Paper knows no bounds

AP: "President Barack Obama scolded Virgina Republican Rep. Eric Cantor for the stack of paper he brought with him to the health summit, calling it the type of political stunt that gets in the way of lawmakers having a serious conversation.

Cantor said he brought a copy of the 2,400-page Senate bill and the 11-page proposal Obama posted online earlier in the week."

What a leader!

Crowding Out the Market

Critiques of our Academic Financing System

Mises.org: "But economic theory has yet another lesson to teach us. Because the supply of students who can afford college is artificially inflated due to the subsidized loans, colleges and universities have found that they can get away with raising their tuitions to stratospheric levels.

"Because the supply of students who can afford college is artificially inflated due to the subsidized loans, colleges and universities have found that they can get away with raising their tuitions to stratospheric levels."
Nevertheless, the students keep on coming, both because the loans are so cheap and easy to obtain, and because the education establishment has an arsenal of statistics and slogans at the ready to describe the huge financial gains to be had from earning a college degree. "The huge debt is worth it," they say. "You'll make it all back after a few years."

At one time this was probably true for most students; but now an increasing number of students are finding that the crushing debt required to attend most four-year universities simply isn't worth it, especially in light of the abysmal job market.

To make matters worse, the recession has prompted many universities to raise their tuitions even higher. According to a new study by the Project on Student Debt,

"Data show that for the past few years, around two-thirds of students graduating from four-year colleges had student-loan debt. The average amount these students owe has grown about six percent per year since 2003–04, reaching $23,200 for the class of 2008. For comparison, in 1996, only 58 percent of students graduated with debt, and they owed an average of $13,200."

Currently, only 70% of those under 20 who want to be employed have a job. This is not counting those who do not seek a job, and thus are not a part of the labor market.

Those recent graduates who can't work usually go to school, because that's what every has advised since grade school. They go to school to find out what they want to do, and bandy about the system for a few semesters on entirely borrowed money, and may or may not have a career yielding degree by the end.

The average graduate will have over $23,000 in debt. In the past, its been get a job, got to school, get done. Now, we have a situation where borrowing to pay for school has become the norm, and my generation will be paying student loans off for nearly the next 2 decades. It is not unlikely that many people going to class will finish paying off their student loans when their kids are about to start high school.

The other option, historically, has been to get a job, get to work and get things done but that option is far less prevalent, and far less available, because the entry level jobs that are available to high school grads are disappearing. Employers will not loose money hiring people, and if a job is only worth $6 an hour, the employer cannot pay $7 and make a profit with that employee.

Thus, we have those who are academically inept and unable to get a scholarship, unable to find any variety of gainful employment, borrowing up to their eyebrows in quicksand to pay for school because that is what they have been advised to do. Or they just list aimlessly for years before acquiring the same job they could have had, at the same skill level at Jr year in high school.

The end result of subsidized student loans, government academic grants and minimum wage?

A rationally lethargic, debt saturated, unthinking generation of adults, exorbitant prices for higher education whilst simultaneously removing the incentive and option to be a producing member of the labor force

Solutions?

Cease subsidized Federal Student Loans, University grants, government scholarships (GI bill notwithstanding) and educational tax shelters. They inflated the system to begin with.

Abolish the minimum wage law, it only narrows the market place down to those who are already employed.

Patton Says....

Cost of Obama Spending

Here is a unique perspective on the proposed increase in the US Federal Debt limit by $1.9 Trillion to $14.3 Trillion.

Thats a lot of money.

I mean, a LOT of money.

Like, money being sprayed out the nozzle of Old Faithful, albeit far more regular and more expensive.

This is just the debt, not any variety of spending within the federal revenue.

So, without further ado...

This debt expansion is equivalent to more then 20 Hurricane Katrina's.
This Debt ceiling is equivalent to more then 150 Hurricane Katrina's.


Thats a lot. of. debt.
May our children forgive us.

Hitler's Reaction to Brown

"Rush Limbaugh swore a pact with the Devil, so he knew Obama would fail. True story."

This is a video put together by a fellow right winger, subtitling a clip from the German film Downfall.
Hysterical work.

Beam Me Up Scotty

We have found intelligent life in this state.

"“I never thought I’d see the day when a Republican replaces Ted Kennedy,” Mayor Thomas M. Menino told the Herald last night. “I think Scott Brown caught the wave of anger that’s out there, and the wave of anti-Obama.”

A Rasmussen Reports poll found one in five Democrats supported Brown, who benefited from high suburban turnout to beat Coakley by 52 to 47 percent."

Coupled with the New Jersey and Virgina elections in the recent past, the interim elections have become a surprising measurement of the discontent in the electorate.

So Kennedy dies while in the senate, after doing incalculable damage to my country over the years. His last dying wish is to pass the Bolshevik health care legislation. His seat is taken by an upstart republican, surging into the senate on the wave of a Boston Tea Party. There is a good chance the senate bill will stall, marking Kennedy's double defeat.

The Lord does work in mysterious ways.

A Fresh Take on Airport Security

NY Times: "“Meet Mikey Hicks,” said Najlah Feanny Hicks, introducing her 8-year-old son, a New Jersey Cub Scout and frequent traveler who has seldom boarded a plane without a hassle because he shares the name of a suspicious person. “It’s not a myth.”

Michael Winston Hicks’s mother initially sensed trouble when he was a baby and she could not get a seat for him on their flight to Florida at an airport kiosk; airline officials explained that his name “was on the list,” she recalled.

The first time he was patted down, at Newark Liberty International Airport, Mikey was 2. He cried.

After years of long delays and waits for supervisors at every airport ticket counter, this year’s vacation to the Bahamas badly shook up the family. Mikey was frisked on the way there, then more aggressively on the way home.

"Up your arms, down your arms, up your crotch, someone is patting your 8-year-old down like he’s a criminal," Mrs. Hicks recounted. “A terrorist can blow his underwear up and they don’t catch him. But my 8-year-old can’t walk through security without being frisked.”
...
Before leaving for the Bahamas on Jan. 2, she reached out to Congressman Pascrell’s office, which then enlisted a T.S.A. agent to meet the family at the airport. Even this did not prevent Mikey from an extra pat-down.

On the way home last Friday, Mikey’s boarding pass showed four giant red S’s at the airport in Nassau. “Oh, random screening,” Mrs. Hicks said. ... Mrs. Hicks said she wanted to take pictures of her son being frisked but was told it was against the rules.""

In the words of Paine's Common Sense, "Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one. "

The TSA has become naught but a ponderous, intolerable, unsustainable blight upon the world.

To wit,

Mandatory removal of shoes

Inhospitable 4oz of liquid limit

Exclusion of all blades, tweezers, ect...

Now, coming to you from the main stage...

Terahertz Scanners that provide full color nude images of each Human passing though,

Terahertz Scanners that have the potential to rend your DNA into base proteins.

Under the guise of security, we are being adjusted to a posture of acceptance of draconian checkpoints, invasive regulation of inconsequential items, and a violation of all claims to physical space, even regarding children.

All of this misses the real point however, and it is a simple one. Why should the government me operating a Transportation Security Administration? The principle is that because the transportation in air is public space, then the government must maintain its security.

To follow this to its logical conclusion, we should be subject to screenings for the purposes of driving, biking, walking, riding a bus or train as well. These are in public and often on public roads, yet we would consider the suggestion foolhardy and wasteful.

Yet, air travel is regarded differently, for reasons I have yet to fathom.

Perhaps the numerous government bailouts of the failing industry has lashed them so tightly together that no other option is weighed beyond the onerous force of centralized governmental control.

If the airlines want pre-screened security, let them provide it themselves. I have no doubt they could do no worse then my government is doing now.

The Real Question

Some questions ring eternal, echoing down the chambers of history with no reserve.

My president, Mr. Obama, has asked just such a question.

"“How many times is Biden gonna say something stupid?”"

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, told Missouri State Senator Chuck Graham to stand up. Graham is confined to a wheelchair.

NFL Wild Card Weekend

Picks:

Bengals over Jets

Eagles over Cowboys

Ravens over Patriots

Packers over Cardinals

EDIT:

Well, saturday did not go well for me.

Numbers that Speak Good News

Among other sites, I enjoy reading The American Blog, run by the American Enterprise Institute. I found this today, and it is one of those cases where the numbers speak for themselves, and neat little colored bars only help with that.

Look at 4 of the more influential particles of legislation in American history.

Now, look at the astronomically large bills passed by this congress.

(Hat tip to Nick Schultz)

Also interesting to note is the congressional approval rate of this current congress, especially when compared with congresses of yore.

Here's a helpful chart for that too!

As the hope of the right is that Obama will repeat the days of Carter & Reagan, so to the hope burns that this congressional election will be similar to the 1994 collapse of a democrat majority in Congress.

Mexico

Just came back from Mexico at 4am this morning, another successful trip to Iglesia Prince de Paz in Reynosa.

18 people, 1 completed house, 1 fully painted church, 1 expanded bathroom and breezeway, 1 girl in the ER, 12 sick people and 1 long haul road trip later, and yet another series of lessons from my Brothers in Christ.

And we didn't even get to the tacos.

Happy New Year, and may the liberties we enjoy today be expanded in the coming year.

Merry Christmas

And for your accompanyment through out your next 2:54 of browsing,

Manager's Edition

Wall Street Journal: "Mr. Obama promised a new era of transparent good government, yet on Saturday morning Mr. Reid threw out the 2,100-page bill that the world's greatest deliberative body spent just 17 days debating and replaced it with a new "manager's amendment" that was stapled together in covert partisan negotiations.

Democrats are barely even bothering to pretend to care what's in it, not that any Senator had the chance to digest it in the 38 hours before the first cloture vote at 1 a.m. this morning. After procedural motions that allow for no amendments, the final vote could come at 9 p.m. on December 24.

Even in World War I there was a Christmas truce.

The rushed, secretive way that a bill this destructive and unpopular is being forced on the country shows that "reform" has devolved into the raw exercise of political power for the single purpose of permanently expanding the American entitlement state.

An increasing roll of leaders in health care and business are looking on aghast at a bill that is so large and convoluted that no one can truly understand it, as Finance Chairman Max Baucus admitted on the floor last week. The only goal is to ram it into law while the political window is still open, and clean up the mess later."

Splendid.

Opposing Obamacare = Aryan Nation

"They are desperate to break this president. They have ardent supporters who are nearly hysterical at the very election of President Barack Obama. The birthers, the fanatics, the people running around in right-wing militias and Aryan support groups, it is unbearable to them that President Barack Obama should exist. That is one powerful reason. It is not the only one."

Texas Represenatation

So I took a look at the Roll Call of Senate Vote 381, on the closure of the discussion of the Health Care destruction bill.

Looking first to my Senators, I look at John Cornyn and Kay Bailey Hutchison, both of Texas.

You know, that bastion of Conservatism.

That state that is republican when all else fails, one of the crown jewels of the Regan revolution.

You know, the state W himself rode in on the clouds from.

So how did these statesmen of conservatism represent my state in the dark night of legislation?

Cornyn did not vote. Of 100 individuals in the Senate, only 2% opted out of this vote, with my senator representing half of this.

Hutchison, she went one step farther. Rather then attempting to mount a filibuster, rather then trying to fight for one more day in the hallowed halls of legislation that the senate resides in for the liberty of my people, rather then standing for what is right, Hutchison votes to end discussion. She votes to pass the bill. She votes to bring this nation to its knees in the coming decades by taking a meat cleaver to the ankles of a once mighty economy.

Which is worse, to take the cowards way out and hide from having principles and voting with them, or to join headlong the horrific descent into corruption and malicious law proffered by the democrat party.

The Human Element

Ah, the esteemed Senator Ben Nelson and his interactions with Reid others of his ilk prior to sacrificing my children's lives on the altar of fascist solutions.

AP: "By evening, the two sides took a break to consult with their respective constituencies. Nelson left Reid's suite, planning to return at 8:30 p.m. He called a leading anti-abortion activist in Nebraska, but was not able to get a commitment for the deal.

At 9:00 p.m. Nelson had yet to return. At 9:15, still no Nelson. Reid and Schumer started getting nervous. Finally, at 9:30, Nelson turned up. He and Boxer signed off on the deal within a half hour. Nelson came into Reid's office to say he'd hold off on a formal endorsement until the text of deal was released in the morning.

Reid and Nelson started to say goodnight, and wound up hugging each other. Nelson hugged Schumer next and then left.

Obama, aboard Air Force One on his way back from the climate summit in Copenhagen, called with congratulations. Reid put the president on speaker phone so Boxer and Schumer could hear.

After the deal became public Saturday, Nelson was slammed by former allies opposed to abortion. He tells people he feels like he's been bitten by the family dog."

Nelson Sells out Cheap

and the fascism of Reid-care marches relentlessly forward.

Washington Post:" Nelson secured full federal funding for his state to expand Medicaid coverage to all individuals below 133 percent of the federal poverty level. Other states must pay a small portion of the additional cost. He won concessions for qualifying nonprofit insurers and for Medigap providers from a new insurance tax. He also was able to roll back cuts to health savings accounts.

"I know this is hard for some of my colleagues to accept and I appreciate their right to disagree," Nelson told reporters at the Capitol, of the many changes made at his behest. "But I would not have voted for this bill without these provisions."

With Nelson on board, Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid unveiled the final version of a sweeping overhaul of the nation's health insurance system that would expand coverage to an additional 31 million Americans, coming closer to attaining the Democrats' long sought goal of universal medical coverage."

Nelson has joined his fellow democrats in selling the freedoms of the nation for a blatant power grab. For what? A few more bucks for his state's medicare.

This snake will languish once again with the democrat brood of vipers infesting the senate, writhing fiercely away from reason, individual rights, and the bed rock of these United States.

With the votes now locked in place, I have little doubt that it will pass through the gates of the senate, and pass triumphantly across the desk of my President. Many of the most egregious provisions are not in place until 2014, well after the next presidential election. This gives us two terms of congressional action to remove this travesty of government.

But in the words of the wise, there is nothing so permanent as a temporary government program.

A merry Christmas indeed.

Obama's Healthcare Tweets

Why should this atrocity of legislation, Nationalized Healtare, be passed?

Well, obviously because it will make things better.... no, it will not.

Well, because it's a basic human right... no, it is certifiably not.

Well, because it's the only option America.... oh, nope.

Well, if all of those fail, then by golly, lets appeal to emotion! We are democrats obviously!

(Hat tip to Marshall Sherman)

Disarm!

In reference to the global warming farce, and the attempt at the Copenhagen envirofascism oracle,

one of the beacons of wisdom in the senate steps forth to call for mandatory emmisions supervision of all nations.

""The only way we'll be successful in America is for countries like China and India to make an equivalent commitment," said South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who's crafting a bipartisan climate bill. "We're not going to unilaterally disarm.""