Books, movies, politics, and whatever I want

Archive for April, 2011

Ayn Rand Meets Charles Schultz

Saturday, April 30th, 2011

By way of John Cox

Quote of the Day

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

“Should I tell you the most damning thing I ever heard about the Soviet block? Just before the wheel finally came off in East Germany you couldn’t get a shredder for love nor money in West Germany. The STASI were shredding at a rate to keep all Europe in hamster bedding till 2050 and true socialism couldn’t keep up with the demand for shredders so they had to buy them from the West.”

Nick M.

Quote of the Day

Wednesday, April 27th, 2011

We have an election coming up. We also have $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf bread coming up. I do not expect the real unemployment rate to fall, although there will be frantic attempts to make it look lower, largely through statistical manipulations based on the definition of unemployment: if you’re not looking for work, you aren’t unemployed even if you have no job and never again expect to find one. As more give up looking, the unemployment rate goes down. And since the unions do not intend to lower their wages and perks, and the states are out of money, there will be “furloughs” among public employees including teachers. You can manipulate those numbers so the “furloughed” are not unemployed. It promises to be an interesting summer, but it will end with $5/gallon gasoline and $5/loaf bread. Look for the price of a can of beans to get higher. Look for the price of Top Ramen to rise…

This will continue so long as the current economic and foreign policies continue.

Dr. Jerry Pournelle

 

Happy Lenin’s birthday (a.k.a “Earth Day”)

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Yup, it’s time for the annual Lenin’s Birthday post.

Yup, “Earth Day” is on Lenin’s Birthday.  Not a coincidence, given that the “founder” of Earth Day was much more a “Watermelon” than an actual environmentalist.

Watermelon: Thin layer of green of the outside, red to the core.

The celebrations start with a round up of predictions from the very first “Earth Day” back in 1970.

“Civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind.” — George Wald, Harvard Biologist

“Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make. The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“By…[1975] some experts feel that food shortages will have escalated the present level of world hunger and starvation into famines of unbelievable proportions. Other experts, more optimistic, think the ultimate food-population collision will not occur until the decade of the 1980s.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

“It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” — Denis Hayes, chief organizer for Earth Day

“Demographers agree almost unanimously on the following grim timetable: by 1975 widespread famines will begin in India; these will spread by 1990 to include all of India, Pakistan, China and the Near East, Africa. By the year 2000, or conceivably sooner, South and Central America will exist under famine conditions….By the year 2000, thirty years from now, the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America, and Australia, will be in famine.” — Peter Gunter, professor, North Texas State University

“Scientists have solid experimental and theoretical evidence to support…the following predictions: In a decade, urban dwellers will have to wear gas masks to survive air pollution…by 1985 air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half….” — Life Magazine, January 1970

“At the present rate of nitrogen buildup, it’s only a matter of time before light will be filtered out of the atmosphere and none of our land will be usable.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

“Air pollution…is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone.” — Paul Ehrlich, Stanford University biologist

Ok, Ehrlich was sorta right on this, if you restrict his predictions to modern Communist China, where they are showing the typical communist/socialist contempt for the environment.

“By the year 2000, if present trends continue, we will be using up crude oil at such a rate…that there won’t be any more crude oil. You’ll drive up to the pump and say, `Fill ‘er up, buddy,’ and he’ll say, `I am very sorry, there isn’t any.’” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

Now we get to my personal favorite, although probably not Al Gore‘s…
“The world has been chilling sharply for about twenty years,” he declared. “If present trends continue, the world will be about four degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age.” — Kenneth Watt, Ecologist

It wouldn’t be Lenin’s Birthday with out this clip of the late George Carlin discussing “Saving the Planet.”

Quote of the Day: Lenin’s Birthday Edition

Friday, April 22nd, 2011

Environmental policy is not driven by tree-hugging activists, earnest liberal bloggers, or ecologically minded citizens. Instead, it flows from the lobbyists and executives of well-connected multinational corporations and built-for-subsidy startups that see profit in the loan guarantees, handouts, mandates, and tax credits Congress creates in the name of saving the planet.

Timothy P. Carney

 

Round Up Post

Monday, April 18th, 2011

Let’s take a look at how things are going.

Mary Katherine Ham Fact Checks Obama

Wednesday, April 13th, 2011

It turns out that the truth and our Dear Leader are not exactly on speaking terms.

Obama’s decision isn’t based on what is best for America’s children, but what the NEA wants. Obama needs that Union money for his reelection campaign.

HT to the Daily Caller.

Friday B-movie: Ninja Assassin

Friday, April 8th, 2011

Ninja Assassin

Not a film you are going to study in film school, but a fun action flick with much, much more than its fair share of blood, gore and violence.

Friday B-Movie Archive

Government Spending Quiz

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

Can you identify what is a real federal government spending project and what isn’t?
Here is a hint, most of the real government spending programs are part of the democrat’s Porkulus program.

Some Change I’ve been Hoping for!

Wednesday, April 6th, 2011

The Senate has finally voted to repeal one of the anti-business, big brother evasiveness level, aspects of the disaster waiting to happen known as Obamacare.

This small portion of Obamacare would have created an unfunded mandate that would have destroyed many small businesses.

All we need now is our Dear Leader’s signature, or every business in America will have to file a 1099 form for every business and person they do more than $600 worth of business during the year.  If you have a fleet of trucks or cars, your business will have to file a 1099 on every gas station they do business with.  Every mom & pop shop will have to file a 1099 for every high school kid they employ.  The sheer volume of this paperwork would require businesses to hire dedicated people just to fill out and file the 1099 forms.  People they would have to pay out of their profits, and would add zero benefit to their business.  The cost of doing business would go up and companies operating on tight margins would be forced out of business by our Dear Leader’s ravenous thirst for new tax revenues.

If our Dear Leader doesn’t sign this bill, it is a clear sign that he values his extremist political agenda more then the American economy and the well being of the American people.