Archive for July 2008
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He knows nothing; and he thinks he knows everything. That points clearly to a political career.
— George Bernard Shaw, Major Barbara [1907]
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If all goes smoothly, this will be mine and on the road sometime tomorrow afternoon. I’ve never owned a convertible before and am looking forward to it. This car caught my eye, is fun to drive and the price was right.
The plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that struck down Washington, D.C.’s 32-year-old handgun ban filed a new federal lawsuit Monday, alleging the city’s new gun regulations still violate an individual’s right to own a gun for self-defense.
Dick Heller and two other plaintiffs argue that the city’s regulations are "highly unusual and unreasonable" in the complaint filed in U.S. District Court.
The lawsuit claims the District of Columbia continues to violate the intent of the Supreme Court’s June 26 decision by prohibiting the ownership of most semiautomatic weapons, requiring an "arbitrary" fee to register a firearm and establishing rules that make it all but impossible for residents to keep a gun in the home for immediate self-defense.
The new D.C. regulations make it virtually impossible for a person to exercise their 2nd Amendment right to self-defense.
Handguns, as well as other legal firearms such as rifles and shotguns, also must be kept unloaded and disassembled, or equipped with trigger locks in the home unless there is a "reasonably perceived threat of immediate harm."
"A robber basically has to make an appointment" for a resident to be able to prepare the weapon for use, Heller’s attorney, Stephen Halbrook, said Monday. Halbrook also called the city’s definition of machine guns "bizarre."
There comes a point in time, which is NOW, when I think the politicians should be fined and imprisoned for not following the Constitution.
. . . why nothing usually gets done in Buffalo, read this thread at Buffalo Rising. It is nothing but a big whine and cheese party because a business is improving the looks of their building. The nerve of someone daring to improve their own property without community approval. Maybe they’ll make room for a couple of more cars in their parking lot 
And it came to pass, in the eighth year of the reign of the evil Bush the Younger (The Ignorant), when the whole land from the Arabian desert to the shores of the Great Lakes had been laid barren, that a Child appeared in the wilderness.
The Child was blessed in looks and intellect. Scion of a simple family, offspring of a miraculous union, grandson of a typical white person and an African peasant. And yea, as he grew, the Child walked in the path of righteousness, with only the occasional detour into the odd weed and a little blow.
This satirical prose is worthy of an epiphany, read it all.
1. Paulson appears on Face The Nation and says "Our banking system is a safe and a sound one." If the banking system was safe and sound, everyone would know it (or at least think it). There would be no need to say it.
2. Paulson says the list of troubled banks "is a very manageable situation". The reality is there are 90 banks on the list of problem banks. Indymac was not one of them until a month before it collapsed. How many other banks will magically appear on the list a month before they collapse?
3. In a Northern Rock moment, depositors at Indymac pull out their cash. Police had to be called in to ensure order.
4. Washington Mutual (WM), another troubled bank, refused to honor Indymac cashier’s checks. The irony is it makes no sense for customers to pull insured deposits out of Indymac after it went into receivership. The second irony is the last place one would want to put those funds would be Washington Mutual. Eventually Washington Mutual decided it would take those checks but with an 8 week hold. Will Washington Mutual even be around 8 weeks from now?
The wording seems clear in prohibiting benefits to all housing, since it limits eligibility to “commercial, business or industrial activity.” Yet Schroeder said he did not intend to deny benefits to new housing.
It was unintentional, but Assemblyman Mark J. F. Schroeder, the bill’s sponsor, is having second thoughts.
Heaven forbid that the Empire Zone law is signed by Patterson, taxpayers might actually have to stop subsidizing housing for other people.
Schroeder’s mistake is the best thing that could have happened to the law. Now we just need to eliminate Empire Zones altogether.
The Empire Zone program was established to promote investment and employment in economically distressed areas.
It is safe to say that the economy is worse now than it was before Empire Zones were created. Subsidies and government spending are the problem, not the solution.
It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government.
— Thomas Paine
Yay!
Another day another picnic and more rain!
Voluntary charitable organizations generally do a better job helping people in need than the government. Not only do they do a better job, they get more bang for the buck by spending money more efficiently.
Unfortunately, government grants to non-profits have caused the cost of charity to rise over the years.
Now, Obama wants to further socialize non-profits. His plan will greatly drive up the cost of helping people and create involuntary charitable contributions funded by taxpayers. It won’t matter whether or not an organization is doing a good job once government funding is in place. It won’t matter if a taxpayers doesn’t want to support a non-profit that is wasting money.
Obama’s plan will take away your choice and judgment.
Another rainy picnic, number two this weekend.
Queen Anne cherries that i picked today at Kappus Farms in Burt NY. I also picked bing and sour cherries. I am planngng a meal with cherries as an ingredient in each dish, finished off with a sour cherry pie.
It can take years before the negative ramifications of government spending and programs are known. The bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae illustrates this point quite well. The mortgage programs were created in 1932 by FDR in response to the Great Depression. Now, 76 years later, we see that government manipulation of the economy doesn’t work. The talking heads are telling us the taxpayers won’t be paying for this bailout, with one mighty caveat, “not at this time”.
It is 
time to demand that the government address our economic issues in a straight-forward manner. We are out of time for more monetary legerdemain. Inflation is at the highest level in years, led by the prices of gasoline and food. The dollar is tanking. The stock market is spiraling downward. Banks are failing.
The politicians would like us to believe that we are seeing the end of the economic downturn and their voodoo economics will have things righted shortly. The truth of the matter is that we are witnessing the beginning of a huge economic crash, unlike anything this country, or the world, has ever seen.
Can the economy be turned around? Perhaps, but it will take a complete change in mindset by the people and the politicians. Government needs to be drastically reduced, services eliminated and people have to learn to be responsible for themselves. Only the bare minimum services can be provided by government. Social welfare programs, funding for charities and non-profits, and policing the world must come to an end.
There is no such thing as a smooth fix that won’t result in hardships for people. The longer we wait will increase the amount of hardships that will inevitably be experienced. The biggest mistake Congress could make right now would be granting the FED and the Treasury Department more power. Once the market is allowed to weed out waste and inefficiency, the economy will rebound naturally. It will be a recovery based on economic forces that will lead to a greater creation of wealth and stability, without the need for shell games by the government. All games eventually come to an end.
