Not very sensitive

A physician by the name of David McKalip from Florida used this image of Obama in witch doctor garb to object to the President's health insurance program. Liberal blogs are outraged and it does seem to be rather insensitive.

Birth Certificate Controversy Real

BestView is surprised to keep reading how many are still convinced that Obama is not constitutionally eligible to be President because he was not a natural born citizen. I have always assumed that the matter was roughly comparable to the "grassy knoll" theory, but in this case a real birth certificate would put the matter to rest, evidently. Guess we will just sit back and watch what happens since there seems to be bigger matters confronting us.

Spending Offsets hard to find, evidently

"On April 20, President Obama challenged his Cabinet to cut $100 million in spending over the next 90 days.

The deadline came -- and went -- without a report from the White House on whether or not that promise was fulfilled.

Asked about the spending cuts, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that information still was being compiled."

Reform?

Good analysis from John Stossel:

Leave aside how much power the state would have to exercise over us to run the medical system. Suffice it say that if government attempts to control our total medical spending, sooner or later, it will have to control us.

The administration estimates the cost of its takeover of the health care system to be $1.5 trillion over 10 years with no increase in the deficit. But no one should take that seriously. When it comes to projecting future costs, these guys may as well be reading chicken entrails. In 1965, hospitalization coverage under Medicare was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual price tag was $66 billion.

Read it all.

Too fat

The liberal bloggers are worried the new Surgeon General is too fat to be a good role model. The concern is available here.

Health Care Rationing

An inevitable consequence of whatever is passed with regard to health insurance is rationing. Cuts in Medicare funding are already a major feature and the result is seniors will be forced out of end of life measures which extend life minimally and cost the "system" excessively. This ethical situation is fascinating to consider in the abstract, but when you or a family member is involved, the decision could easily be different for each of us. The extent to which heroic measures should be taken in individual cases is one decision, who pays for it is another, and finally there the question of whether or not the government makes the decision is the biggest of all in some ways. Liberals seem to want the government to be out of the abortion decision and preeminent in the end of life decisions.

We are so sorry

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton opened a three-day visit to India on Saturday by urging India not to repeat American mistakes in contributing to global pollution, and she passionately defended U.S. demands for help in fighting terrorism.

"We acknowledge now with President Obama that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem that we face with climate change," she said. "We are hoping a great country like India will not make the same mistakes."

A new definition of government pork

The Drudge Report is having a field day reporting on what the government is doing with the "stimulus" money. One of the items listed in the Recovery.org listing of stimulus expenses is $2,531,600 to buy ham for the needy, soup kitchens, etc. O.K., nobody should go hungry. However, the Department of Agriculture used a no bid contract to buy the 760,000 lbs of ham at $1.50/lb. See the listing here. The same ham is available at Food Lion for $0.79/lb.

Exams for Firefighters

The confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotamayor has brought a lot to the TV about her ruling that a qualification test for promotion in the fire department was thrown out because an insufficient number of blacks passed it. This, of course, meant that the whites who were discriminated against filed suit and the Supreme Court sort of sided with them even though Sotamayor ruled the other way. The claim by the blacks and those who support Sotamayor's ruling state that blacks do not do well on multiple choice exams, are not as well prepared as those who actually study for the exam, and blah, blah, blah.
In my years as a medical school Professor, I have given a large number of exams and the rules of the game hold that even though much of the content of the lectures is largely the same from year to year, students are given access to all the exams given over the previous few years. Therefore, in order for us to really discern whether the students have learned the material, it is necessary to construct an exam in which the questions have been varied in such a way as to distribute the performance over a wide enough span to make a proper assessment. This leads me to my proposal for qualifying exams such as the one for promotion in the fire department in New Haven, Connecticut.
Go to all the minority firefighters in the pool of potential promotees and have them make up an exam. Have them make up the questions and provide the answers. Go over the questions with them and establish that in fact they make sure a fire officer knows about building materials, fire suppression agents vis a vis the nature of the fire and so forth. Exclude the white applicants from the process. Now, take the resulting test questions, rephrase them, switch the alternate (wrong) responses, and give the exam to everyone. After this, let the chips fall where they may and hopefully avoid complaints about the unfairness of the exam and maybe even absurd court cases.

Good Question

Consider Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA Hospitals, and any other governmental program. Which is such a success that you want the feds to take over your access to health care?

Afghanistan Report by Michael Yon

Michael Yon for many years, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has been an independent reporter who actually goes out into the field of battle instead of staying in protected areas like most reporters. This is his latest pictorial report from Afghanistan which ends with the following conclusion. Go here to read it all and see his pictures.

The war is heating up and all signs indicate it will continue to worsen. The Afghan war has become more dangerous, on a per capita basis, than the Iraq war ever was. The unit I will soon be with took five KIA last week and many others wounded. July will almost certainly be the most deadly month so far in the entire Afghan war. The press makes it sound like the British must be shaken, but I know those soldiers. They will be striking back. Needless to say, our people will do the same as needed. Nobody over here is shaking in his or her boots. We don’t have enough troops, or Afghan forces, but our folks are ready for more action and will do what needs to be done.

This may be fun to watch

It didn't take long for Clinton to double cross New York City. Six months into her tenure as secretary of state she has suddenly exempted diplomats from paying some property taxes there. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said her betrayal has cost the city $260 million in lost tax revenues and counting. As New York's junior senator, Clinton fought to make diplomats pay up. And he said her reversal changes a longstanding policy. "Since 1873 they've been saying this is taxable," Bloomberg said.
As might be expected, the senior Senator from New York, Charles "where is the camera" Schumer, will get involved. "We're going to find a way to make sure that these embassies pay and that New York is made whole," Schumer said.

Let the fun begin.

China on a slippery slope to decadence

From China Daily:

A spokesman for China's Hunan Satellite Television said Tuesday that "Happy Girls", its proposed version of "American Idol", had won conditional approval from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

The conditional approval came after a similar reality show planned by Hunan TV was cancelled last year amid criticism that it promoted vulgarity and encouraged youngsters to seek instant celebrity.TV company executives were discussing the timetable and rules of the contest, Li Chao said. But he added they would stick to the tradition of selecting the best singers to the taste of the general public.

Everything's O.K.

President Obama said his $787 billion stimulus plan passed without anyone having read it "has worked as intended". At the time it was described as essential to pass this in order to keep unemployment at 8%. Since unemployment is now 9.5% and rising, maybe it was really intended to be a pork bill and if so, Obama is correct. He wouldn't mis-speak, would he?

Obama's realistic goal

White House officials confirmed that Obama agreed to language supporting a goal of keeping the world's average temperature from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Should be easy considering the following climate report. Read it all.

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another dorp in temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled 0.74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

Get me out of here

The G8 meeting is being held in an Italian town which was recently severely damaged by an earthquake. There have been several aftershocks. A newscast I heard said the host country had helicopters waiting to remove the heads of state should a subsequent quake strike the area. Wouldn't that have been a fun story? The helicopters take out the big wigs and leave the rest of the people to deal with the rubble.

Cap and trade?

Here is a little lesson in logic. If Obama puts a tax on carbon emissions and you have a manufacturing plant is some place like Ohio, would you be put at a greater or lesser competitive position vis a vis a plant in China which does not pay this tax and never will? Once again we are reminded that elections have consequences.

Body Language Mean Anything? Hope not!!!

Palin Derangement Syndrome

It is fascinating to read and hear the reaction of the chattering class to Governor Palin's resignation. All of the liberals just despise her. This is especially true of the liberal females like Maureen Dowd, Ruth Marcus, and Gail Collins.
She is stupid, ill informed, mentally ill, a quiter, and all manner of lower humanity to these elites. Why does she elicit such emotion? Surely the New York and Washington punditry have other things to worry and concern themselves with. Obviously, that is not the case with any liberals including those in the Republican party who are also working behind the scenes to discredit her. One of the most absurd objections to her is her resignation to do something else. How much did we hear when Obama essentially resigned from the senate (even though he collected pay checks each month) and started running for President? John McCain did the same thing. Before them there was John Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, and others. Didn't Hillary resign from the Senate to do something else? Guess that was different since nothing was said about it. Nobody knows anything about Palin's plans or the specifics of her family situation, but the speculation is almost entirely negative and premature. She is obviously a tremendous threat to some large part of the political status quo.

Over Stimulated? Apparently not!

In April of 2008 Bush and Pelosi passed a $168 billion stimulus bill which they said would prevent a recession. The jobless rate was then 4.8%. Next comes Obama who, vowing not to be outdone by Bush, got in bed with Pelosi again and rammed through a $768 billion stimulus bill which nobody had read. This legislation was designed to do almost everything but create jobs and it is proving to be less than effective as the jobless rate is about 17% if you include folks who are discouraged from looking for work and those working part-time who want full-time jobs. The official rate is 9.5%.

So we have an apparent lack of success with stimulus bills. We also have a minimum wage hike going into effect on July 24th which will hardly induce further hiring of those entering the job market for the first time or with limited skills. Something needs to be done and a predictable suggestion comes from Paul Krugman, the liberal Nobel Laureate who writes left-wing drivel for the New York Times. He says---passionately--- that Obama needs to get busy and pass another stimulus bill. Read it here. Yes, it fits the classic definition of insanity. Do the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

The EPA Muzzle

1. The EPA of the "open" and "transparent" Obama administration decided a contrary report on the contribution of man to our current global cooling which is called global warming or "climate change" is discussed in this Wall Street Journal essay.

BestView agrees with a comment to the article above:

....the silencing of Mr. Carlin along with Al Gore’s lifestyle, reveals the true nature of the hoax, that it is a political tool to further a leftist agenda. If Global Warming was actually occurring and caused by man, then the earth would be warming. It’s not. If there was legitimate concern about the effects on the planet, all “believers” would stop flying, driving and maybe even breathing and there would be intense, open, honest debate in an effort to find real solutions without silencing any particular point of view. Instead we are told to accept climate change on faith and any views such as Mr. Carlin’s which are not supportive of Obama’s agenda are heresy.

And also this one:

I was up at Glacier Point in Yosemite admiring the glacial polish on the granite and reading the signs explaining how the ice in Yosemite Valley had sculpted the U-shaped valley, that 10,000 years ago the ice retreated, leaving the valley as we see it today. I thought "there's your global warming -- it's been going on since the last Ice Age (which was not the first Ice Age)." Why is it that there's a sudden leap of faith that it is human activity causing the warming? Bunch of arrogant people who project trends via computer programs and tell us that C02 is going to get us all when it is an infinitesimal percentage of the atmosphere. Could it be that there's a new religion afoot? One which uses a natural phenomenon to exercise control over people and congeal power in the great and all-knowing government? Let's not bow down to the new czars yet.

Jimmy Carter redux

It looks like Obama has the same foreign policy instincts as Jimmy Carter and will usually come down on the wrong side. We saw this when he puts pressure on Israel about settlements with very little on the Palestinians. Again, he was slow to realize Iran is a brutal terrorist nation and then he came down on the side of Chavez, Castro and other communists in the Honduras' efforts to avoid a fate similar to these failing nations in Central and South America.

With the Obama domestic policy initiatives combined with his international mis-steps, this is going to a long 4 years.