...an awful Healthcare package is coming to town!

What do you guys think of this supposed war?

I think it is a lot of hot air, and terrible atheist squads aren't bent upon ruining Christmas for everyone.

However, lots of idiots are doing some weird stuff.

So, what does the community think of this war?

Also, Merry Spendmas to everyone, happy shopping Saturday.

Source.

Tags: sarah palin

http://www.dailyexpress.co.uk/posts/view/146138


( My top five. )

This happens throughout the media, education, everywhere. Liberals set the rules of the discussion by choosing deceitful framing. That and other antics happen in this community constantly, too. While some of us know to look for it, the uninitiated won't unless we consistently point it out. I thought this article damn well put, at least as a starting point for awareness. It's something I think non-Liberals need to keep in mind at all times.
Emphasis is mine, partially for the patience impaired who want to skip to the meat. Too many obviously don't bother to read even the OP let alone the links before sounding off.

The War of Words — Why We’re Losing
"He who defines the rules controls the game. And we’re letting them define the rules.
Jobs. Health care. Economic justice. Working families. Income redistribution. Fairness.
Words mean things. Very specific things. We on the Right tend to forget that. By following the lead from the Left, we abdicate our arguments without even knowing it. By using their terms, and in so doing, tacitly allowing their outrageous assertions to stand unchallenged, we surrender ground – one step, one phrase, one election at a time."

"We are told the main issue on Americans’ minds in these perilous economic times, is ‘Jobs’. The main problem is putting people back to work, dontcha know. ‘Creating more jobs’. And of course, this is a classic example of the cart before the horse. It’s a tried-and-true ploy of the Collectivist to frame the problem as that which affects ‘the masses’ alongside the solution, which involves the central government. (The people need jobs! We’ve got to create more jobs!) As if…in a free republic the purpose of government is to provide each citizen with a job. As if…a job is merely this mystical anomaly that suddenly appears by fiat of a benevolent and elegant president. As if…the very economic policies of the new administration aren’t doing everything they can to retard the growth of the economy and hence hamper and defeat the expansion of the work force. As if…it’s not the stifling regulation, punitive taxation, and restriction of movement on business that prevents business from hiring new employees."

"But we on the Right surrender the argument every time we lead our point with, 'Jobs'. A job is a result of a need of a business to run effectively. A business needs people to carry out various functions. And…contrary to popular Leftist thinking…the purpose of a business is NOT providing people with jobs. The purpose of a business is to create profit for its owners and shareholders by providing goods and/or services. Job creation is a happy ancillary effect of a business as it grows."

"Too often, Leftist redistribution thieves, Race Merchant poverty pimps, Envoys-of-Envy class warriors, and their toadies — the mainstream media — paint Business as the bad guy. Sometimes their paint strokes are subtle…sometimes not. Corporations, big and small, and those who head them are depicted as nothing more than greedy, selfish, bastards out to ‘screw the little guy’. And we let them get away with this. We allow these ‘shades of lie’ to live in our national lexicon. And we do so by passively accepting…adopting…and eventually embracing their twisted phraseology. They distort our beloved English language…and we wave the white flag, content that anyone even talks to us, happy to be invited to the table."

"Before we can restore our nation to its original intent, we need to take back the argument. And that will take backbone – from all of us. Don’t let them frame the argument. Stand up for what you know is right!"

"They use innuendo and generalization as their major tools. I say kick them square in their syntax! Make them define their terms. (They are loath to do it.) Make them get specific; and if they won’t, dig your heels in and refuse to let the argument proceed until they do so."

"You on the Left are like the misguided farmer on the road with a broken-down horse. You’re kicking him to get up…while you bash him in the head with a hammer."

"And by the way, fellow Righties — to frame the argument over free-market vs. government controlled health care by calling it simply ‘Health Care’ is a losing gambit. [...] But…I hear it repeatedly from the Right…. 'We stand in opposition to Health Care. We oppose Health Care. We’ve got to stop Health Care from moving forward.' Yes, most of us on the Right know what you mean…but stop and think a minute how that sounds to the uninitiated. 'You oppose health care? You heartless morons!'

"It seems like a tedious, never-ending task…but make the Lefties do it; make them define and refine their terms. It’s obnoxious, but play dumb, as if you truly don’t know what they’re talking about. It’ll drive them nuts…but it will force them out of the clouds"

"It is my firm belief that if we bring the Left out of the generalized fog of euphemism, innuendo and non-specificity, and force them to clearly illuminate their positions…the voters will reject them."

Lying to themselves and others is a necessity for the Modern Liberal. Another common tactic I especially see here is for the Liberal to ask questions but provide no answers, thereby steering the conversation and putting others on the defensive. That even saves them the trouble of deceit. Why on earth this would be acceptable is beyond me. They chose to come here to conservatism. It was to change minds or possibly learn, or to harass. If it's the former they should provide their argument and be open to answering questions as necessary. When we tolerate any of this behavior, big or small, in and out of the community they gain the upper hand. Please pass this article around so more non-Liberals can start looking for and calling them on it.

This community has never really coordinated any political activism, which isn't really a bug, but it might be an interesting change of pace to request some help here.

My problem is drafting precise language. Sometimes, no matter how many valid signatures you can collect, an initiative can be thrown out if any ambiguity in meaning provides an excuse. A good example might be Ward Connerly's ballot initiatives calling for the end of affirmative action. (Here's an example of the language he uses)

( Read more... )

So here's the draft I have on my own:

( Read more... )

What say you?

Current Mood: cranky
Current Music: Nessun Dorma, Katherine Jenkins

What business does congress have telling the NCAA how they can go about determining their national champion?

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20091209/D9CFVTR01.html

"WASHINGTON (AP) - A House subcommittee approved legislation Wednesday aimed at forcing college football to switch to a playoff system to determine its national champion, over the objections of some lawmakers who said Congress has meatier targets to tackle.

The bill, which faces steep odds, would ban the promotion of a postseason NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision game as a national championship unless it results from a playoff."

Say what you will about the BCS, but this is just wrong. Could there be any greater example of "shiny object" legislation to distract from the real issues? I'm glad congress has taken it upon themselves to stop partisan bickering and come together to find a solution for this non-problem.

"ANOTHER White House Power Grab that Congress & America Don't See - The deliberate setup for the White House power grab is built into the each of the health care bills and, if they fail, little-known twin bills called “MedPAC Reform of 2009” are waiting in the wings. The bills, S.B. 1110 and H.R. 2718, craftily amend the Social Security Act and transfer the Medicare guideline and rule setting processes, from the legislative branch to the executive branch. These bills offer cover to one another in case one doesn’t pass the House or Senate, respectively. Remember, Democrats need to gain executive branch authority by amending the Social Security Act over Medicare regulations and physician fee schedules to transform the health care system in a single-payer, socialized system."

- http://biggovernment.com/2009/12/08/a-white-house-power-grab-that-congress-and-america-doesnt-see/

[ c/o http://o-2opine-o.livejournal.com/73826.html - links to http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=s111-1110 and http://www.opencongress.org/bill/111-h2718/text ]

New EU Report Finds Racism Prevalent Across Europe - For minority groups living in Europe, everyday pursuits like shopping or visiting the doctor are often soured by discrimination - report says EU racism is deeply entrenched - and, more worryingly still, often goes unreported [and thus not counted in official figures]

- http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/0,1518,666317,00.html

considerable anger over the White House's decision to cancel a series of events normally attended by the prizewinner - According to a poll published by the daily tabloid VG, 44% of Norwegians believe it was rude of Obama to cancel his scheduled lunch with King Harald, with only 34% saying they believe it was acceptable. - "Of all the things he is cancelling, I think the worst is cancelling the lunch with the king," said Siv Jensen, the leader of the largest party in opposition, the populist Progress party. "This is a central part of our government system. He should respect the monarchy," she told VG. - Peace activists opposed to the Afghanistan war are planning a 5,000-strong protest in Oslo.

- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/10/obama-norwegians-nobel-snub-harald

A nifty link on how Obama and the Demons, er, democratic congresscritters are aiming to make everyone's life that much more shoddy, via a personal mandate for health insurance. That's right, you can go to jail for tax evasion for refusing to purchase health insurance.

Land of the free, right?


http://volokh.com/2009/12/09/conspirators-at-heritage-today/

I want to post an excerpt from the TimesOnline review of the book Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone? by Frank Furedi dated back to the 2004. Past the thoughts on the book the reviewer discusses "intellectual" vs "educated" man. I think it's a very interesting reading.

The review itself is here

As an Englishman, I am bothered by the term “intellectual”, which came late to our language. Humane education was shaped in our country by Coleridge, Ruskin, Arnold and — in the political sphere — Macaulay, Gladstone and Disraeli, people who would have described themselves as educated men, but not as intellectuals. The intellectual is a synthesis of French bohemianism and Russian nihilism. Intellectuals have an inveterate tendency to be on the Left and to turn on dissenters with a venom that no educated person could comfortably endorse. Much of the decline that Furedi is describing in this book could be described in another way, as the gradual vanishing of the educated person as the goal of education, and its replacement by the intellectual instead. Intellectuals are critics of the established order; they are on the side of the victim, and against the bourgeois normality; they repudiate discipline, authority, family, tradition, and nothing gets up their nose so much as the calm forgiving acceptance of human imperfection. And, as we know from the cases of Marx, Lenin, Mao, Sartre, Pol Pot and a thousand more, they are dangerous.

Moreover, intellectuals value their oppositional and transgressive stance far more than they value truth, and have a vested interested in undermining the practices — such as rational argument, genuine scholarship and open-minded discussion — which have truth as their goal. They will seize on the relativist arguments — even if they are as shoddy as Foucault’s or as empty as Rorty’s — as they will seize on any kind of mumbo-jumbo that silences the critic and furthers their subversive aims. And when they take hold of institutions they form a “confederacy of dunces” whose first aim is to exclude anyone who thinks out of line.

That is why university departments in the humanities and social sciences are now such grim, bigoted places, and why Furedi, who must have one hell of a time in the University of Kent, still tries to claim the status of a left-wing intellectual, and to conceal as best he can the truth, that he is a genuinely educated (and transparently conservative) man.

Being from the right, and observing Mr. Obama, there are things that he's done that nobody can be for, and there are things that he's done that are for the right, things he said he wouldn't do. From the last election, I've observed that he is still restrained by forces that he accepted when he became president, and his rhetoric was in a manner naiive, promising things that were highly unlikely, and it would be inevitable that he would alienate his base in not just one issue, but many.

Also, being from the right, some of the things he's been pushing are astonishing from a conservative perspective; so when there are admitted leftists that astonishingly support these actions, it seems like a zombie-like following. But, then, this goes both ways, and right-minded people are as susceptible to the same accusations.

My Republican father wrote this and sent it to me this morning -- he's one of the few conservatives I respect, so I thought I'd pass it on to some people who might think along the same lines as him.

In 2005 every realtor believed that home prices would continue to go up. In 2000 then President Clinton predicted a 10 trillion budget surplus over the next ten years. In 1974 everyone believed that the world was just about of oil. In 2008 most Americans believed a young Chicago politicians campaign slogan of ‘Change’ would solve all of our problems.
In fact, Realtors helped create the housing meltdown by assuring potential buyers that real estate was the best investment for the future and when they decided to sell they would make a handsome profit. Most realtors actually believed this because, in the end, all that mattered was the commission check.
The budget surplus prediction was accepted because “expect the unexpected” just doesn’t work in Washington.
The oil shortage was partly OPEC testing it’s ability to influence world oil prices and partly the American policy of buying foreign oil and saving ours.
Today President Obama’s ‘Change’ looks like this:
Healthcare for everyone using money that does not exist
It would be cheaper just to expand Medicaid and build more public health clinics staffed with physician assistants and nurse practioners .
Create thousands of green jobs
Build massive wind and solar farms that produce electricity when the wind is blowing and the sun is shining at a cost of about 35 cents a KWH as apposed to 6 cents for existing power sources.
In fact, the only change we need is to rebuild our manufacturing base. Small businesses are not the backbone of our nation. They just employ the most people. Close down a large factory that does business nationwide and worldwide and watch how many small businesses disappear along with it.
Remember when we were a manufacturing based economy? Then we were a serviced based economy. And now we are a consumer based economy. The time will come when the ‘worldwide search for cheap labor’ will not be able to produce a product so inexpensively that the American consumer will be able to afford it.
We cannot compete with the world in labor costs but we can compete in transportation cost (it’s cheaper to ship a car to Chicago from Kansas City then from Seoul, South Korea, and in energy costs. If we can provide cheap, plentiful, and reliable electricity, and cheap transportation the factories will return.This nation needs to be not only energy independent but energy rich. Building a power production and distribution system that includes clean coal, gas, geothermal, hydroelectric, nuclear, wind, and solar will bring the factories back. This will not cost the government a dime. All they have to do is streamline the permit procedures and assure builders that once a project is approved the government will prevent any group from stopping the project. The added future benefit is more tax revenue which will then provide financing for a decent healthcare program.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/12/06/palins-father-she-left-ha_n_381724.html

Did Sarah Palin leave Hawaii because there were too many Asians? In the New Yorker review of "Going Rogue," Sam Tanenhaus writes that Palin's father suggested as much to the reporters who wrote "Sarah From Alaska." The account contradicts the former Alaska governor's own description of her reasons for leaving college in Hawaii after only one semester.

Palin, though notoriously ill-traveled outside the United States, did journey far to the first of the four colleges she attended, in Hawaii. She and a friend who went with her lasted only one semester. "Hawaii was a little too perfect," Palin writes. "Perpetual sunshine isn't necessarily conducive to serious academics for eighteen-year-old Alaska girls." Perhaps not. But Palin's father, Chuck Heath, gave a different account to Conroy and Walshe. According to him, the presence of so many Asians and Pacific Islanders made her uncomfortable: "They were a minority type thing and it wasn't glamorous, so she came home." In any case, Palin reports that she much preferred her last stop, the University of Idaho, "because it was much like Alaska yet still 'Outside.' "

The passage was first flagged by Issac Chotiner at The New Republic, who wondered why it hadn't gotten any media attention.

------------------------------------------

I don't think white liberals (in a general sense) really understand how insulting it is to minorities every time they feel like they need to protect them. Keep in mind the "race" of the large majority of the people on Huffington Post! A website like TownHall.com has a fairly diverse array of columnists (women, asians, blacks, jews, etc), yeah they are somehow the out of touch racists, meanwhile the Huffington Post columnists are mostly white.

Hi, first time poster here, so I guess I'll start off with a whopper.



Have any of you read Road to Serfdom?

I'm halfway through it right now, and I have to say that I'm impressed by the fact that he acknowledges that laissez-faire shouldn't be an end in itself, but the freedom of opportunity for all, and thus implying (or just stating outright) that the state needs to lay down the law to ensure competition and impartial fairness for all. I'm always surprised when I read that people like Reagan were influenced by Hayek, people really warp what he said.

You don't seem to hear cogent and even-handed arguments such as that purported by today's "liberals" or "conservatives".

RIP Classical Liberalism

This just came to my attention: the New Jersey ACLU successfully sued to have a prisoner's right to preach to fellow inmates restored.

I realise that prisoners aren't exactly personae gratae around here, and as in the last post in this series it may be the case that you disagree with the ACLU's position on this case. But the point remains that these are not things that an ACLU interested in destroying Christianity or America or whatever would pursue.

A decent (not exhaustive, by any means) archive up through about a year ago of cases in which the ACLU defended Christians' rights to practice their religion and free speech rights is available here.

In an episode of Cheers, Cliff is seated at the bar explaining the Buffalo theory of drinking beer to his buddy Norm...
"Well, you see Norm, it's like this. A herd of buffalo can only move as fast as the slowest buffalo. And when the herd is hunted, it's the slowest and weakest ones at the back that are killed first. This natural selection is good for the herd as a whole, because the general speed and health of the whole group keeps improving by the regular killing of the weakest members.
"In much the same way, the human brain can only operate as fast as the slowest brain cells. Now, as we know, excessive intake of alcohol kills brain cells. But naturally it attacks the slowest and weakest brain cells first.
"In this way, regular consumption of beer eliminates the weakest brain cells, making the brain a faster and more efficient machine. And that, Norm, is why you always feel smarter after a few beers."

I see another use for this analogy too. The health care debate:
It seems to me that most people who say they are for government-run health care are also believers in evolution, therefore, believers in Natural Selection.
Isn't it a bit hypocritical of them to want to take resources from the strongest of the heard so the weakest can survive longer? Given their beliefs in how we evolved and got to where we now are, I'd say anyone who believes the Natural Selection / Evolution theory would want no health care at all for anyone. That way, the weakest and sickest would not slow the natural evolutionary process...

It's the Christians and other religious folks who should be wanting health care since their beliefs do not stem from an evolutionary perspective, but rather a loving God who created everyone and sees everyone as valuable. Jesus taught that the weakest person is worth just as much to God as the strongest. He taught that the humble and meek would be the ones who win in the end...
Just a thought.

It seems to me everyone is all mixed up!

By JOHN FUND

Voters are increasingly worried about unemployment, but Democratic leaders in Congress remain obsessed with passing health- care reform. Senate Majority Whip Richard Durbin was asked recently if a health-care bill would pass the Senate by the end of this month. "It must," he said. "We have to finish it."
Still, many in the trenches are uneasy about the sprawling, complex bill they privately acknowledge has no bipartisan support, doesn't seriously tackle soaring costs and will increase insurance premiums. That may explain Majority Leader Harry Reid's haste—he has ordered a rare Sunday session this weekend to hurry up the debate. Public support for the bill averages only 39.2% backing in all polls compiled by Pollster.com.
But buried in the surveys is an explanation for the Democratic obsession to pass the bill: An overwhelming 76% of Democrats back it. "They believe the liberal base expects them to deliver and will punish them if they don't," says Democratic pollster Doug Schoen, who worked for Bill Clinton in the 1990s.
That fear is backed up by a new poll taken for the Daily Kos, the left-wing Web site: 81% of self-described Republicans say they are certain or likely to vote in 2010 compared to 65% of independent voters and only 56% of Democrats. "Democrats have simply not been given enough of a reason to come out and vote yet," writes liberal blogger David Dayen. "The left is waiting for that long-promised 'change' they can believe in."
Mr. Reid's own re-election troubles—he trails his two most likely GOP opponents by between six and 10 points—may be influencing his behavior. He needs his liberal base to turn out for him to have a chance to win. National Journal reports he included a public option in the bill in part because his staff felt he "could get the liberal left off his back for a while."
Other Democrats are in a similar bind. One Senate Democrat thinks the bill is bad policy. But last month that same senator joined with all of his fellow Democrats to bring the bill to the floor. The party leadership has made it clear that anyone who votes against health care will have a difficult time passing their own bills in the future.
So the Senate death march continues. Many Democrats have grave misgivings about making the bill a top priority given the economy. But in the age of bloodthirsty partisan bloggers they dare not be fully candid. They can only hope their march doesn't lead them right over the edge of a political cliff next November.
Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

After months of dithering, we finally have a policy involving a commitment of soldiers. Hopefully this isn't saddled with some idiotic, and steadfast, timetable.

This isn't anywhere like a surge 2.0 either.

http://generationamerica.org/?gclid=CLv54v3ktZ4CFQEhDQod-mSZmQ


( About them )

Could this be a viable competitor against AARP? AARP has backed Obamacare, was against privatizing 4% of SSI, they were against tax cuts as far back as Regan, most of its current leadership sent contributions to Obama's election campaign. Since they are not bipartisan, is it time for a conservative retirement advocacy group?

To everyone here, liberal, conservative, libertarian, socialist, heck, even communist (sorry no anarchists)...have a happy thanksgiving. Give thanks that in spite of all of our hatred during the year, we are all still civil folks not lobbing bombs at one another. That despite all of our misgivings, we still can lead a normal life.

Be thankful for all that you have, take account of it, and enjoy a grand feast everybody.

"We will restore science to its rightful place, and wield technology's wonders to raise health care's quality and lower its cost,"

- President Barak Obama

Let us examine how he has remained true to these powerful words.

· Lifted the ban on embryonic stem cells research.

o Embryonic stem cells injected into patients can cause disabling if not deadly tumors.

o All successes of stem cell research have been from Adult Stem Cell research

- inal Cord Injuries, Heart Tissue Regeneration, Corneal Reconstruction, Parkinson's Disease, the list goes on.

· Bureau of Labor Statistics has been usurped by www.recovery.gov

o Recovery.gov has s no scientific value.

o BLS has shown job loss whereas recovery.gov shows jobs ‘saved’

o In superstitious fashion, the public is to ignore what statistics say, and trust instead in the Obama administration’s hypotheses

· Hard sell on Global Warming

o If you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued.

o Ignored the hacked emails e-mails

o Perpetuating the lie by going Copenhagen

I've advanced on this forum before the thesis that the ACLU is not, in fact, a liberal organisation, but rather as its name implies, a civil libertarian organisation, in response to the commonplace that the ACLU is specifically anti-Christian and anti-conservative.

Well, here's a case the Florida chapter of ACLU just got involved in. A tenth-grader wears a shirt that says on the front "Jesus answered, 'I am the way and the truth and the life. No on goes to the Father except through me" and on the back "ISLAM IS OF THE DEVIL". The student is sent home and told that the back of the shirt--but not the front--is unacceptable to wear to school. People wearing similar shirts are asked to leave a high school football game. The school district cites its dress-code provision that clothing not be "offensive to others".

( So which side is the ACLU on in the matter? )

it's a joy being down here in n.z. for the nonce, and when chi and i drove down to the southern tip - invercargill - then drove up again, i saw something i just had to document for the folks back home. herewith two thumbs, showing why the stars and stripes flag is flying down in the back country of new zealand!



( wiki links to the towns - cut to avoid spoilage )

[ lightly x-posted ]

more stalinist politically correct insanity in the university - time for a revolution there.

"The report advocates making race, class and gender politics the 'overarching framework' for all teaching courses at the U. It calls for evaluating future teachers in both coursework and practice teaching based on their willingness to fall into ideological lockstep. The first step toward 'cultural competence,' says the task group, is for future teachers to recognize — and confess — their own bigotry. ... The task group recommends, for example, that prospective teachers be required to prepare an “autoethnography” report. They must describe their own prejudices and stereotypes, question their “cultural” motives for wishing to become teachers, and take a “cultural intelligence” assessment designed to ferret out their latent racism, classism and other “isms.” They “earn points” for “demonstrating the ability to be self-critical.” ... The goal of these exercises, in the task group’s words, is to ensure that “future teachers will be able to discuss their own histories and current thinking drawing on notions of white privilege, hegemonic masculinity, heteronormativity, and internalized oppression.” Future teachers must also recognize and denounce the fundamental injustices at the heart of American society, says the task group. From a historical perspective, they must “understand that … many groups are typically not included” within America’s “celebrated cultural identity,” and that “such exclusion is frequently a result of dissimilarities in power and influence.” In particular, aspiring teachers must be able “to explain how institutional racism works in schools.”

- http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/23/university-of-minnesota-demanding-political-allegiance-for-educators/

[ again, c/o soylentpurple ]

Haidt proposes that the foundations of our sense of right and wrong rest within “five innate and universally available psychological systems” that might be summarized as follows:

1. Harm/care: Evolved mammalian attachment systems mean we can feel the pain of others, giving rise to the virtues of kindness, gentleness and nurturance.
2. Fairness/reciprocity: Evolved reciprocal altruism generates a sense of justice.
3. Ingroup/loyalty: Evolved in-group tribalism leads to patriotism.
4. Authority/respect: Evolved hierarchical social structures translate to respect for authority and tradition.
5. Purity/sanctity: Evolved emotion of disgust related to disease and contamination underlies our sense of bodily purity.

Over the years Haidt and his University of Virginia colleague Jesse Graham have surveyed the moral opinions of more than 110,000 people from dozens of countries and have found this consistent difference: self-reported liberals are high on 1 and 2 but are low on 3, 4 and 5, whereas self-reported conservatives are roughly equal on all five dimensions, although they place slightly less emphasis on 1 and 2 than liberals do.

(Take the survey yourself at www.yourmorals.org.)

Instead of viewing the left and the right as either inherently correct or wrong, a more scientific approach is to recognize that liberals and conservatives emphasize different moral values.

- http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=political-science-skeptic

The California Public Employees’ Retirement System is the largest investment fund in America, so its kind of surprising that it gets so little attention in financial media. CalPERS dwarfs everything, or at least they did until the US Treasury started buying up assets, or maybe the FED, but they're too opaque to be sure. their enormity has given them the power to shape the market, which they haven't been shy to do (I know, citation needed.Maybe later, with a Cloward-Piven angle*).

The CalPERS investment strategy has included heavy purchases in Enron around 2000, and punch-drunk buying into real estate through 2007, but this post isn't about snarking on their failures.

I actually want to talk about liquidation. California is bankrupt. I can't recall how many teachers have been laid off, but I hear stories about state schools pretty much being on skeleton crews.There's the new withholding loan in the state, after they issued so many IOUs all voluntary lenders shouted "stop." And now the abrupt tuition hikes at the state universities.

But even as the governor was asking for a federal bailout, CalPERS was moving to bailout the banks. (Bloomberg, April 15th):


*The internet is for mental masturbation about conspiracies, after all.

Current Mood: relaxed

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has defended jailed killer "Carlos the Jackal" and several world leaders he says are wrongly considered "bad guys". - Mr Chavez also hailed Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the late Ugandan dictator Idi Amin.

- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8372250.stm

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/11/21/senate.health.bill.expect/index.html

I cannot believe the Democrats have stepped on their dicks the way they have. With the 60 votes necassary in The Senate, the stage is set to add billions in new taxes to insurance companies to cover poor Americans, require all Americans to be insured, and actually fine anyone who does not keep health coverage on themselves. It will require Americans not covered under a companies policy, to buy into the Public Option, otherwise they'll (individuals) be fined for being uninsured, assuming the Public Option is kept in (count on it). Republicans oppose the bill universally.

Senate Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi broke her promise both to post the bill on her website 48 hours before it was voted on, and to have a public reading in The Senate.

We're on or way to becoming England, and if you smoke you better start quitting. None of the members who voted on the 2000+ page health care bill have read it in it's entirety, it adds yet another trillion to our debt, and I strongly suspect people are going to shit themselves once they start seeing their employer health care get dropped, premiums, prescriptions, and co-pays skyrocket, and those broke start getting fines.

Get ready for another Republican takeover, 1994 style. Oh, and with goverment in healthcare watch it start going after (even more) guns, cigarettes, alcohol, fast food, ect, ect. Welcome to Socialism.
This still has to be reconsiled with The Houses earlier passage, but you be sure it will.

This has become somewhere between a nightmarish monster, and the biggest joke ever perpetrated on a people.

Here's the 2074 page monstrosity in a pdf.
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2009/images/11/18/hcbill.pdf