No, that's not a Photoshop of the president, it's his half-brother Mark Okoth Obama Ndesandjo and he's touting his book which tells quite a different tale than the one we've been told.
posted by Craig @ 3:50 PM
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A sampling of how various world leaders have greeted the Japanese emperor.
posted by Craig @ 3:30 PM
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An ACORN SEIU union in Allentown, PA is complaining about an Eagle Scout project.
In pursuit of an Eagle Scout badge, Kevin Anderson, 17, has toiled for more than 200 hours hours over several weeks to clear a walking path in an east Allentown park.Little did the do-gooder know that his altruistic act would put him in the cross hairs of the city's largest municipal union.
Nick Balzano, president of the local Service Employees International Union, told Allentown City Council Tuesday that the union is considering filing a grievance against the city for allowing Anderson to clear a 1,000-foot walking and biking path at Kimmets Lock Park.
"We'll be looking into the Cub Scout or Boy Scout who did the trails," Balzano told the council.
Balzano said Saturday he isn't targeting Boy Scouts. But given the city's decision in July to lay off 39 SEIU members, Balzano said "there's to be no volunteers." No one except union members may pick up a hoe or shovel, plant a flower or clear a walking path.
Sigh. It's going to take a long, long time to get rid of the union mentality in this country.
posted by Craig @ 3:19 PM
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... in China.
Little more than a year after cutting the ribbon at a new factory in Devens built with more than $58 million in state aid, Evergreen Solar said yesterday that it will shift its assembly of solar panels from there to China.About half of the 577 full-time and 230 contract employees at the Devens factory are involved in putting the panels together. Evergreen declined to say how many of those jobs would disappear with the scheduled transfer next year to China, where it is expanding because of lower costs.
It will, no doubt, come as a huge shock to supporters of green industries to find out that they are subject to the same economic forces as the regular ones.
posted by Craig @ 11:25 AM
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After several highly-publicized transit accidents, the Obama administration had a revelation.
"After the train crash, we were all sitting around here scratching our heads, saying, 'Hey, we've got to do something about this'," LaHood said. "And we discovered that there's not much we could do, because the law wouldn't allow us to do it."
Well, we can't have that, can we. Those silly local officials obviously don't give a damn about safety and aren't competent to run their own systems. The White House must be responsible for everything.
Do you see a pattern emerging?
[UPDATE:] It's yet another example of the vision of the anointed.
posted by Craig @ 10:58 AM
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So, where did all those "created or saved" jobs come from? Why, math ignorance, of course.
But the laugh riot comes several paragraphs into the article as they look into why Southwest Georgia Community Action Council was able to save 935 jobs with a cost of living increase for only 508 people. The director of the action council said:“she followed the guidelines the Obama administration provided. She said she multiplied the 508 employees by 1.84 — the percentage pay raise they received — and came up with 935 jobs saved.“I would say it’s confusing at best,” she said. “But we followed the instructions we were given.”
“Confusing at best”? The multiplication of percentages is “confusing at best”? It seems obvious to me she should have multiplied 508 people by the amount the increase (.0184) and gotten 9.3. But she forgot that you have to divide the percentage by 100 before you multiply.
The fact that she had “saved” more jobs than there were people in the organization should have been a tip-off. But this is a pretty common problem with people who don’t have a very good grasp on mathematics… they don’t recognize obvious mathematical errors, they just plug in the numbers and go with whatever comes out.
And this, children, is why you pay attention at school. So you don’t get in the national news for doing something really stupid and then blame it on the instruction manual.
While you're over there reading the whole thing, you'll want to check out visualising job losses and screwing it up.
posted by Craig @ 8:50 AM
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It's all the rage these days.
Under Cluelessian Theory, the laws of supply and demand didn't work for everyone. Thus, what is being proposed with health care reform is an increase in the number of people covered by insurance through a legal mandate (demand), without increasing the price. This is only possible under the Cluelessian Model. In fact, under the new theory demand will increase, prices will decline, supply will decline (as insurance companies go bankrupt) and higher income taxes will make up the difference.Under Cluelessian theory you actually wind up paying more for less, but that's all right because higher taxes don't count towards the price of health insurance, right?
Read the whole thing.
posted by Craig @ 8:25 AM
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Goodyear is closing a plant in South Carolina and moving the work to Buffalo.
posted by Craig @ 7:55 AM
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The White House is protesting the "politicization" of Obama's bow to the Japanese emperor.
A senior administration official said President Barack Obama was simply observing protocol when he bowed to Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko upon arriving at the Imperial Palace in Tokyo on Saturday.
It is true that it's Japanese custom to bow much as we shake hands. It's also Japanese custom that the emperor bows to no one; and he didn't.
posted by Craig @ 7:43 AM
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Why is it that certain technologies inspire such religious passion in people? A wacky proposal to spend billions of dollars building a maglev rail line from Pittsburgh Airport through downtown Pittsburgh to one of its suburbs has enough traction that the Pennsylvania House Transportation Committee recently held hearings on it.
Whatever the people in Pittsburgh do (or Cleveland or Baltimore), the movers and shakers in Buffalo inevitably point to as something that we must absolutely do, too. The fact that, despite their city-beautiful projects, Pittsburgh (and Cleveland and Baltimore) continue to lose people as fast as we do doesn't seem to mean a thing to them.
posted by Craig @ 5:55 PM
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Psalm 109:8 - May his days be few; may another take his office.
Found at Cafe Press.
posted by Craig @ 5:17 PM
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More analysis of the House health care bill -- this time by an independent and non-partisan outfit deemed reliable enough that its report was sent to Capitol Hill by the Department of Health and Human Services.
The House-approved healthcare overhaul would raise the costs of healthcare by $289 billion over the next 10 years.
And remember that this is in addition to the trillion dollars (give or take the odd few billion) that the program will already cost taxpayers. In the end, I guess we have to be thankful that Obama and the Dems were so greedy that they started out the year by passing a $787 billion spending program they claimed would stimulate the economy.
It was a terrible squandering of our national wealth, but at least it didn't directly harm our freedom. And it's had the added benefit of causing Americans to scrutinize more closely the health care spending (and carbon-cap legislation) that are being foisted on us now.
posted by Craig @ 4:13 PM
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Will the soldiers killed or wounded in the Fort Hood massacre receive Purple Hearts?
In my view, they should. But whether they do depends on how the Obama administration decides to spin the episode. If it determines that the soldiers were victims of criminal assault, the answer is No: they do not get this most somber military decoration.But if the Obama administration determines that those soldiers were injured or killed in the line of duty, then they are eligible for the Purple Heart.
Well, you can just about guess that one.
posted by Craig @ 4:09 PM
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If you wonder why American newspapering is dying, consider this sign-off:AP writers Matt Apuzzo, Sharon Theimer, Tom Raum, Rita Beamish, Beth Fouhy, H. Josef Hebert, Justin D. Pritchard, Garance Burke, Dan Joling and Lewis Shaine contributed to this report.Wow. That's ten "AP writers" plus Calvin Woodward, the AP writer whose twinkling pen honed the above contributions into the turgid sludge of the actual report. That's 11 writers for a 695-word report. What on? Obamacare? The Iranian nuke program? The upcoming trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed?
No, the Associated Press assigned 11 writers to "fact-check" Sarah Palin's new book, and in return the 11 fact-checkers triumphantly unearthed six errors. That's 1.8333333 writers for each error. What earth-shattering misstatements did they uncover for this impressive investment?
Heh. Read the whole thing.
posted by Craig @ 7:16 AM
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The Obama administration has decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four others involved in the 9/11 attacks in a civilian court because their targets were civilians. Five other Guantánamo detainees will be tried by a military tribunal because they attacked a military target: the USS Cole. The only lesson to be drawn by potential terrorists everywhere will be that it's smarter to attack American civilians than American soldiers.
This is the sort of brilliance we're coming to expect from the current occupant of the White House.
posted by Craig @ 6:44 AM
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Buffalo is the poorest city in America with two, count 'em -- two, international airports. But, not to worry, things are looking up. Our newest terminal, built at a cost of some $30 million, now boasts flights to Melbourne, Florida! Anyone would have to agree that it was taxpayer money well spent for the continuing service to Punta Gorda alone.
posted by Craig @ 7:12 PM
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Is the biopharmaceutical industry really an important part of Buffalo's economic future?
Life sciences and medical research firms and institutes account for almost 5 percent of all the economic activity in the Buffalo Niagara region, according to an industry-backed study released Thursday.But while the report showed that the growing biopharmaceutical industry is an expanding source of scientific and medical research, industry officials also said more needs to be done to position the region so it can cash in when those new drugs and other products move into production.
Isn't it always the same story? We hear so much about the importance of UB, for example, all that brainpower right here in town. But, in the end, the best ideas in the world remain just that if they can't be turned into tangible goods we can buy.
And in Buffalo, that remains a very chancy proposition.
There's no capital here for start-ups, the tax burden on businesses is famously bad and the specter of union labor demaninding more pay than it's worth scares the pants off prospective entrepreneurs. One other problem facing the industry now is Congress's proposed tax on medical devices and pharmaceutical products.
The new jobs created by biopharmaceuticals are nothing to sneeze at in a town as job-poor as Buffalo, but the big money -- the actual creation of wealth -- is still just something we can dream about. And probably watch happen as ideas born in Buffalo come to fruition in Texas.
posted by Craig @ 6:27 PM
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Keith Hennessey lays it out:
- Increase government spending, especially through rapidly growing entitlements. At the state level it’s Medicaid.
- Wait. While you’re waiting, define deficits as the problem, rather than spending.
- Try to label as radical and extreme those who argue for slowing spending growth and preventing tax increases. The goal is to discredit these solutions as legitimate.
- Once deficits get large enough, shrug and say we have no choice but to raise taxes. This is especially true for entitlement programs directed toward the elderly, who have less ability to adjust to changed government promises.
- Argue we must protect low and middle-income from higher taxes, so upper-income taxpayers must bear the entire burden increase.
- Raise taxes on upper-income taxpayers.
- Rinse and repeat.
The ACORN UnionSEIU ads are already playing on talk-radio and the state legislature can't bring itself to take any action to fend off a $4 billion deficit. Can they really fall back on the old playbook again?
posted by Craig @ 7:30 PM
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Doug Hoffman is no doubt wondering whether he should have conceded the NY 23rd congressional race so quickly.
A recanvassing of votes cast in the highly contested NY-23 race shows that the 5,335-vote lead once enjoyed by Rep.-for-now Bill Owens, the Democrat, has narrowed to about 3,000 with another 10,000 absentee ballot uncounted.Owens, who was sworn in last week, was one of 220 Dems to vote give the majority a narrow victory on health care reform.
It's those 10,000 absentee ballots that has everyone wondering. Now, it's statistically improbable that Hoffman could garner the required majority of those to overthrow the election results; but wouldn't it be delicious?
I doubt he would try to take Owens's seat in the House, but Democrats who found this race their only solace in last week's elections would be apoplectic with new found fear.
[UPDATE:] The Gouverneur Times is more upbeat on Hoffman's chances than I.
posted by Craig @ 6:12 PM
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