The Violence Worker!

Driving Small Farmers out of Business

Liberals tell us that they love small farms and family farmers who produce and sell locally.  Nothing wrong with that really, and I support the idea.  I worked on a small family farm when I was a teenager.  I milked cows, bailed hay, fed the livestock, etc.  It was a great experience.  The old guy that owned the farm worked at an auto plant during the day, but would work the farm in the evening.  He had two teenage sons that helped him out. It wasn't a paid job.  They were family friends and I would spend time in the summer there.  It was a great experience.  One that every kid should have.

Aside from their pap about locally grown and sustainability, they spend their time trying to devise regulations and laws that drive the small timers crazy and out of business.  Understand that small farmers are not rich.  Many have to have another source of income.  That doesn't seem to bother the bureaucrats in their quest to regulate every aspect of our lives.  In this case, they want to force those who drive farm equipment, such as tractors and other equipment to have a Commercial Driver's License or CDL.

The U.S. Department of Transportation has been collecting public comments on the notion, which the agency insists doesn't yet merit being called a "proposal."

But it's far enough along that the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation, state Agriculture Secretary Ben Brancel, and a bipartisan group of 21 U.S. senators, among others, are speaking out against it.

In one scenario, farmers hauling grain to local elevators would be treated as if they were engaged in interstate commerce because grain, in many cases, eventually leaves the state.

Lumping farm machinery into the category of commercial vehicles also could result in farmers' having to log their mileage, even for short trips, and it could require them to get a federal medical card showing they are fit to drive.

"It would be more paperwork, more expense for us," Strobel said.

The farmer's kids would presumably be barred from operating the family tractor because a CDL requires that you be 21 years old. How many small farms can afford that?

According to the Wisconsin Farm Bureau's Gefvert, the rules that are under consideration would result in an initial cost of $124 to each Wisconsin farmer and employee, for the commercial driver's license, permit and test; not to mention the time and cost for behind-the-wheel training that is several thousand dollars.

Yeah, they just have that kind of cash sitting out on the kitchen table.  The article doesn't mention it, but add to this the fact that farmers routinely haul around fertilizers and pesticides. I'm fairly certain that would also require a hazardous material endorsement.  That would mean an even greater expense.

That's liberals.  Run the farmers and factories out of the country with endless regulations, then complain because they are disappearing.

VW

A Generation Lost In Space

The children are rioting in London and other UK cities.  Some say it's about racism, but the rioters seem to be just as white as they are any other color.  It ostensibly started over the death of a young man by the police, but it's gone way beyond that particular incident.  They are not denouncing materialism.  Indeed, many of the shops they are targeting are electronics and clothing stores.  So what is behind the rage and rioting?

Max Hastings of the London Daily Mail explains in a rather long op-ed what he believes to be ultimately the real motivation.

It was fun. It made life interesting. It got people to notice them. As a girl looter told a BBC reporter, it showed ‘the rich’ and the police that ‘we can do what we like’.

If you live a normal life of absolute futility, which we can assume most of this week’s rioters do, excitement of any kind is welcome. The people who wrecked swathes of property, burned vehicles and terrorised communities have no moral compass to make them susceptible to guilt or shame.

Most have no jobs to go to or exams they might pass. They know no family role models, for most live in homes in which the father is unemployed, or from which he has decamped.

They are illiterate and innumerate, beyond maybe some dexterity with computer games and BlackBerries.

They are essentially wild beasts. I use that phrase advisedly, because it seems appropriate to young people bereft of the discipline that might make them employable; of the conscience that distinguishes between right and wrong.

They respond only to instinctive animal impulses — to eat and drink, have sex, seize or destroy the accessible property of others.

"The have no moral compass" is perhaps the most telling assessment.  Essentially, most of these kids have been raised by the state which is ill equipped to teach morality.  The church has essentially been rendered impotent, both from outside and from within.  Liberal elites thumb their noses at the typical believer who, in the elitist's view, are misguided at best or incapable of rational though at worst.  The Church's only purpose anymore is to provide a stage for royal weddings and a place for old people to sit on on Sunday.  It is becoming increasingly common to find that your local Vicar is more atheist than not.  Not that a lack of religious belief automatically means that someone is amoral or that it makes you more moral if you do believe, it does provide a societal basis for morality and a reason for morality outside one's self. 

Nobody has ever dared suggest to them that they need feel any allegiance to anything, least of all Britain or their community.  They do not watch royal weddings or notice Test matches or take pride in being Londoners or Scousers or Brummies.

Not only do they know nothing of Britain’s past, they care nothing for its present.

Nor do they care much for its future beyond their next meal/sexual encounter/high.  In 2007, the curriculum in Britain was changed to be more "relevent." 

The proposals will see traditional timetables torn up, with pupils focusing on modern “relevant” topics such as drug and booze abuse, climate change and GM foods.

Churchill ? voted the greatest ever Briton ? goes off the required lessons list, along with Hitler, Gandhi, Stalin and Martin Luther King.

I wrote about this when I first heard of it back in 2007.  Forgive me for committing the cardinal sin of quoting myself:

The history of a nation is its soul. It is more than a collection of names and dates strung together in some time-line that must be memorized and regurgitated on a final exam.  History is a story that must be told and if you don't think history is important, then your own life's story is meaningless.

And it seems that this is the case.  They don't care.  They are spoon fed to believe that they deserve everything because it is their right.  They are held accountable for nothing and if they break the law, they are given almost no punishment in the hope that it was just a "youthful indiscretion".

Understand that all of this is happening here.  We have an appalling high school graduation rate, especially in our more urban areas.  Discipline in our own schools is almost non-existent.  Morality is more and more condemned in favor of absolute personal freedom. 

We are already experiencing this same trouble, albeit in smaller doses.  We have so-called "flash mobs" that invade a store and pick it clean in seconds.  I predict that it won't be long until we see similar here.

VW

Who Really Wants To Bring The Country Down

For the last couple of months, the left has accused the Tea Party Republicans as being criminals, bent on bringing our government down and destroying our economy.  We are extortionists! We are terrorists!  If the country couldn't continue to borrow, our whole economic system would grind to a halt.  People would die from various privations if the debt limit wasn't lifted.  Grannie would not get her Social Security check and even Christmas was set to be canceled if we Grinches didn't step up to the plate and give Obama the authority to borrow more money.

Somewhere, someone decided we were working to bring down the government so somewhere, within in their fevered little brains, Tea Partiers became terrorists and extortionists. 

Let's look at what really is going on and what is at stake.  Let's see who really wants to bring the country to it's knees.

When the Democrats were elected en masse in 2008, their battle cry was to drain the swamp and get the profligate spending caused by the Republicans under control.  They were right.  The Republicans had spent too much and we did need to get the spending under control.  So what happened?

The Democrats in Congress never submitted a budget.  The only budget that was ever even submitted was so badly put together, it was laughed out of Congress.  The Republicans have submitted a budget since they took control of the house, but the Senate has refused to look at it and has yet to submit a budget.  All we are running on is a series of continuing resolutions that are not only the last budget of the Bush Administration, they've added a slew of increases in those two years PLUS the so-called stimulus package that was supposed bring down unemployment and jump start our economy.  We all know how that turned out.

And now, we are bleeding red ink like a punctured aorta.  For every dollar we spend, 40 cents of it is borrowed money. 

Fortunately, it was the Tea Party Republicans in Congress that saw this.  They decided they had to act and since the Democrats were not inclined to get the budget under control, something drastic had to be done.  They decided to push for some kind of spending cuts to try and get a handle on the out of control spending by the Democrats since they refused to pass a budget.

One of the complaints I heard was Why now?  Why do we have to hold the debt ceiling hostage?  My answer has been. "If not now, when?"

Throughout this whole process, there was never a serious plan put out by the Democrats.  All Obama wanted to do was raise taxes and essentially threatened to hold his breath until the Republicans caved.  He offered no other solution beyond a demand to tax the evil rich.  The Senate Democrats offered a plan so bad that even Reid wanted to filibuster it.

Essentially, what Obama wanted was just to kick the can down the road until after the election.  The result would be no change in spending and no responsibility.  We would just keep borrowing and spending until the next debt ceiling hit and presumably would just demand another "clean" raise in the ceiling.

At what point would the Democrats start to understand that we can't keep borrowing and borrowing?  Would it be when the whole damned economic system  fell down around us and we are left with nothing but anarchy?  Is that the goal? 

The real challenge to America are those who think we can just keep spending.  The real problem we face is politicians that refuse to pass a budget.  The real criminals are those that want to bankrupt us.

VW

The New Civility

When AZ Representative Gabrielle Giffords was shot, there was an outcry (mostly from the left) demanding a "new civility" in the country.  It didn't matter that the nut job that shot her was left leaning and probably never seen Palin's website.  It was still still somehow her fault that Loughner went off his rocker.  We were told by our Democrat parents that we now had to talk nice.  Allusions to targets and such were not acceptable anymore.

And like some parents, it's do as I say, not as I do.  Witness the Rupert Murdoch circus.  He is being attacked, not just with language, but he is being attacked physically.  Murdoch is one of the left's bogeymen.  His empire includes Fox News and that is, perhaps, his biggest crime.

Now I don't know if he is guilty of a crime.  I don't think anyone really knows at this point but those involved.  I'm perfectly willing to let the legal process run its course just as I was in the Casey Anthoney case.  I thought she was guilty, but a jury said no.  I don't like it, but I accept it.  It's how our system works for better or worse.

How about language.  Why is it that leftists can write about something called "hate f**king Palin, Bachman and even Rick Santorum.  I'm not going to provide links to those.  (Look it up yourself if you really feel the need) So how is that civil to suggest you'd rape them just because you hate them?  No one is calling these people on this type of thing!

There is a hatred by the left for anyything and everything that they disagree with them.  They often suggest that those with whom they have disagreements with should be treated to vile and disgusting manner.

It is, again, another double standard.  If someone on the right said similar, the repercussions would be deafening.

VW

 

 

 

 

Obama Used His Dying Mother As A Campaign Prop

There is such a double standard within politics and within the once honorable profession of journalism that it nauseates the soul.  The love affair between Barack Obama and what passes for the press these days is flagrant and disgusting, one can imagine it to be the subject of a porn flick someday.

A New York Times Reporter, in a book about Obama's mother, discovered that Obama has been lying about his mother.  He's told us throughout the campaign and the subsequent healthcare reform debate about how his mother was denied treatment by her health insurer because she had a pre-existing condition.  She was not.  There was a dispute about disability insurance, but her cancer was treated.

[A]uthor Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.

Ms. Dunham's health insurer ponied up their portion.  The dispute was with another insurance company concerning diability payments.  I've seen someone argue that it doesn't make any difference, it was still about an insurance company so it was the same. 

I beg to differ!  The debate was, and is, about healthcare.  Disability Insurance might be connected, but we are not debating it on the national stage.  To put it bluntly: Obama lied and he did so in a most loathsome and callous manner. He used his own dying mother as a campaign prop.

Can you imagine a Republican candidate doing similar?  Can you imagine the furor of the press and every liberal pundit?  That candidate would most likely have to withdraw.  He or she would be painted with the most vile brush imaginable!

But Barry gets a pass.  It got a brief mention and then the crickets took over.  It was brought up in the last press conference and it was ignored.  It will no longer be spoken or written about in the main stream press.  The fact that it even made the NYT (however brief) is a shocker. 

Obama continues to prove that he is a callow and disreputable president.

VW

You Can't Get A Ticket To Ride

It's the real train to nowhere.  A set of tracks between two towns whose combined population is less than a  large Tacoma neighborhood.

And we are going to spend billions on it.  4.15 Billion to start.

Costing at least $4.15 billion, the segment would run from the tiny town of Borden to Corcoran, an area hit so hard by the recession and agriculture declines that it has been dubbed the New Appalachia. Stations would be built in Fresno and Hanford.

Included in the plan are tracks, station platforms, bridges and viaducts, which would elevate the line through urban areas.

Here's the kicker:

The initial section, however, would not be equipped with maintenance facilities, locomotives, passenger cars or an electrical system necessary to power high-speed trains.

That's right folks, it's a set of tracks, a station and some platforms.  No trains, no cars and no way to power and maintain the trains if they had any.  And after the initial 4.15 billion (which will almost assuredly balloon to 6 or 8 billion) is spent to build this boondoggle, they must then find the funding (even more billions) to fund more segments, buy trains and build facilities.  Add to that even more money to maintain what they have built until they start using it.

Billions and billions that we and California don't have to build a system that goes nowhere. 

This is why we are broke.  We squander untold billions on projects and pork that give us nothing back in return.  That rail line will never make money.  You can't make the case that it ever will. 

There has got to be a way to stop this madness.  We need to stop spending money on worthless porkbarrel projects and and useless advocacy groups that do nothing but suck the life blood out of us and give us nothing but lies and empty promises in return.

VW

An Axe To Grind

Amy Hagopian seems to me to be an intellectual fraud.  That's about the only way you can describe her and her current research conclusions.  She hates the military and recruiters in particular.  When she was the PTSA president at a Seattle High School, she led an effort to have recruiters removed from campus.  Now she's an associate professor at the University of Washington (Our tax dollars at work).  She recently co-authored a research paper comparing military recruiters to child molesters.  Essentially, this is a research project set out prove her foregone conclusions.

Co-author Amy Hagopian, an assistant professor in the Department of Global Health, writes that young recruits have the greatest number of mental disorders in the U.S. military — ranging from alcohol abuse to post-traumatic stress disorder. Meanwhile, in a recent period, there were 26 percent more suicides among the youngest veterans, with young military women having the highest rate of attempted suicide.

This evidence led Hagopian to conclude that military recruiting in public schools is in violation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Furthermore, Hagopian compares the behaviors of military recruiters to that of sexual predators.

Hagopian says recruiters use tactics to gain acceptance into school communities, including but not limited to: chaperoning dances, tutoring students, coaching football teams and riding buses, which she likens to those of sexual predators.

It's darn convenient when your "research" proves your expected result.  Why anyone would put any credence into something like this is beyond me.  It is sort of like saying garbage smells like flowers and your main place of research is the dumpster behind a florist shop.

Did she cherry pick her proof? I don't know.  Is she correct in her conclusion?  I doubt it, but again, I haven't seen it and I doubt she was looking to disprove her own long held beliefs.  What I do know is that to compare good and honorable men and women recruiting for a good and honorable profession to the lowest scum in our society is particularly ugly.  I know that she is just comparing methods and recruiters do "groom" to a certain extent.  Most salespeople learn to do that.  Her sole purpose was to slam recruiting and she did what she set out to do.

Fortunately for Ms. Hagopian, it is the very people she seeks to slander that allows her the freedom to do what she does.  Irony, that.

VW

We have Gone Too Far!

A few weeks ago, my oldest son and I were having a discussion about airline security and I kind of half argued that it was good that we are more vigilant.  Well, I was wrong.  This whole TSA thing has just plain gotten out of hand.

We all want to travel safely.  When we get on an airplane, we want to be reasonably assured that when we take off from the airport, we will land safely at our destination with nothing more distressing than a case of jet lag.  That means we hope the crew is competent, the aircraft is well maintained and the weather doesn't interfere.  Also in there is the hope that some jihadist with a bomb or a weapon isn't also on the passenger manifest. 

My job requires that I travel from time to time.  Had I not injured my right index finger a couple of months ago, I would be in Alaska right now.  I've put up with the metal detectors, bag screening and the inherent lines it all causes and I have to say that adding one more element that will provide absolutely no real addition to secure travel is enough. 

There is real concern about radiation by frequent travelers and air crew members.  If you don't like the radiaton, you can opt out to be patted down by someone whom you don't know who will run his or her hands all over your body including your private areas.  They will do this even with small children!

We need to rethink this process.  We need to figure out a better way.  It's telling that the Administration could not or would not hear us when it came to the elctions of 2012.  We are starting to raise our voices again and the administration is covering their ears again.

Instead of three year olds and grandmas in wheelchairs, we should take a long tough look at who really has hijacked airplanes over the years.  I know, it's profiling and that is supposed to be racist...or something.  Common sense should prevail.  This shotgun approach to security does not make us safer and it takes up way too much time and money.

I'm no security expert, but there seems like there should be a better way to provide a reasonable amount of security without compromising our privacy and our dignity.

VW

The Most Dishonest Congress Ever!

I have no other way to explain it.  There is a budget process that is law.  The Democrats ignored it and "deemed" a spending resolution "passed".  Honest people do not do that.  It's not a budget by any stretch of the imagination.  It's nothing more than a slimy attempt to cover up their spending and taxing before the November elections.

The enforcement resolution is being used instead of a full-fledged budget resolution because rank-and-file Democrats did not want to vote for a budget resolution that would show large deficits, particularly in an election year marked by worries about the nation’s fiscal solvency.

They are trying to hide behind the skirts of the White House Fiscal Commission.

The budget document, however, doesn’t say what policies Congress should enact to reach that out-year goal, something past budget resolutions have done. Instead, it relies on the White House fiscal commission, a bipartisan panel looking at tax, spending and entitlement policies, to come up with a plan to reach their target by 2015.

A Congress that, according to the Speaker of the House, is supposed to be the most honest and transparent Congress ever, is in a word, neither.  They lie, cheat and steal and the hell of it is, the media do nothing but look the other way.

Don't blame this idiocy on Bush.  The Democrats have been in charge of Congress two years before Bush left office.  GROW UP AND START TAKING RESPONSIBILITY!

Of course they won't.  Blaming Bush is all they have.  They have no answers, they have no leadership and most of all, damned few of them - if any - have the slightest sense of integrity.

VW

Why Is This Different?

Imagine, if you will, a Black man walking into a coffee shop and being asked to leave because the owner feels "uncomfortable having him in the shop.  Lawsuits would abound, his shop would be picketed by every group in town and rightfully so.  You just can't do that type of thing in America in 2010 -- unless it's a cop.

PORTLAND, Ore. - A Portland police officer says he doesn’t take it personally that he was kicked out of a cafe where he had stopped to get a coffee.

Officer James Crooker told The Oregonian he was surprised he was asked to leave the Red and Black cafe but understands it was hostility directed at his uniform.

Co-owner John Langley says he asked the officer to leave May 18 because he felt uncomfortable having a uniformed officer in the vegan cafe, which is frequented by the homeless, environmental and animal rights activists.

Why is it different?  Why can you not discriminate against one group, but have no problem discriminating against an other?

The Red and Black Cafe is no ordinary coffee shop.  They are unabashedly left-wing extremists.  They are a capitalist operation (for profit) raging against the very system that gives them their existence.

Wonder what would happen if their store was robbed?  Who would they call?

VW