Kip's Law:  "Every advocate of central planning always — always — envisions himself as the central planner.”


The monument to Soviet central planning was . . . a heap of surplus left boots without any right ones to match them. ~ The Economist


The mid-term elections are over. The liberal Democrats have been vanquished from elected government posts, but the TEA Parties' task of righting the tradition of American freedoms is ever ongoing. A small skirmish erupted in the town of Fountain Hills, AZ, located just south of Phoenix.

In Fountain Hills, it seems, residents were permitted to contract with any private trash hauler that they chose. Restrictions generally provided for the level of service the private haulers must provide but left the decision of picking a hauler and right-pricing service in the hands of the town residents. This was red, white and blue American capitalism at work!

Now enter Town Manager Rick Davis with an apparent predisposition toward big government solutions and possibly influenced by big corporation malarky ultimately designed to stymy competition:

I have to be honest . . . I had not yet served in a city that hosted multiple haulers by resident subscription. This was a new concept to me, In my last community, the city contracted with a hauler to provide trash services. Every five years we went out to bid and awarded the contract to the lowest responsible bidder.

The first encounter was won by liberal-leaning environmentalists on the Town Council but two TEA Party organizations, Fountain Hills Tea Party and Campaign for Liberty Arizona, have already began the process to voicing displeasure to these usurpers of individual rights and freedoms.  But a contract is a contract, so unless the actions of the Town Council can be legally challenged,  the award to Allied Waste Services will have to be honored.  Allied Waste Services is a subsidiary of Republic Services, Inc,  Crooks & Liars tells us that:

Republic Services has a long-standing reputation for spreading around campaign contribution love, particularly with local and state-level campaigns . . .

So the insidiousness of  ever-growing government intrusion is becoming exposed to the light of day.  Contractors and government employee unions have become the means by which elected politicians retain their elite political status, as in: "You scrub my back and I'll scrub yours."

In the new deal with Fountain Hills, Allied Waste reduces its fee from $18 per month to $11 per month in exchange for only picking up trash once per week instead of twice (Such a deal!).  The twice-per-week service was a required level imposed by Fountain Hills government upon all private haulers in the past, but this has now been swept away by fiat.  So the haulers will travel less miles, and get paid  more per mile for making less pickup stops.  How much of a kickback do you suppose is in play here? Sounds like an investigative job for Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ... who just happens to live in Fountain Hills.

So the TEA Parties have lost because of the vote of only four out of seven officials that they helped to elect.  What do you expect will happen when the next municipal election is held?

The Times-News of Twin Falls, Idaho reports this most distressing story:

A retired miner and rancher in southern Idaho, who found long-lost certificates of deposits estimated to be worth more than a half-million dollars, was informed by the bank holding the CDs that they aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.

Bill Coffey, who still holds the original certificates, said an attorney representing Wells Fargo sent him a letter earlier this month stating the bank had no way of determining whether or not the CDs had already been cashed-in without being submitted.

The certificates date back to 1979, when Coffey and his son, Ed Coffey, bought about $290,000 in CDs from a bank in Rio Rancho, N.M. The six-month CDs had an interest rate of 10.315 percent, but the rate was required to reset every six months. According to the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, Wells Fargo bought the Rio Rancho bank in 1999 — including the bank’s CDs.

In other words, the bank cannot find the original records from the New Mexico bank, so the depositor is being asked to prove that he didn't receive the proceeds from the CD's. Apparently, redeeming CDs without the actual certificate is not an unheard of practice in banking circles. Some banks, it seems, actually accept a simple photo ID in order to make a cash distribution.

There are many missing details that can effect this case. For example, we do not know if the Rio Rancho bank failed and Wells Fargo was designated through the FDIC as the "white knight" banker to take over or whether Wells simply purchased the NM bank. Adequate record-keeping is primary to obtaining FDIC protection on CD's so the acquiring bank certainly had to exercise "due diligence" when the bank operation was transferred.

Bill Coffey is about to hire an attorney, so we will have to wait a while for the "rest of the story."

“It’s not that I need the money because I’m doing fine financially,” Coffey said. “I just don’t want Wells Fargo to steal it. To me, it’s just a matter of principle — they’ve had my money to work with for 30 years, and now I want it back.”

This post starts at the end ... well almost the end of the tale of Obama's Columbia college thesis entitled “Aristocracy Reborn,” the first ten pages of which were allegedly shown to Time Magazine's Joe Klein. Today Mr. Klein posted this denial on the magazine's Swampland blog page.

A report is circulating among the wingnuts that I had a peek at Barack Obama's senior thesis. It is completely false. I've never seen Obama's thesis. I have no idea where this report comes from--but I can assure you that it's complete nonsense.

The question before the house is whether or not we should believe Joe Klein after he repeatedly lied about his authorship of the Clinton political novel "Primary Colors."

Setting out to trace the source of the Obama thesis story, I was frustrated to find that the earliest posting of the story came from an unsubstantiated article by Brian Lancaster on August 25, 2009 in the Jumping in Pools blog. Pajamas Media blogger Michael Ladeen picked up the story on October 21 and apologized today. Rush Limbaugh carried the story on his program today, and after being made aware of the apparant hoax, advised his audience. Media Matters gloated in what they portrayed as his "fake but accurate" defense. This is the same organization which used fake quotes to smear Rush in order to prevent his acquiring a partial ownership of the St. Louis Rams. Karl Frisch of Media Matters, a far left organization sponsored by George Soros, admitted on MSNBC that they knew that two of the Limbaugh quotes used were "not accurate."

Source verification and substantiation is important, especially on the internet. Dymphna, a blogger over at Gates of Vienna takes verification of assertions very seriously.

Earlier this month I received several essays from ... one of our readers. They make for fascinating reading, but the writer provided no links for his assertions. We discussed this in subsequent emails and he did send me a few references, but no actual bloggeresque-type links.

When he said in one email, “This essay is sweeping in purview. Documentation is readily available but would become onerous if complete”, I left this aside to think about it. Now I’ve thought about it, done a little research (Google is your friend, mostly), and here we are. Like many non-bloggers, our author is not accustomed to the necessity for links to one’s assertions so the two references above were the best he could give me. I did a very brief search on ... [the subjects].

Well, ... we've been blogging long enough to know that when you post on controversial subjects and you don't provide links, those who oppose your pov will appear in the comments with flame-throwers in hand. There will be more heat than light.

When we were newbies, Bill Quick was willing to advise us. One of the things he said was "provide links to your information". So we do. I realize that the MSM "journalists" don't do that, but otoh, we never want to be mistaken for journalists.

As a postscript, to at least ameliorate the carelessness of the of the right wing blogesphere, "because it was plausible." It turns out that Obama's attitude toward the Constitution is precisely why those "in the know' were duped. The Tea Party of Northern Colorado blog points out that the language in the apparent hoax is virtually the same as Obama's words on PBS in 2001.

Here’s a passage from “Aristocracy Reborn”:

… the Constitution allows for many things, but what it does not allow is the most revealing. The so-called Founders did not allow for economic freedom. While political freedom is supposedly a cornerstone of the document, the distribution of wealth is not even mentioned. While many believed that the new Constitution gave them liberty, it instead fitted them with the shackles of hypocrisy.

You would perhaps expect this pablum from a post-modernistic Ivy League undergraduate up to his gills in multiculturalism and (as he says on page 100 of his autobiography) “Marxist Professors, structural feminists, and punk-rock performance poets.”

Here, however, is Barack Obama twenty years later, in 2001:

The Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society…. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn’t that radical. It didn’t break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the founding fathers in the Constitution … that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can’t do to you. Says what the Federal government can’t do to you, but doesn’t say what the Federal government or State government must do on your behalf, and that hasn’t shifted, and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was, um, because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change…. I’m not optimistic about bringing about major redistributive change through courts… The Constitution reflected an enormous blind spot in this culture that carries on until this day … The Framers had that same blind spot … the fundamental flaw of this country.

Believe it or not, we are not yet done with Obama's senior thesis at Columbia. As a result of right wing inquires made during the presidential primaries comes this TNR blog post, dated 7/24/08, on the missing senior thesis that Obama wrote at Columbia (conveniently, neither Obama nor Columbia could find a copy). The paper supposedly was "an analysis of the evolution of the arms reduction negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States,”

This important commentary and question from economist Russ Roberts at Cafe' Hayek.

This is the weirdest story of the year:

A top White House economist says spending from the $787 billion economic stimulus has already had its biggest impact on economic growth and will likely not contribute to significant expansion next year.Christina Romer, the chair of President Barack Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, said Thursday that the $194 billion already spent gave a jolt to the economy that contributed to growth in the second and third quarters of the year. She told a congressional panel that by the middle of next year, the impact of the stimulus will level off.

So if the biggest impact has already happened and the effect is going to level off, can we have the other $593 billion back, please?

Telegraph (UK) blogger Janet Daley, a liberal American emigrant, attacks the British Government:

The government is trying to terrify you. That is the only possible interpretation of its latest television advertising campaign on the supposed dangers of global warming. Whether or not you accept the scientific premises behind the “bedtime story” advert which is now to be investigated by the Advertising Standards Authority after attracting over 350 complaints from the public, there is no question that it is propaganda in the strict technical sense of the word.

That is to say, it is an attempt by the state to manipulate opinion and evoke emotional reactions without offering argument or evidence for its case. It accepts uncritically the most extreme rendition of the anthropogenic global warming narrative as if it were entirely uncontentious and presents it in the most sentimentally evocative possible way (ie as a threat to one’s own children and to defenceless creatures generally). It uses the techniques once associated with totalitarian societies not to persuade (which is what advertising properly does) but to coerce: to create fear and guilt. And to what purpose? Without offering constructive argument or serious explanation of the options, we can only assume that this is a campaign designed to browbeat the public into accepting any new restrictions or “green” taxes which government may choose to impose. Fortunately, it seems that ordinary people still have the independence of mind to know when they are being bullied.

At least there is an agency in the UK to address complaints against false government propaganda. In America, we have to put up with the twisted themes of the EPA and the DOE adverts using Ad Council radio and TV spots.

Don Surber reports on information released today by Republicans serving on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee released a chart on how the $787 billion stimulus has worked so far.

Not very well.

49 of the 50 states — and D.C. — had net loss in jobs.

Only North Dakota had a net gain of jobs — 1,800.

If his term ended tomorrow, Barack Obama would be the first president since Herbert Hoover to have a net loss in jobs during his presidency.

Interestingly, Obama has projected a 3,460,000 job gain by December 2010 but with only 13 months to go there is a net loss of jobs totaling (2,708,600). Surber has a breakout by state on his blog.

How's that Hope-N-Change working for you?

Take me to your whiners. A raging controversy over an "Illegal Alien" Halloween costume which denigrates no particular nationality and actually is supposed to represent a Roswell space alien has sent Hispanics and the liberal press into conniption fits. The "Illegal Alien Adult Costume," in question is manufactured by Forum Novelties.

"He didn't just cross a border, he crossed a galaxy!" according to the costume's description. "He's got his green card, but it's from another planet!

In an interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos, RNC Chairman Michael Steele spoke for the majority of Americans on the subject of illegal aliens saying although you can dress it up any way you want, but undocumented immigrants are still here illegally.

RAMOS: Why do you refer to undocumented immigrants as illegal aliens? I’ve spoken with John McCain and Barack Obama, to give you two examples, and they don’t use those terms they call them undocumented immigrants. Why do you call them illegal aliens?

STEELE: Well, if they are here illegally I got a call it what it is. I mean if you can be undocumented — look you can dress it up any way you want the reality of it is the status is the key feature here, and if the status is such that you did not come through the regular process, that you did not present yourself properly, to be documented then you are here illegally.

Fox and Friends handled the non-issue as it should have been handled.

H/T: SondraK

The University of North Dakota's sports teams have been called the "Fighting Sioux" since 1930 in honor of the Indian tribe that is intricately linked to state history and to the very state name of Dakota.  Retired UND President Charles E. Kupchella has defended the Fighting Sioux name:

Since the Sioux actually call themselves "Sioux" hardly anyone considers the term to be inherently derogatory or stereotypical, as for example, would be terms like "Savages" or "Redskins." ... We do not have a mascot or any kind of derogatory comical caricature of an American Indian as a logo. Our logo was designed by a respected Indian artist [Bennet Brien] and is similar to the respectful images found on U.S. coins, North Dakota Highway patrol cars, etc.

In 2005, NCAA president Myles Brand, (former president of Indiana University who fired coach Bobby Knight) forged a social policy unrealistic to the purpose of an organization charged with setting sports competition rules among universities. His policy declared Indian images, names and mascots as hostile and abusive toward Indian tribes ... subject, of course, to quasi-legal hearings that permitted the NCAA to mete out judgments and penalties to member universities. As might be expected, justice was most certainly not even-handed among affected schools.

Presented with the "Fighting Sioux" controversy in 2000, the North Dakota Board of Education first ruled that the nickname could stay with UND.   Later after an exchange of  lawsuits between the university and the NCAA,  and after coming out on the the wrong end of two appeals, the NDBofE  agreed to end the use of the nickname in 2010 unless the North Dakota Sioux reservations, Spirit Lake and Standing Rock, agreed  to support the UND nickname through tribal referendums.  Earlier this year the Spirit Lake Sioux passed such a resolution but leaders of the Standing Rock Lakotas refused to conduct such an elections since tribal by-laws prohibited it.

But hope springs eternal, and on October 2, an election took place among the Standing Rock Sioux. From the Bismarck Tribune comes this news:

The Standing Rock Sioux have a new tribal leader and the Sioux nickname may still have a fighting chance.

Wednesday's reservation vote propelled former chairman Charles Murphy back into leadership by nearly a two-to-one margin over current chairman Ron His Horse Is Thunder.

Murphy won by 1,233 votes to 695.

A popular leader, Murphy has since 1983 won six of the last eight chairman elections.

While it isn't certain that the newest Murphy administration will be able to swing a hurry-up referendum on the Fighting Sioux logo at the University of North Dakota, there is at least a new chance.

In recognition of the tribal election, the State Board of Higher Education Thursday voted to extend its deadline and give the reservation 60 days to hold a referendum.

Archie Fool Bear, former councilman and a chairman candidate during the primary, said "I predict a landslide" of support for UND's continued use of the Fighting Sioux name. "A lot of people really wanted to have a vote," Fool Bear said.

The state is up against a February deadline by the NCAA to end use of the Sioux logo and nickname, though a court settlement said it could continue if there was nickname consent from both North Dakota Sioux reservations. Spirit Lake approved its use by a wide margin earlier this year.

The Standing Rock Sioux, whose elders formally conferred the name four decades ago, have been denied a vote because the council, under His Horse Is Thunder, declined to schedule one.

Nothing lasts forever, however, and perhaps Charles Trimble, a prolific writer and an Oglala Lakota Indian, has the right idea:

I have never felt offended by their name Fighting Sioux. And I think there are many Lakotas, Dakotas and Nakotas, both on the UND campus and elsewhere, who feel as I do about it. It is an apt name, and if you want proof just go to a Council meeting on any reservation in North or South Dakota. It anything, the name is a redundancy.

I still would like to hear ... suggestions for a new name for the North Dakota folk up at their University. Think about it: What is North Dakota noted for? With the flattest topography on the continent, it is the wind, of course. How about the name "Blowing Wind?" Or perhaps "Breaking Wind?" The natural motto would be "Wind Power," which is so "in" these days. With that image and perhaps a million-dollar honorarium, they might even get Father Nature Al Gore to give a commencement address.

I laughed at his Al Gore humor and the "Breaking Wind" name, but Mr. Trimble seriously missed an important aspect of the wind ... it is always chilling.   So change the nickname to the "Cold Wind" or revert to an unofficial UND nickname from the past which could allow the continued use of the Indian Head logo ... "Nodaks." Since there is no Indian tribe (past or present), the Nodak name (a shortening of North Dakotan) will pass muster. This would put the University of North Dakota in the same weird class of nicknames as the Indiana Hoosiers, St. Olaf Oles, Williams College Ephs, Virginia Tech Hokies and Georgetown Hoyas.