Say Anything Blog

I actually got the idea to make this post from an email I received this morning. The email asked if I knew the reason the DOE was established. SO I went and investigated. Only to find another depressing fact of incompetence by our Government. If the DOE had done their job, it would have gone a long way to improving everyone’s live in the U.S. But, that is not how our Government works. A department is established to insure jobs and grow Government. Such as the Department of Homeland Security. Anyway, here is some facts about the DOE that I thought were interesting.

November 7, 1973
President Nixon launches Project Independence, with the goal of achieving energy self-sufficiency by 1980. Recalling the Manhattan Project, Nixon declares that American science, technology, and industry can free the United States from dependence on foreign oil….

October 11, 1974
President Ford signs the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974. The Atomic Energy Commission is abolished. The Energy Research and Development Administration, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and Energy Resources Council are established….

April 18, 1977
President Carter announces National Energy Plan in his first major energy speech. His plan calls for the establishment of an energy department.

August 4, 1977
President Carter signs the Department of Energy Organization Act. The Federal Energy Administration and Energy Research and Development Administration are abolished….
President Carter signs the National Energy Act, which includes the National Energy Conservation Policy Act, the Power Plant and Industrial Fuel Use Act, the Public Utilities Regulatory Policy Act, the Energy Tax Act, and the Natural Gas Policy Act…..

So, the DOE has been around for over 30 years. Outside of spending most of their time and budget on Nuclear waste and the super-conductor, what have they done to make this Country self-sufficient when it comes to energy. But they did get those taxes and regulations in real fast. Another example of the Government missing a real opportunity to make the US a stronger and safer Country. The timeline that I copied this information from is at http://www.energy.gov/about/timeline1971-1980.htm It covers the years 1939 - 2004.

With all of the flubs Obama has made since the inauguration, items that are only a week old sometimes seem like they took place months ago. But this article by P.J. O’Rourke over on the Standard Weekly blog, was IMHO right on the money. And it was definitely refreshing to have a reporter not tip toe around his feelings for the Big O.
During the Bush years, stem cell research never stopped. Private enterprise was allowed to continue with their research. Which they did. If in the past 8 years, this type of research was showing promise. The Companies would be clamoring for this legislation. I did not see that at the signing of this bill.

President Obama went to hell not with the stroke of a pen, but with the cluck of a tongue. His executive order was an error. His statement at the executive order signing ceremony was a mortal error: “In recent years, when it comes to stem cell research, rather than furthering discovery, our government has forced what I believe is a false choice between sound science and moral values.”

A false choice is no choice at all—Tweedledee/Tweedledum, Chevy Suburban/GMC Yukon XL, Joe Biden/Triumph the Insult Comic Dog. Is there really no difference “between sound science and moral values”? Webster’s Third New International Dictionary states that science is, definition one, “possession of knowledge as distinguished from ignorance or misunderstanding.”

Let’s look at the various things science has “known” in the past 3,000 years.

Lightning is the sneeze of Thor.

The periodic table consists of Earth, Wind, and Fire and a recording of “Got To Get You into My Life.”

The world is flat with signs saying “Here Be Democrats” near the edges.

You can turn lead into gold without first selling your Citibank stock at a huge loss.

We’re the center of the universe and the Sun revolves around us (and shines out of Uranus, Mr. President, if I may be allowed a moment of utter sophomoricism)....

The rest of the story…........ http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000%5C000%5C016%5C269mfvpo.asp?pg=1

ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland tax officials said that a New York representative is not entitled to a residents’ tax break on the house in a Washington suburb that he has claimed as his primary residence for at least 10 years.

Representative Eliot Engel has a house in Maryland.

The representative, Eliot Engel, calls himself a lifelong resident of the Bronx, where he rents an apartment. But he and his wife list the house in Potomac, Md., as their primary home on Maryland property tax forms.

They paid nearly $500,000 for the house in 1993, and it has almost doubled in value. The Engels have received thousands of dollars in tax credits that are reserved for people who declare Maryland their home.
........
Mr. Engel was re-elected at least five times to represent the Bronx while property tax documents indicated his primary residence was in Potomac.

New York and federal laws require that representatives be inhabitants of the state they represent when they are elected.

Apparently the Congressman believed that the tax burden in his home state was unfair. Instead of doing is patriotic duty and pay his fair share of taxes he thought it was proper to keep his money. But the biggest question that I would like to know is HOW MANY TIMES DID HE VOTE. Did he vote in New York and Maryland. Just asking.

THe story is here…. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/nyregion/14engel.html?_r=2&partner=rss&emc=rss

(CNSNews.com) - On Wednesday, only two days after he lifted President Bush’s executive order banning federal funding of stem cell research that requires the destruction of human embryos, President Barack Obama signed a law that explicilty bans federal funding of any “research in which a human embryo or embryos are destroyed, discarded, or knowingly subjected to risk of injury or death.”

This is what happens when you push a bill through without having time to digest what is in it. Another example of the amateurish White House of Obama. Between his lack of CEO skills and surrounding himself by inept personnel he will continue to do this for the next 3 years, 10 months, 6 days but who is counting. I used the inauguration day for my count.

The rest of the story is at http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=44943

Thanks to Kate over at Small Dead Animal blog for posting this. Carol Platt Liebau has Obama pegged. Plus, she does have a little history working with him. The link to this article is listed at the end of the post.

Carol Platt Liebau was first female managing editor of the Harvard Law Review;

  It reminds me a little bit of my experience with him when he was president of the Harvard Law Review. You know, I hesitated to say a lot about this during the campaign because I really thought maybe it wasn’t fair. That maybe, finally, when he got to be President, this would be a job big enough to engage and hold Barack Obama’s sustained interest, because really, is there a bigger job out here?
[...]

[W]hen he was at the HLR you did get a very distinct sense that he was the kind of guy who much more interested in being the president of the Review, than he was in doing anything as president of the Review.

The link below also has the link to the audio post of Ms. Liebau while she guest hosted the Hugh Hewitt show.

http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/archives/010944.html#comments

Another misquote of facts by Obama. His teams penchant for pushing facts around to match their views are a technique of local/small time politics. They aren’t used to having the stories checked by more than one or two reporters. And if they did get caught, their rhetoric could usually drown out the one or two papers that were causing them a problem. But at this level they should have realized by now that everything the POTUS says is double checked. Apparently that has not caught on yet. Even ABC news is now checking out Obama’s facts.
“Facts…..we don’t need no stinking facts….”

“The cost of health care now causes a bankruptcy in America every thirty seconds,” Obama said at the opening of his White House forum on health care reform. The problem: That claim, based on a 2001 survey, is simply unsupportable.

The figure comes from a 2005 Harvard University study saying that 54 percent of bankruptcies in 2001 were caused by health expenses. We reviewed it internally and knocked it down at the time; an academic reviewer did the same in 2006. Recalculating Harvard’s own data, he came up with a far lower figure – 17 percent.

and later on in the article.

Moreover, Harvard’s definition of “medical” expenses includes situations that aren’t necessarily medical in common parlance, e.g., a gambling problem, or the death of a family member. If your main wage-earning spouse gets hit by a bus and dies, and you have to file, that’s included as a “medical bankruptcy.”

When I asked the lead author, Dr. David Himmelstein, about his definitions of medical bankruptcy back in 2005, he said, “It’s a judgment call,” and added that any death, for example, “to our mind is a medical event.”

article at http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenumbers/2009/03/medical-bankrup.html

Fox News was the ratings leader during prime time and total day during February 2009 — its 86th month on top. FNC averaged more Total Viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined in prime time and total day.

For those who think CNN or MSNBC are relevant.

http://www.mediabistro.com/tvnewser/ratings/february_ratings_fnc_beats_cnn_and_msnbc_combined_in_total_viewers_109560.asp

This is an old item but re-reading this article with what is going on today shows who is pullng Obama’s strings. Soros, along with most of the Loonie left, want to make this Country the EU of the west.

Bloomberg today reported that the Soros-funded Far Left think tank Center for American Progress is helping to shape the Obama Administration’s agenda. This group is led by former Clinton and current Obama advisor John Podesta…...Some of the group’s recommendations already have been adopted by the president-elect.

These include the center’s call for a gradual withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq and a buildup of forces in Afghanistan, a plan for universal health coverage through employer plans and proposals to create purchasing pools that allow small businesses to spread the cost among a larger group of workers. Obama has endorsed much of a CAP plan to create ``green jobs’’ linked to alleviating global climate change.

...To help promote its ideas, CAP employs 11 full-time bloggers who contribute to two Web sites, ThinkProgress and the Wonk Room; others prepare daily feeds for radio stations. The center’s policy briefings are standing-room only, packed with lobbyists, advocacy-group representatives and reporters looking for insights on where the Obama administration is headed.

Higher learning: More middle-schoolers leapfrog into advanced classes—but are minorities being left behind?

Everyone must be equal.

For parents and students, it’s a great chance to get ahead. And school districts have something else to brag about: seventh- and eighth-graders completing courses such as Algebra II Honors and biology that had been reserved primarily for ninth- and 10th-graders.

But the nation’s foremost scholars in middle-school education are worried the fast-growing trend is leaving minority children behind. They also question whether the practice is legal because, nationwide, it has tended to result in students being segregated by race…......
Though officials at the federal Office of Civil Rights wouldn’t speculate about whether local schools have broken any rules, some of the country’s leading scholars say it could be just a matter of time before such disparities trigger an investigation.

While other Countries have a much higher rate of students attending college and engineering schools. What we worry about here in the U.S. is if some people are being left behind.
Not everyone should go to college. We need plumbers, electricians, chiefs and the like. That is what trade schools are for. Most of the students attending trade schools are happy there because they are doing what they love.  But, yet again, we do not worry if the children are happy. Only that they are all the same. And I thought Rod Sterling was a little off the deep end when he wrote the story about an intelligent child having to wear a special device to give him headaches when he started to think to much.

Something different than this smelly pork bill. Another item to keep the BP up at critical level.
The only comment I have to state how stupid I think the judge is that allowed this.  AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh….

An Arizona man who has waged a 10-year campaign to stop a flood of illegal immigrants from crossing his property is being sued by 16 Mexican nationals who accuse him of conspiring to violate their civil rights when he stopped them at gunpoint on his ranch on the U.S.-Mexico border.

rest of story here…... http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2009/feb/09/16-illegals-sue-arizona-rancher/

From one of the brilliant Economist of our time. It is nice to listen to common sense for a change.

Milton Freedman - Greed

George Soros piece on his take of the stock collapse. I do like how he blames the Federal Reserve for Lehman Brothers failure. Not their mismanagement. This guy would have us print more money. Which would further devalue the American dollar. He is out to bring down America as fast as possible. He is a very, very evil man. And he has Obama’s ear. He was the original backer of Obama in his early years. The whole article is at this url…... http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/49b1654a-ed60-11dd-bd60-0000779fd2ac.html

But worse was to come. Lehman was one of the main market-makers in commercial paper and a large issuer of these short-term obligations to boot. Reserve Primary, an independent money market fund, held Lehman paper and, since it had no deep pocket to turn to, it had to “break the buck” – stop redeeming its shares at par. That caused panic among depositors: by Thursday a run on money market funds was in full swing

....

How could Lehman have been left to go under? The responsibility lies squarely with the financial authorities, notably the Treasury and the Federal Reserve. The claim that they lacked the necessary legal powers is a lame excuse. In an emergency they could and should have done whatever was necessary to prevent the system from collapsing. That is what they have done on other occasions. The fact is, they allowed it to happen.

On the issue of wages, Gettelfinger argues that union paychecks are comparable to those of the competition when bonuses are figured into the equation. Workers at a Toyota facility in Georgetown, KY earned $30 an hour in 2007, an amount $2 above the hourly salary of a veteran Detroit 3 worker.

Enough said. Unions can turn as bad as Companies if they are allowed to run unchecked. The article is at http://www.carseek.com/news/january2009/UAW-says-no-wage-cuts/

Go figure?........Not sure why they covered all the Balls. Unless your there, I can’t see why the TV studios thought it would be interesting enough to watch on TV. American Idol beat their butts.

Early numbers for the inauguration of Barack Obama are impressive but, perhaps surprisingly, could come in below those for Ronald Reagan’s first term in 1981.

n primetime, Fox’s “American Idol” scored the biggest numbers Tuesday, as auds seemed to tire of inaugural coverage. Sure, ABC did solid numbers for its coverage of the inaugural balls, but news specials on CBS and NBC were not competitive with entertainment programs in their time periods.

Excellent write up on how the Hollywood crowd, turns on a dime and does not even realize how dumb they look.

Many of the celebrities that were central to demonizing and making life impossible for President Bush for eight loathsome years NOW want to help with the heavy lifting of bringing America back together under President Barack Obama.

or this…...

The celebrity decadence during the “oppressive” Bush years was world class. The clubs raged. The boutique hotels rocked. The private jet industry at Van Nuys airport flourished. The party never stopped. And only a precious few (Thank you, dearly!!!) stepped up to support the American troops who have been valiantly fighting for Hollywood’s right to do lines off of each others’ buttocks at $10 million Hollywood Hills mansions.

They never spoke up against the movies that demonized our military.

They never made movies to counter the libel.

They took the easy route. And blamed Bush for everything.

good reading…...the complete story can be found here….. http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/breitbart/2009/01/19/where-were-you-celebrities-after-911/