before he realises that he is never going to make £20 profit by hard work, give up, sign onto the dole and live off the state for the rest of his life?

7. Teaching Maths In 2010

A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub- prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot with only some government money left to pay a few million pound bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses. The logger struggles to pay the £1,200 road tax on his old lorry however, as it was built in the 1970s it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it. Some Bulgarian loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the roa d. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the governments expense. Following their holiday back home they return to the UK with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay £1,500 registration fees as a gang master. The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonus's are not cheap. The parliamentarians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances. You do the maths.

8. Teaching Maths 2017

أ المسجل تبيع حموله شاحنة من

الخشب من اجل 100 دولار. صاحب تكلفة

الانت=D

8

Musical Break and a BBQ story

Just a song that I find hard to get out of my head once I play it.

As to the BBQ........
Since it was a nice afternoon/evening, what better way to end the weekend than with some meat on the grill. The love of my life had marinaded the meat and it was my job to fire up the grill and cook the meat. So out I go to the backyard. I take the cover off the grill, turn on the gas tank, open the grill and remove the cooking trays, and am about to put some wood chips into the iron tray. This is a small cast-iron dish about 3 by 6 inches that sits over the gas burners so the wood chips smolder and smoke. But when I look, there is an accumulation of twigs, grass clippings and other "yard waste" in the dish, which was NOT there when I last used it less than a week ago. Realizing what it was, I called to my wife and she came out to see as well. As she looked in, I explained what I had found and that I thought it was a nest being built. She looked in and said that it certainly was a nest, and in fact there was the "homeowner" looking back at us. I peeked under the gas burners and was looking at a very indignant mouse whose lovely sheltered home was being destroyed by my activities! Well, it was a really good thing that he/she made his/her presence known before I had lighted the burners, so after a short game of catch-me-if-you-can, the squatter took off for other points, I cleaned out the nest and refilled the dish with hickory chips, and supper got underway as originally planned.

No moral, just an enjoyable diversion before supper.

Health Care Part 2

Now that we have lost the auto industry, much of the banking and finance market, and are in imminent danger of losing the energy market, all to government control, the next area to fall appears to be the health care industry. We are being told, over and over again, of the health care crisis that is befalling us, and how something must be done now, right now!!!!!! But wait...the stimulus bill had to be passed right now, the energy bill (cap and trade) had to be passed right now, the mortgage bailout had to be right now, etc, etc. What exactly is the big rush here? If you accept that there even is a crisis (more later) in health care, how exactly are things going to be so much worse if we take the time to read the friggin' bill and argue it? This bill has the power to change completely and possibly irreversibly how all of us get medical care in the future. Isn't that a good reason to rush into this a whole lot slower that we seem to be doing? We argue the survival of some stupid minnow in some small stream somewhere in Montana much more than we seem to spend discussing this huge bill!

But let's back up a little bit here if we may. What exactly is this "crisis" that we are supposed to be fixing? We are told that there are 47 million without health care, but virtually every study shows that this number includes illegals, as well as those who have sufficient income to purchase insurance but freely choose not to. So the number who are involuntarily uncovered is much, much less than this, well below 50% of this number. And studies show that this proposed bill will leave over 20 million uncovered. So we have gained exactly nothing.
We are also told that health insurance is too expensive, and that the insurance companies are ripping us off. Well, yes it is expensive, but at least part of that expense is driven by government regulations. I don't want a policy that covers "alternative medicine" , massage therapy, chiropractic and a scad of things that cost a lot and are of no use to me at all. But because of gov't regulations, these have to be included, driving up my costs. And likewise I can't shop for a better or less expensive policy anywhere else except in my home state, because of gov't rules. And though I sure don't like spending money, when I needed the policy for a heart attack and stenting, or when I severely damaged my knee and needed surgery to rebuild it, it was sure nice to see almost all the costs covered by the policy. And when I look at the way government plans work in Canada and England, I'm pretty sure that had we the government system in place here at those times, I would not have received the same care at the same speed, and indeed might not have had the treatment at all because of my "advanced age". Heck, why should we care if an old, over-the-hill guy of 60 + years has a knee that works or not anyway. The plan can save $$$ if we deny his treatment. And the old man, me, has NO recourse. Sorry, I'd rather have a private company who has at least some interest in my well-being than a bureaucrat in an office somewhere who has absolutely no interest in me or my health.
Additionally, much of that cost is driven by things that could be changed or controlled without tossing the whole system. Want to lower medical costs? Find ways to eliminate frivolous lawsuits. Protect drug manufacturers from ridiculous class action suits that make lawyers millions, and alleged victims almost nothing. Minimize government involvement in health care. Force everyone, everyone, to pay something toward their care. If it is going to cost you nothing to use the system, you will overuse and abuse that system. Even a nominal charge every time you visit the ER or clinic will make you a bit more selective in when you do use it.
As to the argument that there are "many" who are denied health care because of lack of finances, please look up the EMTALA laws (Emergency Medical Treatment And Labor Act). It mandates that all who present to the hospital campus must be seen, with no regard to ability to pay.

But even more basic than all this.....what do we mean when we say that everyone has a right to health care? Why do we have this right? Where did it come from? And if we have such a right, do we not also have the same right to food, shelter, an automobile to get us to the store or Dr's office, gas to run the car, a telephone, TV etc etc. Where do we stop? If the basis of this right is necessity (We must have this right or else we might die!), then what is more basic to life than food? And if I have a basic right to food, then how dare the grocery store and the farmer charge me for their products? I have a RIGHT to it!!!

More to follow

Health Care

Mr. Brady at New Majority plots the organizational chart of the Dem plan


Questions for all of our reps in Washington:

Are you going to at least read the bill?
If it is so good, will YOU be signing up for it, or once again exempting yourselves from what is so good for the rest of us?

Abortion....Finally a liberal gives an honest answer

From WND:

In an astonishing admission, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg says she was under the impression that legalizing abortion with the 1973 Roe. v. Wade case would eliminate undesirable members of the populace, or as she put it "populations that we don't want to have too many of."

Her remarks, set to be published in the New York Times Magazine this Sunday but viewable online now, came in an in-depth interview with Emily Bazelon titled, "The Place of Women on the Court."

The 16-year veteran of the high court was asked if she were a lawyer again, what would she "want to accomplish as a future feminist legal agenda."

Ginsburg responded:

Reproductive choice has to be straightened out. There will never be a woman of means without choice anymore. That just seems to me so obvious. The states that had changed their abortion laws before Roe [to make abortion legal] are not going to change back. So we have a policy that affects only poor women, and it can never be otherwise, and I don't know why this hasn't been said more often.

Question: Are you talking about the distances women have to travel because in parts of the country, abortion is essentially unavailable, because there are so few doctors and clinics that do the procedure? And also, the lack of Medicaid for abortions for poor women?

Ginsburg: Yes, the ruling about that surprised me. [Harris v. McRae – in 1980 the court upheld the Hyde Amendment, which forbids the use of Medicaid for abortions.] Frankly I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don't want to have too many of.

Think about that statement. Go ahead and try to figure out what she could have meant by it.

Anyway you slice it it is still among the most ugly, anti-human statements ever uttered by a major figure on the American political scene.

Albany Rascism

In the midst of all the unbelievably childish behavior in Albany by those who think that they are so much smarter and better than us poor commoners, comes this little gem.

People being fired on the basis of race? Here in NY?? By the legislators?? Tell me it ain't so, Joe!!!
Those people, all of them, should pack it up, go home, and stop embarrassing us.

Men

A short piece, and worth a read. I'll wait until you're back.

I sure hope that we still have people like this guy around.
Problem seen, take action, fix problem, get on with life.

I mean to cast no aspersions on anyone, but I honestly feel that we need more men as opposed to males. Maleness is simply the presence or absence of a particular gene. Men and what makes them men is something that is made, made through training and by choices throughout life. In this time of great trial and stress, our country needs men who can face up to the tasks at hand, who have the courage and strength to do the right thing, not the easy thing. The man hanging on the hook in the linked photo did the right thing; he didn't wring his hands, call for an investigation into the cause of the problem, and sincerely hope that someone did something. He saw a problem, he took action and fixed the problem and then went back to work.

As an afterthought, 5 will get you 10 that this man or his employer will get a visit and/or fine from OSHA for doing what had to be done!!

KINGSTON TEAPARTY

Kingston Independence Day Tea Party Kingston, New York Saturday, July 4, 2009 11 am to 3 pm Kingston Point Beach, City of Kingston Delaware Ave Tom & Judy Santopietro (organizer) 845-399-6943 (organizer phone)
Contact Organizer | Website | Facebook kingstonteaparty.com For other areas, check here

The Upcoming Census

A list of the groups being paid federal $$ (YOUR money) to assist in the census of 2010:

ACORN
100 Black Men of America
African American Women’s House of Imagene (sic) Shelter
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
Arab American Institute
Asian American Federation
Asian American Justice Center
Asian and Pacific Islander Coalition on HIV/AIDS
Association of Professors and Scholars of Iranian Heritage
Boat People SOS
Hispanic Alliance for Prosperity Institute
Hispanic Federation
Fundacion Azteca
Latino Justice PDLDEF
Mas New Mexico
Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Minority Access
National Alliance for Hispanic Health
National Alliance of Black School Educators
National American Indian Housing Council
NAACP National Voter Fund
NAACP (National Association of Colored People)
National Association for Black Social Workers
National Association of Colored Women’s Clubs
National association of Hispanic Federal Executives
National Association of Hispanic Publications
National Association of Latino Elected Officials
National Association of Negro Business and Professional Women’s Clubs
National Black Chamber of Commerce
National Black Child Development Institute
National Black Justice Coalition
National Black Leadership Forum
National Coalition on Black Civic Participation
National Congress of Black Women
National Federation of Filipino American Associations
National Hispanic Leadership Institute
National Hispanic Business Information Clearinghouse
National Latino Research Center
National Minority AIDS Council
National Puerto Rican Coalition
National Puerto Rican Day Parade
Rainbow Push Coalition
U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce
Voto Latino

More to come re the census