Random Thoughts

Massive Federal Deficits
I have never been one to worry much about Federal government deficits. Running a reasonable deficit is not necessarily bad. Most of us owe significantly more on our homes than we can payoff in any single year. If we have any consumer debt we carry over from year to year as we pay it off it can be said we are running a deficit. The same is true for the national government - they spend more than they take in. But the government is not like you and I in the sense that it can print money, sell bonds, and raise taxes to aquire additional revenue. Each of these, of course, has consequences. The most harmful up front is raising taxes since it can have the effect of stifling economic growth in the private sector. The others, however are not disasterous whatsoever if - and this is a big if - 1.) the money being spent is building infrastructure to enhance economic growth and not for bottomless pit social programs and 2.) is bolstered with sensible pro-growth economic policies.

So am I worried about the Obama administration's spending program? Yes, precisely because it is doing neither point 1 nor point 2. The stimulus package as a strategy is fine, but the 800 billion dollar pig that was rammed through Congress was a social engineering exercise and has been followed up with nothing that could be considered pro-growth.

Democratic Party Cheerleading
I was watching Morning Joe this morning on MSNBC (OK I like to get my blood boiling first thing in the morning) and they had NBC's White House Correspondent Chuck Todd on. During the obligitory banter portion Todd says, something to the effect of "we need to concentrate on important things like whether 'our boy' Terry Mcauliffe is going to have a political future in Virgina, you know the paper down there has endorsed one of those Republican candidates..."

For one Chuck Todd is a so-called journalist monitoring the White House for us as an unbiased observer (well, he supposed to be unbiased). Calling Terry Mcauliffe "Our boy" just seemed too cozy. Brushing off the "Republican candidate" is par for the course, but gee Chuck, does he or she have a name? Good reporting. Yeah, yeah, I know those clowns at "Faux News" are cheerleading for the other side everyday, but not the official White House correspondent. It's unseemly.

Democratic Party Cheerleading II
Phil Bronstein of the San Francisco Chronicle writes:

"(the) heroic days of the Kennedy Administration PR, where the press and the president were pretty much all in on the same screenplay and the same jokes, couldn't happen in our modern era, what with paparazzi and tabloids and talk shows, citizen sound-bite scavengers and voracious 24/7 news cycles. But now that the stumbling Bushes and smirking Clintons are out of the White House, time has compressed back on itself like the machine in the Denzel Washington movie, "Deja Vu." It's the early 1960s and Camelot all over again:

So we're in love, lust, or just a whole lot of like. Clearly we get something in exchange, whether it's a little reflected exuberance, a sense of history or just some very minor role in a fun movie. If you want to appear in a movie with John Travolta, you go willingly with him to the LA Scientology Center and are happy about it. "I'm clear, man. Hand me the cans."

Even a well known lefty and Bush hater is saying gag me with a spoon over the cheerleading in the major media for the Prez! The reality is none of them wants to be cut off, dis invited or shunned to the back of the room because that's exactly what Obama and his people do with any dissenters.

Where Will The Canadians Go to Get Proper Health Care???
Dr. Gratzer, a physician and a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote recently:

"Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither. My views changed in medical school. Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system....

"...indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery -- described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."

"Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?"

Seems to me there must be a way to preserve what is clearly the best medical care while providing access for those who don't have it without resorting to what the Canadians and the British have implemented. I have seen healthcare providers perform veritable miracles on the young and old alike without undo waiting, pain or suffering. Denying healthcare to the elderly through rationing and creating unacceptable wait times for life saving procedures is no less immoral than millions without insurance. Obama and the Democrats simply must obey the the physicians credo - first, do no harm.

Climate Change Prattle
How can Al Gore and his minions continue this charade? Anyone who is not economically connected to the "Climate Change" mantra has come to realize that all the Chicken Little pronouncements are falling on deaf ears. The facts are the facts - the earth’s temperature has fallen more than 1 F since 1998, erasing the entire increase of the 20th century, and shows no signs of rising anytime soon. The southern hemisphere has had two brutally cold winters in a row. Here in the upper midwest we have had the coolest spring I can ever remember after having a very cool 2008. All evidence points to a major decrease in the Sun's output following the end of Solar Cycle 23. Why then are politicians so keen on shoving climate change legislation down our throats? Sure they get campaign contributions from the green industries and organizations - but they need our votes.

Climate Change Prattle II
When does eco-zealotry start to become a religion? Is it when the believers propose to punish the hereitics? Read these pronouncements by the high priests of the The Church of Global Warming Alamists: Let the trials begin!

NASA's James Hansen has called for trials of climate skeptics in 2008 for "high crimes against humanity.” Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lashed out at skeptics of 2007 declaring “This is treason. And we need to start treating them as traitors” In 2009, RFK, Jr. also called coal companies "criminal enterprises" and declared CEO's 'should be in jail... for all of eternity."

In June 2009, former Clinton Administration official Joe Romm defended a comment on his Climate Progress website warning skeptics would be strangled in their beds. "An entire generation will soon be ready to strangle you and your kind while you sleep in your beds," stated the remarks, which Romm defended by calling them "not a threat, but a prediction."

In 2006, the eco-magazine Grist called for Nuremberg-Style trials for skeptics. In 2008, Canadian environmentalist David Suzuki called for government leaders skeptical of global warming to be thrown “into jail.” In 2007, The Weather Channel's climate expert called for withholding certification of skeptical meteorologists.

When will the madness end?


CW