Economic Freedom

Lie to Me - Islam

2009-07-03T17:56:00.001-07:00

A friend who got a master's degree in Arabic studies told me that lying is fundamental to Islam. That Allah is better than you at everything - even lying. Allah is the Supreme Deceiver. The following column builds the same case. Lying is fundamental to Islam

WORLD Magazine | Mindy Belz

When Mahmoud Ahmadinejad makes hash out reality, he isn't only perfecting one of the wiles of a dictator. He's practicing his religion.

WikiIslam defines taqiyya as "sanctified hypocrisy." That's generous. At least a half dozen verses of the Quran instruct Muslims to practice deception, or to lie, when it serves the purposes of Islam. Taqiyya means "guard," as in guarding oneself against unbelievers, which can include lying to them or deceiving them. "We smile in the face of some people although our hearts curse them," according to authority Abu Al-Darda. In one passage (Sura 16: 106) Allah allows Muslims to go so far as to deny their faith when under "compulsion," as long their heart remains "firm in Faith."

The practice is so deeply embedded in Arab culture and the Muslim world that one has to wonder how Western leaders can negotiate with leaders like Ahmadinejad, steeped in taqiyya. "You go quickly to the bottom line, or the heart of the matter, or you ask for my gut reaction," a Pakistani friend once told me, "while we prefer to beat around the bush, to talk in circles, to redirect."

Daniel Shayesteh recently told me, "A Muslim cannot be a real Muslim if he does not use taqiyya." Shayesteh knows: Born in Iran, by age 9 he could recite the entire Quran in Arabic (Iranians speak Farsi, and just a fraction outside the clerics know Arabic).

That's a sample. Read more.

Dumbest moments in business 2009 - the SEC

2009-07-03T08:51:00.000-07:00

There are many others, but this is tops for me.

Six months after Bernie Madoff confessed to his ponzi scheme that took, he claimed, $50 billion from thousands of people, including his own sister, he was banned from the securities business by the SEC. Six months later?

There are nine more at the link. Tax cheat Timothy Geithner is well represented; he earned it.

Personal Finance News from Yahoo! Finance:

SEC Bars Madoff...Just in Time!

All hail the Securities and Exchange Commission, the newest inductee in the Fat-Lot-of-Good-That-Does-Us Hall of Fame.

A mere nine years after SEC staffers started getting hit over the head with red flags about Bernard Madoff's fishy finances, the commission finally got around to taking decisive action: In mid-June, the commission barred the Ponzi-schemer from the securities business.

Of course, this investor protection came only after Madoff stole more than $13 billion, pleaded guilty to multiple felonies and went to jail. With regulators like that, who needs regulators?

The image: Bonnie and Clyde have more direct methods now.

A slugger for Minnesota

2009-07-02T07:56:00.001-07:00

Minnesota gets what they want. They want a buffoon and elected him. They want a man who cannot control himself? In a disagreement with Laura Ingraham's producer at a national party convention in 2004 Al Franken slugged the producer. It wasn't a fight, just a slug by an uncontrolled person. He can't control himself.

The talk radio hosts, despite differences of opinion, elected him Talker of the Year a year or two ago for his show on that bankrupt liberal radio network. He got up at the banquet and spewed poison at them to show his thanks. He may have been in control, but full of hatred.

Minnesota, you want him. Hatred. Out of control. OK, you have him.

Watch out, US Senate, now he is coming at you. Treat him with the respect he deserves and practice how to protect your body against physical attack.

Speak for yourself Congressman Reichert

2009-06-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

If Rep. Reichert did the right thing voting for the ridiculous Cap and Tax bill Friday, why won't he explain his vote?

Kirby Wilbur's show got calls from two leaders of the Republicans in Congress offering to explain Reichert's vote. Why can't Reichert speak for himself?

The bill was 1200 pages and got a 300-page pack of amendments at 3 am the day of the vote. Did Reichert read the bill? Did Reichert read the amendments?

00240203650: Reichert sent Rep. Pence (I think) to speak for him on David Boze's radio show on KTTH Tuesday. Rep. Pence basically said Reichert is a fool. He said Reichert was hoping the sponsors would put what he wanted in the bill. So he voted for it? Fool. You hold your vote until they put your pork in the bill.

Maybe Reichert should speak for himself.

See also Michelle Malkin on the GOP cap and tax eight.

Access-to-care problems are resurfacing in Mass.

2009-06-28T23:27:00.000-07:00

There is no free lunch. Massachusetts required health care insurance. Easy. Costs the state nothing.

Didn't make things better.

AMNews: June 29, 2009. Access-to-care problems are resurfacing in Mass. ... American Medical News:

Massachusetts' Commonwealth Connector health reforms have reduced the state's uninsured population to less than 3% of residents, the lowest among all states. But a recent survey found an uptick last fall in adults reporting difficulty accessing certain types of care.

The outcome of the Massachusetts health system reforms has national implications. Democrats in Congress have offered or are drafting health reform bills based on many of the state-adopted principles, including a health insurance exchange, subsidized private health insurance for low-and moderate-income residents, a requirement for individuals to have health insurance, and a mandate for employers to offer health insurance to their employees or else contribute to a health care fund.

...

But not all care access gains have held, the report found. The percentage of non-elderly adults who reported that they did not get needed care from specialists in the last 12 months dipped from 7.1% in fall 2006 to 4% in fall 2007, but then bounced back up to 7% in fall 2008. The survey revealed less significant but similar trends for those having access problems for physician care, medical tests and follow-up care.

The recent uptick in access issues may be due to increased demand for follow-up care from the newly insured that is not being matched by available doctors, according to the article's authors. Most of those surveyed who reported problems said they were told by physicians they were not accepting new patients or patients with their type of coverage.

Some initial gains in affordability also appear to have eroded. Lower-income residents and those with public coverage reported more access difficulties than higher-income people, which may be due to lower payment rates or the more limited physician networks of the four health plans serving Medicaid enrollees, the authors wrote.

The state's reforms also have not produced a decrease in emergency department visits for non-emergency conditions, the article found. Of all the non-elderly adults in the state who said in fall 2008 that they had visited an ED in the last year, the percentage who said the visit was for a condition that could have been treated in a physician's office was just over 15%, roughly the same as in 2006.

ED usage can be reduced over time, said Georgia Maheras, private markets policy manager for the patient advocacy organization Health Care For All. "Suddenly giving someone that piece of plastic isn't going to change their behavior right away."

Hardly noticed the Tea Party rally in Olympia - just Time Eyman

2009-06-28T21:41:00.000-07:00

The Seattle Times couldn't avoid mentioning "an anti-tax rally" in its short hit piece on Tim Eyman's appearance Saturday at the Tea Party in Olympia. I call it a hit piece because two words "Professional activist" are intended to delegitimize him.

The way his Initiative 1033 lowers property taxes is novel. This isn't just a limit on the growth in property taxes. That, after many trials, is in place with Initiative 747 and stays. When state state revenue grows for whatever reason above the limit the next year the state portion of your property taxes will be lower. Lower for just that one year, but LOWER!

The Seattle Times doesn't want you to go to the Initiative 1033 web site and gather signatures. And read Liberty Belle's description of the event.

Local News | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Professional activist Tim Eyman spoke to a crowd of several hundred people at an anti-tax rally at Olympia and said he still needs the requisite signatures in a petition drive to put Initiative 1033 on the ballot.

Eyman is sponsor of Initiative 1033, which would reduce property taxes by limiting the growth of certain state, county and city revenue to annual inflation and population growth excluding voter-approved revenue increases.

Eyman said as of last Monday, supporters of the initiative had 270,055 signatures about 20,000 short of the 292,000 valid signatures required to put it on the ballot in November.

The deadline for collecting signatures is July 3.

Eyman said other TEA Party rallies this year have been instrumental in collecting signatures for the petition. TEA stands for Taxed Enough Already

O'Grady: Honduras Defends Its Democracy - WSJ.com

2009-06-28T21:38:00.001-07:00

The removal of the president of Honduras was not a military overthrow, as many are saying. It was the military carrying out an order by the Supreme Court, because President Zelaya had violated his constitutional duties.

Mary Anastasias O'Grady - WSJ.com:
... That Mr. Zelaya acted as if he were above the law, there is no doubt. While Honduran law allows for a constitutional rewrite, the power to open that door does not lie with the president. A constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress.

But Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chávez ship him the necessary ballots from Venezuela. The Supreme Court ruled his referendum unconstitutional, and it instructed the military not to carry out the logistics of the vote as it normally would do.

The top military commander, Gen. Romeo Vásquez Velásquez, told the president that he would have to comply. Mr. Zelaya promptly fired him. The Supreme Court ordered him reinstated. Mr. Zelaya refused.

Calculating that some critical mass of Hondurans would take his side, the president decided he would run the referendum himself. So on Thursday he led a mob that broke into the military installation where the ballots from Venezuela were being stored and then had his supporters distribute them in defiance of the Supreme Court's order.

The attorney general had already made clear that the referendum was illegal, and he further announced that he would prosecute anyone involved in carrying it out. Yesterday, Mr. Zelaya was arrested by the military and is now in exile in Costa Rica.

It remains to be seen what Mr. Zelaya's next move will be. It's not surprising that chavistas throughout the region are claiming that he was victim of a military coup. They want to hide the fact that the military was acting on a court order to defend the rule of law and the constitution, and that the Congress asserted itself for that purpose, too.

Global warming watch - Missing at cherry festival: Michigan-grown cherries

2009-06-28T14:00:00.001-07:00

It's too cold in Michigan.

Has Algore been in northern Michigan - not upper, but the northern part of lower Michigan - this month? There is a long record of snow storms accompanying Albert Gore, Jr.'s, events. See Gore Effect.

The Detroit News:

Traverse City, Michigan -- One thing missing from this year's National Cherry Festival in Traverse City will be locally grown cherries.

Farmers say the area's cherry crop will still be on the trees during the festival, which runs Independence Day through July 11.

That leaves organizers, stores and markets with the need to import cherries from elsewhere.

Lingering cool weather slowed cherry growth in the northwestern Lower Peninsula.

Dennis Hoxsie grows sweet and tart cherries at his farm in Grand Traverse County's Acme Township and runs a farm market. He tells the Traverse City Record-Eagle it will be 1 1/2 to two weeks before his crop starts coming in, so he's bringing in cherries from southwestern Michigan.

Health tax to favor unions

2009-06-28T08:20:00.000-07:00

The Senate Democrats have a large tax increase planned to pay for their health-care takeover. They intend to hit "gold-plated" benefits. But not for their union friends. The difference is not according to the higher benefit. No. Just if you are in a union.

You say, "That's different." Yes, another pay back.

Senator Max Baucus has his defense ready. He claims he is just protecting legal contracts - union contracts. He just doesn't want his law to violate the laws that uphold those contracts. Nonsense. Obama has run all over legal contracts. He stole Chrysler from those who held its senior debt and gave it to the UAW union. If Baucus intends to uphold contracts he can first go and remove ownership from the UAW and restore those debt holders. He will do that first if he is serious. Not!

Bloomberg

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, the chief congressional advocate of taxing some employer-provided benefits to help pay for an overhaul of the U.S. health system, says any change should exempt perks secured in existing collective- bargaining agreements, which can be in place for as long as five years.

The exception, which could make the proposal more politically palatable to Democrats from heavily unionized states such as Michigan, is adding controversy to an already contentious debate. It would shield the 12.4 percent of American workers who belong to unions from being taxed while exposing some other middle-income workers to the levy.

"I can't think of any other aspect of the individual income tax that treats benefits of different people differently because of who they work for," said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington research group that often criticizes Democrats' economic proposals. Edwards said the carve-out "smacks of political favoritism."

Via American Thinker Blog: Union health plans may avoid special tax:

Also: Union workers would be exempt from Dem health care tax | Washington Examiner :

The American Principles Project :: Winning on Principle

2009-06-26T21:16:00.001-07:00

Professor Robert George of Princeton University is leading an effort to enable Americans to reaffirm the principles our country was founded on:

The American Principles Project

The United States of America does not need new principles. It needs renewed fidelity to the principles set forth in our Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. These are timeless principles: truths that we hold, in Jefferson's immortal words, to be, "self-evident." They are, moreover, universal principles, not the historically contingent beliefs or customs of a particular sect or clan or tribe. They are rooted in the nature of man as a being who, by virtue of his God-given dignity and rationality, owns the right to participate in the great project of self-government as a free and equal citizen. Whatever others may say, we at the American Principles Project and all who join with us reaffirm the truth

that each and every member of the human family is, "created equal, endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

If these timeless principles are to be restored and our national commitment to them renewed, then a new voice is needed in American politics, a voice that is unafraid to stand up for what is right and speak out against what is wrong. Indeed, that "voice" must be nothing less than millions of American voices raised in unison in defense of political liberty and economic freedom, the sanctity of human life and the integrity of marriage and the family, and the sovereignty and security of our nation.

That "voice" must be an informed voice. We must speak from an ever deeper understanding and appreciation of the blessings of freedom and the moral and political responsibilities that freedom entails. The American Principles Project has been created to help every citizen who truly wishes to be part of what our founding fathers called this great, "experiment in ordered liberty," to be an informed citizen, and thus someone empowered to make a difference.

Are we conservatives? You bet we are, if by a "conservative" one means a believer in the rule of law, democracy, limited government and respect for civil liberties, private property and the free market, equality of opportunity, the sanctity of human life, the protection of marriage and the family, and the defense of our nation's sovereignty and security. For us, these convictions are not platitudes. We are convinced that the renewal of our nation and the flourishing of our people vitally depend on making these historic ideals and commitments once again operative in the laws and policies by which we govern ourselves.

Our ancestors came from Europe, Africa, Asia, Latin America . . . and from all over the globe. We practice many different religions. But we are united as Americans in our commitment to the wisdom and goodness of the principles upon which the United States of America was founded and in our willingness to act on these principles and defend them in the public square. We believe that the way forward, economically, politically, and morally, is to rededicate ourselves to those timeless self-evident truths.

Go to their web site and join in.

Kona councilman tells Obama: Send Guantanamo detainees to us

2009-06-25T19:28:00.001-07:00

Go to Kona and play with the Guantanamo Bay criminals. You can help their healing and forgiveness. OK, it's risky. They were captured as illegal combatants.

Did Kona accept Japanese soldiers during World War II so they could forgive them? It's the Aloha spirit, after all.
I have made three week-long trips to the Big Island of Hawaii, plus two day trips. I don't want to play with men captured in battles against US servicemen. Do you?

The Honolulu Advertiser:

North Kona Councilman Kelly Greenwell recently sent a letter to President Barack Obama, asking the Hawaii-born commander-in-chief to consider sending prisoners to be released from the prison at the naval base at Guantanamo Bay to the Big Island.

The idea isn't to incarcerate the prisoners here, the councilman said, but to release them and begin a process of healing and forgiveness.

"We have forgiven the people who bombed Pearl Harbor," Greenwell said, adding that Americans also forgave Germans after World War II. "I think if we want to be known as a place of love and aloha, this is a place to express it."

In a letter to Mayor Billy Kenoi, explaining his proposal, Greenwell admits that the idea "may sound insane."

But, the councilman continued, collaboration with the president could reap the mayor big benefits.

"It places you in the position of helping our president out of a critical predicament, and it wouldn't hurt if you were his best friend," Greenwell wrote.

The councilman described the result as "a new stew," a place where various cultures can meet and learn to get along.

Further, Greenwell said, the detainees at Guantanamo are "no more than suspects."

He acknowledged that some Americans might be unhappy with his offer to accept the detainees, but said that he anticipated negative reactions to be only about 10 percent of the total responses.

Where do I register my complaint against this fool, Kelly Greenwell.

Tilting at Green Windmills

2009-06-25T07:43:00.001-07:00

RealClearPolitics - George Will
The Spanish professor is puzzled. Why, Gabriel Calzada wonders, is the U.S. president recommending that America emulate the Spanish model for creating "green jobs" in "alternative energy" even though Spain's unemployment rate is 18.1 percent -- more than double the European Union average -- partly because of spending on such jobs?

Calzada, 36, an economics professor at Universidad Rey Juan Carlos, has produced a report which, if true, is inconvenient for the Obama administration's green agenda, and for some budget assumptions that are dependent upon it.

Calzada says Spain's torrential spending -- no other nation has so aggressively supported production of electricity from renewable sources -- on wind farms and other forms of alternative energy has indeed created jobs. But Calzada's report concludes that they often are temporary and have received $752,000 to $800,000 each in subsidies -- wind industry jobs cost even more, $1.4 million each. And each new job entails the loss of 2.2 other jobs that are either lost or not created in other industries because of the political allocation -- sub-optimum in terms of economic efficiency -- of capital.

Cap and Trade bill is based on new CCSP Report that reverses what sources say

2009-06-24T07:50:00.001-07:00

The US Congress's big rush to pass Cap and Trade legislation HR 2454 this week is based on a foundation of sand. Roger Peilke, Jr. shows how one of the foundation reports from Climate Change Science Program (CCSP) misuses research including his own, even to the point of reversing what he found.

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: [quote]

Imagine if an industry-funded government contractor had a hand in writing a major federal report on climate change. And imagine if that person used his position to misrepresent the science, to cite his own non-peer reviewed work, and to ignore relevant work in the peer-reviewed literature. There would be an outrage, surely . . .

The Obama Administration has re-released a report (PDF) first issued in draft form by the Bush Administration last July ...

Here is the relevant paragraph of the CCSP report, found on p. 105:

Sentence #1:

While economic and demographic factors have no doubt contributed to observed increases in losses,346 these factors do not fully explain the upward trend in costs or numbers of events.344,347

Reference 346 is to a paper I co-authored:

Pielke, Jr., R. A., Gratz, J., Landsea, C. W., Collins, D., Saunders, M., and Musulin, R., 2008. Normalized Hurricane Damages in the United States: 1900-2005. Natural Hazards Review, Volume 9, Issue 1, pp. 29-42. (PDF)

In that paper we did indeed conclude that economic and demographic factors have contributed to losses related to hurricanes. In fact, we concluded that these factors accounted for all of the increase in hurricane losses over the period of record:

The lack of trend in twentieth century normalized hurricane losses is consistent with what one would expect to find given the lack of trends in hurricane frequency or intensity at landfall.

The CCSP report however, says the opposite, that these factors do not explain the upward trend in costs or numbers of events. To support this claim they provide two citations. Lets consider each in turn, first #344:

Mills, E., 2005: Insurance in a climate of change. Science, 309(5737), 1040-1044.

If you go to Mills, and I have, you will find that it is a commentary that does not offer any new research. ...

But more problematically, why is a report characterized by Science Advisor John Holdren as being the "most up-to-date, authoritative, and comprehensive" analysis relying on a secondary, non-peer source citing another non-peer reviewed source from 2000 to support a claim that a large amount of uncited and more recent peer reviewed literature says the opposite about?
[end quote]

Via TierneyLab at New York Times

Illegal Arab settlements in Jerusalem. Yes, Arab

2009-06-24T07:39:00.001-07:00

Frontpage Magazine

Freedman had just returned from one of her frequent trips to Israel. This time, what amazed her most were “all the illegal Arab settlements” which had grown exponentially “all over Jerusalem.”

Illegal Arab settlements?

This information is well documented in journalist Aaron Klein’s important new book: The Late, Great State of Israel. How Enemies Within and Without Threaten The Jewish Nation’s Survival. Klein’s book illuminates, infuriates, saddens, and cries out to both heaven and humanity.
According to Klein, he chose his book’s shocking title “with a heavy heart,” in order to “awaken people to this very real possibility,” to “prod the world into pondering the unthinkable; and to shed light on the scope of the calamitous threats facing the Jewish state.”

... According to Klein, who has been WorldNetDaily’s Jerusalem bureau chief for four years: The city of Jerusalem, like so many European cities, now has its own “no go” areas. “Israeli police units stay off the streets” of certain “densely populated Arab neighborhoods” which, in effect, constitute a “significant terrorist apparatus (which is) now based in eastern Jerusalem. The clear aim is to keep up a steady stream of attacks on western Jerusalem neighborhoods in order to pressure Israel into ceding eastern Jerusalem.”

Over the years, Israelis have allowed more than “100,000 Palestinian Arabs to occupy tens of thousands of illegally constructed housing units in eastern and northern Jerusalem.” Criminals, mercenaries, soldiers dressed as civilians, human bombs and their terrorist handlers, may all live among them. This other illegal occupation or settlement activity began long after 1967, when Israel won a third war of self-defense launched against it by the major Arab powers. These Palestinian Arab immigrants were not living in these places before 1948 or before 1967. Indeed, Klein documents that under Jordanian rule, one of these Jerusalem neighborhoods, Shoafat, was actually a forest.

These crowded Palestinian Arab housing complexes, schools, villas, palaces, (my friend Helen Freedman just saw a Saudi-built Polo Club! somewhere nearby), are now filled with weapons and fighters. Worse still: According to Klein, these Palestinian Arabs have built their illegal settlements on land owned by the Jewish National Fund, (JNF), which was entrusted to buy land for Jews in the Holy Land.

NYT/CBS Stuffs Pro-Obamacare Poll With Obama Voters

2009-06-22T07:26:00.001-07:00

Surprise! A NY Times/CBS poll finds increased support for Obama's takeover of the US medical care system when everyone else finds it to be dropping. Politico - Fox News How did they find that?

NewsBusters.org: [quote]

Realizing that Barack Obama's healthcare initiative has hit some roadblocks in Congress, the good folks at CBS News and the New York Times figured they'd help it along by creating a new poll on the subject that WAY oversampled people who voted for Obama.

Although the then-junior senator from Illinois received 53 percent of the votes last November, NYT/CBS surveyed almost twice as many Obama voters as McCain voters.

Before we get to the hilarious inner-workings of this truly disgraceful deception, here's how the Times reported its rigged findings Saturday.

Americans overwhelmingly support substantial changes to the health care system and are strongly behind one of the most contentious proposals Congress is considering, a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

The poll found that most Americans would be willing to pay higher taxes so everyone could have health insurance and that they said the government could do a better job of holding down health-care costs than the private sector.

Actually, as Bruce Kesler cleverly discovered, what the poll really found was that most Obama voters support substantial changes to healthcare and are willing to pay higher taxes for a government run system:

[A]ccording to the actual poll data, of the 73% of respondents who said they voted in 2008 only 34% voted for McCain and 66% for Obama.

As can be plainly seen on page 7 of the poll's data, only 73 percent of respondents divulged who they voted for last November. 48 percent said Obama, 25 percent McCain.

What this means is this poll surveyed 66 percent Obama supporters versus 34 percent McCain.

As the final tally last year was 53 percent to 46 percent, this poll WAY oversampled Obama voters.

And you wonder why the survey found so much support for Obamacare?

Honestly, stuff like this should be illegal and any news organization found doing it should be significantly fined.

In any industry you could name, such deception of the public would meet with very serious consequences.

Why are so-called news outlets allowed to get away with such obvious deceit with total impunity? [end quote]

American Thinker Blog

Projection: It'll be years before jobs return to much of U.S.

2009-06-20T08:25:00.001-07:00

While signs indicate that the worst of the recession may be over, only six metropolitan areas across the country are expected to regain their pre-recession employment levels by the end of 2009, according to projections from IHS Global Insight, a leading economic forecaster.

McClatchy newspapers:

The areas poised for a jobs rebound later this year are: Anchorage, Alaska; Champaign-Urbana, Ill.; Coeur d'Alene, Idaho; Columbia, Mo.; Laredo, Texas; and the Houma-Bayou Cane-Thibodaux areas of Louisiana.

Only five areas are expected to see a similar jobs recovery in 2010: Las Cruces, N.M. and El Paso, San Antonio and the McAllen-Edinburg-Pharr and Austin-Round Rock areas of Texas.

Most of the country — 286 of 325 metro areas covered in the IHS analysis_ aren't likely to regain their pre-recession employment levels until at least 2012.

Of these areas, 112 probably won't return to their recent peaks until 2014 or later. These include Rust Belt towns such as Cleveland, Dayton and Akron, Ohio; Detroit, Warren and Flint, Mich.; the hurricane-ravaged Gulfport-Biloxi, Miss., area and the greater Los Angeles region, where the housing bubble and high unemployment have strangled the local economy.

Rush Limbaugh points out that the slow recovering areas are the Democrat strongholds. The map should make them dark blue.

The Sacramento Bee has an interactive map and database for deeper exploration.

State Senator says state income tax is inevitable

2009-06-20T06:56:00.000-07:00

Their memories are very short. We stood up at tea parties in April to protest high taxes. Then the Legislature did not increase any broad tax the same month. They listened! But now two months later they are again pushing an income tax.

"It's inevitable, so just accept it. Stop your tea party protests."

Get ready for a Washington state income tax, sooner or later | Seattle Times Newspaper:

Like it or not, before long, Washington state will have a state income tax.

It's not going to happen next year, and probably not in the next decade. But it is inevitable, because our state will steadily become unable to function without a structural change in the way we generate revenue.

Our current tax structure was developed more than a century ago for an economy based on agriculture, manufacturing and local commerce. It was appropriate then and for many decades afterward, but over time it has become less and less appropriate — and adequate — for the needs of our modern economy.

Inevitable? Our Constitution must be changed to allow an income tax and that requires a vote of the people.

She says Anti-tax-increase people are stuck in the 19th Century. They just can't accept the realities of the modern day. That's how their spokesperson Senator (she earned it) Rosa Franklin builds her case.

How has the income tax worked for California? California has a state income tax, sales tax, property taxes and every other tax known and it's way short of revenue, according to the powerful in Sacramento.

Hat tip: EFF WA.

Will Algore rescue his employees?

2009-06-19T06:51:00.000-07:00

Ross Perot had employees kidnapped in revolutionary Iran in 1979. He went to Iran and rescued them. Algore, Nobel Laureate Albert Gore, Jr., where are you?

Townhall

I’ve clipped and accumulated about a hundred news articles, decreasing in size and moving further back in the pages week to week, about the first political hostages of the Obama administration, the two reporters who work for Al Gore’s TV network. They were captured, held hostage, fake-tried and sentenced to 12 years in a labor camp in North Korea.

I’ve also taken notes on the TV news coverage. At first, mention was routinely made that they were “employees of Current-TV, the company created and owned by Al Gore.” That fact has been mentioned less and less frequently. Even an item in the June 11 Wall Street Journal referred to them as employees of the San Francisco-based Current TV, omitting mention of Nobel Prize Winner, leading hero of the Left, all around good guy and humanitarian, conscience of America, internationally beloved and respected but, for the moment, silent and invisible Mr. Gore.

Given that two of the journalists in his employee have been snatched and held hostage, kangaroo court-convicted and are now beginning their term of enslavement, torture, and use as negotiating pawns by North Korea, shouldn’t we and the entire world be seeing at least as much of The Great Gore as when he was running around promoting his movie or preening about his award?

Hike, ride and play on the Mountains to Sound Greenway

2009-06-18T18:39:00.000-07:00

The Greenway is a continuous band of land preserved for hiking, riding and just enjoying from Puget Sound to and across the Cascade Mountains. It comprises parks and trails and land that is preserved, but not in use by the public.

This weekend is their annual kick-off event on June 20th & 21.

Take a hike, find a hidden cache, ride your bike or take the Greenway Challenge by visiting a number of the many wonderful sites in the Greenway.

The Kick-Off to Your Greenway Summer! With more than 25 events in over 10 communities, there is something for everyone during Greenway Days.

6th Annual Greenway Days - Mountains To Sound Greenway

-----

Hikers, see also the Seattle PI hikes directory. It's not easy to use, but there is a lot there.

Small-government events coming

2009-06-18T07:04:00.000-07:00

Continue the momentum of the tea parties in April. Our biggest concerns are, first, the growth of government control of our economy - of every aspect of life - in higher taxes, higher spending and just plain control.

Media's mask slips as deficits surge - IBD

Second, specifically the takeover of health care. They now say they don't want single-payer health care. But they are trying to hide because the light is on them. They have been saying for years they want it. The bills they are putting together now are the steps toward government control of your health care.

Health care is not that complicated - American Thinker

The intent of the tea parties is to get people energized. To see you are not alone; there are thousands of us. To get people connected. Here are some upcoming events:

Sat. June 27 - 10 am - Tea Party - Olympia at Heritage Park

Contact: olympiateaparty@gmail.com

Fri. July 3 Tea Parties at Monroe and Prosser

Sat. July 4 Tea Parties at Seattle Olympia, Bellevue/Mercer Island, Bellingham, Tri-Cities, Clarkston

See Teapartywa.org

Fri. July 17 - Rally in front of the district offices of our senators and congressmen. I don't have a link now.

Hat tip: Kirby Wilbur

A Fast One On our Best Ally

2009-06-16T08:02:00.000-07:00

How long will it take the US to clean up the mess President 0 is making?

IBD

Diplomacy: Should the U.S. scrap its special relationship with the U.K. to fulfill an ill-considered campaign vow? That's the trade-off the Obama administration made by secretly foisting terrorists onto Bermuda. It's wrong.

The British Foreign Office had a right to be angry at the U.S. transfer of four Uighur terrorists from Guantanamo detention to the U.K. colony of Bermuda without its knowledge.
After all, Britain is a sovereign state and, like any nation, has a right to know who's on its territory. Instead, it got treated like some banana republic. It didn't learn of the move until after the four Gitmo detainees were set to land on the island.
Britain is our top ally, having a long-term "special relationship" that has been carefully built over 200 years. Seen in this context, the U.S. move is unprecedented and will likely cost the U.S. more than just Britain's trust.
Any nation pondering an alliance with the U.S. will think twice after seeing how the U.S. treats its best allies when it's in a pinch.
The root of this pickle is the Obama administration's ill-considered campaign promise to shut down Guantanamo detention camp, in a bid to win far-left voters unconcerned about terrorism.
If not for that promise, there'd be no such pickle. The president could make an honest reassessment of the promise in light of the absent alternatives but hasn't.
Instead, he's now strong-arming an ally against its own interests, something sure to create resentment.

Zimbabwe land grab by US-citizen MD

2009-06-13T20:42:00.000-07:00

The corruption gets deeper in Zimbabwe. A high-income American citizen is stealing farms now.

Dr Erikana Chihombori has a family practice in Antioch, Tennessee. Murfreesboro, TN, also. Why does she need to take a productive farm out of production? Because all the friends and family of the powerful in Zimbabwe can.

Scotsman.com
A RICH niece of Zimbabwe's prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, currently on a three-week tour of western countries to beg for aid to kick-start his country's battered economy, has tried to take over a white-owned commercial farm by force.

Dr Erikana Chihombori, who owns a lucrative medical practice in the United States and has citizenship there, tried to seize Bertie Cremer's 60-hectare flower farm near Chegutu, 60 miles east of Harare, but the young land invaders she hired withdrew after complaining they were being paid too little.

She insists she has letters from the Zimbabwean government permitting her to expropriate Mr Cremer's De Rus Farm, which has been owned by his family for 81 years. She also says she has a right to the land, and that her takeover will help "correct historical injustices".

The attempted land grab by Dr Chihombori, who was born in Zimbabwe, is potentially hugely damaging to Mr Tsvangirai and to his efforts to secure western aid, as he seems to be complicit, at least by association, in her attempt to take the property.

Yesterday, he met President Barack Obama in Washington to ask the US to help him and Zimbabwe without assisting powerful president Robert Mugabe.

Alaska-Canada natural-gas pipeline is a go

2009-06-13T07:17:00.000-07:00

Exxon Mobil's surprise decision to join Trans-Canada on a vast Alaska gas pipeline project is a big step toward making the U.S. self-sufficient in domestic energy. By defying naysayers, Governor Palin is now vindicated.

Investor's Business Daily

It must be sweet vindication for Alaska's governor. Against critics who said her 1,712-mile natural gas pipeline project would never get off the ground, who should the project bag but the "big gorilla" of American energy — Exxon Mobil.

In a major surprise, Exxon announced Thursday that it had forged a partnership with TransCanada, the Canadian pipeline company that holds the state license for Palin's $126 billion Alaska Gasoline Inducement Act project.
It's a big vote of confidence in Palin's top project from a by-the-books company known for its rigid investment standards.

"We evaluated all the options and it came down to our belief that this approach with TransCanada and Exxon Mobil was going to be the most successful project," said Marty Massey, U.S. joint interest manager of Exxon Mobil Production Co. He said Exxon might look at expanding its participation.

Rival oil firms had whispered to IBD that it would never happen. "It's gonna happen and we're very excited about this development," Palin told "Good Morning America" on Friday.

Doubters of Palin's pipeline plan were numerous.
Some said the pipeline would be too big to work, and that a rival BP/ConocoPhillips project, called Denali, would doom Palin's plan because Alaska didn't have enough natural gas for both.

Exxon's tilt toward TransCanada suggests the oil giant believes that's not true. Exxon is America's largest company, with extraction rights to a third of all Alaska's gas reserves. It can use them to fill either pipeline. "We will make a decision based on commercial reality," Massey said. "But . . . why would we put our money and not our gas in the pipeline?"

Obama administration officials who had nothing to do with this, like Energy Secretary Ken Salazar, rushed to claim credit too. What better vote of confidence could there be?

Other doubters had suggested the pipeline could never happen because of a global gas glut, making the pipeline uneconomical. But with the project slated for completion in 2018, and the need for natural gas expected to rise between 20% and 40% by 2030, it's precisely now that such a project should be built.

"I think it's very shortsighted" to assume that "market conditions are going to stay as they are today," Palin told CNN. In an interview with IBD last July when gasoline hit $4 at the pump, she noted that if drilling had started in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge just five years ago, when policymakers were dismissing the idea of $100-a-barrel oil, "we wouldn't be in our predicament today."
This is another in a series of successful steps to build the world's largest commercial construction project. For this, credit Palin. Despite the too-hip ridicule of comedians like David Letterman, she was the one who got the pipeline past Alaska's legislature, something governors had tried — and failed — to do for 30 years.

What's behind Obama's sudden attempt to fire the AmeriCorps inspector general?

2009-06-12T08:01:00.000-07:00

What does an honest politician do when an inspector general is finding dirt? He lauds him.

What does President 0 do when the inspector general for AmeriCorps is finding dirt? Obama fires him. Chicago machine politics is all he knows.

Washington Examiner :
Some strange and potentially suspicious events tonight concerning the Obama White House and the AmeriCorps program. I've been told that on Wednesday night the AmeriCorps inspector general, Gerald Walpin, received a call from the White House counsel's office telling him that he had one hour to either resign or be fired. The White House did not cite a reason. "The answer that was given was that it's just time to move on," one Senate source told me tonight. "The president would like to have someone else in that position."

Inspectors General are part of every federal department. They are given the responsibility of independently investigating allegations of waste, fraud, and corruption in the government, without fear of interference by political appointees or the White House. Last year Congress passed the Inspectors General Reform Act, which added new protections for IGs, including a measure requiring the president to give Congress 30 days prior notice before dismissing an IG. The president must also give Congress an explanation of why the action is needed. Then-Sen. Barack Obama was one of the co-sponsors of the Act.

Now, there is the hurried attempt to dismiss Walpin, without the required notice or cause. After last night's call, Walpin got in touch with Congress, and it appears the White House has backed off, at least for now. This afternoon, Republican Sen. Charles Grassley, who is something of a guardian angel for inspectors general, fired off a letter to the White House about the affair.

...

Outrageous Learning by Scott Oki

2009-06-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

Scott Oki was a top Microsoft VP in the early years. He left a millionaire and was able to get involved in education, including being a Regent at the University of Washington and more.

Oki combined his experience and knowledge in a book - Outrageous Learning. He is a fascinating guy; hear him/ meet him:

Tuesday June 16 - 5 pm to 7 pm

Four Seasons Hotel Seattle - 99 Union St. (at First Ave.)

Refreshments

By reservation

Washington Policy Center:

New Book by Scott Oki Offers Foundational Ideas for Truly Reforming Public Education

Washington Policy Center has released a new book by local philanthropist, entrepreneur, and education reformer Scott Oki. Outrageous Learning: An Education Manifesto describes the real problems facing schools today and offers 11 foundational thoughts for bringing constructive change to public education.

Outrageous Learning is intended to start an ongoing discussion of genuine education reform, and so in addition to the book, WPC has launched outrageouslearning.org. This interactive website provides a discussion forum for sharing ideas, asking questions, and continuing a broad conversation about improving public schools.

Update: Liv Finne of Washington Policy Institute recommends "Beware the Easy School Fix" by Jay Mathews in the Washington Post on Prof. William G. Ouchi of UCLA. His research on school leadership finds that when the principal controls the school resources he/she makes things different and better:

... they tend to make changes in staffing, curriculum and scheduling that sharply reduce TSL, the number of students each of their teachers is responsible for. Some urban districts have TSLs approaching 200 kids per teacher. But after principals get budgeting power, the load drops sharply, sometimes to as low as 80 kids per instructor. When that happens, the portion of students scoring "proficient" on state tests climbs. A group of New York schools had a surge of 11 percentage points after they reduced average TSL by 25 students per teacher.

I don't think they can have that control in this state. The central office has it. But in other states it's been tried and tested and found to work.