Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Obama's Christmas Tree Tax

Obama's Christmas Tree Tax
".... in the Federal Register of November 8, it was announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace.”
Among its goals: “to enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States.”
Yes, you read that correctly.
The Obama Administration wanted the federal government to handle public relations for Christmas trees.
How did the White House want to pay for it? With a 15-cent fee on all sales of fresh Christmas trees by sellers of more than 500 trees per year.
As Addington wrote, “Of course, the Christmas tree sellers are free to pass along the 15-cent federal fee to consumers who buy their Christmas trees.”
More taxes for American consumers in the middle of the Christmas season? Some present. Especially with the economy barely growing and 14 million Americans out of work.
As Addington wrote, “Is a new tax on Christmas trees the best President Obama can do?”

America's Tallest Singing Christmas Tree




The Mona Shores Singing Christmas Tree show starts tomorrow night.
http://muskegonpundit.blogspot.com/2011/11/more-from-americas-tallest-singing.html
(don't miss clicking on the TLC TV link at the bottom of the Chronicle article)

and this:
http://muskegontaxpayers.blogspot.com/2011/11/americas-tallest-singing-christmas-tree.html

Obamaisms - Dumb Barack Obama Quotes - Gaffes and Obama-isms

Obamaisms - Dumb Barack Obama Quotes - Gaffes and Obama-isms

World traveler Barry Hussein's latest missed by MSM: http://blog.heritage.org/2011/11/29/does-obama-know-the-difference-between-great-britain-and-england/

But the democrat media made big news of this yesterday:http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/11/rick-perry-flubs-voting-age-and-election-date/

NTSB Looking At Phoenix Airspace

AVwebBiz Complete Issue#205809#205809
He also told newspaper that the aircraft flew in a straight line at 4,500 feet, 500 feet below the Class B floor in that area directly into a cliff in the Superstition Mountains.
Local pilots fought changing the floor from 8,000 feet to 5,000 feet when the FAA proposed it in 2006 and their spokesman didn't mince words on its role in the Thanksgiving Eve crash.
James Timm, executive director of the Arizona Pilots Association, suggested an accident was inevitable.
"You expect (an accident) to happen, and you hope it never will.
It has come to pass," Timm said.
"We were concerned about it from the very beginning.
We pushed very hard to get more space."

Chapter 11 For American Airlines

AVwebBiz
Chapter 11 For American Airlines
American said its labor contracts cost $600 million more each year than other legacy airlines pay.

Scientists Behaving Badly

Scientists Behaving Badly - Jim Lacey - National Review Online#.TtRDLXx20vQ.mailto#.TtRDLXx20vQ.mailto#.TtRDLXx20vQ.mailto
In truth, virtually the entire warmist edifice is built around a small, tightly knit coterie of persons (one hesitates to refer to folks with so little respect for the scientific method as scientists) willing to falsify data and manipulate findings; or, to put it bluntly, to lie in order to push a political agenda not supported by empirical evidence.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Monday, November 28, 2011

Loved by media, Barney Frank Helped Cause Financial Crisis

Loved by media, Barney Frank Helped Cause Financial Crisis - Latest Headlines - Investors.com
"I, like many others, did not see the crisis coming," Frank said Monday.
He sure didn't.
Back in 2003, what did he say when the Bush administration proposed what the New York Times described as "the most significant regulatory overhaul in the housing finance industry since the savings and loan crisis a decade ago," including a new agency to supervise Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac?
Frank said: "The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing."

Consumer Delinquencies Starting To Creep Back Up

Consumer Delinquencies Starting To Creep Back Up
5 Charts That Show That Suddenly Something Is Going Wrong With The Consumer

The Great Global Warming Fizzle

Stephens: The Great Global Warming Fizzle - WSJ.com
Consider the case of global warming, another system of doomsaying prophecy and faith in things unseen.
As with religion, it is presided over by a caste of spectacularly unattractive people pretending to an obscure form of knowledge that promises to make the seas retreat and the winds abate.
As with religion, it comes with an elaborate list of virtues, vices and indulgences.
As with religion, its claims are often non-falsifiable, hence the convenience of the term "climate change" when thermometers don't oblige the expected trend lines.
As with religion, it is harsh toward skeptics, heretics and other "deniers."
And as with religion, it is susceptible to the earthly temptations of money, power, politics, arrogance and deceit.

Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13B

Secret Fed Loans Helped Banks Net $13B - Bloomberg
Add up guarantees and lending limits, and the Fed had committed $7.77 trillion as of March 2009 to rescuing the financial system, more than half the value of everything produced in the U.S. that year.

Editorial: Full Emails Show Climategate 2.0 is More Than Just Hot Air

DailyTech - Editorial: Full Emails Show Climategate 2.0 is More Than Just Hot Air
Full emails show inarguably the researchers fought transparency, to keep public in the dark

Following Delay of the Keystone XL Pipeline to U.S, China is Anxious to Tap Into Canada's Tar Sands Oil

CARPE DIEM: Following Delay of the Keystone XL Pipeline to U.S, China is Anxious to Tap Into Canada's Tar Sands Oil
"Canadian politicians and energy executives are ratcheting up support for several big infrastructure projects aimed at redirecting the country's growing oil output to thirsty Asian markets—a move seen as crucial in preventing a looming bottleneck of crude.

Muslim students walking out of lectures on Darwinism because it 'clashes with the Koran'

Muslim students walking out of lectures on Darwinism because it 'clashes with the Koran' Mail Online
Muslim students, including trainee doctors on one of Britain's leading medical courses, are walking out of lectures on evolution claiming it conflicts with creationist ideas established in the Koran.

EyeOnMuskegon 11-27-2011 "The Rich"

Memo to the Occupy protesters: here are ten things we evil capitalists really think

Memo to the Occupy protesters: here are ten things we evil capitalists really think – Telegraph Blogs

Climategate 2.0

James Delingpole: Climategate 2.0 - WSJ.com
Like the first "climategate" leak of 2009, the latest release shows top scientists in the field fudging data, conspiring to bully and silence opponents, and displaying far less certainty about the reliability of anthropogenic global warming theory in private than they ever admit in public.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Colin Powell Blames Media and Tea Party for Divisive Tone in Washington

Colin Powell Blames Media and Tea Party for Divisive Tone in Washington NewsBusters.org
Colin Powell on Sunday blamed the media as well as the Tea Party for the divisive political tone in Washington.
Not surprisingly, neither the class warfare stoked by President Obama and his Party nor the resulting Occupy Wall Street movement was mentioned during this seven minute interview with Christiane Amanpour on ABC's This Week (video follows with transcript and commentary):

And the GOPers wanted this liberal moron to be their presidential nominee?

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Curbing class-action suits that benefit lawyers, but not plaintiffs

Curbing class-action suits that benefit lawyers, but not plaintiffs Washington Examiner
Imagine that you get a congratulatory note in the mail because you won a multimillion-dollar settlement in a class-action lawsuit.
Only problem is, you didn't even know you were involved in the case, so what does "your" victory mean for you?
You get nothing, but the lawyers who brought the lawsuit will be paid handsomely, and some obscure charities also get big financial windfalls.

The class action lawyers are pure democrat supporters.
Remember in November.
There is a difference between the political parties!

Report: Michigan's jobless benefit system falls short of other Midwest states

Report: Michigan's jobless benefit system falls short of other Midwest states

Pensions strike will hit thousands of NHS operations

Pensions strike will hit thousands of NHS operations, says Andrew Lansley - Telegraph
The Department of Health estimates one in five NHS staff could strike on November 30, which officials think might lead to a 20 per cent drop in capacity.
That would equate to 5,500 pre-planned operations having to be rescheduled as well as 12,000 diagnostic tests.
It would also mean 40,000 outpatient appointments being delayed, and 7,500 ambulance transfers.

"Free" government "health care"!

Why E.U. Collapse is More Likely Than the Fall of the Euro

Guest commentary: Why E.U. Collapse is More Likely Than the Fall of the Euro MLive.com
But the thing that could cause the European Union to topple, or at least shrink in size, would be the outright withdrawal of Britain.
And that has started to look quite possible.

Global Warming Models Called Into Question By New Study

Global Warming Models Called Into Question By New Study - Latest Headlines - Investors.com
The study in the journal Science found that global temperatures appear to be far less sensitive to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere than originally estimated.
This sounds prosaic, but it's a bombshell — another in a long line of revelations showing the scientific fraud at the heart of the anti-global warming movement.

As Banks Struggle, U.S. Gov't Tries To Take Them Down

As Banks Struggle, U.S. Gov't Tries To Take Them Down - Latest Headlines - Investors.com
Bankers were ordered to "reinvest" in unprofitable areas, and reallocate capital to people who posed credit risks.
When those risky loans went bad, radicals blamed "greedy" bankers and "predatory" lenders.
Today, they want to punish bankers and lenders by forcing them to "repair the damages" that they themselves caused.
And they don't care if it drives many of them out of business.

Pepper-Spraying Taxpayers

Pepper-Spraying Taxpayers - Heather Mac Donald - National Review Online
his 2009 base pay of $194,000 was nearly four times that of starting assistant professors.
Basri was given responsibility for a $4.5 million slice of Berkeley’s vast diversity bureaucracy when he became the school’s first Vice Chancellor for Equity and Inclusion in 2007;

The Non-Green Jobs Boom

Review & Outlook: The Non-Green Jobs Boom - WSJ.com
While Washington has tried to force-feed renewable energy with tens of billions in special subsidies, oil and gas production has boomed thanks to private investment.

Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street

Why blacks aren’t embracing Occupy Wall Street - The Washington Post
“Occupy Wall Street was started by whites and is about their concern with their plight,”

Friday, November 25, 2011

Climategate 2.0: Lawson squishes Huhne

Climategate 2.0: Lawson squishes Huhne – Telegraph Blogs
But here he is with Lord Turner, gently suggesting in a roundabout way that Huhne is both incredibly stupid and a big fat liar.

Deconstructing Solyndra

Deconstructing Solyndra - Yahoo! News
The pressure the White House was putting on the Energy Department to ensure Solyndra, its first recipient of a stimulus-backed loan guarantee, would quickly succeed was intense and unrelenting. Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, and Chu made public statements about how Solyndra was the prototype for both stimulus jobs and clean-energy innovation in 2010 when the company’s finances were going south.

Climategate 2.0: the most damning email of them all

Climategate 2.0: the most damning email of them all – Telegraph Blogs
The worst, most toecurlingly awful, damning, vile, reprehensible, stomach-churningly dreadful email – the one that shows the Warmist junk-scientists in a light of such festering syphilitic repellance they can never possibly recover is this, the Christmas ditty specially written by Kevin Trenberth in celebration of the Nobel committee's comedic decision to award the Peace Prize to Al Gore and the IPCC.
Hold onto your stomachs real tight boys and girls, here we go

Spending Wars

Articles: Spending Wars
The ideas that federal spending exploded under George W. Bush, that "Bush's wars" account for our spending explosion, that Reaganism died with Reagan, and that we are on a spending binge that started decades ago are all nonsense.

Yet We Still Don't Drug Screen Welfare Recipients

RightMichigan.com Yet We Still Don't Drug Screen Welfare Recipients
"So, let me get this straight... we are supposed to be outraged that employees are doping it up at a business that prohibits drug use, which is paid by our tax dollars.
Yet, we have individuals on welfare, some for generations, which are funded by our same tax dollars that are not screened for drug use?
Yessiree.
Only in Michigan!"

World News: Seniors scammed into buying 70 years’ worth of toilet paper

World News: Seniors scammed into buying 70 years’ worth of toilet paper - thestar.com
MIAMI—Florida scam artists told elderly victims the government had changed the laws regulating toilet paper and that their septic tanks would be ruined unless they bought specially formulated rolls, court documents said.

Wanted: Ebonics Translator for Federal DEA Job

#.Ts9dhGNFunA#.Ts9dhGNFunA#.Ts9dhGNFunA#.Ts9dhGNFunA#.Ts9dhGNFunA
The U.S. Department of Justice is looking for fluent Ebonics speakers to fill nine drug enforcement jobs, giving merit to a dialect that experts say is often mimicked and little understood.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Massive global health fund says it's broke

Massive global health fund says it's broke - CBS News
The fund had to make some "tough decisions to protect some of the gains that have already been delivered," he added.
Among those decisions were that hundreds of millions of dollars in grants planned for China, Brazil, Mexico and Russia will now be used for other purposes, fund officials said.

CHINA?

Death of a currency as eurogeddon approaches

Death of a currency as eurogeddon approaches - Telegraph
No, what this is about is the markets starting to bet on what was previously a minority view - a complete collapse, or break-up, of the euro.

George Washington thanked God for USA

Column: George Washington thanked God for USA – USATODAY.com
In his 1789 proclamation, President Washington listed the blessings for which his countrymen should be thankful.
As we gather with our family and friends, we Americans still have much to be grateful for this Thanksgiving — including the wisdom and foresight of the founders' remarkable vision of religious freedom.

A Special Thanks From Sparty

Exposing the Cost of Health Care

Exposing the Cost of Health Care - Technology Review
Travelocity for medicine: Castlight's data-driven tool sheds light on the costs of medical care, information that can be difficult for consumers to find on their own.
Credit: Castlight Health

America’s first socialist republic

America’s first socialist republic Power Line
We have much to learn from the history of the Plymouth Plantation.
For, in their first year in the New World, the Pilgrims conducted an experiment in social engineering akin to what is now contemplated; and, after an abortive attempt at cultivating the land in common, their leaders reflected on the results in a manner that Americans today should find instructive.

Japan ‘May Be’ Close to a Downgrade: S&P

Japan ‘May Be’ Close to a Downgrade: S&P - Bloomberg
“Japan’s finances are getting worse and worse every day, every second,” Takahira Ogawa, director of sovereign ratings at S&P in Singapore, said in an interview.

Death Panels, Shmeath Panels

Death Panels, Shmeath Panels. Chicks On The Right
I mean, it’s a call into a radio show, so I have nothing other than this audio to show you that proves what the caller says.
But I also have no reason to believe some random dude would pretend to be a neurosurgeon who just came back from an HHS update on Obamacare in DC, because ultimately this will be proven or disproven, and it will have done no good to make stuff up.

Death panels.
Listen and wonder.

J.R. Martinez: Who is the 'Dancing with the Stars' winner?

J.R. Martinez: Who is the 'Dancing with the Stars' winner? - NYPOST.com
A few months into his service, the truck he was driving hit a land mine and the explosion burned over 40 percent of Martinez's body, including his face.
He was evacuated to Germany for treatment and spent a year and a half in hospital care, undergoing more than 30 surgeries.
Martinez had to relearn many basic tasks, including walking.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

U.S. Rep Sander Levin organizing support for an unemployment insurance extension

U.S. Rep Sander Levin organizing support for an unemployment insurance extension MLive.com
Rep. Sander Levin is hosting a forum to organize support for a federal extension of unemployment insurance.

The CBO Quietly Downgrades Obama's $825 Bil Stimulus

The CBO Quietly Downgrades Obama's $825 Bil Stimulus - Latest Headlines - Investors.com
The new report finds, for example, that the stimulus may have added as little as 0.7% to GDP growth in 2010 — when spending was at its peak

Review & Outlook: Warren Buffett's Tax Dodge

Review & Outlook: Warren Buffett's Tax Dodge - WSJ.com
The billionaire volunteers the middle class for a tax increase.

Uh oh, global warming loons: here comes Climategate II!

Uh oh, global warming loons: here comes Climategate II! – Telegraph Blogs
In other words, what these emails confirm is that the great man-made global warming scare is not about science but about political activism

Climate change and extreme weather: What’s the connection?

Climate change and extreme weather: What’s the connection? - Slate Magazine
Sorting through the confusion on “extreme weather events.”

Why swirling wine in a glass makes it taste better

Why swirling wine in a glass makes it taste better - Telegraph
Wine buffs who swirl their drink in a glass are using the sophisticated physics of wave technology to unleash the flavour, scientists say.