Another gem from the past (2005?) but relevant today.

            My high school journalism instructor back in 1954 was adamant about making sure we understood the difference between news and opinion, and more important, the difference between opinion and propaganda.  Your article “White House defends reports,” Friday, June 10, 2005, demonstrates once again that journalism schools no longer make those distinctions.

            Propaganda, my teacher called it yellow journalism, pretends to be news but slants the content of the report so as to influence public opinion.  The Author of “White House….” would have us believe that President Bush is reluctant to sign off on the Kyoto Protocol because he is influenced by the oil industry, especially Exxon /corporation.  As an oil man himself, he may well be so influenced, but shouldn’t the article at least mention that 17,100 scientists from over 100 countries, most with advanced degrees, 72 of them Nobel Prize winners have been challenging the science upon which the protocol was based for 13 years, from the very beginning.

            The computer models that were used to predict global catastrophe were already proven to be absurdly wrong by 1998, but the media refuse to report on that fact, and if they do it’s in the form of a hint in a one inch column in the middle of page 16.  Instead they continue to treat the Kyoto Protocol as though it were sacred.

            Earth’s ecosystem is profoundly complex and the CO2 concentrations are dictated by the physical and chemical laws of nature that the best scientists don’t understand and the consequences of which are impossible to predict.  Ice cores drilled at the poles show us that the earth has been heating up and cooling off for thousands, millions of years, long before the advent of man, say nothing of the advent of the industrial age.  For homo sapien to think that he is in change of the majesty that is this planet, the universe, is the height of hubris

            Scientists cannot predict what the weather will be like this afternoon, how they can possibly pretend to predict what it will be like in 10 years.  Researchers prove themselves wrong on almost every issue year after year. The changes in dietary recommendations for babies are just one small example.   At one time we were told that we must feed our babies one egg a day, then it was, no eggs at all, then it was not the whole egg, just the yolk, then it was no, not the yolk, just the white.   First coffee causes heart problems, now we learn it can prevent heart problems if we drink at least five cups a day.  Chocolate is bad, no chocolate is good; especially for your teeth Carbohydrates are good!  Carbohydrates are bad!!

            There are those who say it is best to err on the side of caution.  But erring in face of evidence that proves we are wrong from the beginning is silly.  The results show us that there would be no benefit to following the protocol and the costs would be enormous.  Western governments tend to do the feel good thing rather than make decisions based on logical analysis. Let’s opt for the right thing rather than the feel good thing.

Immigration Bill

I have been reluctant to speak about the immigration bill because dealing justly with our rampant immigration problems is so important.  We are a land of immigrants, and how we come together to become Americans is fundamental to what the idea of America is or will become.

However, what I have seen lately is insane.  It’s over 1200 pages.  The first 155 deal with critical immigration issues.  The rest is an example of the utter contempt our political class has for the American electorate. They obviously agree with Bill Maher that we are a bunch of ignorant knuckle draggers.

Like the Affordable Care Act, the Immigration bill panders to every special interest group.  Reid and Dan Heller get 100 million to encourage tourism.  Alaska gets special exemption for seafood workers. Kickbacks and perks ad nauseum. 

It establishes huge bureaucracies that will be run by un-elected officials who answer to no one, thousands more government workers who will grant themselves huge bonuses for watching porn. 

Marco said there is a very strict work requirement, but immigrants are exempt from the requirement if they are working on a GED, caring for a child or parent, or can’t get a job for a reason they consider no fault of their own. A work requirement that doesn’t require work?

The Sanders amendment recycles the defeated jobs bill providing $1.5 billion over two years to help 400,000 people between the ages of 16 and 24 find summer and year round jobs. Can we have an immigration bill that deals with immigration?

Did you think the bill would require the government to finish the fence? I thought so.   Some 180 days after the enactment of the bill, Napolitano will identify where the fence should be deployed, but “nothing in this section requires the Secretary to install fencing.”   

The bill doesn’t strengthen immigration requirements, it weakens them.  Asylum seekers get extended deadlines and new layers of appeals and the bill gives the Attorney General’s office the right to pay for all the legal bills incurred by those who seek asylum.

The bill handcuffs border patrol agents by protecting the “civil rights” of those who cross illegally.  They cannot be punished if it is “against the best interest” of the individual attempting to cross. 

As usual, our legislators are promoting another great big joke.  I for one am not laughing. 

Government devours wealth

               To get us to vote a certain way government pretends to do what it does to help the little guy, promote jobs, and increase opportunities.  In reality, government destroys job opportunities for the little guy.  Take California where blue collar industries like Chevron get taxed at a 44 per cent rate.  White collar industries like Apple and Google get taxed at a 10 per cent rate.  Blue color industries are heavily regulated.  White collar industries get the green light.

               The bigger the government, the more vulnerable it is to outside influence and manipulation, and who are the expert manipulators?  The guys at the top.  George Soros has devoted his life to working the system.  He may not be the richest man in the world yet, but he’s close.      

               When gas prices spiked from 25 cents to 75 cents a gallon in 1977, President Carter felt our pain at the pump, so  he created the Department of Energy to ensure energy independence and availability. The department employs 116,000 employees including contract employees and spends nearly 30 billion a year.  Is that close to 1.5 trillion we’ve spent on solving our energy problems only to pay close to $5.00 a gallon today? 

               I have no idea how many people work at the department of labor, but I was astounded by the size of the building when I visited Washington a year ago.  I’m guessing it employs well over a hundred thousand of white collar people hard at work trying to make rules and regulations that likely depress the blue collar market.

               And big government impulses are not party specific.   Jim Talent (R-MO) just sponsored the Skilled Work--force Enhancement Act (H.R. 1824), a bill that purports to help blue collar workers.  My prediction is that the bill will increase the white collar work force in D.C. and in government centers across the country, but it will do little to promote blue collar jobs.

               The one thing that creates jobs for the little guy is free enterprise. What big government is good at is devouring wealth, creating poverty, and keeping the underclasses dependent.