Obama didn’t know about the AIG bonuses

Sources in the Obama administration Tuesday said that despite previous media reports administration officials did not know until a couple weeks ago that the officials of the controversial AIG Financial Product Division were set to receive $165 million in bonuses on March 13. It wasn’t until Thursday, March 5, 2009, administration sources told ABC News, that officials of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York informed officials of the Treasury Department of the full extent of the $165 million in bonuses pending for the controversial Financial Products Subsidiary. This was three days after the Obama administration had already announced a new commitment of an additional $30 billion for AIG.

Ah, now this is Change We Can Believe In

HAHAHA!  Really? You mean to tell me that our President, our Administration, is so inept they didn’t ask AIG if they were going to pay executive bonuses with the money we gave them?  You really don’t even have to ask you TELL them that they cannot give this money as bonuses and are prohibited from doing so.  Are we supposed to believe this story? Especially after the fall out from the bonuses given to the Freddie/Fannie executives you would have thought that they would be wise enough to ask about this.  What a joke.  I don’t know what’s worse believing them that they didn’t ask, which means they have NO business running this country as they are too stupid not to ask basic questions or if you don’t believe them then they lied and they are continuing to lie.

Maybe, just maybe Obama looked the other way on the AIG bonuses because, “Senator Barack Obama received a $101,332 bonus from American International Group in the form of political contributions according to Opensecrets.org.”

Obama’s Robin Hood Theory

Obama’s Robin Hood Theory…courtesy of the NYPost.

GangStarr’s Robin Hood Theory…similar?  “Now that we’re getting somewhere we got to give back.”

“We’re men, we’re men in tights….we roam around the forest looking for fights…we’re men, we’re men in tights, we rob the rich and give the poor.”

SF Chronicle Going Under?

The San Francisco Chronicle joined the lengthening list of imperiled newspapers Tuesday as its owner set out to purge the payroll and slash other expenses in a last-ditch effort to reverse years of heavy losses.  If it can’t reduce expenses dramatically within the next few weeks, the Hearst Corp. said it will close or sell the Chronicle, northern California’s largest newspaper with a paid weekday circulation of 339,430.

“Haha, your medium is dying.”

California’s Newly Proposed Budget Hammers the Poor

How is this possible? With a massive majority the Democrats hold control of both the State Senate and the Assembly in Sacramento.  You would think that big business’s and so called “fat cats” would pay the lions share of taxes.  However this is not the case with Democrats newly proposed budget.

The current batch of state tax increases in the proposed Democrat/Arnold budget really just chump change?  And how are the lower income folks going to be affected?  You decide. Go to the Sacramento Bee’s online state tax increase calculator by clicking here. On that calculator webpage, you can make sample inputs, and it lists out the extra taxes you’ll pay.  Most people will enter their own situation, but won’t try other “what if” scenarios.  It’s worth experimenting. The interesting part is to see how well the Democrats are taking care of their lower income core constituency. Think the cumulative tax increase is pennies per day?  Guess again.

Try this example of a struggling young working family: $35,000 total salary, $15,000 worth of cars, use 30 gallons of gas a week and have two kids at home.  This is a family living paycheck-to-paycheck, getting by as best they can. Total tax increase?  A crushing $831 a year.  That’s well over a week’s gross wages of $673.

Now consider this example:  A couple with a combined $100,000 salary, $35,000 worth of cars, use 30 gallons a week and no kids.  Total tax increase?  $820.

What is this monopoly?

As it turns out, the Democrats have put together one of the most regressive tax packages we’ve seen in California.   While there is some case to be made that people with school age children should pay more, that’s not what the Democrats profess.  Indeed, the slogan of the Big Spenders is “It’s for the children.”

Bottom line: The top priority of the Democrat Party is the government labor unions — NOT the poor, the working class, young families, and certainly not the kids.  The state budget package includes no significant cuts in public employee salaries or benefits, while the poor and the working class will get hammered.

There are going to be a lot of surprised and enraged Democrats when they find how they got snookered in this package.  Or not.  Most will never figure it out.

I guess that, from the Democrat Party’s standpoint, California’s public education system works!   For such proponents of tax increases, an undereducated electorate is a gullible electorate.  Credit San Diego Tax Fighters for this information.

“A Nation of Cowards”

Obviously the Attorney General is not an elected office.  This is the most refreshing comment made by a public official in years.  Finally somebody in our government isn’t afraid to speak their mind.  Finally somebody isn’t polling the public or doing focus groups to carve out their message.

“In a speech to Justice Department employees marking Black History Month, Holder said the workplace is largely integrated but Americans still self-segregate on the weekends and in their private lives. “Though this nation has proudly thought of itself as an ethnic melting pot, in things racial we have always been and continue to be, in too many ways, essentially a nation of cowards,” said Holder, nation’s first black attorney general. Attorney General Eric Holder described the United States Wednesday as a nation of cowards on matters of race, saying most Americans avoid discussing unresolved racial issues.”

It’s about time somebody in public office has come along with the courage to speak their true convictions.  I agree with him we are cowards.  Maybe not in the exact sense he’s arguing but to me we are way to PC, way too worried about what people think about us.  We’re all occupied by the terrible thought that people might see us as being racist or a bigot.  I don’t see his comments as holding true to younger generations as we’ve grown up with mixed racial backgrounds and judge people as MLK would have like by the content of their character.

The History of the Internet…Attention Senator Stevens

Cool video on the history of the internet.

It’s sort of the Internet for Dummies.  Someone should pass this video through the walls of Congress or at least to Senator Ted Stevens office.

New Pill to erase bad memories

I can appreciate, at a superficial level, the need or desire to erase bad memories in ones life but once you start down the rabbit hold of purging your perceived bad experiences from your memory bank what’s next? Maybe you had a bad relationship, would you then like to purge all memory of that relationship? What if you had a tragic car crash that has scarred you from driving in heavy rain, will taking this pill then enable you to drive in the rain without fear?  Now I am aware this is a bit of stretch but my point is once you start playing god with your own memories then it can quickly domino into an overall effort to cleanse you of all of your perceived bad life experiences.  More on that in a moment.

Here’s the skinny. “A widely available blood pressure pill could one day help people erase bad memories, perhaps treating some anxiety disorders and phobias, according to a Dutch study published on Sunday. The drug was shown to significantly weaken people’s fearful memories of spiders. The generic beta-blocker propranolol significantly weakened people’s fearful memories of spiders among a group of healthy volunteers who took it, said Merel Kindt, a psychologist at the University of Amsterdam, who led the study.”

Personally it doesn’t make too much sense to me to help people forget about the bad things in their lives.  If you were to forget all that went bad in your life how are you to then prevent it from happening again in the future?  Just like the old adage says, “those who cannot remember history are doomed to repeat it.”  If you’re really looking to forget or get over something do one of two things: One confront it head on and get over it or just pick up the bottle .

Here Come the Taxes

With the global economy in the can and State budgets posting record shortfalls our fearless State and Congressional leaders are already starting to turn to the old faithful aka raising taxes to get us out of this mess.  Yeah that ought to do it.  Let’s take more money out of the hands of people and businesses that are actually generating income and creating jobs and give it to the government so they can fund some BS social program or offset my famously large carbon footprint.  Can we please start IQ tests for State and Congressional Representatives?

Here are some of the more ridiculous proposals to fund shortages in our State and global budgets:

Oregon State Lawmakers considering a 1,900% tax increase on beer. So a traditional $6.99 six pack will now cost $132.81.  That ought to fix all of Oregon’s budget woes.  F*#king morons.  Legalize and tax marijuana and all of our budget problems are gone over night.

Kansas is suspending income tax returns. You got to hand it to Kansas at least they’re not hiding behind the facade of tax increases, they’re just plain keeping your money now.   It’s bad enough you’ve chosen to reside in Kansas now you’re poor.  Well you probably were anyway.

Australia is charging households per flush. I guess it’s time to start practicing the old hippie saying, “If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down.” Prediction, outhouses start showing up all over the Outback.

NY Governor wants to tax internet porn. This one actually makes sense.

I guess we should have saw this coming.

67 Computers Stolen from Los Alamos Labs

WTF?  I feel like we now live in a country where news breaks on a daily basis about the gross incompetence of our government.  I can understand one or two computers but 67! How is this possible?  Isn’t Los Alamos Lab supposed to be an extremely high security NUCLEAR testing facility?  Apparently lap tops are walking out of there on their own.  I can’t even steal a lap top from my work.  If people behaved like their government we’d called the cops.

“The Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory in New Mexico is missing 67 computers, including 13 that were lost or stolen in the past year. Officials say no classified information has been lost.” I love how they say no sensitive nuclear secrets are on the computers. How would they know what’s on the computer when they don’t even have them?

What I want to know is how they hell they got these computers out without any one finding out?

Nationalized Health Care Has Begun!

The debate has been raging in Washington for the better part of the past 6 months over the new pork filled stimulus bill that President Obama is championing.  The bill doesn’t contain much in the way of tax breaks and job creations in fact it does more to stimulate food stamps and grow government beaucracy than provide new jobs and tax breaks for working people.

That aside there is a terribly troublesome health provision slipped into the stimulus bill WITHOUT ANY DISCUSSION.  These provisions reflect the handiwork of Tom Daschle, until recently the nominee to head the Health and Human Services Department. (Page numbers refer to H.R. 1 EH, pdf version).  The bill’s health rules will affect “every individual in the United States” (445, 454, 479). Your medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. Having electronic medical records at your fingertips, easily transferred to a hospital, is beneficial. It will help avoid duplicate tests and errors. But the bill goes further. One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to reduce costs and “guide” your doctor’s decisions (442, 446). These provisions in the stimulus bill are virtually identical to what Daschle prescribed in his 2008 book, “Critical: What We Can Do About the Health-Care Crisis.” According to Daschle, doctors have to give up autonomy and “learn to operate less like solo practitioners.” Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties.  “Meaningful user” isn’t defined in the bill. That will be left to the HHS secretary, who will be empowered to impose “more stringent measures of meaningful use over time” (511, 518, 540-541).

This is how Washington see’s the issue.

So basically I have the right to pay for other peoples health care and the government has the right to choose if I get the appropriate care.  This is the inspiring change I’ve been hoping for.

So it begins.  The government will now be deciding if your treatment is worth it.  This is Madness.

What are we Canada?

Again if you missed it the first time, “the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective..”