Friday Humor - Lions in the shade

All jobs have inherent risks. Fortunately, mine does not have this one!

You are a South African bush pilot working for Blue Sky Aviation.
You fly in some critical medical supplies, enjoy a quick lunch at the hospital.
It's a stifling 100 degrees in the shade and you're eager to get back aloft to the cooler upper atmosphere.
On the way back to your aircraft, you discover that the only bit of shade within 1 mile has become very popular.
You start estimating the distance to the aircraft door and wonder...
'Do I feel lucky today?'

The picture - after the jump:

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Bloomberg failed the homeless

From NY1:
The Coalition for the Homeless says the mayor's promise five years ago to reduce homelessness by two-thirds has failed.
The organization says more than 36,000 New Yorkers slept in municipal shelters last month, which they say is a 197-percent increase over the mayor's pledge.
Coalition members also say last month, more than 9,500 families were in shelters, a nine-percent increase from 2004.

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Morning Briefing for June 23, 2009

JUNE 23, 2009

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1. Governor Sanford’s Office Checks In With Us

This is only a story because Sanford is standing up to Democrats and erstwhile Republicans

2. Rules of Disengagement: A Troubling New U.S. Combat Posture In Afghanistan

Going The Wrong Way

3. Massachusetts Democrats Waste $174M in Federal Stimulus Money

As if we couldn’t see this coming

4. NEWSFLASH: High Deficits Mean High Taxes

This is only surprising to Barack Obama

5. Guess Which Nevada Senator is Less Popular than John Ensign

The only thing saving the Republicans from their own incompetence in the Senate is the answer

6. Mitch McConnell Signals the GOP Will Do Nothing Substantive Against Sotomayor

He Wants Us to Believe Mediocrity is a Sign of Success

———————————————————————- 1. Governor Sanford’s Office Checks In With Us

This is only a story because Sanford is standing up to Democrats and erstwhile Republicans

With all the reports of a missing Governor Mark Sanford whose staff and wife allegedly have no idea where he is and have not heard from him, I figured it was worth checking in with his office. His Communications Director sent us this statement:

“The governor put in a lot of time during this last legislative session, and after the session winds down it’s not uncommon for him to go out of pocket for a few days at a time to clear his head. Obviously, that’s going to be somewhat out of the question this time given the attention this particular absence has gotten. Before leaving last week, he let staff know his whereabouts and that he’d be difficult to reach. Should any emergencies arise between the times in which he checks in, our staff would obviously be in contact with other state officials as the situation warrants before making any decisions.”

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2. Rules of Disengagement: A Troubling New U.S. Combat Posture In Afghanistan

Going The Wrong Way

As a general matter, while I write a fair amount about national security strategy, I’m usually hesitant to wade into military tactics, a subject best left to the professionals. Even among those who know their stuff, military tactical decisions often involve difficult tradeoffs on which reasonable people can and do disagree, plus people who lack a military background (as I do) often make hilarious mistakes when attempting to lay out the facts of such stories, let alone dissect them, without running them by someone who knows their stuff. I’d prefer to avoid the kind of armchair generalship we had among so many on the Left during the Bush years who were hair-trigger quick to accuse U.S. tactical decisions of being (1) incompetent or (2) atrocities.

All that being said, I find myself utterly baffled by this report from the Associated Press on comments made by and on behalf of the new commanding officer in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, and his spokesman, Rear Adm. Greg Smith, and of course I have to wonder if the order comes from McChrystal or originates higher up the chain of command from the political branches.

There are reasons why the U.S. military needs to be careful about civilian casualties, because casualties make us unpopular with the Afghan public and cause friction with the Karzai government. But then, the “Team America” image of left-wingers to the contrary, our military is always more careful about civilian casualties than it would be if it was 100% focused on killing the enemy. That’s the nature of our military even without formalizing an order in the rules of engagement, and moreso when you consider the rules of engagement typically ordered in most circumstances.

But McChrystal’s order strikes me as going way too far in taking us out of the business of fighting the enemy. First, we know full well that our jihadist enemies love to use innocent or captive civilians as human shields; that particular war crime is their standard M.O. and has been for many years (as it is against the Israelis as well) - I can recall that being their standard tactic at least as far back as Mogadishu. To give them a complete sanctuary by virtue of committing a war crime is a very bad precedent that diminishes the U.S. military’s effectiveness - thus prolonging the war - and only encourages more of the same barbarity. Second, publicly announcing that the strong preference for not shooting at people hiding behind civilians is being codified in a hard and fast rule only gives the enemy more encouragement and advice as to how to nullify our forces.

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3. Massachusetts Democrats Waste $174M in Federal Stimulus Money

As if we couldn’t see this coming

he Massachusetts Democratic Party wasted close to $33 million dollars of stimulus money. They literally flushed it down the drain by overpaying for labor costs on water treatment projects.

To recap the waste comes from the difference in the prevailing wage from the Federal Prevailing wage as outlined in the Davis-Bacon act and the Massachusetts prevailing wage. According to the Beacon Hill institute this difference accounts for $17.7 of every $100 dollars spent on public works projects going directly to inflated labor costs, lining the pockets of the Unions.

Earlier this month the Massachusetts Republican House Leadership submitted an amendment to suspend the Massachusetts prevailing wage on all Stimulus funded projects. The Republican leadership was unable to force a vote when they fell one member short of the 15 needed to do so. Not one Democrat stood up for the tax payers to force a vote on the issue.

This week the Boston Globe reported that the total money earmarked for transportation projects coming to Massachusetts from the “Stimulus Package” is $800 million. Using the Beacon Hill Instutes estimates that means that $141 million dollars in Federal Stimulus money is being wasted by the Massachusetts Democratic Party’s inaction on the Republican Amendment.

Couple this $141 million with the $33 million outlined earlier this week and you get a total of $174,000,000 Federal dollars wasted by the Massachusetts Democratic Party.

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4. NEWSFLASH: High Deficits Mean High Taxes

This is only surprising to Barack Obama

This comes as a surprise to no one of course, except for an Obama administration which seems to believe that taxes can stay at more or less current levels despite their extraordinary spending binge. Instead, history suggests that if Washington wants to run historically-high deficits, then much higher taxes inevitably follow:

I suspect President Obama will wait to push for a massive tax increase until his lame duck term.

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5. Guess Which Nevada Senator is Less Popular than John Ensign

The only thing saving the Republicans from their own incompetence in the Senate is the answer

While Senator Ensign’s sudden fall in the polls has gotten the headlines, Harry Reid is even more unpopular. And while Ensign next seeks reelection in 2012, Harry Reid is up next year:

“At 39 percent, Ensign’s diminished favorable rating is slightly higher than that of the state’s senior senator, Majority Leader Harry Reid (34 percent), and far above that of the dismally unpopular Gov. Jim Gibbons (10 percent).”

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6. Mitch McConnell Signals the GOP Will Do Nothing Substantive Against Sotomayor

He Wants Us to Believe Mediocrity is a Sign of Success

One must wonder what Mitch McConnell paid or did to have the Washington Post’s Perry Bacon, Jr. write this total fluff piece on Mitch McConnell.

“When he was fighting campaign finance reform a decade ago, Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was dubbed Darth Vader by his critics. He embraced the nickname, even announcing “Darth Vader has arrived” at a news conference.”

Well, when the article starts out with a gross distortion of the facts, we can only conclude that McConnell is desperate to hang on to power and distract from his failures as the Senate Republican Leader.

What gross distortion?

“Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was dubbed Darth Vader by his critics,” writes Perry Bacon, Jr. today.

“The Kentucky curmudgeon who dubbed himself the Darth Vader of campaign-finance reform is whipped, and he knows it,” wrote Jonathan Alter in Newsweek on April 9, 2001.

“Sen. Mitch McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who aptly describes himself as the “Darth Vader” of the campaign finance debate,” wrote the Kansas City Star on April 8, 2001.

“The antipathy is well known between Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), the self-described Darth Vader of campaign finance reform, and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who recently likened his presidential campaign to the adventures of Luke Skywalker,” wrote Mary Lynn Jones in the Hill on February 16, 2000.

Yes, Common Cause gave Mitch McConnell the designation once, but it says more about McConnell that he had to embrace and recycle the nickname for anyone to pick it up and use it “against” him.

Now Perry Bacon, Jr. in his fluff piece, recycles it to make McConnell seem more than the limp wristed leader he has been lately.

“McConnell has persuaded his Senate colleagues to pick targeted, potentially winnable fights against the Democrats, such as the party’s current push to make sure health-care reform does not include a government-run insurance option.
In other words, McConnell does not want the GOP to make much of a show on Sotomayor. You don’t have to read the rest of the article to understand why this article is even showing up.”

If you will remember from a few weeks ago, Manny Miranda, who heads an organization of conservatives who are organized to help defeat the Sotomayor nomination, sent Mitch McConnell a letter demanding the GOP not kowtow to Obama on the nomination.

A staffer for McConnell attended the Grover Norquist Wednesday meeting, an off the record meeting, and took that information back to McConnell’s leadership office where it makes it into the Politico. In the process, McConnell felt the need to bash Miranda — a loyal conservative activist.

And while McConnell has been leader of the Senate GOP, we’ve gone from 55 seats to 40 seats.

But that’s okay, McConnell is, in his mind, Darth Vader — the man who oversaw the loss of two Death Stars and in the end betrayed his own side.

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Republicans Are Suddenly Terrified of Deficits As We Try To Fix The Health Care System

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I feel like I'm turning into Jerry Seinfeld: Have you ever noticed how only Democratic deficits are a problem? Republicans are sticking to their Frank Luntz-authored talking points on health care (as Chris Dodd points out about Lindsey Graham on This Week this morning) and pulling their beards, speaking ponderously of the horrors of spending money to save money:

STEPHANOPOULOS: Republicans seem to be digging in, Senator Graham, on a couple of big issues. On the issues of taxes to pay for health care, on the issue of a public health insurance plan. But let me show you this New York Times poll that's just out this morning showing 72 percent, 72 percent of the public supports a government health insurance plan and 57 percent of the public is willing to pay more taxes for universal health care. They seem to be ready for the kind of change that Republicans are fighting.

GRAHAM: Well, it's just not Republicans, George. The reason you're not going to have a government run health care pass the Senate is because it would be devastating for this country. The last thing in the world I think Democrats and Republicans are going to do at the end of the day is create a government run health care system where you've got a bureaucrat standing in between the patient and the doctor. We've tried this model -- people have tried this model in other countries. The first thing that happens -- you have to wait for your care. And in socialized health care models, people have to wait longer to get care and the government begins to cut back on what's available because of the cost explosion.

Lindsey, you silly thing! I know you're only saying what Frank told you to say, but since you've apparently had government-run health care most of your adult life (in the military and in public office), you probably don't know: We already have bureaucrats standing between us and our doctor. We already wait for care, and it's already rationed. That's why these talking points from Frank aren't working - they're not our reality.

The CBO estimates were a death blow to a government run health care plan. The finance committee has abandoned that. We do need to deal with inflation in health care, private and public inflation, but we're not going to go down to the government owning health care road in America and I think that's the story of this week. There's been a bipartisan rejection of that.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, you call it a death blow. Let me just press that point. Are you saying now that Republicans just as we saw in the stimulus where I think only three Republicans voted for the president's stimulus package -- if there's a government run health insurance plan, are Republicans going to vote on that against this package?

GRAHAM: I don't think it's just going to be Republicans. You've got Senator Conrad talking about a co-op. You've got other Democrats running away from the government-run health care where the bureaucrat stands between the doctor and the patient. I think this idea is unnerving to the members of the Senate and will be to the public when they understand what it means, that you'll wait longer to get treated and you'll get health care the government decides for you, not that of your doctor. So yes, I think this idea needs to go away and replace it with something maybe like Kent Conrad's proposal.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Now Senator Dodd, I think that Senator Graham talked about the public there. We just saw that hole. But his read of the Senate seems pretty accurate right now. You have not only Republicans but several of your Democratic colleagues, including the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Senator Baucus saying the public option isn't going to fly in their committee. They want something bipartisan and that can't include this public health insurance option.

DODD: Well, again, I'm delighted to hear Lindsey talk about the possibility of having something like a co-op and non-profits. I happen to support a public option, I don't think you can bring down costs without it. If there isn't some competition out there to drive down the overall cost -- costs have gone up 86 percent since '96, 1996. Forty-five percent might stay the loan, increase in health care cost. The American average working family can't afford this. A family of four now. it's $12,000. We're being told in 20 years, it could be half the gross income of a family spent on health care premiums. That is just unacceptable.

Now how we get those costs down -- you use a lot of these buzz words. No one I know is for socialized medicine. We're going to develop a U.S. plan, not a Canadian or a U.K. plan, one that meets our needs in our country. It's designed for Americans, by Americans, that isn't socialized medicine. But you've got to drive down these costs. We need quality, accessible health care in bringing down those costs are absolutely critical, or we're going to bankrupt the country. It's unsustainable. That's why we're at the table.

Now, let me make that even clearer: Dodd's right when he says the present situation is unsustainable. Borrowing money to fix this is rational, the same way borrowing to fix a major structural problem with your house is. As economist Brad DeLong pointed out this week:

America's long-run fiscal problems are caused by health care, and will not be appreciably made worse by this half-decade's federal fiscal stimulus. If restructuring the health care system can bend the curve on the rise in overall (and hence public as well as private) health care costs, then America has ample debt capacity to borrow whatever we wish in this crisis--and to borrow it at extraordinarily favorable rates as well.

If the curve of rising health-care costs is not bent, then the government's long-term finances are in trouble and so is the growth of private-sector non-health living standards: health care costs that rise as fast as CBO is projecting in the baseline cause lots of long-run economic problems, of which government fiscal bankruptcy is not the worst. Health care reform to bend the long-run curve of costs is now just what it was back in 1993: the most important issue for the American political system to deal with.

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Grand Ayatollah Montazeri Issues Fatwa Against Regime?

So says a commenter who posted this a couple of hours ago…

“We are from god and we will return to him”

Great people of Iran

It is with extreme sadness that I have learnt of the massacre of the people who had gathered peacefully to defend their rights. I am deeply concerned about these events, and hereby declare Wednesday, Thursday and Friday as national mourning days. I support the people’s pacific acts in order to defend their rights in respect of our republic, and forbid any act which can harm it.

All my brothers and sisters are bound to help the nation in this fight, and I declare any resistance, specially any violence against the people, against the principles of Islam and “Haram”.

The blogger says that he found the letter on Moussavi’s Facebook page, but I can’t find it there. Obviously the news if flying fast and furious right now, so take this with a grain of salt until it’s confirmed. However, the blogger did translate the previous letter from Montazeri, so that lend some additional credibility to the post.

Still, if this is true, it’s a pretty significant step forward from merely condemning the violence and the validity of the election. Because, this sounds like the first whispers of real revolution, especially since he’s saying this is against Islam.

Source: Donklephant RSS Feed

a matter of life and death

"

my sister-in-law number two (my husband has 2 sisters) has gone into labor and by the time anyone reads this- will most likely have had her daughter. my mom's health continues to weaken as her heart and lungs fight against time to keep her blood flowing and her life going. and the world continues to take life for granted. i am not sure what it is about humans that make them so, well, fickle. on the one hand, we have folks who fight tooth and nail for a fetus' right to live and turn around and fight just as vigilantly to declare war on another cultures' fetuses. strange. we don't have a choice when we are born. our parents got together and for better or worse- had us. should we have the right to die?
much debate has swirled around abortion and whether or not it should be legal- but what about an adult's right to die? who gets to make that choice? some believe it's up to a mythical being called 'god' and others worry about ethical and legal issues. but if you strip those considerations aside and think simply for yourself- would you want to be able to die when you chose? our culture doesn't like to think about dying much. perhaps because we are so very far removed from it. at one time, folks were up close and personal with their loved ones' deaths. they washed the bodies, made the coffins and sat wakes. then, they dug the hole and buried them. now, there are a whole host of folks who whisk the body away and do all of those things very clinically and loved ones get a shot at seeing a strange corpse to 'say goodbye' before cremation or burial. it's like we want to forget they are dead.
i can only speak to what i know and see and believe- i know that my mom says she has made peace with dying. i know that she would rather be healthy and stick around. i would rather she be healthy and stick around too but death is inevitable. none of us escape it. i would also rather that my mom not suffer needlessly. and if she chose to go, i would rather she be allowed to do so. assisted dying is a sticky widget. i have a feeling as our population ages- it may push a bit to the forefront. folks are living longer true- but we also have seen quality of life deteriorate for some and it really doesn't look like the health care system will be fixed in this country any time soon. not in a viable way. millions of folks won't wait to be told that they are allowed to end it. they just will. it would be nice to help them on a journey with dignity.
as for me, i would absolutely rather choose to die if i became ill with a terminal illness. the end result would be the same (assuming that we had exhausted the known medical treatments) and i would not want to suffer nor put my loved ones through prolonged suffering. i would rather folks celebrated my life and not dwell on my death. i think all of us would rather live. it's that human nature and survival instinct- but we also have it within our power to end life. and i think we are going to have to face that next obstacle.
"http://www.relaywave.com/pingRelayWave.php

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Take This Quick Pop Quiz to Find Out How Much You Know About Demons and Devils

How much do you know about what the bible has to say regarding demons and devils? Do you even believe Satan and his angels rebelled against God and are now deceiving men so that they ignore God and His warnings about what will happen to those who do not follow His Son Jesus Christ? Take this quick quiz to find out how your knowledge about this subject stacks up against the rest of the pack. 

 

 

Category: Creatures Great and Small

This Quiz: Devils and Demons

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in bible, Christians, eternal life, Evangelicals, God, heaven, hell, Jesus Christ, prophesy, religion, Satan, sin Tagged: bible quiz, bible quizzes, bible test, demon quizzes

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Public Service Productivity - Still Appalling

Fancy stats, but the picture remains the sameFor many years now, the Office for National Statistics has been beavering away trying to develop measures of output and productivity in our public services. It hasn't been at all straightforward, as we can see by glancing at the dense array of statistical formulae they have been forced to deploy.So why is it important?Because we've shovelled vast amounts of dosh into these services over the last decade, they now consume well over 20% of our national income, and we need to understand just what we're getting in return. We need to know if we're getting value for money.And why's that so hard to do?Because the output of public services is not subject to valuation in the marketplace. We know precisely what cars and window cleaning services are...
Public services productivity in perspective Freemania
Public Service Productivity - Still Appalling Burning our money
See 2 more posts on this topic: Public Services, Productivity, Output, Steps' Meeting, Thereby Attacking
Keywords: public, publicservices, MONTH06, productivity, services, output, steps'meeting, YEAR2009, therebyattacking, attackingsociety's, tories'achilles, hourcabinet, service, steps', servicereform
Categories: conservatives, westminster, houseofcommons, AndrewLansley, DavidAmess, Politics, publicservices, productivity, publicservicereform

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Photo Gallery: Images from Iran

A demonstrator who was shot during a protest demonstration in the streets of the capital Tehran, Iran, on 15 June 2009. The rally was attended by hundreds of thousands of Iranians who protested against alleged election fraud at the presidential election which led to the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Protesters burn a car and attack a building of a pro-government militia (Basij) base near a protest demonstration in the streets of the capital Tehran, Iran, on 15 June 2009. The rally was attended by hundreds of thousands of Iranians who protested against alleged election fraud at the presidential election which led to the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iranian riot-police stands guard among hundreds of thousands of supporters of opposition leader Mir-Hossein Moussavi marching in the streets of the capital Tehran against alleged fraud in the recent presidential election despite a ban by the Interior Ministry, in Tehran , Iran, 15 June 2009. Moussavi had called on his supporters not to stage the protest rally to avoid clashes with police. The protestors shouted slogans in favor of Moussavi and against the alleged fraud which led to the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

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