By: David Freddoso Commentary
Staff Writer
July 23rd, 2009 6:56 AM
"Why oh why didn't I take the blue pill?"... Oh right, cause fantasy land isn't real.
"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?" -- President ObamaPosted: July 23rd, 2009 .
In last night's press conference, President Obama seemed to be reliving that famous scene from The Matrix. The main character is offered a choice between a red pill that makes him see reality for what it is, and a blue pill that allows him to continue living in a pleasant world of illusions...
Davis-Bacon Act | Wikipedia
Oddly enough, this law is still active and on the books. Good news for racist union members everywhere.
Posted: July 22nd, 2009 4:40pmIt has been argued by critics that this law is a Jim Crow law. It was passed -- goes the charge -- to prevent African Americans from bidding on government contracts. [1], [2], [3], [4] The Depression-era act was introduced (so argue latter-day critics) after whites complained that African American workers had been hired to build a Veterans' Bureau hospital in Long Island. [5]
Congressional representative John Cochran of Missouri said that he voted for the Davis-Bacon Act because he had "received numerous complaints in recent months about Southern contractors' employing low-paid colored mechanics getting work and bringing the employees from the South." [6]
Congressional representative Clayton Allgood of Alabama said that he voted for Davis-Bacon because "Reference has been made to a contractor from Alabama who went to New York with bootleg labor. This is a fact. That contractor has cheap colored labor that he transports, and he puts them in cabins, and it is labor of that sort that is in competition with white labor throughout the country." [7].
Modern proponents of the law, however, argue that while elements of racism no doubt were part of the parlance of passing the bill, the motivating principle was clearly about a locality's ability to protect itself economically from "a race to the bottom" in wage rates. Peter Philips and Dale Belman reviewed the legislative history of prevailing wage regulations that culminated in the Davis-Bacon Act and found that the a number of the laws were in fact intended to keep out laborers of Northern European ancesty as well as out-of-area workers from the upper Great Plains [8]. In a 1973 article in Harper's, the great Civil Rights Activist Bayard Rustin forcefully dismissed putative concerns about the racial impacts of prevailing wage laws, calling them a divisive distraction from the real task of building alliances between construction workers of all races...
Walter Williams on Good Intentions | Mises Economics Blog
Fantastic!
Posted: July 22nd, 2009 3:40pm
George Bush Gave Your Daughter Syphilis | Reason Magazine
By: Katherine Mangu-Ward
July 22nd, 2009
George W. Bush gave your daughters syphilis.Posted: July 22nd, 2009 1:10pm
He also gave your teenage sons AIDS, and knocked up your Hispanic next-door neighbor.
He caused gas prices to rise and fall and rise and fall and rise a lot and fall again and rise and fall.
He created 4.8 million jobs, a piddly figure when compared to Bill Clinton's prodigious 23 million. Those jobs were lost, however, in the recession Bush caused.
He also ended a terrible drought after the American people sacrificed hundreds of fat Texas cattle in his name.
And so the list goes...
Green Baptists Preach Salvation by Breaking Car Windows | Mises Institute
By: Tyler A. Watts
July 22nd, 2009 12:00am
I was just mentioning this very thing regarding California's initiative to get people to scrap old refrigerators & air conditioning units in the name of "increased efficiency".
Idiotic.
Who could possibly claim that buying up drivable used cars at prices far in excess of their market value, for the express purpose of destroying them, will be beneficial for the economy or the planet? You guessed it: a combination of economy-saving politicians and earth-saving green activists are peddling the wonders of a new government program popularly known as "Cash for Clunkers." The Consumer Assistance Recycle and Save Act of 2009 has the two ostensible goals of jump-starting the stalled automobile industry and combating global warming (or climate change, or whatever they're calling it these days) by replacing old, gas-guzzling smog machines with new, more fuel-efficient, cleaner cars...Posted: July 22nd 2009 12:59pm
At 6ft6ins and 34stone, meet one of the largest and heaviest women on the planet - and she's still growing | Daily Mail
By: Mail Foreign Service
July 22nd, 2009
A rather curious & interesting story...
Posted: July 22nd, 2009 9:33amStanding at 6ft 6ins and weighing 34 stone, this woman has been dubbed a modern-day giant - and, alarmingly, she is still growing.
Tanya Angus, who suffers from a rare growth condition, is already one of the tallest and heaviest women on the planet.
Now doctors say she is the only woman in the world whose growth cannot be halted by medication...
Barrett Booed at Greenville Tea Party | YouTube
Reblogged from my buddy Kenny, who said:
" LOLZZ!!
Upstate Republican Congressman Gresham Barrett voted for the Wall Street/TARP bailout, and when speaking before this Greenville tea party protest on April 15, the crowd overwhelmingly shouted him down despite his attempts to pacify his constituents with conservative rhetoric.
He just keeps up his rethoric like he's in a different world - fucking astounding!!!"
Listen for all the hilarious Neo-con talking points to a mostly libertarian/anarchic crowd. Dumbass.
The message from folks in Greenville to Congressman Gresham Barrett was clear Friday evening: Voters are mad about the bailout he voted for and the massive government stimulus package he is now supporting. MORE INFO: http://www.PalmettoScoop.cPosted: July 21, 2009 8:18pmom
Administration Delaying Release of Key Economic Report | Washington Post
By: Michael A. Fletcher Washington Post
Staff Writer
July 20, 2009 5:04 PM
This seems like non-news, in terms of any kind of conspiracy for releasing the report later:
eg: Asked about the speculation that the delay is linked to the ongoing health care debate, Baer responded: "I don't deal in speculation. What I know is that in transition years past both the full budgets and Mid-Session Reviews have come out later than in non-transition years and this year will be no different."
BUT... it's sure as hell convenient for Obama.
Posted: July 21st, 2009 4:47pmThe Obama administration is delaying release of a congressionally mandated report on the nation's economic conditions, spawning speculation that it is trying to tamp down bad economic news to avoid further complicating the already fraught legislative debate over health care reform.
The report, which is normally published by late July, is being delayed by several weeks, the administration acknowledged on Monday. Officials said the hold-up is not unusual in presidential transition years, noting that Presidents George W. Bush and former President Bill Clinton each published their initial budget updates weeks late.
"Because of the unique circumstances of a transition year, we -- like President George W. Bush in 2001 -- are releasing the mid-session review a few weeks later than as is usual in non-transition years," Kenneth S. Baer, communications director for the Office of Management and Budget, said Monday.
Asked about the speculation that the delay is linked to the ongoing health care debate, Baer responded: "I don't deal in speculation. What I know is that in transition years past both the full budgets and Mid-Session Reviews have come out later than in non-transition years and this year will be no different..."
List of Defunct US Automobile Manufacturers | Wikipedia
For anyone who thinks or thought that America can't live without GM or Chrysler...
Below is a list of defunct United States automobile manufacturers from the 1800s to the present...Posted: July 21st, 2009, 12:09pm
5-Legged Pup Rescued from Coney Island Freak Show | ABC News New York
Sunday, July 19th, 2009
Strong, who got his deposit back, said he would have given Lilly a good life. Though he's disappointed, he said, "Sometimes, you just gotta say, 'OK, I still have nine live, two-headed animals' and move on.''
A five-legged puppy was saved from life in a Coney Island freak show thanks to a kindhearted Southerner who paid $4,000 for the pooch.Posted: July 21st, 2009 9:21amAllyson Siegel, 45, of Charlotte, N.C., outbid a Brooklyn freak show operator to buy the pup because she couldn't bear the thought of the Chihuahua-terrier mix ending up at the sideshow that featured disfigured animals, the Charlotte Observer reported.
07/20/09 Ron Paul: Health Care is a Good, Not a Right
Texas Representative, Dr. Ron Paul
Beautiful explanation from Dr. Paul...
IG: Treasury 'Failed' to Adopt Bailout Safeguards | The Hill By: Silla Brush July 20th, 2009 10:47am
MegaFAIL!
Neil Barofsky, the special inspector general over the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), will tell lawmakers on Tuesday that taxpayers are being left in the dark about what banks are doing with bailout money, don't know the value of the government's investments and will not know the full extent of how the money is invested.Posted: July 20th, 2009 4:29pm
Understanding "Austrian" Economics | Mises Institute By: Henry Hazlitt [This article originally appeared in The Freeman, February 1981.]
Something should be said also about the sharp distinction between the Ricardian and the Austrian concept of "cost." The Ricardian (and the modern businessman) thinks of cost as a money outlay. But the Austrian economist has a much wider concept, what economists now call "opportunity" costs, or "foregone opportunity" costs. Such costs exist, of course, not only in business but in all our decisions and actions in life. The cost of learning French in any given period is to forego learning German, or to learn less mathematics, or to give up some tennis or bridge, and so on.Posted: July 20th, 2009 3:21pm
Menger emphasizes the importance of time and the role of uncertainty in the whole productive process. He also points out that no single good, no matter how abundant, can maintain life and welfare, but that these depend upon the production of combinations of goods of different kinds in the proper proportions. And he points out, finally, that the process of production cannot be expected to go on at an adequate rate unless there is adequate protection of property...
LRO Sees Lunar Landing Sites | NASA
Maybe we can put the faked moon landing thing to rest, eh?
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.Posted: July 20th, 2009 1:17pm
The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.
The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.
Barack Obama's Gaffe: seeking greater inefficiencies | Politico
By: Amie Parnes
July 20th, 2009
This must be one of those Freudian gaffes where you say what you really mean without knowing it.
Would health care reform bring "greater inefficiencies" to the country's health care system?Posted: July 20th, 2009 12:55pm
That's exactly what Obama said Monday when he spoke about health care reform at the Childrens National Medical Center in Washington.
"The reforms we seek would bring greater competition, choice, savings and inefficiencies to our health care system," Obama said in remarks after a health care roundtable with physicians, nurses and health care providers. "And greater stability and security to America's families and businesses...
Capitalism as Drama | Mises Institute
Jeffery A. Tucker
July 20th, 2009 12:00am
...In the movie Wall Street, we are told that we should all love unions and their desire to keep wages as high as possible and fix jobs in place for generation after generation. And yet look around and see: the unions have destroyed the American car companies and they have put a serious dent in the profitability of airlines too. Their wishes are unsustainable because they are not the market's command.Posted: July 20th, 2009 11:26amIn the end, who is the real destroyer: Gordon Gekko or the unions he fought? The movie ends with the unions and the government on top. History ends with the capitalists on top.
NASA Releases Preview - Partially Restored Apollo 11 Video | NASA
Happy 40th Anniversary, Moonwalk.
Posted: July 20th, 2009 11:15am
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