Check out this fascinating collection of glacier pictures (well, the last one really isn’t, but I can understand why Harry Lawrance couldn’t resist including it).
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Archive for February, 2012
A baker’s dozen glacier pictures
Posted by Richard on February 23, 2012
Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: pictures | Leave a Comment »
Can the Obama administration simply ignore federal laws it doesn’t like?
Posted by Richard on February 22, 2012
That’s the question at issue, according to Van Irion, in U.S. v. Arizona. His Liberty Legal Foundation recently filed an amicus brief with the U.S. Supreme Court in this case.
Arizona’s S.B 1070 says that when state law enforcement officers have legitimate reasons for detaining an individual, they should request information about the individual’s immigration status from the INS. The Obama administration ordered the INS not to provide such information, in violation of Federal law (8 U.S.C. §1373), which states in subsections (a) & (b) (emphasis added by Van Irion):
“Notwithstanding any other provision of Federal, State, or local law, a Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual…no person or agency may prohibit, or in any way restrict, a Federal, State, or local government entity from doing any of the following with respect to information regarding the immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual: (1) …requesting or receiving such information from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service”
In Federal District Court, the Obama administration asked for and received an injunction prohibiting Arizona law enforcement agencies from requesting immigration status information from the INS. They cited subsection (c) of that same law (8 U.S.C. §1373), which requires the INS to respond to such requests. And they argued … well, I’ll let Irion explain (emphasis in original):
… You see, the Arizona Court and Obama both reason that because subsection (c) requires the INS to respond, if Arizona police make too many requests, then the INS will be too busy to “pursue other priorities,” as determined by Obama.
To summarize the argument: Because Federal law requires us to do this, if you make us do it we won’t be able to not do it. And that argument won the day.
This argument essentially asks the Judicial branch to validate the Executive branch’s decision to ignore the Legislative branch’s mandate. Do you see the danger to our entire form of government?
The amicus brief is quite short, simple, and commendably clear. I urge you to read it (PDF).
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: arizona, law, obama, supreme court | Leave a Comment »
Obama administration supporting Islamists in the Middle East
Posted by Richard on February 21, 2012
The Investigative Project on Terrorism has posted a disturbing essay by Dr. Essam Abdallah, an Egyptian liberal intellectual and college professor, outlining how the Islamist lobby in the U.S., led by the Muslim Brotherhood front group CAIR, has shaped the Obama administration’s policies regarding the Arab Spring (emphasis added):
The most dramatic oppression of the region’s civil societies and the Arab Spring is not by means of weapons, or in the Middle East. It is not led by Gaddafi, Mubarak, Bin Ali, Saleh, or Assad. It is led by the powerful Islamist lobbies in Washington DC. People may find my words curious if not provocative. But my arguments are sharp and well understood by many Arab and middle eastern liberals and freedom fighters. Indeed, we in the region, who are struggling for real democracy, not for the one time election type of democracy have been asking ourselves since January 2011 as the winds of Arab spring started blowing, why isn’t the West in general and the United States Administration in particular clearly and forcefully supporting our civil societies and particularly the secular democrats of the region? Why were the bureaucracies in Washington and in Brussels partnering with Islamists in the region and not with their natural allies the democracy promoting political forces?
Months into the Arab Spring, we realized that the Western powers, and the Obama Administration have put their support behind the new authoritarians, those who are claiming they will be brought to power via the votes of the people. Well, it is not quite so.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic Nahda of Tunisia, the Justice Party of Morocco and the Islamist militias in Libya’s Transitional National Council have been systematically supported by Washington at the expense of real liberal and secular forces. We saw day by day how the White House guided carefully the statements and the actions of the US and the State Department followed through to give all the chances to the Islamists and almost no chances to the secular and revolutionary youth. We will come back to detail these diplomatic and financial maneuvers which are giving victory to the fundamentalists while the seculars and progressives are going to be smashed by the forthcoming regimes.
Read the whole thing.
To understand the disgusting behavior with regard to the Arab Spring by the Obama administration (and the left in general), take note of three things.
First, the old saying, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
Second, Barack Obama’s 2001 remarks dissing the U.S. Constitution (emphasis added):
But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution, at least as its been interpreted and Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court focused I think there was a tendancy to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
Third, Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg’s recent advice to Egypt not to emulate the U.S. Constitution (and its “negative liberties”), but instead to emulate constitutions that are modeled after the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights — a collection of “positive rights” (to a decent job, a nice place to live, plenty of food, free health care, etc.) creating a powerful government capable of redistributing anything and everything “equitably.”
The enemies of the Obama administration and leftists in general are those who embrace Lockean “negative rights,” individualism, limited government, and free markets.
The enemies of the Islamofascists in the Middle East are those who embrace Lockean “negative rights,” individualism, limited government, and free markets.
Thus the enemies of the Obama administration and leftists in general are also the enemies of the Islamofascists. Ipso facto, the Islamofascists are friends of the Obama administration and the left in general.
Politically, the Islamofascists are both authoritarians and egalitarians. Members of the Obama administration and leftists in general are both authoritarians and egalitarians. Authoritarians and egalitarians are inevitably drawn to each other. This is not news to anyone who’s read David Horowitz’s Unholy Alliance.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: foreign policy, islamofascism, middle east, muslim brotherhood, obama | 1 Comment »
Disturbing history of Fed
Posted by Richard on February 16, 2012
Gresham’s Law has a sobering graphical history of the Federal Reserve System’s assets from 1915 to 2012. Here’s Tom Gresham’s introduction:
Here we present a history of the Fed in charts. As you’ll surely glean from the below — the Fed has degenerated from a by and large passive institution (dealing only in high-quality self-liquidating commercial paper and gold) to an active pursuant of junk, an enabler of wars, a ‘benevolent’ combatant of the depressions of its own creation, a central planner of employment & prices and of course a forgiving friend to inconvenient market follies.
The first graph, showing the entire 97-year history, is a hockey stick if there ever was one. And unlike Mann’s bogus global warming hockey stick, it’s not based on jiggering the data.
There are only two possible endgames: default or devaluation of the currency. My money’s on the latter.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: debt, economy, federal reserve, inflation | Leave a Comment »
How to retire as a millionaire
Posted by Richard on February 16, 2012
Denver’s 7NEWS wants to encourage you to save with what might seem to be an ambitious goal in mind: to retire as a millionaire. But if you start young enough, it’s not difficult at all:
It might help if you knew when you could be a millionaire. 7NEWS found a “Millionaire Calculator” that can predict that golden age.
We took the millionaire calculator to Rooster & Moon Coffee Pub in Denver to run the calculation, using current investments, monthly contributions, and a conservative 6 percent expected rate of return. The result revealed when $1 million would be saved.
Some patrons told 7NEWS reporter Amanda Kost that they were surprised by the results.
“This is how much you can put away, and this is where it can get you,” Laura Mulvey mused.
When Mulvey calculated her millionaire age of 88, she made some adjustments and found what saving more money could buy for her future. Her projected millionaire age went from 88 to 58.
“I love it. I love it. It definitely surprises me,” Mulvey said.
Check out the “millionaire calculator” links they’ve posted. But the real secret, and the reason this message is directed especially to the young, is the “miracle of compounding.” Richard Russell, author of Rich Man, Poor Man, explained it with this example decades ago:
In order to emphasize the power of compounding, I am including this extraordinary study, courtesy of Market Logic, of Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33306. In this study we assume that investor (B) opens an IRA at age 19. For seven consecutive periods he puts $2,000 in his IRA at an average growth rate of 10% (7% interest plus growth). After seven years this fellow makes NO MORE contributions — he’s finished.
A second investor (A) makes no contributions until age 26 (this is the age when investor B was finished with his contributions). Then A continues faithfully to contribute $2,000 every year until he’s 65 (at the same theoretical 10% rate).
Now study the incredible results. B, who made his contributions earlier and who made only seven contributions, ends up with MORE money than A, who made 40 contributions but at a LATER TIME. The difference in the two is that B had seven more early years of compounding than A. Those seven early years were worth more than all of A’s 33 additional contributions.
Specifically, investor B, who invests $2,000 a year for seven years and then stops after age 26 has about $945,000 at age 65. Investor A, who starts saving seven years later and continues to invest $2,000 a year until age 65 has about $974,000. But investor A has put in $80,000 versus investor B’s $14,000, and his investment has grown 11-fold while investor B’s investment has grown 66-fold.
Take it from someone who didn’t know this or heed it, who only started seriously saving after age 40, and who’s been saving 30-40% of his income to try to make up for lost time: start saving early. Max out your 401k and/or IRA starting with your first job. Keep it up for at least a decade, preferably two or more. You’ll be a millionaire or maybe a multimillionaire by the time you retire. If you don’t spend it all before you die, your kids will thank you. 😉
To put this in simple terms, how early in your life you start saving/investing is much more important than what you save/invest in. Time is what will make you rich.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: investing, saving, wealth | 1 Comment »
It’s not just the rich who’ll pay for Obama’s budget
Posted by Richard on February 15, 2012
According to Investor’s Business Daily, it’s not just the rich who’ll pay for the massive expansion of government envisioned by the latest Obama budget (no surprise; it can’t be just the rich because there aren’t enough rich people). And, typically, the administration is looking for an international way to cram their plans down America’s throat (emphasis added):
Discussing President Obama’s new budget, Gene Sperling, the White House’s top economist, said “we need a global minimum tax” so no one escapes paying “their fair share.”
This idea is not just bad; it’s likely unconstitutional. In any event, it starkly reveals the underlying premise behind Obama’s latest budget plan: To hike taxes massively on all Americans to pay for an unprecedented expansion of federal government.
…
To pay for it, the president and his aides are using class-warfare to build a case for a big tax hike on “the rich.” But beware: The Obama budget includes a $2.8 trillion jump in total taxes over the next 10 years, $1.5 trillion coming from income taxes alone. That amount is so large it can’t come solely from the well-off. It will require huge new taxes on all Americans.
…
Americans for Tax Reform has just totaled up the tax increases in Obama’s budget. It makes for scary reading:
• ObamaCare alone includes 20 separate tax hikes.
• Tax rates on most small businesses are expected to go up to 39.6% from 35%.
• Tax rates on capital gains, the fuel for economic and job growth, will jump to 23.8% from 15%.
• Rates on dividends surge to 43.4% from 15%.
• The death tax will jump to 45% from 35%.
• Large businesses will take a job-killing $147 billion tax hit as the U.S. double-taxes overseas profits.
• Families will pay a $100 billion energy tax over the next decade as oil, gas and coal companies get hit with new levies that they will simply pass on to consumers.
• The proposed new “Buffett Tax” will hit wealthy Americans with a marginal tax rate of 90% or higher.
Such massive tax increases will cripple the American economy, retarding economic growth and ensuring high unemployment for the next decade. It’s hard to imagine that all the brilliant Ivy-league-educated people in the Obama administration don’t understand that. Either that’s their goal — to preside over the decline of America, to diminish this country — or they simply don’t care as long as their redistributionist goals are achieved.
The current administration and the Democratic Party leadership are going to destroy this country in the name of egalitarianism if they aren’t stopped. If only there were an opposition party leadership and an opposition party presidential candidate capable of passionately, articulately, and with conviction making that point and offering an alternative of freedom, opportunity, limited government, and individual sovereignty. If only there were someone capable of contrasting their own vision of a “shining city on the hill” with the grim future of dependence and shared poverty offered by the leftists/progressives. If only there were another Reagan.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: big government, economy, obama, taxes | 1 Comment »
Obama’s budget insanity
Posted by Richard on February 14, 2012
The Fiscal Year 2008 Bush budget (the year before Hank Paulson panicked Bush into bailout mode with warnings of impending economic collapse):
- Spending: $2.9 trillion (that’s $2,900 billion)
- Deficit: $455 billion
- New taxes: None
- Federal debt: $9.99 trillion
February 23, 2009 Obama speech to the National Governors Association:
“Contrary to the prevailing wisdom in Washington these past few years, we cannot simply spend as we please and defer the consequences to next budget, the next administration, or the next generation,” he said. “That’s why today I’m pledging to cut the deficit we inherited by half by the end of my first term in office.”
Obama said he would reinstate the pay-as-you-go rule requiring any new expenditure to be set off by a cut in spending.
The Fiscal Year 2013 Obama budget:
- Spending: $3.8 trillion (that’s $3,800 billion) in FY2013; $5.8 trillion in 2022; $47 trillion over 10 years
- Deficit: $901 billion in 2013 (but AFP says “if we strip out the budget’s unrealistic assumptions, yet another trillion-dollar-plus deficit is nearly certain. … The past three years the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued an analysis of the President’s budget. They found the deficits were actually 20 percent higher than the President claimed.)
- New taxes: $1.9 trillion over 10 years
- Federal debt: $16.2+ trillion for 2013; over $25 trillion by 2021, according to ALG’s Bill Wilson
So how can the administration claim to be cutting the deficit by $4 trillion over 10 years and yet have annual spending grow from $3.8 trillion to $5.8 trillion (a 53% increase)? There’s the double-counting of last year’s “cuts” and a good helping of what AFP calls tricks and gimmicks. But mainly it’s the baseline budgeting scam, which I explained last August. ALG’s Bill Wilson has some numbers (emphasis added):
The Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) baseline for 2013-2022 says outlays will total $47.053 trillion. Obama’s proposed budget takes that to $46.959 trillion. Since spending actually increases every year under Obama’s proposal, the only cut is off of the baseline — and that’s just $94 billion of so-called “cuts”.
Meanwhile, OMB says revenues over the next ten years will total $38.391 trillion. Under Obama’s proposal, that goes up to $40.274 trillion — an increase of $1.883 trillion in taxes, mostly on job creators.
By our count, that’s about $20 of tax increases for every dollar of “cuts,” and those are not even real cuts to the actual budget. Spending would still increase every single year under Obama’s proposal. Meanwhile, the tax hikes are real.
The latest Obama budget would be laughable if the numbers weren’t so sobering and the consequences of continuing down this path weren’t so dire.
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Government inspectors now control what moms can feed kids
Posted by Richard on February 14, 2012
At the behest of the First Lady, the federal government has been creating lots of new “guidelines” regarding school lunches. But did you know that these “guidelines” apply not just to the lunches that the schools serve, but to the lunches that the parents pack for the kids to bring to school? This shouldn’t be a surprise, since more than a year ago, Michelle Obama declared that “We can’t just leave it up to the parents” what their children eat.
In North Carolina, at least, the “guidelines” are more than just guidelines — there are state inspectors examining lunches from home to ensure compliance. Carolina Journal reports (emphasis added):
RAEFORD — A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.
The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her More at Four classroom that day.
The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.
…
“What got me so mad is, number one, don’t tell my kid I’m not packing her lunch box properly,” the girl’s mother told CJ. “I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn’t really care for vegetables.”When the girl came home with her lunch untouched, her mother wanted to know what she ate instead. Three chicken nuggets, the girl answered. Everything else on her cafeteria tray went to waste.
So, thanks to the government’s school lunch nazi, instead of eating a turkey sandwich and a banana, the kid ate chicken nuggets. But at least what was on her plate conformed to the government “guidelines.”
Rush Limbaugh called the USDA guidelines and enforcement program “Michelle’s ‘No Child’s Behind Left Alone’ program.”
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More Darius Rucker
Posted by Richard on February 12, 2012
I’ve got music on my mind, and while driving around running errands Saturday, I heard two Darius Rucker songs, so I’m thinking it’s time to post some more of him. As songwriter and lead singer for Hootie and the Blowfish, he was very good. Since launching his solo career as a country artist, he’s become great — absolutely great.
No one writing and singing today, IMHO, expresses and evokes emotions as well as Rucker. Here are a couple of songs that are guaranteed to move anyone who can relate to them (and I suspect that’s many of us). First, the heartbreaking “I Got Nothin’.”
Next, the regret-filled “Don’t Think I Don’t Think About It,” with the great lyric:
Don’t think it don’t get to me
Between the work and the hurt and the whiskey
Quite a bit more positive is the bittersweet and beautiful paean to daughters, “It Won’t Be Like This For Long.”
And finally, one I’ve posted before (this time, the music video; last time, I posted the album version, with lyrics— even better, IMHO). “This” is my absolute favorite Darius Rucker song. In fact, I think “This” is the best song of any genre in at least the last 10 or 20 years.
At this stage in my life — old, divorced, living alone, and grateful for the affection of a sweet cat named Coco — I can’t really relate in any direct way to this song. But it’s such a joyous song, such a glorious celebration of life, that every time I hear it, my heart wells up. Rucker is happily married with a daughter and son, so I think “This” is an expression of the joy he feels in his own life. Listening to it is an opportunity to share in his joy. Envy is foreign to me (I hope it is to you, too), so his happiness makes me happy. I can’t listen to “This” often enough. I hope you feel the same way (and buy some of his music).
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Whitney Houston, R.I.P
Posted by Richard on February 11, 2012
Whitney Houston: a soulful singer, a beautiful woman, a tremendous voice — and unfortunately, a very troubled and self-destructive person. We don’t know the cause of death yet, but the inevitable assumptions come to mind. Such a shame.
Twenty-one years ago, at Super Bowl XXV, Houston treated the fans at the stadium and across America to what has to be one of the greatest performances of the Star Spangled Banner ever. Here it is. Look at the joy on her face as she sings. Remember her this way.
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Ladies Night at the shooting range
Posted by Richard on February 8, 2012
Reporter Amanda Kost had a great story on Denver’s 7NEWS tonight about the explosion in gun ownership among women and the growing number of them who get together at the gun range to enjoy the shooting sports and develop self-defense skills. Very positive, informative, and well-presented. Check it out.
A friend who went to the last Tanner Gun Show commented on how many more women there were than in the past. I haven’t been to a gun show since last fall, but I noticed the same thing then. IMHO, this is a very, very good thing.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: firearms, guns, women and guns | 1 Comment »
Self-censorship
Posted by Richard on February 8, 2012
Nick Cohen writing in Literary Review:
The grand posture of writers in liberal democracies is that they are the moral equivalents of dissidents in repressive regimes. Loud-mouthed newspaper columnists claim to ‘speak truth to power’. Novelists, artists, playwrights and comedians announce their willingness to transgress boundaries. Their publishers look for controversy like boozers look for brawls because they know that few marketing strategies beat the claim that a courageous iconoclast is challenging establishments and shattering taboos.
To maintain the illusion that they are part of some kind of radical underground, intellectuals must practise a deceit. They can never admit to their audience that fear of violent reprisals, ostracism or crippling financial penalties keeps them away from subjects that ought to concern them – and their fellow citizens.
Although it is impossible to count the books authors have abandoned, radical Islam is probably the greatest cause of self-censorship in the West today. …
Read the whole thing. Cohen is mistaken in one respect, however. He states that:
… It is a mistake to think of repression as repression by the state alone. In much of the world it still is, but in Britain, America and most of continental Europe the age of globalisation has done its work, and it is privatised rather than state forces that threaten freedom of speech.
That may be true of the fear of having your throat slit by some random Islamofascist. But state forces are clearly at work in his other example, Britain’s egregious libel laws (which he correctly describes as “(c)ontrary to common law and natural justice”).
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: censorship, free speech, islamofascism, lawsuit abuse | Leave a Comment »
Obama’s dangerous fantasies
Posted by Richard on February 6, 2012
In an interview with the Today Show’s Matt Lauer, President Obama reiterated what he’s maintained for the past 3 years, that we can dissuade Iran from building nuclear weapons (and using them against Israel) by persuading them that they don’t really want any (emphasis added):
The president elaborated on Iran’s nuclear capability — and how he plans to prevent it. “My goal is to try to resolve this diplomatically, mainly because the only way over the long term we can assure Iran doesn’t get a nuclear weapon is by getting them to understand it’s not in their interest,” Obama told Lauer.
The Washington Times quotes the President as also claiming that Iran’s goals are a mystery:
Mr. Obama also said in an interview that the U.S. has “a very good estimate” of the state of Iran’s nuclear development, but is having a more difficult time assessing its leadership’s intentions, as well as the political dynamics within the Islamic Republic.
Here’s a hint — this is what they’re saying right now in Iranian media outlets (government-controlled and thus with at least tacit approval):
The Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.
The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.
Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a “‘jurisprudential justification” to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”
The article, written by Alireza Forghani, an analyst and a strategy specialist in Khamenei’s camp, now is being run on most state-owned sites, including the Revolutionary Guards’ Fars News Agency, showing that the regime endorses this doctrine.
Does the Obama administration really think that Hillary Clinton (a mere female) or even the silver-tongued Obama himself can somehow persuade this genocidal and tyrannical regime that having nukes is not in its interests, when its interests include killing every Jew on the planet??
Meanwhile, Bashir Assad, whom Hillary defended as a “reformer,” continues to slaughter civilians in growing numbers, and in the same interview Lauer asked why the U.S. and U.N. would act to stop such slaughter in one case, but not another:
“I said at the time with respect to Libya that we would be making these decisions…on a case by case basis based on how unified the international community was,” Obama said. …
The repressive regimes of Russia and China have blocked a U.N. resolution merely condemning the brutal repression in Syria, so I guess the Obama administration will shrug and say the international community isn’t sufficiently unified.
As for the home front, for the umpteenth time the President bemoaned the fact that he can’t just impose his will on the nation:
“What’s frustrated people is that I have not be able to force Congress to implement every aspect of what I said in 2008,” he said.
This man is full of dangerous fantasies, foreign and domestic. In the former case, 60s peace-and-love generation fantasies; in the latter case, fantasies of autocracy.
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Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged: congress, iran, obama, syria | 1 Comment »