San Francisco has banned the sale of calorically sweetened beverages, including sports drinks and artificially sweetened water on city property. “Juices must be 100 percent fruits or vegetables with no added sweeteners.” Other local governments are considering similar measures. Michigan, for example, is considering a tax on soda pop. Although “using food as a weapon” has long been denounced by the Left, they are not above using food as a political issue. For example, the Daily Kos inveighs against the danger of high fructose corn syrup.
Still in doubt about the innocence of high fructose corn syrup? I Like my corn fresh, hot and slathered with buttery Earth Balance and doused with a little salt and pepper. I like it yellow, white, bicolor and bumpy. I like it in a husk, ready for shucking out on the deck. I liked it popped, and I like it ground into cornmeal for awesome corn sticks and corn bread. I don’t like it sweetening my breakfast cereal, my catsup, my soda, my candy, my cookies, my ice tea or my bread. I don’t like it in my salad dressing. And now that I understand that high-fructose corn syrup is a chemically altered corn derivative that delivers intense, shelf-stable sweetness to nearly every commercial food product available in American grocery stores, I am outraged.
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Government is increasingly in the business of telling people what to eat. A coalition of health advocates and bureaucrats see taxes on “sinful” foods as a good way to attain social goals and raise taxes. The Baltimore Sun write: “the way a group of leading nutritionists and economists sees it, taxing sugar-sweetened beverages could lead to smaller waistlines, expanded government coffers and big savings on health care costs.” Now that the public stake in health insurance has grown government can argue with increasing justification that the gustatory, as well as the personal, is political. The Department of Health and Human Services website says some researchers call soda taxes a “win-win” situation. “What better way to accomplish both lowering health care costs through obesity prevention and funding expansion of health insurance coverage than to add a tax to unhealthy foods,” one said.
If sugary drinks become the new cigarettes the American Beverage Association bids fair to become the new Big Tobacco bogeyman. Wikipedia writes: “fighting the creation of soft drink taxes, the American Beverage Association, the largest US trade organization for soft drink bottlers, has spent considerable money to lobby Congress. The Association’s annual lobbying spending rose from about $391,000 to more than $690,000 from 2003 to 2008. And, in the 2010 election cycle, its lobbying grew more than 1000 percent to $8.67 million. These funds are helping to pay for 25 lobbyists at seven different lobbying firms.”
Against these seemingly impressive sums are the vast amounts the soft drink taxes could bring in. The Baltimore Sun continues: “in a report published in today’s New England Journal of Medicine …Yale’s Kelly D. Brownell, tries to make the case for a 1 percent per ounce excise tax on caloric sodas, fruit drinks and other beverages containing high-fructose corn syrup. ” Just how much of a case does it make in terms of money? About $15 billion worth.
They say the tax would increase the cost of a 20-ounce soft drink by 15 to 20 percent. And based on the economic principle of price elasticity, when the price of soda has risen by 10 percent, consumption has dropped by an average of 8 percent. People who cut out those calories are likely not to replace many of them, the researchers said, and could lose a significant amount of weight.
A national tax of the sort they recommend could raise $14.9 BILLION in the first year, money that could go toward nutrition or obesity prevention programs. They estimate such a tax would generate $284.5 million in Maryland in the first year.
Taxing incorrect behavior is a “win-win” situation in other ways. By acquiring power over people’s lives and amassing money at the same time, activists potentially position themselves to seize even more power and money. It snowballs. Even as people’s waistlines and billfolds shrink, government’s girth expands. The power to resist declines in inverse proportion to the the ever-expanding scope of public intervention. The progressive expansion of power is the ultimate self-licking ice cream cone. It gives itself the ends to its means. Dennis Prager optimistically argues that the “world opinion” machine has been breaking itself for years on bedrock American conservatism. “A vigorous conservative part of the American population has contempt for ‘world opinion,’ rightly regarding it as useless against real evil and as a mere reflection of Leftist views.” And he has high hopes for the “tiny … conservative media [that] … have made an impact that belies their numbers.” Maybe.
But Dan Riehl is not so sure. He argues that the Left is now using the Internet to direct its armies of activists, seeking out weaknesses and maneuvering for advantage. “The DNC gets new media in ways the GOP still refuses to embrace. It’s intent on controlling the narrative, while the DNC is more interested in fueling constituent and blog-based activism from the Left. Democrat-aligned parties have also funded the mechanisms to accomplish it. You can go to even deeply Red districts and find an activist infrastructure on the Left, often blog-based. Meanwhile, GOP campaigns pay consultants to send out annoying spam emails to every blogger under the sun.” Maybe soon there will be no escape from the pursuing activists or the blanket acceptance of “world opinion”. And eventually, however hardy it may be, the unceasing stream of high pressure water will smash up the conservative bedrock or divide into the digestible pieces. Unless …
People find a way to invent their own self-empowering machine. One of unanswered questions of the modern world is whether there exists a sustainable process for generating public participation in ways that counteract the centralizing power of bureaucracies. In other words, is there some force which can successfully resist the smashing, irresistible pull of bureaucratic gravity that either finishes up in a Black Hole or forces things outward in a climactic explosion? Something which can establish a balance between creative chaos and ordnung?
One of the few conservative organizations that have set themselves the task of developing Internet tools to develop direct action is the Tocqueville Project. It is founded on the idea that if people are allowed to organize themselves without going through an apparatus — a vanguard party, or a cadre of activists — that the result where people get cues from each other is qualitatively different from one in which they are handed talking points from a self-appointed elite. I should confess at the outset that I’m helping them out. Right now the project is looking for a few volunteers, talented programmers mostly, with an interest in tapping the creativity of crowds. One immediate need is for someone with experience to help set up Git version control to handle open-source contributions. Right now it is about as rag-tag as the “tiny … conservative media”. But who knows? Maybe it will get somewhere.
(Cross posted on Don Surber’s blog)
Just worth pointing out, as we wither and die under a president who campaigned on “Yes, we can”….
That liberal campaigning is ALWAYS about “What we CAN do, What we HOPE to do, that we CAN do wonderful things”, etc etc….
And liberal governing is always, always, ALWAYS about what we CAN’T do…. we CAN’T eat what we want, we CAN’T drive what we want, we CAN’T keep our thermostats where we want, we CAN’T be as powerful as we have been, we CAN’T “win the war”, we CAN’T pray when and where we want, we CAN’T send our kids to the schools we want, we CAN’T drill for oil where any sane person would drill… we CAN’T put men back into space (at least until Muslim self-esteem has been brought up to par)….. and on and on…
I could burn pixels all day on this list.
Always, always, always, always, ALWAYS… liberalism and (Big D)emocratic rule is about what we can NOT do, for all sorts of reasons.
Frankly, if the hapless GOP could figure out how to brand them with this absolute, unalterable, and obvious reality, they could run the field.
There is corn syrup in almost all food in the U.S. (at the risk of sounding Whiskey like here, it’s why so many Mexican nationals balloon here eating nominally the same foods as back home). There is no ‘free market’ reason why this should be so apart from the marketplace preponderance of the corn lobby.
However, using taxes as a means to change this situation strikes me as just more regressive squeezing of the poor in tough times, akin to raising the tobacco taxes. They don’t sell as much of that high corn syrup stuff at Whole Foods after all, though since the CEO came against ObamaCare they may have something planned for his company, heretofore beloved by progressives.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37280972/ns/health-diet_and_nutrition/
Whole Foods Attracts the Skinniest Shoppers
Granted being skinny isn’t everything. Nor are all ladies from the former CIS that way.
And am I the only one at BC who thinks the whole ‘NASA’s no. 1 mission is outreach to the Muslim world’ and ‘we can legalize 11 million people – maybe – by executive fiat’ are but clever Alinskyite ploys, designed to infuriate conservatives of all stripes and bring the Whiskeys out from the woodwork?
“See, look how those racist white people react to such an idea, and there they go again, accusing Obama of being a crypto-Muslim just because his NASA chief said something about being nice to Muslims’.
Po russkiy it’s called provocatsie, like Misha the Tie Eater shelling the crap out of Tskinval then claiming victimhood at the hands of the Big Nasty Russian Bear on all gullible (or controlled, depending on your point of view) Western news networks.
Mr. X, my brother…..
As for the laughable “Muslim outreach” priority being a “clever ploy”, it’s an interesting thought, but I am always inclined to rely on Occam’s Razor (the most likely explanation is probably the truth).
What this is, and why it is significant, is that these people really really do think this way, i.e. accomplishing nothing is far more desireable than accomplishing anything at all, if said accomplishment does not meet their standards of “fairness” and general warm fuzziness.
A thriving economy, a robust defense, successful kids in school, falling poverty rates…. all these things are undesireable if not done “correctly” (i.e. according to leftist shibboleths).
This is a far more simple explanation than any “ploy”, and frankly, is a far more insidious and terrible one.
So this is a no win situation that we can cheat our way out of?
Mr X., what is it with you? Why you have to always attach some non-sequitur ref to R/G war?
It looks like that is your actual intent, the rest of the message is just a filler to slip it in.
Pathetic. You’ve earned a spot on my “skip” list.
Banning soda on city property?
So, we are expected to trust city workers with governing us but they cannot be trusted not to choose the HFCS obesity causing soda?
This is nothing less than more social engineering.
Has Obama suggested stopping corn subsidies?
John Lynch/4
Cheat? No.
No win? Not preordained. Who knows. Maybe there is a pattern to adapt!
I can tell you where you’ll be able to get those evil sweetened drinks: at the Kiryat Moriah!
Mr. X (#2) raises the valid point that American taxpayers subsidize the corn industry, and then are taxed again to prevent them from “enjoying” its benefits. If those anti-HFCS efforts succeed, the taxpayers could then be asked to increase their subsidies! As Rick Santelli might scream, “Let me off!”
MaryJ, it’s really about the source of revenue, primarily. The added benefit is putting surfs in their proper place (to meekly accept next tax scheme). Another aspect of it is to force the corn companies into a protection racket–”we go softly on you if your contribs would increase”.
Yale’s Kelly D. Brownell, tries to make the case for a 1 percent per ounce excise tax on caloric sodas
As you might guess, Brownell could stand to lose some weight himself: pic at the link.
http://www.yale.edu/psychology/FacInfo/Brownell.html
Bob, Mr.X invalidates his valid point with his last paragraph.
I don’t believe in the no-win scenario.
Overthrow the Empire(s), would be my solution.
Buy more ammo!
2×4: What John Lynch was asking Wretchard was why he invoked the title of this thread.
Yes Wretchard. What is the cheat here? Is it the way they’re scamming to raise taxes? That can’t be it or you would have used this title on the AGW scam long ago.
And where’s the no-win scenario?
You have me stumped here.
The only reason HFCS is in so much food is because corn production is subsidised. Get rid of the market distorting farm bill subsidies and HFCS will disappear from food, along with the deficit.
Pascal, right, thx, went past me.
“A national tax of the sort they recommend could raise $14.9 BILLION in the first year, money that could go toward nutrition or obesity prevention programs.”
That money will not be used for nutrition or obesity prevention programs. Ever.
It will be used to help maintain income stream security and COLA increases for public sector union members.
Period.
Whatever supposed health benefits there is to not consuming HFC is only the lipstick on the pig. It is the nature of government to tax it citizens to just short of the point of collapse, by whatever means they can. Look at your cell phone bill.
There seems to be a lot of Whiskey bashing going on around here now that he is not available to talk back. Fact is that Whiskey is dead-on right about the untoward influence of single women on the culture, and by extension political outcomes that affect everybody.
I am hearing and reading a lot more lately about how liberty and freedom are slowly and surely being redefined into a sense of security and the reduction of risk from the vicissitudes of just being a two-legged, featherless mammal. That is straight out of the Whiskey credo, and we are all better off for getting it told early and often.
Now we see the Rise of the Fructose Fascists.
I have a couple of friends in US Special Forces and they have described a training exercise similar to “Kobayashi Maru.” They’ve called it “the little girl scenario,” where a little girl inadvertently comes upon the hiding place of a SF Team operating behind enemy lines. I’ve never asked the guys how they played the scenario, but I will next time we’re together.
One thing I have learned from hanging out with these men, however, is to never assume a “no-win” situation. They don’t accept defeat, just like Washington at Trenton and Francis Marion after the surrender of Charleston. And I want to be worthy of hanging with them, so I won’t accept defeat either.
We’re going to take the fizz out of the Fructose Fascists in November, and then we’re going celebrate with pork BBQ washed down with RC cola laced with Jack Daniels. Then after the party we’re going to wipe the grease off our mouths, tell the GOP it’s in a trial period, and restock the ammo and go back out.
Give ’til it hurts, everybody.
http://www.leadfreekids.org/ is running high-production-value TV ads. “Locate a trained lead renovator” and soon, the Sokolove Law Firm!
Meanwhile, elsewhere, from a Treasure Island building, five electricians are accused of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from taxpayers over several years, spending time with prostitutes while on city time and billing the city for their own home remodeling. “Court records filed since these individuals were arrested paint a really interesting and alarming picture of what unsupervised public employees can do,” said California Watch reporter Lance Williams. Williams poured [sic --poured fructose?] over legal documents and uncovered a never before published affidavit from the district attorney’s office. It outlines the abuse by the Hetch Hetchy Power Crew, an elite team of electricians who respond in emergencies. “You’ve got a crew of highly paid, highly skilled electricians with not much to do because they are mostly responding to emergencies posted over on Treasure Island, just stealing the city of San Francisco blind,” said Williams…An attorney for Miles Bonner told California Watch that Bonner “has never been in trouble” and has been “completely cooperative and forthcoming” with the investigation.
But the court documents tell another story. “The list of stuff, well, it’s pretty long,” said Williams.
Investigators say the accused billed taxpayers for car parts, bar stools, and even meat for their barbeque. While at work, they partied hard.
“Booking prostitutes into a playpen they built for themselves on company property,” said Williams.
A specially built room in their office was stocked with liquor, porn, Viagra and condoms.
Court documents show the crew spent thousands in city funds to remodel and landscape Thomas’ homes in Martinez and Blackhawk. Records show they purchased chandeliers, fountains, and even a heating and air conditioning system.
The crew is also accused of working for other government agencies on city time. They are accused of bribing a Presidio employee, trading envelopes stuffed with thousands of dollars in cash for thousands of dollars of side jobs.
“The problem was time on their hands and obviously saw an opportunity to enrich themselves and just decided to go for it,” said Williams.
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/assignment_7&id=7535141
3. Andrew X
What this is, and why it is significant, is that these people really really do think this way, i.e. accomplishing nothing is far more desireable than accomplishing anything at all
………..
this is probably why atheists prefer the steady state universe rather that the expanding universe.
Heaven
Artist(Band):Talking Heads
Everyone is trying to get to the bar.
The name of the bar, the bar is called Heaven.
The band in Heaven they play my favorite song.
They play it one more time, they play it all night long.
Oh heaven, heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
There is a party, everyone is there.
Everyone will leave at exactly the same time.
When this partys over it will start again.
It will not be any different, it will be exactly the same.
Heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
Heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
When this kiss is over it will start again.
It will not be any different, it will be exactly
the same.
It’s hard to imagine that nothing at all
could be so exciting, could be this much fun.
Oh, heaven, heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
Oh, heaven, heaven is a place, a place where nothing, nothing ever happens.
While the cola tax would be regressive, I wonder if its not aimed at the 47% of the population that doesn’t pay federal income taxes at all.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGoEcIEv3_Y
talking heads –life during wartime
The egg-heads in the Left are at work again, they know that outright banning would lead to problems (Prohibition anyone?) and by gradually taxing us they can raise money to piss away on their social engineering. Do they propose a tax on diet pop based on the alleged problems with synthetic sweetners? How about unsweetened soda that you could choose to add sweetness to (Hey buddy, could I interest you in a little HFCS?). Is there anything these hair-shirt wearing, self-righteous hypocrites will leave alone?
The worst part is being nagged to death, I would rather one of Stalin’s goons with a pistol to my head than this endless hectoring.
Peter Boston/17
There seems to be a lot of Whiskey bashing going on around here
Really? Saw some imitations (best form of flattery). Also, seems that there was a consensus that Whiskey is a keen observer of his particular niveau and that he nailed some trends. Much less consensus about his conclusion and call to react to rise of racism with racism, too. He calls it a “tribal” cohesion, but when I see a spade, I tend not to call it a rake, though both belong to a gardening tools group.
The powers that be want a fractured society as it is easier to rule it. Whiskey’s solution plays right into their hands.
As for a substantial single women influence on culture, that is a trend that will come to an abrupt end, I believe, rather soon. It won’t survive this decade. The circumstances would change dramatically in favor of a traditional family unit.
19 : Salt Lick. The reason SF trains for Kobayashi Maru is that it has already happened twice. It happened to Andy McNab’s SAS team in Bravo Two Zero, and it happened to the Seal team Marcus Luttrel was on. In both cases, the SF guys let the shepherds go, and some of them died as a result.
2) A report the other day said that the Feds plan to spend $400 millions to encourage grocery stores to locate in “underserved” areas as part of Michelle Obamas anti-obesity campaign, because, you know, the only reason poor people are fat is that there’s no Whole Foods nearby where they can buy organic granola.
3) First they came for the cigarette smokers, and I did nothing. Then they came for the tobacco companies . . .
22. Charles,
You might be right on that one, there is a large portion of the population (that almost exactly matches the DNC’s support base)that pays no income taxes (and to large part lives on Government hand-outs). This might be a stealth way to tax them under the idea that “everybody pays the same”.
I see it as another opportunity to impose their will upon others. The Laft lives for that, telling you what you can/cannot do (and there are a LOT more cannots, the cans are mostly paying taxes and dying). I have always said that Communism (and it’s demented little brother Socialism) are cults, they demand that you behave in ways that are contrary to you own interests so the society can be “redeemed from the evils of Capitalism”. The movement is always proscriptive rather than presriptive; “you can’t” rather than “you should”.
They invert the idea of the Ten Commandments wherin only the behaviors clearly dangerous to society are banned to say that only certain behaviors are allowed. Those behaviors having been duly considered by the Party worry-warts and feel-good experts and are subject to change at a whim. They assume that the Government grants you the privledge of acting in a certain way, not that you grant certain limited powers to the Government.
Sorry about the rant.
Take Me To The River – Talking Heads
Kobayashi Packs in the Calories
Ok, I’ve had it with the food police. Don’t like high fructose corn syrup? Then blame the interventionist, statist policies set by liberals. We don’t use sugar in the US due to high prices caused by protectionist policies that benefit a few sugar cane farmers in Louisiana. It doesn’t help that Archers Daniels Midland, also a big government teat sucker, is a huge producer of corn based products.
High fructose corn syrup isn’t sickening to me. It is the asinine policies, promoted by liberals, that end up distorting markets, that they then complain about. Could someone shut these people the hell up?
If TPTB are so interested in eradicating obesity, shouldn’t they just discontinue the food stamp program? Then all the poor would be nice and thin.
Talking Heads = best band ever.
My only thought regarding “health” (yes, sneer quotes) food is that the people that work there look like they just got out of Treblinka last week. Maybe the National Socialists let them out to work in their store?
One foot in the grave, the other on a banana peel.
On the other hand, Mongols seldom if ever ate veggies.
Peter “I am hearing and reading a lot more lately about how liberty and freedom are slowly and surely being redefined into a sense of security and the reduction of risk from the vicissitudes of just being a two-legged, featherless mammal. That is straight out of the Whiskey credo, and we are all better off for getting it told early and often.”
Right you are. When America first went west, they were facing unknown and terribe dangers but they had to take their women folk with them. Of course then, women folk were much, much different than now. They helped fight the terribles, build and raise strong children to continue the fight. Later when the Indian fighting and other terribles were mostly defeated, those children of the original pioneering strong women folk decided that they wanted to be more like their “civilized” eastern women sisters and demanded everybody leave their guns at home or at least hanging on pegs at the door.
That was the start of American decline. But the “Cowboy Code” still tried to hold those men who worked and lived in the west to a standard of moral and workaday beliefs, which are practiced now only in small areas of America. Texas and the northern states of Montana and Wyoming and a few outposts in-between. The Code tried to hold off the politicing liberal backbiting corrupt ideas of the east. But with every decade the creep of liberalism and pussyifing further infected our Republic.
Oh. By the way, corn is food. Primarily I think it should be eaten by cattle and pigs so we can have mouthwatering roasts, steaks, ribs, bacon, pork chops and such. It damn sure doesn’t need to be subsidized and wasted on making fuel or corn syrup. But I do love to grill it on the cob and my grampa loved to use it to make his drink. Kill the import regs and taxes and buy cane sugar from south America and other places at prices that are reasonable. Kill the subsidies and politics from corn and screw the Corporate farm lobby. They have already killed off the small American farmer and they damn sure don’t believe in the “Code of the West”.
Thanks buddy for reminding me of the Code. The last two are the ones that my Dad drummed into my head all of my life and I have in turn pounded into my kids and grandkids.(along with the others…do a degree, somewhat translated into modern terms.)
Honesty is absolute – your word is your bond, a handshake is more binding than a contract.
Live by the Golden Rule.
Pascal I would love to read “PC: The Weak Link On Your Chains” is it available where I might see it or can you email it to me?
And no I don’t buy all my ammo at Sams or Wallyworld, mostly from the web or other places. But I still buy and shoot…
More Ammo
Papa Ray
Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr., serves as president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary — the flagship school of the Southern Baptist Convention and one of the largest seminaries in the world.
This is his most recent article.
The End of Men? — A Hard Look at the Future
What does it mean for large sectors of our society to become virtual matriarchies? How do we prepare the church to deal with such a world while maintaining biblical models of manhood and womanhood? …The real issue here is not the end of men, but the disappearance of manhood.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Is our postmodern, postindustrial society simply better suited to women than to men? Hanna Rosin makes the case for this claim in the current issue of The Atlantic, and her article demands close attention. Men, she argues, are simply falling behind women in almost every sector of cultural influence and economic power. This shift, she understands, is nothing less than unprecedented in the span of human history.
What logical reason is it to use NASA as an outreach to a once great society and now a horde of savages?? To divert money from a project that MIGHT someday benifet the USA and mankind in general to a pet project to benifet savages.
anton
“This might be a stealth way to tax them under the idea that “everybody pays the same”.
Not exactly correct. YOU pay for their food stamps and that is what they use (when they don’t sell them) to buy their soft drinks, candy, cookies, chewing gum and such.
I’m surrounded by illegals and they all have three or more kids and they get hundreds of dollars of your money to buy food every month. You can sit in your car at wallyworld and watch them bring out two or more carts full of food that you paid for.
Commented under: “It’s not 12 million illegals here, its over 20 million and growing”
Chores await and kids want to go skating and such today and my car needs washing and cleaned out. Surprising how fast two wonderful, sweet little girls can trash the back seat.
Papa Ray
One again I bring to y’all’s attention the SF story “Lipidleggin” from 1978:
http://billstclair.com/DoingFreedom/000623/df.0600.fa.lipidleggin.html
But aside from the evidence of the sure and steady march of “Progressivism” and its attendant and unattended consequences, it is hard to avoid the sense of absurdity.
Those that rail against “Men having control over women’s bodies,” promote pot as a “medicine,” think drugs – probably including pot – should be free to everyone, argue that lifestyle-related diseases should be paid for from the public till and so forth are screaming against the dangers of that horror, High Fructose Corn Syrup. They want To Buy the World a Coke with other people’s money and dance on that fabled hilltop but insist that people who buy a Coke with their own money pay 20% more to fund Progressive causes. They want Free Health Care but insist that no one have any fun as a consequence.
Meanwhile we have seen an absurdity come before the Supreme Court – that the U.S. Constitution should not apply to the U.S. States – and had 4 Justices agree that it does not. And following on the heels of that, the Federal Government files a lawsuit against a State that says much the same thing, except in reverse.
The Devil’s greatest weapon was in convincing people he does not exist. The biggest problem we have in dealing with the Left is our difficulty in believing that these people really can be serious. Even Rules 303, 556, and 762 are hard to impose if you are laughing too hard to shoot straight.
“People who cut out those calories are likely not to replace many of them, the researchers said, and could lose a significant amount of weight.”
Now there’s some scientific rigor for you. And they obviously don’t know much about overweight people. ‘Way back in the ’80s the NEJM started getting very political and I just quit ‘em. It affects not only their editorials but what they publish.
On the topic of using new media, etc., I really have little hope for the GOP. The establishment Republicans are less than useless. They will never get a clue. We aren’t going to elect enough real conservatives in November to change that. So what we’ll get is a nominally Republican House and possibly Senate, which will still be rolled over and over by the Left, with most of the standard issue Republicans going along for the ride. In effect you’ll have Democrats and Whorepublicans on one side, and a handful of conservatives on the other.
And this is assuming the Republicans win in November. I am not at all convinced of that, especially at the Senate level. In any close race it’s going to be easy for Dems to have certain districts vote at 150% of the registered voters, pushing the Dem candidate to the top. I expect a lot of “surprise victories” for incumbent Democrats. Combine this with the Dems extra efforts to find dirt on Republicans (see Wash Post story today), smearing Republicans with the Gulf spill, local activist activity fueled by goverment money, and the all out media assault that will crank into gear in the Fall, and Republicans have much less reason for hope than they think. The elections will find them flatfooted as always, unable to effectively respond to smears and slurs. Don’t matter how many websites you have. The Republicans still have no effective way to respond to an all-out old media blitz against them.
And speaking of media and the Muslim “outreach” program at NASA, Byron York reports the following:
From a Nexis search a few moments ago:
Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the New York Times: 0.
Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program in the Washington Post: 0.
Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on NBC Nightly News: 0.
Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on ABC World News: 0.
Total words about the NASA Muslim outreach program on CBS Evening News: 0
HT: instapundit.
Mention this program randomly to people, and 95 out of 100 will have no idea what you’re talking about.
RWE/37; –good point re inconsistency. Ever wonder why it is that such great believers in unlimited personal license as say, Pelosi and Biden, are also so aggressively ‘pro’ the War on Drugs program?
As I see it, the problem with the soda tax is it is just the beginning of the justification for taxing food. The candy, cookie and potato chip taxes won’t be far behind. How long after that before a tax bacon or high calorie salad dressings?
Government will never stop looking for things to tax. Their thirst for money is unquenchable. They can’t stop themselves.
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2010/07/07/russian-convicted-spying-west-reportedly-says-swapped-arrestees/
What did I tell you? Spy swap. I wonder if the red-head will show up on a Russian bride site? Hollywood? Playing a Russian Spy being chased by Brad Pitt?
Only in America.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HB8WHA3WWz0
Meanwhile, the 4th worlders in the White House are in for a attitude change. Getting the fat people to block vote will set a new record for self inflected wounds.
I notice that the Usurper has figured out fookin with the Jews was not the best political idea he ever had.
I wonder who was kissing what in that back room?
Berry is learning that he not in Chicago anymore, that identy politics pisses off more people then it makes happy when you are POTUS.
Go after rich people and they start hiding their money, which means they aren’t hiring anymore. That means poor folks have to start hiring. See how that works?
stp/43; wonder why he didn’t just ASK somebody how all that works? How can a guy run for president and be such a dumbass?
i mean, “Corpse-man”? good gosh-almighty –
I will believe that the government is concerned with waste when they stop delivering 100 pounds of junk mail to my house every year. They do it to make money plain and simple.
I like my husky corn-star charlatan’s shucked and chucked before a live audience. And whatever I like must be done or else.
“A coalition of health advocates and bureaucrats see taxes on “sinful” foods as a good way to attain social goals and raise taxes.”
Perhaps they should tax bath houses and anal sex to help pay for the Aids treatment paid for by the taxpayer.
Odd that the same government that will ban soda pop (as a dreaded killer) will condone, nay promote, homosexual sex. Now, despite a lot of noise otherwise, this is still the most common way that AIDS/HIV is spread. Prevention is simple and effective but the government refuses to call the gay community out on the issue. Instead it spends mountains of money on treatment programs. The government also forces private insurance companies (and thus the other purchasers of the insurance company’s policies) to cover treatment (and now with gay marraige their partners as well). All for a disease that is totally avoidable.
And they are worried about the risk a chubby person has of having a heart attack after thirty or forty years of eating food with HFCS in it while working his butt off and paying taxes? Really?
Papa Ray, I’m well aware of the source of the money (I encounter that group daily at work). Here in Michigan we have “Bridge Cards” a sort of credit card that magically refills with tax-payer money every month, to save them the time and embarassment of picking up and cashing the welfare checks (you know their schedule is so busy and all). These are traded for dope and alcohol as fast as you can say your name and the State makes absolutely no effort to monitor/control thier use. Bread and Circuses.
I just finished reading “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” and I’m not in a good mood about the future.
How to make public the true aims of this little scam: Will sodas which do not use corn syrup also be taxed? What do the bureaucrats say: “It’s just too HARD for sellers to distinguish between fructose drinks and non-fructose drinks – we have to tax them all!”
45. Annoy Mouse – they deliver the junk mail at less than break even rates and you (or anyone paying for first class mail) pays for the subsidy.
Why don’t they go to the source and tax corn growers?
Not all corn is used to make people fat? Just estimate a number and use that in calculating the tax. But then that is paid in part by the wrong people? It is the cost of a superior morality – it takes a village to get fat.
peterrike “Mention this program randomly to people, and 95 out of 100 will have no idea what you’re talking about.
I’ve typed about this before. Let me say it again:
Many Americans (the ones on government dole inhabit this group) have no access to the internet at all. Or even if they do…
Most Americans use the internet to access: The weather,Porn, Recipes, Social websites or other non-political (at first glance) areas of the web. They don’t even know about blogs or if they did, would not be interested in them. They would never read BC or other such and would more likely read about their favorite TV or Movie Star and their travails and troubles. Or go to weather sites and see if it was going to rain on their parade or bar-b-que.
In other words they are politically ignorant by choice.
It is our job to change that. I am spending now about ten or twelve hours a week (now) going around talking to people in their homes about the upcoming elections and the state of our Republic. I do take my grand daughters with me because I am caring for them and can’t afford child care even if I wanted it. After school starts I will be able to devote even more time to saving our Republic in any small way that I can.
Anyway, most people just are not aware of the big picture, they live in their little bubbles of despair or ignorance and don’t know or care to reach out. You would be surprised at the number of people who won’t even talk to me through the screen door about our Republic’s situation or who they would vote for (if they were to vote, which many, way too many wont even vote). Yes, one reason is that in my area there are a lot of illegals so they are even hesitant to answer the door let alone talk to an ol’ white guy.
But I will keep trying.
And I suggest that the rest of you leave your keyboards and get in your cars or whatever and go out and try and get the vote out. Talk to people, ask if they are registered, make sure they are, make sure they will have a ride to the booth, and of course a way back home.
It IS up to each of us. The Crats will be out in force doing the same but most likely much more. They have access to your missing money, the billions that nobody knows what happened to. That money is going to be used to buy votes. From the “street money” for the general population to the money under the table for the Unions and others.
The GOP is hopeless and helpless, so it is going to be up to us to carry the fight, get in their face, and make sure that those that want to vote…are able to.
Don’t forget to volunteer to go door to door or to work at the voting places or if nothing else be there to insure that there is no interference or intimidation from those who wish to make us all slaves paying for – the used to be – minorities ascension to power and the continued assention of the socialists and their ideals.
God helps those that help themselves, so get out there and help!
Papa Ray
Anton/47; coincidentally, someone was just on FoxBiz relating how Wisconsin spends $800 million per year on food stamps, and prosecutes 20 cases of fraud. Michigan and Minnesota prosecute 1,000 or so cases/yr but the estimates of fraud are ‘as much as half’. Heck, that’s more than Medicare, where the fraud is estimated to be only half that much, percentagewise.
It just totally mystifies how, with a half-century of global, national, state, city, and program evidence that dependency is 1:1 corrupting, we yet have the party of it lodged in government from stem to stern.
***
also from kRaZyLaNd
“The National Academy of Sciences, in its official journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has just published a list of scientists whom it claims should not be believed on the subject of global warming. I am number 38 on the list. The list of 496 is in descending order of scientific credentials.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/instapundit/102456/
Fiona “45. Annoy Mouse – they deliver the junk mail at less than break even rates and you (or anyone paying for first class mail) pays for the subsidy.”
Oh good. That justifies cutting down 1000 square miles of trees every year. We are paying to waste.
Buddy #41:
Could be that Pelosi and Reed hate competition. People are getting high and getting rich and they and their supporters are neither in the revenue stream nor are getting credit for making people fat, dumb, and happy.
By the way, the latest thing in this veign is that they are taking soft drink machines out of the schools.
I could have added in my rant that there is something really very wrong when condoms are Okay in schools but Cokes are not.
Papa Ray #36: You might add that they are buying the most fatty cuts of meat as well as cakes and pies and ice cream with our money and then are getting Free Medicaid-Provided anti-cholesterol drugs because of that diet – and we are paying for that, too.
52. buddy larsen
It just totally mystifies how, with a half-century of global, national, state, city, and program evidence that dependency is 1:1 corrupting, we yet have the party of it lodged in government from stem to stern.
……..
Credit Acorn, SEIU,lawyers & doctor’s guilds, teacher’s unions, hollywood, major media, labor, major universities.
Really, most of the entire establishment.
–now, with the Golden Goose on a wing and a prayer about to spin in, the Boomers and the parasites they created are gonna have to fight it out for the dregs –i smell poetic justice!
…and it stinks
The egg-heads in the Left are at work again, they know that outright banning would lead to problems (Prohibition anyone?)
They will outsmart themselves. Organized crime takes advantage of substantial increases in sales and excise taxes by hijacking and smuggling. Cigarette smugglers will move into distribution of “tax free” soft drinks.
As a matter of fact, if this trend continues, we may see a new brand of “organized criminals” derived from otherwise decent citizens trying to find ways to make good money in a reduced economy by trading in an expanding underground economy. The groundwork for such a network has already been laid by the illegal alien community.
Are the Kossacks oblivious to the use of ” I like my…” repeatedly while concluding that “you” should have no choices or is that their main point?
#2 MrX: I think it is merely opportunism; NASA has a budget and a beauracracy to exploit and no representative wants to vote to defund NASA. Exploitation, pure and simple. Slimy bastards these socialists.
26 jWarrior: You beat me to the punch relating the previous, real time, KM tests. The real KM tests are the only ones that count as the results are lasting.
47. anton : Don’t forget, they are accepted in casinos as well.
Don R.
“As a matter of fact, if this trend continues, we may see a new brand of “organized criminals” derived from otherwise decent citizens trying to find ways to make good money in a reduced economy by trading in an expanding underground economy.”
Where you been? It (blackmarket or under the table goods and/or services) are already in place and prospering along with bringing back “bartering” where no money changes hands. Or if money does change hands it’s nobody else’s business. Particularly the Governments.
What was old is now new to most. Barter has always been a familiar and fallback way in most areas of the south and southwest. But now it is spreading across this land.
Try it. Trade your services or goods for someone elses services or goods.
I think not only will you like it, you will learn from it.
Papa Ray
The Value of Excellent Health is Exagerrated and Overrated
For humans, anyway. Now if one is livestock, then I can understand why the livestock owners would want optimum health for their stock. We are being treated and regarded as livestock, not as human beings; that is one of the underlying aspects of the leftist/progressive mindset.
But back to my original point: The Value of Excellent Health is Exagerrated and Overrated:
What distinguishes us from other animals is, among other things, our brains. I will also include that “divine spark” that is often known as the soul, and the self-awareness that comes with it. While excellent physical health is desirable, many humans have accomplished much despite health problems. History is replete with biographies of great men and women who dealt with physical afflictions, yet were not much slowed down by them. The majority of the very elderly enjoy being alive despite their infirmities. Even among the “ordinary,” being burdened with existing or potential health issues rarely prevents them from being productive citizens, alert and attentive mothers/fathers/friends, and they can enjoy the full panoply of modern, civilized life.
None of what I just stated seems to matter to our “betters.” These folks love to cite ad nauseam “how many hours of productivity” are “lost” to an assortment of fill-in-the-blank ailments. For all intents and purposes, when weighed against the grand scale of human activity and accomplishment, this “productivity issue” is utter nonsense, especially in America, which still has one of the most productive people in history. We are productive in spite of obesity, back problems, diabetes, etc. For all practical purposes, smoking and drinking have not slowed us down as an aggregate, either. Health issues matter, and it’s proper and rational to want to avoid preventable health problems, but that is something that has to a subset of civilizational activity, not an overaching purpose and concern.
We are humans, not livestock.
60. Papa Ray
Don R.
Where you been?
Didn’t realize I was coming across as naive. I should have stated that what exists now will expand, and become more sophisticated.
47. anton
And they are worried about the risk a chubby person has of having a heart attack after thirty or forty years of eating food with HFCS in it while working his butt off and paying taxes? Really?
I think you made one of my points (#61) succinctly. Thank you
Peterike #40:
I am expecting an announcement on a name change for NASA any day now.
To be called the Notional Aeronautics and Space Administration
63. Don Rodrigo
I wasn’t attempting eloquence, I was selfishly thinking of myself!
60. Papa Ray;
Barter and other “off the books” trade is alive and well in our Northern Neighbor too. Canada’s prohibitve tax rates have driven large sections of their economy under the table. I know a fellow that works for Revenue Canada, their equivalent of the IRS, and they estimate that between thirty and forty percent of all economic activity is conducted in a way to avoid paying taxes. He added that every tax increase brings in far less than anticipated because it drives more people to seek to avoid taxes. This of course forces the government to hire more workers at R.C., sort of a vicsious circle.
58. Don Rodrigo
Exactly, we have done so well with the War on Drugs that we should add to the list of things that will enrich organized criminals.
We are humans, not livestock.
That’s not exactly true. You’re a human if you make the decisions or advise the decision makers, of if have the right political connections to keep the man off your back.
If you score zero on 1, 2 or 3 you are just a part of the bleating herd.
baa-baa baa-baa
Just another member of the bleeding herd.
Still got my vote, waiting for November with baited breath.
Papa Ray has raised good points about getting people brought up to speed. I’m currently cutting and pasting a bunch of talking points from the last few years of this forum and am going to make the rounds in my circle of friends WRT delivering the message.
Apologies in advance to everybody for using your work, I will give credit.
One point WRT Michigan’s tax on soda, I do believe it is an attenpt to put a band-aid on the gigantic hole iin the state’s budget. I am sure our “Honorable” Gov. Granholm could care little of us proles and our health.
We would rather have jobs, we can handle our own healthcare.
#61. Don Rodrigo
We are humans, not livestock.
Try telling that to the progressive political class. That will go over like telling a shaman from 10,000 B.C. that the earth revolves around the sun. To them the society outside of their social circles is nothing more than a combination pig farm and whore house to which they have lifetime season passes.
So now we can go to Indian reservations and pick up cartons of tax-free Coke along with tax-free cigarettes. Do any of them have tax free gas pumps?
Papa Ray 33: “Pascal I would love to read “PC: The Weak Link On Your Chains” is it available where I might see it or can you email it to me?”
It’s not finished primarily because the engineer-by-nature in me is not satisfied with analysis and keeps writing out solutions to the PC problem before I finish the analytical report.
Why is that a problem? Displaying tactics, strategy and counter-strategy in open forums and even emails (e.g., Journolist — $100K anyone?) is not a great idea unless it’s psy-ops for drawing your enemy into a trap.
My email address is partially obliterated at my website. Maybe we can discuss analysis that will lead me to conclude the essay. I’ve already posted bits and pieces of it here and elsewhere. None of it is earth-shattering. It is mostly observations and conclusions that anybody can compile and verify (more or less — due to human practice being the subject of study).
Okay. So Wretchard is not telling us why he chose Kobayashi Maru for the title of this thread.
It’s a puzzle he’s given us!
What’s your guess?
“the National Academy of Sciences, has just published a list of scientists whom it claims should not be believed on the subject of global warming”
Hey Buddy, a state sponsored list of enemies of info-truth. Now we’re getting somewhere. How do you get on that distinguished list, not win a Nobel prize?
70. peterike
There is one (tax-free gas station that is) that I know of on Michigan’s Kewenaw Peninsula, just north of Baraga, I’m afriad you won’t save any money as it is quite a drive getting there and back.
Gee I don’t know Pascal, maybe because the Left has rigged the game and are notoriously enthusiastic about cheating. Isn’t that how they passed a unpopular health care bill, stacked the bench, tried to overthrow GWB’s elections, and number one, isn’t that what illegal immigration is to its core, cheating?
How do you fight back?
Sultan Knish (ht to Powerline) has some material for that NASA to Muslim mission:
Project 1: HATE Ignition
Project HATE proposes to solve NASA’s difficulties with liquid fuel rockets by employing Muslim technological innovation to achieve a new and inexpensive means of reaching Low Earth Orbit. We propose to use the greatest Muslim technological invention of the last 50 years, the suicide bomber (and by invention I mean they stole that from Asia too) to replace liquid fuel propellant.
Project HATE (Highly Active Terrorist Explosions) will chain together a long string of suicide bombers within each booster rocket. The suicide bombers will be assured of 72 virgins in paradise, and each one will detonate after the other to form a daisy chain of explosions that will take the shuttle up into the sky.
Our best math suggests that it will take approximately 3000 suicide bombers within the SRB’s to provide adequate liftoff thrust for the shuttle launch. We will need the Muslim world to cooperate with us by providing 3000 suicide bombers for each and every shuttle launch. The benefit of this is that not only will this reduce the cost of shuttle launches, but it will also save untold billions in the War on Terror.
…
Early in the last century, Congress moved to free us from dependence on foreign sugar — so that we could have a steady supply of domestic sugar, and live in a fat and happy country. Instead, we got High Fructose Corn Syrup, and are now fat and sad. Why not abolish the sugar import quotas?
Taxes and control are the real objectives here — not that that is news.
Sorry Josh but the feces to fuel ratio is too high to sustain a burn. But the thought of a space shuttle hurtling into a tall building sounds like real progress.
75. Annoy Mouse “How do you fight back?”
That IS the test of charater, how do we fight back without giving up our own principles. The easy thing would to ape the tactics of our opponents, criminal violations of voting law, off-shore political contributions, violent actions against the property and persons of our opponents etc etc etc, but that would reduce us to their level. Two tribes fighting for power at an animal level. Principled actions demand that we follow the high road, we must challenge them at every opportunity; in person, in print, on the web and so on. Even when at risk of assault ourselves we must act as honorable men, as my dad always told me: “Son, don’t ever start a fight if there is any decent way to avoid it but, by God, if there is somebody that wants a fight you go ahead and finish it.”
Papa Ray is right about engaging your neighbors, most people don’t have a clue. He is also right about the three boxes of Freedom and Liberty, soap, ballot and ammo.
If the first two fail we may have to go to the place of last resort. Our forefathers did not quail at the thought, do we have the character to do the same? Are there really any other options?
James (#14): “The only reason HFCS is in so much food is because corn production is subsidised. Get rid of the market distorting farm bill subsidies and HFCS will disappear from food, along with the deficit.”
Don’t be ridiculous! The only solution to market-distorting government intervention is more government intervention.
Don Rodrigo (#58): “They will outsmart themselves. Organized crime takes advantage of substantial increases in sales and excise taxes by hijacking and smuggling.”
Which wouldn’t be all bad, as it would give more people access to original non-HFCS Coke from Mexico.
Papa Ray (#51):
I salute you, literally. Contempt is too weak a word to describe my feelings for people who are almost looking forward to taking up arms to protect their rights, and yet won’t go to the trouble of working to change things peacefully as you are.
If only we could fund Papa Ray (and his granddaughters) to make home visits to spoiled brats like the following (from Abe Greenwald at Commentary)
The New York Times is running a story about the “millennial” generation in America and its inability to find employment. The article is supposed to convey the challenges for young Americans due to bad economic times but will probably exacerbate the hopelessness of older Americans, who won’t recognize this strange, new definition of ambition:
Mr. Nicholson, 24, a graduate of Colgate University, winner of a dean’s award for academic excellence, spent his mornings searching corporate Web sites for suitable job openings. When he found one, he mailed off a résumé and cover letter — four or five a week, week after week.
Over the last five months, only one job materialized. After several interviews, the Hanover Insurance Group in nearby Worcester offered to hire him as an associate claims adjuster, at $40,000 a year. But even before the formal offer, Mr. Nicholson had decided not to take the job.
Rather than waste early years in dead-end work, he reasoned, he would hold out for a corporate position that would draw on his college training and put him, as he sees it, on the bottom rungs of a career ladder.
“The conversation I’m going to have with my parents now that I’ve turned down this job is more of a concern to me than turning down the job,” he said.
A 24-year-old man is more fearful of a parental lecture than unemployment. If that doesn’t capture the dreary state of able-bodied America, nothing does. Meanwhile, this same person, living off of mom and dad, is so certain of his worth on the job market, he won’t consider pocketing an expense-free annual $40,000 because it requires dead-end work.
Of course, Nicholson is not entirely obtuse on the ramifications of joblessness:
“I am beginning to realize that refusal is going to have repercussions,” he said. “My parents are subtly pointing out that beyond room and board, they are also paying other expenses for me, like my cellphone charges and the premiums on a life insurance policy.”
He could at least take the insurance gig to get his parents a better deal, no?
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/greenwald/324716
I personally would love to hear what Papa Ray would say (and do) to this jerk.
The philosopher Eric Voegelin wrote just prior to his death that “progressive” politics ALWAYS leads to totalitarianism–for to bring the greater glories of those holding the truth (Gnosis) to everyone. We are seeing this bear fruit (pun intended) in the “Food-Nazi” movement now gaining momentum. Some 38 years ago a professor of political philosophy of mine in grad school anticipated all this by way of illustration: “Suppose,” he said, “that the government decided it was in the national interest for defense purposes (healthy soldiers, etc. And of course,–surprise, surprise, the JCS-Joint Chiefs of Staff have JUST RECENTLY opined about the national obesity trends and the need for good nutrition) that everyone eat a “nutritionally healthy” breakfast. He pointed out that after all, nutritionists constantly harp that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And if combined with national defense concerns the urge for the government to do SOMETHING would be both irresistible and politically popular. After all, he noted, Eisenhower sold the Interstate Hwy. System as a national defense project and the enabling legislation was titled a “National Defense Act,” so why not breakfast?
But how would this be accomplished he asked? Some want to eat at six o’clock am, others at 6:30, while others at 7am, and so on. And people want to eat an incredibly wide variety of food. And they also often change their minds several times within the hour. It was intuitively obvious that no computerized/phone-bank system of order taking could possibly cope if one were even to have a hope of providing a “pizza-delivery” like delivery system–let alone the physical impossibility of cooking such a wide variety of food at central kitchens. What to do? Welllllllllllll–there is ONE WAY–and it is ALREADY being utilized in two places: prisons and the armed services. Very simple. One eats off a master menu: choice of 3 hot dishes and dried cereal and fruit,etc, with steak and eggs on Tues and Sat and Denver omlettes on Sunday. Build central mess-halls and use buses to transport each bloc of residents at the appropriate govt. assigned hour to and from their residences. Give everyone no more than 10 min to eat as they do in some prisons and in basic training. And so on.
See how easy that was? Problem solved–the authoritarian/totalitarian way. The “progressive,”/”healthy foods” vision for America accomplished in one fell swoop. The inevitable logic of leftist, statist “progressives” ALWAYS and EVERYWHERE thus eventually leading to Stalinist-like totalitarianism. (In this case, “Food-Nazis” for short if only because Sienfeld has forever enshrined the food concept “Soup-Nazi” so firmly in the public mind.) And make no mistake: Although we joke about “Food-Nazis” this current “progressive,” “it’s-for-your-own-good” exhortation is a leftist inspired/led Stalinist movement all the way. As Michelle Obama has warned America, her husband “will not let” us stay in our “Comfort-zone” has she not? Yes, yes I think she has. As she famously said: “Barack will never allow you to live your lives as usual…” Indeed–with the emphasis on “never allow. ”
Yeah, OH F**K YEAH, I think we can all see where this “nutrition” stuff is headed…
http://kobayashi-maru.urbanup.com/746030
‘A no-win situation caused by a set of rules that can only be won by changing the rules, in effect, cheating. This term comes from the name of a small ship in distress in a scenario shown in a Star Trek movie. According to the film, the scenario is featured in a training simulator for students attempting to become ship’s captains. They receive a distress signal from the Kobayashi Maru and can either attempt to rescue it and be destroyed by enemy forces or leave it and let it be destroyed. James T. Kirk, according to the film, is the only person to have won the scenario–by reprogramming the simulator. Kobayashi Maru, loosely translated, means “Little wooden ship.”
Someone experiencing a Kobayashi Maru can be said to be between a rock and a hard place.’
Outside the box thinking required.
Cannot be accomplished by sheep.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_King
“ … People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? “
AM/73/related:
UPDATE: Reader William Jamieson writes:
Wouldn’t the fact that they, the NAS, can list almost 500 experts in a very specialized field prove the case against them?
500 is a lot of people to disparage, in any field, I think.
Indeed. And Freeman Dyson and Frank Tipler are pretty potent names compared to, say, Phil Jones.
Posted at 10:42 am by Glenn Reynolds
+++
79. anton
75. Annoy Mouse “How do you fight back?”
http://market-ticker.denninger.net/archives/2480-Ill-Noise-Is-Broke-But-Gives-14%25-Raises.html
***(snip, but see original for imbedded links)
Springfield, Ill. – More than 40,000 unionized state workers got a pay raise last Thursday, bringing to 7 percent the amount they’re gotten since last year. These same state employees are in line for another 7 percent by next July 1st, all at a cost of a half-billion tax dollars a year.
May I ask when the citizens of the State of Illinois decide they’re not going to pay – period?
May I ask when the citizens of the State of Illinois decide that all public-sector unions shall be de-certified and barred from the state?
Oh, they can’t do that, right?
Really?
You sure?
How will the State compel those citizens to go to work?
See, the citizens have the absolute right to strike. To refuse to work. To refuse to pay bills, including to The State. To, simply put, refuse.
There is no law that says you can be compelled to labor.
And whether these unions like it or not, whether these corrupt and evil politicians like it or not, without tax revenues the state cannot pay them irrespective of any so-called “demand” or “obligation” to do so.
So here’s my answer to this sort of crap: GO ON STRIKE.
The unions think it’s just fine to do such a thing.
So, America, for the 49.5% of you, when you reach between your legs, do you feel two round things down there? Is that a wee little sausage down there too, or do you find things that clang like church bells and a big hairy stick?
For the other 50.5% of the population, yours are not so visible, but they’re just as important. Do you have shriveled up raisins in there or a big honking pair of estrogen-producing ovaries? Is that a uterus in your belly or is it is a vestigal ornament to claimed womanhood?
YOU, the citizens, are the final arbitrator of government’s propriety and profligacy.
YOU, the citizens, hold the final veto.
Always.
YOU, the citizens, may express that veto in peaceful and lawful refusal to fund the insanity of these institutions and scammers any time you decide you’ve had enough.
That is, if you actually have a pair of balls.
So far, all I see are raisins.
***(ends snip)
i think Karl Denninger is getting pissed off
f47/83; –small wooden boat —
–a ketch 22?
f47 (#83):
Reprogramming, you say?
85. buddy larsen – your smokin’. LOX that is.
O/T apropos last thread.
Solar plane cruises to historic flight
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.f07438c3b0f6da120100532927643de2.6b1&show_article=1
Riffing off of what xenophon was expounding on in #82:
The crazy part about “good nutrition” is that, like my take on the need for excellent health being exaggerated (there, I spelled “exaggerated right this time!), the same applies to excellent or perfect nutrition. One does not need exemplary nutrition to thrive, from early childhood on up to old age. “Pretty good,” or “close enough” nutrition is sufficient for all but the most dedicated athletes and neurotic/obsessives. And even athletes just go overboard these days to try to get an “edge,” only to find out that, if for some reason they have to abandon their strict nutritional regimen for a while, that they’ve lost nothing performance-wise. It leaves them perplexed as they stand on the medal podium, but there you have it.
Even though it can be shown that certain exemplary nutritional habits and related health habits contribute significantly to better health — especially in the outer years — a whole lot of people have done just fine healthwise and fitnesswise through the major part of their lives on an orthodox western diet that simply avoided the very excessive consumption of junk foods and sweets. This still leaves plenty of margin for donuts, chips, cokes, beer, and even cigarettes if one is not a chainsmoker! That’s right, there is a whole category of moderate and on-and-off casual smokers. One can go several weeks at a stretch, several times a year eating nothing but fast food, and not suffer long-term ill effects.
We aren’t just being micromanaged by “progressives,” but by committed neurotics; people with serious obsessive/compulsive issues who are projecting their pathologies onto the rest of us.
Please tell me sir, you surely joke
They’re gonna tax my can of Coke?
They’re gonna tax it ‘cause they think I’m fat?
But when I step on bathroom scale
It says I’m skinny as a rail
What do these loonies have to say to that?
Suppose I join the ranks of those
Who cannot fit into their clothes
And lose the weight the whackos say I’ll lose
What if I slowly waist away
And die of hunger one fine day
With homicide detectives without clues
You think the tale a bit absurd
But sugar’s now a dirty word
And calories once lost are not regained
And so I post this little verse
In case I go from bad to worse
And hope my sad demise is thus explained
Don Rodrigo (#88):
Even if, for the sake of argument, one were not to fully accept your thesis, it remains undeniable that given our still imperfect understanding of nutrition and the human body, the health and nutrition advice we’ve been given in the last few decades has often been counterproductive and has made things worse.
Yes, “reprogramming” — the body politic.
Minitrue and mobies in our sites make it difficult.
Bloc formation, along various lines of comfort. Lines of comfort such as (arising in the “The Third of July” thread) Charles’ pastor may have been suggesting and to which JC in KZ carried a bit further.
Bloc formation as can defeat PC if you plan for it.
Bloc formation as is implied by using the soapbox so as the voting box may be affected and protected.
Deprogramming is not easy. As I spoke with a young couple I’d just met Monday night, they want to fight, but have been put off by the demonization of the Right.
Opposition to abortion and gay marriage was tops in his mind. I did some good patch work on that on the fly.
Were I in an open forum — in fact were she not preoccupied — and without a supporting bloc, I would not have stood a chance of being heard. Count on it!
I, like whiskey, live in the heart of the beast. Chose to do so.
I am reporting back as to what works and does not work as Doug once suggested I do.
Being unprepared — as in not having a supporting bloc — does not work!
89. Walt
‘…
And lose the weight the whackos say I’ll lose
What if I slowly waist away’
The Vanishing Man
http://www.vanishingman.co.uk/
#89 Walt
Just think of what the Food Nazis will do to the lyrics of “Take Me Out to the Ball Game”:
“Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack”? No more peanuts because some folks are allergic to them, dontcha know, and Cracker Jack is junk food coated with sugary stuff. Then there are the preservatives in the stadium hot dogs, and . . . and . . . come to think of it, maybe the progs will just ban baseball games altogether. After all, can’t have fans falling from second decks trying to catch foul balls. http://www.foxnews.com/sports/2010/07/07/rangers-fan-falls-second-deck-trying-catch-foul-ball/?test=latestnews
(Not trying to make light of the man’s injuries, BTW, just pointing out how the precautionary-principle types exploit these accidents.)
Did not know anyone needed “Kobayashi Maru” explained to them.
VT-8 at the Battle of Midway was in a “Kobayashi Maru” situation. No way to win. Merely the fact that their engines were 300 cubic inches smaller than that of the SBD and Wildcats, and even 200 cubes smaller thah the Zeros guaranteed that. The fact they were equipped with torps manufactured by a Federal Government factory using civilian workers protected by the Civil Service Commission merely made the situation both futile and deadly.
But they were on the winning side. No torpedo hits, or at least no effective ones, but as Thomas Paine put it “Everyone’s mite is in that mass.”
In one sense an effective winning Federal lawsuit against the Arizona law might be the best thing that could occur. As Wretchard once put it for the last election, the ghille suits are coming off. Well, some still pretend that they are effective, even as they wear them standing in line at Wal Mart and fail to blend in with the National Enquirer, Weekly World News, and Cosmo displays. Each such failure adds to the narrative, and to use Rush’s term “Gets people wee-weed up.”
Buddy Larsen@52 quoted Instapundit: “The National Academy of Sciences, in its official journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, has just published a list of scientists whom it claims should not be believed on the subject of global warming.”
The National Academy of Sciences is a trade association for academic researchers in the scientific disciplines. Its role is to protect, and where possible, to expand the funding base for its members. Global warming has become a huge driver of federal research funding, both directly and indirectly, to the tune of many billions of dollars per year.
The NAS and other trade organizations which represent the academic research community will do what they feel they must to meet the threats posed to federal funding of global warming research.
I’ve invested a fair amount of time on science policy, with academy members among others, and in my experience the national academy members on working groups tended to risk minimization strategies. I would generally expect NAS members to advocate the high road, focusing only on issues rather than personalities. Leave the dirty stuff to less distinguished organizations. That the NAS now feels it has to directly dirty its hands with a blacklist may be the best measure we have of the effectiveness of the skeptics in exposing the global warming fraud.
Writing more than two centuries ago, Adam Smith summarized the situation
“People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
ScenarioA
That the NAS now feels it has to directly dirty its hands with a blacklist may be the best measure we have of the effectiveness of the skeptics in exposing the global warming fraud.
Another institution willing to bury truth, make that honor, for its short lived naked self interest.
They can never again publish anything that any reasonable person would have any confidence in. Wonder if we’ll run out of institutions before we run out of time.
90. Bob
Don Rodrigo (#88):
Even if, for the sake of argument, one were not to fully accept your thesis, it remains undeniable that given our still imperfect understanding of nutrition and the human body, the health and nutrition advice we’ve been given in the last few decades has often been counterproductive and has made things worse.
Good points.
I think it would have been more to the point for me to say that the human body is very adaptable and remarkably resilient. That being the case, health and fitness is subject to many different variables.
To illustrate what you’re alluding to, the “Food Pyramid” doesn’t work for everyone, although it’s not a bad tool for coming up with a nutrition plan. It’s flaw is that it’s like a tool for regimentation. The crusade against fat was also seriously flawed.
Peter Boston: “Wonder if we’ll run out of institutions before we run out of time.”
When you think you’ve discovered an institution that has not yet been invaded by termites, you’ve overlooked something.
Wonder if I can use some correlation between HFCS (sweets in general) and nobody shall infringe on my pursuit of happiness?
Think it will fly?
SA/95–same for medical professional societies, whose headquarters are invariably found in Washington. Years ago, I quit 2 who went ga-ga over HillaryCare. At least one of them found themselves with a mutiny on their hands and sent out a self-serving ‘survey’ to ‘assess’ the opinions of their members, a lot of whom I suspect dropped out also.
This same one–the AAFP for family doctors–just signed two letters supporting the appointment of Donald Berwick to head MCare and MCaid, back when they were expecting a hearing. O headed this off via a recess appointment. I’ll leave BCers to look this guy up. Suffice to say he’s an academic physician, never sees patients, and is on record as favoring measures that are not, not in the interests of patients or their doctors. Yet, here is the AAFP again, supporting the Big Program.
And, of course, there’s the AMA, ‘representing’ maybe 20% of American doctors–total sellouts.
Lesson: the beasts that inhabit the Washington, despite different coloring and voices, all inhabit the same ecosystem; I specifically include the lobbyists for Big Pharma, whose lobbyists are strongly supporting Harry Reid in NV.
Anyone–anyone–belonging to a professional society headquartered in Washington should take care to see if the staffers there are really representing their best interests or more likely feathering their own nests.
always right: Think it will fly?
Not a chance in Utopia. That world perceives an individual’s happiness as hurting the feelings of someone somewhere. Social justice mandates seek and destroy of all unapproved happiness. The world of Harrison Bergeron was better.
O headed this off via a recess appointment. I’ll leave BCers to look this guy up.
You can start here:
http://www.nationalreview.com/critical-condition/230799/obama-appoints-his-rationer-chief/grace-marie-turner
A Berwick notable quote: “Please don’t put your faith in market forces.”
Don Rodrigo (#97):
Agreed. My own nutritional philosophy, for what it’s worth: eat a variety of foods, in moderation, and favor food that is recognizable as such. In addition, it is preferable to focus on your food (don’t multitask when eating).
And if you don’t wish to follow that advice, be my guest.
(Among the dangers of a nationalized health-care system: if I am forced to pay for your health-care, it is understandable for me to forcibly prevent you from engaging in behaviors that I think will harm your health.)
“stp/43; wonder why he didn’t just ASK somebody how all that works? How can a guy run for president and be such a dumbass?”
He did ask. His answer came from a guy named Marx and it was wrong. That, however, doesn’t matter to the left. Better Dogma then thought.
Which leads me to the scary bit of dogma. What is the confirmed Socialist solution to an election that you are going to lose? Don’t hold it.
Hard Right and far left balance each other out, which is why so many cowardly politicians try to claim the middle ground and the Independents. That 1/3rd in the middle decides elections. The 2/3rds on the extremes decides what the elections are about. While it is to early for polls to be accurate, it is NEVER to early to pay attention to the trend lines. Those trend lines show that Obama is falling behind at a steady rate. The gap is growing and it’s not impossible that we will see a landslide in November. A black swan as our esteemed host likes to say.
IIRC, the current projection is 50 some representatives and 6 Senators.
That would be a major swing, but not epic. 100 Representatives and 10 Senators would be.
Worse then that and it goes from a landslide of black swans to a revolution.
The Socialists/ Marxists/ Liberals/ Progressives/ 4th worlders would be looking at 70 years of work crashing down around their shoulders. The simple act of canceling the election will look pretty good about mid October. All that is needed is a flash point. A Ft. Sumner if you will.
What if the Courts decide that Arizona must have an open border and Arizona decides to ignore them? Arizona has enough armed citizens ( militia) to tell the Feds to stuff a sock and make it stick.
The Law does not go where enforcement cannot reach.
101 Pascal
How about some scientific study on “HFCS reduces violence (violent behavior)”? As in -
“IF you take away my HFCS, I become real cranky. And you don’t want me to be cranky….”
Risk of huring someone’s feelings vs. (potentially) real physical threats?
2×4: The powers that be want a fractured society as it is easier to rule it. Whiskey’s solution plays right into their hands.
Absolutely. (Also buddy larsen re the “six-state solution” planned for USA).United we stand, you know the rest.
Also agree with all the hapless/hopeless GOP comments. Hard to imagine a group of politicians more qualified to lose both houses of Congress. I’ll also throw out some red meat and posit that old GOP is still infested with issues of race/ethnicity/gender, increasing the political vulnerability to this particularly virulent strain of cultural assault.
#103 Bob:
(Among the dangers of a nationalized health-care system: if I am forced to pay for your health-care, it is understandable for me to forcibly prevent you from engaging in behaviors that I think will harm your health.)
What you meant to say was: “it is understandable for me to forcibly prevent you from engaging in behaviors that I think will harm my wallet.”
Incidentally, I becamen “health-conscious” several years before my “Aquarian Age” brethren, and was, for a while, the only hippie on the entire East Coast who lifted weights in addition to eating a largely unprocessed diet. I make some effort at good health habits out of choice ingrained in me by myself for almost half a century.
always right @105.
When you flesh it out that way it’s more humorous, but it’s the kind of thing that Leftwing thugs long for. HFCS junkies are not a favored minority, nor even a favored majority as are the distaff.
Let us assume Smith doesn’t like chocolate pudding and soft drinks, but likes ice cream.
When they come for the chocolate pudding, Smith was not a consumer of chocolate pudding, and so says nothing. By the time they get around to ice cream, Smith suddenly meets Pastor Niemöller — too late.
Too complicated you say? Occam’s and Hanlon’s razor forbids it you say? Maybe someone should have told that to the law makers in the state of Washington who have done precisely that.
Wasn’t it Shaw who said that if we learn anything from history it’s that we learn nothing from history? Should have been Hegel or Gramscii. I always prefer hard threats from rotten philosophers rather than clever warnings from popular writers.
———–
Oh, Papa Ray. I made that search easier. Look for “Contact Me.”
Don Rodrigo (#107):
I do indeed tend to be concerned by my wallet’s health. I want to be sure that it recovers from bulimia.
I am seized by an almost irresistable urge to set up a Dr. Pepper smuggling pipeline to San Fran. Although I imagine if caught the penalties would be far greater than if I were smuggling something far less controversial like pot, cocaine, or heroin.
Hey. Good news. O/T
TSA to Block “Controversial Opinion” on the Web
This must mean that we no longer have to worry about mobies from the TSA trolling here at BC. Right?
Pascal/111, they reversed it (last update), so we have to embrace the TSA overtrolls. Actually, I think we don’t have to worry about them, why would they troll here when they can surf the pr0n again?
BTW, thinking about the title, methinks that Wretchard did not mean cheating, rather going outside the box. OODA-loop ‘em. Play Go instead of Chess. That sort of thing.
2×4<b: I agree. It was the others who called what Kirk did “cheating.”
What he did was typical of Americans cutting red tape at operational levels. “Better to ask foregiveness than to ask permission.” It was why PFC Wintergreen was the most powerful character in Catch 22 and represented the GI view of beating all UEMF.
I’m convinced now that reprogramming is the key, thanks to f47 and Bob. I play with some fundamental ways to do that up at 91 and even spoke of a deprogramming effort I’d begun.
Pascal and 2 X 4
I believe the computer simulation was allowed to cheat in order to ensure that the test takers never won….
If the system is rigged, you reject the system…..?
Why do I have the feeling that Wretchard is ROTFLHAO?
What happened to Doug’s post that was number 115? …/#comment-114588?
Off Topic – but just take a break with solving the world’s problems and such. Our Republic’s survival is about our kids and their future. So…
An afternoon fun was interrupted by a fast moving front of horrendous thunderstorms accompanied by one of the most intense lightening displays that I have ever seen (and I have seen many.)
We were at our really neat community skateboard park trying to teach my sweet girls how to skateboard. My primary instructor was my youngest grand son (the one who swears that when he turns 18 is going to be a United States Marine.)
We huddled in my car, both girls dug in tight against me with my grand son giving strike by strike explanations and extorsions. That boy does love violence and mayhem. I think he just might be a good jarhead.
After a bit the girls peeked and started to enjoy the display, while we again explained how God and Mother Nature made it happen and why. Everything is a learning experience or should be for our children.
They soon where hooping and hollering along with their cousin. It was better than the fireworks we had watched a couple of days ago.
So anyway, we drove later to get a Slurpee or whatever they call them nowadays and navigated through fairly high waters to the house. Everybody happy and dinner almost done in the oven. Yea, my Mama told me never to leave the oven on when you weren’t home, but sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do.
Haven’t caught up with the thread now, got to finish fixing supper and a few other chores. But I do see that some are already planning how to circumvent taxes and enjoy lifes cullariy delights. I suggest that hopefully sometime in the future, we will be able to line up all the despicable traitors in Obama’s administration before a judge, and let them all stand trial for their wickedness.
With hopefully no mercy from the court.
Papa Ray
SoCal just had another rolling type earthquake. Probably in the 5.+ Richter scale from the Mexicali fault again.
Hey, if this keeps up, the Salton sea will drain.
MaryJ, you would reject the system by building a colony on Mars, but you don’t have that option. So, analyze, find vulnerabilities and de-rig the rigged system. Easier said than done, granted. There are the elections and if there are not, how about another Velvet Revolution? As a contingency, keep your powder dry.
110. wws
Remake of Smokey and the Bandit between LA and Frisco?
Which one of the gang here writes scripts? I forget.
The news is getting better every day. “Perfect Citizen”. It is not that they are oblivious to the orwelian inference, I am beginning to think it is just the opposite, it’s a dare.
Welcome to the club, although I think you were engaging in understatement when you say beginning. LOL
For those who don’t know, I’ve been cataloging the “Progressive” movement under the title “Progress-of” when some new and improved outrage appeared.
Altruistic ==► Casuistic ==► Craven ==► Shameless ==► Brazen ==► Sneer at US ==► Contempt for US ==► [TBD]
Had I the software, those arrows would appear on slopes, with increased pitch and slipperiness as they advance.
For almost my entire life the “Progressives” were simply craven.
When the state of the movement shifted to shameless, the subsequent stages came astonishingly quickly.
Think of a rodent burying into new ground that is soft like never before. With each new stage, it pops its weaselly head up to see if there’s any predators closing in. The rodents can’t believe how easy their advancement has suddenly become. They can’t believe their luck as they continue on their rahming….
I agree with you again 2×4: “Perfect Citizen” is well past brazen.
Of course, they never really were altruistic, except as a passel of useful idiots wished to believe.
—————————–
Buddy. Your post dated 7/2 just showed up http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2010/07/01/and-justice-for-all/#comment-113780.
Clearly PJM penalizes us for multi-ladening our comments with links.
Anyone who’s trying to organize a political movement for a cause should look at how Second Amendment groups, particularly the National Rifle Association, have done things. Many on the left want to preach about the evils of some sinister “gun lobby,” complete with fat cats and smoked filled rooms, but completely ignore the massive grass roots apparatus and like-minded community that’s operating underneath, not all of which is necessarily political, but which can be when needed.
Also, Bryan Anse Patrick’s book “Rise of the Anti-Media: In-forming America’s Concealed Weapon Carry Movement,” which speaks to that community and how it’s operated, is also an excellent read on the subject.
What we’ve done to preserve the Second Amendment, for the most part, has been highly successful. We’re really the only “freedom” issue that the Democrats, even with this majority, are afraid to touch, and that largely came about through organizing people, getting them registered to vote, getting them fired up, and getting them out there on election day… over and over… until the politicians got the message. The millions of dollars our grass roots brings to the issue in PAC money every election cycle certainly doesn’t hurt either.
Unfortunately, there are only two things politicians listen to — money and votes. You have to bring those things to the table if you’re going to appreciably change things, and you have to bring those two things all the way down to the local level if need be. We’ve been very good at doing that in the RKBA context.
122. Pascal
Pogo -
we have met the enemy, the enemy is us
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pogo_%28comics%29
Our ‘bitters’ don’t clean up after themselves but complain that we’re not willing to wipe up after them.
Next election we WILL wipe up after them.
Government by the Left in America:
Death of a thousand paper cuts…
#122 Pascal
Think of a rodent burying [burrowing?] into new ground that is soft like never before. With each new stage, it pops its weaselly head up to see if there’s any predators closing in.
Now you know why Wretchard’s avatar on his main portal is a cat.
It’s time to draw a very heavy red line in the sand against this fascist government infringement on our liberty.
The Fifth Amendment “No person shall be …. be deprived of life, liberty, or property” gives us the right of liberty, as well as that of life and property. No where in the Constitution is there a shred of a sentence that gives some damn politician or jurist the right to take it away. Only because too many “Me too’ Rino Republicans have acquiesced to the infringement of our liberties by the Left, are we in this disgusting situation. To my way of thinking, the root cause of ninety percent of our domestic problems in some way can be attributed to our loss of Constitutional rights.
If some act or behavior does not directly harm others or create an imminent danger to others or create a situation that is hazardous for children or lead to a behavioral change that would harm others, why should it be regulated or discouraged? What business is it for government to tell people what to do if they do no harm? We need a national discussion of what liberty is. Different notions of what liberty truly means is the crux of the difference between the Left and the Right. It’s time to stand tall and define and defend our liberties.
It’s quite a stretch to say the one person’s ingestion of soda pop directly harms another. If you want to drink Diet Coke or Dr. Pepper, it should be your choice, not that of the food police. It’s your life, and your liberty.
I think we need a new type of Civil Rights legislation- one that goes back to reinforcing and enforcing our Constitutional rights. I would propose a Civil Rights statute that would require a “harm to others and harm to society” test as well as a cost /benefit test for all regulations, new and existing, that pose even the slightest threat to our liberties and property. If it could not be clearly and unambiguously shown that each regulation does not prevent harm or does not benefit society, then it should be abolished. And if some recalcitrant lefties still want to enforce unconstitutional regulations, impose stiff fines and jail sentences for those officials and bureaucrats at all levels, who try to take away our rights.
The next election should put the Republicans in charge at least of one House in Congress. It’s time to demand that our representatives take a determined and forceful stand to defend our liberties.
Wretchard, I got sucked into the spam filter for some reason? Can you please set me free? Thanks, Jim
Both the Bravo Two Zero book (http://www.amazon.com/Bravo-Two-Zero-Andy-McNab/dp/0552141275/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1278559004&sr=1-1) and the movie (http://www.amazon.com/Bravo-Two-Zero-Sean-Bean/dp/B00005R87B/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=dvd&qid=1278559101&sr=1-1) starring Sean Bean are pretty good, and Andy McNab has written a series of books whose protagonist, Nick Stone, is ex-SAS.
I can also recommend Lone Survivor (http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Survivor-Eyewitness-Account-Operation/dp/B0026I4EU6/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1278559188&sr=1-2) by Marcus Luttrell, the only member of Seal Team 10 who survived its real life Kobayashi-Maru.
Well, the clever thing about statist reaches for new control is that they are always based on some initially laudable goal, and then simply executed in a fashion designed to create maximum power for the usual suspects. The corrective measures for some problem do not even address the root causes of whatever crises situation since–in corollary to Rahm’s statement–if you should never let a crises go to waste, then you should also never solve a crises that could continue to be useful.
Keep that in mind as you ponder the actions (or lack) of the US administration.
The problem with HFCS is, in fact, that it is nasty, nasty stuff your body does not need to have. It is treated by your body the same as other poisons, and there have been efforts to ban it’s use before, only the EPA refused to act because its effects accrue over the long-term. You know–like lead.
Here is an educational link, in which “Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin.”
http://www.learnoutloud.com/Free-Audio-Video/Self-Development/Diet-and-Nutrition/Sugar-The-Bitter-Truth/36497?utm_source=FROTD&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Free%2BResource%20of%20the%20Day
Why do we turn perfectly good corn into HFCS? Because during the 70s the food-nazis were going off on fat (IIRC), the removal of which meant that foods needed more starches, which made them taste like cardboard, which meant more sweeteners were needed. At the same time, corn agricultural subsidies went in that meant farmers had a glut of corn to get rid of, and someone had the brilliant idea to use HFCS as a cheap sweetener. And American wastelines have never been the same since. The above MD provides a benchmark: each Coke you drink is as bad for you as a can of beer–and you don’t get a buzz, either.
Since that time, agro subsidies were bolstered by US sugar producer subsidies and tariffs on foreign sugar imports. Even though the fat craze has subsided, subsidized corn production continues to produce more of the stuff than we can eat domestically, and loads get turned into sweeteners for our Cokes.
The solution, however, is not yet another prohibition. We already have the drug war–we don’t need a soda war. Though, the image of a seedy man pulling back his trenchcoat to reveal a selection of fizzy beverages is rather amusing. “Psst! Hey kid, wanna buy a Coke?”
Ehem– solution, yes. The solution is to end all farm subsidies, slap tariffs on foreign food imports equivalent to their foreign subsidy or lack thereof (entirely permissible under the WTO, by the way), and send set up two types of funds: one to support subsidized export of US food products to poor countries that cannot afford to feed their people at market rates, and the second a set of state-administered insurance underwriting funds to respond to natural disasters threatening small farm bankruptcy. You could skip the two funds, if you can overcome the politics of the farm lobby.
–JC
PA CAT @126:
Now you know why Wretchard’s avatar on his main portal is a cat.
I vaguely remember — Isn’t that Tom from Tom and Jerry? Anyone?
I’d expect you to know that one PA CAT.
What would be your avatar? You people who have no other web presence except here REALLY like your anonymity.
[burrowing?]
Yep. Thanks to your catch, it’s fixed in my new blog post, the first in weeks. Progress-of Imagery.
HFCS is not the problem. Excess food consumption is the problem.
#30 elby:
You almost got to the root cause as to why we use HFCS as the primary sweetener in the USA. The cane sugar tariff certainly plays a part and most certainly ADM is a major player here but the real culprits were Earl Butz, Nixon’s USDA Secretary and Dwayne Andreas, the socialist CEO of Archer Daniels Midland ,way back in 1973.
According to Mises:
To paraphrase Cosmos Kramer, the sugar tariff is “the biggest scam since One Hour Martinizing”, since American producers are guaranteed twice the price of the world market under the tariff. Another debilitating effect of the tariff is that corn is the source for ethanol production when cane-based ethanol would cost just 25% of ethanol from corn because of the higher energy yield. BTW, ADM found that corn ethanol can be made with the same manufacturing equipment used to produce high fructose corn syrup.
“Unfortunately, there are only two things politicians listen to — money and votes.”
They need training with trees and rope. It is rumored to focus one’s concentration enormously.
The American decline started in 1803. That is when dueling was made illegal. Without the pistols at dawn reduction of the gene pool, those of weak mind and weaker character were allowed to breed. Now we are overrun with them.
All this bushwa about high fructose corn syrup is in the same tradition as the early scientists (i.e., those of the 17th century or so) who insisted that organic compounds had some “vital factor” that only living creatures possessed.
They believed that until first one, then a few more, then a whole crowd of other investigators found they could synthesize so-called “organic” chemicals indistinguishable by any test from their naturally-produced counterparts.
Without meaning this as an ad hominem attack, I am deeply suspicious of the statement paraphrased by JC in KZ : “…each Coke you drink is as bad for you as a can of beer…”
Since when is a can of beer a clear and present danger to the health of an individual or to the society at large?
… on to other things…
I recommend sending a few dollars to the campaigns of certain folks opposing such conspicuous traitors as “H”Reid, InPelosi, BeeBoxer, and such.
Here are links for more information”
Sharron Angle running against Reid
Carly Fiorina running against Boxer
I was working at Atari Games in Milpitas when Carly Fiorina was chosen to be the CEO of Hewlett-Packard. The choice generated a huge amount of local attention. Over time it looked like she did a good job.
Unsk, #127: We need a national discussion of what liberty is. Different notions of what liberty truly means is the crux of the difference between the Left and the Right. It’s time to stand tall and define and defend our liberties.
As I mentioned in the “Third of July” thread, a big part of the problem is that America has had a leviathan federal government for so long now that we no longer have any living memory of what it’s like to have anything less. In most circles, try and discuss the Founding Fathers and their conceptions of liberty and sound governance, and you may as well be extolling the virtues of the Roman Empire – or (in keeping with the Star Trek theme of the post title) the Romulan Empire, for that matter. The past is another planet, or might as well be one at any rate. Indeed, this goes a long way toward explaining the RINO mentality: Having discovered how futile it is to actually rein in government, the RINOs have just fallen back on what they know, and ever-expanding federal government (that they might at least be able to bend to their own agendas, and/or start hauling in the pork for their constituents) is all they’ve ever known.
Even God apparenty recognises Kobayashi Maru situations.
It is my belief that God is constrained, just like the rest of us, by his own laws.
Therefore, given a situation where people go against what God might like, God, having the benefit of omniscience(knowing it will all work out in the end), just smiles and yawns, or gets terribly upset, and smites, mightily, or otherwise acts according to circumstance if the smiting might affect a minority adversely, but always within the constraints of his own laws.
Josh, what you write in your 136 would be mighty damn depressing if I hadn’t started in the last couple of decades reading the Old Testament.
The first time I plowed through, it was pretty off-putting — all that violence: “The LORD done tole me to kill every living thing from here to the horizon in every direction; men, women, chilluns, ducks, geese, pigs, asses — everything except the young girls who haven’t born children yet. Hmmmm. Sounds okay to me. Yup.”
And then there were all the mind-numbing details of Mosaic law…
But now two decades later, I see patterns in human behavior that I didn’t grasp earlier, important ones learned from just reading the headlines about the intractable animalistic violence of some folks.
For instance, I didn’t understand the idea of the Hebrews eradicating entire populations or communities until I finally understood that the sacrifice (i.e., ritual murder) of their own infants and children was the cornerstone of Phoenician religion and culture.
Still hate the idea, but at least there is some logic.
It’s tricky tryin ta make peace with people that send their children barefoot through minefields to clear lanes for the older soldiers to charge through to kill you.
— — — — — — — — — — — — —
p.s. Thanks, Gadfly, for your 133. amazing stuff.
I don’t know if HFCS is a *big* problem, but I try not to consume it.
Except in Little Debbie brownies. So sue me.
The hideous monsters of our time appear when there is an alliance of a greedy government and those who claim to be acting for the Greater Good. You know, people like Al Gore.
The main problem with the government we have is its propensity to pass laws which delegate general and amorphous mandates to administrative agencies. If you were strapped down to a table and the entire books composing the Code of Federal Regulations were dumped upon you you would not survive.
Some people have taken the view that the regulatory agencies are the predators and the people or industries they regulate are their prey. I don’t think this model is accurate. The problem is that the regulatory agencies are the herbivores and the productive sectors of society are the grass they feed upon. Where its all going wrong from an ecological point of view is that there are no predators in the the ecosystem. Something needs to be there to keep the herbivores from eating all the tax payers (grass).
My modest proposal is to create an agency under the total control of the Legislative branch (like the the CBO) that would be the predator in the bureaucratic ecosystem. For the moment lets just call this bureau The Agency of Justice. Their general and amorphous purpose would be to identify and destroy regulations which are arbitrary, capricious, or irrational. Should they do so, the guilty agencies should be fined money which goes to fund the the Agency of Justice. It will come out of their budget for the year, and the funds will go to the Agency of Justice. Other than a base budget, that’s how the Agency for Justice will have to fund itself, by preying upon other federal agencies that are under the control of the Executive branch.
Consider for example the EPA regulations in regard to the current “oil spill.” The Dutch Skimmer ships weren’t allowed in because they weren’t perfect by the EPA standards. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. The Agency of Justice should be able to come in and demand that the economic costs of such stupidity should be taken out of the budget of the EPA and transferred to them. If that means layoffs in the EPA for that fiscal year that’s just too bad. And the Agency for Justice would want to grow and expand like all bureaucratic entities, waiting and watching for any infraction on the part of the agencies under the executive branch to make the least little mistake, and then to go in for the kill.
We are the grass. The bureaucrats that eat us are the arrogant sheep. We need some wolves in the equation.
140. Tcobb
I like your idea -
how about legislation that forces every law/agency/appropriation have a requirement for re-authorization by legislative vote – not by the infamous ‘Deemed to pass’ or by the infamous Obama ‘present’. Force politicians to be on record. only exemption for military in time of war.
Laws have automatic end dates if not re-authorized.
*never happen, too much greed*
#141 f47
Yeah–I would like it if all laws would die within five years unless they were re-enacted, and that all laws should have a complete record of the people who voted for them as well as the people who voted against them. It might make it more difficult for politicians to come up with lies that are hard to refute without extensive research.
Will using corn-based ethanol in our cars make them fatter, then?
#133. gadfly
Thanks Gadfly, you’ve expanded in more detail on my limited research into the regulatory history of the problem.
#135. Mad Fiddler
No ad hominem taken. Let’s rephrase the point: the negative chemicals within a can of Coke are as bad for you as the negative chemicals within a can of beer. That should be better.
A single can of beer, or a single Coke, is not a clear and present danger to an individual–and even if it was, the Federal government has no legal authority to intrude on the self-destructive decision of the drinker. That said, personal health issues arise when ANY product is overconsumed to the point where the positive health benefits of one more unit are outweighed by the accumulated negative effects of that one unit. HFCS sticks around in the body and gets turned into fat more readily than the quicker-burning fructose in cane sugar. Oh, and sucrose is apparently as bad as HFCS for us, as well.
The “clear and present danger” of discussions of the detrimental effects of too much of this or that food is that, in an environment of state-controlled health rationing, the next logical step is to control food to ensure a healthier and more cost-effective populace. Cattle, all of us–or perhaps carefully tended grass.
#137. Mike_W
I share your belief, but would put it a slightly different way: God is constrained by His own character, which demands equal portions of justice and mercy. Justice demands there be the Law (which leads to death), and mercy demands the Law be employed only after warnings to change the offending behavior have been issued. Exactly where to draw the line between one more warning, and the execution of Justice, is divine decision that puzzles everyone, but surely must include input from foreknowledge.
#140. Tcobb
How about an Office of the Repealer?
–JC
Thirty years ago when my first child went to school the school and university authorities were “concerned” that men outnumbered women in higher education. They resolved to do something about it by making instruction and syllabus more suitable for female students.
When my eldest son graduated university five or six years ago the university was trumpeting that 51% of it’s students were female.
When we attended convocation for my third son this year 82 out of 272 graduating students were male.
Boy, ya gotta watch out for typos & “Spoonerisms…”
I will confess that my weeks and weeks of first aid class readings in physiology don’t give me any mastery of the subtleties of fructose metabolism versus sucrose metabolism.
Dang.
So many areas where we have to depend on the priests of sanctified knowledge. And it’s progressively harder to have confidence in the lying bastards when you keep seeing the videos of’em with their paws in the cookie jar, crumbs on their lips, and their denials obstructed by cookie-shards in their windpipes.
Hoo-Hah! Beware the Wrath of the Wrepealer!
146. Mad Fiddler
‘…subtleties of fructose metabolism versus sucrose metabolism.’
http://www.foodnavigator.com/Science-Nutrition/Fructose-metabolism-in-the-brain-may-increase-food-intake-obesity-Review
Dr Lane told FoodNavigator that he did not wish to give the impression that HFCS is the only problem, “since sucrose/table sugar contains only a slightly lower percentage of fructose than HFCS”.
Last one for tonight (I hear the sighs of relief…)
This is a link to a video of the NEW BLACK PANTHER whom our brilliant DOJ under the leadership of E. Holder, refuses to prosecute for blatant intimidation of voters at a Philadelphia polling place.
The guy is video taped – SHOUTING through an amplifier – telling black people on the street that they have to Kill Crackers, and Kill some of their babies.
God Help us, we are being governed by traitors and monsters who despise and detest most of the inhabitants of this land.
Mind you, Eric Holder working for President “I-Can’t-control-my-own-willie” Clinton, helped him arrange the pardons of the Puerto Rican MURDERERS of police officers, on the eve of the Senate election in New York that put his wife in the U.S. Senate. (The pardon was cynically calculated to pull a boatload of extra votes from the New York hispanic population. It seems to have worked.)
He is the same guy that helped Clinton NEGOTIATE and arrange the PARDON of Marc Rich, the financier who had escaped prosecution for embezzling his clients of Billions of dollars, running to Central America.
Eric Holder has more recently set up a division within the DOJ which is dedicated to serving INTERPOL, which president OBAMA, by one of his hundreds of PRESIDENTIAL executive orders, has EXEMPTED from U.S. laws for their activities within the United States.
Critics of this action by Obama point out that at the very least, this allows Interpol to completely disregard all inquiries about investigations and arrests and detentions of U.S. Citizens that the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) would otherwise require of U.S. law enforcement agencies.
It really is too much. These perverts and pickpockets are telling us what we have to be afraid of is a stinking fructose molecule, while they’re deliberately obstructing any positive action on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, refusing to police our borders or enforce any laws against the tide of non-citizens flowing into the country, and telling us we’re RACISTS for questioning any of their own intentionally suicidal, America-hating policies.
While I agree with Papa Ray about participating in the electoral process, I have to remember that these are the people that applauded William Jefferson Clinton’s use of black-uniformed masked INS gunmen armed with submachine guns, forcing their way into an apartment of non-violent citizens to seize the child Elian Gonzales, whose mother had given her life to escape from Cuba. Clinton sent the kid back to Cuba.
Cynical lying SOB, like he gives a CRAP about the rights of fathers in the U.S…
Remember the open letter that Michael the-only-human-being-visible-from-the-orbit-of-the-moon MOORE wrote, apologizing to Elian for all the mean people who tried to force him to stay in the U.S.
How STUPID and SHEEPLIKE ARE WE?
Exercise your 2nd Amendment rights while you can.
Hillary and Obama are currently participating in talks with a view to submitting U.S. Citizens gun ownership rights to the review of supranational commissions… like the U.N.
Coincidentally, I was visiting tonight with neighbors who just got back from a long weekend in San Francisco. Had a great time but what they really raved about was the great food, especially the deep fried balls of cheese and macaroni!
Yikes, the food police must get on this right away. Americans are corrupting Canadians! One of them even brought back a gadget from Williams Sonoma intended for barbecuing or deep frying meat balls but I think he has other plans for it.
Anyway, all of them love the States and Americans, so there. In contrast, we agreed that Canada was at least part Commie and we don’t have guns so it’s pretty much hopeless up here.
sgi/149; “Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone” seems to be developing a whole new very literal meaning –as in, things that taste good have a psychological health quality. “Food Nazi” is another term asserting a very literal meaning. Take away the small joys, build in the drab living death that makes life without purpose, or even any damn fun either.
mf/148; re the DOJ, black panthers, etcetera ‘dare’ i think it IS a dare –it makes no political sense except as a WHouse triangulating electoral loss under any scenario (now that Marxist dictates have alienated the middle class white vote) other than a solid bloc of racial minorities. This is what multiculti has come to –”rage management” as i think it was krauthmmer called it.
Remember Gramsci’s lesson about public art? Jeez, wonder if ‘white oppression’ could be proved by a Giant Blue Eye in the Chicago Loop?
(in Pritzker Park, natch, by Tony Tasset)
#137–Then God’s a goddamned fool, what idiocy.
BOB @ 151:
There will be a knock on your door.
“Green blackout
Careless environmental ideology was a root cause of the blackout that cut off power to tens of thousands of Toronto homes, businesses, and institutions for several hours during rush hour on Monday this week.
Although a full technical report on the event is not yet available, it is clear that some transformer station equipment at the Manby transformer station in west Toronto failed. Transmission planning experts have long identified a failure at Manby as a known risk to the reliability of Toronto’s electricity supply. Three years ago, the Ontario Power Authority published a transmission plan for the province that included a detailed scenario analysis for a failure at Manby almost identical to Monday’s event. Unfortunately, that transmission plan got shelved, replaced by government directives to support more wind and solar generators.
Transmission experts have also long recognized that the power transmission network upon which Toronto depends is the most vulnerable to blackouts of the type experienced on Monday of any major financial centre in North America. Toronto’s special weakness is its lack of local transmission system redundancy.
The transmission system serving downtown Toronto is operated at its limit, with no capacity to spare. As a direct result, maintenance schedules are squeezed or eliminated, a factor that may well have played a role in initiating the event. The ability of grid operators to transfer load from one transmission path to another in the event of failures is severely limited, a factor that directly determined the scale and duration of the blackout. The large number of customers blacked out and the duration of blackout was a function of the system’s flawed design.
Environmentalists, including the Ontario Clean Air Alliance, the David Suzuki Foundation, World Wildlife Foundation Canada, Peter Tabuns of the Ontario NDP and Toronto Councillor Paula Fletcher, have played leading roles in blocking the development of another transmission line into the city’s core.
Many environmental organizations, working with the Ontario government’s Trillium Foundation (which distributes the government’s gambling profits), the Ontario Ministry of Energy and Infrastructure and others formed an umbrella group in 2007 called Transforming Toronto. The new group was developed specifically to oppose a new high-voltage transmission line into Toronto. In Ontario’s highly politicized electricity policy environment, affected electric utilities and agencies have not challenged Transforming Toronto’s fluffy assertions that transmission reinforcement is not needed.”
http://www.financialpost.com/opinion/columnists/3247806/story.html
…-
“To The Good Citizens of Toronto Sweltering Through This Heat Wave
Just think of it as practice.”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/014382.html
…-
“First They Came For The Scientists….
Posted on July 7, 2010 by mikelorrey
Mike Lorrey looks at the PNAS skeptics paper and some historical issues related to it. – Anthony”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/07/07/first-they-came-for-the-scientists/#comment-425681
OT:
The Truth Honors Pat Tillman Best
Tillman was on a patrol when one of the vehicles broke down and they were attempting to tow it back to their base. During the course of that the patrol split into two groups. Tillman and serial one were to head back via one route and the broken vehicle and serial two were to rendezvous with a recovery vehicle via another. Serial one left and shortly thereafter serial two did as well. The civilian truck towing the broken vehicle stated that he was unable to traverse one section of the route and serial two then redirected to follow the same route as serial one. They were unable to convey this change to serial one due to the extreme terrain. The second group came under enemy fire during this movement and began to attempt to clear themselves from the ambush site by moving forward.
Tillman and the members of the first group also heard the fire and began to react. They exited their vehicles and Tillman spotted one of the sources of enemy fire. He asked permission to assault that position and when it was granted, moved out and began maneuvering and firing upon it. As he was doing this one of the vehicles from the second serial rounded a corner and observed an Afghan soldier who was with Tillman firing an AK-47. The light conditions prevented them from identifying him as a friendly, so based on the proximity to the ambush site, his weapon and a dark face they took him under fire. Multiple weapons systems from the vehicle engaged and killed him. During this Tillman and another American took cover behind a rock.
There was a lull in fire after the Afghan was killed and Tillman stood up to identify himself shouting “I’m Pat Fu**ing Tillman, why are you shooting?”. Unfortunately all the Rangers in the vehicle saw was another silhouette and a possible threat and they shot and killed him. Almost immediately after this the driver of the vehicle that had fired rounded a corner and saw the vehicles from Tillman’s group and began yelling for a cease fire because there were friendlies in the area.
They immediately learned that they had killed Tillman and the other allied soldier and in all of the statements they made this was noted. But there are several more items that are regularly brought up as “evidence of some sort of cover up.” The first is…
ht, J Willie
The first is…What exactly?
Well here it is…exactly.
“The first is that Tillman’s uniform and body armor were burned several days after this. This was done mistakenly by personnel who believed that because the gear was covered in blood that it represented a bio hazard. Although this was not the case, by this point it was common knowledge that this was a friendly fire incident and that Tillman’s body armor had been hit by multiple rounds identified as US because of the green markings on the bullets. There was no attempt to hide this fact and there was an investigation into the incident underway.
Another point of contention was that it took 5 weeks to tell the family that this was fratricide. That was a failure by the command to properly understand the reporting procedures. They should have told them at the initial notification that it was believed to be friendly fire, but that investigations were still underway. Instead they waited for the investigation to give them positive confirmation and that caused the family concern and made them suspicious. They commenced an inquiry, helped by Sen. John McCain, and submitted a list of questions about the incident. I have seen the questions and answers and they leave no reason to believe it was not an accident or that there was a concerted effort to deceive them.
The other major issue surrounds the award of a Silver Star to Tillman for this event. It is often posited that this was to deflect from the fact that this was a friendly fire incident. While that may be true, CPL Tillman was leading his men on an assault of an enemy position when he was killed. He was attacking and leading from the front and that is why the award was submitted. Was there an element of “this is Pat Tillman” involved? Almost certainly, but the idea that this was simply part of a cover up is unfair. The speed with which the award was approved has also been questioned, but the Rangers had a policy of rapid response for posthumous valor awards so the families could be presented the medal at or before the funeral. There were numerous examples of this from the unit to validate that.
Anyone who volunteers for the military during wartime deserves our respect and our thanks. Someone who leaves comfort and riches behind to do so especially. Pat Tillman’s death was an unfortunate accident, but it was not a conspiracy to kill him or to cover up the fact that his own men pulled the triggers. He deserves to be remembered for the sacrifice he made as a patriot and a brave US Army Ranger.
OK, Here it is, a cliche…Been there – but for the grace of God – didn’t do that. But came close one time, but had buds involved in friendly fire disasters.
It happens way more than it should, but it always will.
In combat you have split seconds to make decisions and if your right, your right and alive, if your wrong…well you will be dead or your friends will be.
I’m not sure why you posted this but it seems that we should just be thankful that this has not happened more often and give our blessings and sorrows to his family and move on.
There is a lot more killing to do.
Papa Ray
You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. The EPA just instituted a lead based paint regulation which is a real kick in the head. It’s called the Renovation, Repair and Painting and it went into effect on 04/22/2010. (RRP) http://www.epa.gov/lead/pubs/renovation.htm
The Consumer Product Safety Commission banned dangerous levels of lead in paint (and solder) in 1978. Thereafter lead based paint was no longer manufactured, and in fact had been being phased out for some years. Whenever a residential property is sold a lead based paint disclosure must be made (at least here in California, probably most other locations as well). Up until now an owner was required to disclose if he knew if there was lead based paint on the structure. Usually he simply said “I don’t know.” Now all that changes.
It is now assumed that ALL paint on buildings built before 1978 is lead based and handled accordingly. There are exceptions to the rule, but in general contractors doing work must be aware of and comply with the provisions of the rule, with the added expense that it entails. The kicker is this, failure to comply will incur fines of up to $32,500 per violation per day.
As an example of taxation without representation it simply takes your house away.
“I’m not sure why you posted this but it seems that we should just be thankful that this has not happened more often and give our blessings and sorrows to his family and move on.”
Papa:
In response to some stuff I posted by someone who contends Tillman was murdered, and everyone else was complicit in a coverup.
The closest a bullet ever came to me were the machine gun rounds fired over us as we crawled through a course in basic.
Came much nearer to death in civilian life.
Sometimes, but not always, due to my own stupidity.
Tcobb (#140): “If you were strapped down to a table and the entire books composing the Code of Federal Regulations were dumped upon you you would not survive.”
What if you were the US economy…?
Chris (#145): “When we attended convocation for my third son this year 82 out of 272 graduating students were male.”
Which is why “educational authorities” are hard at work making the syllabus and more suitable for male students.
Mad Fiddler (#146): “So many areas where we have to depend on the priests of sanctified knowledge.”
Indeed. Dependent on their advice, not their diktat. To coin a phrase, they report, we decide.
buddy (#150): “a solid bloc of racial minorities”
How long before Black-Hispanic tension blows this up?
bob (#151):
???
Bob, we’ll see tonight, in Oakland.
For the record:
Wet Milling is an American process and dates from the nineteenth century. Most of the critical patents were held by Corn Products, In. That patent wall was so vast that the Court pulled a Xerox on them and blocked further market domination — ages and ages ago.
The transformation of dextrose into fructose is NOT considered wet milling.
BTW, the wet milling process provides the food for penicillin and its kin. What the bugs don’t eat becomes fodder enhancer.
Wet milling provides corn starch, corn oil and such on a staggering scale. Much of the output goes into industrial uses that would amaze you. For years Corn Products was the number one rail traffic client in the general Chicago area: at least 100 car-loads per day, usually more.
Japan invented wet milling — NO WAY!
This is a great thread.
Such insight, distinction, analysis and opinion should be force feed down our elected government employees throats by some means like the “Chair” in Startrek Universe.
But without the foundation of conservative upbringing and the innate understanding of our Founder’s intentions and beliefs…
It most likely would either kill most of them or drive them insane. Not that they are not insane to degrees now, but I’m talking – Completely over the edge into the abyss.
I would wish to respond to all of you. but have much to do today. Dropped the kids at a close friend and have a list as long as my arm of people to call upon today to make sure that they can vote and will have transportation and that they are properly registered.
The recent rains have made some of the rural roads a bitch and even some closer to town. But I have found that face to face gets better results than using the phone. Plus the fact that addresses and such need to be verified so that we can assist those who actually want to vote but sometimes won’t answer the phones or are too wary of phone conversations (older folk are like that).
If I get no response at the door, I leave a handwritten note on doors or in mailboxes so that they know that I want to assist them or at least they know that their votes are their right and their responsibility. One lady said to me that “She had not voted in years but since I was nice enough to come by and I said I would drive her, that she definately vote now”. I had to assist her to get her registered and she is one more, on my list of those to get to the booth.
That is what I’m looking for. Votes that conservatives have never given. Those millions of the “silent, hard working, but politically ignorant” Americans.
They need to vote and be counted now. Without them we have no chance.
A repeat of a warning. The democrats intend to do everything legal and illegal to win the upcoming elections, and they have billions of dollars to make sure they do. We must work harder than they do and try and then prevent their falsification and thieving of votes.
Now is the time to get out of your little bubble that you have built for your safety and sanity. Now is the time for you to get out and have straight and honest talk with not only your neighbors (who you most likly don’t even know) but with strangers all over your town or city.
You will have a hard time of it because people now are not used to having strangers talking to them about politics and they now are more afraid than almost any time in their past.
Most Americans despise politics but you have to convince them that it is in their and their families best interest, no..their survival…to voice their displeasure and their despair through their vote.
I’m pleading with each of you. Don’t believe others will do this for you. YOU must stand up, get on the line and advance for the preservation of our Republic.
If you don’t, I can damn sure guarantee that you will not like what happens to you and your family if we fail.
God Bless all of you and our Republic.
Papa Ray
137. Mike_W
151. bob
…………
You guy’s actually stumbled over one of the great paradoxes of the Old Testament that Jesus resolved.
To Wit: How to you reconcile God’s Justice and God’s mercy.
Question:
Why is there a problem there.
Answer.
No One can keep the Ten Commandments. All have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God. Therefor all deserve condemnation and death.
Jesus, the only sinless God/Man resolves the problem by taking on the sin and bearing God’s wrath of each person who believes on him and exchanging that sin for his righteousness. Jesus in effect imputes his righteousness before God to all who believe in him.
This is very unique.What people are mostly familiar with is imputed evil–or as the french philosopher Rousseau said in effect–whatever I do is your fault.
This is how the bible puts it:
1 Corinthians 1:25-27 (New International Version)
25For the foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.
26Brothers, think of what you were when you were called. Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth. 27But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
1 Corinthians 1
18For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.
19For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.
20Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
21For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.
22For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom:
23But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
24But unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
25Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men.