A must see short film. This is what is in store for America if we continue to push universal health care. It is a failure everywhere it has been done. As engineers will say "You can have it fast, cheap or good. Pick any two."
Even in Michael Moore's vaulted Cuban health care system, there is really two systems. One for the government and tourists and another one for everyone else. Sorry for you if you fall into the "everyone else" group.
Monday, March 26, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
A German legislator has moved to strip Adolf Hitler of his German citizenship...
and I thought it was only American politicians that had too much time on their hands.
Friday, March 9, 2007
All your lego are belong to us!
These negotiations gave rise to heated conflict and to insightful conversation. Into their coffee shops and houses, the children were building their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys — assumptions that mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.
Well isn't that just precious! And then there is this gem:
As teachers, we were excited by these comments. The children gave voice to the value that collectivity is a solid, energizing way to organize a community — and that it requires power-sharing, equal access to resources, and trust in the other participants. They expressed the need, within collectivity, for personal expression, for being acknowledged as an individual within the group. And finally, they named the deep satisfaction of shared engagement and investment, and the ways in which the participation of many people deepens the experience of membership in community for everyone.
Carl Marx though the same thing and his vision put into action killed millions of people, in some cases just for not wanting to "play along".
And finally:
With these three agreements — which distilled months of social justice exploration into a few simple tenets of community use of resources — we returned the Legos to their place of honor in the classroom.
In other words, we gave them back the Legos when they finally were "educated" to think like we wanted them to.
The kids were pushed into accepting mediocrity, complacency and sameness. This collective sharing of resources is not the most efficient use of resources but sure does manage to make everyone "feel" good about themselves.
No social or economic system is perfect in large part because people are not perfect. People are also not interchangeable pieces that can be allocated to any task. Despite what these teachers were trying to instill in these kids, the real world does not work that way, successfully on any reasonable scale. Collectivism may work fine for a commune of 10 to 20 people but you can not base a society of any reasonable size on it. No amount of educating or re-educating can change basic human nature, that each person will be better at somethings and not so good at others. Some of those skills will either actually be or perceived to be more valuable to society than others. With value comes power. Responsible use of power is key, not elimination of power and like it or not, the fact is that based on all we know as humans, a democratic republic based on a capitalistic economy is the most fair, most adaptable and most efficient system yet invented.
Well isn't that just precious! And then there is this gem:
As teachers, we were excited by these comments. The children gave voice to the value that collectivity is a solid, energizing way to organize a community — and that it requires power-sharing, equal access to resources, and trust in the other participants. They expressed the need, within collectivity, for personal expression, for being acknowledged as an individual within the group. And finally, they named the deep satisfaction of shared engagement and investment, and the ways in which the participation of many people deepens the experience of membership in community for everyone.
Carl Marx though the same thing and his vision put into action killed millions of people, in some cases just for not wanting to "play along".
And finally:
With these three agreements — which distilled months of social justice exploration into a few simple tenets of community use of resources — we returned the Legos to their place of honor in the classroom.
In other words, we gave them back the Legos when they finally were "educated" to think like we wanted them to.
The kids were pushed into accepting mediocrity, complacency and sameness. This collective sharing of resources is not the most efficient use of resources but sure does manage to make everyone "feel" good about themselves.
No social or economic system is perfect in large part because people are not perfect. People are also not interchangeable pieces that can be allocated to any task. Despite what these teachers were trying to instill in these kids, the real world does not work that way, successfully on any reasonable scale. Collectivism may work fine for a commune of 10 to 20 people but you can not base a society of any reasonable size on it. No amount of educating or re-educating can change basic human nature, that each person will be better at somethings and not so good at others. Some of those skills will either actually be or perceived to be more valuable to society than others. With value comes power. Responsible use of power is key, not elimination of power and like it or not, the fact is that based on all we know as humans, a democratic republic based on a capitalistic economy is the most fair, most adaptable and most efficient system yet invented.
Thursday, March 8, 2007
The NYT still doen't get it.
There are so many errors in this editorial that one has to wonder if the author is not living in some alternate reality where a completely different set of events occurred. It is almost like an episode of Star Trek.
The "common facts" lie is once more repeated in that "everyone" knows that the Bush administration was "out to get Wilson" because of his NYT Op-Ed where Wilson hits back at the Bush administration for the State of the Union speech and the famous 16 words.
The actual truth has been shown to be that it was Wilson who lied, about just about everything but why let that get in the way of a good story. His wife got him the Niger gig in the first place, the report he filed actually bolstered the case that Iraq was trying to buy yellow-cake uranium and that when his wife's name was dropped to the press to refute Wilson's claim that the White House sent him, she was NOT under cover. So it was not a crime to release her name.
The FACT is that this Libby trial should never have occurred in the first place. It should have been Wilson on trial if anyone. The fact that Libby was convicted of perjury during an investigation into nothing would be funny if it were not so very sad.
The fact that the NYT continues to beat this old drum after all this time and after the actual facts of this case have been exposed is both sad and pathetic, especially so since the NYT is held up as a "great" newspaper. This is just the latest example of how the MSM is a PR machine for the left.
The "common facts" lie is once more repeated in that "everyone" knows that the Bush administration was "out to get Wilson" because of his NYT Op-Ed where Wilson hits back at the Bush administration for the State of the Union speech and the famous 16 words.
The actual truth has been shown to be that it was Wilson who lied, about just about everything but why let that get in the way of a good story. His wife got him the Niger gig in the first place, the report he filed actually bolstered the case that Iraq was trying to buy yellow-cake uranium and that when his wife's name was dropped to the press to refute Wilson's claim that the White House sent him, she was NOT under cover. So it was not a crime to release her name.
The FACT is that this Libby trial should never have occurred in the first place. It should have been Wilson on trial if anyone. The fact that Libby was convicted of perjury during an investigation into nothing would be funny if it were not so very sad.
The fact that the NYT continues to beat this old drum after all this time and after the actual facts of this case have been exposed is both sad and pathetic, especially so since the NYT is held up as a "great" newspaper. This is just the latest example of how the MSM is a PR machine for the left.
Wednesday, March 7, 2007
So right you are...
"A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims [by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV] were false -- and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife...
The [Libby] trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert...
The former ambassador will be remembered as a blowhard. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were overbearing in their zeal to rebut Mr. Wilson and careless in their handling of classified information. Mr. Libby's subsequent false statements were reprehensible. And Mr. Fitzgerald has shown again why handing a Washington political case to a federal special prosecutor is a prescription for excess. Mr. Fitzgerald was, at least, right about one thing: The Wilson-Plame case, and Mr. Libby's conviction, tell us nothing about the war in Iraq" -- Washington Post editorial.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Libby, Libby, Libby on the table, table, table...
"Libby stands convicted of lying in the course of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the Valerie Plame kerfuffle--but that investigation was undertaken on the basis of a tissue of lies. When Fitzgerald began the case, in 2003, no one had committed any crime in connection with the kerfuffle, and that was fairly easy to ascertain, given that Plame was not a covert agent and Armitage had already owned up to the so-called leak. Fitzgerald looks like an overzealous prosecutor, one who was more interested in getting a scalp than in getting to the truth of the matter. "
Best of the Web
BY JAMES TARANTO Tuesday, March 6, 2007 3:48 p.m. EST
Best of the Web
BY JAMES TARANTO Tuesday, March 6, 2007 3:48 p.m. EST
Friday, March 2, 2007
Unions try to strong arm employees, with Dems help
Democrats claim that the most important right of any American is their right to vote but they are now attempting to deny that right to employees when considering whether or not to unionize. In order to form a union, union representatives must gather signatures from employees. This is a very public process. Employees may feel pressured into signing such a petition because their supervisor does or their co-works and friends do, even if they do not want to unionize. Hence the current requirement for a secret vote after enough signatures have been gathered, a vote where the employee is free to make his or her own decision without the pressure of co-workers or superiors. Currently when this secret vote takes place, in many cases unionization is not approved. This of course does not site well with Unions. To lend them a hand, the Democrats are attempting to get a bill passed that would remove the need for a secret vote. How nice of them. If this bill passes, the petitions alone would be enough to allow a union to form. A bad bill that could become a bad law.
You can't make this stuff up...
Mr. Abir [spokesman for the Popular Resistance Committees] blamed the Jewish state for the desecration of the Gaza synagogues by Palestinian Arabs, claiming the decision to leave the structures intact was part of an Israeli conspiracy.
Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said.
Israel "left the synagogues behind so the world would see the Palestinians destroying them," Mr. Abir said.
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Aliens Cause Global Warming
"Nobody believes a weather prediction twelve hours ahead. Now we're asked to believe a prediction that goes out 100 years into the future? And make financial investments based on that prediction? Has everybody lost their minds?"
It Takes a Militia: A Communitarian Case for Compulsory Arms Bearing
Very interesting and worth a read...
Florida double-speak
I love this line "They are immigrants, through no fault of their own, not aliens." Right, they were kidnapped in the middle of the night and dragged to this country and held here against their will and forbidden to return to their home countries under threat of death. Get real. The term describes what they are "illegal aliens" They are in this country in direct violation of our laws and they are not citizens of this country. There may be reasonable and humane reasons for them being here but breaking the law, they are. Pasting over that fact with "nicer" sounding descriptions is BS. You don't want the "illegal alien" label? Don't be one.
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