We hear more and more about the pushing of the Value Added Tax by the kommies in our midst, who thing every working (or spending) American is a mere cash sponge to be wrung out without mercy in order to finance the ever-increasing monetary demands of a socialist country.

Recently, progressives have made noise about introducing a value-added tax (VAT) in the United States. The VAT is an indirect tax — that is, Americans wouldn’t pay the tax directly to government, but would pay it to businesses as part of the retail price of things we buy, and businesses would then remit the tax to Uncle Sam.

A VAT is set at a fixed rate — say, 10 or 15 percent — added to the price of a good at every step of production, with a deduction allowed for the amount of VAT paid during earlier stages of production. The more steps there are in transforming raw materials into complex consumer goods, the higher the resulting consumer price as a result of those multiple layers of taxation.

Many countries have VATs, including Canada, Mexico, and the European Union. One might say that a VAT is an emblem signifying that a country’s government consumes a large percentage of its GDP, for VATs seem to go hand-in-hand with big-budget nanny states.

The reason for this phenomenon is simple: Any government that seeks to be all things to all people, and therefore seeks to spend ubiquitously, must inevitably seek to tax ubiquitously. Such governments have insatiable appetites for revenue. Because VATs are cash cows, diverting huge sums of money from consumers to government, they are favorites of big-spending governments.

Unfortunately, though, VATs have significant negative economic consequences.

Because they inflate consumer prices, quantities demanded fall. Most often, the marginal buyers who can no longer afford to pay the higher price are poorer citizens. When government policy raises
prices, the first victims are poor people.

The second victims of a VAT are the workers who will lose their jobs as a result of falling demand for the newly higher-priced goods.

Many affluent Americans may not curtail their consumption, but because more of their money is diverted to the government treasury, their savings must correspondingly decline. This results in decreased capital accumulation, which, in turn, slows business expansion, development, and formation. It also slows the growth rate of labor productivity, hence retarding economic progress for workers.

Read on.

These leftists, who have no respect for the Constitution nor for the intentions of our founding fathers, and who certainly despise the very principles that define the United States of America, would love to watch our nation come apart, sinking into an abyss of socialism…

…and as a bit of lagniappe, let’s finish with an excellent and unrelated column by Wesley Pruden.

…from an exercise in idiotics to another skedaddler…

First we have a little Sebeliosity, bleaching just a smidgeon more character out of our everyday lives.

Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius said today that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is developing a new regulation that would require food manufacturers to display nutritional information on the front of packages.

This would mean that the front of a Wheaties box, for example, would display not only the smiling face of a famous athlete but also declare how many calories from fat are in each serving.

We Americans are obviously pretty dumb, if after all these years we haven’t figured out where to look on the side of a box, can or package, to read the nutrition information.

That is, if we are interested in doing so.

So, to compensate for our obtusesness, the information, courtesy of our micromanaging overseers in government, will be emblazoned across the front of the package where we can’t miss it.

Yes, I did refer to character — instead of the aisles lined by colorful packaging design, we’ll see plain white rectangles of “facts & figures” as we shop.

That’s very California-like: The politicians in California love their signs, notices and warnings, as they have more micromanagerial rules and more things they feel they must caution folks about than do most entire continents.

Of course, like our federal government these days, California is also run by far left liberals.

Meanwhile, we have another felonious Constitution-violating Kongressional kriminal heading for the tall timber with the usual rat-deserting-a-sinking-ship excuse that he wants to spend more time with his family.

Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, targeted for defeat by Tea Party activists for his crucial role in securing House approval of the health care overhaul, said Friday he would retire from Congress this year.

The nine-term congressman told The Associated Press he could have won re-election and insisted he wasn’t being chased from the race by the Tea Party Express, which is holding rallies this week in his northern Michigan district calling for his ouster. Instead, Stupak said he was tired after 18 years in office and wanted to spend more time with his family.

It seems like an awful lot of the corrupt traitors (yes, they are, as well as stone felons: Every last one of those pieces of Kommie Krap took the oath to protect and defend the Constitution, so in my book, having both violated their oaths to G-d and the American people and shit on the Law of the Land, they should be prosecuted for felonies) who violated the Constitution in order to shackle us with the onslaught of ObamaCare have suddenly developed a shared yen to change their career tracks and spend more time with the ol’ family.

Right, of course — they’ve merely sacrificed themselves for the party, and no doubt the party will take care of them, since a bribe’s a bribe, right? These toilet cakes know they’re finished among the voters in their districts, so they’re “gracefully” bowing out.

Where are tar and feathers and the noose when we need them?

…I was watching Obama Hatchetwoman Secretary of Health & Human Services Kathleen Sebelius give her spiel on C-Span this morning and was struck by the wideness of the spectrum encompassed by Obama’s “Health” Care program.

Unsurprisingly, the thin lipped, angular featured (I don’t want to make disparaging remarks about anyone’s appearance, but she did kinda’ sorta remind me of a hatchet, come to think of it) cabinet member managed to incorporate education, “acceptable” foods, corporate salaries and a few other items in there that I simply couldn’t relate to health care, per se, but maybe that was just me.

My own impression was that she was laying the groundwork for the mega-agenda distribution of the soon-to-be voluminously increased taxes we will behold as the Obama Administration and its Pelosi led, Congressional marxist contingent do their unconstitutional best, under the blanket misnomer of “health care”, to strip us of our liberty and as much of our hard earned money as they possibly can.

…and I’m remembering the joke NASCAR pulled a year ago, when they announced that the Obamunists had forbidden any of the automakers whom the government had bailed out to spend the money entering racing vehicles for NASCAR events.

It was quite the joke, they definitely got over on a few right thinking columnists and other commentators, bloggers and pundits, to judge by the feedback that issued forth from even a few of the better informed and more celebrated among us (not me, simply because I was rather indisposed that day -whew!)

Later in the day, of course, they did the corporate version of grinning and told the truth, that the announcement had been an April Fool’s Day joke.

I’ve been thinking, and realize that the Obama Administration and the far left dominated Congress just might be able to redeem themselves with the American people if they announced that every single thing they’ve done since a) the Democrat majority was sworn in in January, 2009 and b) Obama was ordained sworn in a year later was an elaborate April Fool’s joke and that they really aren’t communists or jihad sympathizers, but Americans who love their country, respect the Constitution and are about to vote unanimously to retract and reverse their every official act.

This is, of course, highly unlikely as it would be too much, for the American people, like waking up from a terrible nightmare to find that all is well in the world.

Unfortunately, all is not, and that is particularly true with the lying lefty loony linx who, through profoundly pounded propaganda from the kommie media and many a shovelfull of malarkey from the politicians both in the White House and on the Hill, finally won in their battle to staff the upper echelons of the U.S. Government with enemies of the state.

The only silver lining to that particular cloud is that we’ll be well rid of Barack Hussein in November 2012, at which time we’ll also have picked up the spares among the Democrat majority — the ones we won’t get to give the bums’ rush in November of this year.

However…

I actually came here to share another great Ann Coulter column, this week’s, which I received yesterday.

On the “Today” show this Tuesday, President Obama claimed the massive government takeover of health care the Democrats passed without a single Republican vote was a “middle of the road” bill that incorporated many Republican ideas.

One Republican idea allegedly incorporated into the Democrats’ health care monstrosity is “medical malpractice reform.” Needless to say, the Democrats’ idea of malpractice reform is less than nothing. Until trial lawyers are screaming bloody murder, there has been no medical malpractice reform.

The Democrats’ “malpractice” section merely encourages the states to set up commissions to “study” tort reform, in the sense that frustrated mothers “encourage” their kids not to slouch. By “study,” the Democrats mean “ignore.”

So we get more taxpayer-funded government workers under the Democrats’ “medical malpractice reform,” but not one tittle of actual reform.

Democrats manifestly do not care about helping Americans get quality health care. If they did, they could not continue to support trial lawyers like John Edwards making $50 million by bringing junk lawsuits against doctors who are saving people’s lives. (At least Edwards has not done anything else to publicly disgrace himself since then.)

At a minimum, any health care bill that purports to improve Americans’ health, rather than trial lawyers’ bank accounts, must include a loser-pays rule and a restriction on damages to actual losses — as opposed to punitive damages, which mostly serve to enrich the John Edwardses of the world, and their mistresses.

LOL!!!!

The Democrats also lyingly claim their health care reform includes the Republican ideas of competition across state lines.

I know they’re lying because — well, first because I read the bill — but also because Democrats are genetically incapable of understanding the free market. You might say it’s a pre-existing condition with them.

The Democrats will lie to anybody about anything if they believe it will help one of their destructive agendas reach fruition.

Democrats want to turn the entire citizenry into welfare recipients.

Amen to that!

Truncating a ways…

A few weeks ago, The New York Times ran an editorial noting the amazing fact that, by the middle of this year, there will be an estimated 6.8 billion people on Earth — and 5 billion will have cell phones! (Even more astounding, at least one of them is seated directly behind me every time I go to the movies.)

How did that happen without a Democrat president and Congress using bribes, parliamentary tricks and arcane non-voting maneuvers to pass a massive, hugely expensive National Cell Phone Reform Act?

How did that happen without Barney Frank and Henry Waxman personally designing the 3-foot-long, 26-pound, ugly green $4,000 cell phone we all have to use?

How did that happen without Obama signing the National Cell Phone Reform bill, as a poor 10-year-old black kid who couldn’t afford to text-message his friends looked on?

The reason nearly everyone in the universe has a cell phone is that President Reagan did to telephones the exact opposite of what the Democrats have just done with health care.

Before Reagan came into office, we had one phone company, ridiculously expensive rates and one phone model. Reagan split up AT&T, deregulated phone service and gave America a competitive market in phones. The rest is history.

The column can be found here, in its entirety.

…with the World Government crowd.

Interestingly, it seems to begin with the two leaders showing their disdain for one another…

France may be America’s oldest ally, but the presidents of the two countries are not exactly the best of buddies.

When President Obama visited Paris in June, he declined a dinner invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy, even though he had no evening plans and was staying just a few doors down from the Elysee Palace.

The brushoff followed a more substantive snubbing, when the French president turned down a U.S. request to put more troops into Afghanistan. Mr. Obama responded by sending a letter to former French President Jacques Chirac expressing his desire to “work together … to build a safer world.”

The petite but fiery Sarko was reportedly livid.

So when he arrived in the U.S. on Monday, Mr. Sarkozy went not to Washington but to New York, where he delivered a speech at Columbia University.

There, he mocked Mr. Obama’s recent health care reform victory, saying “if you want me to be really honest, when we see the U.S. debate on the health care reform from Europe, it’s difficult to believe. … Excuse me, but we’ve solved this problem more than 50 years ago.”

With the supreme dismissiveness only a Frenchman can pull off, he added: “Welcome to the club of states who don’t turn their back on the sick and the poor. … If you come to France and something happens to you, you won’t be asked for your credit card before you’re rushed to the hospital.”

When Mr. Sarkozy finally came to Washington, he stopped first at the Capitol, where he met with 2004 failed presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry. There, he pledged to help enact global taxes on countries that resist steps to fight climate change.

Emphasis mine.

Did I mention the World Government crowd?

…and then making nice for the media as all diplocrites do.

With lunch finished, it was finally time to go to the White House to meet with the U.S. president. After a private meeting in the Oval Office, the two repaired to the East Room for a joint news conference, where it was all happiness and light.

Mr. Obama welcomed “my dear friend” and proceeded to call the French president by his first name eight times. “The fact that Nicolas went to Ben’s Chili Bowl for lunch, I think, shows his discriminating palate,” he said to laughter from Mr. Sarkozy. Mr. Obama, reading from notes, praised his counterpart for his “legendary energy” before ticking off a series of issues on which the two agree.

{Truncating here}

Unlike the Obamas in Paris, the Sarkozys accepted an invitation to dine in the White House, joining the first couple in the residence for a private dinner. And the two leaders, perhaps the hatchet finally buried, left the stage together, with Mr. Obama’s arm draped around the shoulder of his smiling French counterpart.

Yes, I did mention the World Government crowd.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Tuesday praised President Obama’s health care overhaul, called his push for stricter financial regulations “great news” and, standing alongside Mr. Obama at the White House, said he hopes their administrations can team up “to go even further in regulating world capitalism.”

Mr. Sarkozy, a fierce advocate for tougher rules on global financial markets, said France will use its position next year as leader of a group of the world’s top finance ministers to push for a new economic regulatory regime.

“During the French presidency of the G-20, [Treasury Secretary] Tim Geithner, [French Finance Minister] Christine Lagarde are going to be working hand-in-glove in order to go even further in regulating world capitalism, and in particular, raising the issue of a new world international monetary order,” Mr. Sarkozy told French and American reporters gathered at the White House in a brief joint appearance.

For his part, Mr. Obama said world leaders must take actions to ensure that “reckless speculation or reckless risk-taking by a few big players in the financial markets will never again threaten the global economy or burden taxpayers.”

“I will continue to work with President Sarkozy and other world leaders to coordinate our efforts, because we want to make sure that whatever steps were taking, they are occurring on both sides of the Atlantic,” Mr. Obama said.

Mr. Sarkozy also took a moment to tell his host “how glad” France is for the U.S. that Mr. Obama’s health-care legislation passed.

Of course he did, because now the United States will be joining France and other socialist shitholes in the slide to gross economic failure.

Meanwhile, the two weasels, along with others of their ilk to be found under the large portside stone known as the European Union, will work to force other countries’ leaders to “tow the line” in the true spirit of national sovereignty-hating globalists.

An example was set back in the late 1990s, spearheaded by Bubba Clinton and his EU and UN butt buddies: What happened to Slobodin Milosevic can happen to you.

When Sarkozy was first elected, it seemed like we had a real ally in the French president. It’s a comedown to realize that all we got was another feckless French socialist.

I’ll tell you, friends, having grown up in America in the 1950s and 1960s, I’m beginning to suspect that somewhere along the line I was somehow transported to another dimension…

…there are so many things to criticize, at least unless one is a mega-leftist wingnut, that is, where the tragedy/travesty that is today’s presidential administration and congressional majority are concerned, that there’s a veritable smorgasbord of subject material to choose from.

For example, a great post at Red State.

Yesterday the White House went bonkers when several large corporations announced via their SEC filings that they were taking about $1.5 Billion in losses this quarter because of one provision in the health care takeover bill Obama signed into law last week. The Wall Street Journal estimates Obamacare will cost the Fortune 500 some $14 Billion in this single provision.

They trotted out the hapless Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke, to deny basic laws of economics and according to some reports White House aides were directly calling and berating company executives who were complying with federal law.

Henry Waxman took a brief hiatus from braiding his nose hair to announce that he would hold hearings to determine why these imbeciles had fraudulently declared Obamacare would cost them money when everyone knows it is the key to balancing the budget and retiring the national debt. According to him:

The new law is designed to expand coverage and bring down costs, so your assertions are a matter of concern. They also appear to conflict with independent analyses.

In fact, Waxman asserts that the losses run counter to a report prepared by the Business Roundtable predicting the health care takeover would reduce health insurance costs to businesses by $3,000 per person…

Read the entire post here.

The lies, misrepresentations, fabricated math and general duplicity employed by Obama and the Pelosified marxist Congress followed by a flabbergasted, “I don’t believe it! We’ll convene an investigation at once!” reaction when the bullshirt gives way to reality is almost laughable until one remembers that at the bottom line lies the future, or lack thereof, of our beloved republic.

Moving right along, as they (whoever they are) say, I just thought I’d paste in a copy of Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution. Give it a read, then match it up against anything Barack Hussein Obama and/or the House and Senate have thusfar passed or are preparing to legislate, remembering that the following is what you might call the Employee Handbook of U.S. Governance. If something is not included in the list below, Congress can’t (without committong a felony, as far as I’m concerned) do it:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow money on the credit of the United States;

To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

To establish Post Offices and Post Roads;

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;

To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offenses against the Law of Nations;

To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

To provide and maintain a Navy;

To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings; And

To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

Depends upon what you mean by “care”, here.

Wolf here.

I ran across an interesting article by retired constitutional attorney Michael Connelly, who writes:

Well, I have done it! I have read the entire text of proposed House Bill 3200: The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. I studied it with particular emphasis from my area of expertise, constitutional law. I was frankly concerned that parts of the proposed law that were being discussed might be unconstitutional. What I found was far worse than what I had heard or expected.

To begin with, much of what has been said about the law and its implications is in fact true, despite what the Democrats and the media are saying. The law does provide for rationing of health care, particularly where senior citizens and other classes of citizens are involved, free health care for illegal immigrants, free abortion services, and probably forced participation in abortions by members of the medical profession.

The Bill will also eventually force private insurance companies out of business and put everyone into a government run system. All decisions about personal health care will ultimately be made by federal bureaucrats and most of them will not be health care professionals. Hospital admissions, payments to physicians, and allocations of necessary medical devices will be strictly controlled.

However, as scary as all of that it, it just scratches the surface. In fact, I have concluded that this legislation really has no intention of providing affordable health care choices. Instead it is a convenient cover for the most massive transfer of power to the Executive Branch of government that has ever occurred, or even been contemplated. If this law or a similar one is adopted, major portions of the Constitution of the United States will effectively have been destroyed.

The first thing to go will be the masterfully crafted balance of power between the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial branches of the U.S. Government. The Congress will be transferring to the Obama Administration authority in a number of different areas over the lives of the American people and the businesses they own. The irony is that the Congress doesn’t have any authority to legislate in most of those areas to begin with. I defy anyone to read the text of the U.S. Constitution and find any authority granted to the members of Congress to regulate health care.

I hope all the mulletheads who voted in both the lefty congressional majority and Obama, the traitor and enemy of the state in POTUS’ clothing, read and enjoy reading herein what they are responsible for.

The entire article is here.

We haven’t posted for a month, but between Wolf’s current activities, Chuck’s maritime indulgences and my own incumbent issues, well… My apologies, and hopes that these intervals between posts are able to return to pre 2008 levels really soon…

…The course on the front burner today is obviously the ObamaCare debacle, which is summed up pretty well by Wesley Pruden.

Being me, I’ve gotten into debates of sorts with a number of people who have been either undecided (not unusual, considering that the very template upon which the entire government-run healthcare equation is based is a virtual labyrinth of contradictions and blank checks interwoven with the seeds of stealth legislation, promoted as “good for us” by a media which is as ignorant about the technical details of the whole thing as most of us) or sort of decided.

My way of talking about the issue is, I think, pretty simple.

The vast majority of Americans would rather have small government and keep more of their hard earned money. They want quality medical care and the choice of where to obtain it.

Passing ObamaCare, or any federally managed health care legislation, would be the equivalent of uploading software into your computer that contains a few dangerous and irradicable viruses.

It would install a permanent, ever-growing chain of bureaucracies inside our government, scoring an instant and lasting victory for the tax-and-spend socialists on the far left, essentially transforming the United States of America into a socialist country.

Obama, Pelosi and their ilk are willing to sacrifice the careers of a score or more Democrats on the Hill, decimate their own party for the next decade or so, just to force this single bill on us because it will, if enacted, provide that “change” Barack Hussein promised during his campaigning days — a 180 degree change, as a matter of fact, one that would make America as we know it disappear for all time.

I’m serious, folks. Even a “far right” majority would be stuck with the system — unable to reverse the legislation, they’d be tasked with maintaining it, feeding it, expanding it to keep it alive while it sucked the blood from the U.S. taxpayer and destroyed a successful private sector run healthcare industry that only a marxist with a political agenda could call “a failure” with a straight face.

The only response by Republicans in Congress to government run healthcare should be NO! NO NEGOTIATION, NO CONSIDERATION, NO GOVERNMENT RUN HEALTHCARE, PERIOD! MOVE ON!

But no, the GOP still address the issue as a valid topic of discussion, which it is not — remember, we are governed by The Constitution, and therefore government run healthcare is not, legally, even supposed to be on the board.

Now, we even find, the lefties are seeking ways to get around the rules in order to get their agenda passed.

If the GOP allows this legislation to pass in any way, shape or form, they will have failed not only every conservative in the nation, but every American.

Chuck here, “the boss man” put me back to work. No sweat, friends, I really enjoy this.

So, honesty and liberals.

Apples and oranges. Rocks and books. Pterodactyls and aardvarks. Paper clips and fish.

In today’s Best Of The Web Today, James Taranto writes about some emails industrious hackers wrenched from the hallowed files of your garden variety liberal academics whom, no doubt, would be the first to become outraged/ indignant/ majorly offended (take your pick) if accused of even considering anything like that which Mr. Taranto describes in Settled Science?

“Officials at the University of East Anglia confirmed in a statement on Friday that files had been stolen from a university server and that the police had been brought in to investigate the breach,” the New York Times reports. “They added, however, that they could not confirm that all the material circulating on the Internet was authentic.” But some scientists have confirmed that their emails were quoted accurately.

The files–which can be downloaded here–surely have not been fully plumbed. The ZIP archive weighs in at just under 62 megabytes, or more than 157 MB when uncompressed. But bits that have already been analyzed, as the Washington Post reports, “reveal an intellectual circle that appears to feel very much under attack, and eager to punish its enemies”:

In one e-mail, the center’s director, Phil Jones, writes Pennsylvania State University’s Michael E.
Mann and questions whether the work of academics that question the link between human activities and global warming deserve to make it into the prestigious IPCC report, which represents the global consensus view on climate science.

“I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report,” Jones writes. “Kevin and I will keep them out somehow–even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

In another, Jones and Mann discuss how they can pressure an academic journal not to accept the work of climate skeptics with whom they disagree. “Perhaps we should encourage our colleagues in the climate research community to no longer submit to, or cite papers in, this journal,” Mann writes. . . .

Mann, who directs Penn State’s Earth System Science Center, said the e-mails reflected the sort of “vigorous debate” researchers engage in before reaching scientific conclusions. “We shouldn’t expect the sort of refined statements that scientists make when they’re speaking in public,” he said.

This is downright Orwellian. What the Post describes is not a vigorous debate but an attempt to suppress debate–to politicize the process of scientific inquiry so that it yields a predetermined result. This does not, in itself, prove the global warmists wrong. But it raises a glaring question: If they have the facts on their side, why do they need to resort to tactics of suppression and intimidation?

It is hard to see how this is anything less than a definitive refutation of the popular press’s contention that global warmism is settled science–a contention that both the Times and the Post repeat in their articles on the revelations: “The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument,” the Times claims. The Post leads its story by observing that “few U.S. politicians bother to question whether humans are changing the world’s climate,” and that “nearly three years ago the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concluded the evidence was unequivocal.” (As blogger Tom Maguire notes, this actually overstates even the IPCC’s conclusions.)

The press’s view on global warming rests on an appeal to authority: the consensus among scientists that it is real, dangerous and man-caused. But the authority of scientists rests on the integrity of the scientific process, and a “consensus” based on the suppression of alternative hypotheses is, quite simply, a fraudulent one.

Yes, honesty and liberals, rifles and feather dusters, automobiles and coral reefs, steel and rhubarb…

Yesterday being Veterans Day, I opted to let this one go until today, as it was a day for lounging around aboard my boat with a few other ‘Nam vets, imbibing heavily, reminiscing and both praying for our brethren who are at war today and honoring those we served with who never made it home.

************

John Stossel wrote a column, published yesterday, that I think summed everything up in simple, to the point, “no muss, no fuss” manner where the government’s health care bill, fresh from the leftists in the House of representatives (representative of who is anybody’s guess) is concerned.

As an American, I am embarrassed that the U.S. House of Representatives has 220 members who actually believe the government can successfully centrally plan the medical and insurance industries.

I’m embarrassed that my representatives think that government can subsidize the consumption of medical care without increasing the budget deficit or interfering with free choice.

It’s a triumph of mindless wishful thinking over logic and experience.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.

The 1,990-page bill is breathtaking in its bone-headed audacity. The notion that a small group of politicians can know enough to design something so complex and so personal is astounding. That they were advised by “experts” means nothing since no one is expert enough to do that. There are too many tradeoffs faced by unique individuals with infinitely varying needs.

Government cannot do simple things efficiently. The bureaucrats struggle to count votes correctly.

They give subsidized loans to “homeowners” who turn out to be 4-year-olds. Yet congressmen want government to manage our medicine and insurance.

And we once thought that the United States Government would always have adult leadership.

Read the rest here.

Who knows what’s next?