Friday, April 25, 2008

Bureaucrats vs Bacon Dogs

Once more, city officials make life unpleasant for the working man. 

Monday, March 17, 2008

Oxymoron DuJour

They call it “Positive Discrimination”. It’s another Orwellian catch phrase that amounts to nothing more than bureaucrats trying to look like they’re doing something, and messing up society with their social engineering nonsense.

White men could be legally blocked from jobs or promotions under controversial government plans to help women and black employees achieve equality.

Employers would be allowed to give jobs to qualified minority candidates in preference to other candidates under a change in discrimination law being drawn up by the Equalities Minister, Harriet Harman. The ‘positive action’ tactic, already used in the United States, has been a legal minefield in the UK and Harman’s plans are likely to upset MPs who believe that merit alone should determine who is hired.

However, she believes radical changes are needed to help talented black and female candidates break through barriers in business and public life. The positive discrimination plan would apply only in cases where two equally qualified candidates were after the same post, allowing the employer to tip the balance in favour of the minority candidate on grounds of race or gender.

The proposals could also let universities select more female students in traditionally male-dominated subjects, such as the sciences.

Affirmative action was basically a useful tool for helping integrate American society in the 60s and 70s. But it should have ended decades ago. It has become a crutch for identity politics clowns. And it is still discrimination. Discrimination of any kind is unacceptable. Government sanctioned discrimination is just plain wrong.

England doesn’t have the history America does, so their version of affirmative action is even more absurd. At least we had a good reason to try it as an experiemnet. The problem is, when governments start “experiments” they can run on indefinitely and become institutions. Because the people who run these boondoggles do their best to make sure they can keep their jobs indefinitely. 

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

American Idol Reviews

Those of you wanting to see my Idol reviews, I am sorry I missed it last week and tonight. I probably won’t be able to review the show till next week. I am going to try downloading the episodes I missed off the web. They’re all out there.

I’ve been to bust this week and last to watch much TV. I’ve had to download a lot of shows I missed and watch them on my computer. 

Friday, February 22, 2008

History of the Credit Card

This documentary is worth watching, so you can see what an abusive, should be illegal business the credit industry is.

If ever you wanted proof of that lobbyists have too much power, teh way they have bought of our politicians to let them get away with damn near everything is sickening. 

Your Tax Dollars At Work

Federal authorities think that nearly $50 million was stolen in an embezzlement scheme run out of the D.C. tax office, more than double the amount they had previously uncovered, four sources close to the investigation said.

The corruption at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue went undetected much longer than initially thought, the sources said, extending back almost 20 years. In addition to tracking the missing money, authorities are looking into gifts suspected of being provided to co-workers and others by the woman accused of leading the scam, former tax office manager Harriette Walters.

The scheme is the largest corruption case in the city’s history. Witnesses have told investigators that Walters, who is accused of issuing larger and larger bogus tax refund checks over the years, lavishly spread the wealth, the sources said.

I guess civil servant jobs have all kinds of benefits.

Sunday, February 17, 2008

The New Hysteria

People here and in the UK want to ban bottled water, not so much because of the plastic bottles but because of...global warming.

Drinking bottled water should be made as unfashionable as smoking, according to a government adviser.

“We have to make people think that it’s unfashionable just as we have with smoking. We need a similar campaign to convince people that this is wrong,” said Tim Lang, the Government’s natural resources commissioner.

Bottled water generates up to 600 times more C02 than tap water

Phil Woolas, the environment minister, added that the amount of money spent on mineral water “borders on being morally unacceptable”.

What’s morally unacceptable are people lying to us about climate change. And ramming their stupid laws down our throats.

Like I’ve said before, this latest example of stupidity is only the tip of the iceberg. They will find an excuse to ban a lot of things people like for their bogus crisis. Are you really going to put up with it, when they haven’t proved anything?

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

The Recycling Myth

Recycling is really a scam in many respects. While it sounds like a good idea on paper, it actually uses more energy and creates more pollution in the process. But even more disturbing is the insane make work that the statists create to bedevil the citizenry.  This article by th libertarian Von Mises institute delves into the extreme madness of Sweden’s recycling system. It shows what happens when you let alleged do gooders have too much power.

The latter is actually true: everybody is recycling. But that is the result of government force, not a voluntary choice. The state’s monopolist garbage-collection “service” no longer accepts garbage: they will only collect leftovers and other biodegradables. Any other kind of garbage that accidentally finds its way to your garbage bin can result in a nice little fine (it really isn’t that little) and the whole neighborhood could face increased garbage collection rates (i.e., even larger increases than usual — they tend to increase annually or biannually anyway).

So what do you do with your waste? Most homes have a number of trash bins for different kinds of trash: batteries in one; biodegradables in one; wood in one; colored glass in one, other glass in another; aluminum in one, other metals in another; newspapers in one, hard paper in another, and paper that doesn’t fit these two categories in a third; and plastic of all sorts in another collection of bins. The materials generally have to be cleaned before thrown away — milk cartons with milk in them cannot be recycled just as metal cans cannot have too much of the paper labels left.

The people of Sweden are thus forced to clean their trash before carefully separating different kinds of materials. This is the future, they say, and it is supposedly good for the environment. (What about the economy?)

Add to this all the energy schemes the government is slowly trying to shove down our throat and you can add environmentalism to the list of excuses control freaks are using to take away more liberties and choices. All in the name of “protecting us”.

This stuff is really getting out of hand, and I don’t see a whole lot of answers coming from either political party. Just more of the same. 

Monday, February 04, 2008

The Government’s War on Privacy

In order to “make us safer” the government wants to take away our privacy. It’s a scam, but its going forward anyway at considerable expense.

The FBI is gearing up to create a massive computer database of people’s physical characteristics, all part of an effort the bureau says to better identify criminals and terrorists.

The FBI wants to use eye scans, combined with other data, to help identify suspects.

But it’s an issue that raises major privacy concerns—what one civil liberties expert says should concern all Americans.

The bureau is expected to announce in coming days the awarding of a $1 billion, 10-year contract to help create the database that will compile an array of biometric information—from palm prints to eye scans.

Meanwhile, to show how much he cares about our privacy Bush as made sure no one sits on an oversight committee.

The screws will keep on turning unless we elect someone who will reverse these trends. I seriously doubt Hillary is that person. McCain? Not likely.

Ron Paul is looking better all the time. 

Wednesday, January 23, 2008

Watch the Gray Men Do Their Little Dance

In the UK you have to pay a tax every year to watch television. It pays for the BBC, which at one time took up most of the TV channels. But now they have satellite and cable.

So what happens if you don’t pay the tax every year (or TV license as they call it)?

Behold, the dance of the bureaucrats. It’s almost comical if it wasn’t so repulsive. But that’s how they do it.

Friday, December 28, 2007

American Thought Police

If you didn’t think Homeland Security could get any more Orwellian, think again. Political hacks are throwing gas on the fire.

Congress is perched to enact the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 20007 (Act),” probably the greatest assault on free speech and association in the United States since the 1938 creation of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). Sponsored by Rep. Jane Harman, California Democrat, the bill passed the House of Representatives on Oct. 23 by a 404-6 vote under a rule suspension that curtailed debate. To borrow from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, California Democrat, the First Amendment should not distract Congress from doing important business. The Senate companion bill (S. 1959), sponsored by Susan Collins, Maine Republican, has encountered little opposition. Especially in an election year, senators crave every opportunity to appear tough on terrorism. Few if any care about or understand either freedom of expression or the Thought Police dangers of S. 1959. Former President John Quincy Adams presciently lamented: “Democracy has no forefathers, it looks to no posterity, it is swallowed up in the present and thinks of nothing but itself.”

Denuded of euphemisms and code words, the Act aims to identify and stigmatize persons and groups who hold thoughts the government decrees correlate with homegrown terrorism, for example, opposition to the Patriot Act or the suspension of the Great Writ of habeas corpus.

The Act will inexorably culminate in a government listing of homegrown terrorists or terrorist organizations without due process; a complementary listing of books, videos, or ideas that ostensibly further “violent radicalization;” and a blacklisting of persons who have intersected with either list.

As much as I’m against radical Islamists, the fact is, once bureaucracies like this get started, they keep looking for more and more targets for their “justification”. This is a bad idea that needs to be shot down hard.