Posts Tagged ‘reality’

Yeah, like that money will still be there…

Posted: December 22, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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You know I’ve yet to hear a single person make one of the most obvious points about this healthcare bill.

We all know that the bill front loads the taxes in the bill to help pay for the costs of the bill over ten years. We have a democratic congress that has increased the deficit with record speed sending money like drunken sailors (and a republican one before it that spent money like buzzed sailors, only looking better by comparison). In this bill we see giveaway after giveaway to pay off particular members and states.

Given these facts riddle me this:

Can somebody explain to me how they are going to prevent congress from spending that “extra money” over the next two years, especially with an election where large chunks of the majority are in trouble?

The fact is by the time the provisions of that bill kick in the front loaded tax money is going to be spent 10 times over before a single person is covered.

Elections have consequences, always remember we did this to ourselves.

Update: Fisherville mike links, thanks.

I wonder if Violet will put up a follow up Coakley post?

Posted: December 21, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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Back in November my favorite atheistic liberal feminist blogger Violet Socks at the Reclusive leftist wrote this:

On your blog, in your comments, everywhere. That’s how memes start. Coakley’s got the courage and the convictions. She’s raising her head above the parapet, right now, when it matters. Just as she did last year when she endorsed Hillary Clinton. Just as she did when she refused to surrender that vote at the convention.

Martha Coakley for President.

As you might guess by my description of her Violet and I have a serious disagreement on Abortion. Yesterday she quoted a post at a blog called Confluence:

There were a multitude of permutations that would have succeeded in covering poor and sick people but the Democrats picked the one that is most likely to piss off their own constituents in the highest numbers. Congratulations, guys.

But this abortion thing? I gotta wonder why it wasn’t sufficient to stick the knife into health care reform without adding the agonizing poison. You should have never even entertained Stupak and Nelson no matter how much they howled and screamed. That’s going to come back to bite you. And no matter how much theater comes up on the floor of the Senate during debate in the next couple of days to try to remove the amendments and compromises, taking them out is not going to make this bill smell any sweeter. The jig is up. We see through the distraction.

The actual post is interesting philosophically but bottom line is the abortion language makes the bill unacceptable.

Today the Boston Globe has this story about Martha the righteous:

“Let’s be clear on what’s principled here,’’ she said at the time of her opponent, US Representative Michael Capuano. “If it comes down to this in the Senate, and it’s the health care bill or violating women’s rights, where does he stand?’’

Obviously feeling the pressure, Capuano pivoted a few days later and said that while he voted yes in the House, he would vote no on final passage if the abortion restrictions did not change.

Coakley used her stark position on abortion rights to appeal to supporters for donations; in an e-mail, she declared her decision to make her position “a defining moment’’ in her campaign.

Asked last week whether she would vote against a bill that went beyond current law in restricting abortion coverage, Coakley said, “Yes, that’s right.’’

In a statement to the Globe yesterday, Coakley said that although she was disappointed that the Senate bill “gives states additional options regarding the funding mechanisms for women’s reproductive health services,’’ she would reluctantly support it because it would provide coverage for millions of uninsured people and reduce costs.

As Newsbusters put it:

Coakley is such a self-serving hypocritical flip-flopper than not even the Boston Globe could spin this story to make her look good. In almost any other state, Coakley would have very little chance in the general election but, hey, this is Massachusetts we are talking about here. Democrat candidates for senator aren’t so much elected as automatically coronated.

I have thoughts concerning Ms. Coakley, they are similar to my thoughts about Scott Harshbarger. Neither are printable so I didn’t say a thing at the time of the first post. As I want to keep my sense of decorum I’ll continue to restrain myself.

But I can’t wait to read Violet’s follow up post on this subject once she reads the Globe’s story. I’ll wager it is going to be an interesting but not work safe read.

The Brittany Murphy business reminds me of my cousin Bill

Posted: December 21, 2009 by datechguy in catholic, opinion/news, personal
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…My cousin Bill was 4 years younger than me. He was a diver and built like a rock. Like Ms Murphy he was at the height of health. And out of nowhere he just dropped dead.

It struck me particularly, not because we were really close, or the empathy I felt for his parents as any parent does with their child (of any age) dies, but because I have overweight and older. It seemed unreal to me that he would what just dropped dead when I am still alive.

It reminds me of one of the greatest sermons I’ve ever heard, it was at the Latin Mass at Immaculate Conception. The priest went over and over talking about people who suddenly died and stressed the importance of the sacrament of confession. The priest stressed two phrases that have really stuck in me:

We are not promised the next morning.

It is a terrible thing to fall under the judgment of a Just God.

One should not let worry prevent one from living life, but a smart person will keep these two phrases in mind.

After all Ms. Murphy was young, fit and well off, yet she wasn’t promised that next day.

NOTE: As I neared the end of this post I noticed this:

Brittany Murphy’s husband, Simon Monjack, told hospital staff at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center he did not want an autopsy performed on his deceased wife, multiple sources tell TMZ.

We’re told, however, despite Monjack’s wishes, the L.A. County Coroner’s office will perform an autopsy on Murphy. As we first reported, Murphy went into cardiac arrest this morning and could not be revived.

This suggests that there might be more to this than meets the eye. Time will tell. Doesn’t change the main point of the post.

I woke up just after the president’s speech this morning on “Climate change”

Posted: December 18, 2009 by datechguy in opinion/news
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…once known as Global warming until some inconvenient truths caused those to change the name.

On Morning Joe Scarborough is actually challenging the idea that people who are skeptical should be treated as pariahs, and Bill Press and Jeff Sacks are defending that concept with relish!

Meanwhile at the conference a few interesting things are going on:

Today the gloves came off and the true purpose of the “global warming” scare became nakedly visible. Hugo Chavez, the Socialist president of Venezuela, blamed “global warming” on capitalism – and received a standing ovation from very nearly all of the delegates, lamentably including those from those of the capitalist nations of the West that are on the far Left – and that means too many of them.

Previously Robert Mugabe, dictator of Rhodesia, who had refused to leave office when he had been soundly defeated in a recent election, had also won plaudits at the conference for saying that the West ought to pay him plenty of money in reparation of our supposed “climate debt”.

Inside the conference center, “world leader” after “world leader” got up and postured about the need to Save The Planet, the imperative to do a deal, the necessity to save the small island nations from drowning, etc., etc., etc.

Reason has samples from some of the speeches.

Now consider, technology that allows video conferencing is available all over. These world leaders are leaving a huge “carbon footprint” in their travel and the travel of their encourages. If this was the crisis they claimed it was why would this not be done by video?

The truth is that taxpayers around the world are paying for booze, board, broads, and the best foods for the delegates who attend, this is the international gravy train. These people don’t get involved to eat a sandwich on their couch looking at a screen, it is for an easy life and status.

It is the modern equivalent of the feudal system, live like a lord and let the serfs (read taxpayers) support them.

Are they all corrupt? That is an unfair generalization as unfair as my pal Dave when he says every pol is corrupt. I’m sure quite a few got in with good intentions, I’m sure that like the great plantation owners of the 17th and 18th century or the Nobles of 10 centuries ago they see this as perfectly normal and never question it. But like the end of the world predictions from the Seven Day Adventists and the Jehovah Witnesses when the predicted end doesn’t happen the data will adjust to push it to another later date giving that much more time for us to do something (read spend money) to save the day.

Andrew Bolt who has been all over this calls out the high priest (and great benefactor) on a few falsehoods:

No, Al Gore is a liar.

Last week we showed that the first of his Climategate defences was so preposterously wrong that it was doubtful he had even read the leaked emails he tried to dismiss. You see, five times in two interviews he dismissed the emails as dated documents that were at least 10 years old:

I haven’t read all the e-mails, but the most recent one is more than 10 years old.

In fact, most of the controversial emails, as I showed, were from just the past two years – and the most recent from just last month – November 12, to be precise.

So Gore was so wrong on the first count that it was difficult to think of any way an honest man could have made such a mistake. Five times.

But now Steve McIntyre has exploded the second argument Gore made. And now all doubt in my mind is gone. Gore must have simply lied.

Read the whole damning thing

What will come of this? The can will be kicked down the road, the dates will change and a new conference, well stocked with the best foods and wines, will be schedules and the elites of the world will again take their private jets and limo’s to attend and beat their breasts about how much they care.

And people are falling for this? It brings to mind The Ribos Operation and the 4th doctor:

DOCTOR: I wonder if ol’ Taffy knows the real value of it. “Scringe stone” found in a dead man’s pocket? A lost mine? A phoney ma… are people still falling for that old guff? I mean are they?
ROMANA: You mean you didn’t believe his story?
DOCTOR: No.
ROMANA: But he had such an honest face.
DOCTOR: Romana!! You can’t be a successful crook with a DIShonest face, can you?
ROMANA: Oh.

And they will forever.

Update: You just can’t make this stuff up:

It’s Robert Mugabe, lecturing the leaders at the Copenhagen.

And now President Barack Obama is there. He’s saying, “The time for talk is over.” Ironically, he’s talking.

If every leader did to his country what Mugabe has done, carbon emissions would drop dramatically, and yet leaders could still jet off to conferences and talk about how moral they are. And the conference organizers would treat them with respect.

Time to break out my favorite cartoon again:

The Morality of Global Warming!

Update 2: Stephen Glover nails it:

He points out that England’s prince and prime minister both took (separate) chartered planes to the conference and asks of the Prime Minister:

Could he perhaps have shared an aircraft with Prince Charles? Might he have considered taking a scheduled flight to the Danish capital, of which there were 16 on Tuesday?

Evidently not. It is odd, isn’t it, how climate change doomsayers such as Prince Charles and Mr Brown are so often unprepared to make the smallest sacrifice in their own daily lives to address a threat which they assert is literally deadly.

but they are not alone:

The Copenhagen summit, supposed to produce an agreement limiting greenhouse gases, has, according to experts, the same carbon footprint as a medium-sized African country such as Malawi.

There are an amazing 34,000 delegates attending the event, and the grander among them are forced, says my colleague Robert Hardman in Copenhagen, to park their private jets in Norway because Denmark has run out of Tarmac, and to procure their gas-guzzling limousines from Germany.

The threat is apparently only for the little people.

Update 3: Apparently Charles needs to pay more attention to his mother’s example:

There was a buzz at King’s Cross this morning as platform 11b began crawling with police.

Could it be a drug bust, the crowd wondered? Or was a rock star about to board a train?

Then a small lady in a headscarf appeared, a handbag on one arm and a posy on the other.

Fellow passengers on the 10.45 First Capital Connect service to King’s Lynn couldn’t quite believe their eyes as the Queen stepped on board a first class carriage.

Why take a public train when you are the Queen of England?

A Buckingham Palace spokesman added: ‘Members of the Royal Family, including the Queen, frequently use scheduled train services.

‘We have to look at issues such as cost effectiveness and security but do try to when it is appropriate.’

The Queen does, of course, also have use of the Royal Train – but that costs taxpayers £57,142 each time it is taken out of its sidings.

When she dies, England as we knew it dies.

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