Stir The Pot

Tim, it's really much simpler than you're making it out to be! We're obligated by Congress to loan money against our future earnings, forever and ever, to you. You loan it to the banks. They loan it to us. We pay it back to the banks, and they make money on the interest they charge us. You make money on the interest you charge them.Congress makes money on the interest they charge you, and then we . . . .

Damn, this is where it gets difficult. We don't get the principal or the interest back, because Congress has spent it all before they ever got it back from you. And the banks won't lend us any money because we can't afford to pay it back. We owe it all to the government!

But as Jerome R. Corsi wrote, "the American public is largely unaware that the true deficit of the federal government already is measured in trillions of dollars, and in fact its $65.5 trillion in total obligations exceed the gross domestic product of the WORLD."

Yeah, Tim, if I had to explain that one to the public, I'd be pretty evasive too!

On his 200th birthday anniversary, I observe that either: 1) the human species has evolved extremely rapidly over the last two centuries, or 2) that dogs and cats have evolved rapidly over the same period, or 3) (and most likely) human evolution has somehow gone into decline and is surrendering to its own self-destruction by imploding from the far edges of reason.  

The convergence of several recent phenomena indicates that the first two observations are delusions by an increasing number of our species, which are rapidly bringing about the third observation.  To understand this, consider the following seemly unrelated political and social events.

The party which just assumed control of the executive and legislative branches of our federal government is wasting no time in attempting to impose a permanent single-party rule of the nation.  It is so doing by interfering with the Census Bureau.  The census is conducted every ten years to, among other things, determine apportionment of political districts among the 435 seats in the House of Representatives. 

Despite the Supreme Court ruling that the phrase "actual count" didn't mean estimates or computer-based "sampling," partisan zealots are determined to use them anyway and keep close control over the 2010 census.  The Census Bureau is being moved from the Department of Commerce to the White House, where the president's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, will oversee its direction.  

One of the new president's first acts was to expand the previous administration's "faith-based initiatives" executive order to "faith-based AND community organizing initiatives."  One community organization, with whom the president was at one time closely associated, and which has been under several federal investigations for voter fraud, has just been awarded substantial federal funds as part of the recent economic stimulus bill.

The new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA), down the hall from Mr Emanuel's office, will be law professor Cass Sunstein, described as "an unyielding advocate for the animal rights movement."  His long held positions on animal rights include suggesting that it makes sense to begin "allowing suits on behalf of animals."

Imagine this:  "I represent the family of the raccoon you ran over last week.  They want you arrested for motor vehicle mammalicide.  We're imposing a lien on all your assets and suing you for loss of their prime source of income plus punitive damages!" 

As the editor of a 2004 book "Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions,"  Mr Sunstein compiled legal arguments made by numerous leaders of the "movement" (for brevity's sake, I'll refer to Animal Rights Groups collectively as ARG's), some of whom demand granting voting rights for animals by, of course, human proxy.  He also indicated a strong dislike of hunting, going so far as to say that "we might ban hunting altogether. . . ."

Perhaps now you can see where this is heading.  

ARG's would have us believe that their members have evolved so rapidly that they can justify their claims from the fringe. They've been communicating with animals, apparently in a special language that only THEY know, and which isn't yet being listed in the course offerings of many colleges or universities. The debate must still be raging over whether it belongs in the biology, foreign languages, or communications department.  In the meantime, the animal rights activists are quite happy to speak on behalf of their animal friends, and as their proxies, to vote as they would wish as well.

And since Professor Sunstein will be in a position of influence and proximity, it may be that cats and dogs will be included in the next census.  After all, they may become an important voting block in 2012!

So, if you're a member of the party out of power, you might want to start stocking up on dogs and cats for whom YOU can advocate.  Challenge the ARG's on their own assumptions:  if THEY can know what animals want, need, and feel, so can YOU!  If they claim you can't, tell them to PROVE IT!  

Be sure that you adopt thoughtful, intelligent creatures.  Pass up those louts whose only goal in life is to eat, sleep, reproduce, play, and defecate without earning their keep.  They'll vote for the other party!

Explain to your animals that, while the ARG's SAY they're for animal rights, they're most often involved in attempting to exercise dictatorial control over human behavior, and they're not to be trusted.  If animals have rights, they can lose them just like humans.

Tell them that these ARG's think mankind has evolved beyond eating meat, despite the fact that we've retained our canine teeth over millions of years of evolution.  Since many of us are resisting their enlightened view, they're trying to force us to stop eating meat through laws. If they get their way, dogs and cats will be forced onto a meatless diet as well, fangs notwithstanding.  Remind the cats that the ARG's have also been agitating against milk consumption by demanding elimination of bovine collectives, and most recently, have even attacked fishing!  If meat, milk, and fish are eliminated from the human diet, dogs and cats will no longer be able to justify it.

If those arguments don't convince them that ARG's don't have their best interests at heart, remind your dogs and cats who's behind the enforced elimination of their reproductive freedoms.  Be careful in your approach to that issue, since they may demand reciprocity! 

The ARG's attacks on hunting also have political implications for animals. Cats, if recreational hunting is banned for us, how much longer will they tolerate it by you?  If hunting is banned because meat consumption is banned, how long will it be before some ARG decides ALL carnivores should stop eating meat?  I can't imagine how any lawyer is going to get the deer, elk, and bison herds to pay for a class action lawsuit, but I'm sure that somewhere in the 1,031 page economic stimulus bill there's a grant provision to fund that very subject. Speaking of that law, you should tell your local squirrels not to expect anything.  The $2 billion for ACORN is for nuts, but not food.

And finally, tell your animals to take this seriously!  Humans tend to get upset with parties that disagree with their particular agenda, or protest the diminishment and loss of individual rights and freedoms.  They try to suppress  opposition arguments, and stifle dissent.  Failing that, they often engage in massive extermination campaigns to get their way and maintain control. History is replete with examples.

When the census taker arrives, be sure to generously overestimate the number of dogs, cats and other animals you claim to represent.  You never know how many more little ones your pets may have reproduced, especially if you live in a rural area and have a barn or a shed.  One of the reasons for "sampling" is that the other party believes rural areas are routinely undercounted.  As soon as your pets turn voting age, you'll want them counted.  If the census is going to be base on "sampling," you need to ensure that your side's figures are proportionally inflated.

Besides, you know the other party's already been doing it for years with dead people, illegal immigrants, imaginary friends, avatars, schizophrenics, and ACORN lists, and they're not about to stop. Remember, in a democracy, it's all about the numbers. 

This should be interesting, because of one particular section that was included in the Senate version. Opponents have called it the nationalization of the health care system, but it's not really that at all.

Oh, sure, it creates a new bureaucracy of the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, where all medical records will be centralized on a federal computer.  It will also second-guess your doctor, and IT will make the ultimate determination whether the treatment you receive is cost-effective and appropriate, and whether you'll be "allowed" to receive it.  

It also creates a Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research, which was described by former Senator and former nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services Daschle as being needed to SLOW the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs.  Mr Daschle admires Europeans for being more willing to accept "hopeless diagnoses" and to "forego experimental treatments."  And he feels that, like Europeans, seniors should be more "accepting" of the conditions that come with age INSTEAD of having them treated!  I don't think he was making reference to Senator Kerry's BOTOX injections. 

Using language straight out of Mr Daschle's book, Democrats wrote the legislation, inserted it into the stimulus bill, voted on it, rejected any attempts to modify it or eliminate it, passed it, and sent it to their one-party conference.  Democrats own it.

But this is only a means, and not an end, to the real purpose of the Democrats.

A little history:  Even as it was being developed, Franklin Delano Roosevelt saw that Social Security could not be sustained.  To pass muster with the Supreme Court it had to be formulated as a tax, but it was sold to the public as a government insurance account for senior citizens.  Roosevelt even admitted to his Labor Secretary that this was "the same old dole under another name" and that it was "almost dishonest to build up an accumulated deficit for the [Congress] to meet in 1980."  That was in 1935.  Yet until the 1980's, any mention of modernizing Social Security funding -- the "third rail" of politics -- was political suicide. 

"Almost dishonest"? More than 70 years after it's inception, and almost 29 years after its originators predicted it would become unsustainable, Social Security still hasn't been fixed.

Until now.  Democrats have finally produced their own plan for making Social Security sustainable for the future.  They were able to do it by disguising it as health care nationalization, European-style.  

But here it is, reduced to its most basic form:  KILL THE RECIPIENTS!!  

Did anybody notice the little swastika at the bottom of the bill?

Bernie Madoff!!!

Yet the so-called stimulus package seems to be for pet projects and special interests -- you know, the same ones that get all the "government" money from the annual budget year after year.  The same ones that spend billions of our dollars and never seem to accomplish their grandiloquent stated purposes.  In effect, all the stimulus package does is nearly double the size of a single annual federal budget expenditure overnight.

Well, if it gets passed and signed into law, guess what happens the following day?  Congress starts to "debate" the actual annual budget.  The same agencies and programs and special interest groups will be right back (actually, they probably never left) with hands extended, palms open, asking for more.

If the politicians REALLY wanted to provide a short-term economic stimulus, perhaps it should consider the following.  There are about 300 million people in this country.  That's 300 followed by six zeroes.  Congress is apparently hell-bent on distributing between 785 and 895 billion dollars of OUR money.  On average, that's $840 billion, or 840 followed by nine zeroes.

The math is simple enough:  Divide the amount to be spent ($840 billion) by the number of people (300 million) and the amount comes to $2800 per person. 

If the government sent to every individual or head of household a tax-free check for every man, woman, and child, the economy would get an immediate shot in the arm without having to wait for it to flow through the labyrinth of government or waiting for loan approvals.  An individual would receive $2800, a couple $5600.  A family of four would receive $11,200, and the unemployed woman in California who just birthed octuplets in addition to her six kids would get $42,000.

For some people, it might mean the down payment on a new car, which would benefit carmakers and car salesmen.  Or a used car, which would benefit buyer and seller.  For others, it might mean replacing the old TV that needs a digital signal converter box (for which the government ran out of rebate coupons) with a new TV.  That would stimulate TV manufacturing jobs and electronics sales jobs.  A direct check might be just enough for homebuyers to qualify for a down payment and an affordable mortgage.  For others, it might mean not being foreclosed and losing their home.

Aspiring cabinet appointees could use it to pay their back taxes.  The Obamas could put it toward their daughters' private school tuition.  ACORN activists could contribute it to their own association and other leftist causes.  California taxpayers could use it to offset the state tax refunds due to them that their state government is withholding (stealing) from them.  

The value of a direct payment wouldn't be diminished (wasted) on government overhead.  It also wouldn't require an increase in the size and cost of government just to get it out the door. It would be the most direct stimulus possible.  It's OUR money; let US determine how WE want it used.    

Then Congress can get back to the daily squabbling on the real federal budget. 

Analog signals use far broader bandwidth of the available frequency spectrum.  Converting to digital with its much narrower bandwidth freed up more of the available frequency spectrum, allowing more users, including emergency services, first responders, and public safety.  The remainder were auctioned off to commercial users.  Don't you remember getting your check from the proceeds of the auction?  I haven't seen one either, but I've noticed more creative government fees on my phone bills.   

People with digital ready TV's, satellite or cable TV subscription services aren't affected by the changeover, but people with older TV's with antenna reception needed to get a converter box to receive the digital TV signals when the analog signals were terminated.  The government estimated that out of the hundreds of millions of TV's, about 6.5 million would need the converters.  The enforced obsolescence of those TV's were due to a government mandate, so the government generously decided to offset the cost by issuing coupons toward the purchase of converters, with a maximum of two per household.  The coupons covered 85 to 95 percent of the purchase price, and all one needed to do was to apply for them.

The analog termination date was February 17, 2009.  More than a year in advance, every station in the country began prime time public service messages and educational spots explaining the program, who was affected, how to get the coupons.  As the deadline drew closer, they began showing a countdown streamer superimposed over their broadcast programs.  Then they added "Warning" streamers and information crawls (in case we were deaf, I suppose, or had left the mute button activated).  In the last couple of months, it was difficult to see the programs themselves due to all the streamers, crawls, and countdown timers!  

Only the Amish couldn't have noticed.  No disrespect intended -- they don't have TV's; maybe they're the smart ones! 

Luddites such as we seriously considered whether it was worth the few bucks to continue to receive the few programs we liked or return to reading in the evening.  Many stations were simultaneously broadcasting analog and digital signals to help viewers ease into the transition. We finally got coupons and bought converters just to stop the annoying crawls and streamers, which were being broadcast only on the analog signals.  

  

But there was a catch to the program.  For one thing, although there were dozens of converter box brands available, and the FCC had an approved list for coupons eligibility, most of the brand names were unknown to the public.  Furthermore, information about quality and features was not readily available.  TV broadcasters warned their audiences to get a good quality converter, but customers were left to the knowledge or ignorance of store clerks. People put off their decisions.   

The coupons had a ninety day limit.  Customers who received them had to make up their minds with scant information or lose out.  Many put off the decision to apply for the coupons until they could find out more about the product they needed to purchase. However, the government neglected to provide funding for all of the coupons, so it ran out before a sizable number of people had received them.

But instead of funding more coupons, or setting up a post-purchase reimbursement for people who didn't receive coupons, or providing a tax rebate for converter purchases, Congress decided it need to act fast.  They changed the law and extended the analog termination date by six more months.  Fine, except . . . .

They failed to take into consideration how that would affect broadcast stations.  Stations had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars to convert existing facilities, or building new facilities and towers to make the conversion happen by the original deadline.  Now they will have to operate both analog and digital facilities, with all the continued expense of so doing, for another six months.  

If the stations drop the analog signal on the original planned date, some customers will lose reception.  With coupons still not immediately available, they will need to buy converter boxes at full price, or replace TV's, or subscribe to cable or satellite.  Those alternatives are being faced by consumers in a downturned economy and hundreds of thousands of lost jobs. 

Remember that the FCC, a government agency, prompted Congress to mandate this change in broadcast signals -- not an overriding demand of voting TV viewers.  Remember that TV stations budgeted for the change occurring when the government said it was required to be done.  They didn't, and shouldn't have been expected to, budget for six more months of dual signal operation.  And when the government screwed up, it had no contingency plan to handle it.  So Congress expects the taxpaying public -- viewers and broadcasters -- to just suck up the extra costs its own poor performance has incurred.

And that's another example of why the government can't be trusted to run even part of the economy.