What was the sin committed by us, Venezuelans, to deserve so much disgrace? A totally ineffective government fueled by the putrid nectar of communism.
Believing in the old Marxist recipe is to be up to date with bygone days; superseding spectacular strides in the fields of knowledge by the years where the mankind invented the wheel form part of the mental disorders of the pack of hounds which mismanage and storm in our nation. They claim to outline the history of humankind. They dare to change the facts at will, by putting sentences, events and circumstances that exist only deep inside the spider's web of their delusions.
He breaks relations with Colombia and then apologizes. Sure enough, when he talks again with the Honorable Colombian Head of State Alvaro Uribe Vélez, his trembling voice will find the appropriate words to make his Colombian counterpart pardon him one more time. In Bogota, they know that all that arrogance displayed by Hugo Chavez is just the flaps of superheroes made of expanded polystyrene foam. He will never make a significant decision, because he runs the risk of suffering some bowel disorder.
All his policy is marked by improvisation. Huge oil revenues are the only thing that has not failed to them. Thanks to that, they make friends and soften consciences. As a matter of fact, our nightmare shows that all that rottenness can be held after a decade, due to the resignation of most of the nationals who seek the government money which bought their consciences. All the government agencies vanished in the hands of the puppet. The laughing stock of world summits allots the Venezuelan money, like the old comedians of village circuses. Behind his mask of democrat, there is a sneaky character prompted by spooky resentment.
To sum up, we have a trashy government. His officials, with very few exceptions, had varied backgrounds. Some of its ministers would be among those hooded men as university students. They would set fire to shops, vehicles and buses. They advocated their ideology with bombs in their hands. Therefore, they easily identify with the violent gangs which attack the media and private property. While good students were struggling in the classroom to make a difference and excel, they shattered the university spaces to justify their incompetence and mediocrity.
As for the military constituent part of the government, about 70 percent of them are the worst in their class. Their track records were always linked with events that filled entire regiments with outrage.
With Hugo Chavez, the mediocre ones ascended the throne. Their filthy hatred of anyone displaying talent, integrity and success is understandable. Envy always eats up whoever lacking merits. Their infatuation with criminal sectors and their null policies to fight crime show much empathy.
This government is sustained by the oil income and blackmail. It is leadership built upon a big farce, which buys consciences and grinds the dreams of million Venezuelans.
No matter he purports to be a great statesman, Hugo Chavez is the main attraction of the revolutionary circus. His performance is the momentary victory of those who cannot understand that we are living in a modern world, instead of the caverns which house their ideas gnawed by centuries.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2009 00:00 ||
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every circus needs a clown
Posted by: Jack Glolutle3348 ||
08/12/2009 18:21 Comments ||
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"What disturbs Americans of all ideological persuasions is the fear that almost everything, not just government, is fixed or manipulated by some powerful hidden hand," Frank Rich wrote in Sunday's New York Times.
That manipulation should disturb us. But contrary to Rich, it is not the work of "corporatists" who have sprung up to attack progressive reforms proposed by Obama and the Democratic majority. Manipulation is what we got many years ago when we traded a more or less free market for the "progressive" interventionist state. When government is big, the well-connected always have an advantage over the rest of us in influencing public policy.
Observe: Although President Obama and big-government activists demonize health-insurance companies, the companies "are still mostly on board with the president's effort to overhaul the U.S. health-care system," the Wall Street Journal reports; and ...
Although the activists criticize Big Pharma, "The drug industry has already contributed millions of dollars to advertising campaigns for the health care overhaul through the advocacy groups like Healthy Economies Now and Families USA. It has spent about $1 million on similar advertisements under its own name," the Times reports.
Big Pharma and Big Insurance want Obama-style health-care reform?
It's not so hard to understand. "The drug makers stand to gain millions of new customers," the Times said.
And from the Journal: "If health legislation succeeds, the [insurance] industry would likely get a fresh batch of new customers. In particular, many young and healthy people who currently forgo coverage would be forced to sign up." No wonder insurers are willing to stop "discriminating" against sick people. (Forget that the essence of insurance is discrimination according to risk.)
Not that Big Pharma and Big Insurance like every detail of the Democratic plan. Drug companies don't want Medicare negotiating drug prices -- for good reason. If it forces drug prices down, research and development will be discouraged. (Depending whom you believe, Obama may or may not have agreed with the drug companies on this point.)
As for the insurance companies, they worry -- legitimately -- that a government insurance company -- the so-called public option" -- would drive them out of business. This isn't alarmism. It's economics. The public option would have no bottom line to worry about and therefore could engage in "predatory pricing" against the private insurers.
But despite these differences, the biggest companies in these two industries are on board with "reform."
It illustrates economist Steven Horwitz's First Law of Political Economy: "No one hates capitalism more than capitalists". In this case, big business wants to shape -- and profit from -- what inevitably will be an interventionist health-care reform. Can you think of the last time a major business supported a truly free market in anything?
In light of all this, it's funny to watch Democrats and their activist allies panic over the protests at congressional town meetings around the country. Tools of the corporate interests! they cry. But anyone opposing "socialized medicine" at the meeting can't be a mouthpiece for big business because, as we've seen, big business supports government control. Conservative groups may be encouraging people to vent their anger at congressmen who pass burdensome legislation without even bothering to read it, but that's no reason to insult the protestors as pawns. What's wrong with organizations helping like-minded people to voice their opinions? Why do Democrats, such as Speaker Nancy Pelosi, dismiss citizen participation as "AstroTurf" -- not real grassroots -- only when citizens oppose the kind of big government they favor?
They weren't so dismissive when George W. Bush was president and people protested -- appropriately -- his accumulation of executive powers.
"When handfuls of Code Pink ladies disrupted congressional hearings or speeches by Bush administration officials," Glenn Reynolds writes, "it was taken as evidence that the administration's policies were unpopular, and that the thinking parts of the populace were rising up in true democratic fashion. ... But when it happens to Democrats, it's something different: A threat to democracy, a sign of incipient fascism ... House Speaker Nancy Pelosi calls the 'Tea Party' protesters Nazis. ... "
So when lefties do it, it's called "community organizing."
When conservatives and libertarians do it, it's "AstroTurf."
Long before his inauguration, Barack Obama lucidly explained how he would deal with Iran. During the campaign he said he would engage its leaders by offering talks without preconditionswithout even asking them to stop chanting death to America when concluding their speeches.
His premise was that President George W. Bushs policy had been incoherent and unsuccessful in stopping Tehrans drive to acquire nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Both charges are true. It was certainly illogical of Mr. Bush to denounce the Iranian regime as part of the axis of evil and then to seek its support in Afghanistan when forming the first, provisional Karzai government, and then again in Iraq to calm down the truculent preacher Moqtada al-Sadr and his violent Mahdi militia.
But Mr. Obamas critique failed to acknowledge that Bushs incoherence paid off. Iran helped consolidate the post-invasion governments created by the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq, even while supplying weapons to whoever would attack Americans. (For example, it lobbied for U.S. candidate Hamid Karzai to become chairman of the governing committee when Afghan leaders gathered in Germany in Dec. 2001.)
Still, the Bush administrations failure to stop Irans nuclear and missile programs stands out. Nothing workednot the occasional muted threats of bombing the nuclear installations, nor the diplomacy delegated to the British, French and Germans. The E-3 talks started very well with the Tehran Agreed Statement of Oct. 21, 2003under which Iran temporarily promised to stop enriching uranium. They ended in ridicule in 2006 when chief negotiator Hassan Rowhani boasted that theyd kept the Europeans talking while building up their nuclear plants.
In retrospect, it is obvious why the E-3 negotiators seemed so successful in 2003. Irans leaders had just witnessed the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the swift, almost effortless destruction of Saddam Husseins regime. Fearing they might be next, they stopped the nuclear weapons program they have always denied and the nuclear enrichment program they finally acknowledged in 2002after its disclosure by dissidents.
Later, when Irans leaders saw the U.S. bogged down in Iraq and no longer feared a march on Tehran, they publicly resumed uranium enrichment, and also, no doubt, the secret weapons program as well. So Mr. Bush had failed, just as Mr. Obama said.
There was only one more step before engagement could begin: Mr. Obamas June 4 Cairo speech in which he apologized for the August 1953 overthrow of Irans Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq. In the middle of the Cold War, he said, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government. The CIA was certainly involved, but the cringing was quite unnecessary. By August 1953 Mosaddeq had dismissed Irans parliament and was ruling undemocratically by personal decree. When angry mobs converged on his residence, he fled to a U.S. aid office next door trusting that the Americans would save his life. They did.
As it happened, Mr. Obamas apology and his offer of unconditional talks backfired.
With Irans presidential selection of June 12 coming up, the all-powerful Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had his opportunity to replace the thoroughly unpresentable, loudly extremist Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with a more plausible negotiating partner for Mr. Obama. This strategy had been used before. In 1997, when the regime needed to calm unrest at home and mollify opinion abroad, it gave the presidency to the soft-spoken, elegantly robed, and supposedly liberalizing Mohammad Khatami. He was just the man to provide a moderate front for the clerical dictatorship. To be sure, by the time Mr. Khatami ended his presidency in 2005, everyone knew that he had not even tried to liberalize anything of substance. But by then he had served his purpose.
Evidently, Mr. Khamenei rejected the option of choosing a moderate. Instead he awarded Ahmadinejad a divine win with wildly improbable majoritieseven in the home towns of his rivals.
Mr. Obamas problem is that Mr. Khamenei could only have chosen Ahmadinejad because he does not want friendly talks with the U.S. He evidently calculates that without the ideology of anti-Americanism the regime would collapse. He is right.
Certainly religious support cannot be enough anymore. Too many high-ranking clerics, including Grand Ayatollahs Hosssein Ali Montazeri and Yusef Saanei, now publicly oppose the regime. Nor can Persian nationalism serve as the prop: Its chief target is the despised Arabs, which is problematic, as the regime keeps trying to be more Arab than the Arabs in its hostility to Israel. Yet this hostility is itself a problem internally because the regimes generous funding of Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad is extremely unpopular in Iran. Only anti-Americanism is left, and Mr. Khamenei will not let Mr. Obama take it away.
Unless Irans politics change, Mr. Obamas policy will fail. At that point, he will need a new, new policy of increasingly severe sanctions under the looming threat of bombardmentexactly Mr. Bushs old policy. But as Irans nuclear program advances, time is running out for this policy to work.
#1
The Ayatollahs' foreign policy aims, are based on regional hegemony against the Sunni majority. After the 1978 taking of US diplomats as hostages, the kidnappers held up banners, "The US Cannot Do Anything." I wonder...
Even if the liberal media continue to ignore it, the Justice Department's dismissal of a voter-intimidation case against members of the New Black Panther Party is a full-blown scandal. Fortunately, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights is pursuing justice even though the Department of Justice is not.
As reported in our news pages last Friday, the commission has sent a strongly worded letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., effectively threatening to subpoena witnesses and documents if Justice does not provide better, more complete answers about its decision to dismiss the cases. "We believe the Department's defense of its actions thus far undermines respect for rule of law," wrote the commission, "and raises other serious questions about the department's law enforcement decisions."
The case involves a nationally broadcast incident in which two Black Panthers in paramilitary garb, one of them wielding a nightstick, stood outside a Philadelphia polling place on Election Day in November. They were uttering racial epithets and otherwise discouraging voting. Career attorneys at the Justice Department won a default judgment against both Black Panthers, plus a national Panther leader and the party as a whole -- but at the last minute, Obama appointees at Justice dismissed all the charges except one, and responded to that one with an extraordinarily mild injunction.
One explanation from Justice was that First Amendment (free speech) rights somehow mitigated against greater punishment of the Black Panthers. The commission responded, sensibly: "It is unclear what First Amendment issue would arise by enjoining the [New Black Panther Party] or other racial hate-groups from organizing its members again to carry any weapons (especially when dressed in paramilitary uniforms) at polling places and subject particular voters to racially-bigoted diatribes as they attempt to enter the polls."
The commission also "noted the peculiar logic of the department's court filing that the defendants' failure to respond was the reason for its dismissal of the case against three defendants: Such an argument sends a perverse message to wrongdoers -- that attempts at voter suppression will be tolerated so long as the persons who engage in them are careful not to appear in court to answer the government's complaint."
It really is a strange notion of justice to say that refusal to contest one's guilt is reason to treat someone as innocent. The Commission on Civil Rights is correct to challenge it.
The commission also ought to continue asking if outside groups played an improper role in the case's dismissal, or if there was untoward political interference from the White House or other Democratic Party sources.
But the commission may not stop even there. Letters can be ignored. Yearlong investigations can't be. At last Friday's meeting, Commissioner Todd Gaziano noted that the commission statutorily is required to issue an annual report on some aspect of federal civil rights enforcement. He proposed that the report for 2010 focus on the Justice Department's handling of the Black Panther case. While the commission did not make a final decision on the matter, Mr. Gaziano's proposal seemed to enjoy tentative majority support.
"The implications of the department's actions in this case are potentially quite negative," Mr. Gaziano told The Washington Times. "For this reason, the commission has a responsibility to investigate and report to Congress exactly what those implications are."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2009 00:00 ||
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ANYTHING that Holder syas or does from this oint foward is pointless. This is like they were robbing a bank, it was caught on tape, there was no doubt of their guilt, and as "punishment" they were given a parking ticket (but then dismissed it).
#3
Me, too, tw - but I think the far-left bigoted loony-toon member/chairwoman has departed, so what the heck....
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/12/2009 13:35 Comments ||
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#4
but at the last minute, Obama appointees at Justice dismissed all the charges except one, and responded to that one with an extraordinarily mild injunction.
Do I detect racism in our AG? Naw, I must be mistaken. This whole administration has a bunch of leftish looney tunes.
#5
I think it was Napoleon who said "Never ascribe to malice what can be perfectly well explained by incomptence"... but in this case I'll take malice for 10, Alex.
DANI DWI PERMANA was a conscientious, basketball-loving young man, a solid student from a troubled family who, nonetheless, seemed to have a lifetime of promise to fulfil.
Yet weeks after graduating from high school and aged only 18, Dani walked into a meeting of executives at the JW Marriott hotel and detonated two bombs, killing himself and murdering five others, including the Australians Craig Senger, Garth McEvoy and Nathan Verity.
Friends, neighbours and worshippers at his mosque yesterday said Dani - almost universally described as ''very nice'' - was the unlikeliest of mass murderers, albeit someone who was easily persuaded.
And, like Indonesian police, they believe that an ustad, or cleric, at the As-Surur mosque - Saifuddin Jaelani - was responsible for persuading Dani to give his life and take others for the cause of violent jihad against the US and its allies.
''He was very nice, very polite. I can only think he was completely brainwashed,'' said Aida, who lived across the road from Dani in the Telaga Kahuripan housing complex, a once-prestigious gated community about an hour's drive south of Jakarta.
''When I was pregnant and I couldn't start my motorbike, he said 'hey, let me do it'. He walked it a kilometre [to the repair shop].''
Harno, a regular at the mosque, said Dani loved basketball. ''We would always talk about sport,'' he said.
Another elderly man at the mosque, who declined to be named, said: ''If we asked him to fetch us food, he would always do it. The other teens would only help if it was a special occasion, like a neighbourhood clean-up. But Dani was always very helpful. ''Maybe because Dani was so
helpful, it made it easier for him to be manipulated. It's true, he was easily persuaded.''
The son of a security guard at the complex, Dani lived in a small house with his brother Jaka and his father. His mother lived in Kalimantan after a messy divorce. Things got worse when his father was imprisoned about a year ago for robbery. It was then that Dani seems to have fallen under the spell of Saifuddin. ''Ustad Saifuddin usually spent time with the caretakers [young devotees] at the mosque. Usually they would gather here after evening prayer,'' said Harno. ''Sometimes he would go out with them camping. But that didn't seem to be suspicious because that is what an ustad should do.''
Even so, Dani had clearly become radicalised. According to a school friend, he talked openly of waging jihad, the Islamic notion of struggle that is typically a peaceful pursuit by the devout but is twisted by terrorist groups to justify mass murder.
''I ask him what he wanted to do [after graduation]. He said he wanted to go to do jihad,'' Yulianto, the friend, told TV One.
Aida said Saifuddin had not raised widespread concern at the time, even if he was known for his anti-US rhetoric. ''We now know that [Saifuddin] was trying to brainwash many young people here. He told these youngsters that American was bad.''
Saifuddin is believed to have groomed up to 10 men from the area. According to Indonesian counter-terrorism sources, Saifuddin is suspected to be one of Noordin Mohammed Top's most trusted talent spotters. Noordin is thought to have organised the Jakarta bombings on July 17. On the weekend Indonesian police believed they had killed him in a siege but were mistaken.
Noordin M Top has certainly lived by the sword, so it would have been fitting if he had met his demise amid a hail of bullets and bomb explosions inside a farmhouse in Central Java over the weekend.
It seems certain that the alleged mastermind of the July 17 twin suicide bombings in South Jakarta as well as other attacks in the capital and on Bali is still at large. Aside from his fanatical, extremist interpretations of Islam and willingness to kill scores of civilians in pursuit of his goals, Noordin is considered even more dangerous for his ability to recruit pawns to carry out attacks, in particular young suicide bombers.
It was likely his followers would attempt to carry on his work in the event he was captured or killed.
His legend would rise. It would be a great recruiting tool, said Ken Conboy, author of Inside Jemaah Islamiyah, Asias Most Dangerous Terrorist Network.
Tracking down and rolling up Noordins network and the man himself given that DNA tests are expected to come back negative is the job of Detachment 88, the National Police counter-terrorism unit. But analysts say the central government must take a long-term view of the countrys terrorism problem and begin tackling it at its source.
Terrorisms roots, they say, lie within the countrys Islamic boarding schools. According to Sidney Jones of the International Crisis Group, about 50 pesantrens are believed linked to Jemaah Islamiyah, the regional terrorist network of which Noordin was once a key member.
The schools are still important, less for what they teach than for the connections made there, said Jones, a JI expert. Its not so much massive recruiting thats the problem, but more that I would place the santri [orthodox Muslims] at these schools near the top of vulnerable populations for recruitment. And it only takes a visit by one extremist to bring a couple more on board.
Indonesia has as many as 45,000 Islamic boarding schools, Jones said, but only about 15,000 are registered with the Ministry of Religious Affairs. Analysts have criticized the ministry for not overseeing the schools curriculums, which could be blinds for private study sessions for handpicked students with extremist teachers.
Despite the difficulties the government would have intervening in Islamic schools, Nasaruddin Umar, the Religious Affairs Ministrys director general for mass guidance on Islam, said expanded oversight was inevitable. We have to control the curriculums of all the pesantrens. I have found many, many problems, he said.
...However uncivil some of the town-hall interruptions have been, the palpable irritation on the part of so many disgruntled citizens is not only an expression of political opposition to a particular policy but a bubbling over of resentment at the feeling of general powerlessness. At every turn, the Obama administration has attempted to fast-track an immensely complex piece of legislation, ensuring that a transparent national debate is impossible and that even our legislators remain ignorant of the details of any proposal. The real question here is not whether these protests are organized or even disruptive the Democrats used union-funded political organizations in 2005 to stage public protests, orchestrate grassroots political advocacy, and televise professionally produced advertisements to undermine President Bushs platform for Social Security reform. Rather, the point is the audacity of disagreement. Obama has tried to create the illusion that debate is dangerous, given the exigency of the current crisis, and unnecessary, given the solid public consensus.
Unfortunately, the contempt for public debate is one of the hallmarks of Obamas technocratic approach to politics in place of a healthy and democratic deference to public opinion, we get the assurance of expertise that comes with a bevy of special-issue czars. The key ingredients of President Obamas election victory were technocratic competence and a therapeutic populism his Ivy League intellect would be the key to solving our average-Joe problems. Nevertheless, its not at all clear that the technocratic conception of politics is compatible with a robust deliberative democracy. And Obamas technocratic side is winning out.
Obamas populism is based on the satisfaction of the will of the people he decries, however insincerely or inconsistently, the undermining of general consent by the overrepresentation of special interests or of the wealthy. However, Obamas conception of techno-politics is based on the embrace of a kind of techno-aristocracy hyper-educated elites with specialized political or scientific expertise are singled out to manage the benighted rest of us. The conspicuous contradiction embedded within Obamas political program is between his populist embrace of consent and his technocratic dismissal of it: The former presumes the prudence of common sense; the latter rejects it as radically untutored....
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2009 14:10 ||
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Not sure I would agree with the technocrat label. That connotes some competence. Elitist? Yes.
...And what do Democrats stand for, if they are so ready to defame concerned citizens as the "mob" -- a word betraying a Marie Antoinette delusion of superiority to ordinary mortals. I thought my party was populist, attentive to the needs and wishes of those outside the power structure. And as a product of the 1960s, I thought the Democratic party was passionately committed to freedom of thought and speech.
But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills. The ethical collapse of the left was nowhere more evident than in the near total silence of liberal media and Web sites at the Obama administration's outrageous solicitation to private citizens to report unacceptable "casual conversations" to the White House. If Republicans had done this, there would have been an angry explosion by Democrats from coast to coast. I was stunned at the failure of liberals to see the blatant totalitarianism in this incident, which the president should have immediately denounced. His failure to do so implicates him in it.
As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism. This is in fact what Sarah Palin hit on in her shocking image of a "death panel" under Obamacare that would make irrevocable decisions about the disabled and elderly. When I first saw that phrase, headlined on the Drudge Report, I burst out laughing. It seemed so over the top! But on reflection, I realized that Palin's shrewdly timed metaphor spoke directly to the electorate's unease with the prospect of shadowy, unelected government figures controlling our lives. A death panel not only has the power of life and death but is itself a symptom of a Kafkaesque brave new world where authority has become remote, arbitrary and spectral. And as in the Spanish Inquisition, dissidence is heresy, persecuted and punished....
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2009 06:52 ||
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As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church I must say I love Camille Paglia!
#3
This just gets more and more interesting. I'm beginning to wonder if this year will one day be looked back on as "The Great Awakening of 2009" when the American people took their country back from the feckless, corrupt, and degenerate politicians infiltrating OUR government.
See, no matter how well educated and positioned in the social structure or urban culture, we all still cling to our fairy tales. That party died with Hubert Humphrey. It's the real Patrician Party which is sustained by a smug elitist cabal not only of the moneyed and academic coastie set, but the upper echelons of our legal class of mob Dons in union clothing. Unfortunately, [or fortunately if you're a Donk] the upper echelons of the Trunks have been likewise infected with those who absolutely disdain the small business-worker-traditional masses and lust for the salons and power of the Beltway.
#5
They are losing their Vietnam-era democrats (at least from around here). If Nixon was over the top, then what is this? There are honest to themselves liberals out there and they have to look themselves in the mirror in the morning. I have an anarchist friend who was all rock chalk barack until 3 months ago...big brother government, high taxes, and mandatory government service pisses them off as well. The neo-hippies, they have pride too.
Only a certain type of person wants free money but is too lazy to go get that free money themselves and wants another to divvy out that money.
#7
"Don't these morons ever get tired of blaming everything on Bush?"
No.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/12/2009 13:22 Comments ||
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The Bush-bash is a rote ritual, like lawyers saying "May it please the Court"--what's far more interesting is what comes after that. Camille Paglia isn't on "our" side, but she's no knee-jerk partisan. She calls things as she sees them--and she doesn't like what she sees. I see a potential convert to conservatism, or at least a person we can do business with on an issue or two.
Posted by: Mike ||
08/12/2009 15:20 Comments ||
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#9
Take the Bush bashing as a way for her to convince liberals to continue reading. It's like a badge of liberalism and without she risks being called a conservative (especially with the LIbertarian comment).
I am perplexed about so many issues in the news that I can only ask questions today. Maybe someone else has the answers.
Why is the issue of health care being decided by government and not by the consumers, health professionals and insurance companies? Isn't government the one that can't defend our borders, win the war on poverty or control the cost of stamps? And if Medicare and Medicaid are rampant with corruption and cost overruns, what will government do to a much broader program?
Why are the 10 poorest cities in America the ones that always elect Democrats to public office? Is it because their solutions to problems is welfare, not work?
Why is it considered desirable to register every uninformed voter to cancel out the votes of informed, well-educated people?
What does it mean when cities with strict gun control laws, like Chicago and Washington, D.C., can't control gangs, drugs and shootings?
Why is global warming even an issue when the increase in worldwide temperatures during the past 100 years has been only one degree Celsius and, for the past three years, has declined?
Why does President Obama prefer to house terrorists in the United States rather than at Gitmo?
With Cash for Clunkers and $8,000 bribes to first-time home buyers, what will happen to car and home sales when these "incentives" end? (I'm waiting for my 10 grand for grandpas.)
Should I buy a car from a company owned by unions that caused their own bankruptcies and by a government stupid enough to invest taxpayer money to prop them up?
Whatever happened to the great all-American principle that when a business fails, it provides opportunity for others to step in and do a better job? Has our government become the No. 1 enabler of inefficiency?
Why is the stimulus package loaded with funding that obviously will not stimulate the economy, but will stimulate people to vote a certain way?
Why is it that public schools that spend $10,000 per pupil can't do any better educating children than private, religious schools spending $4,000 per pupil? Shouldn't more resources go to those who succeed and less to those who are proven failures?
Why do television network news broadcasts use the term "news"? Isn't their product just tabloid entertainment? Fortunately, we still have good news -papers that do an excellent job of informing.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/12/2009 00:00 ||
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Why are the 10 poorest cities in America the ones that always elect Democrats to public office? Is it because their solutions to problems is welfare, not work?
In Chicago most of the poor live in public housing.
Wards usually encompass them and not much else. The Wardheelers come in and say: "If we see a single vote for Republicans from this complex - Everybody looses their lease and goes on the housing wait list.... Any Questions? No. I didn't think so."
and in answer to the majority of the questions posed above - government doesn't solve problems, government just manages problems. Problems are either solved by the people or allowed to fester because the overall cost to benefit ratio is viewed as not worth the commitment or effort or the social change that would be required.
#6
Yes, there are answers for all the ills of our country.
The most and foremost is our inability to buy made in America irrespective of what the government policies are. For several years, we could find no merchandise; except for just a few, that are made in America. A few years ago in Boston, I saw a visiting Buddhist monk at the Target store who really wanted to have a camera. His intense desire was so clearly visible on his face that I could not stop and came to his help. I told him, please, select a camera you want and I will buy it for you if it costs less than 400 dollars because that was all I could afforded without running out of money for myself. He looked at me and I never forgot his face when the monk told me sorry, I can not take any of the cameras, they are all made in China and non is made in America.(He was speaking in English) I seriously doubt, even the American flags we buy here today are entirely made in USA. Folks, no body else than only we, not even the greegy and corrupt politicians are destroying our nation, our jobs and the future of our grand children. Please, wake up and stop blaming others.
#7
Folks, no body else than only we, not even the greegy and corrupt politicians are destroying our nation, our jobs and the future of our grand children
And how is this different from the Taliban and AQ harking about returning to the glorious and righteous old days? If only we'd go back to the old industrial or, for that matter, agrarian America, all will be well again?
#8
Please explain how shipping the most productive jobs overseas (often to enemy nations) will not sink us into Taliban levels of poverty faster than any alternative?
You want roving bands of American Taliban gangs stealing, raping and destroying stuff then make sure that our young adults have no jobs that earn enough to buy a decent place to live, support a family and save money for old age. Please provide the list of jobs for our people to earn money when the industrial/agricultural/mining base is gone.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2009 10:07 Comments ||
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"Has our government become the No. 1 enabler of inefficiency?"
Whaddaya mean "become"?
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/12/2009 13:24 Comments ||
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#13
"government doesn't solve problems, government just manages makes problems worse"
Fixed that for ya', P2k.
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut ||
08/12/2009 13:27 Comments ||
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#14
Why is it that public schools that spend $10,000 per pupil can't do any better educating children than private, religious schools spending $4,000 per pupil? Shouldn't more resources go to those who succeed and less to those who are proven failures?
I went to a public elementary school in Ohio in the mid-1940s. The school was a 2-room school house run by two teachers. There was no principal. No were no unions. One teacher taught three of the grades in one room at the same time. The other teacher did the same. Two classes doing in-class work and one class doing spelling or math or English with the teacher. The two teachers also made sure we were all fed at lunch. Made sure we were all fed meant they prepared the meals. The also tended the fire that heated the school. They also handled recess out in the schoolyard.
I learned more during the time that I was there than most of the others schools I attended. I was very fortunate to receive this education. It set a course for learning for life. Later in life I got a Ph.D. in engineering and also taught. Somewhere in the development of our school systems we have gone very wrong.
#16
Please explain how shipping the most productive jobs overseas (often to enemy nations) will not sink us into Taliban levels of poverty faster than any alternative?
Please explain how you are communicating on a device that didn't exist thirty years ago, that the early models cost 2k in early 80s dollars with a pitiful capability of that which sits before you today. Where did all the software that ran on 64k memory and two 720k floppies on small monochromatic alpha-numeric screens go and who replaced it.
Societies that choose static economies decay and die. That is the long history. Those able to adapt and improvise usually stay in the running. It's not the easy route but those who can ride the changes will outlast those who stop because it gives them a false sense of security over their environment.
#18
Please explain how you are communicating on a device that didn't exist thirty years ago, that the early models cost 2k in early 80s dollars with a pitiful capability of that which sits before you today. Where did all the software that ran on 64k memory and two 720k floppies on small monochromatic alpha-numeric screens go and who replaced it.
Let's start with your example. Where and who extracts the value of computers/electronics/comms. As a former IC designer, I think I am qualified to say US IC design is world class and probably a world beater. With such a technological lead and high demand, the US should be exporting electronic products hand over fist. But we are NOT.
My guess there are less than 50,000 IC designers in the US (mostly foreign born too). And hundreds of thousands are employed building those chips and millions are employed building the end devices. That's over 100 jobs created by the design efforts of each designer. Just not in the US (Intel excepted). The value from these products is extracted in Taiwan, China, Korea, Japan, Malaysia, etc.
The US trade figures bear that out, with IT and Comms trade deficit at over $60 billion last year. That's nearly 1,000,000 middle class US jobs lost. The entire technology trade deficit is even worse at over $100 billion/year. For all the billions $ invested over 60 years by the taxpayer for R&D, a miniscule amount of the total employment is in the US. An amount that doesn't recoup the public investment.
World class design, world class product ideas, and world class trade deficits and job losses.
Societies that choose static economies decay and die. That is the long history. Those able to adapt and improvise usually stay in the running. It's not the easy route but those who can ride the changes will outlast those who stop because it gives them a false sense of security over their environment.
Yes. The automobile is over 100 years old. 4 wheels, engine, steering wheel. Yet it's the largest industrial product in the world. An entire regional economy of the US was based on it's manufacture. Yet governmental leaders and bankers rigged the trade game to let other nations poach the auto market to the tune of over $100 billion/year. Formerly prosperous cities are now rusted ghost towns, returning back to primeval forest. Yet exporting cities are not decaying or dying. Is Bavaria dying? Is Tokyo or Nagoya dying? Are the Chinese automobile producers (who are gearing up to export to the USA) dying? From my perch they seem to be vibrant and growing, with high paying jobs and plenty of profit for R&D.
On the contrary, societies die when they no longer produce wealth and exhaust the wealth produced by previous generations.
You are defending a rigged trade and financial system that screws the vast majority of American workers. And that, I find, is indefensible.
Posted by: ed ||
08/12/2009 22:49 Comments ||
Top||
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
