Radioactive Communist Zombies

Anti-Science Republicans?

Are Republicans, specifically, the cabal of presidential candidates, anti-science?  Rick Perry has been painted with that brush because apparently Texas teaches creationism.  That, and a lot of them (not all) are, shall we say, climate change skeptics.

But does it matter?  Do we care?  How does any presidential candidate's beliefs about the age of the Earth and how people came to be affect the economy and protecting the nation from enemies foreign and domestic?  Rick Perry could believe the Earth rides on the back of turtles for all I care, if he can turn around the economy and protect our country.

But what about climate change?  Yes, a lot of the GOP feild are skeptics.  They don't agree with the "consensus" on man-made global warming.   And frankly, I agree with the skeptics.  It's not anti-science to question the consensus  .Not going with the scientific consensus also got Copernicus, Galileo, Einstein, and Neils Bohr (just to name a few) the "crazy" label.

Oh, but what about stem-cell research?  Aren't Republicans against that?  No, they aren't.  They are against stem-cell research that uses embryonic stem cells from aborted fetuses.  But other types of stem-cell research not only continued under GOP rule, but were well funded.

So, on creationism, it doesn't matter.  On global warming, who's to say what is correct?  And on stem-cell research, the lies of the media distorted the issue once again.

And yes, while I have some concerns about Perry and Bachmann, they beat Romney all to heck.  And it seems no one is asking his Mormon opinion on creationism.

Even Democrats Say Cap Spending to Balance Budget

According to a Reason-Rupe poll, over 77% of Americans was a spending cap on federal budgets to prevent to government from spending more than it takes in.  That includes 66% of Democrats:

Support for a constitutional amendment requiring a balanced federal budget is somewhat lower, but still strong, at 69 percent [of Americans].

How to achieve a balanced budget, however, is not something Americans agree on, but most want there to be budget cuts before tax increases:

 . . . 37 percent of voters believe reducing federal spending without increasing taxes is the best policy. Another 20 percent say they favor mainly decreasing spending along with some tax increases. Over 24 percent say an equal emphasis on spending cuts and tax increases is the right approach. Just 7 percent favor relying exclusively on tax increases to reduce the national debt, and 8 percent say they favor mostly tax increases combined with some spending reductions.

That means 57% of Americans favor all or mostly spending cuts to balance the budget.  Only 15% want mostly or all tax increases to solve our debt problem.

With numbers such as those, why can't Washington fix our budget problems and cut spending?  Even when Democrats want a spending cap, Democrat politicians are loath to support it because of the special interests that suck on the federal teat.

And you wonder why there's Democrats (a few, I've heard) in the Tea Party.  But considering federal spending has increased around $1 trillion since Obama took office, there's got to be places to cut.

Liberals: Voting Like a Six-Year-Old

Today's Calvin and Hobbs classic comic seems to sum up how liberals vote: like a six-year-old (click for a larger version)!

Yes, a bigger slice of the supposed zero-sum pie.  That's how liberals vote.

Facebook Leads to Arrest

If you're going to break the law, don't brag about it on Facebook.  A 19-year-old man eluded sheriff deputies on his motorcycle in Yakima County, Washington, and later bragged about it on Facebook.  As the AP Reports:

Authorities later noticed a Facebook posting by a man boasting about eluding officers, as well as a photo on the page of a motorcycle similar to the one they sought.

[Deputy Chris ]Gray says that when the suspect was rousted at 4 a.m. Saturday by deputies with both a search warrant and a printout of the page, he acknowledged he was the rider.

Better check those Facebook privacy settings, dude. (Actually, I've heard it doesn't matter.)  Or at the very least, don't brag about your criminal activities on the internet.

"Generous" School Official Gives up Pay

I don't know of a lot of jobs that pay $265,000 a year.  But apparently the Fresno County School Superintendent job pays that and a bit more: $800,000 in three years.  And you wonder why education is so expensive while being so ineffectual.

But Larry Powell the current Fresno County School Supervisor, has decided he doesn't need the money. According to an AP story:

Until his term expires in 2015, Powell will run 325 schools and 35 school districts with 195,000 students, all for less than a starting California teacher earns.

"How much do we need to keep accumulating?" asks Powell, 63. "There's no reason for me to keep stockpiling money."

Isn't that generous of him?  After a career of "accumulating" money on the taxpayer's back, he's now going to not take his outrageous salary.

This is another example of why we need to privatize schools.  Not vouchers, not charter schools, but privatize the whole dang system and eliminate the taxes that pay for the schools (in Washington State, that'd be about half the state budget).  Will need to give subsidies to the poor who cannot afford to pay for private school but that should be a minor expenditure.

Does Mr. Powell deserve his $800,000 three-year salary?  Is that what the market is for school superintendents?  I don't know.  But it sounds to me as if it's another example of an over-paid bureaucrat living well off the taxes of people who don't make near what he does.

Let Me Make Sure I Have This Straight

These are disaffected youth:

These are concerned citizens peacefully protesting:

And these are terrorists:

As are these:

Just so I have that straight.

I'm Almost in the Majority

I haven't blogged for two days because I was working on editing my novel that's going to be published soon.  I apologize to both my readers.

In any case, I'm no longer a fringe nut-case.  Well, at least when it comes to global warming climate change.  I'm an anthropogenic gobal warming (AGW) skeptic.  And now, according to a Gallup poll, 50% of Americans agree with me. At least the 96% of Americans who are aware of global warming (the other 4% live under a rock).  Anyway, only 50% of those Americans who were aware of global warming thought "Global warming results from human activities/both human and natural causes."  Which means 50% don't think that and I'm in that group.  By the way, that is a drop of 11% from a 2007 - 2008 poll.  Which means people are becoming aware that climate change is pretty much a scam.

Perhaps next survey I'll be in the majority.

Debt to the Moon

According to Mark Knoller (hat tip: The Corner), the national debt under President Obama has increased to @14.639 trillion:

The debt was $10.626 trillion on the day Mr. Obama took office. The latest calculation from Treasury shows the debt has now hit $14.639 trillion.

It's the most rapid increase in the debt under any U.S. president.

How fast is Obama increasing the debt? According to my calculations, by $4.251 billion per day he's been in office. That's $2.9 million per minute. Of debt.

At this rate, Obama's share of the debt will equal George W. Bush's 8 years of debt by March 18, 2012. Remember when you were mad at Bush for racking up so much debt. Obama is smoking the credit card at more than twice that rate.

How much debt has Obama stacked up so far? If you stacked dollar bills up in a column, Obama's debt so far would reach more than 272,000 miles. That's more than 20,000 miles past the orbit of the moon. And some say Obama doesn't have a space program! And he's adding 288 miles per day.

If he keeps spending like this, by the time he leaves office in January 2013 (oh, please God), he'll have racked up $6.2 trillion, having increased the national debt all by his lonesome by almost 60%.

The Fallacy of Green Jobs

When even the New Yuck Times is pointing out how green jobs are not living up to their hype, it may be finally sinking in that green jobs are a fallacy.

Like our earlier discussion that government doesn't create jobs, that applies to so-called "green jobs," too.

But the problem with green jobs is, they need taxpayer money to survive.  As Ernest Istook of the Heritage Foundation explains (links original):

The green agenda soaks taxpayers. But it also packs a double wallop because taxpayers are first hit to pay for the subsidies, then everyone is hit by higher energy prices caused by energy taxes and regulations.

A little basic economics: the purpose of a job is to create wealth.  Wealth for yourself and for your employer (assuming you don't work for the government).  If your job doesn't create wealth, then there is no need for it. 

If green jobs were needed and created wealth, the market would have created them.  But a green job requires a government subsidy (like green energy) and that requires the government either tax or go into debt to pay for the green job.  And that means taking money out of the economy that could have been used to create wealth-creating jobs, and more efficiently.  Like Spain's experience where each green job cost their economy two other jobs.

It's time to end the green-jobs fallacy and let the economy create real jobs that don't depend on taxpayer dollars or Chinese debt.

Obama in Trouble with Voters

A new Gallop Poll out today shows President Obama, if the election were held today, would probably lose.  In a poll of registered voters (who tend to break more Democrat than likely voters), Obama would lose to Mitt Romney, tie Rick Perry, and barely beat Ron Paul (2%) and Michele Bachmann (4%).  In fact, if the poll has a typical error of plus or minus 4% or 5%, then they are all statistically tied.  That's pretty bad shape for a sitting president.

And as I said, that's "registered voters" not "likely voters" who tend to vote more Republican.   And it's a long way to November 2012.  There hasn't been one negative ad shown about Obama but there's been plenty of MSM negativity about the GOP field.

It's looking more and more like Obama will be a one-term mistake.  A costly mistake, but at least we'll be rid of him.