Category Archives: National Politics

National Politics

Nashville is frozen – for how long?

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Baby, it’s cold outside.

Friday, January 1st, the high temperature in Nashville was 37 degrees. It fell below freezing the night of 1/1/2010 and over the past three days, the high temp has never gotten back to 32. The long-range, five-day forecast says our warmest day of the coming week will get up to only 31 degrees (on Wednesday). We may be able to ice-skate on the ponds by the end of the week. It may get up to 34 on Sunday, January 10th. We’re looking at 10+ consecutive days of below freezing temperatures.

Friends, this is unusual for Nashville. In 2009, the January temps got above freezing on 28 out of 31 days. In 2008, the high temp was above freezing on 29 of 31 days. In 2007, it was above freezing on 30 out of 31 days. In 2006, it was above freezing on 31 out of 31 days.

Last year (and most years), we’ve actually had a balmy week of January temps in the 50s & 60s.

Button up. Stay warm. Take care of your pets. It could be awhile before the spring thaw.

National Politics

Highlights from a conference call with Grover Norquist this am

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He answered questions about the prospects for the healthcare bill from his perspective in DC.

“It’s 50-50 and no one really knows.”

“If they don’t get it done before Christmas, it’s going to get harder for them.”

“We’ll probably have a number of announcements of a ‘deal’ over the next week. Most of them will be false alarms. One of them might not be.”

“Senators Collins and Snowe are solid in their opposition to Harry Reid’s bill. Senator Snowe cares about healthcare and she is convinced that this bill does nothing to reduce costs. She believes it’s a bad bill that can’t be fixed”

“Harry Reid’s majority is fragile at best. There are serious doubts about the health and ability of both the Senator from West Virginia and the Senator from South Dakota to participate in the debate, or even to cast votes.”

Norquist gave permission for his comments to be quoted.

National Politics

Hide the Decline

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At the core of the scientific method is a skepticism towards tradition and authority and a stubborn return to examining the data. It is becoming increasingly clear that the raw data on the global climate have been manipulated. Whether you have watched the lecture by Lord Monckton or read the “Smoking Gun” article at Watts Up, the truth is emerging.

Here’s the animated-gif truth about how the climate-gate scientists have been torturing the data:

SantaRosa_HidetheDeclinefrom Lord Monckton’s slides

Darwin_HidetheDeclinefrom the Smoking Gun article at Watt’s Up.

For more detail, watch Lord Monckton’s presentation below:

Lord Monckton on Climategate at the 2nd International Climate Conference from CFACT EUROPE on Vimeo.

Modern History, National Politics

‘our last natural recovery to full employment’

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Harding inherited an absentee presidency [Wilson had been incapacitated by a stroke for the last 17 months of his second term] and one of the sharpest recessions in American history. By July 1921 it was all over and the economy was booming again. Harding had done nothing except cut government expenditure, the last time a major industrial power treated a recession by classic laissez-faire methods, allowing wages to fall to their natural level. Benjamin Anderson of Chase Manhattan was later to call it ‘our last natural recovery to full employment.’ But the cuts were important. Indeed, Harding can be described as the only president in American history who actually brought about massive cuts in government spending, producing nearly a 40 per cent saving over Wilsonian peacetime expenditure.

– Paul Johnson, “The Last Arcadia” in Modern Times: The World from the Twenties to the Nineties

Movies, National Politics

Greed

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Capitalism and free markets are NOT based on “greed.”

They are based on the concept of liberty and inalienable rights.

They presuppose a government established by consent of the governed to protect and guarantee those rights.

The genius of capitalism is that it realistically assesses human nature and human behavior and then by establishing free markets, voluntary exchange, market-driven pricing, and property rights it harnesses and channels greed, aka self-interest, so that all benefit.

You won’t abolish greed by abolishing capitalism. Capitalism doesn’t cause greed. It doesn’t even exacerbate it. Capitalism harnesses and tames greed and directs self-interest so that the maximum beneft accrues to everyone in the market.

Capitalism is not evil.

Michael Moore is evil, but not capitalism.

He’s also a hypocrite, since he uses capitalism and the free market for the distribution of films to acquire wealth for himself. Is Michael Moore not making, promoting, marketing and selling films based on greed? or to phrase it in a more socially acceptable fashion, self-interest? The beauty of the free-market system is that if there are enough patrons who desire to see the movies that Michael Moore makes then they will voluntarily exchange cash for movie tickets and DVDs. But only if there is liberty and a free market.

In a centrally-planned, command economy, the commissar of entertainment would decide how many and which movies should be made. And the proles would be required to attend and applaud. And Michael Moore would wind up in the gulag, if not stood up against a wall and shot.

Ironic, no?

2010 Election, National Politics

Competition

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Obama has often made the assertion that a federal-government-run “public option” is a necessary, fundamental part of healthcare reform because “competition is needed to keep the private insurance companies honest.”

If a “public option” is necessary to provide competition in what has until now been a private sector of the economy, why isn’t a private option necessary to provide competition in areas where the government has a monopoly?

Why shouldn’t we have a “private option” in primary & secondary education? Won’t real education reform require vouchers, and competition?

Why shouldn’t we have a “private option” in the government’s massive, compulsory retirement scheme known as social security? Why shouldn’t working men and women have choices about where their social security account dollars are invested?

[crickets chirping]

That’s what I thought. Neither President Obama nor the liberal pack baying for healthcare reform care a fig about competition. The “public option” is a stalking trojan horse that will enable the government to transition to a single-payer system.

But a naked proposal for a single-payer system would never get the votes for passage, so the “public option” must be employed and cloaked in a fig leaf of pretend admiration for “competition.”

2010 Election, National Politics

What could be worse than the government paying for abortions?

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Answer: The government mandating that ALL healthcare insurance pay for abortions.

That is precisely what H.R.3200 (aka Obamacare) will do. After the passage of the bill, although existing policies which did not include abortion coverage might be grandfathered for a while, they would not be allowed to enroll any new subscribers. New polices may only be issued by “qualified plans.” And “qualified plans” must provide coverage for a minimum level of services as determined by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Abortion supporters have invented a clever shell game in which some of the premiums collected by enrollees in the public choice plan will be segregated and used to pay claims from abortion providers before they ever technically become government funds. But this is but a shell game and is fooling no one.

Of far greater concerns will be the government mandates that will require ALL health insurance plans to provide coverage for abortion services. Easy, cost-free access to abortion will undoubtedly cause the abortion rate to rise dramatically.

And it will matter very little that an accounting trick will allow the government to claim that no government funds will be used to pay for abortion. The reality will be far worse. ALL Americans will be forced to pay for abortion.

ALL health insurance plans will be required to cover abortion.

Everyone will be required to purchase health insurance

Anyone who does NOT purchse a health insurance will be fined by the IRS and involuntarily enrolled in a health insurance plan.

God help us!

Is this what a majority of Americans want?

If this is NOT what you want, tell your congressman and senators now, before it is too late.

2010 Election, National Politics

Self-evident truths

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  1. All men are created equal
  2. They are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights.
    Among these are:

    • Life
    • Liberty
    • the Pursuit of Happiness
  3. To secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.
  4. Whenever any government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it.

The RIGHT of the people to alter or abolish the government becomes a DUTY when a long train of abuses discloses a design to impose an absolute despotism.

Does this sound familiar to anyone?

Class? class? anyone? Bueller?