Warm Beach, Washington

Our church does an annual 4-day camp at Warm Beach Christian Conference Center, just south of Stanwood. The facility if first class. It has a huge set of activities - rope course, climbing tower, horseback riding, hiking, swimming, basketball. And huge fields for any crazy game you might improvise. They improved the food this year. In past years they bordered on insult to our Asian friends with meals of mac and cheese. Those were replaced by rice and teri chicken. Great improvement. I will put my big complaint later.

We have a great time. People come from near and far. First, there are our two churches New Hope International at Mercer Island and Mountlake Terrace. There is a long-time daughter church in Chandler, (Phoenix) Arizona and a new one in Rosemead, California. Both were represented by about ten people. And some people from Las Vegas. There are ten related churches in Thailad, two in Bangkok plus eight more. They were represented by a mother and daughter who have grandchildren/nieces here. And a woman came from Singapore for this camp.

Back to Warm Beach: The service was very good until this year. They downgraded the food service from family-style table service in order "to reduce wasted food." It does reduce waster. But the people serving food went from an attitude of service to "I will stand here and watch you struggle. And be mad if you leave something on the table." Are you a young mother trying to serve and kid (or two) plus yourself? Tough. I rescued a couple of them, but didn't see the 18-year-old servers try it. Coffee? Go beg for it.

My Qwest Internet service sure is slow at night. I can't load a single page now. Just got one - one. What happened to the promised high speed I am paying for?

Allied Waste competence

Allied Waste hasn't picked up our recycle bin, which is paper, glass and plastics, for three (3) weeks now, actually four. In Lake Forest Park, WA Gross incompetence? No, it doesn't smell bad. Just incompetence. They changed our pick-up day from Monday to Friday, which would add 4 days to the time it sat. But they also switched the alternating weeks for recycle vs. yard waste. So that added another week. So we are one business day short of a three-week delay. The normal alternation makes it four weeks. You would think they would put on extra people for all the extra. After all, they initiated this change. They did tell us that they would pick up overage materials without charge. No. There are blue bins on the street everywhere and lots of boxes and paper sitting on the ground. A phone call to their number: "Normal business hours are Monday through Friday, 8 am to 5 pm." Since they won't listen to me, I will complain to you. Call 206-682-9730.

Screwing military voters - Sam Reed again

Several states are asking/refusing to meet the deadline of mailing military ballots 45 days before the election to allow time them to reach soldiers and sailors at remote overseas locations. And Washington is among them. Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed asked to have our primary moved earlier into mid-August when so many people are on vacation so it would be early enough to prepare for the November general election. On the other hand, he also recommended that every county move to all-mail balloting, which requires added weeks of lead time so ballots for everyone are mailed out weeks in advance, instead of being ready on the first (or second) Tuesday in November. So he can claim to be a victim of his own priorities. He says he doesn't have time to get ballots to military voters. PJ Media ...

Twelve states have applied for waivers from protecting military voters in the 2010 election: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, New York, Maryland, Delaware, Wisconsin, Colorado, Washington, Hawaii, Alaska, and the District of Columbia. Citizens from these states should be outraged that their state didn’t take steps to protect military voting rights despite having plenty of time to do so. States like Florida, Georgia, and Vermont got the job done and made changes to comply with MOVE. These twelve did nothing. ... Maryland’s failure to comply with MOVE is typical. I have reviewed documents which make it very clear that Maryland knew they were not in compliance with MOVE as far back as January 2010, but did absolutely nothing to fix the problem. This failure to protect military voters now threatens Governor Martin O’Malley’s reelection. Challenger Bob Ehrlich is hammering O’Malley for dropping the ball. Instead of passing legislation to enact MOVE, the Maryland General Assembly was able to pass 810 other pieces of legislation in 2010. Maryland found time for designating September 15 through October 15 as “Hispanic Heritage Month,” a ban on driving with cell phones, mandatory solar energy purchases for state utilities, a law to decrease how far away from shore people can hunt ducks … and saddest of all, a law allowing 16-year-olds to register to vote. Obviously Maryland has other priorities besides men and women serving overseas. In the meantime, the public, particularly military families and veterans groups, have a right to petition their government and voice their opinion about the waivers. Citizens can reach FVAP and tell them to deny all waiver requests at 800-438-8683 or vote@fvap.gov. Citizens can petition the DOJ and tell them both to recommend against granting the waivers and to sue states who submitted them at (202) 307-2767 or rebecca.j.wertz@usdoj.gov.

Sam's side at SOS. I find it hard to spend energy looking at his side, since I have seen that he doesn't even comply with state laws that he requests.

Gates, Sr., promises his income tax is only for health and education - Gates is easily fooled

Bill Gates, Sr., says we need a state income tax and thinks he can ignore our state constitution and supreme court precedents against an income tax. Initiative 1098, not 1077. He promises that it will only be for the rich and it will be locked up for use only for health care and education. He promises! But both of those promises can be easily broken by the legislature after two years. Initiatives cannot be changed for two years, but then they can be. When asked at his kickoff about the legislature making changes he said "they would never do that." But the Legislature has a huge track record of raiding "dedicated funds." In fact, in this state a dedicated fund has to be considered a fiction. Richard Davis at Wash ACE

In my column in the Puget Sound Business Journal today, I look at how the legislature has routinely dipped into dedicated accounts and amended initiatives to grab money for the general fund. Lawmakers slip budget handcuffs with an ease Houdini would envy. In the past decade, they tapped dedicated health care, education and other accounts. In all, more than $2 billion flowed from easily cracked lockboxes to bail out the general fund. ...

And his blog has a table of all the robberies over the past ten years. Robbery? Yes. A robbery is stealing from a victim who is aware you are doing it, so it requires force. The data is stunning. They steal from everyone every year! Table at Wash Research Council blog (pdf) Here are just a few of hundreds:

Health Services account - $150 million to General Fund in 2001 and $45M in 2004. A later removal was paid back. Education Savings Accoint - $51.1M in 2009 and $100.8M in 2010. Part of the latter might be $84M that went to Education Construction Account Local Toxics Account - $148.1M in 2009 and $12.8M in 2010.

Picking on Gates, Sr., is so easy. His unforced errors are so large and open to the world. Thanks for the entertainment, sir.

Social Security Ponzi Scheme for 75 years

The US Congress took the cash I deposited in Social Security for 48 and spent it all. Now I am collecting benefits. If they had put the money in a hole in the ground there would be something to pay me with - or invest it. But the distinguished senators and congressmen were dumb and dishonest. I am not well, so I will go straight to a source. Newsbusters This is a historic year for the largest government program: Social Security, which turns 75 in just a few days. The program is also running a deficit for the first time since 1983, and ahead of estimates. Initially, Social Security was created to provide supplemental income to elderly and disabled people who could not work, and was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt Aug. 14, 1935. Social Security is in the red six years earlier than forecasted, and for the first time since 1983 (the last time the program was "fixed"). Downplaying the significance of the problem, The New York Times reported March 24, that the program is facing a "small" $29 billion shortfall this year because the high 9.5 percent unemployment rate is cutting into payroll tax collections that fund the program's benefits. Oh, and because there isn't actually a trust fund with all the money previously collected by people paying into the system. Problems are mounting for the Social Security program which essentially is a government-created "Ponzi scheme." It was a boon for the earliest entrants to the program like Ida May Fuller. She was the recipient of the first monthly retirement check, in 1940, and continued to collect until her death in 1975. Fuller worked only three years under the system: paying in $24.75 in taxes. By the time of her death she had collected a total of $22,888.92 according to the Social Security Administration. In 2010, the public is skeptical that they will get anything back from the system they pay into with each paycheck. A USA Today/Gallup poll found that three-fourths of people between 18 and 34 years of age don't expect to get a Social Security check. Yet the news media have opposed much needed reform recently by ignoring or downplaying the problems with Social Security, and during the Bush years by attacking conservative reform proposals. They have allowed liberals to attack conservatives for wanting to make changes to the program, editorialized that Social Security will be just fine and practically ignored the failure of the program's trustees to provide its annual report on time this year. The three broadcast networks have done little reporting on the postponement - even though the trustees are delaying bad news during an election year. The president's debt commission is also looking into entitlements like Social Security to come up with policy solutions, but those won't be announced until December - conveniently after the election. Every year the trustees of Social Security are required to publish their annual analysis by April 1. CATO Institute's Jagadeesh Gokhale and Mark J. Warshawsky pointed this out in Forbes on July 12, 2010. "This year, however, the trustees have postponed its release indefinitely." Why does that matter? Because, according to that article "The program's financial condition continues to remain hidden from public view." The trustees' report was finally released Aug. 5, but when The New York Times announced its findings there was no mention that the report was four months late.The Times' story also hyped the solvency of Medicare (something seriously in question), while admitting that Social Security is in the red. Nor did it point out that the shortfall had grown to a projection of $41 billion this year, $12 billion more than the Times had reported in March. Still, the Times quickly reassured the public it was "not a cause for panic," according to Social Security commissioner Michael J. Astrue. The Times quoted the report, Social Security trustees, Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner and the co-chair of a liberal coalition, but not a single conservative voice. A Times editorial predictably spun the report by saying, "Social Security is holding up even in the face of a weak economy." USA Today supplied its view on Social Security in an editorial Aug. 9. "[H]ere's something Americans can cross off their be-very-afraid list: whether Social Security will be around so they can worry about all those other threats in relative financial comfort." According to the liberal media, the problems facing Social Security are "easily fixable." USA Today argued that it is only necessary to "economize elsewhere," but that Washington doesn't like to do that. CNN Money's senior writer Jeanne Sahadi also said that fixing Social Security "should be a snap." Sahadi's solutions were not new: increase the retirement age, reduce growth in benefit levels and raising the cap on how much of wages is subject to the payroll tax. But she didn't point out how politically difficult those solutions actually are, or the mainstream media's past attacks on reform proposals. When President Bush attempted to tackle Social Security reform, the five major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and FOX) aired twice as many left-leaning stories as right-leaning. Despite the media spin, "urgent reform is necessary" said Nicola Moore of The Heritage Foundation. Moore pointed out that Social Security has a $7.9 trillion shortfall "which means the program would require $7.9 trillion in cash today! - to afford its promises." Kathryn Nix, also of Heritage, wrote in June that "the early arrival of the need for a Social Security bailout should serve as a severe reminder to the Obama Administration that entitlement reform is needed now." MSNBC Host Portrays Conservative Attempt at Reform as Attack on Middle Class According to at least one leftie pundit on MSNBC, attempts toward reform are actually attacks on the middle class in disguise. That's what Keith Olbermann said on Aug. 9. "Republicans are tipping their hand somewhat about where they would get the money to pay for more tax cuts from the rich. Take it from the middle class. And make Americans work longer before they can retire," Olbermann declared on his program. He cited Republican leader John Boehner's comments about raising the retirement age to 70. Boehner has offered that possibility in June as one solution to make Social Security solvent, not, as Olbermann suggested, simply a way to "pay for more tax cuts from the rich." Olbermann showed video of NBC's David Gregory trying to force Boehner to say that he "favors" raising the retirement age. The MSNBC talking head didn't bother to inform his viewers that the government is already paying out more for Social Security than it is taking in and will only get worse without intervention. The ‘Trust Fund' Myth, a ‘Ponzi Scheme' Despite the use of the phrase "trust fund" by politicians and journalists, to describe Social Security, the government has been spending that money and replacing it with Treasury bonds (IOUs) for years. A Nexis search for Social Security and trust fund found 68 newspaper stories at just four major newspapers in the past year. News articles such as the Aug. 6, USA Today story about Medicare and Social Security mentioned the "trust fund" as if it were a pile of money that "won't run dry" until 2037. But Los Angeles Times business columnist Michael Hiltzik took it much further than the average news story. Hiltzik attacked those concerned with Social Security's fiscal viability Aug. 8. In a piece entitled, "Myth of Social Security shortfall," he said that the shortfall would be "covered" by "interest on the Treasury bonds in the Social Security trust fund." Hiltzik further defended the notion of those bonds being "real money," and lashed out at those "trying to bamboozle Americans into thinking Social Security is insolvent." But it isn't real "money," any more than a person swapping debt by paying one credit card with another is paying with money. Unless revenue comes in that can cover the debts, the person is in trouble. CATO's Michael Cannon criticized the Aug. 9, New York Times editorial on Social Security for claiming the program can still "pay full benefits until 2037" and current attention to the red ink does not "endanger benefits, because any shortfall can be covered by the trust fund." Cannon reacted: "No. It. Can't. Because there are no funds in the Social Security ‘trust fund'." He characterized the entire idea as "an institutionalized, ritualized lie.". One that news outlets continued to promote. Back in 2009, Mark Brandly, a professor of economics and adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, explained how the system works and why it is deteriorating. Social Security is a "pay-as-you-go system," he said. "[T]he government takes your money and gives it to Social Security recipients. In order to get workers to accept this system, the government promises to take other people's money and give it to you when you retire." Essentially, Brandly said it is a huge Ponzi scheme. Surprisingly, CNBC's Jim Cramer who "loves" Social Security, completely agreed with the Ponzi characterization. In 2008, the ‘Mad Money' host ranted that the Bernard Madoff $50 billion scam was not the "largest Ponzi scheme ever," as some had been calling it. "We know the truth about Ponzi schemes," Cramer said. "We all know the name of the biggest Ponzi scheme in history and it's not even illegal. In fact, it is run by the U.S. government. And the name of it - well they call it Social Security." Cramer explained that by its very definition, Social Security was such a scheme: "In a Ponzi scheme, investors get the returns from the money paid in by subsequent investors and eventually the whole thing falls apart. The last people to invest get hosed. In Social Security, a program I love, workers pay for the benefits of current retirees and hope someday future workers will pay for their benefits - it's all a Ponzi scheme." Yet, even reporters who admit that the "trust fund" is a joke, continue to use the phrase instead of criticizing the politicians who perpetrate the myth that Social Security is solvent. Brandly also wrote that the system can only remain sound if "a lot of people die before collecting" check, and if there are more people paying in that collecting. But as more people were paying in the Social Security Administration (SSA) ran a "surplus," but as government often does - it borrowed from itself leaving IOUs in the so-called "trust fund." The program is in trouble for that very reason, and because people are living longer and the baby boomers are about to retire, leaving far fewer younger workers paying into the system. According to The CPA Online, Social Security paid out only to retiring individuals 65 and older beginning in 1942. Between 1937 and 1942, it paid out in lump sum to individuals retiring. Benefits did not extend to dependents and survivors until 1939. In 1935, when the program was created average life expectancy was below 65 years of age: 59.9 for men and 63.9 for women. Even by 1942, life expectancy was much lower than today (64.7 for men, 67.9 for women). The projected life expectancy for 2010 is 75.7 for men and 80.8 for women. Currently, people can begin collecting full benefits at age 66, or collect at a permanently lower rate beginning at age 62 or a higher rate if they wait until age 70. But the mainstream media attitude seems to be - don't worry, it will all work out. Even the USA Today maintained optimism in an editorial that admitted (unlike its earlier news story) the fund is "just IOUs." They still argued that it would politically impossible to "renege" on benefits for retiring Americans. Attacks on Private Accounts The network news media has historically provided a skewed perspective on Social Security and reform proposals. A three-part Business & Media Institute Special Report in 2005, when reform was a hot topic, found a left-ward tilt in Social Security stories twice as often as a conservative slant. That study, Biased Accounts, examined 125 stories on the five major networks and discovered that 44 percent of stories were slanted to the left, compared to 22 percent in the conservative direction. The remaining stories were neutral. Those findings might have looked drastically different if President Bush had not made a concerted effort stumping for Social Security reform. The president's appearances and statements on the issue accounted for almost one-fourth of the conservative talking points in the study. One of the most popular talking points about Social Security was the liberal idea that personal accounts lead to "risky" stock investments. The argument that the conservative plan and/or the stock market were "risky" came up 53 times. Trish Regan even set her Feb. 5, 2005, "CBS Evening News" report against the backdrop of Reno, Nev., a popular gambling destination. Unsurprisingly, local worker Maureen Fager said about personal accounts, "This is Reno, Nevada. I know a gamble when I see it." The financial planner they took her to, David Yeske, even claimed that humans aren't cut out to deal with such matters though that is how he makes his living. "The human brain has been wired for social interactions, not analyzing numbers," Yeske said. That same report also misstated the age of retirement for Fager and a 27-year-old worker. It was unclear whether Yeske or the reporter was making the mistake.

Eurosclerosis - Open jobs are up while unemployment stays high

The aids to the nonworking have increased to the point that jobs are going unfilled while unemployment is at 9.5%. First the big numbers, then the stories.

Available jobs remain unfilled despite the high unemployment rate. See the graphic. NYTimes Economix blog  Normally - always - these numbers move in opposite directions - unemployment goes up and available jobs goes down - but something changed. People can collect unemployment for two years - 99 weeks - and other benefits are for the unemployed or low income only. Each reward for not working causes some work seekers to stop looking. Or they keep looking, but the raise their requirements for pay or the type of work will they accept.

Here are the stories of available jobs unfilled: WSJ

In Bloomington, Ill., machine shop Mechanical Devices can't find the workers it needs to handle a sharp jump in business. Job fairs run by airline Emirates attract fewer applicants in the U.S. than in other countries. Truck-stop operator Pilot Flying J says job postings don't elicit many more applicants than they did when the unemployment rate was below 5%.

Mark Whitehouse discusses why, despite the tough economy, some companies are having a difficult time filling job openings.

With a 9.5% jobless rate and some 15 million Americans looking for work, many employers are inundated with applicants. But a surprising number say they are getting an underwhelming response, and many are having trouble filling open positions.

"This is as bad now as at the height of business back in the 1990s," says Dan Cunningham, chief executive of the Long-Stanton Manufacturing Co., a maker of stamped-metal parts in West Chester, Ohio, that has been struggling to hire a few toolmakers. "It's bizarre. We are just not getting applicants."

Why do Congress and President 0 keep increasing the incentives to NOT work? How can they collect every higher taxes if the number people collecting benefits keeps rising, while those working keeps dropping?

Also via Daily Caller.

Senator Patty heroically saves jobs not threatened

Senator Patty Murray is proud that she saved 3,000 teachers from layoff this month. This month's stimulus bill provided money to save thousands of teacher jobs nationwide. But were 3,000 teachers being laid off in Washington? No. How did she save 3,000 jobs then? Since there are not 3,000 teachers at risk where will the money go? The number of teacher facing layoff seems to be less than 200. According to Professional Educators Standards Board found that just 445 were given notices in May, but almost all of those were rescinded and the teachers have a job in the same school district in September. Peter Callahan in Tacoma News Tribune. Where did the money come from? Even the Democrats got the message that they had to use existing funds, not new vapor dollars. From food stamps! What strange priorities - government unions over low-income needy people. TNT Blog

When news broke Wednesday that the U.S. Senate had broken free $10 billion for something called Edujobs, not many people were sure how it would benefit the state. Officials here had been watching the money for Medicaid but not the education measure. Neither Gov. Chris Gregoire nor schools chief Randy Dorn knew how it would work, other than quoting U.S. Sen. Patty Murray's stats that Washington could save 3,000 teaching jobs facing layoffs. But few districts were proposing layoffs in Washington. So how can unplanned layoffs be prevented? It took a while, but I found this assessment by the Education Commission of the States. edujobs It estimates that Washington will get $207 million and must use it to either save jobs or create jobs in public schools. It would be sent to the state and be distributed through regular k-12 funding methods. A safe rule of thumb would be that it would be shared based on student populations so if Tacoma has about 3 percent of the state's public school students it would receive about 3 percent of the money (say, $6 million give or take). The cash must be used for school personnel, not administrative or support staff and there are rules to prevent it from being skimmed to other uses - either to repay debt or back fill for earlier cuts.

The bad news is that the money must be spent this year (possibly next year). It cannot be reassigned to the hungry people who need it. It must be spent in education. We might presume this means they will hire teachers who will work for one year, then be laid off after only one year because their funding went away. That is bad enough. But the K-12 education bureaucracy are creative, hardened in-fighters. They will find reasons to fund people who have secondary jobs (they have to be in a school) and earn the high end of the scale plus extravagant benefits. Patty, why did you perpetrate such an obvious lie? Oh? They are your political supporters?

Ask a live librarian from your IPhone

Ask-WA is an IPhone app for asking a live librarian your question.

You submit your question and a librarian somewhere in Washington answers live, 24-hours-a-day, 7-days-a-week, to every Washington State resident.. This might be doing the same web search I could do. But when out and about with just my IPhone it would be useful, since web browsing is marginal on sites not designed for the IPhone's tiny screen. I haven't been able to test it yet, because the ITunes Store said "try later."

Todd Bishop at TechFlash tried it to his satisfaction.

It is also available through their web site:

Ask-WA

Hiroshima was bombed to save lives - American and Japanese

President Truman decided to use the first atomic bomb on Japan in order to save lives. US estimated invading Japan would result in one million US casualties. (Casualties is the military term which includes both killed those wounded to the point they cannot fight.) It was a difficult decision, but he knew an invasion would have been far worse for US military personnel and for the people of Japan. On July 26 the United Nations issued the Potsdam Declaration which called for unconditional surrender by Japan or to face total annihilation. How did Japan respond? Military Quotes

Three days later, the Japanese governmental news agency broadcast to the world that Japan would ignore the proclamation and would refuse to surrender. During this same period it was learned -- via monitoring Japanese radio broadcasts -- that Japan had closed all schools and mobilized its school children, was arming its civilian population and was fortifying caves and building underground defenses.

Even after the Hiroshima bomb on August 6 the leaders of Imperial Japan intended to continue to fight. That's why a second bomb over Nagasaki, Japan, three days later was necessary. Japan had planned massive resistance to an invasion of the main islands of Japan. For example: Allied planes had been flying over cities in Japan unmolested, so we thought Japan's air force was shattered. Not so...

What the [U.S.] military leaders did not know was that by the end of July the Japanese had been saving all aircraft, fuel, and pilots in reserve, and had been feverishly building new planes for the decisive battle for their homeland. As part of Ketsu-Go, the name for the plan to defend Japan -- the Japanese were building 20 suicide takeoff strips in southern Kyushu with underground hangars. They also had 35 camouflaged airfields and nine seaplane bases.

Over 100,000 Japanese died at Hiroshima and many more were maimed. Compare that to half million US and unknown millions Japanese that would die if the invasion were necessary. Communist Japan - Stalin would "helped us" with Japan and we probably would have had a divided Japan, like Korea, half Communist, repressed and starving. More from Military Quotes

Deep in the recesses of the National Archives in Washington, D.C., hidden for nearly four decades lie thousands of pages of yellowing and dusty documents stamped "Top Secret". These documents, now declassified, are the plans for Operation Downfall, the invasion of Japan during World War II. Only a few Americans in 1945 were aware of the elaborate plans that had been prepared for the Allied Invasion of the Japanese home islands. Even fewer today are aware of the defenses the Japanese had prepared to counter the invasion had it been launched. Operation Downfall was finalized during the spring and summer of 1945. It called for two massive military undertakings to be carried out in succession and aimed at the heart of the Japanese Empire. In the first invasion - code named "Operation Olympic"- American combat troops would land on Japan by amphibious assault during the early morning hours of November 1, 1945 - 61 years ago. Fourteen combat divisions of soldiers and Marines would land on heavily fortified and defended Kyushu, the southernmost of the Japanese home islands, after an unprecedented naval and aerial bombardment. The second invasion on March 1, 1946 - code named "Operation Coronet"- would send at least 22 divisions against 1 million Japanese defenders on the main island of Honshu and the Tokyo Plain. It's goal: the unconditional surrender of Japan. With the exception of a part of the British Pacific Fleet, Operation Downfall was to be a strictly American operation. It called for using the entire Marine Corps, the entire Pacific Navy, elements of the 7th Army Air Force, the 8 Air Force (recently redeployed from Europe), 10th Air Force and the American Far Eastern Air Force. More than 1.5 million combat soldiers, with 3 million more in support or more than 40% of all servicemen still in uniform in 1945 - would be directly involved in the two amphibious assaults. Casualties were expected to be extremely heavy. Admiral William Leahy estimated that there would be more than 250,000 Americans killed or wounded on Kyushu alone. General Charles Willoughby, chief of intelligence for General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of the Southwest Pacific, estimated American casualties would be one million men by the Fall of 1946. Willoughby's own intelligence staff considered this to be a conservative estimate. ...

There is much more at Military Quotes.

Big brother wants to plan your neighborhood

Oh, they don't want to control you, they say. Just to give you money for doing what they want. $4,000,000,000 is $4 billion. And if you don't... And you wanted more bureaucracy too, didn't you? CNS News "Republicans blast Livable Communities bill" The Senate Banking Committee passed the Livable Communities Act on Tuesday, moving the bill one step closer to final passage. The bill creates $4 billion in neighborhood planning grants for “sustainable” living projects and a new federal office to oversee them. Similar legislation in the House has been criticized by Republicans on the House Budget Committee, who charge that “the program’s aim is to impose a Washington-based, central planning model on localities across the country.” In the Senate version, written by outgoing Chairman Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), the Livable Communities Act would designate $4 billion to aid local governments in planning high-density, walkable neighborhoods. Premised on helping local governments to combat suburban sprawl and traffic congestion, the bill sets up two separate grant programs. One, known as Comprehensive Planning Grants, would go to cities and counties to assist them in carrying out such plans as the following: -- “(1) coordinate land use, housing, transportation, and infrastructure planning processes across jurisdictions and agencies” and -- “(3) conduct or update housing, infrastructure, transportation, energy, and environmental assessments to determine regional needs and promote sustainable development; [and] -- “… (5) implement local zoning and other code changes necessary to implement a comprehensive regional plan and promote sustainable development.” The second grant type – Sustainability Challenge Grants – funds local efforts to: --“(1) promote integrated transportation, housing, energy, and economic development activities carried out across policy and governmental jurisdictions; -- (2) promote sustainable and location-efficient development; and -- (3) implement projects identified in a comprehensive regional plan.” To administer and regulate these new grants, the bill creates the Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities (OSHC) within the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The legislation is designed to prod local communities toward high-density, public transit-oriented neighborhoods that concentrate large numbers of people into small geographic areas connected by train and bus networks. These high-density neighborhoods would be combined with high-density commercial districts that – in theory – would reduce the need for daily driving and commuting.

Raise taxes on only the liberals because they want taxes raised

One of Newsweek's many columnists - it admits it is no longer a news reporting organization - wants his taxes raised Fareed Zakaria - Raise My Taxes, Mr. President! He goes on for a few hundred words about how we have to raise taxes so we don't have to discipline our spending. But he forgets one thing. Zakaria never says that he believes in higher taxes so much that he already sent in a voluntary tax of $10,000 for the year - or an extra $100? - or $1.00? No, he didn't pay an extra penny. Why not?

Dirty Demo tricks in Shoreline

Someone has repeatedly vandalized a couple's yard on N. 185 St. in Shoreline, WA; the husband is a Viet Nam war veteran. They have done this in past campaign years and again this year. NWCN broadcast a report. Their signs were stolen. A printed anti-Republican sign was attached to a utility pole in front of his house. He has asked Democrat Party officials to denounce their goons, but they are silent. Why? If the vandals are not Democrats why are they attacking a home with signs for Republicans. Dr. Art Coday, R, for state rep in 32d district Gary Gagliari, R, for state rep in 32d district James Watkins, R, for Congress in 1st district NWCN gave publicity for these excellent candidates, since they are the object of the Demo vandals. Do the elected Demos support this crime? Also Alyssa Kleven at MyNorthwest.

Lake Forest Park - reject Prop. One tax increase

The City of Lake Forest Park wants to keep running things as usual. The economy is down. Taxpayers are being laid off or working fewer hours. Can't the City also cut back a bit? No, they can't lay off a bureaucrat. Indeed, they want to hire some back.

So LFP proposes a tax increase on the August 17 ballot - Proposition 1 - a levy lid increase. It's not real big at first, but it would grow without limit for six years (years two through five), then be folded into the base and be included in all future taxes.

So to convince the voters does LFP, the city, threaten to cut back on bean counters? The recently hired PR person? No. They would cut what impacts the public the most. They would cut police and parks. Plus "community services and city infrastructure." They say to vote yes to preserve public safety, but nothing in the proposition guarantees the increase will be used the way they claim.

During the past year LFP has increased drainage fees 15%, added a $20 fee to vehicle licenses, and increased property taxes to the legal limit.

Opposition is bipartisan. Nine former city council members oppose the levy lid increase; three of them signed the opposition statement in the King County Voters' Pamphlet. Democrat State Senator Diane Fairley opposes it. Rep. Ruth Kagi supports the tax increase.

Vote No LFP Prop 1 web site

I am posting this on my own. I have participated in opposition meetings, but I am posting this without their knowledge or approval.

Cross-posted at Economic Freedom.

Steve Beren for Congress in 7th District

We will have a choice versus Baghdad Jim McDermott in Congress in Seattle and Lake Forest Park. Steve Beren is running as a write-in candidate. Steve is a good man and a good communicator of conservative principles. His statement on Facebook:

Yesterday afternoon, I went to Olympia and filed for official status as a write-in candidate for U.S. Congress against incumbent Democrat Jim McDermott. I am the only Republican candidate in the race. If I get enough votes in the August 17 primary, I will be on the ballot in the general election. Please write in "Steve Beren" for Congress. Spread the word in order to help get out the vote. And please consider a generous donation - if my campaign raises enough money, we will do a radio ad blitz in the Seattle area between now and the primary. You can donate online at http://www.BerenForCongress.com/donate or you can send a check to the address in the signature block below. I'm a pro-liberty "five star conservative" and grassroots Tea Party activist. I'm for economic growth, job creation, lower taxes, and limited government. We need a conservative Republican majority in Congress to repeal Obamacare, to defeat cap and trade, and to block amnesty for illegal immigrants. My write-in campaign offers a stark contrast and clear alternative to Jim McDermott, who fully supports the Obama-Pelosi-Reid agenda of wasteful spending, soaring unemployment, higher taxes, massive deficits, and restrictions on liberty. This progressive agenda has been disastrous for the American economy, causing immense suffering for families, homeowners, and small business. Our constitution is the guiding document of this great nation. The answer to the challenges facing our nation will be found, not in more government bureaucracy, but in reliance on constitutional principles and in a free market economic system based on liberty.

Rangel and the most ethical Congress ever

"Laws apply to you poor schmucks, not powerful Congressment like me." OK, Boss Charlie Rangel didn't say the exact words, but his actions did. Michelle Malkin: ... At a press conference to preempt the bipartisan House ethics panel's announcement of 13 ethics and federal regulation charges against Rangel on Thursday afternoon, Pelosi claimed to take "great pride" in her swamp-draining record. Unblinkingly, she cited the House trial against Rangel as proof that the "process" is working. But that beleaguered panel has been pathetically understaffed, has dragged its feet for two years on the Rangel case and has administered more halfhearted wrist-slaps than all the pushover parents on a season of "Nanny 911." Clinging bitterly to the moral equivalence card, Pelosi carped about Bush-era GOP corruption. (Cue a chorus of "Let's do the time warp again!") Her lips were sealed, however, on the continuing wheeling and dealing behind the scenes between Rangel's lobbyist-funded lawyers and the ethics panel on a deal to avoid a congressional trial. A full-blown public trial would thoroughly air his self-dealing, habitual bad-faith failures to report income, multiple House gift ban and solicitation ban violations, flouting of franking privilege and letterhead rules, and a fundamental "pattern of indifference or disregard for the laws, rules and regulations of the United States and House of Representatives," as the House ethics statement of violations put it. But, hey, what about that GEORGE W. BUSH, eh, Pelosi? Bush-whack all you want. The Rangel stench is overwhelming. Along the way, Rangel has obstructed House investigators, failed to produce documents and refused previous settlement offers. ...

Audit of Seattle Schools finds lots of problems

State Auditor Brian Sontag audited Seattle School District and found a lot of problems. At SAO (pdf) Lynn Varner at Seattle Times covers it. In her opinion:

... audit uncovered worrisome mistakes that seem less like incompetence and more like an ingrained comfort with spending other people's money without accountability.

Seattle Schools overpaid at least 83 employees and maybe up to 144 of them. They say they are getting payback from those still there. But some have left the district. Careless tracking of equipment. Auditor's report:

We asked the District to provide a report on all property losses that had occurred since the prior audit and a list of items shown as misappropriated in the asset database. From these lists and police reports, we were able to identify at least nine losses the District did not report to our Office. Some of the items were computers, digital cameras and camcorders. The dollar value assigned to the lost or misappropriated assets not reported to our Office was at least $7,412. The District had not assigned a value to some of the items.

State law restricts government agencies' use of capital funds. Seattle Times:

Yet, the district spent $1.8 million encouraging small and minority-owned businesses to bid on district work. First, I don't buy that, in a recession, the district has to entice bidders for lucrative contracts. Second, because no one bothered to familiarize themselves with state law, the district must replace the money by dipping into its general fund. That's less money for the classrooms.

And

... a series of careless mistakes, each one small in a budget the size of the district's, building a damning case of carelessness and lack of caring. The district was forced to pay nearly $1,700 in credit-card late fees in a single year. ... The shoddy reporting and bookkeeping gets worse. Employees charged $250,000 in gas, not necessarily a problem considering the size of the district and the many employees who travel between schools. But employees are required to note how many miles were driven between fill-ups so usage can be tracked. Few did so. Some scribbled in one mile, others took wilder guesses. They might as well have written "none of your business." Officials also cannot explain why in a 30-day span, nearly a quarter of fuel purchases charged to district credit cards occurred between 1 a.m. and 4 a.m. Auditors look at personnel records and found no employees working at those hours. Kennedy wonders if the gas pump time clocks were off. That would be some coincidence.

There are also violations for not keeping minutes of meetings and making them available to the public. State Auditor Brian Sonntag also finds that Seattle Schools has not fully corrected faults found in previous audits. As Lynn Varner says, they are comfortable misusing other people's money.

How to make use of wind energy

In the quest for alternate energy sources wind has more promise than solar. CalFinder. Earth is bombarded with solar energy 24 hours per day; it's just a matter of capturing it and converting it to useful form at the right place and time. Wind has big problems with place and time of day.

The big wind areas are in the west and offshore in the east. The Kennedys are using all their power to make sure their royal view is never marred by something to generate all the power they use. So rule out the East offshore. All the energy captured in the West has to be transmitted. Of course the same people who say our salvation will come from green energy fight tooth and nail against any company that tries to build transmission lines for the wind energy.

And the wind blows at certain times of day, not much at night. So when people are getting up on the populous east coast the Sun is not yet up and spinning the turbines in Wyoming. And it is erratic as well - gusting...

Creative people are working on these problems. And they can only invest in solutions if they can make a profit. They are working on Storage ideas.

NY Times

...

In New York and California, companies are exploring electrical storage that is big enough to allow for “arbitrage,” or buying power at a low price, such as in the middle of the night, and selling it hours later at a higher price. In the Midwest, a utility is demonstrating storage technology that can go from charge to discharge and back several times a minute, or even within a second, bracing the grid against the vicissitudes of wind and sun and transmission failure. And in Texas, companies are looking at ways of stabilizing voltage through battery storage in places served by just one transmission line.

... “you can’t do that without batteries of some sort,” said Peter Rosegg, a spokesman for the Hawaiian Electric Company.

His company has agreed to buy electricity from a wind farm on the northern shore of Oahu, where the Boston-based power company First Wind has just broken ground.

The spot is one of Hawaii’s best wind sites, Mr. Rosegg said, but the supply is gusty and erratic. What is more, it is at the farthest point on the island from the company’s main load center, Honolulu, and does not even lie on its high-voltage transmission backbone.

So the 30-megawatt wind farm, which will have enough power to run about 30 Super Wal-Marts, will have Xtreme Power of Austin, Tex., install a 15-megawatt battery.

Computers will work to keep the battery exactly half-charged most hours of the day, said Carlos J. Coe, Xtreme Power’s chief executive. If the wind suddenly gets stronger or falls off, the batteries will smooth out the flow so that the grid sees only a more gradual increase or decrease, no more than one megawatt per minute at some hours of the day.

The Hawaii installation is designed to succeed at a crucial but obscure function: frequency regulation. The alternating-current power system has to run at a strict 60 cycles per second, and the battery system can give and take power on a micro scale, changing directions from charge to discharge or vice versa within that 60th of a second, to keep the pace steady.
...

Demo pollster finds people think Obama is an "S"

A major Democrat pollster finds that people think President Obama is a socialist. Stan Greenberg was Clinton's pollster. Human Events

... But then came clincher—the poisonous "S" word—the word even Republicans do not dare utter for fear of raising the wrath of the New York Times and Washington Post. The two former Clinton aides asked respondents if the word "Socialist" describes Obama very well or well. Answer: 55% said yes. Republicans, you have your gift. A good majority of Americans think the President is a Socialist. Feel free to use the adjective yourselves, compliments of two Democratic operatives who used to work for the Clintons.

Mexico prisons release and arm inmates to carry out massacres

Unbelievable. What a corrupt country. AP at Yahoo MEXICO CITY – Guards and officials at a prison in northern Mexico allegedly let inmates out, lent them guns and allowed them to use official vehicles to carry out drug-related killings, including the massacre of 17 people last week, prosecutors said Sunday. After carrying out the killings the inmates would return to their cells, the Attorney General's Office said in a revelation that was shocking even for a country wearied by years of drug violence and corruption. "According to witnesses, the inmates were allowed to leave with authorization of the prison director ... to carry out instructions for revenge attacks using official vehicles and using guards' weapons for executions," office spokesman Ricardo Najera said at a news conference. The director of the prison in Gomez Palacio in Durango state and three other officials were placed under a form of house arrest pending further investigation. No charges have yet been filed. Prosecutors said the prison-based hit squad is suspected in three mass shootings, including the July 18 attack on a party in the city of Torreon, which is near Gomez Palacio. In that incident, gunmen fired indiscriminately into a crowd of mainly young people in a rented hall, killing 17 people, including women. ...

Big week for Demos in Congress

Victory after victory for them. Loss and pain for Americans. They blew another $33 billion hole in the deficit - Obama promised to reduce it - rather than reallocate dollars left from Obama's Porkulus $787 billion stimulus bill. That was for extending unemployment. The Republicans favored extending the benefits, but - shock - wanted to pay for it. Why be restrained by deficits and common sense? And now "too big to fail" is the law. The smaller banks can drop like flies, rather, be gobbled up like flies, but the monsters are protected by federal law. What else is in Chris Dodd's swan song? More favors for friends, relatives and political buddies are being found every day. It's 2200 pages, correctiong, 2300 pages. WSJ

In a recent note to clients the law firm of Davis Polk & Wardwell needed more than 150 pages merely to summarize the bureaucratic ecosystem created by Dodd-Frank. ... the lawyers estimate that the law will require no fewer than 243 new formal rule-makings by 11 different federal agencies.

Third, on the floor of the Senate, Sen. Byron Dorgan let the liberal cat out of the bag. He attacked Republicans for supporting tax cuts that would "reduce this country's income." No longer is national income what businesses and individuals create by hard work. Now it is what the political class takes from us.

Skype took my money

Skype burned credit I had paid for. I paid to keep a $10 balance, so I could make calls. But Skype burned it because I hadn't made a call in several months. I tried to. But the Skype app on my IPhone is not compatible with IOS 4, so I could not make a Skype call with my IPhone. The last 3 days before my credit was burned I had no internet access for my Mac, though my IPhone had excellent voice and data service. But their IPhone app is old. Got me.

Nobel winner Chu stopped effort to "plug the hole"

It's now official: the NY Times admits the genius's guilt. NYT

Energy Secretary Steven Chu may hold a Nobel Prize in physics, but he has no training in geology, seismology or oil well technology. Nevertheless, he has stepped in repeatedly to take command of the effort to contain BP’s runaway well, often ordering company officials to take steps they might not have taken on their own. In early May, he suggested using gamma ray imaging to determine the condition of the well’s blowout preventer, a move no one at the company had considered. A few weeks later, he overruled some BP officials and ordered the company to stop the “top kill” effort, citing “very, very grave concerns” that it could backfire.

So give Chu credit for weeks of oil flow. He also admits guilt:

... In an interview Thursday, Dr. Chu said that if he had understood geology and well technology better in the early days after the April 20 blowout, he might have urged a faster attempt at the top kill, which involved shooting mud and other gunk to clog up the damaged blowout preventer atop the gushing well. The delay, he said, might have allowed pressure to increase in the well, rendering the attempt fruitless when it was tried at the end of May.

Innovation by businesses and flexible workers - good growth

One of Obama's useful idiots is looking at and seeing reality Mort Zuckerman at Newsweek:

... In the midst of a weak economy accompanied by levels of unemployment unprecedented since the Great Depression, it is critical that the government in Washington appreciate that confidence is an imperative if the business community is to invest, take risks with start-ups, and altogether get the economy going again to put the millions of unemployed back to productive work. This is what businessmen do when they are free to conduct business. For example, in the two decades of the 1980s and 1990s, the United States created 73 million new private sector jobs—while simultaneously losing some 44 million jobs in the process of adjusting its economy to international competition. That was a net gain of some 29 million jobs. A stunning 55 percent of the total workforce at the end of these two decades was in a new job, some two-thirds of them in industries that paid more than the average wage. By contrast, continental Europe, with a larger economy and workforce, created an estimated 4 million jobs in the same period, most of which were in the public sector (and the cost of which they are beginning to regret). How could America achieve this? It is because of the get-up-and-go culture that reflects individualism, courageous entrepreneurialism, pragmatism, adaptability, and innovation. This adventurous spirit outlived the passing of the frontier and still inspires and nourishes millions, including our young and our newcomers. No other country has a population so habituated to self-help, self-improvement, and even self-renovation in a manner that carries over into business life. ... Over the years, the transformation of American industry has been nothing short of phenomenal. U.S. companies replaced large, mass-produced consumer products with sophisticated goods derived from intellectual output and knowledge-based interests, the fastest-growing segment of the world's economy. Management was assisted by a level of labor flexibility that is the envy of both Europe and Asia. Europe struggles with the legacy of the steam age in the form of craft, union, and management demarcations that limit management's role. In Asia, management is often stifled by large, oligopolistic networks and government mandates. American managers consistently led the world in investing in new technologies and providing high-tech training to exploit them. We were the first to realize the importance of computers and information technologies and invested massively in them, spending twice as much per capita on info-tech as Western European firms and more than six times the global average. In fact, U.S. companies are the major suppliers of the information age's silicon, brains, and sinews. No other country has met the requirements of an emerging economic system that needed people to be mobile both physically and psychologically. No other country shares America's belief in numbers and statistics as a basis for rational decision-making. No other country invests so much in business training and the retraining of its people—on top of having the world's best graduate and undergraduate business schools. No other country forms as many small companies year after year that compete with flexibility, rapid response, openness, innovation, and the ability to attract the best people. And as new products and services are developed, American businesses' unique marketing and advertising skills establish their success at home and abroad. Our system, in which ideas freely percolate at all levels, is tantamount to a giant information-processing machine. It enhances our capacity to absorb, adapt, and manage ongoing revolutions in technology, information, and logistics, which are too dynamic and complex to be handled by a top-down system. ...

So what will Obama do about it? Restrain. Increase taxes. Play favorites. And kill the growth.

KC-Metro Transit uses tax increase for much higher salaries, little service increase increased service

Update at bottom The King County bus system asked for sales tax increases so they could increase bus service. But did a little of that, but gave drivers a huge pay increase. WPC (pdf)

... Higher Wages Replace New Bus Service In 2000, only nineteen drivers made more than $75,000 per year and none made over $100,000. After the two sales tax increases, the number who made more than $75,000 rose to 243 drivers, and now twenty drivers make more than $100,000 per year. These high-wage bus drivers cost taxpayers $1.6 million in 2000. By 2009, these high wage earners required $20.7 million per year, an increase of nearly 1,200 percent. In part, the rapid growth in drivers’ wages has stalled the ability of Metro’s previous two tax increases to purchase the expanded service officials promised to voters. Nearly half of the projected revenue from the two tax increases is now devoted to higher wages. Sharply higher wages have contributed to Metro’s budget problems. Given the rapid growth in salaries over the last decade and as Metro wrestles with how to close its $200 million budget hole, gaining control of high wages is an obvious starting point.

Driver Qualifications Do Not Justify Such High Wages

... With the exception of obtaining a Commercial Driver’s License, the qualifications to drive a bus in King County do not require high levels of technical experience or any education. These qualifications are typical of many private sector jobs that pay far less than $100,000 per year. On the other hand, there are many other jobs that need substantially more skills, experience and education but pay less. For example, King County was recently hiring a payroll manager for its District Court system. The position requires knowledge and experience with dozens of court and accounting procedures, a four-year college degree, four years of payroll experience and two years of management experience. The starting annual salary is $61,477 and tops out at $78,242.9

Update: Michael Ennis at WPC follows up. Transit drivers called him names and had complaints. But they didn't challenge any of his facts. WPC

Justice is slow

Lynn Stewart, who is willing to defend anyone who kills Americans, was sentenced to 10 years in jail. The sentence is for helping one of her terrorist clients to communicate with his followers - so they could kill more Americans. The judge said Stewart showed "a lack of remorse for conduct that was both illegal and potentially lethal." Of course her family was outraged. What do they think of her lethal actions? The judge allowed her to be confined locally for 60 days so she could participate in dragging out the process. Last November the judge said she had committed perjury during her hearings. New York One

A man who...

President Obama went to Michigan to give $300 million to an $11 billion Korean corporation. He called Governor Granholm who caused a recession in Michigan in 2007 while the rest of the US was booming "one of the best." (Michigan had lost jobs for six straight years of Granholm rule as of 2007.) He focused on alternate energy, while traveling in a 10 mpg car that was flown in at great cost. And he went out of the way to insult his host. Detroit News:

Obama couldn’t even get his manners right. Ever the partisan, he took a shot at his host, Holland Congressional representative Pete Hoekstra who was in the audience. Despite opposing the Recovery Act, Hoekstra attended the ground-breaking ceremony, he told The View, “out of respect for the office of president.” The respect was not returned. "Some made the political calculation that it's better to obstruct than to lend a hand,” sneered Obama at the end of his remarks. “Now that doesn't stop them from being at ribbon cuttings, but that's OK."

A man who... is a jerk.

Gazans have plenty of food but bored

The real problem of the people of Gaza is so transparent that even the NY Times prints it. And they can't blame Israel any more than Egypt and not at all for the biggest problems.

The people of Gaza have plenty of food and medical supplies. There is no need for ships to break Israel's blockade (which is against weapons) for the basics of life. One big problem in Gaza is no work - boredom. The Palestinians and other Arabs have kept the people of Gaza in limbo for 60 years. In every other situation refugees are moved and settled with homes and jobs, then forgotten. But the Palestinian leaders don't want the wound to heal; they want it open and festering. So they don't allow ending the refugee camps (also on the West Bank.)

NY Times

... There are plenty of things to buy in Gaza; goods are brought over the border or smuggled through the tunnels with Egypt. That is not the problem.

Here it is:

... She has eight children, and her unemployed husband spends his days on sedatives.

“Our husbands don’t work, my kids are not in school, I get nervous, I yell at them, I cry, I fight with my husband,” she blurted. “My husband starts fighting with us and then he cries: ‘What am I going to do? What can I do?’ ”

The others [mothers] knew exactly what she meant.

The Palestinians of Gaza, most of them descended from refugees of the 1948 war that created Israel, have lived through decades of conflict and confrontation. Their scars have accumulated like layers of sedimentary rock, each marking a different crisis — homelessness, occupation, war, dependency.

Today, however, two developments have conspired to turn a difficult life into a new torment: a three-year blockade by Israel and Egypt that has locked them in the small enclave and crushed what there was of a formal local economy; and the bitter rivalry between Palestinian factions, which has undermined identity and purpose, divided families and caused a severe shortage of electricity in the middle of summer.

... In fact, talk about food and people here get angry because it implies that their struggle is over subsistence rather than quality of life. The issue is not hunger. It is idleness, uncertainty and despair.

Any discussion of Gaza’s travails is part of a charged political debate. No humanitarian crisis? That is an Israeli talking point, people here will say, aimed at making the world forget Israel’s misdeeds. Palestinians trapped with no future? They are worse off in Lebanon, others respond, where their “Arab brothers” bar them from buying property and working in most professions.

But the situation is certainly dire. Scores of interviews and hours spent in people’s homes over a dozen consecutive days here produced a portrait of a fractured and despondent society unable to imagine a decent future for itself as it plunges into listless desperation and radicalization.

It seems most unlikely that either a Palestinian state or any kind of Middle East peace can emerge without substantial change here. Gaza, on almost every level, is stuck.

Disunity

A main road was blocked off and a stage set up for a rally protesting the electricity shortage. Speakers shook nearby windows with the anthems of Hamas, the Islamist party that has held power here for the past three years. Boys in military camouflage goose-stepped. Young men carried posters of a man with vampire teeth biting into a bloodied baby.

The vampire was not Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. It was Salam Fayyad, prime minister of the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank.

This is an interesting situation: The Palestinians are severely divided.

And remember that Israel and Egypt are blockading to block shipments of weapons.

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Reporting on Gulf oil spill is now a felony - update

A felony to report on Obama's mess? Yes. - Update at the bottom "Well, you see we are concerned about reporters interfering with blah-blah-blah," I am sure they say. The Coast Guard is covering up - keeping reporters from showing the impact on people, animals, beaches and water ways. Why hide the problem? Newsbusters

Effectively reporting on the Gulf oil spill is now a Class D felony, punishable by a fine of up to $40,000. That's right, the most transparent administration in history has made it a felony, effective July 1, to get within 65 feet of what the Coast Guard determines are essential recovery efforts. According to Anderson Cooper, officials tried to up that number to 300 feet. Cooper, who claimed federal officials prevented CNN on two occasions from taking photographs in the gulf, seemed frustrated when he reported on the new laws the day they went into effect. The press is "not the enemy here" he pleaded. The new policies, he said, make it "very easy to hide failure, and hide incompetence." Cooper also let loose this zinger: "Transparency is apparently not a priority with [Coast Guard Commandant] Thad Allen these days." This is but the latest in a string of incidents that seem to have much of the country -- and if Cooper is any indicator, at least a few journalists -- questioning the sincerity of candidate Obama's pledges of transparency, openness, and respect for the press. But these new regulations on press coverage of the spill have not garnered as much attention as perhaps they should -- certainly not as much as similar moves during the Bush administration's response to Hurricane Katrina (a fact that Cooper notes). Shortly after the Hurricane hit, according to the Washington Post, "FEMA refused to take reporters and photographers along on boats seeking victims in flooded areas, saying they would take up valuable space needed in the recovery effort and asked them not to take pictures of the dead." The Post touted claims that the FEMA policy was "in line with the Bush administration's ban on images of flag-draped U.S. military coffins returning from the Iraq war" -- clearly drawing a comparison to other Bush policies rife with accusations of politically-motivated censorship. So far, the Post is silent on the criminalization -- a much stronger statement of administration policy than the refusal to allow embedded reporters on rescue efforts -- of media coverage in the Gulf. With a scant few exceptions, the legacy media are silent on the issue. ...

Follow the link to see video of Cooper's frusteration with the obfuscation of "the most transparent administration ever." Update 7/14/10: Today in the House of Representatives Democrats blocked a measure that would ensure media access to the oil spill. What are they trying to hide? Washington Examiner

Dependence on foreign oil - rigs are leaving

Dependence on foreign oil must be an Obama policy. His unthought-through ban on off-shore deep oil drilling is having his desired effect. If he severely limits US production of oil, then we have to import to fuel his fleet of limos and fleet of helicopters and fleet of jet aircraft. Houston Chronicle

WASHINGTON — Diamond Offshore announced Friday that its Ocean Endeavor drilling rig will leave the Gulf of Mexico and move to Egyptian waters immediately — making it the first to abandon the United States in the wake of the BP oil spill and a ban on deep-water drilling. And the Ocean Endeavor's exodus probably won't be the last, according to oil industry officials and Gulf Coast leaders who warn that other companies eager to find work for the now-idled rigs are considering moving them outside the U.S. Devon Energy Corp. had been leasing the Endeavor to drill in the same region of the Gulf as BP's leaking Macondo well, which has been gushing crude since a lethal blowout April 20. But Diamond announced Friday it will lease the rig through June 30, 2011, to Cairo-based Burullus Gas Co., which plans to send the Endeavor to Egyptian waters immediately. Devon is one of three companies that has cited the deep-water drilling ban in trying to ease out of contracts to lease Diamond rigs. Diamond, a drilling company, said it expects to make about $100 million from the deal, including a $31 million early termination fee it recovered from Devon. Larry Dickerson, CEO of Houston-based Diamond, signaled that other of his company's rigs could be relocated, too. "As a result of the uncertainties surrounding the offshore drilling moratorium, we are actively seeking international opportunities to keep our rigs fully employed," Dickerson said. "We greatly regret the loss of U.S. jobs that will result from this rig relocation."

Loss of jobs, too.

Obama pushes Islam science and mathematics

President Obama told NASA administrator Bolden that one of his three top priorities was to help the Muslim world feel good about their contribution to science, mathematics and engineering. [list corrected] SF Examiner Oh, the NASA administrator must have nothing to do. But... what contribution? Bernard Lewis wrote a book about Islam - What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East In it he recounts how the Muslims were sure that their society was superior to all others. But they started losing. Dropping back in music and government didn't bother them. Dropping far behind in science was no big deal. But when they started losing battles that was different. It caught their attention. Back to science. Islamic scientists were at the forefront 1,000 years ago. But then they stopped. I guess MGen. Bolden should lead the investigation into why they stopped their science inquiries. NRO - based on Lewis:

In the 16th century, astronomer Taqī al-Dīn built one of the world’s great observatories in Istanbul. It rivaled that of the pioneering Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe — while it lasted. “Taqī al-Dīn’s observatory was razed to the ground by a squad of Janissaries, by order of the sultan, on the recommendation of the Chief Mufti,” Bernard Lewis writes in his book What Went Wrong? “This observatory had many predecessors in the lands of Islam; it had no successors until the age of modernization.” NASA administrator Charles Bolden caused a furor when he revealed that President Obama had directed him “to reach out to the Muslim world and engage much more with predominantly Muslim nations to help them feel good about their historic contribution to science . . . and math and engineering.” This shouldn’t be hard to do, so long as Bolden is well versed in accomplishments rising out of the Middle East many centuries ago. It gave us what we know as Arabic numerals (although they originated in India). It gave us algebra and the rudiments of trigonometry. It gave us medical pioneers in the tenth and eleventh centuries. (A significant proportion of these scientists and physicians were Christians and Jews, according to Lewis — a fact Bolden had best keep to himself.) It’s wonderful to feel good about the work of Ibn Sīnā of Bukhara, who compiled an indispensable medical encyclopedia before his death in 1037, but it implicitly raises the question of what Muslim science has done for us over the last millennium or so. ...

...

Arthur Brooks at Town Hall 7/12

Arthur Brooks, President of American Enterprise Institute, will be speaking at Townhall next Monday evening on Free Enterprise vs. Big Government. Townhall Monday July 12 - 7:30 PM - Tickets $5 at the door or see Townhall for presales options. His thesis is explained in his recent book "The Battle." Hugh Hewitt speaks about Brooks and his book at Washington Examiner:

... It is the other BP that is heating up public opinion -- the Beltway People. And if you would like to know in detail why this BP has the collective temperature of voters rising, [...] my interview with Arthur Brooks, president of the American Enterprise Institute, about his new book, "The Battle: How the Fight between Free Enterprise and Big Government Will Shape America's Future." ... Brooks' book is a relatively short, very sharply argued explanation of how the 30 percent in this 70/30 nation of ours has come to control the federal government and many of the largest state governments, and in the process driven us to the point of a national fiscal stroke. The 30 percent are the statists, the chattering class and their colleagues in academic and government employ, plus the government-dependent and a very large slice of the youth vote. Brooks details who they are and how they intend to grow their grip on the country. The 70 percent are the rest of us, a mass that is coalescing into a potent political force that will be revealed fully on Nov. 2, 2010. Brooks makes a compelling moral case for rolling back the vast creep of the 30 percent, whose regulatory and tax policies have spread like the oil slick in the Gulf, inexorably and continually for a very long time, creating enormous damage across the country, but damage that can and must be repaired. That repair is under way in New Jersey, where the least likely candidate for Mr. Charisma, Gov. Chris Christie, has emerged as a star of YouTube and talk radio for simply speaking truth to the power of public employee unions and their shills in the media who push the unions' cliched narrative. Voters know the score, and they are cheering Christie's passionate embrace of "Enough!" ...

Mom in tennis shoes gets big money from lobbyists

Patty went to D.C. as a different kind of senator, the "mom in tennis shoes." That was then. Now she is the Beltway establishment. She is up there with friendly Harry Reid in money coming from lobbyists. Seattle Times

... Today lobbyists top the list of Murray's donors as she seeks her fourth term. Among the top six Democrats in the Senate leadership, only Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has collected more money than Murray from lobbyists and their firms since 2005, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that tracks money and politics. Yet even Reid receives a smaller share of his overall donations from lobbyists than Murray does. What's more, Murray's congressional colleagues now rank among her biggest financial supporters. She has received $287,700 since 2005 from "leadership" PACs, a popular but controversial vehicle for members of Congress to solicit donations that they then dole out to fellow lawmakers. It's a striking transformation for a woman whose annual Seattle fundraiser is called the "Golden Tennis Shoes Awards," a winking homage to the footwear that defined the early underdog status of the Bothell "mom in tennis shoes." And the lobbyist donations attest to the power of incumbency — even in a year when incumbency appears ripe for voter backlash.

The dedicated employees of lobbying firms plus her own "leadership PAC:"

On Murray's list of top-10 contributors are two lobbying firms. Employees at Denny Miller Associates of Washington, D.C., have given $84,200 since 2005. Miller lobbies on behalf of a wide range of clients in Washington state, including Boeing, the Muckleshoot Indian Tribe and Swedish Medical Center, as well as defense contractors. The other firm is McBee Strategic Consulting, whose founder, Steve McBee, once worked for U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Bremerton. The firm's president of Northwest operations is Rick Desimone, Murray's former chief of staff. McBee has given $58,600 since 2005 to Murray's campaign and to her PAC. M-PAC is the 16th-largest leadership PAC in the Senate, with $435,000 in contributions between January 2009 and April 2010. Murray has dipped into M-PAC to support a host of Democratic candidates and groups. Recipients include Reid, the Senate majority leader; Senate Policy Chairman Sen. Byron Dorgan; and the political-action committee of Planned Parenthood. Murray's Washington state colleague in the Senate, Maria Cantwell, is one of 13 senators who do not operate a leadership PAC. McGehee, the campaign-finance expert, believes that leadership PACs represent influence peddling at its worst: Donors give to curry favors with a lawmaker, who for the same reason then funnels the money to fellow politicians.

From Bothell? Maybe she lives there now. She started in Shoreline before it was a city and the Shoreline School District board. Her time as a "teacher" was as a typical mother in a co-op preschool; the same preschool, though not at the same time, as our daughter.

Smart energy use - Calico Energy Services of Woodinville

I like people who create new ways to save energy or to get more use out of the same amount. Here is a Seattle-area company helping electric utilities and their customers. Seattle Times ... Shocking increase: Consumer demand for electricity has increased. On a parallel track, the slow economy has people looking for ways to save. Calico offers the ability to monitor electric usage and shut it down when it isn't needed. Static behavior: The Calico system takes advantage of the "smart grid," where energy supplies are allocated to the areas of greatest need at peak usage times. Where a large office building needs air conditioning on a hot day, a house may not. Calico makes it possible for utilities to let customers purchase electricity at a cheaper rate if they, for example, defer doing the laundry on a hot afternoon.

Use it or lose it: The need to balance usage levels comes from a system in which electricity must be used shortly after it's generated. The development of more efficient storage systems could change this. "We need to take advantage of the supply of electricity and use it more efficiently," Dawson said. ...

Detained for competent and courteous driving

You must be hiding something because you are obeying the traffic laws. Arab News - Saudi Arabia 777 pilot says his passengers appreciate him following the rules. But the Jeddah police don't? They detained him for two hours and emptied his car.

Independence Day

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776. The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good. He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them. He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures. He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands. He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers. He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:

For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:

For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences

For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:

For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:

For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends. We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor. US Archives

Put dead wealth to work for growth

We sure need some growth in our economy. Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes Magazine says there is a lot of wealth in America that is not invested. Being not invested it is sitting "idle;" putting it to work will help our economy going. He also hits tax rates and government spending, but his focus is on the wealth we can get to work. He has a colorful term for this problem. Here is a highlight:

Forbes:

... I would argue that Treasury Bills, gold holdings and an ANWR that is off limits to drilling are examples of dead wealth--that is, stored wealth that could create more wealth if put to proper use.

A current example of relatively dead wealth is the $1.2 trillion of cash and cash equivalents held by American publicly traded companies. In aggregate, the balance sheets of these companies have never been stronger. But that wealth is relatively dead. It is not being deployed for growth as aggressively as you might expect in the early days of an economic recovery. To bluntly switch metaphors, American corporations have a $1.2 trillion constipation problem.
...
The photo: OK, this is weak. Rich owns and flies a Cirrus light aircraft.

BP corporate "look good" safety culture

People working inside and with BP have been very concerned about the corporate culture regarding safety for years. BP has been long on the "looks good" safety, but very short on incorporating safety into the real value system people use for decision making every day - both short-term and long-term. Andrew B Wilson talks to people involved at Weekly Standard: Feel good: $200 million for rebranding. "Donations" to powerful politicians, etc. Safety in operations:

... a growing disillusionment with the company. In looking back over the last few years at BP, Houston was distressed at the way that corporate downsizing exercises seemed to target the best and most seasoned engineers. He was further distressed that BP had slashed the maintenance budget for the vast and aged Forties Alpha platform to a dangerous, even reckless extent, providing the platform’s operating engineers with less than 80 percent of the money they considered necessary to ensure the rig’s safety. He regarded the fine as risible and worried that it would only reinforce the prevailing complacency within the company. And finally, he told me over the course of several interviews, he was distressed by an abundance of rhetoric—coming from the CEO—about BP going “beyond petroleum” and joining the environmental activists in campaigning for reduced carbon emissions. “To me and everyone I knew, it didn’t make any sense. We were a petroleum company. That wasn’t going to change any time soon, and it wasn’t anything to be ashamed of, either. All the talk about windmills and solar power was just PR and a lot of nonsense.” In short, Houston no longer trusted the company to do the right thing. As someone who grew up idolizing the company, he came to the reluctant conclusion that BP itself was an accident waiting to happen: It was taking on increasingly ambitious exploration and production challenges, while demonstrating an increasingly indifferent or cavalier attitude toward engineering discipline and excellence. On top of all that, senior management seemed less than fully engaged in the difficult task of extracting and producing petroleum.

BTW: No posting yesterday -- Our neighbor at our cabin has been lax in providing us free internet access with their wifi spilling over. I better put the fear in him. No. I offered to buy him a wifi router since his broke.