Freedom Today?

Bensblurb #534 March 29, 2010

Freedom today?
　
“This is the issue...whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them for ourselves.”--Ronald Reagan

Or is it: “Generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”--Barack Obama

Then here comes Senator Max Baucus: The health care overhaul America was just forced to endure was the government’s attempt to fix the “mal-distribution of income.” It’s an admission that sadly comes after the bill has passed and been signed...But it’s better late than never.--Big Government blog.

Remember before the election??? Obama to Joe the Plumber:
“I think when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody.”

In similar vein, here’s what a regional EPA administrator had to say recently: “EPA has a duty under the law to protect water quality and safeguard the people who rely on these waters for drinking, fishing and swimming.” --And you’d better brush your teeth and
floss, citizen.

Oh yeah? “President Obama and his fellow Democrats are counting on this resistance [to regulations and controls] to peter out...But it will be a lot easier for opponents to maintain [their] zeal in the age of social networking...After all, this issue is not just about the fate of an industry. It is about maintaining control over basic decisions about one’s own life and health.” Shikha Dalmia on Resisting ObamaCare, in forbes.com.

Now the commercial: Tune in to this Youtube feature in support of the tea partiers:
　
　
　 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVAhr4hZDJE


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--Ben Blankenship

Our taxes help Dems campaign

Bensblurb # 533 Our taxes help Democrats campaign
　
My wife woke up grouchy this morning. Thus aroused, I resolved to think nice thoughts for a change. Then heartburn (aka ObamaCare-itis) returned. Not only, I realized, are we now saddled with a huge new Fed takeover of medicine that will bankrupt us (see Krauthammer below). Our taxpayer money is now being used to persuade us that it’s a good thing. And by the way, help democrats keep their seats in elections next fall. Grrrr.
　
　
Krauthammer, in today’s Washington Post: “We are now $8 trillion in debt. Congressional Budget Office projects that $12 trillion will be added over the next decade. ObamaCare, when stripped of its budgetary gimmicks...the 10-6 sleight-of-hand (counting 10 years of revenue and only six years of outflows)...is at minimum a $2 trillion new entitlement. It will vastly increase the debt...This is fiscally disastrous...”

Today's other big news story “...is the democrats' claim that some of their congressmen have been threatened with violence after voting for the government's takeover of health care... Threats of violence, sadly, are not uncommon in politics...Even insignificant conservatives like us have been threatened with violence...Jim Bunning received threats after he temporarily held up the extension of unemployment benefits a few weeks ago. The current threats...are being played up in the press because the democrats want to dampen the anger that has erupted [from] millions of Americans who regard ObamaCare not just as misguided public policy, but as an illegitimate usurpation of power."----John Hinderaker, in Power Line.

Closer to home: “With the democrats pushing through the federal takeover of our healthcare system, running up trillions of dollars of debt, and passing massive spending and “stimulus” bills, you know our federal taxes will continue to rise. Fortunately here in Richmond we have a leader who understands that the people of Virginia can spend their money more effectively than the government. Under Gov. Bob McDonnell, Virginia was able to balance the state budget and eliminate a $2.3 billion budget deficit without raising taxes.”--Va. GOP

---Ben Blankenship

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Spring cleaning time

Bensblurb #532 March 25, 2010

Spring cleaning now? Oh my

I guess it’s high time for a spring cleaning. Especially from the looks of my desk, which is almost as messy as the electronic desktop on my old pc monitor.

But I can’t simply click the mouse and hide the physical one. Thus, I’ve been trying to throw out some collected stuff, like tear-sheets from newspapers and magazines I never got around to fitting into a column or letter.

You’re surely aware that bright ideas have sprung from those sources on these pages, plus some less compelling prose which I won’t again burden you with.

Even so, just enjoying the goodies is rather difficult nowadays. I feel a bit like Noel Coward who was quoted in a recent Forbes issue: “To take a gloomy view of life is not part of my philosophy; to laugh at the idiocies of my fellow creatures is. However, at this particular moment I cannot find so much to laugh at as I would like.”

Me neither, especially when I look at my nasty and ignorant government's takeover of health care. And the soaring budget deficits (described by columnist David Broder as “a saga of national ruin”) yield more disgust.

Closer to home, I dryly laughed ha-ha the other day when I read that Forbes.com had ranked my own Stafford County 12th among the nation’s richest counties, ahead of Prince William (#14) and just behind Arlington (#9), all in Virginia. How could that be? Well, the main measure was median household income, which we are said to average over $89,000 annually here.

But “rich?” I don’t know about you, but my home’s assessed valuation this spring is down nearly 50 percent from what it had been back in 2007. Clearly, income doesn’t equal wealth. True, we look pretty upscale if you drive through Seven Lakes or Augustine. Nobody mentions, however, the flip sides, like places along Truslow Road or out yonder in White Oak.

And if you saw the stunning pandemonium at Sen. Warner’s PR affair the other day--his federal agency job fair at Stafford’s UMW campus that was flooded with over 7,000 area job seekers--you certainly wouldn’t have described our vicinity as rich. Perhaps. “desperate?” Perhaps.

But don’t worry. Washington has our best interests always in mind. Sure. You did get a first-class letter from Census the other day saying you’d soon get a Census query and please fill in and return. Handy heads-up?

No, costly. According to one estimate, those 120 million “hello” greetings cost $4,200,000 in paper and envelopes--plus first-class postage. Insane.

But wait. I promised to clear out some desktop litter. Here’s an example. Years ago I read some funny sentences in English essays by high school students. Here are a few:

*Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
*They lived in a suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.
*Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
*The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

Smile, darn ya.
　

--Ben Blankenship

These are the good old days

Bensblurb #531 3/17/10...And top of the bloomin' green grass finally showing in my yard this sunny day! And may my dear ancestor Mattie Doolin (on my father's side) rest comfortably.


For these are the good old days!

“As they got older, my parents noticed to their dismay that their friends talked more and more about their doctors. According to my parents, nearly all of their friends liked their doctors. However, there was always something to complain about -- a personality quirk, a failure to return a call...Grievances like these tended to dominate the conversations that so annoyed my parents.

“If Obamacare passes, President Obama and the Democrats will become part of, and perhaps dominate, most of these conversations. Every excessive wait, every missed phone call, every postponed appointment will become Obama's fault.
This will be true even if the quality of the doctor-patient relationship does not deteriorate under Obamacare. It is human nature when something goes wrong to romanticize the past, forgetting that the same thing probably went wrong just as often back in the day. And, since most Americans, including the elderly, are reasonably satisfied overall with their health care, it will be easy to romanticize the past.”--by Paul Mirengoff, Power Line.

Romanticize the past? Not me. The girls in our day, however, were a lot prettier than those kids today. Absolutely.
　
“...Democrats are behaving as if, once they jam ObamaCare through, nothing else matters. It's like they'll never have to worry about being the minority party in need of constitutional checks and balances. A sensible president would of course step in and provide some adult supervision to a wayward party hell-bent on jumping off this cliff. But the problem is that President Obama believes in his own messianism too deeply for that...In his book Dreams From My Father Obama gives the distinct impression that his gifts are too great for the smallness of our political stage. He regrets not having been born during the civil rights era when the grandness of the cause would have measured up to the grandness of his ambition. He is in search of something big that will allow him to make his mark on the world as Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King did.” Forbes.com
Maybe it’s just as well that the giant asteroid struck, obliterating those giant dinosaurs from the face of the earth. After all, they had a large carbon footprint.

And by the way:

We’re here to help (as April 15 approaches):

Arriving at Harv's Metro Car Wash Wednesday afternoon were two dark-suited IRS agents demanding payment of delinquent taxes. "They were deadly serious, very aggressive, very condescending," says Harv's owner...
The really odd part of this: The letter that was hand-delivered to the on-site manager showed the amount of money owed to the feds was ... 4 cents. Inexplicably, penalties and taxes accruing on the debt – stemming from the 2006 tax year – were listed as $202.31, leaving Harv's with an obligation of $202.35.--Sacramento Bee

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77--So What?

Bensblurb #530 3/12/10

So they say seven is a lucky number. If so, I’m real lucky. For, like the old TV series “77 Sunset Strip,” I’m getting there this month. To 77, of course, not to Hollywood.
And fortunately for me, I have plenty company, besides my loving and only wife, of course. According to George Will, “Every day 10,000 boomers will join the ranks of [the retired].”
Welcome, kids. We real seniors have our old-guys group, ROMEO, which meets once a month for breakfast at Jimmy the Greek’s and stands for Retired Old Men Eating Out. And my seniors barbershop chorus at Mt. Vernon numbers over 60 and boasts an excellent soloist, age 97.
And how about this new invention, the PC, that has improved every year of my 15 years in retirement, giving me lots of contacts with former classmates and relatives to help me while away the idle hours. The Internet is surely a godsend, making all these columns a joy to compose.
Now I’m in bonus time, since the average lifetime of guys similarly born in 1933 ended several years ago.
They say it helps for longevity’s sake to keep the mind engaged. “Maintaining a rich network of social connections [helps] keep the brain’s neurons firing,” according to a recent issue of Time devoted to the aging process.
Of course, my own network isn’t that rich in monetary terms, although many of us enjoy cushy retirements from government service.
But it’s not so comforting that many of us older folks, drawing on programs like Medicare and Social Security, are growing more numerous and problematic, thanks largely to medical advances. We are helping cause the major problems over the nation’s soaring debt.
Which also brings me to looking down the road and wondering if I’ll be around long enough to see the U.S. pull out of its current troubles. I hope so, but that’s going to take a lot of time.
As George Will also wrote about us agers, “America’s destiny is demographic, and therefore is inexorable and predictable, which makes the nation’s fiscal mismanagement by both parties especially shocking.”
Before things get better, I’d almost wager that I’ll see the Washington Redskins win another Super Bowl. I’d sure like to stay around for that. Or to see a Republican again in the White House.
Neither prospect might be all that bizarre. After all, guys my age can expect on average to log another nine years before checking out. Heck, that’s long enough for me to become a great-great grandfather.
But wait. There was that little episode of chest pains four years ago. Four stents--not developed until recently--were plugged into the vicinity of my heart. Maybe I’d better not act so uppity and indestructible; and I really should forfeit a few (dozen) pounds.
A bigger immediate problem is my driving skills. They aren’t getting any better. I’ve been lucky for the past decade. However, since the eyesight is particularly tested in driving at night, maybe I’d better stay off the streets then. Especially bad has been trying to observe those dim, damned lane markings that hassle drivers on Garrisonville Road.
Before I get mad just thinking about them, I’d better quit and go back to sleep. Wake me when Obama’s over.
　
　

Ah, Spring

Bensblurb #529? 3/6/10

Ah, Spring....

Feel it? Let’s welcome March Madness, featuring my Texas Aggies, a national power? Who wooda thunk it. Here in Va., the snow banks are finally melting away and a few crocuses are about to burst minutely into bloom. It’s spring for sure when liberal colleges burst with demonstrations.

For instance:
“A tuition protest at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee turned violent. . . . The protest was part of a national Day of Action, challenging lawmakers in each state to stop cutting funding from education.”

Two thoughts: (1) This is more violence than all the Tea Party protests put together, despite the media fearmongering; and (2) Running out of other people’s money stinks, doesn’t it?--Instapundit

Meanwhile, here in Bureaucrat-land, we’re holding our breath over.....Yeah....Health Care:
Here’s Peggy Noonan in today’s Wall Street Journal, about our esteemed leader:
“In his speech Wednesday...the president seemed convinced and committed--but nothing he said sounded true. His [health care] bill will ‘bring down the cost of health care for millions,’ it is ’fully paid for,’ it will lower the long-term deficit by a trillion dollars.
“Does anyone believe this?...[H]e seems to devote more words to obscuring than clarifying....”

If that bill does become law, I predict, the Democrats will be crushed in elections next fall and we’ll all pay dearly for years on end. If it fails, the Democrats will still be crushed next fall, but our grandchildren may breathe easier financially. We’ll see soon enough.

ALSO, Congress, it turns out, isn’t the only place reflecting displeasure by voters this spring. According to a Politico review of publicly available polling data, numerous state legislatures are also bottoming out, showing...“stunning levels of voter cynicism.”
FINALLY, here’s something more about global warming and why we should really love it this spring, and not its opposite:
“Geologists have found evidence that sea ice extended to the equator 716.5 million years ago, bringing new precision to a “snowball earth“ event long suspected of occurring around that time....The new findings — based on an analysis of ancient tropical rocks in remote northwestern Canada — bolster the theory that the planet has, at times in the past, been covered with ice at all latitudes“.--Steve Bradt, Harvard staff writer

FINALLY, Fer sure:
Comedian Alan King: “Women live longer than men because they aren’t married to women.”--PS: He died at age 76.

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