Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
Ace is cautiously optimistic.
Cap and Trade off the Agenda, Now, Too?
Obama wasn’t crazy when he tried to rush socialism on us in one package. Cap and tax was his funding scheme for health care (and expanding the government generally). He was counting on those billions levied on evil energy producer (and then passed on to citizens, but in a hidden, plausible-deniability manner) to fund his spending initiatives.
Without all those sweet, sweet not-well-hidden taxes on the middle class, he is left with the options of either 1) exploding the deficit still further or 2) reneging on that pledge that is oh so important to him, to not tax the middle class further.
Ace points to Hot Air, which in turn points to Politico.
A handful of key senators on climate change are almost guaranteed to be tied up well into the fall on health care. Democrats from the Midwest and the South are resistant to a cap-and-trade proposal. And few if any Republicans are jumping in to help push a global warming and energy initiative.
As a result, many Democrats fear the lack of political will and the congressional calendar will conspire to punt climate change into next year.
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that all their initiatives have to do with making life more expensive and making the people who live that life more dependent. Every little thing they propose has to do with lowering the standard of living — save for the giveaways from the government coffers. That, to the best I can determine, is what makes it all worthwhile. All these hidden costs for being thick and stupid enough to bring things to the marketplace the legal way…the minimum wage, the social security taxes for hiring legal citizens instead of cheap illegal labor, the cap-n-trade scam “contributions”…and the decrease in our standard of living is measurable, for anyone who takes the time to do the math.
Here, let’s try it.
Two generations ago a house cost $8,000 and a skilled machinist got $4.50 an hour. He could buy that house with 1,778 hours. Can you buy a house with 1,778 hours of your time? Milk — three dollars a gallon now. Cap-and-Trade is exactly the kind of nonsense that could push it up to seven. Gasoline — three-fifty. How would you like to pay twelve? And then of course there’s health care…we all *LUV* to bitch and whine and piss and moan about the high cost of health care. That’s why we need ObamaCare! Because then it’ll all be free, right? Hey how about making it cheap instead of free? That’s what I asked at Cassy’s place, citing this article to support the idea that maybe that would be our most meaningful “reform” — tort reform, as opposed to Euroweenie single-payer health care plans. And my opposition tucks his tail under his skirt and cries wee, wee, wee, wee, wee all the way home. Not a single word comes my way in response. I opened up a taboo topic.
How come it’s always like this? Nobody wants to make anything more efficient or economical…at least nobody on the dem side of the house does. It’s always “free.” Way more expensive, and maybe paid-fer by someone else but always way more expensive…
I can’t answer this. But I think, here, we do have an irrefutable argument that liberalism is for people who lack a long-term memory. It is an argument sufficiently durable to be accepted, one piece at a time if not in total, by the most passionate democrat. Step through it with me, one step at a time, and have a liberal-dem you know validate each one —
The plan is, for any given commodity exchanged, that the transactions be conducted more sluggishly and awkwardly and therefore the price will go up, but that’s quite alright because it will be subsidized, offset, or entirely funded by the government…in other words, “free.” (The dem guy agrees.)
This puts the government in charge of things that weren’t under government control before. (The dem guy agrees.)
So benevolent and wise decisions are made, by a government run by decent people we can trust…provided we find them trustworthy… (The dem guy agrees.)
We all tend to trust people more if they share our position on the ideological spectrum. (The dem guy agrees.)
The government has been run by Republicans 28 years out of the last 41. (The dem guy…uh…starts to see where you’re going with this, and probably tries to change the subject.)
There you have it. Liberal-democrat politics are all about placing your most important life decisions in the hands of people you not only mistrust, but loathe down to the very marrow of your bones — 68% of the time. Or else, I was right when I said it’s all about sustaining a stunning ignorance about time, and the passage of it.
Maybe both.
I hope Ace is right, I really do. I hope this is one of those things where the proposed action hits a little bump in the road, and because of that one bump is pushed out of sight for generations and generations and generations. Or, to quote Ace’s commenter #1, lorien1973 — “I’m glad He’s failing.”
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