Considering the economic situation these days I found this particular package on Suggestions of Granting Lands written in 1665 by a surveyor named Thomas Woodard. He was hired by the proprietors of the “Province of Carolina” and he offered certain interesting advice about making things profitable, he starts by quoting Sir Francis Bacon’s essay of Plantation:
“…The principall thing that hath been the destruction of most Plantations hath bin the hastee drawing of Profit in the first yeares.”
And it is my Opinion, (which I submitt to better Judgements) that it will for some time conduce more to your Lordshipe Profit to permit men to take up what tracts of Land they please at an easie rate, then to stint them to small proportions at a great rent.
In less that 3 days taxes on Meals, sales, liquor etc will be going up 25% here in the state of Massachusetts. We will in a modern advanced and easy society yet ironically even 350 years ago people understood that crushing taxes might make a short terms difference while destroying you long term, but low taxes and fees encourage prosperity with crushing taxes.
New Hampshire is going to do very well over this, but I wish the president and the Governor would take a hint from history.
So of course the White house wants to talk about the birthers:
MR. GIBBS: No. (Laughter.) I mean, the God’s honest truth is no. I mean, Bill, let’s understand this — and I almost hate to indulge in such an august setting as the White House — and I mean this in seriousness — the White House briefing room discussing the made-up, fictional nonsense of whether or not the President was born in this country. A year-and-a-half ago I asked that the birth certificate be put on the Internet because lord knows, you got a birth certificate and you put it on the Internet, what else could be the story?
If one applies for a United States passport, the passport office will demand a birth certificate. It defines this as an official document bearing “your full name, the full name of your parent(s), date and place of birth, sex, date the birth record was filed, and the seal or other certification of the official custodian of such records.” The Hawaiian birth certificate President Obama has produced—the document is formally known as a “certificate of live birth”—bears that information. It has been inspected by reporters, and several state officials have confirmed that the information in permanent state records is identical to that on the president’s birth certificate—which is precisely what one expects, of course, since the state records are used to generate those documents when they are requested. In other words, what President Obama has produced is the “real” birth certificate of myth and lore. The director of Hawaii’s health department and the registrar of records each has personally verified that the information on Obama’s birth certificate is identical to that in the state’s records, the so-called vault copy. Given that fact, we are loath even to engage the fanciful notion that President Obama was born elsewhere, contrary to the information on his birth certificate, but we note for the record that his mother was a native of Kansas, whose residents have been citizens of the United States for a very long time, and whose children are citizens of the United States as well.
My fellow conservatives who are pushing this are really giving the president an out on an awful lot of things. It gives them the chance to not only change the subject but to paint the right as a bunch of idiots.
And don’t think the democrats won’t take advantage of this, Salon has it exactly right:
Greg Sargent reported Monday that one House Democrat, Hawaii’s Neil Abercrombie, was doing just that. Abercrombie, Sargent wrote, “is going to introduce a resolution on the House floor today that seems designed to put House GOPers who are flirting with birtherism in a jam …. [The resolution] commemorates the 50th anniversary of Hawaii’s statehood. But here’s the rub, his spokesman tells me: It describes Hawaii as Barack Obama’s birthplace.”
“Fifty-five people didn’t vote for whatever reason,” Abercrombie spokesman Randy Obata said. “Apparently there was no objection in the final analysis.”
55 congressmen voting present, it’s so Obamaish isn’t it?
If I’m the democrats I’d have these guys voting on this at least once a week. I’d paint the republicans with this brush and I’d be asking Romney, Palin and and any republican running for office this question over and over again. It’s their best chance to change the subject and perhaps, with the media’s help sneak their stuff through.
If we do this to ourselves then we deserve 8 years of Obama.
No, the primary beneficiary of the Obama birth certificate conspiracy theory is Obama. He is running the country into the ground at break-neck speed, but the conspiracy theory has handed Democratic operatives like Media Matters, Think Progress, and all the left-wing blogs which jump when the whistle blows, a great way of distracting the public from the damage being done.
Don’t believe me, just look at the Memeorandum screen shot above right. The left-wing blogosphere moves in a group, and the group is pushing the same point: Beware the Birthers. The Birthers are not a threat to the economy, our national security, personal freedom, or our health care system — except to the extent they hand the Democrats a side issue with which to deflect attention from the real issues facing the country.
He does in fairness leave out one group the profits from this: The people who will write the books, hold the conventions and milk the true believers out of plenty of dough to keep their own gravy train going.
Democratic and GOP officials acknowledged Sunday that Obama’s ambitious plan would not pass without the aid of a doubtful GOP, whose members are almost united against the White House effort.
“Look, there are not the votes for Democrats to do this just on our side of the aisle,” said Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., the chairman of the budget committee.
The reality is not that they can’t it is that they won’t. These people know what this bill will do to the country and to their electoral futures. Those democrats are not going to give up their political futures just to give president Obama a cheap win (well not cheap).
Republicans should say to hell with the Democrats and the unprecedented and infantile partisanship of the president. The way to win back control of Congress and the presidency is to deny Obama the nation-breaking health insurance program that he wants.
He is right about that, but the big thing is we also need to deny the democrats in General and President Obama in particular the chance to shift the blame. In the Senate our famous Republicans from Maine will provide him with some cover but in the house he won’t get cover unless we give it to them.
If republicans in the house choose to give them that cover then they don’ t deserve our votes, if the republican party aids this monstrosity then they don’t derseve our funds.
One of the things that I enjoy about Doctor Who historical stories are the reactions of the Tardis crew to the mindsets of various ancient times and the clashes in culture that take place. One of the weaknesses that can take place is when a person taken from their own time ends up acts with 21st century reactions.
The Very good Blog Just one Minute forgets this fact when making his case for the president mother et/al having a motivation to provide false documents concerning her child’s birth. He says as follows:
My point, then and recently – Barack’s mom and maternal grandparents had a strong incentive to create a paper trail documenting Obama as a US citizen back in 1961 and it had nothing to do with assuring his future viability as a Presidential candidate. Alll they needed to do was imagine a day when the white Ms. Dunham would be engaged in a custody fight in a Kenyan court contesting the fate of a black Kenyan baby sought by the black Kenyan father and his African family, and their course would have been clear.
However in 1961 Culturally all of those things would be impossible, rejected and scandalous. The concept of divorce itself was not very well excepted outside of Hollywood or the elites. Hell a pre-nup would have been considered off the wall. The thought particularly at the time of marriage that it was going to end in a custody fight just didn’t wash.
The US was at it’s height of self confidence as well. The idea that a US court was going to rule against a US citizen in a fight over a child, particular in favor of a non Christian Black African was far fetched. Cripes; Miranda rights didn’t even exist at the time.
It would be like going to 1896 and saying to someone “Michael Jackson is cool.” They would tell him to come closer to the fire. The idea that she was planning for a custody fight in 1961 would be a foreign to her as the idea of e-mail.
This is exactly the opposite of the mistake the AP is making with bloggers. AP is trying to win an argument using the norms of the past. This argument is applying the norms of today to a different culture. It just doesn’t wash.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 