The End of Chavez

Hugo Chavez, the President of Venezuela, friend of Fidel Castro and enemy of all that is good and right in the world has been granted very broad dictatorial powers by the National Assembly (their Congress).

From the article:

Chavez, a former paratroop commander who easily won re-election in December, has said he will use the law to decree nationalizations of Venezuela's largest telecommunications company and the electricity sector, slap new taxes on the rich and impose greater state control over the oil and natural gas industries.

The law also allows Chavez to dictate unspecified measures to transform state institutions; reform banking, tax, insurance and financial regulations; decide on security and defense matters such as gun regulations and military organization; and "adapt" legislation to ensure "the equal distribution of wealth" as part of a new "social and economic model."

Chavez plans to reorganize regional territories and carry out reforms aimed at bringing "power to the people" through thousands of newly formed Communal Councils, in which Venezuelans will have a say on spending an increasing flow of state money on neighborhood projects from public housing to road repaving.

What Chavez is going to do will so thoroughly and completely destroy that country that the people will be begging America to come down and take over the oil fields and make the country productive again. Hopefully this will be short term pain for long term gain.

Our Congress should immediately cut off any foreign aid to Venezuela, all humanitarian relief, etc. Let them stew in what they have created. It won't take long before Chavez is crying to the United Nations that his country deserves a fair share of the wealth of the world and goes begging for funds.

The nationalization of important industries always reduces productivity; nearly eliminates innovation, causes prices to rise and supporting industries to fail. When you remove incentives to produce, that's exactly what happens. That's why a Socialist Paradise will never exist. You have to let the producers produce. It keeps the non-producers employed, fed, housed, etc. Let the producers get rich, it helps everyone.

Miscellany

• The city of San Francisco has 23,000 coin fed parking meters. They were wondering why their parking meter revenue was so small. It turns out they have 92,000 people in the city with handicap placards. My question is this: What is it about being handicapped that should exempt someone from sticking a few coins in the meter?

• I'm sure they won't abuse it but it appears that the government wants to put x-ray cameras in lamp posts and other "street furniture" in order to seek out terrorists, people carrying guns, etc. They also want to give the police a database of all citizens matched to phone and travel records, etc. But really, it's just for their own good.

• It irritates me when people say "supposebly" instead of "supposedly." There are a number of other words people butcher also, but I just heard someone say it so I thought I'd pass it on.

• Hillary made a not-so-subtle reference to Bill being evil at a town hall meeting. Some one in the audience asked her a question about how she would be able to deal with evil men. Her response was, "The question is, we face a lot of dangers in the world and, in the gentleman's words, we face a lot of evil men and what in my background equips me to deal with evil and bad men," There was about 30 seconds of laughter and applause from the audience.

• How is this a crime? - Actress & singer Brandy (whom I've never heard of before now) may possibly be charged with misdemeanor vehicular manslaughter for starting an accident that killed a woman on a California freeway. There were no drugs involved, no alcohol and she was not talking on her cell phone at the time of the crash. Apparently, traffic slowed down and she rear-ended the victims vehicle which caused it to hit another vehicle when then sent it crashing in to the center divider where it was struck by yet another vehicle. The victim died of blunt force trauma. But why prosecute her? It was clearly an accident with no criminal intent. It's bad enough that someone died accidentally, it doesn't mean that someone has to be criminally punished. The family can already sue her for civil damages.

• At midnight tonight, Microsoft Windows Vista will officially be on sale. I am not looking forward to another piece of bloatware from Microsoft. I will likely install it on a virtual machine some time in the near future but I currently don't have a machine powerful enough to run it. As a stated a few posts back, my next laptop is going to be a Mac so I won't have to deal with Microsoft's failures full time.
  

Who Is John Galt?

I am.

I hope you are too.

Strings Attached

Dakota Fanning recently finished filming a controversial movie in which she was raped. The movie was filmed in North Carolina.

Now, a Republican state senator from N.C. is proposing that the state should review all scripts before production starts. This would only apply to films seeking the filmmakers incentive from the state which rebates up to 15% of production costs.

Senator Berger said, "Why should North Carolina taxpayers pay for something they find objectionable?"

The question that apparently hasn't occurred to the Senator is "Why should the taxpayers be paying for this anyway?"

Whenever the government gets involved in a private matter, there are always strings attached. Incentives always come at a price. Once you become dependent on the incentives, more and more strings get attached. This is the way of government.

We always seem to think it's ok to take advantage of government programs because if we don't, no one will. It's that attitude that keeps these programs growing and more being added. We never want more government; get it through your heads.

Separation Of Church And Mind

Jacksonville, FL held a Day Of Faith anti-violence rally back in August. A group of Godless heathens sued them for violating the separation of church and state.

I know most of you know this already but there is nothing in the Constitution that says anything about separation of church and state. The only thing that document says about church is that the FEDERAL government is prohibited from ESTABLISHING a religion. That means that the Feds cannot make a particular religion or denomination the official church of the land.

There is also nothing in the Constitution that would prevent any individual state from establishing a state church. The same also applies to cities, counties, etc.

Edward Kagin, the lead attorney for the aforementioned Godless heathens said, "While the settlement does not carry the weight of legal precedent, it sends the message that government cannot ignore the Constitution's ban of government endorsement of religion."

I think the attorney is a bit confused. Endorsement and establishment are not the same thing. Check your dictionary Mr. Kagin. Besides that, the event in question was simply a Day of Faith which did not represent any religion, but faith in general. How can encouraging faith possibly be construed as establishing a religion? It can't.

Jacksonville should have fought that attempt to extort money for a benign activity; shame on them.

Filthy, Greedy Pigs!

This is disgusting! Apple has announced that for the quarter ending December 30, 2006 they posted $7.1 BILLION in revenue. Of that revenue, $1,000,000,000 (1 BILLION) was profit.

Clearly Apple is taking advantage of consumers if they have made that much money. It's price gouging! How can they justify such obscene profits? It's sad that in this great country that rich, greedy people sit in board rooms and plan to make themselves even more wealthy. Why is this even legal? Who gave these people the right to scheme and plan and take advantage of people who are just victims of the herd mentality when it comes to popular products?

There should be an immediate congressional investigation in to the profits made by Apple, Inc. I'm even willing to go further than that. I am calling for the nationalization of Apple, Inc. It should be obvious to everyone that any company that can produce such a profit is an important national resource and cannot be trusted in private hands. Under government control, Apple would even thrive more. Apple employees would become government employees and their obscene salaries would be brought more in line with national salary standards and the benefits would probably be better. This means they would be unionized as well so they wouldn't have to work under the terrible strain of long hours. In theory that should produce better products.

Since Apple would be owned by the government, all of those profits would go to pay for important social programs rather than in to the hands of greedy stockholders and rich executives who get huge bonuses just for overcharging for cheap plastic and electronics.

Nationalizing Apple will be huge success then we can begin the process of nationalizing other successful companies. Microsoft is an obvious next target since we depend so heavily on Windows for running large and small businesses in this country. This kind of power will only be abused in private hands; the government is the only organization capable of handling this sort of thing.

Hillary For Dictator

Hillary Clinton has officially announced what we all new was coming. She is forming an exploratory committee to run for President.

Is it my imagination, or has Hillary said repeatedly in the past that she is not going to seek the Presidency? Well, she wouldn't go back on her word so I must have misunderstood.

As always, Republican will demand that conservatives stick with them once more because "This is the most important election EVER!" 2004 was the most important election ever because we had to defeat Kerry. 2000 was the most important election because we had to defeat The Gorebot.

Can you imagine what life is going to be like under the Lizard Queen? There was already an attempt to force political bloggers to conform to campaign finance laws. There was also an attempt to make churches notify the government before they undertake any grass roots political action such as inciting people to call their Representatives.

Make no mistake, Hillary will thoroughly abuse the Patriot Act. She will classify dissenting political opinions as a threat and use the Patriot Act to monitor and/or arrest those of us that would see the country return to the days of small government and individual liberties.

There seems to be some idea that Hillary will choose Barak Obama as her running mate. This is highly unlikely for several reasons. First of all, Hillary wants the focus to be on her, as the first realistic contender for the first female President. She does not want any focus to be given to the possibility of having the first black Vice President at the same time. Secondly, I just don't think the combination of a woman and a black man are an electable combination. I still hold that Hillary will ask John McCain to be her running mate after he bombs out of the Republican primary.

I just ask that you Republicans out there are not fooled in to sticking with the GOP just to defeat Hillary; it's a suckers game. I will be registering Republican just to vote for Ron Paul in the primaries but then I'll go back to "declined to state."

In the mean time, keep an eye on Nancy Pelosi to become Hillary's mouthpiece for the more radical side of the agenda.

It's going to get really interesting!

Very Uncomfortable

MikeT over at Codemonkey Ramblings raises an interesting question but still is not quite direct enough about it for my liking.

He asks this question:

If homosexual desires are the result of biology and not social conditioning and trauma that suppresses heterosexual desires, then what proof is there that truly deviant expressions of human sexuality are not equally inborn?

I don't think his question is addressed in clear enough terms. I would ask this question:

If homosexual desires are the result of biology, perhaps pedophilic desires are too. If you excuse homosexual desires on the basis of nature, then how can you condemn those that wish to have sex with children? If it's biological it must be ok right? Aren't we evolving?

Mike is right, it's intellectually dishonest to play both sides of the fence. You can give homosexuality a pass based on nature unless you consider the possibility that other behaviors that are repugnant are biological as well. There are some people that clearly have violent personalities. If it's biological, we should just let it be right? Don't they have the right to express their natural desires as well?

I am willing to consider the possibility that homosexual and pedophilic desires are biological but I don't they they are natural. Deviations in biology will certainly effect behavior. Also, having a biological predilection toward a certain behavior still does not excuse it. Homosexuality is no more excusable than pedophilia or murder or theft or adultery.

What Global Warming?

The last two days here in Orange County have been COLD!

In fact, it got below freezing last night and it appears we're in for more of the same tonight. It was just a week or two ago, I was hearing complaints from around the country that there was very little snow and it was unseasonably warm.

There seems to be lots of evidence that the earth cools and warms in cycles. Greenland was once farmland. In New England in 1812, it was "the year without summer" and there are various other documented periods where things have been hotter or cooler than what we think is the norm.

Wasn't it less than 30 years ago that the scientists were alarmed about global COOLING? Obviously they were wrong. We can't predict the weather tomorrow accurately, I don't think we predict global warming/cooling trends accurately either.

The point I really want to make though is that both sides will look at today's or yesterday's weather as some sort of evidence to support or debunk a theory and that's just dumb. Global weather trends take hundreds of years to pan out and a snapshot of time tells you nothing about tomorrow. Next time you discuss global warming, throw that in the conversation and only the most fanatic will still assert that they know what's going to happen.

Ron Paul For President

Ron Paul is one of the very few principled men left in the Republican party and it seems he's going to run for President.

Paul served nine terms in Congress as a Republican even though he is a staunch libertarian who advocates smaller government and minimal taxation.

I've been railing against the GOP for years now. I will, for the first time in 10 years register as a Republican in order to vote for him in the primaries.

What are his changes of winning? I don't want to speculate and I'd like to remain optimistic. But I'm willing to be a Republican again for a season in order to bolster his campaign.

Do some searches on the internet and research the platform this principled man stands for. I think you will be pleased.

Daylight Saving Time

I know it seems a little early for this but I thought I'd remind you all that Daylight Saving Time was changed by Congress in 2005 and those changes begin this year.

Daylight Saving Time will begin the 2nd Sunday in March and end the 1st Sunday in November. That's means it's starting about a month earlier than last year and ending a month later.

So, if you're planning some event for the later part of March, take in to account the extra hour of daylight you'll have.

My Next Computer

One of these days I'm going to get a laptop. I don't when that will be yet but I know what I'm going to get.

I never thought I'd find myself in this position but I am going to buy myself a Mac Book Pro. Hopefully I'll be able to max it out on memory and hard drive space but that remains to be seen.

Why, after all this time am I will to convert from a PC to a Mac? Because I will still be able to run Windows from a Mac. Apple recently converted their hardware platform to Intel chips. I think this was a good move for Apple.

Thanks to a program called Parallels, I will be able to install Windows XP and/or Vista on a Mac. There is still some Windows only software I run and so I'll probably have to contend with widows for a long time to come but that remains to be seen.

For now, what I see is a product that make the operating system fairly irrelevant. Different operating systems that serve different purposes all running concurrently on the same hardware. I'm sure Microsoft doesn't like it, the Mac purists would rather not have their beloved hardware polluted with an inferior product like Windows and the Linux enthusiasts are more than happy to have Linux in a position to be run easily in another environment.

This is an incredible example of the market at work. Different companies providing different products to meet the demands of paying customers.

If computers were highly regulated items, things would be very different. New hardware would take forever to get approved. New software would only come from very well funded companies that could stand up to the long, difficult, and inefficient process of government testing. This would of course mean that computers were very expensive and not likely to be affordable for the average person. Government stifles innovation, impedes progress and is generally a nuisance when they stick their nose in to the market.

Rather than companies and investors taking risks on products that may or may not produce a sold return, the government only seeks it's own benefit; what is safe for itself. This doesn't translate well to consumer demand.

Thank you Apple for making a superior product and thank you to all the other people out there who put take chances for the opportunity to make a profit and participate in this system of commerce.

Healthcare Disaster

As if there was any doubt that Arnold Schwarzenegger wasn't a card carrying Socialist, he announced on Monday that he wants to require that everyone in California has health insurance. If you can't afford it, that's OK; the state taxpayers will pay for it instead.

This is such a supremely bad idea, I hardly know where to begin denouncing and defaming this plan.

If the plan goes through, any employer with 10 or more workers will be required to buy insurance for those workers or pay a fee of 4% of their payroll into a program to help provide coverage for the uninsured.

This is going to lower wages and/or raise the price of goods and services for California based businesses. Why? When faced with extra costs, it has to come out of somewhere. The company isn't going to magically find that extra 4% of revenue to spend on health care that they're not already spending somewhere else. Some businesses will close up shop and leave the state. Others who have just over 10 employees will probably lay off enough to bring head count to nine. Others will raise prices or cut services. Some will do a combination of all of this. The money has to come from somewhere. The employers aren't simply going to smile and suck it up. Employers should be storming the gates in Sacramento over this proposal.

For those employers who opt to pay the 4% fee, their employees are only going to get the bottom wrung state insurance, not the (typically) better private insurance. You think your HMO is tough now? Just wait until you see what the state will and won't pay for. In typical California fashion, sex changes, breast enhancement and penis enlargement will probably be covered but people will die waiting for kidney transplants, heart valves tumor removal.

As part of the effort to fund this program, doctors will be taxed 2% of their GROSS revenue and hospitals will be taxed 4%. He's arguing that since more people will have insurance, medical providers will make more money.

Allow me to translate. People who don't have medical coverage will start using insurance for stupid little things that they never would have sought medical care for if they had to pay for it themselves. As if the insurance industry wasn't screwed up enough, this will ultimately cost them and the taxpayers MORE MONEY than they are paying out now. The uninsured and under insured tend to only go to the doctor when it's really needed. They'd rather go to the doctor and get a prescription for something and only pay $10 rather than pay $20 for something that would work over the counter. They do this without taking in to the total cost to everyone else. Why should they? They have a RIGHT to health care. In the end, it's a vicious cycle feeding itself and will only survive by taking more and more tax money.

As part of the plan, insurers will be banned from refusing covering because of prior medical conditions. Shouldn't a business be free to decide who they want to do business with? When they are barred from refusing coverage, they simply pass that cost on to the rest of us in the form of higher premiums. For those who have their premium paid by the state, it just means more of your tax dollars paying for those higher premium. Insurers would also be forced to spend at least 85% of their premium revenues on patient care. So the state is now going to dictate the revenue model? Sure, that will be good for business. It's over regulation of the insurance industry that has put it in the abysmal state it's in now.

Can anyone find anywhere that this is good for the economy yet? No? Well, can anyone tell me how this encourages entrepreneurship in this state? I didn't think so. But wait, there's more!

Schwarzennegger cares about children, all children. To prove it, the plan will extend the Healthy Families program and cover the children of illegal aliens. Yep, they'll all have insurance too thanks to you!

I'm sure word of this plan has already begun circulating south of the border. No doubt the Mexican government is going run commercials announcing it. It will induce yet another huge wave of illegal immigration. Not only that, illegal immigrants that are currently living in other states will end up here in California. Because this part of the plan also covers poor families that are United States citizens, we will also see a wave of poor people from other states moving here for the health benefits. This will drive up welfare costs, crime and result in more unemployment for our beleaguered state.

There is no benefit so far. Sure, more people will be insured but at what cost to the rest of us? I'm not insured right now and I don't want this plan! It will devastate the economy.

Lest we forget about the slippery slope which is alive and well... How long will it take after the implementation of this plan for lawsuits to be filed demanding that anyone residing in the state regardless of immigration status be treated for free? How long it will be before the state decides, much like Canada has, that it's inherently unfair that some people can afford better health care than others and forbid the purchase of private insurance at all? It will all become state run and private insurance will go away. In order to get quality health care, you will have to go to a different state. How many doctors are going to quit practicing in California because of the screwy rules? Do you think this is going to benefit them at all? No, it will worsen their working conditions, probably open them up to more lawsuits and reduce their income. They will simply leave the state or refuse to participate as a doctor in the new system.

State funded health care is NOT A RIGHT. There is nothing fair about being forced to hand more money over to the government to so they can give it to someone else. If health care is such a right than so is government paid food and housing for EVERYONE!

Why don't we just turn over 100% of our income to the government and let them decide what we do and don't need. They are so wise, they should know more about what we need than we do.

Oh, and don't be fooled; Arnie intends to turn this in to a model for a national system on Hillary's watch. Look for a cabinet level appointment for him when his term as Governor is up.

Write letters, call, write more letters and make more calls. Even if you don't live in California, help us do something about this because it will eventually land on your doorstep as well; I promise you.

Happy Birthday Little Dif

Little Dif is 6 years old today!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!

I can tell you for certain that she takes after me. Yesterday morning, I remember her making some comment about my keys. I don't recall what I was doing at the time but I didn't really think about it any further until I went looking for them this morning. The little booger HID MY KEYS! Since I didn't drive anywhere yesterday, I didn't even know they were missing until today. After better than an hour of searching, I found them bundles up in some gift bag type tissue paper I had previously stuffed in a cubby hole on my desk. It was too funny for me to be upset about it.

**BRAG WARNING**

Little Dif lost her first baby tooth back on Thanksgiving Day. The permanent tooth growing in has loosened the tooth next to it. Last week, I was on the phone with her and she said, "Daddy, my tooth is wobbly." I was teasing her and replied, "How do you know that it's not just your head that is wobbly and your tooth is just fine?"

She thought about this for a few seconds and said, "Well, I'll move my head around WHILE I try wiggling my tooth. If my tooth still moves then my tooth really is loose!" So of course, I told her to go ahead and do just that. She happily declared that I was not able to trick her.

Folks, that's just an amazing display of deductive reasoning by a child. She makes her daddy proud!

Predictions For 2007

Given the way things are in the world today, here is a list of my predictions for 2007. By all means, hold me accountable to my predictions at the end of the year.

Politics:

• Snoop Dog will announce himself as a Democratic candidate for President of The United States. He'll run on a platform of "I'm more fun than Hillary." As a gesture of bipartisanship, his running mate will be Eminem.
  
• Barak Obama will realize that if he wants to have any chance at the Oval Office, he'll have to change his name to Bob Smith. But he'll use his huge ears to his advantage and state that with bigger ears, he is better suited to hear the will of the people (just black people of course).
• Nancy Pelosi will announce legislation that there will be new rules for bloggers. She will deem blogging as a threat to national security and set up a content review system for bloggers. Obviously only those blogs advocating progressive ideas will be deemed as safe. The rest of us will go to Blogger Education Camps and be forced to listen to Barbara Streisand lecture us on the dangers of free speech.
  

Media:

• The Los Angeles Times will attempt to stem its declining subscription by become even MORE liberal. Rob Reiner will be appointed as Editor-In-Chief. This strategy will inexplicably fail.
• Fox News will abandon all pretense of being "Fair and Balanced" and execute Alan Colmes live on the air. And there will be much rejoicing.

Technology:

• A massive breakthrough in quantum computing this year will pave the way for the government to plant microchips in everyone's head to monitor and process what everyone sees, hears, etc. As always, this will be done for our own safety to head off any terrorist plots before they can begin. Due to racial profiling concerns, anyone of Middle Eastern origin will not be forced to receive the implant.
• Virtual Reality will become more real this year than reality. By incorporating neurotransmitters in the visual field, anyone can be anyone. This technology will be a huge boon to people who cannot otherwise get a date. Unfortunately, it will also cause some very embarrassing situations to arise when it is discovered that people are inadvertently having sex with their brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. For the first time, people will be able to get real viruses from computers.
  
• A new substitute for fat will be developed that will end the trans-fat debate forever. In their never-ending quest to solve non-existent problems, liberals will seek to ban this substance because it lacks any potential for intrusive legislation or class-action lawsuits.

2006 - Best & Worst

Yes, I'm a day late! Fortunately everything that happened in 2006 is still there and the post is still relevant.

Without further ado, here is the best and worst of 2006 taken from your comments and my own head.

Best:
Children Being Born & Kids In General - No doubt we love our children. They are really a blessing to our lives. May our kids always be the best of our "Best Of" (nominations by several of you)

Justice Is Served - Saddam Hussein was hung by the neck until dead! (Nomination by Al of Alnot and a hearty 2nd by Amigo and 3rd by me)

Best Video: A pelican ate a pigeon in a London Park. Yes, it is pretty funny and one less pigeon i the world is just fine with me. (Nomination by Justine)

Health Improvements - Birdie notes that her husband's new job, getting a vehicle again and improvements in her health made 2006 a fine year. Also, Wes' father survived a medical problem that kills most of the people it affects. And Retired Geezer's son survived a helicopter crash.

People In Our Lives - Farmer Tom prompts Taylor to say that the real best of 2006 was all the good people in her life, online and off line. Once again, your host agrees.



Worst:
Travesty Of Justice - Two Border Patrol agents sentenced to prison for shooting and armed illegal alien that was smuggling drugs. The drug smuggler was granted immunity for his testimony. (Nominated by Wes)

The Media - Rosie O'Donnell joins "The View". Celebrity gossip runs rampant and media bias against Christianity and conservative values in general continues unabated.

Death In The Family - Sadly, Taylor lost her mother this past year and Birdie & Eaglewood lost their son before he was born. I hope that your mourning turns to joy in 2007.

Politics - I think 2006 was a horrible year for politics. I don't care the Dems now have control of the House and Senate but the Republicans continue to decline. The war in Iraq is just stupid and the government keeps growing and taking away our freedoms.

Economics - I know a lot of people that struggled economically in 2006 (including myself). It looks like 2007 is going to be a better year for that. I'm hoping to be completely out of debt this year.

Illegal Immigration - The protests by illegal immigrants early last year was an absolute shame. Every one of those protesters should have had their immigration status checked and any of them not in this country legally should have been immediately deported.

Worst of The Worst - Honestly, 2006 was just a bad year all around. I can't really think of too much out of the realm of the personal that was good about it.

I hope 2007 is a much better year. I could use a good one!