Economic Freedom

Cast Anchor

2010-01-30T12:21:00.000-08:00

Two very Interesting days touring Ushuaia. Great mtns all around. Went to historic ranch on Beagle channel and to national park. Some rain. Snow two of three days. Will come again.

Now on our luxury ship Corinthian II. We sail into Beagle channel then south soon. Very little posting expected.

Buenos Aires to Fin del Mundo

2010-01-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

We joined our tour group by moving to a top luxury hotel. Emprador was nice but Palacio Duhau is well above it. And in one of the best neighborhoods. The city tour sampled the neighborhoods. La Boca has houses in a variety of strong colors. The Recoleta cemetary has hundreds of ornate crypts I guess. Small buildings with underground entry burial places. Several interesting styles and ornate

Today we flew to the south tip of So America to Ushuaia. Like SE Alaska. Rainey. Steep streets and lack of la d to build on. The ship we were to go on was damaged so Travel Dynamics added two days at their expense - room, meals and tours. Today fles and just walked the town. Different, but lots of tourist shops.

A tour tomorrow. Another Sat. Then on the ship. It's not easy to type and to correct on the IPhone.

Hola! Buenos Aires

2010-01-26T06:56:00.000-08:00

A great city. We - four of our family - Are here on our way to Antarctica. Three days now and one at the end. We are in a luxury hotel near many of the top sites.

Many cafes have free wifi but not this hotel. I am using At&t data roaming on my iPhone.

Hasta ...My Spanish is very weak. Hey... They use different words than the Latin Am Spanish Rosetta Stone teaches - gaseosas vs refresco for soda pop.

Update. I bought hand-made leather shoes for $35. We had dinner for four with six kinds of meat with wine, grilled veggies, salad and aperitif for $100 including service. OTOH In our hotel anything but dinner is very expensive.

Sweet new Mac

2010-01-20T14:35:00.000-08:00

Following the sudden death of my Mac in the Pacific Ocean, I set off Monday morning for a quick post mortem, knowing it would end with a purchase.

I was going to buy another MacBook. After two years they are a little more capable - especially the track pad - and a bit cheaper for more memory. My external backup hard drive uses the firewire interface and - surprise - the MacBook is less capable there; no longer offered. So - throw me into the briar patch - I had to buy a MacBook Pro. It's very nice and only $200 more. It's aluminum instead of plastic, like my PowerBook G4 of the past, has backlit keyboard, firewire 800, and probably better graphics processor. The display looks great. Sweet.

But firewire 800 has a big disadvantage versus 400. FW 400 uses a sturdy connector with a metal sheaf that clicks firmly in. FW 800 has a cheap plastic connector that comes out easily. Data can be lost if the hard drive becomes disconnected. Bad design decision.

---

I am frantically restoring my data from the Time Machine backup. It's strange because I have two administrator accounts that block each other from accessing their files. I am making slow progress. There must be a better way. I am even reading about the whole area of accounts and file permissions. Desperate, eh?

"Death" - not really - in Cabo

2010-01-17T08:54:00.000-08:00

Posting while in Cabo stopped suddenly. I had plenty of time and had found free internet for the price of a cup of espresso Americano. But my Mac tried to swim in the Pacific Ocean. Dead.

Monday I am off to buy another.

Two weeks of tropical sun was pretty nice. By the end I had enough of "sun by the pool." Actually I have never done that during our more than 20 trips to the tropics, except for the few trips I had to watch kids in the pool. I like long walks on a firm beach and I watch for whales while sitting in the shade. I will just have to adjust my activities. Learning Spanish did make it more interesting. I even used just a couple of words or a short phrase here and there - even our room number - in Spanish to keep up my practice.

President Obama violates campaign promise for transparent healthcare debate

2010-01-06T11:07:00.001-08:00

The health care revolution will not be televised despite what President Obama promised you two years ago.
We are supposed to understand that campaign promises are temporary - just to fool us to vote for him. But then Nancy Pelosi takes over.

President Obama falls short on campaign promise for transparent healthcare debate - NYPOST.com:

Obama has broken his campaign promises to make the health care debate a transparent process after saying he would do so on at least eight ocassions during his 2008 White House run.

Instead, Obama prodded House and Senate Democrats to get him a final health care bill as soon as possible -- encouraging them on Tuesday night to go behind closed doors and skip the usual public negotiations between the two chambers in the interest of speed.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Obama repeatedly told voters that the health care overhaul would take place in a public forum, most notably on C-SPAN, conservative bloggers pointed out today.

In a video montage posted on Breitbart.tv, Obama is seen promising voters -- on eight different occasions -- that the health care debate would be transparent.

For example, during a meeting with the editorial board of The San Francisco Chronicle on Jan. 20, 2008, Obama said, "These neogtiations will be on C-SPAN, and so the public will be part of the conversation and will see the choices that are being made."

In another clip, dated Nov. 14, 2008, Obama told voters that the process would be transparent.

"We will work on this process publicly. It'll be on C-SPAN. It'll be streaming on the Internet," he said.

This comes as Republicans seized on a Dec. 30 letter from the head of C-SPAN on Tuesday calling on congressional leaders to open the final talks to the public and cited Obama's campaign trail pledge to do just that.

But Democrats have reacted defensively to criticism that they are taking the most crucial stage of the debate behind closed doors, contending they've conducted a transparent process with hundreds of public meetings and legislation posted online.

Asked about that promise, Pelosi retorted, without elaboration, "There are a number of things he was for on the campaign trail."

See a video at the link above and more at Breitbart.tv.

TSA at SeaTac airport arrests blogger Yon for no reason

2010-01-06T10:53:00.001-08:00

Michael Yon has been providing excellent, independent journalism from Iraq and Afghanistan for the past several years. He doesn't work for anyone. He asks readers to donate to his support. His blog

Yon was questioned by the TSA at Sea-Tacoma International Airport. They asked him questions that have nothing to do with security and he didn't answer. Good for him. So they arrested him. Well, they say they didn't arrest him, They just handcuffed him and detained him. What's the difference?

Big Government:
Yon was returning to the United States from Hong Kong to visit family when TSA officials stopped him during a routine security checkpoint. “Officials asked me what was in my bag—nothing wrong with this question,” Yon said in an interview with BigGovernment.com. “I told them it was normal stuff, clothes and toothbrushes.”

At this point the TSA officials escorted Yon to a designated screening area where they examined the contents of his bag. “Then they asked me how much money I make,” Yon said. Yon suggested to the TSA officials that the question was inappropriate and unrelated to transportation security. The award-winning blogger noted another TSA officer approached Yon: “he asked who do I work for.” ”I did not answer the question which clearly was upsetting to the TSA officers.”
Yon was escorted to a room elsewhere in the airport where he said he remained silent during much of the questioning. According to Yon, “they handcuffed me for failing to cooperate. They said I was impeding their ability to do their job.”

Yon described the TSA officials as noticeably frustrated by his refusal to answer their questions: “I always assume everything is being recorded. I was trying to be professional.”

Yon continued, “They said I wasn’t under arrest, but I’m handcuffed. In any other country, that qualifies as an arrest.”

Ultimately Port Authority police released Yon; according to Yon, the police were “completely professional.”

This year's Darwin Award - double winner

2010-01-06T10:34:00.001-08:00

The Darwin Award is for a person who removes his genes from the future gene pool by stupidly killing himself. It should only apply to those of the child-bearing age. I don't know if they use that criterion.

Seattle Times Newspaper:
The winner for 2009 was a rare Double Darwin, says Wendy Northcutt of the Darwin Awards, and is awarded for a crime gone awry in Belgium.

On Sept. 26, a pair of would-be thieves hatched a plan to withdraw cash from an ATM machine by using dynamite.

"They overestimated the quantity of dynamite needed for the explosion," the citation notes dryly. "The blast demolished the building the bank was housed in."

Rescue workers rushed one bomb burglar to the hospital, where he died on arrival.

They assumed the second got away until finding his body in the rubble hours later.

No one else was in the building at the time of the blast.

Cabo!

2010-01-04T09:39:00.000-08:00

We came to Cabo San Lucas Saturday. Our second trip.

It's a beautiful place. But complex, being in Mexico. So you wither spend a lot of money or figure things out on your own. My recent study of Spanish is helping already us with resort staff and out on our own. Eating in a restaurant for the locals we got breakfast with table service for $10 including tip.

Top photo is the arch at the end of Baja California, which is less than a mile from our resort. Bottom is Playa Grande, our resort, at sunrise on the beach which is on the Pacific Ocean. <i>Click to enlarge.</i>

Russia in the last years of the czars

2010-01-01T13:09:00.001-08:00

Make an online visit to this stunning photographic portrait of early-20th Century Russia.

Denver Post: Color Photography from Russia in the Early 1900s

The photographs of Russian chemist and photographer, Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, show Russia on the eve of World War I and the coming of the revolution. From 1909-1912 and again in 1915, Prokudin-Gorskii travelled across the Russian Empire, documenting life, landscapes and the work of Russain people. His images were to be a photographic survey of the time. He travelled in a special train car transformed into a dark room to process his special process of creating color images, a technology that was in its infancy in the early 1900’s.

Prokudin-Gorskii left Russia in 1918, after the Russian Revolution had destroyed the Empire he spent years documenting. To learn more about the Prokudin-Gorskii, the process he used to create the color photographs, and see his collection, you can visit the Library of Congress, who purchased his glass negatives in 1948 after his death in 1944.

The photo is labeled "Dagestani types, Man and woman posed outdoors; between 1905 and 1915 Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii Collection." Click to enlarge.

The poorest defense of a poor performance

2010-01-01T08:49:00.001-08:00

David Broder wrote the lamest defense of a policy person I have ever seen today. Washington Post

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano went on at least three of the Sunday snoozers last week to proclaim "The system worked." It didn't. The traveling public saved the aircraft, not the thousands of well-paid, full-time civil servants she employs. Her system failed.

Video

The next day she was backtracking saying "My comments were taken out of context." No. Of course she moved the playing field. Monday she said that Sunday she was talking about the response after the attack - not preventing it.

Then she flipflopped: "the system didn't work."

Broder mentions her Sunday performance in passing. He doesn't look at how ridiculous her words were. But he went on to observe how cool she looked. She must have been up half the night; tired. But she looked good.

If you want cool in front of the television cameras instead of competent, you have it - 0bama and Janet Incompetano. But get used to attacks on our soil and successful ones followed by cool responses from politicians who take no responsibility for their own actions. And they will still blame President George W. Bush.

A mid-morning rainbow

2009-12-30T21:04:00.001-08:00

Rainbows always occur near sunrise or sunset, because the Sun has to be low. I have seen a spectacular circular rainbow while driving across the Bridge of the Gods in the Columbia River Gorge. The height of the bridge allowed the circle of the rainbow to continue all the way around

But I photographed this rainbow today after 10:30, a day when sunrise was just before 8 am. I don't think this is any sort of special atmospheric conditions; must be the limit of Sun height.

Click to see the photo full-size.

Rush Limbaugh Hospitalized In Honolulu

2009-12-30T20:34:00.001-08:00

Pray for Rush. This reports he was in serious condition when he went to the hospital.

KITV Honolulu:

Conservative radio talk host Rush Limbaugh was rushed to a Honolulu hospital on Wednesday afternoon with chest pains, sources told KITV.
Paramedics responded to the call at 2:41 p.m. at the Kahala Hotel and Resort.

Limbaugh suffered from chest pains, sources said. Paramedics treated him and took him to Queen's Medical Center in serious condition.
He will not be released on Wednesday night, sources said.

He was seen golfing at Waialae Country Club earlier this week. The country club is next to the Kahala Hotel and Resort.

Pay raises for the powerful when others are getting cut

2009-12-29T08:27:00.000-08:00

How can we get control of our state budget with its huge gap of revenue versus expenses? Expect another multi-billion dollar "stimulus" from The One like last spring? Not!

Union state workers will be getting pay increases next year, says The Olympian. Will anything in the budget be cut? Yes, but not where the unions have power. The Tacoma News Tribune says state workers are willing to share the pain, but their leaders won't allow them to.

But Christine Gregoire says it's not that the unions are too powerful, but, well ... she won't cross them.

The Capitol Report:

Austin Jenkins asked why not look at state workers: They’re the most expensive part of state government.

“When you do something that people believe to be illegal, you get sued,” she said, “so, if I unilaterally, in violation of contracts, take some of the actions that you just articulated, I am going to get sued,” she said.

He asked if that was a sign that state unions were too powerful. “This is not about power … we have people now that are doing critical work. You want me to let go of state patrol officers? I am not willing,” she said.

This law must have a name; it happens every budget cycle: When Gregoire has to save money by cutting something she puts what the public needs most, not at the bottom of the list, but at the top. Here, even more cynically, she accuses the questioner of making the proposal she brought up.

Tip: Evergreen Freedom Foundation

Double counting caused appearance of deficit reduction

2009-12-26T09:19:00.001-08:00

"This bill will strengthen Medicare and extend the life of the program."

- President Barack Obama, after the Senate health care bill secured 60 votes.

We never believed the claim that ObamaCare would result in reducing the federal deficit because it used a transparent trick: A ten-year horizon was used. During that ten years the tax increases and benefits cuts came early, but the benefit increases (if any) came later. Any ten-year period with all effects will cause a substantial deficit. So it was an illusion.

But the problem is worse. Health-care takeover proponents are double counting the savings from cutting my and your future Medicare benefits. To use them both within Medicare and elsewhere in the budget to "reduce the deficit." They say they are saving Medicare. But we can only spend those dollars once.

So which is it? Preserving some funding for Medicare to "strengthen Medicare" or funding to offset other expenses and reduce the deficit? Can't be both. The Congressional Budget Office explains.

CBO document dated 12/23/2009

The key point is that the savings to the HI trust fund under the PPACA would be received by the government only once, so they cannot be set aside to pay for future Medicare spending and, at the same time, pay for current spending on other parts of the legislation or on other programs. Trust fund accounting shows the magnitude of the savings within the trust fund, and those savings indeed improve the solvency of that fund; however, that accounting ignores the burden that would be faced by the rest of the government later in redeeming the bonds held by the trust fund. Unified budget accounting shows that the majority of the HI trust fund savings would be used to pay for other spending under the PPACA and would not enhance the ability of the government to redeem the bonds credited to the trust fund to pay for future Medicare benefits.
To describe the full amount of HI trust fund savings as both improving the government’s ability to pay future Medicare benefits and financing new spending outside of Medicare would essentially double-count a large share of those savings and thus overstate the improvement in the government’s fiscal position.

Megan McArdle aka Jane Galt at The Atlantic goes into further detail. And she shows that this double counting was not an isolated incident. It was repeated everywhere including by President Obama quoted above.

Senator Sessions says correcting this error would turn the claimed budget surplus into increased deficit of $300 billion.

Via: Say Anything Blog and American Spectator.

Future king gets street training

2009-12-24T19:40:00.001-08:00

Prince William, who is second in line for the thone of England, decided to go for pseudo heroism rather than the real thing. His brother went in the British Army and risked his life in a real war. William decided to prove something by sleeping in a sleeping bag under a cardboard box in the street.

Not real smart. He almost got run over by a midnight street sweeper.

CNN

Is the Nebraska favor constitutional?

2009-12-24T08:52:00.001-08:00

Senator Nelson traded his beliefs that we thought were strongly held - against abortion - to help his state of Nebraska with the new burdens of ObamaCare. His governor told him Obama would hurt Nebraska and he acted. Gregoire? Is she back from Copenhagen?

Attorney General McKenna is on the job; he is covering his area of responsibility - the law. It is legal/constitutional to put obvious favors for a few states - Mass., Louisiana, Nebraska - into a law?

A-G McKenna

“The arrangement that requires Washington state taxpayers, and those around the country, to permanently pay Nebraska’s additional Medicaid costs carries a price tag of untold millions,” McKenna said. “It raises key constitutional questions about whether residents of certain states should receive special privileges, based on the deal-making skills of their senators. I look forward to working with Attorney General Henry McMaster and other colleagues in researching the constitutionality of such a provision.”

HT: Orbusmax

ObamaCare claims to prevent future Congress from changing it

2009-12-23T07:24:00.001-08:00

Harry Reid gets more and more unbelievable. It's not enough to be ahead the game. He is illegally changing the rules.
Senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) pointed out some rather astounding language in the Senate health care bill during floor remarks tonight. First, he noted that there are a number of changes to Senate rules in the bill--and a 2/3 vote is required to change the rules. He pointed out that the Reid bill declares on page 1020 that the Independent Medicare Advisory Board cannot be repealed by future Congresses:

The Weekly Standard quoting Sen. DeMint:

... there's one provision that i found particularly troubling and it's under section c, titled "limitations on changes to this subsection" and i quote -- "it shall not be in order in the senate or the house of representatives to consider any bill, resolution, amendment, or conference report that would repeal or otherwise change this subsection."

This is not legislation. it's not law. this is a rule change. it's a pretty big deal. we will be passing a new law and at the same time creating a senate rule that makes it out of order to amend or even repeal the law.

I'm not even sure that it's constitutional, but if it is, it most certainly is a senate rule. i don't see why the majority party wouldn't put this in every bill. if you like your law, you most certainly would want it to have force for future senates.

I mean, we want to bind future congresses. this goes to the fundamental purpose of senate rules: to prevent a tyrannical majority from trampling the rights of the minority or of future co congresses.

His words seem reversed. We don't want to bind future congresses. Binding them allows the tyrannical majority to trample rights. Not allowing the binding allows reversing the kind of overreaching we are now seeing with the 60-vote Democrat margin.

Mom said "Drink coffee. It's good for you"

2009-12-21T20:29:00.001-08:00

I have always maintained drinking coffee is good for the health. I find about as much evidence supporting as counter evidence. In favor:

FuturePundit: Tea And Coffee Cut Type 2 Diabetes Risk:
Drinking more coffee (regular or decaffeinated) or tea appears to lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, according to an analysis of previous studies reported in the December 14/28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, JAMA (1).

Caught telling the truth

2009-12-20T13:48:00.000-08:00

Obama? Fulfill a campaign promise? Get real.

Barack Obama - Salon.com:

Every now and then, an insider inadvertently exposes the hideous rationalizations that run the American political grotesquerie. The best known of these statements are memorialized on TV as "gaffes." But the ones that never become famous tend to reveal the ugliest assumptions of all.

Case in point is the comment the pharmaceutical industry recently let fly in the Washington Post. The newspaper this week examined how the Obama administration crushed legislation that would have allowed Americans to purchase lower-priced FDA-approved medicines from abroad -- legislation that President Obama promised to support as a presidential candidate; legislation that would have reduced drug profiteering and saved the government and consumers $100 billion.

"It's about being a candidate as opposed to being president," said the drug industry's top lobbyist in defense of Obama's flip-flop.

In other words "don't expect a politician to fulfill the promises he makes and you are a fool if you expect him to."

Glad I have been to Chamonix, France

2009-12-20T08:16:00.000-08:00

We spent 3 or 4 days in Chamonix, France, in 1981 on our way to Tunisia, North Africa. It is spectacular!! Mont Blanc, the highest mountain in Europe (the western part). I previously had been to Grindelwald, Switzerland, which is one of the classics of Europe with the haunting north face of the Eiger and its neighbors.

Someone put together a stunning helicopter tour of the mountains above - on both sides of - Chamonix plus passing through the main valley. They did an incredible job. It runs with the Google Earth plug in for web browsers. I don't recall if it requires an installation, but you don't need Google Earth itself. It is very smooth and professional

The area of mountains is huge. At helicopter speed this tour takes - actually I haven't finished it yet. One feature doesn't work with my setup. There is a scrolling list of mountain features. You should be able to click on a name and jump there, but it doesn't work for me.

But it's great. It really gives a feel for flying over glacier valleys and mountain ridges and peaks, except for lack of sound synced with how hard the engine would be working and gravity, of course.

Aigilles de Chamonix

Governors decry cost of ObamaCare. Gregoire?

2009-12-18T08:55:00.001-08:00

Several governors who have studied the effects of Obama's takeover of health care found that it will hurt their states by forcing unfunded mandates on them. All of those we found statements from. Some of the them say "stop." Others say "fix it" and support this government takeover.

Nebraska's Governor Dave Heineman asks his Senator Ben Nelson to oppose it and join the filibuster.

"This bill increases taxes, cuts Medicare and is an unfunded expansion of Medicaid.

"In reviewing the current Senate bill, it appears that while the increased state costs for the initial three years of the Medicaid expansion would be covered, the program quickly becomes a substantial unfunded Medicaid mandate."

California's Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants it fixed, but the problems are large; California can't afford it.

"I will be clear on this particular proposal: if Congress thinks the Medicaid expansion is too expensive for the federal government, it is absolutely unaffordable for states. Proposals in the Senate envision passing on more than $8 billion in new costs to California annually – crowding out other priority or constitutionally required state spending and presenting a false choice for all of us. I cannot and will not support federal health care reform proposals that impose billions of dollars in new costs on California each year. "

Arizona's Janice Brewer says that when Congress requires increasing Arizona's AHCCCS (Medicaid) to 150% will be an unsustainable burden even if Congress funds the first five years.

Christine Gregoire has some things going on in health care. But no one has found a statement from her on ObamaCare. But of course she has been busy going to Copenhagen. She has her priorities.

Ramirez cartoon for today's issues

2009-12-16T20:04:00.001-08:00

Michael Ramirez at Townhall

Michael Medved at Townhall Thursday night

2009-12-16T18:08:00.000-08:00

Michael Medved will be discussing and signing his new book The 5 Big Lies About American Business.

Townhall - 8th Ave & Seneca St. (east side of I-5) - 7:30 PM Thursday - Tickets at the door $5.

Michael is the best at communicating our conservative principles. And he willingly engages those who disagree. It will be a very interesting evening.

See his website.

787 first landing

2009-12-15T14:51:00.001-08:00

I went to watch the first landing of the 787. I had long planned to watch the landing because starting in April I was working for Flight Test at Boeing Field. Of course I could take some time from work to watch with the benefit that I could wear my yellow vest and watch from the flight line. No longer being an employee I kept the same plan.

I had my doubts around noon when the online information said it would be over a 5-hour flight, therefore landing close to 4 pm. Then close to 1 pm I saw "30 minutes out from Boeing Field on approach from the north." I jumped in my van and drove down. When I got to the north end of Boeing Field there was some traffic confusion and people waiting and watching. I parked and got an espresso at a place where I could see the landing. Then I waited about 10 minutes.

Here came a large airplane approaching very low over the Georgetown neighborhood. And someone said "see the little chase plane with it." Sure enough, that was it. Routine, smooth landing at 1:33 pm. 3 hours, 6 minutes.