Despite the lip service to promptly seat Senator-Elect Scott Brown (that was given only after massive outrage over Democrats' hypocritical double-standards in delaying his seating), Brown still has not been seated. Meanwhile, the Senate voted along party lines to increase the debt ceiling by $1.9 Trillion and confirmed Bernanke to another term at the Fed. What planet are they on?  

http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/28/why-is-senator-kirk-still-voting-on-legislation/

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100111/ap_on_bi_ge/us_stimulus_unemployment

In addition, these stupid projects, wasted on perfectly sound infrastructure and roads, made it more difficult and expensive to repair the infrastructure and roads that really were in disrepair! What a waste! The Congress and Administration ignored the majority of Americans who KNEW this would result in failure, fraud and financial ruin! We should not have to pay for it!

So much to say but too little time... Check out these articles:

Health takeover to penalize marriage: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126281943134818675.html (Note the twisted logic and numerous perverse incentives! Also recall that the government will destroy private insurance and force people to take these "subsidies".)

Outrageous! In this story, the Slovakian government placed explosives and bomb components in unsuspecting passengers' luggage. Any civillian caught with these materials would suffer very severe consequences. This is not the first time this has happened; a couple years ago, the French government also lost the explosives that it placed in unsuspecting passenger luggage. It is bad enough to search luggage but to open up the luggage of an unknowing and unconsenting passenger to place contraband? This poor passenger had his apartment raided, was labeled a terrorist and detained. What would have happened had the Slovak government not fessed up?

Statists have been engaging in all sorts of outrageous antics to silence opposition, from media blatantly refusing to cover issues and movements involved with freedom to the bounty on a US Chamber of Commerce official. Perhaps one source of the "intellectual" (if one can call it that) foundation of the statists' determination to silence any and all dissent may be found in an essay titled  "Repressive Tolerance" by Herbert Marcuse, the "Father of the New Left". The essay is sick, twisted and actually painful to read. This essay may also be the foundation of political correctness.

From The Brother's Brick Blog: "Put yourself in Jeremy Bell’s shoes. You’re a creative director at Teehan+Lax, a Downtown Toronto design firm and a lifelong LEGO fan. You’re having a quiet Tuesday afternoon at the office. Hey, you just got a custom BrickGun model kit of a semi-auto handgun in the mail. Why not build it at your desk? (I for one totally understand, I just did the same thing last week with the Space Police Smash ‘n’ Grab.) After you’re done, you show the model to a co-worker, he breaks it, you put it back in its box, then unwind with some co-workers by playing video games.

Many who support the state do so with the specious notion that government somehow acts in the best interest of the people, that it is generous and neither self-centered nor greedy. And that there will be a recourse for injustice.

As we know, nothing could be further from the truth. I have come across a few news articles that provide blatant but little-known examples of federal, state and local governments ripping off their citizens. If this happened in an earlier age, I would expect to see pillows being emptied and cauldrons of hot tar being prepared for those involved.

The jobs that were supposedly "saved" now have to be cut!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000142405274870330050457456803052349291...

Joining host Dennis McCuistion, Thomas E. Woods, Jr. (Ludwig von Mises Institute) and Doug Casey ("The Casey Report") focus their discussion on the credit crisis, free markets and limited government.

See below for video link.

This is a hoot!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rcge8r-8VAY

Pure genius!

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/10/29/un.food/

U.N. touts food vouchers sent by text
By Saeed Ahmed, CNN
October 29, 2009 4:45 a.m. EDT

(CNN) -- In what the World Food Programme called a first, relief workers from the U.N. aid agency are using text messages to deliver food vouchers to refugees.

The four-month pilot program kicked off last week in Syria, geared toward 1,000 refugee families from Iraq. If the pilot succeeds, the Food Programme plans to expand it beyond Damascus and to other countries.

Virtual vouchers offer several advantages over direct food distribution, said Abeer Etefa, the Food Programme spokeswoman for the Middle East.

Back in 1997 my brother and I worked together at a bagel shop.  Every payday, we would gleefully go back to the local bank to cash out checks.  We would gloat over our seemingly massive amounts of "Power Units."  We had been told all our lives that our money was backed by GOLD. Wasn't the gold stored in Fort Knox what was providing the power to our "power units"?

When I read the headline to this McClatchy News Service Article I just about blew my top. What is it about those meddling bunglers in Washington that makes them so eager to regulate every activity (including that of the sun)?

The mayor and council of a New Jersey township is calling for a "temporary" (ya, right!) curfew for everyone between 12 and 7 AM! Hey! Aren't those guys the criminals? Why are the residents being imprisioned?

I want to applaud the newsman for reminding the mayor of that "pesky Constitution"!

See  the video, "Protecting the People?" at:

http://www.foxnews.com/video2/video08.html?maven_referralObject=8378430&maven_referralPlaylistId=&sRevUrl=http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,539741,00.html?test=latestnews#

Two days ago, it was reported that the Pay Czar wants to "claw back" executive compensation from companies that received bailout money(see http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090817/bs_nm/us_feinberg ). With this precedent, where Czar Feinberg proclaimed, "anything is possible under the law," the powers to control compensation are now being expanded to include targeted businesses.  As reported in various sources today, the House Energy and Commerce Committee sent letters to insurers asking for the following information:

Updated 7/30 - I converted the article, "Principles for allocation of scarce medical interventions", from PDF into text. I also formatted the article a little to make it more readable. Well, it is still absolutely nauseating but worth reading for insight into what is going on in the sick minds of those who are behind the government takeover of healthcare.  The article is at the end of this blog.  

I thought the cell phone program was outrageous, but check out this article on how states are struggling to find enough homes to weatherize in order to use up their allocation of porkulus funds. Not only does the porkulus steal from the taxpayer, the porkulus is also making it harder and more expensive for those who are not receiving porkulus funds to engage in any area to which these porkulus funds are applied. Those who really do want to increase their homes' energy efficiency, and who make above the $44,100 cut-off for the program, will have to pay much more for materials and labor (if they can get it) as they have to compete against all the money being dumped into this market.

Image via Wikipedia

In a parallel universe, public servents compete to serve the public the best.

Antitrust laws, like nearly all government action, create the opposite effect of what their proponents claim will happen. Antitrust laws over the decades have made healthcare more expensive and less available. Antitrust laws are so convoluted and asinine (as well as unconstitutional) that one can be convicted for pricing a product too high (price gouging), too low (predatory pricing) and the same as others in the marketplace (collusion). In fact, those involved with healthcare now risk prosecution if they attempt to lower healthcare costs as demanded by non-president Obama two weeks ago. (He is one to talk about controlling costs!)

I was in e-mail contact with Gard Goldsmith a couple of days ago, and he told me a story that I thought perfectly exemplified the difference between the way markets operate, and the way the government/political world operates. Gard, hope you don't mind me taking your story and running with it!

It starts with him mentioning that he ran into a lady at work who was looking for the book "New Moon, which is the second in the best-selling "Twilight" series, by Stephanie Meyer (you're right G-Man, she's a pretty lady!). Well, this woman told Gard that her daughter loved the series and that they'd called their library to get it, but that there was a TWELVE person waiting list for it!