Reynosa

Just a heads up, I'll be in Reynosa, Mexico for the next week with my church, so no new posts.




In the meantime, enjoy.

Sherrod NAACP Speech

Nothing like a racially charged  accusation with the presumption of video evidence to set the political blog arena on fire. 

On Monday, Andrew Brietbart made a blog post claiming to show the racism of the NAACP, based on a speech by a Dept. of Agriculture executive, Shirley Sherrod. Since then, this woman has been cast aside by the administration, and is looking for employment. 

I've listened to the speech. 

"I've come to realize we have to work together. It's sad that we don't have a room full of blacks and whites here tonight, because we have to overcome the divisions that we have. We have to get to the point, where as Tony Morrison(?) said, 'Race exists, but it doesn't matter.' We have to work just as hard. I know that division is still here, but our communities are not going to thrive, our children won't have the communities that they need to live in and stay in to have a good life if we can't figure this out you all. White people, Black people, Hispanic people, we all have to do our part to make our communities a safe place, a healthy place, a good environment. So that companies, why would a company want to locate in some of these places? You know, its so sad that as I go around the state and people ask me where you from, 'Albany', 'Oh, a lot of crime in Albany', and a lot of that is from people who live there!"

Its embarrassing that this woman, who was telling a story of 24 years ago where she was racially biased against white people, and then upon seeing a lawyer fail a white family, came to their aide and helped them like she should have to begin with. Over time and with God's help, her mentality and biases have changed. This speech is but a message of racial healing and a drive for communities and personal responsibility. Heck, she even takes shots my generation, with good reason. 

Its painful to me that with the opening line of 'Context is everything', Brietbart has set off  such a firestorm on the right, and destroyed this woman's reputation by ripping out a short segment from a speech that was never meant to be a sound byte.

This really is a fine speech, I would recommend you play it in a different tab while doing other things.

Overwhelming Force of Regulation

Back in January, I linked to a graph from the American, showing just how much of a colossus the Healthcare bill was in comparison to previous landmarks in legislation. 


Well, the time has come for another look at the heavyweight Financial bill, and its comparison. 
Again, from the American Enterprise Blog:

If the Glass-Steagall Act was a dog, and the Gramm-Leach Bliley Act was a horse, the Dodd-Frank bill that just passed is a steroid chewing, Hulk-Gamma-Radiation, iron pumping monstrosity of a Blue Whale. 
Heck, even if you added the previous overhauls together, it is only 1/7th the size of this Dodd-Frank bill. 

The Secret of Potential

American.com: "The automobile’s potential is its greatest secret—an open secret and yet, it often seems, a forgotten one. The big SUV in my garage may occasionally make a 10-mile trip to Walmart or 2-mile run to the volunteer fire station when the siren sounds. But it has the potential—the size, the power, the range—to take me, my friends, and our bicycles over the mountain to a distant bike trail, or 1,100 miles with a load of furniture and books to my son’s house in Florida.

A century ago, the gasoline-powered automobile revolutionized personal mobility. It did it so profoundly and swiftly as to make it a routine aspect of our daily lives. Wide-ranging mobility is so normal that many people, particularly in the anti-car crowd, have forgotten its importance. On whatever day you may happen to read this, Americans will travel 11 billion miles in their cars, going to work or to lunch with friends, shopping, visiting the doctor or dentist, picking up materials for a home project, transporting kids to soccer or a pet to the vet—compacting into a few hours tasks which, had they even been contemplated before the automobile, would have taken carefully planned days or weeks."

If you like driving, this is a great column. The cars and trucks we drive are capable of so much more then we need them to be, and we love it that way. Excess capabilities are fun to have. Sports cars don't always race, most trucks seldom tow, and very few SUV's make there way off of pavement.

I remember a Nissan commercial campaign a few years back, and the tag line was 'Not that you would. But that you Could." That really sums up what we want from our vehicles, the tools to bring what our mind conceives into actions we can accomplish, maybe with some air conditioner included.

Slippery EPA Fouls Gulf Coast

Next time you have a conversation at a desk, water cooler or traffic jam regarding the BP Oil Gusher in the Gulf, remember this.

Financial Times: "In sharp contrast to Dutch preparedness before the fact and the Dutch instinct to dive into action once an emergency becomes apparent, witness the American reaction to the Dutch offer of help. The U.S. government responded with "Thanks but no thanks," remarked Visser, despite BP's desire to bring in the Dutch equipment and despite the no-lose nature of the Dutch offer --the Dutch government offered the use of its equipment at no charge. Even after the U.S. refused, the Dutch kept their vessels on standby, hoping the Americans would come round. By May 5, the U.S. had not come round. To the contrary, the U.S. had also turned down offers of help from 12 other governments, most of them with superior expertise and equipment --unlike the U.S., Europe has robust fleets of Oil Spill Response Vessels that sail circles around their make-shift U.S. counterparts.

Why does neither the U.S. government nor U.S. energy companies have on hand the cleanup technology available in Europe? Ironically, the superior European technology runs afoul of U.S. environmental rules. The voracious Dutch vessels, for example, continuously suck up vast quantities of oily water, extract most of the oil and then spit overboard vast quantities of nearly oil-free water. Nearly oil-free isn't good enough for the U.S. regulators, who have a standard of 15 parts per million -- if water isn't at least 99.9985% pure, it may not be returned to the Gulf of Mexico.

When ships in U.S. waters take in oil-contaminated water, they are forced to store it. As U.S. Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the official in charge of the clean-up operation, explained in a press briefing on June 11, "We have skimmed, to date, about 18 million gallons of oily water--the oil has to be decanted from that [and] our yield is usually somewhere around 10% or 15% on that." In other words, U.S. ships have mostly been removing water from the Gulf, requiring them to make up to 10 times as many trips to storage facilities where they off-load their oil-water mixture, an approach Koops calls "crazy.""

So the Dutch ships, which were being provided to us by a willing ally free of charge, were turned down.
Not because of some injured pride regarding American Oceans, but because of a unconstitutional, monolithic, dangerous, and morally bankrupt bureaucracy run the Executive branch.

Cleaning some water a lot of the way isn't good enough, this EPA requires that water be more clean then the water I drink from my tap.
Rather then utilizing a smart and functional option to make the best of a bad situation, the EPA has denied the Gulf Coast of valuable water.

Ironic, that in the same week that we have seen a Healthcare program run by the Federal Government paying for infanticide, that we have an Environmental Protection Agency making its best efforts to ruin the Gulf Coast.

The Blades Come Out

Mort Zuckerman: "The hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment. Americans are dispirited over how wrong things are and uncertain they can be made right again. Hope may have been a quick breakfast, but it has proved a poor supper. A year and a half ago Obama was walking on water. Today he is barely treading water. Then, his soaring rhetoric enraptured the nation. Today, his speeches cannot lift him past a 45 percent approval rating.

...Historically, presidents with approval ratings below 50 percent—Obama is at 45—lose an average of 41 House seats in midterm elections. This year, that would return the House of Representatives to Republican control. The Democrats will suffer disproportionately from a climate in which so many Americans are either dissatisfied or angry with the government, for Democrats are in the large majority in both houses and have to defend many more districts than Republicans. In any election year, voters' feelings typically settle in by June. But now they are being further hardened by the loose regulation that preceded the poisonous oil spill—and the tardy government response."

For a guy who used to help write speeches with Obama's campaign, this is a blistering analysis of a failing president.
Sadly, it appears that the failures are occurring for ideological reasons, but for the appalling lack of leadership rearing its ugly head.

Buffaloed

CBS: "Armed security guards have been posted at public pools in Buffalo after a lifeguard was pulled into the water by rowdy teenagers and other unruly behavior prompted safety concerns for parks employees.

The city's eight public outdoor pools were shut down last Thursday after fights broke out and a locker room was vandalized.

At one pool, a 16-year-old lifeguard says she was yanked by her ankles into the water when she tried to restore order. She says she struck her head on a drain and then was repeatedly dunked by several teenagers until another lifeguard rescued her.

The teen was treated at a Buffalo hospital for a mild concussion.

City parks officials say security guards were on duty over the weekend and will be working at the pools for the rest of the summer."

What is going on in Buffalo??

State Income Tax

Bill Bradley: "The absence of state income tax in Florida and Texas is a big reason the Miami Heat and Dallas Mavericks can be active in free agency.

Compare that to the New York Knicks, whose players have to pay combined state and city income taxes of 12.618 percent. That means Amar'e Stoudemire's five-year, $99.8 million deal with the Knicks is worth about $12 million less than if he had signed with the Heat.

While athletes are taxed by other states when playing road games, they come out well ahead if they live in Texas or Florida.
Yes, these Florida and Texas teams had to have salary cap space to get involved in this circus. Yes, they wanted to improve their rosters.

But think about this: There are five NBA teams in Florida and Texas. Those are the only teams without state income tax. All five are among the most competitive in the league."

The unintended consequences of taxation spread far and wide.
Personally, I'd be ecstatic if my Mavericks wound up with a Bosh, James or Wade. But after this bold move by Chicago, I think he'l be a Bull.

'If It Was A Real War We Would Have Won By Now'

"...The harder we fight a war that is not a war, the weaker we get and the stronger becomes our enemy. When an enemy without weapons can respect an army of great strength, the most powerful of all history, one should ask, who has the moral high ground?

Military failure in Afghanistan is to be our destiny. Changing generals without changing our policies or our policymakers perpetuates our agony and delays the inevitable.

This is not a war that our generals have been trained for. Nation building, police work, social engineering is never a job for foreign occupiers and never an appropriate job for soldiers trained to win wars.

A military victory is no longer even a stated goal of our military leaders or our politicians, as they know that type of victory is impossible.

The sad story is, this war is against ourselves, our values, our Constitution, our financial well-being and common sense. And at the rate we’re going, it’s going to end badly...."
(h/t LewRockwell)

Lost on Earth

Fox: ""When I became the NASA administrator -- or before I became the NASA administrator -- he charged me with three things. One was he wanted me to help re-inspire children to want to get into science and math, he wanted me to expand our international relationships, and third, and perhaps foremost, he wanted me to find a way to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with dominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science ... and math and engineering," Bolden said in the interview. "

We once sent men to the moon, and brought them home. Now we reach out not to the stars, but to a singularly oppressive and violent religion.
Gone for good are the days of NASA's glory, it has become yet another vapid use of tax dollars.

Fertilizer

US Senate Resolution 570 passed the senate today. To summarize:

"Calling for continued support for and an increased effort by the Governments of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other Central Asian countries to effectively monitor and regulate the manufacture, sale, transport, and use of ammonium nitrate fertilizer in order to prevent the transport of ammonium nitrate into Afghanistan where the ammonium nitrate is used in improvised explosive devices."

This is noteworthy for no other reason then the following line:

"Whereas it is illegal to manufacture, own, or use ammonium nitrate fertilizer in Afghanistan since a ban was instituted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in January 2010;"

Wait. Stop.
It is illegal to use Ammonium Nitrate Fertilizer in Afghanistan, since the start of this year?

Empirically, what has the effect been?

AP, April 8, 2010: "The number of IEDs in Afghanistan climbed from 429 in March 2009 to 989 in March 2010."

The success of this program is on par with Mr. Wood's marriage.

You're asking right now, who cares. Ammonium Nitrate, Miracle Grow... its all a wash in the end and the ban is trying to save lives. But there are reasons Ammonium Nitrate is a oft used substance.

Slate: "For starters, ammonium nitrate is inexpensive to manufacture. The process involves nothing more complicated than mixing together ammonia and nitric acid; the first batch of the stuff was synthesized way back in 1659 by German chemist Johann R. Glauber. A ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer costs, on average, about $100 less than a ton of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer, one of the best alternatives.
...
It's not only farmers who prize ammonium nitrate, however. A low-density powder containing the chemical is vital to the construction industry, which considers it preferable to dynamite. Ironically, one of ammonium nitrate's attributes is its stability—it won't explode unless it comes in contact with both a hydrocarbon (such as fuel oil) and a detonation source."

It's cheaper to grow food with, and its safer for mining. Both of which are done in Afghanistan.

At the risk of sounding cliche,
When you outlaw fertilizer, then only outlaws will have fertilizer.

Human Hubris

“The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design.”

-F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit

Keynesian Failure

WSJ.com: "The larger lesson here is about policy. The original sin—and it was nearly global—was to revive the Keynesian economic model that had last cracked up in the 1970s, while forgetting the lessons of the long prosperity from 1982 through 2007. The Reagan and Clinton-Gingrich booms were fostered by a policy environment for most of that era of lower taxes, spending restraint and sound money. The spending restraint began to end in the late 1990s, sound money vanished earlier this decade, and now Democrats are promising a series of enormous tax increases."

Outstanding column on the failure of our past decade of operational economic theory by the US National Government.

Stanley McChystal

"Winning hearts and minds in COIN is a coldblooded thing," McChrystal says, citing an oft-repeated maxim that you can't kill your way out of Afghanistan. "The Russians killed 1 million Afghans, and that didn't work."

"I'm not saying go out and kill everybody, sir," the soldier persists. "You say we've stopped the momentum of the insurgency. I don't believe that's true in this area. The more we pull back, the more we restrain ourselves, the stronger it's getting."

"I agree with you," McChrystal says. "In this area, we've not made progress, probably. You have to show strength here, you have to use fire. What I'm telling you is, fire costs you. What do you want to do? You want to wipe the population out here and resettle it?"

-Rolling Stone

Truth is Treason in the Empire of Lies

-Ron Paul

Dodd-Frank Financial Bill Passes

Washington Post: "Key House and Senate lawmakers agreed on far-reaching new financial rules early Friday after weeks of division, delay and frantic last-minute deal making. The dawn compromise set up a potential vote in both houses of Congress next week that could send the landmark legislation to President Obama by July 4.

Lawmakers pulled an all-nighter, wrapping up their work at 5:39 a.m. -- more than 20 messy, mind-numbing, exhaustive hours after they began Thursday morning.

"It's a great moment. I'm proud to have been here," said a teary-eyed Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (D-Conn.), who as chairman of the Senate Banking Committee led the effort in the Senate. "No one will know until this is actually in place how it works. But we believe we've done something that has been needed for a long time. It took a crisis to bring us to the point where we could actually get this job done."
...
"We've put in the hands of the president a very powerful set of tools for him to reassert American leadership in the world," Frank said.

One of the last motions Friday was to name the bill after the two chairmen, who had shepherded the legislation through the House and the Senate over the past year. At 5:07 a.m., they agreed unanimously that it would be known as the Dodd-Frank bill, and the sound of applause echoed down the empty hallways."

A bill that tallys over 2000 pages in length and creates a new agency, independent of Congressional authority, to monitor the economy and repossess and repurpose various financial functions to suit the needs it sees fit.
It occours to me yet again, that these nests of serpents have no regard for reality, and only for the power of those who have corrupted this government.

May heaven help us, as even those who claim authorship have no idea what this will do to the real world.

Atheism is No Requirement

"...Parenthetically, I am getting tired of the offhanded smearing of religion that has long been endemic to the libertarian movement. Religion is generally dismissed as imbecilic at best, inherently evil at worst.

The greatest and most creative minds in the history of mankind have been deeply and profoundly religious, most of them Christian. It is not necessary to be religious to come to grips with that fact. Speaking in Mr. Water's pragmatic bailiwick, we libertarians will never win the hearts and minds of Americans or of the rest of the world if we persist in wrongly identifying libertarianism with atheism.

If even Stalin couldn't stamp out religion, libertarians are not going to succeed with a few Randian syllogisms."

-Murry N. Rothbard

This just made me chuckle, so I figured it was worth reposting.

'Lets Raise Kids to be Entrepreneurs

Good News from the Gulf

Bloomberg: (hat tip to openmarket.org)"A New Orleans federal judge lifted the six-month moratorium on deepwater drilling imposed by President Barack Obama following the largest oil spill in U.S. history. ...
Obama temporarily halted all drilling in waters deeper than 500 feet on May 27 to give a presidential commission time to study improvements in the safety of offshore operations. More than a dozen Louisiana offshore service and supply companies sued U.S. regulators to lift the ban. The U.S. said it will appeal the decision.
..
“The court is unable to divine or fathom a relationship between the findings and the immense scope of the moratorium,” Feldman said in his 22-page decision. “The blanket moratorium, with no parameters, seems to assume that because one rig failed and although no one yet fully knows why, all companies and rigs drilling new wells over 500 feet also universally present an imminent danger.”

“The court cannot substitute its judgment for that of the agency, but the agency must ‘cogently explain why it has exercised its discretion in a given manner,’” Feldman said, citing a previous ruling. “It has not done so.” "

We will yet again see the curious spectre of a supposedly free nation, through its government, attempting to punish the oil industry that has been problem free in the gulf, by blinding reaching to shut down production. The age of Jefferson this is not.

I think the administration seeks to exacerbate the crisis to drive Cap and Trade legislation through, regardless of the consequences to Americans now, or in the future.
Similarly, the moratorium was enacted as an act of political grandstanding, one to appease the meandering populace who occasionally glance up as the tides of tyranny wash upon their shores. At least the courts have done the job right this time, curbing the excess of the executive branch.

Shared Content

When I'm reading news articles, there are a lot that find interesting, but I don't have the time to make a full post on.

Many of those, I'll click 'share', and add to this box at the top of the page. Just good links to click on and read.

Worst Case Scenario

xkcd.com