From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul  5 19:48:47 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 19:48:47 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Economic Report
Message-ID: <0A9D526891FF462192609B90C29A3DFE@YOURB88038198E>

How is the economy doing?  Having made the trip from Greenville, SC to the northeast many times in various econmic conditions, I have come to appreciate the traffic on Interstate I-81 as an indicator of conditions.  Consider that I made this trip many times since 1970.  Some of the times were recession, other times the news reported as undeterminable and other times the news reported as good.

I have made the trip on all days of the week and all hours of the day.

I have learned to just look at the 18 wheelers to get an accurate feel for the economy.

One 1000 mile trip up and one 1000 mile trip back to Greenville.

Here is what I saw.  On Friday June 26th many trucks.  Too many to say severe recession.  Friday is not a big truck day for long haul trucks because there is often no one to unload on Saturday.  So what I saw was too many trucks on a Friday for a severe recession.

Return trip on July 5th.  Sunday morning a few trucks, noticeably many from Canada?  Well consider I-81 connects Canada with New Orleans.  Mid afternoon, light to moderate trucks.  And as afternoon progressed, many more trucks.  I term the number moderate.  This would be correct for truck travel on this long haul route for good economic conditions.  The loaded trailers would be positioned to unload Monday morning.   

So, my opinion based on amount of trucks is that things are not really very bad.

Now Sunday after according to AAA the traffic was supposed to be moderate.  Well, they were wrong.  The traffic on this more remote route and I-77 to Charlotte was heavy.  From Charlotte to Greenville on I-85 it was very heavy and some delays heading north!  

In summary, the highway traffic was heavy for the 4th.  

Ed K
Greenville, SC, USA
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul  5 20:03:11 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 08:03:11 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Economic Report
In-Reply-To: <0A9D526891FF462192609B90C29A3DFE@YOURB88038198E>
References: <0A9D526891FF462192609B90C29A3DFE@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907051703r70cbf6das963e6dac0ec7d1ca@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

>From what I've heard from the truckers I know, business is way off.
The business report from here in China is that the US economy is
expected to be negative 2.8 per cent for 2009, negative 6 per cent for
Europe, and positive 3 per cent for China.

Speaking of China, we flew into Shanghai this year to spend some time
with friends and make some side trips before heading to Beijing.  I
pulled-up my e-mail and, lo and behold, one was from Steve Alm (Slim)
telling me he was visiting his friend in Shanghai (hadn't heard from
him since shortly after Mary Ann died).  I replied, "Steve, you ain't
gonna believe this, but I'm in Shanghai!"  Our schedules didn't allow
us to meet-up in Shanghai but he and his friend already had an
excursion planned to Beijing.  Tomorrow morning I'm meeting them at
the train station and Fan and I are hosting them for a few days.

Small world, huh?

Brad

On 7/6/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> How is the economy doing?  Having made the trip from Greenville, SC to the
> northeast many times in various econmic conditions, I have come to
> appreciate the traffic on Interstate I-81 as an indicator of conditions.
> Consider that I made this trip many times since 1970.  Some of the times
> were recession, other times the news reported as undeterminable and other
> times the news reported as good.
>
> I have made the trip on all days of the week and all hours of the day.
>
> I have learned to just look at the 18 wheelers to get an accurate feel for
> the economy.
>
> One 1000 mile trip up and one 1000 mile trip back to Greenville.
>
> Here is what I saw.  On Friday June 26th many trucks.  Too many to say
> severe recession.  Friday is not a big truck day for long haul trucks
> because there is often no one to unload on Saturday.  So what I saw was too
> many trucks on a Friday for a severe recession.
>
> Return trip on July 5th.  Sunday morning a few trucks, noticeably many from
> Canada?  Well consider I-81 connects Canada with New Orleans.  Mid
> afternoon, light to moderate trucks.  And as afternoon progressed, many more
> trucks.  I term the number moderate.  This would be correct for truck travel
> on this long haul route for good economic conditions.  The loaded trailers
> would be positioned to unload Monday morning.
>
> So, my opinion based on amount of trucks is that things are not really very
> bad.
>
> Now Sunday after according to AAA the traffic was supposed to be moderate.
> Well, they were wrong.  The traffic on this more remote route and I-77 to
> Charlotte was heavy.  From Charlotte to Greenville on I-85 it was very heavy
> and some delays heading north!
>
> In summary, the highway traffic was heavy for the 4th.
>
> Ed K
> Greenville, SC, USA

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul  5 20:41:19 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 5 Jul 2009 20:41:19 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Slim sighting
Message-ID: <C5A8C2DF384345E6A51DFC6504C7B0B9@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

Tell him to come up on Swift Water.

As to economic report.  Consider that a 3% negative against how many years positive?  

During one recession I made the trip early before it was fully reported as being one and noticed no trucks.  Later while the press was still saying recession I made the trip again and saw too many trucks for recession.  A few months late the recession was declared over.  

This is a long haul truck route feeding the northeast.  I actually used to make this trip before I-81 was finished and I-77 still a planners dream.  

What I am saying is that the truck volume is good.  Not great, but good.

So, is your buddy B.O. going to be in Beijing too?

Ed K

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From bill at effros.com  Sun Jul  5 21:31:10 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Sun, 05 Jul 2009 21:31:10 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Slim Report
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907051703r70cbf6das963e6dac0ec7d1ca@mail.gmail.com>
References: <0A9D526891FF462192609B90C29A3DFE@YOURB88038198E>
	<400985d70907051703r70cbf6das963e6dac0ec7d1ca@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4A5153DE.3080506@effros.com>

Brad,

Give Slim my best, I think about him all the time.

Been meaning to get in touch but couldn't find the time.

I will as soon as I can.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Ed,
>
> >From what I've heard from the truckers I know, business is way off.
> The business report from here in China is that the US economy is
> expected to be negative 2.8 per cent for 2009, negative 6 per cent for
> Europe, and positive 3 per cent for China.
>
> Speaking of China, we flew into Shanghai this year to spend some time
> with friends and make some side trips before heading to Beijing.  I
> pulled-up my e-mail and, lo and behold, one was from Steve Alm (Slim)
> telling me he was visiting his friend in Shanghai (hadn't heard from
> him since shortly after Mary Ann died).  I replied, "Steve, you ain't
> gonna believe this, but I'm in Shanghai!"  Our schedules didn't allow
> us to meet-up in Shanghai but he and his friend already had an
> excursion planned to Beijing.  Tomorrow morning I'm meeting them at
> the train station and Fan and I are hosting them for a few days.
>
> Small world, huh?
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/6/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>   
>> How is the economy doing?  Having made the trip from Greenville, SC to the
>> northeast many times in various econmic conditions, I have come to
>> appreciate the traffic on Interstate I-81 as an indicator of conditions.
>> Consider that I made this trip many times since 1970.  Some of the times
>> were recession, other times the news reported as undeterminable and other
>> times the news reported as good.
>>
>> I have made the trip on all days of the week and all hours of the day.
>>
>> I have learned to just look at the 18 wheelers to get an accurate feel for
>> the economy.
>>
>> One 1000 mile trip up and one 1000 mile trip back to Greenville.
>>
>> Here is what I saw.  On Friday June 26th many trucks.  Too many to say
>> severe recession.  Friday is not a big truck day for long haul trucks
>> because there is often no one to unload on Saturday.  So what I saw was too
>> many trucks on a Friday for a severe recession.
>>
>> Return trip on July 5th.  Sunday morning a few trucks, noticeably many from
>> Canada?  Well consider I-81 connects Canada with New Orleans.  Mid
>> afternoon, light to moderate trucks.  And as afternoon progressed, many more
>> trucks.  I term the number moderate.  This would be correct for truck travel
>> on this long haul route for good economic conditions.  The loaded trailers
>> would be positioned to unload Monday morning.
>>
>> So, my opinion based on amount of trucks is that things are not really very
>> bad.
>>
>> Now Sunday after according to AAA the traffic was supposed to be moderate.
>> Well, they were wrong.  The traffic on this more remote route and I-77 to
>> Charlotte was heavy.  From Charlotte to Greenville on I-85 it was very heavy
>> and some delays heading north!
>>
>> In summary, the highway traffic was heavy for the 4th.
>>
>> Ed K
>> Greenville, SC, USA
>>     
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul  5 21:45:19 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 09:45:19 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Slim Report
In-Reply-To: <4A5153DE.3080506@effros.com>
References: <0A9D526891FF462192609B90C29A3DFE@YOURB88038198E>
	<400985d70907051703r70cbf6das963e6dac0ec7d1ca@mail.gmail.com>
	<4A5153DE.3080506@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907051845n19823a23r800c22785eb82a9e@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Full report to follow!  Slim played a gig last night in Shanghai so
they changed their travel plans for today - taking the night train to
Beijing and will arrive here tomorrow morning.  He traveled to China
with the daughter of the friend who lives there.  She's been taking
care of his dogs in Minnie while he plays gigs in the US.  Music has
kept him going. Can't wait to see the bugger!

Brad

PS - We took the fast train (160 kilometers) yesterday and bought
first class tickets - lots of legroom and very clean cars..  What a
nice ride!  Too bad we live in a third world country.

On 7/6/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Give Slim my best, I think about him all the time.
>
> Been meaning to get in touch but couldn't find the time.
>
> I will as soon as I can.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> Ed,
>>
>> >From what I've heard from the truckers I know, business is way off.
>> The business report from here in China is that the US economy is
>> expected to be negative 2.8 per cent for 2009, negative 6 per cent for
>> Europe, and positive 3 per cent for China.
>>
>> Speaking of China, we flew into Shanghai this year to spend some time
>> with friends and make some side trips before heading to Beijing.  I
>> pulled-up my e-mail and, lo and behold, one was from Steve Alm (Slim)
>> telling me he was visiting his friend in Shanghai (hadn't heard from
>> him since shortly after Mary Ann died).  I replied, "Steve, you ain't
>> gonna believe this, but I'm in Shanghai!"  Our schedules didn't allow
>> us to meet-up in Shanghai but he and his friend already had an
>> excursion planned to Beijing.  Tomorrow morning I'm meeting them at
>> the train station and Fan and I are hosting them for a few days.
>>
>> Small world, huh?
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/6/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>>
>>> How is the economy doing?  Having made the trip from Greenville, SC to
>>> the
>>> northeast many times in various econmic conditions, I have come to
>>> appreciate the traffic on Interstate I-81 as an indicator of conditions.
>>> Consider that I made this trip many times since 1970.  Some of the times
>>> were recession, other times the news reported as undeterminable and other
>>> times the news reported as good.
>>>
>>> I have made the trip on all days of the week and all hours of the day.
>>>
>>> I have learned to just look at the 18 wheelers to get an accurate feel
>>> for
>>> the economy.
>>>
>>> One 1000 mile trip up and one 1000 mile trip back to Greenville.
>>>
>>> Here is what I saw.  On Friday June 26th many trucks.  Too many to say
>>> severe recession.  Friday is not a big truck day for long haul trucks
>>> because there is often no one to unload on Saturday.  So what I saw was
>>> too
>>> many trucks on a Friday for a severe recession.
>>>
>>> Return trip on July 5th.  Sunday morning a few trucks, noticeably many
>>> from
>>> Canada?  Well consider I-81 connects Canada with New Orleans.  Mid
>>> afternoon, light to moderate trucks.  And as afternoon progressed, many
>>> more
>>> trucks.  I term the number moderate.  This would be correct for truck
>>> travel
>>> on this long haul route for good economic conditions.  The loaded
>>> trailers
>>> would be positioned to unload Monday morning.
>>>
>>> So, my opinion based on amount of trucks is that things are not really
>>> very
>>> bad.
>>>
>>> Now Sunday after according to AAA the traffic was supposed to be
>>> moderate.
>>> Well, they were wrong.  The traffic on this more remote route and I-77 to
>>> Charlotte was heavy.  From Charlotte to Greenville on I-85 it was very
>>> heavy
>>> and some delays heading north!
>>>
>>> In summary, the highway traffic was heavy for the 4th.
>>>
>>> Ed K
>>> Greenville, SC, USA
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>

From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul  6 10:24:01 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 10:24:01 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamopoly
Message-ID: <798536A22BF341559E30B085C58DE7FF@YOURB88038198E>




The object of the game is to destroy American capitalism by 
having the government take over everything!

Tokens include a bus, a teleprompter, a sprig of arugula and 
a waffle iron.

Wanna play? No???

Too bad, you're already playing...

(see attached picture):


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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul  6 14:17:30 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 14:17:30 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] A United States Senator Hawking Books?
Message-ID: <19F8B7CFAAB240B3BC8E911EE5003B71@YOURB88038198E>

July 6, 2009

 

Do you know what Freedom is?

A special commentary from United States Senator Jim DeMint

A few months ago, I was on CNN talking about the future of the Republican Party.  As I always do, I predicted that we could certainly regain our national majority, if we first rally around our great, unifying principle of freedom.  The anchor cut me off: "What the h--- does that mean? . Freedom?" 

 

Anyone wondering why America is losing its freedom can find an answer in that question. After all, how can we preserve and defend freedom if we don't even know what it is? To help remind Americans of our shared heritage of freedom and to rally them to reclaim that heritage for ourselves and our children, I wrote a book, out this week, called Saving Freedom: We Can Stop America's Slide Toward Socialism. 

 

Freedom is not a gift from government, but a right given to us by God. We believe that every human being is endowed with "certain unalienable Rights," including "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness."  In 1787, our Founding Fathers met in Philadelphia to forge a new system of government, designed to "form a more perfect union" and guarantee Americans, in the words of Ronald Reagan, "the maximum of personal liberty consistent with order." 

 

Paramount among the reasons this system succeeded in America was our political and religious culture that accepted the inextricable connection between personal freedom and personal responsibility.  It was understood that, for every question in life not answered by government, individuals, families, and neighborhoods must work out answers for themselves.  The Founders knew that the natural order of things was for government to expand at the expense of personal liberty, so their Constitution was based on an implicit bargain - the less government does for you, the less government can do to you. 

 

Today, our once-limited federal government has betrayed those founding principles.  It tries to be all things to all people, yet despite its good intentions, government action usually does more harm than good.  Look around: every system Washington touches - health care, education, energy, infrastructure, mortgage lending - quickly begins to break down.  In some recent cases, including the automobile bankruptcies and the Wall Street bailouts, even the rule of law itself has been subordinated to the good intentions of politicians and bureaucrats.  And yet government's solution to the problems it causes is always . more government.  To solve problems created by government's role in our schools or health care, Congress now proposes a complete federal takeover of these systems! 

 

 

What Washington refuses to understand is that government systems will always fail because they are not free.  Private schools perform better than public schools.  Private health insurance provides better care than government programs, and controls its own costs.  And on and on.  Without the competitive pressures and transparency of a free market, government agencies have no motivation to improve their services.  After 10 years in Washington, I have concluded that both parties are slow to recognize this one simple fact: freedom works, and government doesn't. 

 

That's why I wrote Saving Freedom.  Washington simply will not change on its own.  To change our politics, we first have to change our culture.  We need to remember that freedom demands responsibility.  We need to reject politicians who promise us something for nothing, and instead take back both our freedoms and the responsibilities that go with them.  We must not only end our growing dependence on government; we must become independent in our own right. 

 

Given the space and choices to make our own decisions, whether in education, health care, civil society, or in business - the American people will thrive, as they always have.  But the political class in Washington will not easily return the power it has taken from us - we must take it back, in two ways. 

 

First, we must remake America's culture of responsibility: in our family life, in our communities, and in our businesses.  We must prepare our nation for its rebirth of freedom, so that when government finally does begin to change, our culture and economy can hit the ground running. 

 

And second, this cultural renewal must assert itself in the political arena.  Elected politicians are only as unresponsive as their constituents allow.  They know that every letter and email and phone call represents hundreds more just like them.  They know that Big Government's worst enemy is an informed citizenry, ready at the next election to punish anyone who infringes on our God-given and constitutionally-guaranteed freedoms.  Get involved, and I promise - we will see results. 

 

Freedom can be saved, but it can't free itself.  Like the patriots of Bunker Hill and Philadelphia, of Gettysburg and Normandy, our generation must now take up that banner for ourselves.  Saving Freedom is never easy, but it's always worth it. Please read Saving Freedom and join the fight!

 

Jim Demint

United States Senator

South Carolina

(Trying to finance a reelection campaign by selling books:  

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0805449574?ie=UTF8&tag=glennbeckcom-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=1789&creativeASIN=0805449574 )
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul  6 12:29:31 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 12:29:31 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Mop situation at White House?
Message-ID: <4050233B26E949BC91EA5D1F2A6E62F1@YOURB88038198E>


See attachment:

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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul  6 20:14:52 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 6 Jul 2009 20:14:52 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Continuing questions to keep Rik on his toes:
Message-ID: <AC79280E1DCD44E48E0DDAF84EABAB48@YOURB88038198E>

Continuing questions to keep Rik on his toes:

        Very Interesting questions

         

        More questions, and this time some good questions.

         

        While I've little interest in getting in the middle of the Obama birth
        issue, Paul Hollrah over at FSM did so yesterday and believes the issue can be
        resolved by Obama answering one simple question:


        What passport did he use when he was shuttling between
        New York, Jakarta, and Karachi?

         

        So how did a young man who arrived in New York in early June 1981,
        without the price of a hotel room in his pocket, suddenly come up with the price of a round-the-world trip just a month later?


        And once he was on a plane, shuttling between New York, Jakarta, and
        Karachi, what passport was he offering when he passed through Customs and
        Immigration?


        The American people not only deserve to have answers to these questions,
        they must have answers. 

         

        It makes the debate over Obama's citizenship a rather short and simple one.

         

        Q: Did he travel to Pakistan in 1981, at age 20?
        A : Yes, by his own admission.

         

        Q: What passport did he travel under?

        A: There are only three possibilities.
        1) He traveled with a U.S. Passport,
        2) He traveled with a British passport, or
        3) He traveled with an Indonesia passport.

         

        Q: Is it possible that Obama traveled with a U.S. Passport in 1981?
        A: No. It is not possible.
        Pakistan was on the U.S. State Department's "no travel" list in
        1981.
        Conclusion:


        When Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 he was traveling either with a
        British passport or an Indonesian passport.

         

        If he were traveling with a British passport that would provide proof
        that he was born in Kenya on August 4, 1961, not in Hawaii as he claims.
        And if he were traveling with an Indonesian passport that would tend to
        prove that he relinquished whatever previous citizenship he held, British or
        American, prior to being adopted by his Indonesian step-father in 1967.

         

        Whatever the truth of the matter,the American people need to know how he managed to become a "natural born"
        American citizen between 1981 and 2008..


        Given the destructive nature of his plans for America,
        as illustrated by his speech before Congress
        and the disastrous spending plan he has presented to Congress,
        the sooner we learn the truth of all this, the better.

         

        If you Don't care that Your President is not a natural born Citizen and in Violation of the Constitution, then Delete this and go into your cocoon.

         

         

         
     

 

 Posted by Ed K
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From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul  7 08:38:42 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 08:38:42 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Continuing questions to keep Rik on his
 toes:
In-Reply-To: <AC79280E1DCD44E48E0DDAF84EABAB48@YOURB88038198E>
References: <AC79280E1DCD44E48E0DDAF84EABAB48@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <4A5341D2.1080008@effros.com>

Ed,

There's another question:

When a black child traveled to the United States from Indonesia with his 
white mother in 19?? how did she prove he was her child, and how did she 
prove he was a United States citizen?

Presumably she came up with some sort of birth certificate.  It couldn't 
have been the one the Obama campaign produced because that one hadn't 
been printed at that time.  Moreover, that form of birth certificate is 
specifically prohibited by immigration authorities-- she would have to 
produce a certified original birth certificate -- long form.

We have all been required to come up with certified copies of our birth 
certificates from time to time.  Obama was, too.

It should be possible to make a freedom of information act request of 
the immigration service to learn what document Obama's mama used to 
regain entry for him.

B.


Ed Kroposki wrote:
> Continuing questions to keep Rik on his toes:
>  
>
>     Very Interesting questions
>
>      
>
>     More questions, and this time some good questions.
>
>      
>
>     While I've little interest in getting in the middle of the Obama birth
>     issue, Paul Hollrah over at FSM did so yesterday and believes the
>     issue can be
>     resolved by Obama answering one simple question:
>
>
>     **_What passport did he use when he was shuttling between_***_
>     **New York****, Jakarta, and Karachi?**_*
>
>      
>
>     So how did a young man who arrived in New York in early June 1981,
>     without the price of a hotel room in his pocket, suddenly come up
>     with the price of a round-the-world trip just a month later?
>
>
>     **And once he was on a plane, shuttling between New York, Jakarta,
>     and***
>     **Karachi****, what passport was he offering when he passed
>     through Customs and**
>     **Immigration?***
>
>     *
>     *The American people not only deserve to have answers to these
>     questions,
>     they must have answers. 
>
>      
>
>     It makes the debate over Obama's citizenship a rather short and
>     simple one.
>
>      
>
>     _Q: Did he travel to Pakistan in 1981, at age 20?
>     A : Yes, by his own admission._
>
>      
>
>     **Q: What passport did he travel under?**
>
>     A: There are only three possibilities.
>     1) He traveled with a U.S. Passport,
>     2) He traveled with a British passport, or
>     3) He traveled with an Indonesia passport.
>
>      
>
>     Q: Is it possible that Obama traveled with a U.S. Passport in 1981?
>     A: No. It is not possible.
>     Pakistan was on the U.S. State Department's "no travel" list in
>     1981.
>     Conclusion:
>
>
>     When Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 he was traveling either with a
>     British passport or an Indonesian passport.
>
>      
>
>     If he were traveling with a British passport that would provide proof
>     that he was born in Kenya on August 4, 1961, not in Hawaii as he
>     claims.
>     And if he were traveling with an Indonesian passport that would
>     tend to
>     prove that he relinquished whatever previous citizenship he held,
>     British or
>     American, prior to being adopted by his Indonesian step-father in
>     1967.
>
>      
>
>     Whatever the truth of the matter,the American people need to know
>     how he managed to become a "natural born"
>     American citizen between 1981 and 2008..
>
>
>     Given the destructive nature of his plans for America,
>     as illustrated by his speech before Congress
>     and the disastrous spending plan he has presented to Congress,
>     the sooner we learn the truth of all this, the better.
>
>      
>
>     _If you Don't care that Your President is not a natural born
>     Citizen and in Violation of the Constitution, then Delete this and
>     go into your cocoon._
>
>      
>
>      
>
>      
>
>  
>
>  Posted by Ed K
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From bencittadino at gmail.com  Tue Jul  7 11:26:49 2009
From: bencittadino at gmail.com (Benjamin Cittadino)
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 11:26:49 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brooks On Dignity
In-Reply-To: <43B1E98C24F2D241A25C39B8721778D4DD89EF@dcs-srv1.dcslaw.com>
References: <43B1E98C24F2D241A25C39B8721778D4DD89EF@dcs-srv1.dcslaw.com>
Message-ID: <9c1805870907070826p75e2c37cr7e39007d7233df11@mail.gmail.com>

On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Benjamin Cittadino
<bcittadino at dcs-law.com>wrote:

>   I noticed the following commentary this morning. I think David Brook's
> observations should be taken to heart by us all, especially those of us who
> would seek to impugn the motives and integrity of others. Thought it was
> worth passing along.
>  [image: The New York Times]
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> July 7, 2009
> Op-Ed Columnist
> In Search of Dignity By DAVID BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
>
> When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 ?Rules
> of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.? Some of the
> rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or
> meeting somebody on the street.
>
> ?Lean not upon anyone,? was one of the rules. ?Read no letter, books or
> papers in company,? was another. ?If any one come to speak to you while you
> are sitting, stand up,? was a third.
>
> But, as the biographer Richard Brookhiser has noted, these rules, which
> Washington derived from a 16th-century guidebook, were not just etiquette
> tips. They were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward man.
> Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them.
> Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.
>
> In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn?t primarily
> a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has
> written, ?Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical
> hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation. It
> was his moral character that set him off from other men.?
>
> Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the
> dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation?s
> Constitution ? that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant
> peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial
> systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
>
> The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested ? to endeavor
> to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its
> followers to be reticent ? to never degrade intimate emotions by parading
> them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate ? to
> distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
>
> Remnants of the dignity code lasted for decades. For most of American
> history, politicians did not publicly campaign for president. It was thought
> that the act of publicly promoting oneself was ruinously corrupting. For
> most of American history, memoirists passed over the intimacies of private
> life. Even in the 19th century, people were appalled that journalists might
> pollute a wedding by covering it in the press.
>
> Today, Americans still lavishly admire people who are naturally dignified,
> whether they are in sports (Joe DiMaggio and Tom Landry), entertainment
> (Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks) or politics (Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther
> King Jr.).
>
> But the dignity code itself has been completely obliterated. The rules that
> guided Washington and generations of people after him are simply gone.
>
> We can all list the causes of its demise. First, there is capitalism. We
> are all encouraged to become managers of our own brand, to do self-promoting
> end zone dances to broadcast our own talents. Second, there is the cult of
> naturalism. We are all encouraged to discard artifice and repression and to
> instead liberate our own feelings. Third, there is charismatic evangelism
> with its penchant for public confession. Fourth, there is radical
> egalitarianism and its hostility to aristocratic manners.
>
> The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its demise
> are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring people
> who simply do not know how to act. For example, during the first few weeks
> of summer, three stories have dominated public conversation, and each one
> exemplifies another branch of indignity.
>
> First, there was Mark Sanford?s press conference. Here was a guy utterly
> lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure
> even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael Jackson
> and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently untouched
> by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of adulthood.
> Then there was Sarah Palin?s press conference. Here was a woman who aspires
> to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and
> constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.
>
> In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms to
> guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.
>
> Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any
> larger set of rules or ethical system.
>
> But it?s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is
> the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have
> with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and the
> other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his presidency
> are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may revitalize
> the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules
> for self-mastery.
>



-- 
Ben Cittadino
BenCittadino at gmail.com
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul  7 13:04:22 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:04:22 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Reply to Bill E. about Birth Certificates
Message-ID: <2851371E4527469F83CED682AD2DE729@YOURB88038198E>

Actually Bill years ago documentation was not as good as today.

When I went into the Air Force I filled out pages of background and on the bases of that information and some checking by the Air Force I was given a commission and a Top Secret Security Clearance.

After I was commissioned I had to get a passport.  That is when the fun began.  The court house where my original birth certificate was on file burned down.  All I had was a crumpled paper copy that my mother had.  That copy was good for everything until the passport.  While I can now get a certified copy from the state records, such was not available at that time. And that is a modern recreation.

So I had to get official affidavits from a number of persons attesting to the fact that I was who I was.  I had an aunt still living near where I was born and the doctor who delivered me was still in good health so after a few weeks the documentation was completed to the Passport issuers requirements.  Understand that I was an Air Force Officer handling nuclear weapons at the time I was getting the passport.  

I can imagine the difficulty of someone living a 1000 miles from where I was born without any contacts remaining there trying to get a passport.

So, as to Obama's records, I appreciate his problem.  However, I also appreciate the question of how he went to a country that was on the U. S. do not visit list. And apparently he got a scholarship as a foreign student.

I suspect that he was born in Hawaii but the loyalty issues need to be examined.  Does travel on a foreign passport disqualify him from the Presidency? Does saying he was an Indonesian to qualify for a scholarship disqualify him?

Ed K

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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul  7 13:10:08 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 13:10:08 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's Mama's reentry
Message-ID: <A47CDB8E66C0400E99367898D5B3991C@YOURB88038198E>

Bill said, "It should be possible to make a freedom of information act request of 
the immigration service to learn what document Obama's mama used to 
regain entry for him."

Bill you are expecting too much in the record keeping of the government.  Freedom 
of information would probably find nothing.  I have been in and out of the country 
numerous times.  Heck, sometimes after I said hello to the gatekeeper, he just 
waved me on.  And everyone else in the car I was driving.

The only questions I remember being asked was if I had more than two quarts 
of liquor and anything to declare.

Ed K


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From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul  7 14:33:11 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:33:11 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Reply to Bill E. about Birth Certificates
In-Reply-To: <2851371E4527469F83CED682AD2DE729@YOURB88038198E>
References: <2851371E4527469F83CED682AD2DE729@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <4A5394E7.90207@effros.com>

Ed,

I've told this story before, but when we hire in Brooklyn we discover 
that Poles who speak little English can come up with all the 
identification they need in a day, whereas blacks who obviously were 
born in this country can't prove it.

Not the point, though.  The point is that Obama doesn't want anyone to 
see his actual birth certificate, and the State of Hawaii says it 
exists.  He must have been forced to produce it many times in the past, 
and some of those times it was surely copied and subject to Freedom of 
Information disclosure.

You and I both know he couldn't get a passport with the documents he has 
placed on the table.  He hasn't pointed to a single doctor who was 
present at his birth.  How about hospital records?  Does any hospital in 
Hawaii have a record of a live birth?  We know the exact date.  This 
should not be too hard to figure out.  How many different babies were 
born in Honolulu hospitals on the date of Obama's birth?  Was Obama one 
of them?

I can't imagine why he is fighting so hard to keep his birth certificate 
under wraps.  If he was really born in Hawaii he could prove it in an 
instant, and that would be that.  What possible reason is there to hide 
the birth certificate if it says what he says it says.

B.



Ed Kroposki wrote:
> Actually Bill years ago documentation was not as good as today.
>  
> When I went into the Air Force I filled out pages of background and on 
> the bases of that information and some checking by the Air Force I was 
> given a commission and a Top Secret Security Clearance.
>  
> After I was commissioned I had to get a passport.  That is when the 
> fun began.  The court house where my original birth certificate was on 
> file burned down.  All I had was a crumpled paper copy that my mother 
> had.  That copy was good for everything until the passport.  While I 
> can now get a certified copy from the state records, such was not 
> available at that time. And that is a modern recreation.
>  
> So I had to get official affidavits from a number of persons attesting 
> to the fact that I was who I was.  I had an aunt still living near 
> where I was born and the doctor who delivered me was still in good 
> health so after a few weeks the documentation was completed to the 
> Passport issuers requirements.  Understand that I was an Air Force 
> Officer handling nuclear weapons at the time I was getting the passport. 
>  
> I can imagine the difficulty of someone living a 1000 miles from where 
> I was born without any contacts remaining there trying to get a passport.
>  
> So, as to Obama's records, I appreciate his problem.  However, I also 
> appreciate the question of how he went to a country that was on the U. 
> S. do not visit list. And apparently he got a scholarship as a foreign 
> student.
>  
> I suspect that he was born in Hawaii but the loyalty issues need to be 
> examined.  Does travel on a foreign passport disqualify him from the 
> Presidency? Does saying he was an Indonesian to qualify for a 
> scholarship disqualify him?
>  
> Ed K
>  
>  
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul  7 14:43:32 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 14:43:32 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's Mama's reentry
In-Reply-To: <A47CDB8E66C0400E99367898D5B3991C@YOURB88038198E>
References: <A47CDB8E66C0400E99367898D5B3991C@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <4A539754.9000503@effros.com>

Ed,

They won't let you on the plane without showing your passport.  Children 
don't need passports, just birth certificates.  A white mother with a 
white child might get waved through.  A white mother with a black 
child...I think not--and I think nobody would get on the plane with the 
hope that they would just be waved through without documentation on 
arrival.  "Oh, she says it's her kid.  No problem, let them through."

"Let me see your birth certificate" or "This child is traveling on an 
Indonesian Passport".

We're too old to buy into sophistry.  We may not know the right answer, 
but we can spot a wrong answer.  And the answers we've been getting are 
phonies.  I can prove I was born here and never gave up my citizenship.  
You can, too.  Obama can't.

B.



Ed Kroposki wrote:
> Bill said, "It should be possible to make a freedom of information act 
> request of
> the immigration service to learn what document Obama's mama used to
> regain entry for him."
>  
> Bill you are expecting too much in the record keeping of the 
> government.  Freedom
> of information would probably find nothing.  I have been in and out of 
> the country
> numerous times.  Heck, sometimes after I said hello to the gatekeeper, 
> he just
> waved me on.  And everyone else in the car I was driving.
>  
> The only questions I remember being asked was if I had more than two 
> quarts
> of liquor and anything to declare.
>  
> Ed K
>  
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul  7 19:09:40 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 19:09:40 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's line...
Message-ID: <2BD311E3E7E742939674F07C3E277067@YOURB88038198E>

Bill said, "I can't imagine why he is fighting so hard to keep his birth 
certificate under wraps.  If he was really born in Hawaii he could prove 
it in an instant, and that would be that.  What possible reason is 
there to hide the birth certificate if it says what he says it says."

And then said, "We're too old to buy into sophistry.  We may not know
the right answer, but we can spot a wrong answer.  And the answers 
we've been getting are phonies.  I can prove I was born here and never 
gave up my citizenship. You can, too.  Obama can't."

Yup, that is why I post the stuff that I do.  I believe the President of 
the USA has a obligation to be honest and truthful.  To me these are 
real questions that he could answer quickly or reasonably quickly.  
So, I conclude there must be questions...

I am the one who said that when you hold public office you have an 
obligation to hold yourself to a higher standard.  I am the one who said 
the wall street bankers should be charged with breach of fiduciary duty 
( I know that is a civil thing, but they are employed by publically held companies).

There are times in America where you should be held to a higher standard.  
If you do not want to be held to that higher standard, do not hold public 
office, do not be an officer of the court, do not be a member of the bar, 
do not practice a profession that requires a license, etc.  

So for me it is not so much where he was born, it may have been Hawaii, 
but he has a duty, an obligation answer the questions that are being asked.  
If doing so raises legal questions, let those questions be fairly answered.

I have looked evil in the eye.  I have been lied to looking straight in the eye.  

It is hard too recognize wrong in all situations but once you do, then admit 
it is wrong.  There are degrees of wrongness.  There are degrees of standards 
of right and wrong.  The Presidency of the U.S. calls for a higher standard.

It is my opinion that he is a liar, that he has been dishonest, that he has 
deceived.  If you recall, I said that early on.  I equate him to Jim Baker.  He 
sounds good.  So did the financing of problematic mortgages.  The guy is not 
really smart in the sense of being intelligent, he is a con man.  

Ironically some of my opinions and evaluations have been learned from Americans 
of African descent.  I am personally acquainted with several Black Americans, both 
men and women, who share my opinion.

Ed K



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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul  7 21:05:50 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 09:05:50 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brooks On Dignity
In-Reply-To: <9c1805870907070826p75e2c37cr7e39007d7233df11@mail.gmail.com>
References: <43B1E98C24F2D241A25C39B8721778D4DD89EF@dcs-srv1.dcslaw.com>
	<9c1805870907070826p75e2c37cr7e39007d7233df11@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907071805o31184f5dn1e2776983ebd99a0@mail.gmail.com>

Ben?

Ah?so Sarah lacks dignity, does she?  Brooks wouldn't recognize
dignity if it bit him in the ass.  Palin has always played politics by
her rules and it drives the intelligentsia nuts.  This isn't the first
time she quit early.  She resigned from the AK Oil & Gas Board early
when the "good ole boys" wanted to play "business as usual".  She went
up against her own party and heads rolled.  Let the pundits continue
to focus on her looks, how she dresses, what her kids are doing, etc.
Anyone who doesn't take Sarah seriously hasn't seriously looked at her
record.  Let them continue to have their fun.  I can't wait for the
day they get hit between the eyes with a puck and wonder, "what the
hell just happened?"

You go Girl!

Brad

On 7/7/09, Benjamin Cittadino <bencittadino at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Benjamin Cittadino
> <bcittadino at dcs-law.com>wrote:
>
>>   I noticed the following commentary this morning. I think David Brook's
>> observations should be taken to heart by us all, especially those of us
>> who
>> would seek to impugn the motives and integrity of others. Thought it was
>> worth passing along.
>>  [image: The New York Times]
>>
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>> July 7, 2009
>> Op-Ed Columnist
>> In Search of Dignity By DAVID
>> BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
>>
>> When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110 ?Rules
>> of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.? Some of the
>> rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or
>> meeting somebody on the street.
>>
>> ?Lean not upon anyone,? was one of the rules. ?Read no letter, books or
>> papers in company,? was another. ?If any one come to speak to you while
>> you
>> are sitting, stand up,? was a third.
>>
>> But, as the biographer Richard Brookhiser has noted, these rules, which
>> Washington derived from a 16th-century guidebook, were not just etiquette
>> tips. They were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward
>> man.
>> Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them.
>> Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.
>>
>> In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn?t
>> primarily
>> a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has
>> written, ?Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical
>> hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation.
>> It
>> was his moral character that set him off from other men.?
>>
>> Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the
>> dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation?s
>> Constitution ? that human beings are flawed creatures who live in constant
>> peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial
>> systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
>>
>> The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested ? to endeavor
>> to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its
>> followers to be reticent ? to never degrade intimate emotions by parading
>> them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate ? to
>> distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
>>
>> Remnants of the dignity code lasted for decades. For most of American
>> history, politicians did not publicly campaign for president. It was
>> thought
>> that the act of publicly promoting oneself was ruinously corrupting. For
>> most of American history, memoirists passed over the intimacies of private
>> life. Even in the 19th century, people were appalled that journalists
>> might
>> pollute a wedding by covering it in the press.
>>
>> Today, Americans still lavishly admire people who are naturally dignified,
>> whether they are in sports (Joe DiMaggio and Tom Landry), entertainment
>> (Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks) or politics (Ronald Reagan and Martin Luther
>> King Jr.).
>>
>> But the dignity code itself has been completely obliterated. The rules
>> that
>> guided Washington and generations of people after him are simply gone.
>>
>> We can all list the causes of its demise. First, there is capitalism. We
>> are all encouraged to become managers of our own brand, to do
>> self-promoting
>> end zone dances to broadcast our own talents. Second, there is the cult of
>> naturalism. We are all encouraged to discard artifice and repression and
>> to
>> instead liberate our own feelings. Third, there is charismatic evangelism
>> with its penchant for public confession. Fourth, there is radical
>> egalitarianism and its hostility to aristocratic manners.
>>
>> The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its demise
>> are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring
>> people
>> who simply do not know how to act. For example, during the first few weeks
>> of summer, three stories have dominated public conversation, and each one
>> exemplifies another branch of indignity.
>>
>> First, there was Mark Sanford?s press conference. Here was a guy utterly
>> lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling self-exposure
>> even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael
>> Jackson
>> and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently
>> untouched
>> by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of
>> adulthood.
>> Then there was Sarah Palin?s press conference. Here was a woman who
>> aspires
>> to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and
>> constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.
>>
>> In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms
>> to
>> guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.
>>
>> Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from any
>> larger set of rules or ethical system.
>>
>> But it?s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is
>> the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have
>> with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and
>> the
>> other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his
>> presidency
>> are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may
>> revitalize
>> the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of rules
>> for self-mastery.
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Ben Cittadino
> BenCittadino at gmail.com
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul  7 21:36:19 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 09:36:19 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Reply to Bill E. about Birth Certificates
In-Reply-To: <4A5394E7.90207@effros.com>
References: <2851371E4527469F83CED682AD2DE729@YOURB88038198E>
	<4A5394E7.90207@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907071836i62cb2aeet2d404dd4fe6ee2f2@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Spent way too much time late in the evening solving the worlds
problems with Steve (Slim) last night to answer every issue today, so
I'll conveniently use this post to add some random thoughts.

You don't spend the kind of money and time that Dear Leader has to
hide the details of your birth unless one has something to hide.
"Reasonable Man" theory would lead one to believe there's something
wrong here.  My guess is that he did use Indonesian citizenship to
travel to Pakistan when Americans weren't allowed to travel there.  He
quietly slipped in and out of US citizenship when it suited his needs,
just as he slips in and out of ethnicity when it suits his purposes.

Ed is right - the man is a con artist.  But, lets assume for a moment
that I'm completely wrong. Even though I'm not a religious man, I try
and keep most of the 10 commandments.  "Thou shalt put no other god
before me".  The worship of this man is a bit repugnant.  Study his
record as a political hack in the Chicago machine and most reasonable
people conclude this is not an honest person.  That's the problem,
everyone is focussed on his skin color and not on the character of his
heart, just the opposite of Dr. King's dream.  There's the problem,
most people don't think for themselves - they want to be led, even if
it's off a cliff as long as they don't have to think for themselves.

BTW, we went to see Chairman Mao yesterday but his tomb was closed.
I'm pretty sure he's still dead. Thank God for China his ideas are
too.  The average Chinese in the 50's didn't wake-up until it was too
late.  I'm guessing at least half of Americans aren't any smarter.  As
for me and my family, I don't need some benovelent government to take
care of our needs.  Get the hell out of my way and we'll do just fine
on our own, including taking care of several others.  As Reagan used
to say, "any government that is powerful enough to give you everything
is powerful enough to take everything away".

Obama is nothing but tired and failed ideas repackaged in new skin. If
I have to move to another country that has already been down this road
and abandoned this failed ideology, so be it.

The man is a fake. Every sheep in the herd hates the shepard dog until
the wolf approaches.  Frankly, I've never found moving about aimlessly
in the  middle of the herd all that much fun.

Brad





On 7/8/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Ed,
>
> I've told this story before, but when we hire in Brooklyn we discover
> that Poles who speak little English can come up with all the
> identification they need in a day, whereas blacks who obviously were
> born in this country can't prove it.
>
> Not the point, though.  The point is that Obama doesn't want anyone to
> see his actual birth certificate, and the State of Hawaii says it
> exists.  He must have been forced to produce it many times in the past,
> and some of those times it was surely copied and subject to Freedom of
> Information disclosure.
>
> You and I both know he couldn't get a passport with the documents he has
> placed on the table.  He hasn't pointed to a single doctor who was
> present at his birth.  How about hospital records?  Does any hospital in
> Hawaii have a record of a live birth?  We know the exact date.  This
> should not be too hard to figure out.  How many different babies were
> born in Honolulu hospitals on the date of Obama's birth?  Was Obama one
> of them?
>
> I can't imagine why he is fighting so hard to keep his birth certificate
> under wraps.  If he was really born in Hawaii he could prove it in an
> instant, and that would be that.  What possible reason is there to hide
> the birth certificate if it says what he says it says.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Ed Kroposki wrote:
>> Actually Bill years ago documentation was not as good as today.
>>
>> When I went into the Air Force I filled out pages of background and on
>> the bases of that information and some checking by the Air Force I was
>> given a commission and a Top Secret Security Clearance.
>>
>> After I was commissioned I had to get a passport.  That is when the
>> fun began.  The court house where my original birth certificate was on
>> file burned down.  All I had was a crumpled paper copy that my mother
>> had.  That copy was good for everything until the passport.  While I
>> can now get a certified copy from the state records, such was not
>> available at that time. And that is a modern recreation.
>>
>> So I had to get official affidavits from a number of persons attesting
>> to the fact that I was who I was.  I had an aunt still living near
>> where I was born and the doctor who delivered me was still in good
>> health so after a few weeks the documentation was completed to the
>> Passport issuers requirements.  Understand that I was an Air Force
>> Officer handling nuclear weapons at the time I was getting the passport.
>>
>> I can imagine the difficulty of someone living a 1000 miles from where
>> I was born without any contacts remaining there trying to get a passport.
>>
>> So, as to Obama's records, I appreciate his problem.  However, I also
>> appreciate the question of how he went to a country that was on the U.
>> S. do not visit list. And apparently he got a scholarship as a foreign
>> student.
>>
>> I suspect that he was born in Hawaii but the loyalty issues need to be
>> examined.  Does travel on a foreign passport disqualify him from the
>> Presidency? Does saying he was an Indonesian to qualify for a
>> scholarship disqualify him?
>>
>> Ed K
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>

From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul  7 22:23:43 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 07 Jul 2009 22:23:43 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Drunk
Message-ID: <4A54032F.7020806@effros.com>

I was shopping at the local supermarket where I selected:
 
A half-gallon of 2% milk
A carton of eggs
A quart of orange juice
A head of lettuce
A 2-lb. can of coffee
A 1-lb. package of bacon


I was unloading my items on the conveyor belt to check out.
 
An obviously inebriated man standing behind me watched as I placed the 
items in front of the cashier.

 
While the cashier was ringing up the purchases, the drunk calmly stated, 
"You must be single."

 
I was a bit startled by this proclamation, but intrigued by the 
inebriated gentleman's intuition, since I was indeed single.

 
I looked at the six items on the belt and saw nothing particularly 
unusual about my selections that could have tipped off the drunk as to 
my marital status.


Curiosity getting the better of me, I said: "Well, you know what? 
You're  absolutely right. But how on earth did you know that?

The drunk replied, '' 'Cause you're ugly."
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul  8 01:28:34 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 13:28:34 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brooks On Dignity
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907071805o31184f5dn1e2776983ebd99a0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <43B1E98C24F2D241A25C39B8721778D4DD89EF@dcs-srv1.dcslaw.com>
	<9c1805870907070826p75e2c37cr7e39007d7233df11@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907071805o31184f5dn1e2776983ebd99a0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907072228o221ffcb6j377c2811c3e29da0@mail.gmail.com>

Ben?

I've got a brief "donut hole" in my schedule here while Fan and I wait
for the rain to stop so we can go shopping.  Our guests won't return
from the Great Wall for another couple of hours and I'll use the time
to expand on my thoughts about Brooks column.

No one gives a shit about Mark Sanford - he's toast.  Everyone cares
about Sarah Palin, supportors and detractors alike, because she's a
powerful force in current politics. Watching her is the most fun I've
had since the old days of observing my former attorney Julia do her
little 'magic' act in court.  Julia would patiently listen to 30
minutes of unadulterated bullshit from some Vanderbilt educated lawyer
and then in 90 seconds, using her Nashville Night School of Law
training, cut their balls off (figuratively speaking of course)
starting with a sweet, Southern, "ya honna".  Sarah Palin said about
her political career, "If I die, I die".  The talking heads explode
their heads trying to make sense of what she just said.  How about
this for hidden meaning;  FU and the horse you rode in on, I've got a
nice life and a wonderful family, and whether I hold political office
or not, doesn't determine my happiness at the end of the day".

What was that movie that the following line came from?  "The truth?
You can't handle the truth!"

Will Sarah Palin run for President?  I don't know and I don't give a
shit.  Frankly, I think she can do more good just by "stirring the
pot" and giving the eggheads who think they are so damn smart
something to worry about at night. Is Palin a quitter?  I don't know,
if she is she's in good company because Fan and I talk frequently
about quitting ourselves.  Capital is already fleeing the US.  It
won't be long before talent does as well. "Heaven on Earth", or
whatever the Obama tag line for such silliness is, will fail miserably
as it always has - always will. The Chinese have had quite enough of
such bullshit, thank-you, and the day is rapidly approaching when
they're going to stop the funding for Dear Leader and his 'useful
idiots'.

Would Palin make a good President?  I don't know and I don't give a
shit.  I'd like to think she's got better things to do than preside
over the United Socialist States of America.  You think I'm
exaggerating, don't you Ben?

Hide and watch!

Brad





On 7/8/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ben?
>
> Ah?so Sarah lacks dignity, does she?  Brooks wouldn't recognize
> dignity if it bit him in the ass.  Palin has always played politics by
> her rules and it drives the intelligentsia nuts.  This isn't the first
> time she quit early.  She resigned from the AK Oil & Gas Board early
> when the "good ole boys" wanted to play "business as usual".  She went
> up against her own party and heads rolled.  Let the pundits continue
> to focus on her looks, how she dresses, what her kids are doing, etc.
> Anyone who doesn't take Sarah seriously hasn't seriously looked at her
> record.  Let them continue to have their fun.  I can't wait for the
> day they get hit between the eyes with a puck and wonder, "what the
> hell just happened?"
>
> You go Girl!
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/7/09, Benjamin Cittadino <bencittadino at gmail.com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 7, 2009 at 11:24 AM, Benjamin Cittadino
>> <bcittadino at dcs-law.com>wrote:
>>
>>>   I noticed the following commentary this morning. I think David Brook's
>>> observations should be taken to heart by us all, especially those of us
>>> who
>>> would seek to impugn the motives and integrity of others. Thought it was
>>> worth passing along.
>>>  [image: The New York Times]
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> ------------------------------
>>> July 7, 2009
>>> Op-Ed Columnist
>>> In Search of Dignity By DAVID
>>> BROOKS<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/davidbrooks/index.html?inline=nyt-per>
>>>
>>> When George Washington was a young man, he copied out a list of 110
>>> ?Rules
>>> of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation.? Some of
>>> the
>>> rules in his list dealt with the niceties of going to a dinner party or
>>> meeting somebody on the street.
>>>
>>> ?Lean not upon anyone,? was one of the rules. ?Read no letter, books or
>>> papers in company,? was another. ?If any one come to speak to you while
>>> you
>>> are sitting, stand up,? was a third.
>>>
>>> But, as the biographer Richard Brookhiser has noted, these rules, which
>>> Washington derived from a 16th-century guidebook, were not just
>>> etiquette
>>> tips. They were designed to improve inner morals by shaping the outward
>>> man.
>>> Washington took them very seriously. He worked hard to follow them.
>>> Throughout his life, he remained acutely conscious of his own rectitude.
>>>
>>> In so doing, he turned himself into a new kind of hero. He wasn?t
>>> primarily
>>> a military hero or a political hero. As the historian Gordon Wood has
>>> written, ?Washington became a great man and was acclaimed as a classical
>>> hero because of the way he conducted himself during times of temptation.
>>> It
>>> was his moral character that set him off from other men.?
>>>
>>> Washington absorbed, and later came to personify what you might call the
>>> dignity code. The code was based on the same premise as the nation?s
>>> Constitution ? that human beings are flawed creatures who live in
>>> constant
>>> peril of falling into disasters caused by their own passions. Artificial
>>> systems have to be created to balance and restrain their desires.
>>>
>>> The dignity code commanded its followers to be disinterested ? to
>>> endeavor
>>> to put national interests above personal interests. It commanded its
>>> followers to be reticent ? to never degrade intimate emotions by
>>> parading
>>> them in public. It also commanded its followers to be dispassionate ? to
>>> distrust rashness, zealotry, fury and political enthusiasm.
>>>
>>> Remnants of the dignity code lasted for decades. For most of American
>>> history, politicians did not publicly campaign for president. It was
>>> thought
>>> that the act of publicly promoting oneself was ruinously corrupting. For
>>> most of American history, memoirists passed over the intimacies of
>>> private
>>> life. Even in the 19th century, people were appalled that journalists
>>> might
>>> pollute a wedding by covering it in the press.
>>>
>>> Today, Americans still lavishly admire people who are naturally
>>> dignified,
>>> whether they are in sports (Joe DiMaggio and Tom Landry), entertainment
>>> (Lauren Bacall and Tom Hanks) or politics (Ronald Reagan and Martin
>>> Luther
>>> King Jr.).
>>>
>>> But the dignity code itself has been completely obliterated. The rules
>>> that
>>> guided Washington and generations of people after him are simply gone.
>>>
>>> We can all list the causes of its demise. First, there is capitalism. We
>>> are all encouraged to become managers of our own brand, to do
>>> self-promoting
>>> end zone dances to broadcast our own talents. Second, there is the cult
>>> of
>>> naturalism. We are all encouraged to discard artifice and repression and
>>> to
>>> instead liberate our own feelings. Third, there is charismatic
>>> evangelism
>>> with its penchant for public confession. Fourth, there is radical
>>> egalitarianism and its hostility to aristocratic manners.
>>>
>>> The old dignity code has not survived modern life. The costs of its
>>> demise
>>> are there for all to see. Every week there are new scandals featuring
>>> people
>>> who simply do not know how to act. For example, during the first few
>>> weeks
>>> of summer, three stories have dominated public conversation, and each
>>> one
>>> exemplifies another branch of indignity.
>>>
>>> First, there was Mark Sanford?s press conference. Here was a guy utterly
>>> lacking in any sense of reticence, who was given to rambling
>>> self-exposure
>>> even in his moment of disgrace. Then there was the death of Michael
>>> Jackson
>>> and the discussion of his life. Here was a guy who was apparently
>>> untouched
>>> by any pressure to live according to the rules and restraints of
>>> adulthood.
>>> Then there was Sarah Palin?s press conference. Here was a woman who
>>> aspires
>>> to a high public role but is unfamiliar with the traits of equipoise and
>>> constancy, which are the sources of authority and trust.
>>>
>>> In each of these events, one sees people who simply have no social norms
>>> to
>>> guide them as they try to navigate the currents of their own passions.
>>>
>>> Americans still admire dignity. But the word has become unmoored from
>>> any
>>> larger set of rules or ethical system.
>>>
>>> But it?s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there
>>> is
>>> the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have
>>> with him, we can all agree that he exemplifies reticence, dispassion and
>>> the
>>> other traits associated with dignity. The cultural effects of his
>>> presidency
>>> are not yet clear, but they may surpass his policy impact. He may
>>> revitalize
>>> the concept of dignity for a new generation and embody a new set of
>>> rules
>>> for self-mastery.
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Ben Cittadino
>> BenCittadino at gmail.com
>>
>


From bencittadino at gmail.com  Wed Jul  8 11:20:15 2009
From: bencittadino at gmail.com (Benjamin Cittadino)
Date: Wed, 8 Jul 2009 11:20:15 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad On Dignity
Message-ID: <9c1805870907080820n7020177dgabdddd7856a8f80@mail.gmail.com>

Brad;

I do think you're exaggerating but you do it effectively and for the sake of
making your point. I'm fine with it. Look, I think I do understand you. It
would be ideal if government were only necessary to provide a very few
essential services (national defense, roads, bridges, police, fire etc) and
the rest of us could go about the business of taking care of ourselves and
our families, making a living, hunting, fishing, growing our own food,
supporting charitable causes of our own choosing. In that world folks like
Sarah Palin would be great public servants. They would stay out of our lives
(unless we are gay and want to marry, or female and want to terminate an
unwanted pregnancy, or diabetic and want to do stem cell research, or
concerned about energy policy and climate change, but I digress), and that's
what most of us who have little need for government services want.

I think there are plenty of offenders on both sides of the "education snob"
vs. "anti-intellectual" divide. I think the thing that bothers me about
Palin is not so much that she didn't go to Harvard, but that she seems to
have such disdain for those who did. I also find it offensive that those who
went to Harvard look down upon her. I don't know which came first but I
thought her very first big speech on the national scene, her acceptance of
the VP nomination, was pretty anti-intellectual and hostile to those with
superior educational credentials. Why? Why not call upon
smart, well-educated people to help craft policy. She can still use her own
judgment to be "the decider", but get some expertise from those who have it.

You might take a look at Stanley Fish's column in yesterday's NY Times (yeah
I know, MSM and all that jazz). He wrote a fairly sympathetic analysis of
Palin's announcement. He concluded, similarly to you, that she simply meant
what she said and was getting out because she was tired of the BS.

I don't think we've seen the last of her. Who knows, she may just become a
"community organizer",

-- 
Ben Cittadino
BenCittadino at gmail.com
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul  9 19:29:26 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 19:29:26 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] for Brad when he gets back to the states but
	if he decides to stay then when he gets a chance
Message-ID: <8EFF8CCEC26E4511ADF3CA5F86290D23@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

This is pretty ordinary, just another fellow traveler out there, so wait till you get back to check it out.

This is a blog by an old guy.  And he has a Harvard degree so he cannot be referred to as of limited ability and education by those who demand 'elite' academic credentials.

Maybe they will clain senility in his case?

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Jul 10 05:26:24 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:26:24 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad On Dignity
In-Reply-To: <9c1805870907080820n7020177dgabdddd7856a8f80@mail.gmail.com>
References: <9c1805870907080820n7020177dgabdddd7856a8f80@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907100226v1e8c0daek909525d23febb867@mail.gmail.com>

Ben?

Don't listen to the "talking heads" - decide for yourself.  Palin
signed into law the rights of gay partners of AK state employees to
state provided health-care benefits.  She chose to carry her Downs
Syndrome baby to full term but has done nothing as Guv  to eliminate
abortion rights in AK.  If Palin wasn't a threat to the hard left
,they would ignore her.  Palin is the opposite of 'The One', every
detail of her life has been examined and she is an "open book" to
everyone or anyone who does some basic research. Nearly everyone
without an Ivy League education is forced to go through life with
nothing but their wits and common sense, and a bit of hard labor now
and then. Palin knows common sense

Frankly, I don't think Sarah will make it to the White House, she's
got too many negatives.  But then again, I don't give a shit.  I'm
glad to be born an American.  What a great country!  Ben, you ever
travel?  It's a big world.

Brad

I'm short on time so we'll make this brief.  'The One' doesn't have a
clue how he'll fund his "heaven on earth".  The plan so far is to
borrow the money.  The Chinese ain't playin'".  What's your next plan
'O Saviour'?

I'm just a journeyman aviator with a place to live in China with a
small pittance of income in something other than US dollars.  As for
'me and mine', we'll be fine, thank you for asking.

Ben, here's the challenge; explain how we're going to pay back this
record debt without inflating our currency.  Good luck buddy!  I have
my own personal plans to survive this abortion.  Do you?

Brad


On 7/8/09, Benjamin Cittadino <bencittadino at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad;
>
> I do think you're exaggerating but you do it effectively and for the sake of
> making your point. I'm fine with it. Look, I think I do understand you. It
> would be ideal if government were only necessary to provide a very few
> essential services (national defense, roads, bridges, police, fire etc) and
> the rest of us could go about the business of taking care of ourselves and
> our families, making a living, hunting, fishing, growing our own food,
> supporting charitable causes of our own choosing. In that world folks like
> Sarah Palin would be great public servants. They would stay out of our lives
> (unless we are gay and want to marry, or female and want to terminate an
> unwanted pregnancy, or diabetic and want to do stem cell research, or
> concerned about energy policy and climate change, but I digress), and that's
> what most of us who have little need for government services want.
>
> I think there are plenty of offenders on both sides of the "education snob"
> vs. "anti-intellectual" divide. I think the thing that bothers me about
> Palin is not so much that she didn't go to Harvard, but that she seems to
> have such disdain for those who did. I also find it offensive that those who
> went to Harvard look down upon her. I don't know which came first but I
> thought her very first big speech on the national scene, her acceptance of
> the VP nomination, was pretty anti-intellectual and hostile to those with
> superior educational credentials. Why? Why not call upon
> smart, well-educated people to help craft policy. She can still use her own
> judgment to be "the decider", but get some expertise from those who have it.
>
> You might take a look at Stanley Fish's column in yesterday's NY Times (yeah
> I know, MSM and all that jazz). He wrote a fairly sympathetic analysis of
> Palin's announcement. He concluded, similarly to you, that she simply meant
> what she said and was getting out because she was tired of the BS.
>
> I don't think we've seen the last of her. Who knows, she may just become a
> "community organizer",
>
> --
> Ben Cittadino
> BenCittadino at gmail.com
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 10 07:28:36 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 07:28:36 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] sailboat rigging knives may be illegal
Message-ID: <1839E03587604C5DA68B6BBB338D4A4B@YOURB88038198E>

e-mail from Boye Knives....


URGENT ACTION NEEDED

BY TOMORROW, JULY 7!



Dear Boye Knife Customers,

U.S. Customs and Border Protection has proposed a new rule that would broaden the definition of a switchblade to include one hand opening pocket knives, thereby illegalizing them in some states and restricting commerce.

If you want to have legal folding knives in your life, write your Senators NOW to derail this limiting proposal. Out in the ocean, one hand opening knives are saving lives every day. 

Thank you for your help!

David Boye


For more information:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5KINtCajwI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTXCoulHxFw

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Appropriations Bill will be taken up by the Senate tomorrow, Tuesday, July 7th. Your emails to Senate offices will be a huge help as knife rights lobbyists and legislative representatives work Monday and Tuesday to get an amendment introduced and voted into the bill. Time is of the essence. 

Contacting Senator Patty Murray [D-WA] and Senator George Voinovich [R-OH] is particularly important because they are ranking members on the Senate Appropriations Committee's Subcommittee on Homeland Security. Contacting your own Senators is also very important and their support is needed as well.

You can use the two sample letters below and copy and paste into the email forms. Just four simple emails can make a BIG difference! (There are two different letters, one for Senators Murray and Voinovich and one for your own two Senators.)

Email forms for Senators Murray and Voinovich can be found here:

Senator Murray: http://murray.senate.gov/email/index.cfm 
Senator Voinovich: http://tinyurl.com/2rpu4p 
__________________
Sailingdog
Telstar 28
New England


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From bill at effros.com  Fri Jul 10 08:39:37 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 08:39:37 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Don't Fight Cap n Trade
Message-ID: <4A573689.6020804@effros.com>

Brad,

Let's agree that cap n trade has nothing to do with anything other than 
raising huge sums of money.

Now, we both agree that our government has to find that money somewhere, 
and that the math doesn't work in the "soak the rich" department.

Cap n Trade looks like one of the most significant regressive taxes ever 
proposed.  If the Republicans had come up with it, they would have been 
boiled in oil.  The most destitute person in this country will pay a 
significant portion of "safety net" funds -- there's no help for it.  
You can't legislate around energy use.

Sure the rich use more energy per person, but not as a percentage of 
their income. 

Then, bring on VAT!  Hugely regressive. Yea for our team!

Not to mention the "Burn the Food" program which adds to the cost of 
everything.

There is no such thing as a free lunch.

B.




From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Jul 10 09:53:21 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 21:53:21 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Don't Fight Cap n Trade
In-Reply-To: <4A573689.6020804@effros.com>
References: <4A573689.6020804@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907100653sdea9f3cud32646cf30bead0f@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

I agree.  Not only is cap n trade about raising vast sums of money, it
is about concentrating power in DC over industry.  What's is the issue
about?  Climate change?  OK, fine.  I don't buy into the science but
if that is the objective, tax carbon - easy to measure, easy to tax.
It would still be highly regressive but less prone to manipulation.
Why does gasoline cost so much for my car?  Easy - it's the carbon
tax, dummy.  Why did my electric bill double.  Duh, carbon tax? Why
did my job get shipped to India or China....... uhhhh, no carbon
taxes? A simple carbon tax would be so transparent and the effect on
the "average family" so quickly identified that no one would vote for
anyone supporting it. Therefore, we have this Orwellien term, "and
trade".  Trade for what?  Indulgences?  What high priest (oh, I
forget, 'czar' is the currently acceptable term) will determine who is
granted forgiveness and who isn't?

Nixon signing the EPA into law was a good thing.  I wish he was still
around to politely suggest to China that they do a bit more about
their "carbon footprint".  China and India have just recently come to
the carbon "foodfest" and they are not the slightest bit interested in
curtailing their appetite.  So, we're going to make more room at the
dinner table by commiting suicide? What is the "carbon footprint" of
Kenya?  Is that the model we're following?

I put my money where my mouth is, ie, that's why I bought a car that
gets 40+ MPG and puts very, very little carbon out the exhaust pipe.
My employer buys state-of-the-art jets because they burn less fuel.
Carbon costs money.  You want less carbon?  Tax it!  But no, that's
too obvious.  Let's trade.

People really are this stupid.

Brad


On 7/10/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Let's agree that cap n trade has nothing to do with anything other than
> raising huge sums of money.
>
> Now, we both agree that our government has to find that money somewhere,
> and that the math doesn't work in the "soak the rich" department.
>
> Cap n Trade looks like one of the most significant regressive taxes ever
> proposed.  If the Republicans had come up with it, they would have been
> boiled in oil.  The most destitute person in this country will pay a
> significant portion of "safety net" funds -- there's no help for it.
> You can't legislate around energy use.
>
> Sure the rich use more energy per person, but not as a percentage of
> their income.
>
> Then, bring on VAT!  Hugely regressive. Yea for our team!
>
> Not to mention the "Burn the Food" program which adds to the cost of
> everything.
>
> There is no such thing as a free lunch.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Jul 10 11:03:35 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 10 Jul 2009 23:03:35 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] China
Message-ID: <400985d70907100803k4a81753bj2fa887b7a1d9677a@mail.gmail.com>

Well, Slim has left the building!  I'll have more on that later. A
good time was had by all. The Chinese government is bitching because
people are increasing their savings rate from a third to almost half
their income and not spending enough.  And we're doing what?  Oh yeah,
borrowing more money for "stimulus".  Folks, this ain't gonna work.
The outcome of this is as obvious as the nose on your face. I don't
get many opportunities to interview "peasants" but the handful of
people I do interface with (out of 1.3 billion) here thinks we (the
USA) as a nation are NUTS!  They are correct.

Brad

-----------

Commentary by William Pesek

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Returning from China last month, U.S.
Congressman Mark Kirk had a bearish take on a high-level visit by
American officials.

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner claimed the U.S.?s biggest
creditor voiced great confidence in its debt. Kirk, an Illinois
Republican, came back with the opposite impression.

?China is beginning to cancel Congress?s credit card,? he told Fox
News on June 10. It ?doesn?t want to lend much more money to the
United States and especially is worried about the Fed?s policy of
printing money to buy new debt.?

A month later, there?s no doubt about whose assessment was more
accurate. Chinese leaders are clearly very concerned about the dollar.
How they will react is a key question hanging over markets, and it?s
time to take the discussion to the next level.

Everyone knows China wants to reduce its dollar holdings. Little is
known about how that process may unfold and how much work and
preparation needs to go into it. Lots, in fact.

Think of China and the U.S. in history?s most expensive divorce. The
two economies total $17 trillion of output, and polls in China show
little support for adding to almost $800 billion of U.S. Treasuries.

This argument can be broadened to the rest of Asia. The idea that
China or Japan -- with $686 billion of Treasuries -- can just start
selling massive blocks of dollars is ridiculous. It would devastate
markets the world over and the fallout would boomerang back on Asia.
If you think markets are shaky now, just wait until word of a
central-bank fire sale gets around.

Copycat Selling

Sure, Singapore (with $40 billion of Treasuries), India ($39 billion)
or South Korea ($35 billion) could try to dump dollars on the stealth.
Good luck in this highly connected, around-the-clock world. News that
a key economy seeks a first- mover advantage over peers would inspire
copycat selling. Expect investors and traders to respond with massive
sell orders.

Warren Buffett can discreetly trim Berkshire Hathaway Inc.?s interest
in a company or a currency. How a central bank divests itself of tens
or hundreds of billions of dollars on the sly is another matter.

Governments that may be concerned about getting stuck with their
dollars for good have a point. And by curtailing investments in
dollars today, Asia is ensuring that the U.S. currency will be worth
less a year from now. Bernard Madoff can tell you a thing or two about
how this process works.

Dollar Accord

What may be necessary is a global framework or pact to end the
dollar?s dominance. A ?Plaza Accord? of sorts may be needed to
dismantle the so-called Bretton Woods II system of tying currencies to
the dollar that emerged after the global crises of 1997 and 1998. A
Dollar Accord, anyone?

Just as stocks take a hit when additional shares are issued, Asia
faces a debt-dilution dynamic for which it never bargained. The
Federal Reserve?s zero-interest-rate policies don?t help. And Asia
can?t do a lot on its own here.

This process will require considerable cooperation, be it through the
International Monetary Fund, the Group of 20, the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation forum, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
or a yet-to-be-created entity. Goals must be set, mechanics discussed
and timing negotiated. If ever there were a time for a currency
summit, it?s now.

Politics will be a stumbling block. It?s hard to envision the U.S.
signing on to scrap the dollar as the reserve currency. Neither the
euro nor the yen is ready to replace it. And China?s designs on
currency domination are a decade away -- or longer.

IMF Solution

The amount of scrutiny the dollar?s successor would face makes you
wonder who would want to print the reserve currency. That explains why
the most credible argument making the rounds involves the IMF?s
so-called Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs.

They are really an account of exchange, rather than legal tender, and
are calculated according to a basket of currencies consisting of the
dollar, euro, yen and pound. Chinese central bank Governor Zhou
Xiaochuan wants the IMF to move toward creating a ?super-sovereign
reserve currency.?

Or, here?s another suggestion: Brady bonds for less- troubled
economies. The idea behind bonds created in the 1980s as part of Latin
America?s debt restructuring was to let investors swap their claims on
nations in turmoil for tradable instruments. A similar process may
work with the dollar.

Rumors of the dollar?s demise are no longer exaggerated. What is being
exaggerated, though, is how easy it will be for Asia to get out of the
quandary it?s in. Cutting off the U.S. government?s credit card, for
example, means American consumers can?t buy your goods. And any sudden
divorce between the world?s two main economic powers won?t be pretty.
Far from it.

It?s time to figure out what the next step is, and policy makers need
to get serious. Complaining about our dollar-based system won?t get us
there. Some brainstorming about where to go from here would be far
more constructive.

(William Pesek is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed
are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: William Pesek in Tokyo at
wpesek at bloomberg.net

Last Updated: July 9, 2009 15:00 EDT


From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Jul 11 07:15:57 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:15:57 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Northeast Coastal Sailors?
Message-ID: <B6CE00CF7FA54D9CA97F06305B0F4287@YOURB88038198E>

See this gadget:

http://www.rogerlongboats.com/Pots.htm

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 12 07:09:17 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 12 Jul 2009 19:09:17 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Memorial
Message-ID: <400985d70907120409s6df78b88i988a3c96a319da43@mail.gmail.com>

Sent to me by a co-worker.  Brad

--------

One of the "Band of Brothers" soldiers died on June 17, 2009.

We're hearing a lot today about big splashy memorial services.

I want a nationwide memorial service for Darrell "Shifty" Powers.

Shifty volunteered for the airborne in WWII and served with Easy
Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st
Airborne Infantry.

If you've seen Band of Brothers on HBO or the History Channel, you
know Shifty. His character appears in all 10 episodes, and Shifty
himself is interviewed in several of them.

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn't
know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having
trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was
at the right gate, and noticed the "Screaming Eagle", the symbol of
the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he'd been in the 101st Airborne,
or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the
101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served,
and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said, "Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so,
and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . " at which point my heart
skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said, "I made the 5 training
jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know
where Normandy is?"

At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was and I know what D-Day was.

At that point he said "I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem."

I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized
that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said;
"Yes. And it's real sad because these days so few of the guys are
left, and those that are, lots of them can't make the trip." My heart
was in my throat and I didn't know hat to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in
Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to
get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came
forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have
it, that I'd take his in coach.

He said, "No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are
still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make
an old man very happy." His eyes were filling up as he said it. And
mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Shifty died on June 17 after fighting cancer.

There was no parade.

No big event in Staples Center.

No wall-to-wall, back-to-back, 24x7 news coverage.

No weeping fans on television.

And that's not right.

Let's give Shifty his own Memorial Service, online, in our own quiet way.

Please forward this email to everyone you know. Especially, to the veterans.

Rest in peace, Shifty.

From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Jul 13 00:18:48 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 12:18:48 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sarah
Message-ID: <400985d70907122118x674ba5acv184e6e6c7104dc13@mail.gmail.com>

For those of you who have forgotten who Willie Brown is, he was the
longest serving Speaker of the House in California and the first black
mayor of San Fran.  He's no dummy when it comes to politics (see his
latest post on Palin below).  In other "unrelated to Palin" comments,
he noticed that Obama took his kids with him on his diplomatic trip to
Russia and how nice it was to see a politician actually practice
"family values".  I agree.  Please remind the Palin detractors of this
the next time they consider her children "fair game".  Kids are
verboten!  Period.

Brad

-----------

Sarah Palin, political genius
Willie Brown

Sunday, July 12, 2009

The pundits are wrong. Conventional wisdom is wrong. Sarah Palin's
decision to step down as Alaska governor was a brilliant move.

Palin has some of the best political instincts I have ever seen. She
became a pop-culture superstar overnight when John McCain made her his
veep pick, and she's still second only to President Obama among
politicians the public is interested in. Even in liberal San
Francisco, she'd be front-page news if she ever came to town.

But that kind of celebrity comes at a high price. What a lot of people
don't know is that Palin entered Alaska politics as a reformer
attacking the corruption of the state's Republican establishment. As
such, she was the darling of the Democrats - until she hooked up with
McCain.

After the election, with Palin back home but positioning herself for a
2012 presidential run, it was clear she would catch nothing but
ridicule from Alaska's Democrats. It was not going to be pretty.

If Palin wants to play on the national field, she has to be free to
move around. She has to be able to drop into Indiana, Ohio or
Tennessee and help Republican candidates raise money. She has to be
available for radio and TV.

She has to be like Gavin Newsom, free to roam around the country, safe
in the knowledge that things will pretty much take care of themselves
back home.

Instead, Palin faced the prospect of being constantly pinned down in a
state that is a day and a half away from the rest of America. She
would have been totally isolated in every sense of the word.

Now she can study up on issues where she is lacking and become a
full-time political celebrity.

The pundits call her a quitter, but let's be honest - the pundits
never liked her to begin with. Better to take one hit for stepping
down and move on than to stay in Alaska and die a death by a thousand
cuts.

Governor or not, Palin is still the biggest star in the Republican
galaxy. After all, who else have they got?

From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 13 18:42:21 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 13 Jul 2009 18:42:21 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] ah!, Thank You Bill
Message-ID: <E26C6D09BC7D487F9B62734BD002683D@YOURB88038198E>

Ah!, Thank you Bill...

Do you need contributions to pay the rent?

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Jul 13 21:47:18 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 09:47:18 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The Productive Class
Message-ID: <400985d70907131847p515d0581r2406ca4d3335fd06@mail.gmail.com>

Dr. Hanson nails it again - even mentions contractors and airline
pilots (see below) in the same article.  As for Cap n Trade, the
Chinese (only 1/4 of the world's population) say NO!  I haven't been
to India (roughly another 1/4 of the world's people) but I'm guessing
they're not interested either.  BTW, I did figure out why so many
Chinese are driving BMW SUVs and other BMW cars.  BMW has 2 plants
here now. You hardly ever see Beijing Jeeps (Chrysler) anymore - a lot
of Lexus SUVs yes, but few Chrysler products.  Anyway, enjoy Dr.
Hanson, I'm going to the Birds Nest this morning.

Brad

-----------------------

The War Against the Producers

Posted By Victor Davis Hanson On July 11, 2009 |
Stimulus, stimulus and not a drop?

A ?stimulus? of nearly a trillion dollars was proposed, without which
we were told, unemployment would skyrocket and credit would tighten
further. Six months later ? unemployment having risen even higher than
the administration?s forecast of what would have been the case had
their stimulus package not been implemented ? now the same proponents
of massive borrowing demand a second stimulus to accomplish what the
first ?successful? borrowing apparently did not. If you fail, then try
the same thing to fail even bigger the second time ? while calling for
more success to follow the earlier success?

The Larger Agenda

Note here I mean something quite different from the accustomed notion
of ?accomplish.? You see, I think the point was never much to build
more bike paths on borrowed money or just bail out GM, but rather more
to reengineer the tax code, as part of a grander vision of creating a
new equality of result in America.

Soon we will all end up after each April 15 about making the same,
driving the same sort of cars and using the same sort of mass transit,
living in about the same sorts of houses, and having about the same
sorts of ??they? will take care of it for me? philosophies ? all
overseen by brilliant, but highly ranked and exempt Platonic Guardians
who suffer on our behalf as they jet and limo at breakneck speed
ensuring our welfare.

Gorging ?the Beast?


We are beginning to sense the debate is not about ?stimulus?
(politicians did not even read the various bills that they rammed
through and care little about the fiscal impact from them). Rather, we
are witnessing an inversion of Reagan?s sort of playing chicken, once
called ?starve the beast? (which I thought was a wrong notion), a
philosophy of cutting taxes to cut revenue to starve the federal
government?s excessive spending in the face of spiraling deficits.

Under Obama?s ?gorge the beast? version, America will simply write so
many bounced checks, run up such an enormous $10 trillion debt, that
taxes will have to rise on ?them?? and wasn?t this really the point of
it all anyway: to ?spread the wealth around? and ?never let a crisis
go to waste??  Since new programs never shrink, but, like Johnson
grass, grow with impunity, and since Democrats, even more so than
wasteful Republicans, don?t worry about deficits, taxes must escalate
to avoid catastrophe.

The Bad Guys

Ponder a simple fact: The Obama administration is dispersing income
lavishly to those who do not pay taxes and it will have to be paid for
by those who do. For all the talk of that awful percentile who make
over $200,000, this administration has not distinguished the
hyper-rich 1% that make untold money (e.g., the Buffets, Soroses,
Turners, Gateses, Kerrys, Gores, etc), from the much more demonized,
larger 5% of the population whose income does not come from
investments and insider influence and deal-making, but rather from
providing more tangible goods and services ? the family doctor, the
plumbing contractor, the small lumber company owner, the car dealer,
the local family-held insurance company, the airline pilot, the
car-leasing firm, the patent attorney, etc.

?Their Fair Share?

Last fall we heard that this percentile was unpatriotic, did not wish
to spread the wealth around, and had made off like bandits under Bush.
But the fact is, to quote Mayor Gavin Newsome?s ?like it or not,? they
are precisely those who decide most dynamically whether to hire, fire,
expand, contract, buy/sell goods, etc.

And the results of the Obama war against them are threefold: 1) in
major key states, the productive minority?s state income taxes will
near or exceed 10%; their federal rates will go to 40%; the abolition
of caps on FICA will ensure 15% plus of most of their income will go
for new Medicare and Social Security bites; and they may well be
eligible for a newly proposed punitive health-care surcharge tax of
4-6%.

Add It Up


If one were to add all that up (forget rises in sales taxes,
inheritance taxes, luxury taxes, etc.), then one can get to 70% of
one?s income. So right this minute, the electrical contractor is
thinking:

?I made $412,000 last year due to Saturday jobs, overtime, risky
bidding, gambles on new equipment, and new lines of credit, but under
Obama I will pay maybe $50-80,000 more of my income to the government.
In other words the cost of, say, hiring two more entry-level
electricians, or the cost of outfitting an entire new van with boom
and equipment, or what I cleared every Saturday last year ? all that
will go to the government.?

Ripples of Doubt


And that means rippling throughout this key sector of the economy ?
even before these taxes have been enacted ? are hesitation, stasis,
and ultimately constriction ? at first for psychological reasons, soon
confirmed by the actual facts of less money. In short, very bright
people will be thinking how to hide income, how to barter, how to slow
down and not produce goods and services, rather than blast full speed
ahead and enrich angry others.

A Certain Paranoia

2) Do not discount again the psychological element. This putative
electrical contractor also knows that after handing over his profits
to the new government, and delaying or ending his plans for
enlargement, he will not be praised, but continually demonized (I
scanned CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and NBC the other evening, and all the
stories had a common theme: the ?rich? (yes, you see, ACME Electric is
now about the equivalent to  AIG and Citibank) will have to pay their
?fair share? for all sorts of ?overdue? necessities: cap-and-trade,
nationalized health care, education grants and freebies, and new
social programs.

You Owe Us

So our electrician senses that despite his newfound, sizable
contribution to the public good, he will a) not be thanked but only
further ridiculed; b) see his money diverted from his own wise use of
it, to anonymous agencies? liberal expenditures of it: the money will
not be just lost, but invested in things that will make  things worse,
not better, through subsidies of failed programs and the destruction
of incentives;  c) see that the world under Obama is now unfair in
Orwellian fashion: the Citibanks and AIGs, in Robert Rubin fashion,
are so well connected to both parties that they will suffer little for
their mistakes; the Ivy-League and Washington technocratic class that
is to run all this is happy with its government perks and does not
think new taxes and compliance apply to themselves (cf. Dodd, Rangel,
Geithner, Daschle, Murtha, etc.).

You Never Needed All That Anyway


3) Finally the now chastised and ossified electrician will begin to
see that his new truck, his boat, his vacation home, all these are
somehow immoral in carbon, political, cultural, racial, and social
terms. And he senses that others, who do not pay any income taxes
(approaching 50% of the population), see themselves at war with him:
the more he pays in taxes, the more others see that his compliance
with such new burdens is proof of what he ?really? owed all the time,
and a sign that he can pay even more next round.

A Most Revolutionary Vision


Final observations: Obama brilliantly conflated the Wall Street class
with the upper-tier of Main Street in Animal Farm fashion: the former
gets lectured, but stays enriched through bailouts; the latter takes
both the moral hit for the former?s crimes and greed and the actual
hit in higher taxes.

(Nota bene: the new Democrats, in Prince Charles fashion, like the
taste and culture of the hyper-rich, who care little about taxes, are
sensitive behind their ramparts to the less well off, and know
high-culture (think Streisand, Gates, Soros, the
Georgetown/Hollwood/Silicon Valley, Upper East Side, Cambridge, Mass,
set). These aristoi despise the wheeler-dealer, always on the move,
uppity, wanna-get-rich scrambler that is desperately trying to get his
get kid through Public U, and add a wing on his gross MacMansion,
while towing his outboard up to the lake for five hours of
water-skiing, without an opera, symphony, or NPR analysis on the
radio).

Bottom line


This recovery cannot work, other than a brief spurt that results from
trillions in printed money, because we are rewarding unproductive
areas of the economy (federal money for more wind farms, federal
hurdles for pumping more known natural gas or nuclear power
construction; more of the community-organizing model, less of the
productive small business model) and punishing the engines of the
economy.

The New Culture of ?Pay Up, Mister?or Else!?


For Obama to pull this off, an entire sort of new vocabulary,
rhetoric, and attitude is necessary. And the model is California: the
carpenter and the bricklayer are laid off, and the state snoozes;
while the assistant solid waste inspector of Green Acres is on
television every night (his union can afford the advertising) to weep,
and claim that if he and those like him (retire at 55 with $100,000
for life) are laid off, then Dantesque things follow.

Remember the logic: the poor Californian voter who works at Starbucks
or Target is angry that the grandee social worker is unnecessary and
grossly overpaid at $90,000 a year, with lush retirement and benefits,
and so is told that if he does not raise taxes to over 10% income and
9% sales, then firemen, police, and water workers will quit/be laid
off/furlow and so he will starve, be murdered, and have no sewage.

Screw the Fool Hammering, Save the Grandee Behind the Desk ? and Call
it Egalitarian Morality

That is the model here in California and that is the model we are soon
to see in Washington: the government worker and those who receive his
largess, are kings; those who pay for them, and who work in private
enterprise for far less, are, well, less than fools.

Whereas thousands are fleeing the natural paradise of California for
the arid deserts of no-tax Nevada, there is no Nevada to the United
States ? the last hope of an otherwise depressing planet.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul 14 03:56:06 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 03:56:06 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] ah!, Thank You Bill
In-Reply-To: <E26C6D09BC7D487F9B62734BD002683D@YOURB88038198E>
References: <E26C6D09BC7D487F9B62734BD002683D@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <4A5C3A16.3050707@effros.com>

Thanks for the "heads-up" Ed.

I got swine flu and have been a little off my game.  I just didn't get 
around to renewing the site, but your note kicked me over the top.

Thanks, for the question about sharing the rent -- I've got it covered.  
Keep the cards and letters coming.

B.



Ed Kroposki wrote:
> Ah!, Thank you Bill...
>  
> Do you need contributions to pay the rent?
>  
> Ed K
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 14 04:04:28 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:04:28 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Don't Fight Cap n Trade
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907100653sdea9f3cud32646cf30bead0f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4A573689.6020804@effros.com>
	<400985d70907100653sdea9f3cud32646cf30bead0f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907140104g60a7ab52xbad4f21a9efe0727@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Here's the latest from Sarah on cap n trade.  The latest spin on her
is that she's leaving for the money.  Well, DUH!  She and Todd are
self-supporting and I hope they make millions from her book.  It's not
like she's drawing 9 grand a month from some ping-pong company while
holding office.

Brad

----------

The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End

By Sarah Palin
Tuesday, July 14, 2009



There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment
rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is
expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when
the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our
nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach
into the private sector is unprecedented.

Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the
personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of
these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class,
let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will
be:

I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy
plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would
undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent
damage.

American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of
abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the
inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity,
and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge,
energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy
tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.

There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we
need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign
energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer
and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet
our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying
America's economy.

Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it
includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the
resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over
eight years. So much for creating jobs.

In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy
sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost
of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of
farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while
driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and
transportation will also increase.

The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal
will understand supply-side economics.

The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make
ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity
bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on
anyone making less than $250,000 a year.

Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under
the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for
electricity."

We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and
energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God
created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have
more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign
nation from which we purchase energy today.

In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy
project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport
hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry
markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and
in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if
ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.

Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many
states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it
into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of
oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear
energy.

We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy
supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to
China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's
plan will result in the latter.

For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic
energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher
prices.

Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic
investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and
secure our nation?

Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.

The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.



On 7/10/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Bill,
>
> I agree.  Not only is cap n trade about raising vast sums of money, it
> is about concentrating power in DC over industry.  What's is the issue
> about?  Climate change?  OK, fine.  I don't buy into the science but
> if that is the objective, tax carbon - easy to measure, easy to tax.
> It would still be highly regressive but less prone to manipulation.
> Why does gasoline cost so much for my car?  Easy - it's the carbon
> tax, dummy.  Why did my electric bill double.  Duh, carbon tax? Why
> did my job get shipped to India or China....... uhhhh, no carbon
> taxes? A simple carbon tax would be so transparent and the effect on
> the "average family" so quickly identified that no one would vote for
> anyone supporting it. Therefore, we have this Orwellien term, "and
> trade".  Trade for what?  Indulgences?  What high priest (oh, I
> forget, 'czar' is the currently acceptable term) will determine who is
> granted forgiveness and who isn't?
>
> Nixon signing the EPA into law was a good thing.  I wish he was still
> around to politely suggest to China that they do a bit more about
> their "carbon footprint".  China and India have just recently come to
> the carbon "foodfest" and they are not the slightest bit interested in
> curtailing their appetite.  So, we're going to make more room at the
> dinner table by commiting suicide? What is the "carbon footprint" of
> Kenya?  Is that the model we're following?
>
> I put my money where my mouth is, ie, that's why I bought a car that
> gets 40+ MPG and puts very, very little carbon out the exhaust pipe.
> My employer buys state-of-the-art jets because they burn less fuel.
> Carbon costs money.  You want less carbon?  Tax it!  But no, that's
> too obvious.  Let's trade.
>
> People really are this stupid.
>
> Brad
>
>
> On 7/10/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>> Brad,
>>
>> Let's agree that cap n trade has nothing to do with anything other than
>> raising huge sums of money.
>>
>> Now, we both agree that our government has to find that money somewhere,
>> and that the math doesn't work in the "soak the rich" department.
>>
>> Cap n Trade looks like one of the most significant regressive taxes ever
>> proposed.  If the Republicans had come up with it, they would have been
>> boiled in oil.  The most destitute person in this country will pay a
>> significant portion of "safety net" funds -- there's no help for it.
>> You can't legislate around energy use.
>>
>> Sure the rich use more energy per person, but not as a percentage of
>> their income.
>>
>> Then, bring on VAT!  Hugely regressive. Yea for our team!
>>
>> Not to mention the "Burn the Food" program which adds to the cost of
>> everything.
>>
>> There is no such thing as a free lunch.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 14 04:10:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 16:10:33 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] ah!, Thank You Bill
In-Reply-To: <4A5C3A16.3050707@effros.com>
References: <E26C6D09BC7D487F9B62734BD002683D@YOURB88038198E>
	<4A5C3A16.3050707@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907140110i25f53300i6ffc1febf0f3b178@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

Hate it for you with the swine flu thing.  If it makes you feel any
better, some kid took my temperature with a "scanning thermometer" at
the bowling alley last night.  I don't have swine flu and I still
can't bowl worth a shit.  The thermometer didn't predict that however.

Brad

On 7/14/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the "heads-up" Ed.
>
> I got swine flu and have been a little off my game.  I just didn't get
> around to renewing the site, but your note kicked me over the top.
>
> Thanks, for the question about sharing the rent -- I've got it covered.
> Keep the cards and letters coming.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Ed Kroposki wrote:
>> Ah!, Thank you Bill...
>>
>> Do you need contributions to pay the rent?
>>
>> Ed K
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>

From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul 14 04:27:16 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:27:16 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Don't Fight Cap n Trade
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907140104g60a7ab52xbad4f21a9efe0727@mail.gmail.com>
References: <4A573689.6020804@effros.com>	<400985d70907100653sdea9f3cud32646cf30bead0f@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907140104g60a7ab52xbad4f21a9efe0727@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4A5C4164.4000102@effros.com>

Brad,

Sarah is not a rich woman, and this is her chance to permanently change 
that.  I've got no problem with that, and all the ink she is generating 
will ensure she and her family never have to worry about money again.

The last time I checked, Warren Buffet had not earned more than $100,000 
in any tax year.  "Taxing the Rich" will not hit Warren.  All the smart 
rich will not earn incomes, so the higher taxes will not really impact them.

Everyone has known this for a long time.  After wringing all the money 
they can out of the "rich" -- which will turn out to be a fraction of 
the amount projected -- the Democrats will go after everyone else -- 
which is the only thing they can do, and which is where all the money 
is, anyhow.

The capital gains boondoggle had companies reporting incomes they were 
not earning, and paying taxes on earnings they never earned.  Stocks 
went up.  Ordinary people invested in stock. Stock was bought and sold.  
Huge capital gains taxes were paid.  Everyone was happy.

So now it turns out the stocks weren't worth what was paid, but the 
capital gains taxes and bogus income taxes don't get returned.  People 
discover their savings aren't nearly what they expected -- the 
difference went to taxes they were all too happy to pay.

Now they're not happy, but the taxes are going to have to be paid 
anyhow.  Without getting too political about causes and effects, 
everybody contributed to this problem--no hands are clean.  When the 
time comes to pay the piper, we will all have to pay something.  Some 
will pay a higher percentage of their incomes than others--that's what 
the upcoming fights will be about.

Oxen will be gored.  See what you can do to protect your own.  Nobody 
can save them all.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Here's the latest from Sarah on cap n trade.  The latest spin on her
> is that she's leaving for the money.  Well, DUH!  She and Todd are
> self-supporting and I hope they make millions from her book.  It's not
> like she's drawing 9 grand a month from some ping-pong company while
> holding office.
>
> Brad
>
> ----------
>
> The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End
>
> By Sarah Palin
> Tuesday, July 14, 2009
>
>
>
> There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment
> rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is
> expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when
> the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our
> nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach
> into the private sector is unprecedented.
>
> Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the
> personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of
> these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class,
> let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will
> be:
>
> I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy
> plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would
> undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent
> damage.
>
> American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of
> abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the
> inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity,
> and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge,
> energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy
> tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.
>
> There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we
> need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign
> energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer
> and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet
> our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying
> America's economy.
>
> Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it
> includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the
> resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over
> eight years. So much for creating jobs.
>
> In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy
> sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost
> of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of
> farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while
> driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and
> transportation will also increase.
>
> The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal
> will understand supply-side economics.
>
> The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make
> ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity
> bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on
> anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
>
> Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under
> the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for
> electricity."
>
> We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and
> energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God
> created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have
> more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign
> nation from which we purchase energy today.
>
> In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy
> project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport
> hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry
> markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and
> in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if
> ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.
>
> Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many
> states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it
> into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of
> oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear
> energy.
>
> We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy
> supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to
> China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's
> plan will result in the latter.
>
> For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic
> energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher
> prices.
>
> Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic
> investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and
> secure our nation?
>
> Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.
>
> The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.
>
>
>
> On 7/10/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Bill,
>>
>> I agree.  Not only is cap n trade about raising vast sums of money, it
>> is about concentrating power in DC over industry.  What's is the issue
>> about?  Climate change?  OK, fine.  I don't buy into the science but
>> if that is the objective, tax carbon - easy to measure, easy to tax.
>> It would still be highly regressive but less prone to manipulation.
>> Why does gasoline cost so much for my car?  Easy - it's the carbon
>> tax, dummy.  Why did my electric bill double.  Duh, carbon tax? Why
>> did my job get shipped to India or China....... uhhhh, no carbon
>> taxes? A simple carbon tax would be so transparent and the effect on
>> the "average family" so quickly identified that no one would vote for
>> anyone supporting it. Therefore, we have this Orwellien term, "and
>> trade".  Trade for what?  Indulgences?  What high priest (oh, I
>> forget, 'czar' is the currently acceptable term) will determine who is
>> granted forgiveness and who isn't?
>>
>> Nixon signing the EPA into law was a good thing.  I wish he was still
>> around to politely suggest to China that they do a bit more about
>> their "carbon footprint".  China and India have just recently come to
>> the carbon "foodfest" and they are not the slightest bit interested in
>> curtailing their appetite.  So, we're going to make more room at the
>> dinner table by commiting suicide? What is the "carbon footprint" of
>> Kenya?  Is that the model we're following?
>>
>> I put my money where my mouth is, ie, that's why I bought a car that
>> gets 40+ MPG and puts very, very little carbon out the exhaust pipe.
>> My employer buys state-of-the-art jets because they burn less fuel.
>> Carbon costs money.  You want less carbon?  Tax it!  But no, that's
>> too obvious.  Let's trade.
>>
>> People really are this stupid.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>>
>> On 7/10/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>>     
>>> Brad,
>>>
>>> Let's agree that cap n trade has nothing to do with anything other than
>>> raising huge sums of money.
>>>
>>> Now, we both agree that our government has to find that money somewhere,
>>> and that the math doesn't work in the "soak the rich" department.
>>>
>>> Cap n Trade looks like one of the most significant regressive taxes ever
>>> proposed.  If the Republicans had come up with it, they would have been
>>> boiled in oil.  The most destitute person in this country will pay a
>>> significant portion of "safety net" funds -- there's no help for it.
>>> You can't legislate around energy use.
>>>
>>> Sure the rich use more energy per person, but not as a percentage of
>>> their income.
>>>
>>> Then, bring on VAT!  Hugely regressive. Yea for our team!
>>>
>>> Not to mention the "Burn the Food" program which adds to the cost of
>>> everything.
>>>
>>> There is no such thing as a free lunch.
>>>
>>> B.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>>       
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
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From bill at effros.com  Tue Jul 14 04:40:07 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:40:07 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] ah!, Thank You Bill
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907140110i25f53300i6ffc1febf0f3b178@mail.gmail.com>
References: <E26C6D09BC7D487F9B62734BD002683D@YOURB88038198E>	<4A5C3A16.3050707@effros.com>
	<400985d70907140110i25f53300i6ffc1febf0f3b178@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <4A5C4467.4000200@effros.com>

The swine flu is mainly annoying, but useful in terms of keeping my 
antibodies up to snuff.  When you first get it, it knocks you out in 
terms of your body needing to devote so many resources.  After that it's 
just controlling symptoms.  You're not contagious after 7 days.  I have 
the luxury of never having to go in to work, so I can take care of 
myself, heal, and not get infected with too many things over the years.

B.



Brad Haslett wrote:
> Bill,
>
> Hate it for you with the swine flu thing.  If it makes you feel any
> better, some kid took my temperature with a "scanning thermometer" at
> the bowling alley last night.  I don't have swine flu and I still
> can't bowl worth a shit.  The thermometer didn't predict that however.
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/14/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>   
>> Thanks for the "heads-up" Ed.
>>
>> I got swine flu and have been a little off my game.  I just didn't get
>> around to renewing the site, but your note kicked me over the top.
>>
>> Thanks, for the question about sharing the rent -- I've got it covered.
>> Keep the cards and letters coming.
>>
>> B.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ed Kroposki wrote:
>>     
>>> Ah!, Thank you Bill...
>>>
>>> Do you need contributions to pay the rent?
>>>
>>> Ed K
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>>       
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>   
-------------- next part --------------
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 14 05:36:03 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 17:36:03 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Don't Fight Cap n Trade
In-Reply-To: <4A5C4164.4000102@effros.com>
References: <4A573689.6020804@effros.com>
	<400985d70907100653sdea9f3cud32646cf30bead0f@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907140104g60a7ab52xbad4f21a9efe0727@mail.gmail.com>
	<4A5C4164.4000102@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907140236n6d3faffcl3249c1f01bf333b1@mail.gmail.com>

Bill?

No one has "played by the rules" more than me".
 The three rules for almost certain poverty are; 1- don't graduate
from high school, 2- have children out of wedlock, and 3 - get
addicted to drugs or alcohol.  I was lucky,  my dad had only an 8th
grade education but he was an elder in his church and didn't violate
rule numbers 2 and 3.  I tested the limits of 2 and 3 to the max but
went overboard on rule number 1.  Everything is good in moderation.

I'm sitting here in China looking at why I can't afford an apartment
inside the the East Second-Ring Road (where I really want one) and
wondering where our planning went wrong.  I've got a good, good paying
job (Fan too).  Fan and I save on a level damn near the Asian level.
We skipped the "keep up with the Jones" phase of Americana and the
whole McMansion phase of real estate.  And yet, we're worried about
out our long-term cash flow stream being denominated in US dollars.
No sane and rational person can explain how we'll pay back our current
national debt (and soon to be more debt) without inflation and dollar
deflation.  If someone has a rational explanation to an alternative
outcome, I'm all ears. There's nothing I can do about my defined
benefit plan (A) that will be fully funded in less than 12 months and
will be fixed for the next 30+ years or until I die. Plan B is down a
half-million and won't recover anytime soon.  Plan C is down the same
percentage as B.  Plan D  (the Mary, Gary, Brad show) on the
Mississippi Gulf Coast pays its own way now but we're 'white' and have
to underbid everything public - which is why we don't bid public jobs.

I sit here in Beijing whilst listen to the non-stop hammering, watch
the cranes, and look at the determination on peoples faces and think
I'm living in an alternative universe.

The 'Grateful Dead' said it best, "what a long, strange trip it's been!"

Slim being here was a hoot!  More on that later.

Brad







On 7/14/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Sarah is not a rich woman, and this is her chance to permanently change
> that.  I've got no problem with that, and all the ink she is generating
> will ensure she and her family never have to worry about money again.
>
> The last time I checked, Warren Buffet had not earned more than $100,000
> in any tax year.  "Taxing the Rich" will not hit Warren.  All the smart
> rich will not earn incomes, so the higher taxes will not really impact them.
>
> Everyone has known this for a long time.  After wringing all the money
> they can out of the "rich" -- which will turn out to be a fraction of
> the amount projected -- the Democrats will go after everyone else --
> which is the only thing they can do, and which is where all the money
> is, anyhow.
>
> The capital gains boondoggle had companies reporting incomes they were
> not earning, and paying taxes on earnings they never earned.  Stocks
> went up.  Ordinary people invested in stock. Stock was bought and sold.
> Huge capital gains taxes were paid.  Everyone was happy.
>
> So now it turns out the stocks weren't worth what was paid, but the
> capital gains taxes and bogus income taxes don't get returned.  People
> discover their savings aren't nearly what they expected -- the
> difference went to taxes they were all too happy to pay.
>
> Now they're not happy, but the taxes are going to have to be paid
> anyhow.  Without getting too political about causes and effects,
> everybody contributed to this problem--no hands are clean.  When the
> time comes to pay the piper, we will all have to pay something.  Some
> will pay a higher percentage of their incomes than others--that's what
> the upcoming fights will be about.
>
> Oxen will be gored.  See what you can do to protect your own.  Nobody
> can save them all.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Brad Haslett wrote:
>> Bill,
>>
>> Here's the latest from Sarah on cap n trade.  The latest spin on her
>> is that she's leaving for the money.  Well, DUH!  She and Todd are
>> self-supporting and I hope they make millions from her book.  It's not
>> like she's drawing 9 grand a month from some ping-pong company while
>> holding office.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> ----------
>>
>> The 'Cap And Tax' Dead End
>>
>> By Sarah Palin
>> Tuesday, July 14, 2009
>>
>>
>>
>> There is no shortage of threats to our economy. America's unemployment
>> rate recently hit its highest mark in more than 25 years and is
>> expected to continue climbing. Worries are widespread that even when
>> the economy finally rebounds, the recovery won't bring jobs. Our
>> nation's debt is unsustainable, and the federal government's reach
>> into the private sector is unprecedented.
>>
>> Unfortunately, many in the national media would rather focus on the
>> personality-driven political gossip of the day than on the gravity of
>> these challenges. So, at risk of disappointing the chattering class,
>> let me make clear what is foremost on my mind and where my focus will
>> be:
>>
>> I am deeply concerned about President Obama's cap-and-trade energy
>> plan, and I believe it is an enormous threat to our economy. It would
>> undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent
>> damage.
>>
>> American prosperity has always been driven by the steady supply of
>> abundant, affordable energy. Particularly in Alaska, we understand the
>> inherent link between energy and prosperity, energy and opportunity,
>> and energy and security. Consequently, many of us in this huge,
>> energy-rich state recognize that the president's cap-and-trade energy
>> tax would adversely affect every aspect of the U.S. economy.
>>
>> There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we
>> need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign
>> energy sources. But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer
>> and more expensive! Those who understand the issue know we can meet
>> our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying
>> America's economy.
>>
>> Job losses are so certain under this new cap-and-tax plan that it
>> includes a provision accommodating newly unemployed workers from the
>> resulting dried-up energy sector, to the tune of $4.2 billion over
>> eight years. So much for creating jobs.
>>
>> In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy
>> sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost
>> of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of
>> farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while
>> driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and
>> transportation will also increase.
>>
>> The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal
>> will understand supply-side economics.
>>
>> The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make
>> ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity
>> bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on
>> anyone making less than $250,000 a year.
>>
>> Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under
>> the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for
>> electricity."
>>
>> We must move in a new direction. We are ripe for economic growth and
>> energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God
>> created right underfoot on American soil. Just as important, we have
>> more desire and ability to protect the environment than any foreign
>> nation from which we purchase energy today.
>>
>> In Alaska, we are progressing on the largest private-sector energy
>> project in history. Our 3,000-mile natural gas pipeline will transport
>> hundreds of trillions of cubic feet of our clean natural gas to hungry
>> markets across America. We can safely drill for U.S. oil offshore and
>> in a tiny, 2,000-acre corner of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge if
>> ever given the go-ahead by Washington bureaucrats.
>>
>> Of course, Alaska is not the sole source of American energy. Many
>> states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it
>> into a cleaner energy source. Westerners literally sit on mountains of
>> oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear
>> energy.
>>
>> We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy
>> supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to
>> China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama's
>> plan will result in the latter.
>>
>> For so many reasons, we can't afford to kill responsible domestic
>> energy production or clobber every American consumer with higher
>> prices.
>>
>> Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic
>> investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and
>> secure our nation?
>>
>> Yes, we can. Just not with Barack Obama's energy cap-and-tax plan.
>>
>> The writer, a Republican, is governor of Alaska.
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/10/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Bill,
>>>
>>> I agree.  Not only is cap n trade about raising vast sums of money, it
>>> is about concentrating power in DC over industry.  What's is the issue
>>> about?  Climate change?  OK, fine.  I don't buy into the science but
>>> if that is the objective, tax carbon - easy to measure, easy to tax.
>>> It would still be highly regressive but less prone to manipulation.
>>> Why does gasoline cost so much for my car?  Easy - it's the carbon
>>> tax, dummy.  Why did my electric bill double.  Duh, carbon tax? Why
>>> did my job get shipped to India or China....... uhhhh, no carbon
>>> taxes? A simple carbon tax would be so transparent and the effect on
>>> the "average family" so quickly identified that no one would vote for
>>> anyone supporting it. Therefore, we have this Orwellien term, "and
>>> trade".  Trade for what?  Indulgences?  What high priest (oh, I
>>> forget, 'czar' is the currently acceptable term) will determine who is
>>> granted forgiveness and who isn't?
>>>
>>> Nixon signing the EPA into law was a good thing.  I wish he was still
>>> around to politely suggest to China that they do a bit more about
>>> their "carbon footprint".  China and India have just recently come to
>>> the carbon "foodfest" and they are not the slightest bit interested in
>>> curtailing their appetite.  So, we're going to make more room at the
>>> dinner table by commiting suicide? What is the "carbon footprint" of
>>> Kenya?  Is that the model we're following?
>>>
>>> I put my money where my mouth is, ie, that's why I bought a car that
>>> gets 40+ MPG and puts very, very little carbon out the exhaust pipe.
>>> My employer buys state-of-the-art jets because they burn less fuel.
>>> Carbon costs money.  You want less carbon?  Tax it!  But no, that's
>>> too obvious.  Let's trade.
>>>
>>> People really are this stupid.
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>>
>>> On 7/10/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Brad,
>>>>
>>>> Let's agree that cap n trade has nothing to do with anything other than
>>>> raising huge sums of money.
>>>>
>>>> Now, we both agree that our government has to find that money somewhere,
>>>> and that the math doesn't work in the "soak the rich" department.
>>>>
>>>> Cap n Trade looks like one of the most significant regressive taxes ever
>>>> proposed.  If the Republicans had come up with it, they would have been
>>>> boiled in oil.  The most destitute person in this country will pay a
>>>> significant portion of "safety net" funds -- there's no help for it.
>>>> You can't legislate around energy use.
>>>>
>>>> Sure the rich use more energy per person, but not as a percentage of
>>>> their income.
>>>>
>>>> Then, bring on VAT!  Hugely regressive. Yea for our team!
>>>>
>>>> Not to mention the "Burn the Food" program which adds to the cost of
>>>> everything.
>>>>
>>>> There is no such thing as a free lunch.
>>>>
>>>> B.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>>
>>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 14 07:03:20 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 19:03:20 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Dr. Sowell
Message-ID: <400985d70907140403o144453d5u28c1e36db7fbf899@mail.gmail.com>

This must be the day of the Doctors.  Sowell has a good point.  I'm
headed back to the bowling alley to prove without a doubt that I still
suck (besides it being within
 walking distance and having cold beer).

Brad

--------------

July 14, 2009
A Personal Inequity
By Thomas Sowell

Sometimes, when I hear about "disparities" and "inequities," I think
of a disparity that applied directly to me-- the disparity in
basketball ability between myself and Michael Jordan.

When I was in school, I was so awful in basketball that the class
coach wouldn't even let me try out for softball, at which I was
actually pretty good.

I was more than forty years old before I ever got the ball through the
basket. It wasn't during a game. The basket was in my brother's
backyard and I was just shooting-- unopposed-- from practically right
under the basket. The only pressure on me was that my little nephew
was watching.

After making that one basket, I never took a basketball in my hands
again. I retired at my peak.

Think about it: Michael Jordan made millions of dollars because of
having a talent that was totally denied to me. Through no fault of my
own, I had to spend years studying economics, in order to make a
living.

Economics is not nearly as much fun as basketball and doesn't pay
nearly as much money either. We are talking inequity big time.

Most discussions of "disparities" and "inequities" are a prelude to
coming up with some "solution" that the government can impose, winning
politicians some votes in the process. How could the disparity between
Michael Jordan and me be solved?

We could change the rules of basketball, in order to try to equalize
the outcomes. Michael Jordan could be required to make all his
two-point shots from beyond the three-point line, with five players
opposing him and no one on his side. A three-point shot could require
him to stand under the basket on the opposite side of the court and
shoot from there.

Meanwhile, I could make two-point shots from a spot half the distance
from the foul line to the basket, and of course without any other
players on the court to distract me. Any shots I might make from back
at the foul line would count as three-pointers.

Even under these conditions, you would be better off betting your
money on Michael Jordan. But, conceivably at least, we might change
the rules some more to make the results come out less lopsided, in
order to create "social justice."

The problem with trying to equalize is that you can usually only
equalize downward. If the government were to spend some of its
stimulus money trying to raise my basketball ability level to that of
Michael Jordan, it would be an even bigger waste of money than most of
the other things that Washington does.

So the only way to try to equalize that has any chance at all would be
to try to bring Michael Jordan down to my level, whether by drastic
rule changes or by making him play with one hand tied behind his back,
or whatever.

The problem with this approach, as with many other attempts at
equalization, is that it undermines the very activity involved.
Basketball would be a much less interesting game if it was played
under rules designed to produce equality of outcomes.

Attendance would fall off to the point where neither Michael Jordan
nor anyone else could make a living playing the game.

The same principle applies elsewhere. If you are going to try to
equalize the chances of women getting jobs as firefighters, for
example, then you are going to have to lower the physical requirements
of height, weight and upper body strength.

That means that you are going to have more firefighters who are not
capable of carrying an unconscious person out of a burning building.

If you are going to have these lower physical requirements be the same
for both women and men, that means that you are not only going to have
women who are not capable of carrying someone out of a burning
building, you are also going to have men who are likewise incapable of
carrying someone to safety.

Most activities do not exist for the sake of equality. They exist to
serve their own purposes-- and those purposes are undermined,
sometimes fatally, when equality becomes the goal.

Nor would a politician encouraging me to feel resentful toward Michael
Jordan do any good. If I had such resentments, they would do me more
harm than they would do Michael Jordan. They would make me feel bad--
and could make me miss seeing some great basketball.

From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul 14 15:23:41 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:23:41 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Circulating the internet #2
Message-ID: <0E4A1BE0228541BC8952E89E70F45049@YOURB88038198E>

FYI -

Circulating the internet:

http://www.ourcountrydeservesbetter.com/campaigns/notiran.html

Now is that a real UTube or just made to look like it?

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul 14 15:26:41 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:26:41 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Madoff's mentor revealed:
Message-ID: <932E198F79CC4E1B8DD22AF0027C63C0@YOURB88038198E>

Circulating the internet #3

See attached cartoon.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 15 22:55:05 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 10:55:05 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rhodies in China
Message-ID: <400985d70907151955x7bd3cf3cm432cee61318996d4@mail.gmail.com>

Steve and Brad with their buddy in the background.
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 15 23:08:17 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 11:08:17 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Wealthy in China
Message-ID: <400985d70907152008j1099b034p7f6fcffea595ce45@mail.gmail.com>

Ten years ago on my first trip here, it wasn't unusual to see older
people dressed in Mao era clothing, the bicycle lanes were full, and
donkey carts hauled coal through the streets amongst cars.  Not today!
 The subway system here is perhaps the best and most extensive in the
world (which I'm guessing replaced a great deal of bicycle traffic).
People of all ages dress pretty stylishly and accessorize themselves
with state-of-the-art tech gadgets, and the cars are more mid-size
sedans and luxury models than cheap "tin cans".  Much has changed.
The article below explains a lot.  I've been to three different malls
during this visit that were just WOW! (and beyond what I could
afford). And what are we Americans doing?  Oh yeah, HopenChange.

http://www.mckinsey.com/locations/greaterchina/mckonchina/reports/mcKinsey_wealthy_consumer_report.pdf

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 16 09:01:14 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 16 Jul 2009 09:01:14 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Wealthy in China
Message-ID: <69C1D5A03D354D9685C0DE05A2497E80@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

As is your usual, great find and post.  Great for you to find Slim.  If you see him again, tell him we are waiting for a visit to Lake Hartwell.  But tell him not to come between August 16th and 30th, it is my turn to be out of the country then.

Ed K
Addendum:

From:  The Character of Nations by Thomas Sowell 6-10-09

 

While nations differ, particular kinds of behavior produce particular kinds of results in country after country. Moreover, American society in recent years has been imitating behavior patterns that have produced negative - and sometimes catastrophic - consequences in many other countries around the world. 

 


Among these patterns have been a concentration of decision-making power in government officials, an undermining of the role of the family, a "non-judgmental" attitude toward behavior and a dissolution of the common bonds that hold a society together, leading to atomistic self-indulgences and group-identity politics that increasingly pits different segments of society against each other. 

 


Those among the intelligentsia who say that we should "learn from other countries" almost invariably mean that we should imitate what other countries have done. Angelo Codevilla argues that we should learn from other countries' mistakes, especially when those same mistakes have repeatedly produced bad results in many countries and among many very different peoples, living under very different political systems. 


 

Putting ever more economic decisions in the hands of those with political power is just one of those mistakes with a track record of painful repercussions in many countries around the world. These repercussions have included not only serious economic losses but, even more important, a loss of personal freedom and self-respect, as ever wider segments of the population become supplicants and sycophants of those with the power to dispense largess or to make one's life miserable with legalistic or bureaucratic harassment. 

 


We in America have taken large steps in that direction in recent years, and are accelerating our moves in that direction this year. Getting some clearer sense of what this risks is just one of many reasons to read "The Character of Nations". 

 
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 16 22:58:35 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:58:35 +0800
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The World Has Gone Mad!
Message-ID: <400985d70907161958t5ac6922ai80d5d6b1dd8997f8@mail.gmail.com>

Well Boys and Girls, time to leave the land of "anything is possible"
shortly for a return to the land of "you owe me".  Enjoy this little
jewel (below).  We are so screwed!

Brad

-----------



July 16, 2009 Posted by John at 7:33 PM

The news is coming so thick and fast these days that it's hard to keep
up. The Supreme Court, socialized medicine, cap and trade, record
deficits, foreign policy fecklessness--it's easy to lose track of
smaller issues with all that is going on. Still, H.R. 1018 shouldn't
be allowed to pass unnoticed.

H.R. 1018 is the "Restore Our American Mustangs Act." It can fairly be
described as a welfare program for horses. Believe it or not--this
isn't satire--here is what the bill will do:

[T]he "Restore Our American Mustangs Act" ... would create a new $700
million welfare program for wild horses. The program:
* Conducts a horse census every two years

* Provides "enhanced contraception" and birth control for horses

* Establishes an additional 19 million acres of public and private
land for wild horses

* Covers $5 million tab to repair horse damage to land

* Mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before
Americans can adopt horses



"Enhanced contraception" for horses? Maybe I'm out of touch, but I
didn't realize that wild horses use contraception at all. Maybe the
measure would be worth voting for if Nancy Pelosi would commit that
she will personally attempt to fit a wild stallion with an "enhanced
contraception" device at a critical moment. (Just kidding, liberals.)

Nineteen million acres, by the way, is around 28 times the area of
Rhode Island. If you think Rhode Island is too small to worry about,
it's also more than a third of the state of Minnesota.

The Democrats have scheduled a vote on H.R. 1018 tomorrow.


---------------

From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 17 08:28:12 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 08:28:12 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What they are saying in Europe:
Message-ID: <BCEB873BB6694D7E9C88B611B90B9D2D@YOURB88038198E>

What they are saying in Europe:

Over five thousand years ago, Moses said to the children of Israel

 "Pick up your shovel, mount your asses and camels, and I will 

lead you to the promised land."

`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Nearly 75 years ago, Roosevelt said, 

"Lay down your shovels, sit on your asses, and light up a Camel, 

this is the promised land." 

`~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Now, Obama has stolen your shovel, taxed your asses, raised the 

price of Camels, and mortgaged the promised land!!





Received from European sources,

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 17 09:59:41 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:59:41 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] first pictures of the STS Crew in orbit.
Message-ID: <DC34B551F087408EB9C1EAC7970C0187@YOURB88038198E>



 
Attached is a picture of Astronaut on the current space shuttle who is brother of Barbara who works for my wife:



I want a camera that takes and transmits pictures as clearly as this one. This is a picture of Barbara's brother Tom Marshburn. 

 

This electronic mail message is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply email and destroy all copies of the original message. To the best of our ability and knowledge, this mail message has been scanned and is free of viruses and malware. 
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Jul 18 15:18:46 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 14:18:46 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Global Warming
Message-ID: <400985d70907181218i19b8315cx1e6539bad059f032@mail.gmail.com>

Jet lag sucks!  I don't know what it is about being a passenger versus
"The Kuhuna" on a crossing, but resetting your clock as a passenger
takes a lot longer.  This article appeared on my radar today (below).
I don't know about India, but China says, "NO".  If Global Warming is
real, we may as well "kiss our ass goodbye" and be done with it.  I
don't think the US  in the mood to kick 1.3 Billion asses (plus a
Billion more in India), and they don't seem to be all that impressed
in the Beijing BMW showrooms by the Chocolate Savior.

Brad

-------------------

Global Warming: White Man's Problem
Why poor countries won't commit to binding emissions cuts

Shikha Dalmia | July 17, 2009

If I were an environmental activist, I would be despairing right
around now about ever getting meaningful action on global warming.
Over the last eight years, eco-warriors had managed to convince
themselves that the main obstacle to their grand designs to
recalibrate the Earth's thermostat was a stupid and callow U.S.
president unwilling to lead the rest of the world.

But with Barack Obama in office they no longer have that problem. In
fact, they have a charismatic and savvy spokesman who combines a deep
commitment to their cause with considerable powers of persuasion. Yet
his call to action at last week's G-8 summit in Italy yielded little
more than polite applause, and that only when he issued a mea culpa.
"I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short
of meeting our responsibilities," he said amid cheers. "So let me be
clear: Those days are over."

What did this brave self-flagellation yield? To be sure, he got the
attendees to collectively declare that they would never ever let the
Earth's temperature rise two degrees centigrade from pre-industrial
levels. This is supposedly a prelude to the real horse-trading over
emissions cuts that will begin in a Copenhagen, Denmark, meeting this
December.

But the depressing thing for climate warriors was that Obama could not
get developing countries, without whose cooperation there is simply no
way to avert climate change, to accept?even just in theory?the idea of
binding emissions cuts. India's prime minister took the occasion to
position his country as a major victim of a problem not of its making.
"What we are witnessing today is the consequence [of] over two
centuries of industrial activity and high-consumption lifestyles in
the developed world," he lectured. "They have to bear this historical
responsibility." And even before the summit began, China declared the
West had "no right" to ask it to limit its economic growth.

Rather than engage with the issues, eco-pundits are grasping for all
kinds of fanciful pseudo-scientific theories to explain why Obama's
sweet-talking ways are leaving the rest of the world cold. New York
Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, for instance, recently blamed the
lack of progress on the faulty circuitry evolution has wired into the
human brain. According to Kristof, evolution has programmed us to be
alert to immediate threats, such as snakes, or enemies with clubs, but
not for vastly greater but less imminent dangers that require
forethought. If this sounds like a warmed-over, 21st-century version
of the Calvinistic crooked-timber view of human nature, that's because
it is.

Not to be outdone, Kristof's Nobel Prize-winning colleague at the
Times, Paul Krugman, pulled out the folk story about the frog and the
boiling pot in his latest column to explain our collective torpor over
climate change. Just as the proverbial frog wasn't able to feel the
gradually rising temperature before he boiled to death, so too, in
Krugman's telling, human beings are not equipped to comprehend the
dangers of an overheating planet before they fry to death.

But this psychologizing only exposes the inability of climate
activists to take seriously the rational case for inaction. In fact,
there is a perfectly good reason developing countries are unwilling to
act on climate change: What they are being asked to do is more awful
than climate change's implications--even if one accepts all the
alarmist predictions.

Consider what would be necessary to slash global greenhouse-gas
emissions just 50% below 2000 levels by 2050?a far less aggressive
goal than what the enviros say is necessary to avert climate
catastrophe. According to U.S. Chamber of Commerce calculations, even
if the West reduced its emissions by 80% below 2000 levels, developing
countries would still have to return their emissions to 2000 levels to
meet the 50% target. However, Indians currently consume roughly 15
times less energy per capita than Americans?and Chinese consume seven
times less. Asking them, along with the rest of the developing world,
to go back to 2000 emission levels with a 2050 population would mean
putting them on a very drastic energy diet.

The human toll of this is unfathomable: It would require these
countries to abandon plans to ever conquer poverty, of course. But
beyond that it would require a major scaling back of living standards
under which their middle classes?for whom three square meals, cars and
air-conditioning are only now beginning to come within reach?would
have to go back to subsistence living, and the hundreds of millions
who are at subsistence would have to accept starvation.

In short, the choice for developing countries is between mass death
due to the consequences of an overheated planet sometime in the
distant future, and mass suicide due to imposed instant starvation
right now. Is it any surprise that they are reluctant to jump on the
global-warming bandwagon?

The Waxman-Markey climate change bill that just passed the U.S. House
of Representatives wants to force developing countries to accept this
fate by resorting to the old and tired method of protectionism. Should
this monstrosity become law, starting in 2020 the United States will
impose carbon tariffs on goods from any country that does not accept
binding reductions. But this is a path to mutually assured economic
destruction?not to combating climate change.

For starters, by 2020, when these tariffs go into effect, India and
China?with GDPs projected to grow anywhere from 6% to 10%
annually?will have much bigger economies with huge domestic markets
that they are increasingly opening to each other. Thus they might well
be better off forgoing access to the U.S. market than accepting
crippling restrictions on their growth.

Also, by then they will have more economic clout on the world stage to
enforce their own ideas of who ought to take moral responsibility for
climate change. The West's case for restricting Indian and Chinese
exports rests on the claim that these countries' total emissions will
exceed those from the West within the next few decades. (China's
emissions are already at par with those of the U.S., the biggest
emitter).

But these countries have, and will continue to have, far lower
emissions on a per-capita basis, given that China's are now around
one-fifth those of the United States and India's one-twentieth. Thus
they would have an equally valid case for imposing countervailing
restrictions on American exports based on per-capita emissions. The
West might well be the bigger loser in this economic warfare if it is
barred from accessing new, growing markets.

Obama obviously understands this?which is why he has condemned the
House's turn down the protectionist path. So what should climate
warriors do? Right now the only certain way to save lives is by
calling off this misguided war on climate change. If and when climate
change promises to claim more casualties than poverty and starvation,
the world will begin heeding their calls. If, however, these
climate-change casualties don't materialize, there would have been no
need to act in the first place. Either way, the world has far more
immediate and scarier problems than climate change to address right
now.

Shikha Dalmia is a senior analyst at Reason Foundation and a columnist
for Forbes. This article originally appeared at Forbes.


From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Jul 18 18:32:00 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:32:00 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] yea ol rhodes list
Message-ID: <AE6F6A5DB1164306A56015AC9751007D@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

About two weeks ago, I got an email that told me to watch for fireworks on the Rhodes List.

Imagine, MJM getting rebuffed?  Stan told he is fabricating stories, etc.

It looks like the list now has a new leader, a white B.O.

Ed K
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From tootle at charter.net  Sat Jul 18 18:45:21 2009
From: tootle at charter.net (tootle)
Date: Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:45:21 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Michael Meltzer said, "...
Message-ID: <177B05B1CCB74779A85CA00A6314ACA4@YOURB88038198E>




Michael Meltzer said, "It a long answerer, but the short version is the email server that rhodes22.com used is shared, and one of the "shares" is not being nice...
-mjm


So what kind of bad boy is MJM these days?  Making a fortune posting SPAM?  So is he responsible for all those Canadian Pharmacy Ads?

One can only imagine what a computer guru will do these days.  Or is he the one playing with Obama's teleprompter in the men's room at the White House?  

Ed K
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From bill at effros.com  Sun Jul 19 07:45:30 2009
From: bill at effros.com (Bill Effros)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 07:45:30 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] yea ol rhodes list
In-Reply-To: <AE6F6A5DB1164306A56015AC9751007D@YOURB88038198E>
References: <AE6F6A5DB1164306A56015AC9751007D@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <4A63075A.90802@effros.com>

Ed,

Thanks for "Half Black" -- one day I'll get around to increasing the 
size of Swiftwater Gazette submissions, but every time I try to change 
something I screw up the list, and I don't have time to fix it right now.

What is going on with the MJM and the Rhodes list?  People have been 
slipping me tidbits, but I haven't had time to follow them.  Or to get 
to Stan.

Trying to get rid of all old business before moving on to new business.  
Having some success.

Brad,

When you fly to China on business do you reset your internal clock, or 
do you just function in China on Memphis time?  The 12 hour reset is 
amazing, and while I can fool it for a certain amount of time, it always 
catches up with me at some point.

B.



Ed Kroposki wrote:
> Brad,
>  
> About two weeks ago, I got an email that told me to watch for 
> fireworks on the Rhodes List.
>  
> Imagine, MJM getting rebuffed?  Stan told he is fabricating stories, etc.
>  
> It looks like the list now has a new leader, a white B.O.
>  
> Ed K
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>   
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 19 08:40:08 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 08:40:08 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Aflac!
Message-ID: <F0B6ECDF88E449F6950352A68DB36929@YOURB88038198E>

Bill, that is Aflac!  Your spell checker missed it.

I was informed a few weeks ago to watch the list for some action.  There is a self coronation to the new "god of rhodes".

I am going out the door.  

Ed K

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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 12:58:20 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 11:58:20 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] yea ol rhodes list
In-Reply-To: <4A63075A.90802@effros.com>
References: <AE6F6A5DB1164306A56015AC9751007D@YOURB88038198E>
	<4A63075A.90802@effros.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907190958t7ae9f4bdv70a9892b07dc94ab@mail.gmail.com>

Bill,

There are no industry secrets.  I try to reset my clock to local time
as quickly as possible as a tourist.  When flying as "the Kuhuna" I
try and stay on Memphis time.  I ran into a co-worker on the flight
from Chicago to Memphis I hadn't seen in a decade.  We used to fly
together years ago when I was a new Captain and he was a "young pup"
fresh from the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) and we did Peoria layovers
together in the -27.  He's an MD-11 Captain now and I picked his brain
on the latest jet-lag defenses.  There are none - it hurts like hell!

This year we handled it about right - Fan's friend drove us to
Hangzhou and we re-set our clocks at a resort, then traveled back to
Shanghai - then high-speed train to Beijing. By the time Slim showed,
we were on local time.  From there, it was musician time, a whole
'nuther' story.

I guess my employer is getting serious about ending my vacation.  They
moved my class date forward two weeks and there was a whole "box of
books" waiting for me at home.  Ask the question again in 6 months.
My guess is the answer won't change - it's painful.

Brad

On 7/19/09, Bill Effros <bill at effros.com> wrote:
> Ed,
>
> Thanks for "Half Black" -- one day I'll get around to increasing the
> size of Swiftwater Gazette submissions, but every time I try to change
> something I screw up the list, and I don't have time to fix it right now.
>
> What is going on with the MJM and the Rhodes list?  People have been
> slipping me tidbits, but I haven't had time to follow them.  Or to get
> to Stan.
>
> Trying to get rid of all old business before moving on to new business.
> Having some success.
>
> Brad,
>
> When you fly to China on business do you reset your internal clock, or
> do you just function in China on Memphis time?  The 12 hour reset is
> amazing, and while I can fool it for a certain amount of time, it always
> catches up with me at some point.
>
> B.
>
>
>
> Ed Kroposki wrote:
>> Brad,
>>
>> About two weeks ago, I got an email that told me to watch for
>> fireworks on the Rhodes List.
>>
>> Imagine, MJM getting rebuffed?  Stan told he is fabricating stories, etc.
>>
>> It looks like the list now has a new leader, a white B.O.
>>
>> Ed K
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 14:40:25 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:40:25 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamacare
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>

Good afternoon, All,

I've been saying pretty much this same thing about health care and insurance
for many years. Now we can expand it to gov't provided/controlled/mandated
health care.

Rik

-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne

_____________________

http://mises.org/story/3543
Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument

*Mises Daily* by Gabriel E.
Vidal<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1219>| Posted on
7/17/2009 12:00:00 AM

In his speech<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-American-Medical-Association>to
the AMA in Chicago June 15, 2009, Obama shared his diagnosis,
solutions,
and justification for healthcare reform: health costs are spiraling out of
control and are a threat to the economy, families, businesses, and the
federal government. The current system is unsustainable. Costs are
increasing faster than they should because we spend money on things that
don't make us healthier. We equate expensive care with better care. We
overuse and reimburse for treatments that are not needed and we pay for
quantity instead of quality.

We can categorize Obama's major solutions to the healthcare crisis as
follows:

   1.

   Payment reform. Change how providers are paid by bundling payments so
   they team up to treat episode of care or illness. Pay for quality outcomes.
   2.

   Knowledge reform. Invest in examining and disseminating knowledge of what
   treatments are more cost effective and clinically effective to cut costs.
   3.

   Information-technology reform. Upgrade medical records from paper to
   electronic. This will avoid duplication of tests, track information from
   doctor to doctor, lower administrative costs, improve doctors' productivity,
   and reduce medical errors.
   4.

   Insurance reform. Make the purchase of health insurance mandatory for
   everyone. Eliminate preexisting-condition waivers and insurance companies'
   ability to "cherry-pick" whom to cover. Introduce an affordable public
   option for individuals in order to inject competition into the marketplace
   to keep private insurance companies honest.

Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that this is
not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms is
that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is
misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he insists,
costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and the
stability of the healthcare system.

Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem, his
solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework within
which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of control
because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange between
patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every
well-functioning industry.

Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators
have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by
command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.

Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even private
health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost reports
submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through mathematical
models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation and
regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with
lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services should
be.

But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat ? no
matter how accurate the cost data, how well intentioned and how
sophisticated his computer program ? to come up with the correct and just
price. The just price of a health service can only be determined by the
voluntary exchange of a patient with his hospital, physician, and
pharmacist. The relationship between the patient and his private provider
has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its intermediaries
(HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a
relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information.

Given the level of technological advance and capital investment in
healthcare of the past 40 years, one would expect quality to increase and
prices to come down relative to other goods and services. This is true of
other capital-intensive industries like consumer electronics and air travel.
But in healthcare we have the opposite phenomenon: higher prices and, at
best, equal or slightly improved quality in some locations or, at worst,
lower quality in other locations, particularly government owned
institutions. And too few consider that perhaps government participation is
to blame.

Obama suggests that Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for the cost
spiral because they pay for quantity rather than quality, because they do
not differentiate between services that make people healthier and those that
do not, because they pay for services that are not needed, etc. But he is
stating the obvious. Government bureaucrats, physicians, patients, and
hospitals have known that for as long as these federal programs have
existed. In fact, these reimbursement mechanisms have been modified over the
years to attempt to resolve these very deficiencies in the same way that
Soviet and Cuban planners attempted to cure the weaknesses of their
resource-allocation formulas.

Contrary to Obama's suggestion that knowledge of clinical effectiveness and
cost effectiveness can be obtained and disseminated, there is no rational
way to evaluate cost effectiveness outside of the free market. Central
health planners cannot compare and recommend the best option between two
different combinations of drugs, hospitals, and physicians to treat a
particular ailment. It is not just a matter of figuring out which
combination offers better outcomes and lower costs. In fact, the bureaucrat
actually needs prices to make that comparison! This is also why Obama's
ideas on payment reform to change how Medicare pays providers, and knowledge
reform to investigate which treatments are most cost effective will never
work and will increase costs and reduce quality. We have explored this
argument in detail here <http://mises.org/story/3428>.

Obama also proposes to reduce the cost of health care by upgrading medical
records from paper to electronic. While the benefits of health information
technology (HIT) are undeniable, the industry is nowhere near the level of
development required to have a material impact in productivity and quality
of care. It is truly in its infancy. We have different manufacturers with
different systems, and different silos of solutions to particular problems
even within the same manufacturer ? silos that at best communicate clumsily
with each other and at worst make the physician's access to meaningful
timely clinical information a nightmare.

Billions of dollars have already been invested in HIT. Some systems have
worked, while others have not. Billions more will need to be allocated until
the best systems are adopted. But the idea that somehow a government agency
with no shareholders at risk will help us better coordinate the allocation
of capital and the experimentation necessary to develop these solutions is
laughable, especially when one of its agents, the Department of Veterans
Affairs, in all likelihood has the record for the most expensive failed HIT
experiment to date<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-22-va-system-scrutiny_x.htm>,
the $467 million computer system at its Bay Pines hospital in Florida.

The true drive behind government's interest in electronic medical records is
the desire to acquire as much clinical and cost information as possible to
further control care delivery and health resources. But this is a futile
effort as we have seen above. In addition, the effort runs counter to the
logical problem that computer systems at millions of local provider-patient
levels are capable of generating more data than can be processed
expeditiously and meaningfully by a central control agency and its computer
system. Any information produced by this central planner will be erroneous
and old by the time it is used to guide central bureaucratic decision
making.

Obama's plan also includes a reform of our private health-insurance market.
He would like, first, to make health insurance mandatory for all Americans,
second, to offer an affordable public option, and third, to eliminate the
ability of insurance companies to "cherry-pick" which services to cover and
which to deny. These changes, he believes, will reduce cost shifting ? the
practice that providers use to subsidize charity, bad debt, and unprofitable
government programs by charging more to insurance companies and private
payers and patients ? and will spread the risks of the insurance company to
healthy individuals, thereby reducing the costs to everyone.

These insurance reforms ideas are flawed. They are based on the assumption
that health insurance companies can charge premiums to a pool of
policyholders, predict and pay for a large loss triggered by an event
outside the control of the policyholder, and make a profit. But sickness
combines risks that are uncontrollable with risks that are indeed
controllable by the policyholder (eating, exercise, preventative habits, and
adherence to treatment plans, for example) and the provider (selection of
diagnostic tests, specialists and hospitals, for example). As a result,
insurance companies are left with tools of rationing via higher premiums,
deductibles, copayments and utilization controls placed on providers, which
have a tendency to create nonrandom groups of policyholders and providers.
Health insurance companies are more instruments of income redistribution
than risk managers, and they are left with only one option: to charge
healthy individuals enough to subsidize sick individuals. Eventually, when
the impact of the redistribution on individuals is high enough, many either
opt out or are priced out of the market, creating the 50 million uninsured
individuals.[1] <http://mises.org/story/3543#note1>

Obama explicitly states that he wants to force the redistribution of income
from healthy to unhealthy individuals but with the illogical belief that
somehow this scheme will reduce the costs to everyone. But we have seen that
even if the size of the risk pool is extended to the whole population of the
United States by mandating every American to have health insurance and hence
fixing the size and selection of the risk pool to the whole population, this
does not address the fundamental flaw of mixing controllable with
uncontrollable risks. Any sensible insurance reform should separate these
risks and only cover uncontrollable risks, allow individual underwriting
(the practice of insurance companies assessing each individual's pricing and
eligibility) move away from community rating (the practice of offering the
same price to large groups of individuals regardless of each individual's
age, sex, health status, and risk level) so that healthy people pay lower
premiums and sick people pay higher premiums, exactly the current model for
life insurance. In other words, we should allow and encourage
"cherry-picking," not ban it.

The logical tendency of Obama's insurance reforms, despite his explicit
denial, will be an inexorable movement towards a single-payer system as his
reforms will not control costs or utilization, and the only alternative left
will be to enhance the control of the plan via explicit rationing, by a
bureaucrat, of the care delivered. The central authority must then decide
which health services are provided and which denied, who should receive them
and who should not, when they should be given, all in addition to its
current function of attempting to determine prices. Such a centralized
system must logically retrograde into chaos because pricing signals to
patients, doctors, and hospitals will be so distorted that they cannot guide
resource allocation.

Obama concludes his speech by stating,

 we're a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one another.
That's what makes us the United States of America. We need to get this done.

Besides the obvious demagoguery to justify accelerating further control of
healthcare by the federal government, we should ask ourselves how we have
devolved from a collection of independent states founded by a war of
secession from a central government power into one nation with a powerful
central state. The justification for independence from the rule of King
George III that these states gave was based on the doctrine of natural human
rights,

 that all men are created equally free & independent, & have certain
inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact, deprive or
divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life & Liberty,
with the Means of acquiring & possessing property, & pursuing & obtaining
Happiness & Safety.

 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>

$7 $5 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>

These words are from the original
draft<http://www.lva.virginia.gov/whatwedo/k12/bor/draftvdr.htm>written
by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Nowhere in
this document or in successive drafts by Mason and Thomas Jefferson do we
read words that could lead the reader to conclude that the federal
government ought to care for its citizens or that we ought to look out for
one another or that a central government ought to violate our individual
natural rights to freedom, independence, and property to achieve the
absurdity of mandatory equal access, equal price, equal quantity, and equal
quality of health care for all.
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 14:41:43 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:41:43 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Put This In Your Pipe And Smoke It!
Message-ID: <400985d70907191141g4757982bw2497017a45cd0b2a@mail.gmail.com>

Abortion is a personal issue.  I have my opinion, you have yours.  Roe
v Wade should have been left to the States, but it wasn't.  Fine.  I
have my opinion and you have yours, I can argue either side of the
argument with equal fervor.  Leave it that way.  But, when federal
funds are involved, it is no longer personal.

http://tinyurl.com/meyyg3

Sorry, people have a right to bitch about this.

Brad

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 14:53:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 13:53:33 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamacare
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907191153m75bf168eycd343fa5853a1104@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

I've been dealing with G'care for 30 years or so with my parents. I'm
glad they have it because without it, they would have nothing.  I have
no idea what I've spent funding SS and MediCare, but it was a lot.  I
got my money's worth from my parents.  Will it be there for us?
There's no way in hell - the demographics don't support it.  China
figured this out and abandoned it - across the board - housing,
health-care, welfare.  The numbers don't add up.

Our population is so dumbed-down by public education they can't think
for themselves. Safety net?  Yeah, I'll pay for that! For this?  The
money ain't there.

People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!

Brad

On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Good afternoon, All,
>
> I've been saying pretty much this same thing about health care and insurance
> for many years. Now we can expand it to gov't provided/controlled/mandated
> health care.
>
> Rik
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>
> _____________________
>
> http://mises.org/story/3543
> Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument
>
> *Mises Daily* by Gabriel E.
> Vidal<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1219>| Posted on
> 7/17/2009 12:00:00 AM
>
> In his
> speech<http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-American-Medical-Association>to
> the AMA in Chicago June 15, 2009, Obama shared his diagnosis,
> solutions,
> and justification for healthcare reform: health costs are spiraling out of
> control and are a threat to the economy, families, businesses, and the
> federal government. The current system is unsustainable. Costs are
> increasing faster than they should because we spend money on things that
> don't make us healthier. We equate expensive care with better care. We
> overuse and reimburse for treatments that are not needed and we pay for
> quantity instead of quality.
>
> We can categorize Obama's major solutions to the healthcare crisis as
> follows:
>
>    1.
>
>    Payment reform. Change how providers are paid by bundling payments so
>    they team up to treat episode of care or illness. Pay for quality
> outcomes.
>    2.
>
>    Knowledge reform. Invest in examining and disseminating knowledge of what
>    treatments are more cost effective and clinically effective to cut costs.
>    3.
>
>    Information-technology reform. Upgrade medical records from paper to
>    electronic. This will avoid duplication of tests, track information from
>    doctor to doctor, lower administrative costs, improve doctors'
> productivity,
>    and reduce medical errors.
>    4.
>
>    Insurance reform. Make the purchase of health insurance mandatory for
>    everyone. Eliminate preexisting-condition waivers and insurance
> companies'
>    ability to "cherry-pick" whom to cover. Introduce an affordable public
>    option for individuals in order to inject competition into the
> marketplace
>    to keep private insurance companies honest.
>
> Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that this is
> not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms is
> that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is
> misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he insists,
> costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and the
> stability of the healthcare system.
>
> Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem, his
> solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework within
> which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of control
> because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange between
> patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every
> well-functioning industry.
>
> Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators
> have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by
> command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.
>
> Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even private
> health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost reports
> submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through mathematical
> models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation and
> regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with
> lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services should
> be.
>
> But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat ? no
> matter how accurate the cost data, how well intentioned and how
> sophisticated his computer program ? to come up with the correct and just
> price. The just price of a health service can only be determined by the
> voluntary exchange of a patient with his hospital, physician, and
> pharmacist. The relationship between the patient and his private provider
> has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its intermediaries
> (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a
> relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information.
>
> Given the level of technological advance and capital investment in
> healthcare of the past 40 years, one would expect quality to increase and
> prices to come down relative to other goods and services. This is true of
> other capital-intensive industries like consumer electronics and air travel.
> But in healthcare we have the opposite phenomenon: higher prices and, at
> best, equal or slightly improved quality in some locations or, at worst,
> lower quality in other locations, particularly government owned
> institutions. And too few consider that perhaps government participation is
> to blame.
>
> Obama suggests that Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for the cost
> spiral because they pay for quantity rather than quality, because they do
> not differentiate between services that make people healthier and those that
> do not, because they pay for services that are not needed, etc. But he is
> stating the obvious. Government bureaucrats, physicians, patients, and
> hospitals have known that for as long as these federal programs have
> existed. In fact, these reimbursement mechanisms have been modified over the
> years to attempt to resolve these very deficiencies in the same way that
> Soviet and Cuban planners attempted to cure the weaknesses of their
> resource-allocation formulas.
>
> Contrary to Obama's suggestion that knowledge of clinical effectiveness and
> cost effectiveness can be obtained and disseminated, there is no rational
> way to evaluate cost effectiveness outside of the free market. Central
> health planners cannot compare and recommend the best option between two
> different combinations of drugs, hospitals, and physicians to treat a
> particular ailment. It is not just a matter of figuring out which
> combination offers better outcomes and lower costs. In fact, the bureaucrat
> actually needs prices to make that comparison! This is also why Obama's
> ideas on payment reform to change how Medicare pays providers, and knowledge
> reform to investigate which treatments are most cost effective will never
> work and will increase costs and reduce quality. We have explored this
> argument in detail here <http://mises.org/story/3428>.
>
> Obama also proposes to reduce the cost of health care by upgrading medical
> records from paper to electronic. While the benefits of health information
> technology (HIT) are undeniable, the industry is nowhere near the level of
> development required to have a material impact in productivity and quality
> of care. It is truly in its infancy. We have different manufacturers with
> different systems, and different silos of solutions to particular problems
> even within the same manufacturer ? silos that at best communicate clumsily
> with each other and at worst make the physician's access to meaningful
> timely clinical information a nightmare.
>
> Billions of dollars have already been invested in HIT. Some systems have
> worked, while others have not. Billions more will need to be allocated until
> the best systems are adopted. But the idea that somehow a government agency
> with no shareholders at risk will help us better coordinate the allocation
> of capital and the experimentation necessary to develop these solutions is
> laughable, especially when one of its agents, the Department of Veterans
> Affairs, in all likelihood has the record for the most expensive failed HIT
> experiment to
> date<http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-22-va-system-scrutiny_x.htm>,
> the $467 million computer system at its Bay Pines hospital in Florida.
>
> The true drive behind government's interest in electronic medical records is
> the desire to acquire as much clinical and cost information as possible to
> further control care delivery and health resources. But this is a futile
> effort as we have seen above. In addition, the effort runs counter to the
> logical problem that computer systems at millions of local provider-patient
> levels are capable of generating more data than can be processed
> expeditiously and meaningfully by a central control agency and its computer
> system. Any information produced by this central planner will be erroneous
> and old by the time it is used to guide central bureaucratic decision
> making.
>
> Obama's plan also includes a reform of our private health-insurance market.
> He would like, first, to make health insurance mandatory for all Americans,
> second, to offer an affordable public option, and third, to eliminate the
> ability of insurance companies to "cherry-pick" which services to cover and
> which to deny. These changes, he believes, will reduce cost shifting ? the
> practice that providers use to subsidize charity, bad debt, and unprofitable
> government programs by charging more to insurance companies and private
> payers and patients ? and will spread the risks of the insurance company to
> healthy individuals, thereby reducing the costs to everyone.
>
> These insurance reforms ideas are flawed. They are based on the assumption
> that health insurance companies can charge premiums to a pool of
> policyholders, predict and pay for a large loss triggered by an event
> outside the control of the policyholder, and make a profit. But sickness
> combines risks that are uncontrollable with risks that are indeed
> controllable by the policyholder (eating, exercise, preventative habits, and
> adherence to treatment plans, for example) and the provider (selection of
> diagnostic tests, specialists and hospitals, for example). As a result,
> insurance companies are left with tools of rationing via higher premiums,
> deductibles, copayments and utilization controls placed on providers, which
> have a tendency to create nonrandom groups of policyholders and providers.
> Health insurance companies are more instruments of income redistribution
> than risk managers, and they are left with only one option: to charge
> healthy individuals enough to subsidize sick individuals. Eventually, when
> the impact of the redistribution on individuals is high enough, many either
> opt out or are priced out of the market, creating the 50 million uninsured
> individuals.[1] <http://mises.org/story/3543#note1>
>
> Obama explicitly states that he wants to force the redistribution of income
> from healthy to unhealthy individuals but with the illogical belief that
> somehow this scheme will reduce the costs to everyone. But we have seen that
> even if the size of the risk pool is extended to the whole population of the
> United States by mandating every American to have health insurance and hence
> fixing the size and selection of the risk pool to the whole population, this
> does not address the fundamental flaw of mixing controllable with
> uncontrollable risks. Any sensible insurance reform should separate these
> risks and only cover uncontrollable risks, allow individual underwriting
> (the practice of insurance companies assessing each individual's pricing and
> eligibility) move away from community rating (the practice of offering the
> same price to large groups of individuals regardless of each individual's
> age, sex, health status, and risk level) so that healthy people pay lower
> premiums and sick people pay higher premiums, exactly the current model for
> life insurance. In other words, we should allow and encourage
> "cherry-picking," not ban it.
>
> The logical tendency of Obama's insurance reforms, despite his explicit
> denial, will be an inexorable movement towards a single-payer system as his
> reforms will not control costs or utilization, and the only alternative left
> will be to enhance the control of the plan via explicit rationing, by a
> bureaucrat, of the care delivered. The central authority must then decide
> which health services are provided and which denied, who should receive them
> and who should not, when they should be given, all in addition to its
> current function of attempting to determine prices. Such a centralized
> system must logically retrograde into chaos because pricing signals to
> patients, doctors, and hospitals will be so distorted that they cannot guide
> resource allocation.
>
> Obama concludes his speech by stating,
>
>  we're a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one another.
> That's what makes us the United States of America. We need to get this done.
>
> Besides the obvious demagoguery to justify accelerating further control of
> healthcare by the federal government, we should ask ourselves how we have
> devolved from a collection of independent states founded by a war of
> secession from a central government power into one nation with a powerful
> central state. The justification for independence from the rule of King
> George III that these states gave was based on the doctrine of natural human
> rights,
>
>  that all men are created equally free & independent, & have certain
> inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact, deprive or
> divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life & Liberty,
> with the Means of acquiring & possessing property, & pursuing & obtaining
> Happiness & Safety.
>
>  <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
>
> $7 $5 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
>
> These words are from the original
> draft<http://www.lva.virginia.gov/whatwedo/k12/bor/draftvdr.htm>written
> by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Nowhere in
> this document or in successive drafts by Mason and Thomas Jefferson do we
> read words that could lead the reader to conclude that the federal
> government ought to care for its citizens or that we ought to look out for
> one another or that a central government ought to violate our individual
> natural rights to freedom, independence, and property to achieve the
> absurdity of mandatory equal access, equal price, equal quantity, and equal
> quality of health care for all.
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 15:01:29 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:01:29 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Put This In Your Pipe And Smoke It!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907191141g4757982bw2497017a45cd0b2a@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907191141g4757982bw2497017a45cd0b2a@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907191201r297a47dbuf6851e741103bc8@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Agreed wholeheartedly!! I am pro-choice and happy to mind my own business,
right up to the point where your choice becomes my financial problem. I'll
pay for my poor choices and you pay for yours, eh.

And, yes the gov't shouldn't be involved in this in the first place!

Rik

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:41 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Abortion is a personal issue.  I have my opinion, you have yours.  Roe
> v Wade should have been left to the States, but it wasn't.  Fine.  I
> have my opinion and you have yours, I can argue either side of the
> argument with equal fervor.  Leave it that way.  But, when federal
> funds are involved, it is no longer personal.
>
> http://tinyurl.com/meyyg3
>
> Sorry, people have a right to bitch about this.
>
> Brad
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 15:17:17 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:17:17 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamacare
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907191153m75bf168eycd343fa5853a1104@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907191153m75bf168eycd343fa5853a1104@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907191217n589da17cx4be979c8ba9eb00f@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

"People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!"

The key word there is THEY. I don't remember asking for what we're getting
now.

As to SS/medicare, Sandy is on it since her stroke. We are hoping it will
hold out long enough to get back some of our past investment, anyway.

Trouble with the whole deal is, they already took and ran off with what
would have done a nice job of supporting us in our old age, had we been able
to keep and invest that money ourselves. I started advocating private
savings accounts for retirement savings MANY years ago once I figured out
that the "social security trust fund" they talked about was nothing but
fiction. Think of the money you'd have now to retire if you could have put
your money in your own account and drawn interest on it all these many
years.

As it is now, I may be able to remain retired, in spite of the gov't, if
they don't screw with the value of the dollar too much. I'm not gonna bet my
last buck that they won't screw that up too.

Rik

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> I've been dealing with G'care for 30 years or so with my parents. I'm
> glad they have it because without it, they would have nothing.  I have
> no idea what I've spent funding SS and MediCare, but it was a lot.  I
> got my money's worth from my parents.  Will it be there for us?
> There's no way in hell - the demographics don't support it.  China
> figured this out and abandoned it - across the board - housing,
> health-care, welfare.  The numbers don't add up.
>
> Our population is so dumbed-down by public education they can't think
> for themselves. Safety net?  Yeah, I'll pay for that! For this?  The
> money ain't there.
>
> People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Good afternoon, All,
> >
> > I've been saying pretty much this same thing about health care and
> insurance
> > for many years. Now we can expand it to gov't
> provided/controlled/mandated
> > health care.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > --
> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
> >
> > _____________________
> >
> > http://mises.org/story/3543
> > Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument
> >
> > *Mises Daily* by Gabriel E.
> > Vidal<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1219>| Posted on
> > 7/17/2009 12:00:00 AM
> >
> > In his
> > speech<
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-American-Medical-Association
> >to
> > the AMA in Chicago June 15, 2009, Obama shared his diagnosis,
> > solutions,
> > and justification for healthcare reform: health costs are spiraling out
> of
> > control and are a threat to the economy, families, businesses, and the
> > federal government. The current system is unsustainable. Costs are
> > increasing faster than they should because we spend money on things that
> > don't make us healthier. We equate expensive care with better care. We
> > overuse and reimburse for treatments that are not needed and we pay for
> > quantity instead of quality.
> >
> > We can categorize Obama's major solutions to the healthcare crisis as
> > follows:
> >
> >    1.
> >
> >    Payment reform. Change how providers are paid by bundling payments so
> >    they team up to treat episode of care or illness. Pay for quality
> > outcomes.
> >    2.
> >
> >    Knowledge reform. Invest in examining and disseminating knowledge of
> what
> >    treatments are more cost effective and clinically effective to cut
> costs.
> >    3.
> >
> >    Information-technology reform. Upgrade medical records from paper to
> >    electronic. This will avoid duplication of tests, track information
> from
> >    doctor to doctor, lower administrative costs, improve doctors'
> > productivity,
> >    and reduce medical errors.
> >    4.
> >
> >    Insurance reform. Make the purchase of health insurance mandatory for
> >    everyone. Eliminate preexisting-condition waivers and insurance
> > companies'
> >    ability to "cherry-pick" whom to cover. Introduce an affordable public
> >    option for individuals in order to inject competition into the
> > marketplace
> >    to keep private insurance companies honest.
> >
> > Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that this is
> > not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms is
> > that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is
> > misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he
> insists,
> > costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and the
> > stability of the healthcare system.
> >
> > Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem, his
> > solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework
> within
> > which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of control
> > because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange
> between
> > patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every
> > well-functioning industry.
> >
> > Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators
> > have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by
> > command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.
> >
> > Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even
> private
> > health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost reports
> > submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through
> mathematical
> > models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation and
> > regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with
> > lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services
> should
> > be.
> >
> > But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat ? no
> > matter how accurate the cost data, how well intentioned and how
> > sophisticated his computer program ? to come up with the correct and just
> > price. The just price of a health service can only be determined by the
> > voluntary exchange of a patient with his hospital, physician, and
> > pharmacist. The relationship between the patient and his private provider
> > has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its intermediaries
> > (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a
> > relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information.
> >
> > Given the level of technological advance and capital investment in
> > healthcare of the past 40 years, one would expect quality to increase and
> > prices to come down relative to other goods and services. This is true of
> > other capital-intensive industries like consumer electronics and air
> travel.
> > But in healthcare we have the opposite phenomenon: higher prices and, at
> > best, equal or slightly improved quality in some locations or, at worst,
> > lower quality in other locations, particularly government owned
> > institutions. And too few consider that perhaps government participation
> is
> > to blame.
> >
> > Obama suggests that Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for the cost
> > spiral because they pay for quantity rather than quality, because they do
> > not differentiate between services that make people healthier and those
> that
> > do not, because they pay for services that are not needed, etc. But he is
> > stating the obvious. Government bureaucrats, physicians, patients, and
> > hospitals have known that for as long as these federal programs have
> > existed. In fact, these reimbursement mechanisms have been modified over
> the
> > years to attempt to resolve these very deficiencies in the same way that
> > Soviet and Cuban planners attempted to cure the weaknesses of their
> > resource-allocation formulas.
> >
> > Contrary to Obama's suggestion that knowledge of clinical effectiveness
> and
> > cost effectiveness can be obtained and disseminated, there is no rational
> > way to evaluate cost effectiveness outside of the free market. Central
> > health planners cannot compare and recommend the best option between two
> > different combinations of drugs, hospitals, and physicians to treat a
> > particular ailment. It is not just a matter of figuring out which
> > combination offers better outcomes and lower costs. In fact, the
> bureaucrat
> > actually needs prices to make that comparison! This is also why Obama's
> > ideas on payment reform to change how Medicare pays providers, and
> knowledge
> > reform to investigate which treatments are most cost effective will never
> > work and will increase costs and reduce quality. We have explored this
> > argument in detail here <http://mises.org/story/3428>.
> >
> > Obama also proposes to reduce the cost of health care by upgrading
> medical
> > records from paper to electronic. While the benefits of health
> information
> > technology (HIT) are undeniable, the industry is nowhere near the level
> of
> > development required to have a material impact in productivity and
> quality
> > of care. It is truly in its infancy. We have different manufacturers with
> > different systems, and different silos of solutions to particular
> problems
> > even within the same manufacturer ? silos that at best communicate
> clumsily
> > with each other and at worst make the physician's access to meaningful
> > timely clinical information a nightmare.
> >
> > Billions of dollars have already been invested in HIT. Some systems have
> > worked, while others have not. Billions more will need to be allocated
> until
> > the best systems are adopted. But the idea that somehow a government
> agency
> > with no shareholders at risk will help us better coordinate the
> allocation
> > of capital and the experimentation necessary to develop these solutions
> is
> > laughable, especially when one of its agents, the Department of Veterans
> > Affairs, in all likelihood has the record for the most expensive failed
> HIT
> > experiment to
> > date<
> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-22-va-system-scrutiny_x.htm>,
> > the $467 million computer system at its Bay Pines hospital in Florida.
> >
> > The true drive behind government's interest in electronic medical records
> is
> > the desire to acquire as much clinical and cost information as possible
> to
> > further control care delivery and health resources. But this is a futile
> > effort as we have seen above. In addition, the effort runs counter to the
> > logical problem that computer systems at millions of local
> provider-patient
> > levels are capable of generating more data than can be processed
> > expeditiously and meaningfully by a central control agency and its
> computer
> > system. Any information produced by this central planner will be
> erroneous
> > and old by the time it is used to guide central bureaucratic decision
> > making.
> >
> > Obama's plan also includes a reform of our private health-insurance
> market.
> > He would like, first, to make health insurance mandatory for all
> Americans,
> > second, to offer an affordable public option, and third, to eliminate the
> > ability of insurance companies to "cherry-pick" which services to cover
> and
> > which to deny. These changes, he believes, will reduce cost shifting ?
> the
> > practice that providers use to subsidize charity, bad debt, and
> unprofitable
> > government programs by charging more to insurance companies and private
> > payers and patients ? and will spread the risks of the insurance company
> to
> > healthy individuals, thereby reducing the costs to everyone.
> >
> > These insurance reforms ideas are flawed. They are based on the
> assumption
> > that health insurance companies can charge premiums to a pool of
> > policyholders, predict and pay for a large loss triggered by an event
> > outside the control of the policyholder, and make a profit. But sickness
> > combines risks that are uncontrollable with risks that are indeed
> > controllable by the policyholder (eating, exercise, preventative habits,
> and
> > adherence to treatment plans, for example) and the provider (selection of
> > diagnostic tests, specialists and hospitals, for example). As a result,
> > insurance companies are left with tools of rationing via higher premiums,
> > deductibles, copayments and utilization controls placed on providers,
> which
> > have a tendency to create nonrandom groups of policyholders and
> providers.
> > Health insurance companies are more instruments of income redistribution
> > than risk managers, and they are left with only one option: to charge
> > healthy individuals enough to subsidize sick individuals. Eventually,
> when
> > the impact of the redistribution on individuals is high enough, many
> either
> > opt out or are priced out of the market, creating the 50 million
> uninsured
> > individuals.[1] <http://mises.org/story/3543#note1>
> >
> > Obama explicitly states that he wants to force the redistribution of
> income
> > from healthy to unhealthy individuals but with the illogical belief that
> > somehow this scheme will reduce the costs to everyone. But we have seen
> that
> > even if the size of the risk pool is extended to the whole population of
> the
> > United States by mandating every American to have health insurance and
> hence
> > fixing the size and selection of the risk pool to the whole population,
> this
> > does not address the fundamental flaw of mixing controllable with
> > uncontrollable risks. Any sensible insurance reform should separate these
> > risks and only cover uncontrollable risks, allow individual underwriting
> > (the practice of insurance companies assessing each individual's pricing
> and
> > eligibility) move away from community rating (the practice of offering
> the
> > same price to large groups of individuals regardless of each individual's
> > age, sex, health status, and risk level) so that healthy people pay lower
> > premiums and sick people pay higher premiums, exactly the current model
> for
> > life insurance. In other words, we should allow and encourage
> > "cherry-picking," not ban it.
> >
> > The logical tendency of Obama's insurance reforms, despite his explicit
> > denial, will be an inexorable movement towards a single-payer system as
> his
> > reforms will not control costs or utilization, and the only alternative
> left
> > will be to enhance the control of the plan via explicit rationing, by a
> > bureaucrat, of the care delivered. The central authority must then decide
> > which health services are provided and which denied, who should receive
> them
> > and who should not, when they should be given, all in addition to its
> > current function of attempting to determine prices. Such a centralized
> > system must logically retrograde into chaos because pricing signals to
> > patients, doctors, and hospitals will be so distorted that they cannot
> guide
> > resource allocation.
> >
> > Obama concludes his speech by stating,
> >
> >  we're a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one another.
> > That's what makes us the United States of America. We need to get this
> done.
> >
> > Besides the obvious demagoguery to justify accelerating further control
> of
> > healthcare by the federal government, we should ask ourselves how we have
> > devolved from a collection of independent states founded by a war of
> > secession from a central government power into one nation with a powerful
> > central state. The justification for independence from the rule of King
> > George III that these states gave was based on the doctrine of natural
> human
> > rights,
> >
> >  that all men are created equally free & independent, & have certain
> > inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact, deprive or
> > divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life & Liberty,
> > with the Means of acquiring & possessing property, & pursuing & obtaining
> > Happiness & Safety.
> >
> >  <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
> >
> > $7 $5 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
> >
> > These words are from the original
> > draft<http://www.lva.virginia.gov/whatwedo/k12/bor/draftvdr.htm>written
> > by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Nowhere in
> > this document or in successive drafts by Mason and Thomas Jefferson do we
> > read words that could lead the reader to conclude that the federal
> > government ought to care for its citizens or that we ought to look out
> for
> > one another or that a central government ought to violate our individual
> > natural rights to freedom, independence, and property to achieve the
> > absurdity of mandatory equal access, equal price, equal quantity, and
> equal
> > quality of health care for all.
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 15:41:09 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:41:09 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamacare
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907191217n589da17cx4be979c8ba9eb00f@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907191153m75bf168eycd343fa5853a1104@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907191217n589da17cx4be979c8ba9eb00f@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907191241p59c9e405u871615af10ad621@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

You're too late and a dollar devalued.  The Chinks have already
figured out your dollar isn't worth what it looks like it is worth.
They want paid back in RNB.  We still have the best universities in
the world.  The Asians recognize that, but unlike my wife, they don't
want to immigrate here - they want to study here, throw out all the
Marx/Engels crap, and go home and get wealthy. We're the dumbest
sons-a-bitches on the planet right now.  The Chinese have been through
this through a gazillion dynasty's, this is just one more, only
prosperous this time.

I've always been a "glass half-full" kind of guy.  Now, I'm not.  We're fucked!

Brad

On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> "People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!"
>
> The key word there is THEY. I don't remember asking for what we're getting
> now.
>
> As to SS/medicare, Sandy is on it since her stroke. We are hoping it will
> hold out long enough to get back some of our past investment, anyway.
>
> Trouble with the whole deal is, they already took and ran off with what
> would have done a nice job of supporting us in our old age, had we been able
> to keep and invest that money ourselves. I started advocating private
> savings accounts for retirement savings MANY years ago once I figured out
> that the "social security trust fund" they talked about was nothing but
> fiction. Think of the money you'd have now to retire if you could have put
> your money in your own account and drawn interest on it all these many
> years.
>
> As it is now, I may be able to remain retired, in spite of the gov't, if
> they don't screw with the value of the dollar too much. I'm not gonna bet my
> last buck that they won't screw that up too.
>
> Rik
>
> On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rik,
>>
>> I've been dealing with G'care for 30 years or so with my parents. I'm
>> glad they have it because without it, they would have nothing.  I have
>> no idea what I've spent funding SS and MediCare, but it was a lot.  I
>> got my money's worth from my parents.  Will it be there for us?
>> There's no way in hell - the demographics don't support it.  China
>> figured this out and abandoned it - across the board - housing,
>> health-care, welfare.  The numbers don't add up.
>>
>> Our population is so dumbed-down by public education they can't think
>> for themselves. Safety net?  Yeah, I'll pay for that! For this?  The
>> money ain't there.
>>
>> People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Good afternoon, All,
>> >
>> > I've been saying pretty much this same thing about health care and
>> insurance
>> > for many years. Now we can expand it to gov't
>> provided/controlled/mandated
>> > health care.
>> >
>> > Rik
>> >
>> > --
>> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
>> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>> >
>> > _____________________
>> >
>> > http://mises.org/story/3543
>> > Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument
>> >
>> > *Mises Daily* by Gabriel E.
>> > Vidal<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1219>| Posted on
>> > 7/17/2009 12:00:00 AM
>> >
>> > In his
>> > speech<
>> http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-American-Medical-Association
>> >to
>> > the AMA in Chicago June 15, 2009, Obama shared his diagnosis,
>> > solutions,
>> > and justification for healthcare reform: health costs are spiraling out
>> of
>> > control and are a threat to the economy, families, businesses, and the
>> > federal government. The current system is unsustainable. Costs are
>> > increasing faster than they should because we spend money on things that
>> > don't make us healthier. We equate expensive care with better care. We
>> > overuse and reimburse for treatments that are not needed and we pay for
>> > quantity instead of quality.
>> >
>> > We can categorize Obama's major solutions to the healthcare crisis as
>> > follows:
>> >
>> >    1.
>> >
>> >    Payment reform. Change how providers are paid by bundling payments so
>> >    they team up to treat episode of care or illness. Pay for quality
>> > outcomes.
>> >    2.
>> >
>> >    Knowledge reform. Invest in examining and disseminating knowledge of
>> what
>> >    treatments are more cost effective and clinically effective to cut
>> costs.
>> >    3.
>> >
>> >    Information-technology reform. Upgrade medical records from paper to
>> >    electronic. This will avoid duplication of tests, track information
>> from
>> >    doctor to doctor, lower administrative costs, improve doctors'
>> > productivity,
>> >    and reduce medical errors.
>> >    4.
>> >
>> >    Insurance reform. Make the purchase of health insurance mandatory for
>> >    everyone. Eliminate preexisting-condition waivers and insurance
>> > companies'
>> >    ability to "cherry-pick" whom to cover. Introduce an affordable
>> > public
>> >    option for individuals in order to inject competition into the
>> > marketplace
>> >    to keep private insurance companies honest.
>> >
>> > Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that this
>> > is
>> > not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms is
>> > that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is
>> > misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he
>> insists,
>> > costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and
>> > the
>> > stability of the healthcare system.
>> >
>> > Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem,
>> > his
>> > solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework
>> within
>> > which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of control
>> > because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange
>> between
>> > patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every
>> > well-functioning industry.
>> >
>> > Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government regulators
>> > have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by
>> > command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.
>> >
>> > Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even
>> private
>> > health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost reports
>> > submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through
>> mathematical
>> > models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation
>> > and
>> > regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with
>> > lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services
>> should
>> > be.
>> >
>> > But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat ? no
>> > matter how accurate the cost data, how well intentioned and how
>> > sophisticated his computer program ? to come up with the correct and
>> > just
>> > price. The just price of a health service can only be determined by the
>> > voluntary exchange of a patient with his hospital, physician, and
>> > pharmacist. The relationship between the patient and his private
>> > provider
>> > has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its intermediaries
>> > (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a
>> > relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information.
>> >
>> > Given the level of technological advance and capital investment in
>> > healthcare of the past 40 years, one would expect quality to increase
>> > and
>> > prices to come down relative to other goods and services. This is true
>> > of
>> > other capital-intensive industries like consumer electronics and air
>> travel.
>> > But in healthcare we have the opposite phenomenon: higher prices and, at
>> > best, equal or slightly improved quality in some locations or, at worst,
>> > lower quality in other locations, particularly government owned
>> > institutions. And too few consider that perhaps government participation
>> is
>> > to blame.
>> >
>> > Obama suggests that Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for the cost
>> > spiral because they pay for quantity rather than quality, because they
>> > do
>> > not differentiate between services that make people healthier and those
>> that
>> > do not, because they pay for services that are not needed, etc. But he
>> > is
>> > stating the obvious. Government bureaucrats, physicians, patients, and
>> > hospitals have known that for as long as these federal programs have
>> > existed. In fact, these reimbursement mechanisms have been modified over
>> the
>> > years to attempt to resolve these very deficiencies in the same way that
>> > Soviet and Cuban planners attempted to cure the weaknesses of their
>> > resource-allocation formulas.
>> >
>> > Contrary to Obama's suggestion that knowledge of clinical effectiveness
>> and
>> > cost effectiveness can be obtained and disseminated, there is no
>> > rational
>> > way to evaluate cost effectiveness outside of the free market. Central
>> > health planners cannot compare and recommend the best option between two
>> > different combinations of drugs, hospitals, and physicians to treat a
>> > particular ailment. It is not just a matter of figuring out which
>> > combination offers better outcomes and lower costs. In fact, the
>> bureaucrat
>> > actually needs prices to make that comparison! This is also why Obama's
>> > ideas on payment reform to change how Medicare pays providers, and
>> knowledge
>> > reform to investigate which treatments are most cost effective will
>> > never
>> > work and will increase costs and reduce quality. We have explored this
>> > argument in detail here <http://mises.org/story/3428>.
>> >
>> > Obama also proposes to reduce the cost of health care by upgrading
>> medical
>> > records from paper to electronic. While the benefits of health
>> information
>> > technology (HIT) are undeniable, the industry is nowhere near the level
>> of
>> > development required to have a material impact in productivity and
>> quality
>> > of care. It is truly in its infancy. We have different manufacturers
>> > with
>> > different systems, and different silos of solutions to particular
>> problems
>> > even within the same manufacturer ? silos that at best communicate
>> clumsily
>> > with each other and at worst make the physician's access to meaningful
>> > timely clinical information a nightmare.
>> >
>> > Billions of dollars have already been invested in HIT. Some systems have
>> > worked, while others have not. Billions more will need to be allocated
>> until
>> > the best systems are adopted. But the idea that somehow a government
>> agency
>> > with no shareholders at risk will help us better coordinate the
>> allocation
>> > of capital and the experimentation necessary to develop these solutions
>> is
>> > laughable, especially when one of its agents, the Department of Veterans
>> > Affairs, in all likelihood has the record for the most expensive failed
>> HIT
>> > experiment to
>> > date<
>> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-22-va-system-scrutiny_x.htm>,
>> > the $467 million computer system at its Bay Pines hospital in Florida.
>> >
>> > The true drive behind government's interest in electronic medical
>> > records
>> is
>> > the desire to acquire as much clinical and cost information as possible
>> to
>> > further control care delivery and health resources. But this is a futile
>> > effort as we have seen above. In addition, the effort runs counter to
>> > the
>> > logical problem that computer systems at millions of local
>> provider-patient
>> > levels are capable of generating more data than can be processed
>> > expeditiously and meaningfully by a central control agency and its
>> computer
>> > system. Any information produced by this central planner will be
>> erroneous
>> > and old by the time it is used to guide central bureaucratic decision
>> > making.
>> >
>> > Obama's plan also includes a reform of our private health-insurance
>> market.
>> > He would like, first, to make health insurance mandatory for all
>> Americans,
>> > second, to offer an affordable public option, and third, to eliminate
>> > the
>> > ability of insurance companies to "cherry-pick" which services to cover
>> and
>> > which to deny. These changes, he believes, will reduce cost shifting ?
>> the
>> > practice that providers use to subsidize charity, bad debt, and
>> unprofitable
>> > government programs by charging more to insurance companies and private
>> > payers and patients ? and will spread the risks of the insurance company
>> to
>> > healthy individuals, thereby reducing the costs to everyone.
>> >
>> > These insurance reforms ideas are flawed. They are based on the
>> assumption
>> > that health insurance companies can charge premiums to a pool of
>> > policyholders, predict and pay for a large loss triggered by an event
>> > outside the control of the policyholder, and make a profit. But sickness
>> > combines risks that are uncontrollable with risks that are indeed
>> > controllable by the policyholder (eating, exercise, preventative habits,
>> and
>> > adherence to treatment plans, for example) and the provider (selection
>> > of
>> > diagnostic tests, specialists and hospitals, for example). As a result,
>> > insurance companies are left with tools of rationing via higher
>> > premiums,
>> > deductibles, copayments and utilization controls placed on providers,
>> which
>> > have a tendency to create nonrandom groups of policyholders and
>> providers.
>> > Health insurance companies are more instruments of income redistribution
>> > than risk managers, and they are left with only one option: to charge
>> > healthy individuals enough to subsidize sick individuals. Eventually,
>> when
>> > the impact of the redistribution on individuals is high enough, many
>> either
>> > opt out or are priced out of the market, creating the 50 million
>> uninsured
>> > individuals.[1] <http://mises.org/story/3543#note1>
>> >
>> > Obama explicitly states that he wants to force the redistribution of
>> income
>> > from healthy to unhealthy individuals but with the illogical belief that
>> > somehow this scheme will reduce the costs to everyone. But we have seen
>> that
>> > even if the size of the risk pool is extended to the whole population of
>> the
>> > United States by mandating every American to have health insurance and
>> hence
>> > fixing the size and selection of the risk pool to the whole population,
>> this
>> > does not address the fundamental flaw of mixing controllable with
>> > uncontrollable risks. Any sensible insurance reform should separate
>> > these
>> > risks and only cover uncontrollable risks, allow individual underwriting
>> > (the practice of insurance companies assessing each individual's pricing
>> and
>> > eligibility) move away from community rating (the practice of offering
>> the
>> > same price to large groups of individuals regardless of each
>> > individual's
>> > age, sex, health status, and risk level) so that healthy people pay
>> > lower
>> > premiums and sick people pay higher premiums, exactly the current model
>> for
>> > life insurance. In other words, we should allow and encourage
>> > "cherry-picking," not ban it.
>> >
>> > The logical tendency of Obama's insurance reforms, despite his explicit
>> > denial, will be an inexorable movement towards a single-payer system as
>> his
>> > reforms will not control costs or utilization, and the only alternative
>> left
>> > will be to enhance the control of the plan via explicit rationing, by a
>> > bureaucrat, of the care delivered. The central authority must then
>> > decide
>> > which health services are provided and which denied, who should receive
>> them
>> > and who should not, when they should be given, all in addition to its
>> > current function of attempting to determine prices. Such a centralized
>> > system must logically retrograde into chaos because pricing signals to
>> > patients, doctors, and hospitals will be so distorted that they cannot
>> guide
>> > resource allocation.
>> >
>> > Obama concludes his speech by stating,
>> >
>> >  we're a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one
>> > another.
>> > That's what makes us the United States of America. We need to get this
>> done.
>> >
>> > Besides the obvious demagoguery to justify accelerating further control
>> of
>> > healthcare by the federal government, we should ask ourselves how we
>> > have
>> > devolved from a collection of independent states founded by a war of
>> > secession from a central government power into one nation with a
>> > powerful
>> > central state. The justification for independence from the rule of King
>> > George III that these states gave was based on the doctrine of natural
>> human
>> > rights,
>> >
>> >  that all men are created equally free & independent, & have certain
>> > inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact, deprive
>> > or
>> > divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life & Liberty,
>> > with the Means of acquiring & possessing property, & pursuing &
>> > obtaining
>> > Happiness & Safety.
>> >
>> >  <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
>> >
>> > $7 $5 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
>> >
>> > These words are from the original
>> > draft<http://www.lva.virginia.gov/whatwedo/k12/bor/draftvdr.htm>written
>> > by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Nowhere in
>> > this document or in successive drafts by Mason and Thomas Jefferson do
>> > we
>> > read words that could lead the reader to conclude that the federal
>> > government ought to care for its citizens or that we ought to look out
>> for
>> > one another or that a central government ought to violate our individual
>> > natural rights to freedom, independence, and property to achieve the
>> > absurdity of mandatory equal access, equal price, equal quantity, and
>> equal
>> > quality of health care for all.
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 15:59:15 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 14:59:15 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamacare
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907191241p59c9e405u871615af10ad621@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907191153m75bf168eycd343fa5853a1104@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907191217n589da17cx4be979c8ba9eb00f@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907191241p59c9e405u871615af10ad621@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907191259l2e6cc89fvdcfca57ceaf296c9@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

"We're fucked!"

(sigh) Yeah, you're probably right.

What can yo do when the majority obviously don't get it and control enough
votes to decide elections. Not too many good ways out of that, I guess.

I am waiting to see what the result is when our gov't starts defaulting on
China's debt. There'll be some serious shit hitting the fan then, eh.

Got ammo?

Rik

On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> You're too late and a dollar devalued.  The Chinks have already
> figured out your dollar isn't worth what it looks like it is worth.
> They want paid back in RNB.  We still have the best universities in
> the world.  The Asians recognize that, but unlike my wife, they don't
> want to immigrate here - they want to study here, throw out all the
> Marx/Engels crap, and go home and get wealthy. We're the dumbest
> sons-a-bitches on the planet right now.  The Chinese have been through
> this through a gazillion dynasty's, this is just one more, only
> prosperous this time.
>
> I've always been a "glass half-full" kind of guy.  Now, I'm not.  We're
> fucked!
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Brad,
> >
> > "People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!"
> >
> > The key word there is THEY. I don't remember asking for what we're
> getting
> > now.
> >
> > As to SS/medicare, Sandy is on it since her stroke. We are hoping it will
> > hold out long enough to get back some of our past investment, anyway.
> >
> > Trouble with the whole deal is, they already took and ran off with what
> > would have done a nice job of supporting us in our old age, had we been
> able
> > to keep and invest that money ourselves. I started advocating private
> > savings accounts for retirement savings MANY years ago once I figured out
> > that the "social security trust fund" they talked about was nothing but
> > fiction. Think of the money you'd have now to retire if you could have
> put
> > your money in your own account and drawn interest on it all these many
> > years.
> >
> > As it is now, I may be able to remain retired, in spite of the gov't, if
> > they don't screw with the value of the dollar too much. I'm not gonna bet
> my
> > last buck that they won't screw that up too.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Rik,
> >>
> >> I've been dealing with G'care for 30 years or so with my parents. I'm
> >> glad they have it because without it, they would have nothing.  I have
> >> no idea what I've spent funding SS and MediCare, but it was a lot.  I
> >> got my money's worth from my parents.  Will it be there for us?
> >> There's no way in hell - the demographics don't support it.  China
> >> figured this out and abandoned it - across the board - housing,
> >> health-care, welfare.  The numbers don't add up.
> >>
> >> Our population is so dumbed-down by public education they can't think
> >> for themselves. Safety net?  Yeah, I'll pay for that! For this?  The
> >> money ain't there.
> >>
> >> People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Good afternoon, All,
> >> >
> >> > I've been saying pretty much this same thing about health care and
> >> insurance
> >> > for many years. Now we can expand it to gov't
> >> provided/controlled/mandated
> >> > health care.
> >> >
> >> > Rik
> >> >
> >> > --
> >> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch,
> and
> >> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
> >> >
> >> > _____________________
> >> >
> >> > http://mises.org/story/3543
> >> > Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument
> >> >
> >> > *Mises Daily* by Gabriel E.
> >> > Vidal<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1219>| Posted on
> >> > 7/17/2009 12:00:00 AM
> >> >
> >> > In his
> >> > speech<
> >>
> http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-American-Medical-Association
> >> >to
> >> > the AMA in Chicago June 15, 2009, Obama shared his diagnosis,
> >> > solutions,
> >> > and justification for healthcare reform: health costs are spiraling
> out
> >> of
> >> > control and are a threat to the economy, families, businesses, and the
> >> > federal government. The current system is unsustainable. Costs are
> >> > increasing faster than they should because we spend money on things
> that
> >> > don't make us healthier. We equate expensive care with better care. We
> >> > overuse and reimburse for treatments that are not needed and we pay
> for
> >> > quantity instead of quality.
> >> >
> >> > We can categorize Obama's major solutions to the healthcare crisis as
> >> > follows:
> >> >
> >> >    1.
> >> >
> >> >    Payment reform. Change how providers are paid by bundling payments
> so
> >> >    they team up to treat episode of care or illness. Pay for quality
> >> > outcomes.
> >> >    2.
> >> >
> >> >    Knowledge reform. Invest in examining and disseminating knowledge
> of
> >> what
> >> >    treatments are more cost effective and clinically effective to cut
> >> costs.
> >> >    3.
> >> >
> >> >    Information-technology reform. Upgrade medical records from paper
> to
> >> >    electronic. This will avoid duplication of tests, track information
> >> from
> >> >    doctor to doctor, lower administrative costs, improve doctors'
> >> > productivity,
> >> >    and reduce medical errors.
> >> >    4.
> >> >
> >> >    Insurance reform. Make the purchase of health insurance mandatory
> for
> >> >    everyone. Eliminate preexisting-condition waivers and insurance
> >> > companies'
> >> >    ability to "cherry-pick" whom to cover. Introduce an affordable
> >> > public
> >> >    option for individuals in order to inject competition into the
> >> > marketplace
> >> >    to keep private insurance companies honest.
> >> >
> >> > Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that this
> >> > is
> >> > not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms
> is
> >> > that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is
> >> > misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he
> >> insists,
> >> > costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and
> >> > the
> >> > stability of the healthcare system.
> >> >
> >> > Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem,
> >> > his
> >> > solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework
> >> within
> >> > which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of
> control
> >> > because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange
> >> between
> >> > patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every
> >> > well-functioning industry.
> >> >
> >> > Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government
> regulators
> >> > have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by
> >> > command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.
> >> >
> >> > Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even
> >> private
> >> > health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost
> reports
> >> > submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through
> >> mathematical
> >> > models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation
> >> > and
> >> > regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with
> >> > lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services
> >> should
> >> > be.
> >> >
> >> > But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat ?
> no
> >> > matter how accurate the cost data, how well intentioned and how
> >> > sophisticated his computer program ? to come up with the correct and
> >> > just
> >> > price. The just price of a health service can only be determined by
> the
> >> > voluntary exchange of a patient with his hospital, physician, and
> >> > pharmacist. The relationship between the patient and his private
> >> > provider
> >> > has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its
> intermediaries
> >> > (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of a
> >> > relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information.
> >> >
> >> > Given the level of technological advance and capital investment in
> >> > healthcare of the past 40 years, one would expect quality to increase
> >> > and
> >> > prices to come down relative to other goods and services. This is true
> >> > of
> >> > other capital-intensive industries like consumer electronics and air
> >> travel.
> >> > But in healthcare we have the opposite phenomenon: higher prices and,
> at
> >> > best, equal or slightly improved quality in some locations or, at
> worst,
> >> > lower quality in other locations, particularly government owned
> >> > institutions. And too few consider that perhaps government
> participation
> >> is
> >> > to blame.
> >> >
> >> > Obama suggests that Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for the cost
> >> > spiral because they pay for quantity rather than quality, because they
> >> > do
> >> > not differentiate between services that make people healthier and
> those
> >> that
> >> > do not, because they pay for services that are not needed, etc. But he
> >> > is
> >> > stating the obvious. Government bureaucrats, physicians, patients, and
> >> > hospitals have known that for as long as these federal programs have
> >> > existed. In fact, these reimbursement mechanisms have been modified
> over
> >> the
> >> > years to attempt to resolve these very deficiencies in the same way
> that
> >> > Soviet and Cuban planners attempted to cure the weaknesses of their
> >> > resource-allocation formulas.
> >> >
> >> > Contrary to Obama's suggestion that knowledge of clinical
> effectiveness
> >> and
> >> > cost effectiveness can be obtained and disseminated, there is no
> >> > rational
> >> > way to evaluate cost effectiveness outside of the free market. Central
> >> > health planners cannot compare and recommend the best option between
> two
> >> > different combinations of drugs, hospitals, and physicians to treat a
> >> > particular ailment. It is not just a matter of figuring out which
> >> > combination offers better outcomes and lower costs. In fact, the
> >> bureaucrat
> >> > actually needs prices to make that comparison! This is also why
> Obama's
> >> > ideas on payment reform to change how Medicare pays providers, and
> >> knowledge
> >> > reform to investigate which treatments are most cost effective will
> >> > never
> >> > work and will increase costs and reduce quality. We have explored this
> >> > argument in detail here <http://mises.org/story/3428>.
> >> >
> >> > Obama also proposes to reduce the cost of health care by upgrading
> >> medical
> >> > records from paper to electronic. While the benefits of health
> >> information
> >> > technology (HIT) are undeniable, the industry is nowhere near the
> level
> >> of
> >> > development required to have a material impact in productivity and
> >> quality
> >> > of care. It is truly in its infancy. We have different manufacturers
> >> > with
> >> > different systems, and different silos of solutions to particular
> >> problems
> >> > even within the same manufacturer ? silos that at best communicate
> >> clumsily
> >> > with each other and at worst make the physician's access to meaningful
> >> > timely clinical information a nightmare.
> >> >
> >> > Billions of dollars have already been invested in HIT. Some systems
> have
> >> > worked, while others have not. Billions more will need to be allocated
> >> until
> >> > the best systems are adopted. But the idea that somehow a government
> >> agency
> >> > with no shareholders at risk will help us better coordinate the
> >> allocation
> >> > of capital and the experimentation necessary to develop these
> solutions
> >> is
> >> > laughable, especially when one of its agents, the Department of
> Veterans
> >> > Affairs, in all likelihood has the record for the most expensive
> failed
> >> HIT
> >> > experiment to
> >> > date<
> >> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-22-va-system-scrutiny_x.htm>,
> >> > the $467 million computer system at its Bay Pines hospital in Florida.
> >> >
> >> > The true drive behind government's interest in electronic medical
> >> > records
> >> is
> >> > the desire to acquire as much clinical and cost information as
> possible
> >> to
> >> > further control care delivery and health resources. But this is a
> futile
> >> > effort as we have seen above. In addition, the effort runs counter to
> >> > the
> >> > logical problem that computer systems at millions of local
> >> provider-patient
> >> > levels are capable of generating more data than can be processed
> >> > expeditiously and meaningfully by a central control agency and its
> >> computer
> >> > system. Any information produced by this central planner will be
> >> erroneous
> >> > and old by the time it is used to guide central bureaucratic decision
> >> > making.
> >> >
> >> > Obama's plan also includes a reform of our private health-insurance
> >> market.
> >> > He would like, first, to make health insurance mandatory for all
> >> Americans,
> >> > second, to offer an affordable public option, and third, to eliminate
> >> > the
> >> > ability of insurance companies to "cherry-pick" which services to
> cover
> >> and
> >> > which to deny. These changes, he believes, will reduce cost shifting ?
> >> the
> >> > practice that providers use to subsidize charity, bad debt, and
> >> unprofitable
> >> > government programs by charging more to insurance companies and
> private
> >> > payers and patients ? and will spread the risks of the insurance
> company
> >> to
> >> > healthy individuals, thereby reducing the costs to everyone.
> >> >
> >> > These insurance reforms ideas are flawed. They are based on the
> >> assumption
> >> > that health insurance companies can charge premiums to a pool of
> >> > policyholders, predict and pay for a large loss triggered by an event
> >> > outside the control of the policyholder, and make a profit. But
> sickness
> >> > combines risks that are uncontrollable with risks that are indeed
> >> > controllable by the policyholder (eating, exercise, preventative
> habits,
> >> and
> >> > adherence to treatment plans, for example) and the provider (selection
> >> > of
> >> > diagnostic tests, specialists and hospitals, for example). As a
> result,
> >> > insurance companies are left with tools of rationing via higher
> >> > premiums,
> >> > deductibles, copayments and utilization controls placed on providers,
> >> which
> >> > have a tendency to create nonrandom groups of policyholders and
> >> providers.
> >> > Health insurance companies are more instruments of income
> redistribution
> >> > than risk managers, and they are left with only one option: to charge
> >> > healthy individuals enough to subsidize sick individuals. Eventually,
> >> when
> >> > the impact of the redistribution on individuals is high enough, many
> >> either
> >> > opt out or are priced out of the market, creating the 50 million
> >> uninsured
> >> > individuals.[1] <http://mises.org/story/3543#note1>
> >> >
> >> > Obama explicitly states that he wants to force the redistribution of
> >> income
> >> > from healthy to unhealthy individuals but with the illogical belief
> that
> >> > somehow this scheme will reduce the costs to everyone. But we have
> seen
> >> that
> >> > even if the size of the risk pool is extended to the whole population
> of
> >> the
> >> > United States by mandating every American to have health insurance and
> >> hence
> >> > fixing the size and selection of the risk pool to the whole
> population,
> >> this
> >> > does not address the fundamental flaw of mixing controllable with
> >> > uncontrollable risks. Any sensible insurance reform should separate
> >> > these
> >> > risks and only cover uncontrollable risks, allow individual
> underwriting
> >> > (the practice of insurance companies assessing each individual's
> pricing
> >> and
> >> > eligibility) move away from community rating (the practice of offering
> >> the
> >> > same price to large groups of individuals regardless of each
> >> > individual's
> >> > age, sex, health status, and risk level) so that healthy people pay
> >> > lower
> >> > premiums and sick people pay higher premiums, exactly the current
> model
> >> for
> >> > life insurance. In other words, we should allow and encourage
> >> > "cherry-picking," not ban it.
> >> >
> >> > The logical tendency of Obama's insurance reforms, despite his
> explicit
> >> > denial, will be an inexorable movement towards a single-payer system
> as
> >> his
> >> > reforms will not control costs or utilization, and the only
> alternative
> >> left
> >> > will be to enhance the control of the plan via explicit rationing, by
> a
> >> > bureaucrat, of the care delivered. The central authority must then
> >> > decide
> >> > which health services are provided and which denied, who should
> receive
> >> them
> >> > and who should not, when they should be given, all in addition to its
> >> > current function of attempting to determine prices. Such a centralized
> >> > system must logically retrograde into chaos because pricing signals to
> >> > patients, doctors, and hospitals will be so distorted that they cannot
> >> guide
> >> > resource allocation.
> >> >
> >> > Obama concludes his speech by stating,
> >> >
> >> >  we're a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one
> >> > another.
> >> > That's what makes us the United States of America. We need to get this
> >> done.
> >> >
> >> > Besides the obvious demagoguery to justify accelerating further
> control
> >> of
> >> > healthcare by the federal government, we should ask ourselves how we
> >> > have
> >> > devolved from a collection of independent states founded by a war of
> >> > secession from a central government power into one nation with a
> >> > powerful
> >> > central state. The justification for independence from the rule of
> King
> >> > George III that these states gave was based on the doctrine of natural
> >> human
> >> > rights,
> >> >
> >> >  that all men are created equally free & independent, & have certain
> >> > inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact, deprive
> >> > or
> >> > divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life &
> Liberty,
> >> > with the Means of acquiring & possessing property, & pursuing &
> >> > obtaining
> >> > Happiness & Safety.
> >> >
> >> >  <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
> >> >
> >> > $7 $5 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
> >> >
> >> > These words are from the original
> >> > draft<http://www.lva.virginia.gov/whatwedo/k12/bor/draftvdr.htm
> >written
> >> > by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Nowhere in
> >> > this document or in successive drafts by Mason and Thomas Jefferson do
> >> > we
> >> > read words that could lead the reader to conclude that the federal
> >> > government ought to care for its citizens or that we ought to look out
> >> for
> >> > one another or that a central government ought to violate our
> individual
> >> > natural rights to freedom, independence, and property to achieve the
> >> > absurdity of mandatory equal access, equal price, equal quantity, and
> >> equal
> >> > quality of health care for all.
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 19 16:38:32 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 19 Jul 2009 15:38:32 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obamacare
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907191259l2e6cc89fvdcfca57ceaf296c9@mail.gmail.com>
References: <6634e19e0907191140v3f616e86q12c5390209e0e56c@mail.gmail.com>
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	<6634e19e0907191217n589da17cx4be979c8ba9eb00f@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907191241p59c9e405u871615af10ad621@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907191259l2e6cc89fvdcfca57ceaf296c9@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907191338m5b4bcd3bk1a4aa409fa69f898@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Here's what people don't get, they think we've got the Chinese "by the
balls".  The 'slant-eyes' are already two steps down the road.  They
have us by the balls.  They live by the Golden Rule; he who has the
Gold makes the rules.

Let's do the math: 52% of .3 Billion elected (no, had the right to
vote for) this Chocolate Baby Jesus.  1.3 Billion in China don't give
a shit, followed by another Billion Indians, followed by another
Billion Muslims who hate our guts (but have 2/3ds of the liquid
hydrocarbons) regardless of whether the POTUS is a Muslim or not. I
say we're outnumbered.

Then, there's the demographic thing.  Eventually, it will catch-up
with China.  We're caught now. As to the Muslims, they'll over-breed
their oil supply.  That's too far down the road for me to give a shit.

We'll either have a revolution in the next 18 months or we'll be one
page in the history books a 1000 years from now.  It will be a trivia
question; what country landed the first man on the moon?

Forty years ago, BTW.

Brad




On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> "We're fucked!"
>
> (sigh) Yeah, you're probably right.
>
> What can yo do when the majority obviously don't get it and control enough
> votes to decide elections. Not too many good ways out of that, I guess.
>
> I am waiting to see what the result is when our gov't starts defaulting on
> China's debt. There'll be some serious shit hitting the fan then, eh.
>
> Got ammo?
>
> Rik
>
> On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 2:41 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rik,
>>
>> You're too late and a dollar devalued.  The Chinks have already
>> figured out your dollar isn't worth what it looks like it is worth.
>> They want paid back in RNB.  We still have the best universities in
>> the world.  The Asians recognize that, but unlike my wife, they don't
>> want to immigrate here - they want to study here, throw out all the
>> Marx/Engels crap, and go home and get wealthy. We're the dumbest
>> sons-a-bitches on the planet right now.  The Chinese have been through
>> this through a gazillion dynasty's, this is just one more, only
>> prosperous this time.
>>
>> I've always been a "glass half-full" kind of guy.  Now, I'm not.  We're
>> fucked!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Brad,
>> >
>> > "People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!"
>> >
>> > The key word there is THEY. I don't remember asking for what we're
>> getting
>> > now.
>> >
>> > As to SS/medicare, Sandy is on it since her stroke. We are hoping it
>> > will
>> > hold out long enough to get back some of our past investment, anyway.
>> >
>> > Trouble with the whole deal is, they already took and ran off with what
>> > would have done a nice job of supporting us in our old age, had we been
>> able
>> > to keep and invest that money ourselves. I started advocating private
>> > savings accounts for retirement savings MANY years ago once I figured
>> > out
>> > that the "social security trust fund" they talked about was nothing but
>> > fiction. Think of the money you'd have now to retire if you could have
>> put
>> > your money in your own account and drawn interest on it all these many
>> > years.
>> >
>> > As it is now, I may be able to remain retired, in spite of the gov't, if
>> > they don't screw with the value of the dollar too much. I'm not gonna
>> > bet
>> my
>> > last buck that they won't screw that up too.
>> >
>> > Rik
>> >
>> > On Sun, Jul 19, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >
>> >> Rik,
>> >>
>> >> I've been dealing with G'care for 30 years or so with my parents. I'm
>> >> glad they have it because without it, they would have nothing.  I have
>> >> no idea what I've spent funding SS and MediCare, but it was a lot.  I
>> >> got my money's worth from my parents.  Will it be there for us?
>> >> There's no way in hell - the demographics don't support it.  China
>> >> figured this out and abandoned it - across the board - housing,
>> >> health-care, welfare.  The numbers don't add up.
>> >>
>> >> Our population is so dumbed-down by public education they can't think
>> >> for themselves. Safety net?  Yeah, I'll pay for that! For this?  The
>> >> money ain't there.
>> >>
>> >> People get the government they deserve.  Boy, did they choose wrong!
>> >>
>> >> Brad
>> >>
>> >> On 7/19/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > Good afternoon, All,
>> >> >
>> >> > I've been saying pretty much this same thing about health care and
>> >> insurance
>> >> > for many years. Now we can expand it to gov't
>> >> provided/controlled/mandated
>> >> > health care.
>> >> >
>> >> > Rik
>> >> >
>> >> > --
>> >> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch,
>> and
>> >> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry
>> >> > Browne
>> >> >
>> >> > _____________________
>> >> >
>> >> > http://mises.org/story/3543
>> >> > Why Obamacare Can't Work: The Calculation Argument
>> >> >
>> >> > *Mises Daily* by Gabriel E.
>> >> > Vidal<http://mises.org/articles.aspx?AuthorId=1219>| Posted on
>> >> > 7/17/2009 12:00:00 AM
>> >> >
>> >> > In his
>> >> > speech<
>> >>
>> http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/Remarks-by-the-President-to-the-Annual-Conference-of-the-American-Medical-Association
>> >> >to
>> >> > the AMA in Chicago June 15, 2009, Obama shared his diagnosis,
>> >> > solutions,
>> >> > and justification for healthcare reform: health costs are spiraling
>> out
>> >> of
>> >> > control and are a threat to the economy, families, businesses, and
>> >> > the
>> >> > federal government. The current system is unsustainable. Costs are
>> >> > increasing faster than they should because we spend money on things
>> that
>> >> > don't make us healthier. We equate expensive care with better care.
>> >> > We
>> >> > overuse and reimburse for treatments that are not needed and we pay
>> for
>> >> > quantity instead of quality.
>> >> >
>> >> > We can categorize Obama's major solutions to the healthcare crisis as
>> >> > follows:
>> >> >
>> >> >    1.
>> >> >
>> >> >    Payment reform. Change how providers are paid by bundling payments
>> so
>> >> >    they team up to treat episode of care or illness. Pay for quality
>> >> > outcomes.
>> >> >    2.
>> >> >
>> >> >    Knowledge reform. Invest in examining and disseminating knowledge
>> of
>> >> what
>> >> >    treatments are more cost effective and clinically effective to cut
>> >> costs.
>> >> >    3.
>> >> >
>> >> >    Information-technology reform. Upgrade medical records from paper
>> to
>> >> >    electronic. This will avoid duplication of tests, track
>> >> > information
>> >> from
>> >> >    doctor to doctor, lower administrative costs, improve doctors'
>> >> > productivity,
>> >> >    and reduce medical errors.
>> >> >    4.
>> >> >
>> >> >    Insurance reform. Make the purchase of health insurance mandatory
>> for
>> >> >    everyone. Eliminate preexisting-condition waivers and insurance
>> >> > companies'
>> >> >    ability to "cherry-pick" whom to cover. Introduce an affordable
>> >> > public
>> >> >    option for individuals in order to inject competition into the
>> >> > marketplace
>> >> >    to keep private insurance companies honest.
>> >> >
>> >> > Obama assures us that this is not government-run healthcare, that
>> >> > this
>> >> > is
>> >> > not a single-payer system, that the only consequence to these reforms
>> is
>> >> > that healthcare will cost less and that anybody who denies this is
>> >> > misleading or does not understand the facts. Without his reform, he
>> >> insists,
>> >> > costs will grow unsustainably, which will threaten reimbursements and
>> >> > the
>> >> > stability of the healthcare system.
>> >> >
>> >> > Unfortunately, since Obama uses faulty logic to diagnose the problem,
>> >> > his
>> >> > solutions will only make matters worse faster. The correct framework
>> >> within
>> >> > which to diagnose the problem is to admit that costs are out of
>> control
>> >> > because they do not reflect prices created by the voluntary exchange
>> >> between
>> >> > patients and providers, between customers and producers, like every
>> >> > well-functioning industry.
>> >> >
>> >> > Instead, health costs reflect the distortions that government
>> regulators
>> >> > have introduced through reimbursement mechanisms created by
>> >> > command-and-control bureaucracies at federal and state levels.
>> >> >
>> >> > Simply put, Medicare, Medicaid, workers compensation, HMOs and even
>> >> private
>> >> > health-insurance firms that follow Medicare rates, rely on cost
>> reports
>> >> > submitted by providers. This cost data is then pushed through
>> >> mathematical
>> >> > models and additional data generated by government, such as inflation
>> >> > and
>> >> > regional-labor-cost modifiers, to unilaterally (or in agreement with
>> >> > lobbyists and industry groups) determine what the prices for services
>> >> should
>> >> > be.
>> >> >
>> >> > But it is theoretically and practically impossible for a bureaucrat ?
>> no
>> >> > matter how accurate the cost data, how well intentioned and how
>> >> > sophisticated his computer program ? to come up with the correct and
>> >> > just
>> >> > price. The just price of a health service can only be determined by
>> the
>> >> > voluntary exchange of a patient with his hospital, physician, and
>> >> > pharmacist. The relationship between the patient and his private
>> >> > provider
>> >> > has been corrupted by the intrusion of government and its
>> intermediaries
>> >> > (HMOs, for example) to such an extent that we can no longer speak of
>> >> > a
>> >> > relationship that can produce meaningful pricing information.
>> >> >
>> >> > Given the level of technological advance and capital investment in
>> >> > healthcare of the past 40 years, one would expect quality to increase
>> >> > and
>> >> > prices to come down relative to other goods and services. This is
>> >> > true
>> >> > of
>> >> > other capital-intensive industries like consumer electronics and air
>> >> travel.
>> >> > But in healthcare we have the opposite phenomenon: higher prices and,
>> at
>> >> > best, equal or slightly improved quality in some locations or, at
>> worst,
>> >> > lower quality in other locations, particularly government owned
>> >> > institutions. And too few consider that perhaps government
>> participation
>> >> is
>> >> > to blame.
>> >> >
>> >> > Obama suggests that Medicare and Medicaid are responsible for the
>> >> > cost
>> >> > spiral because they pay for quantity rather than quality, because
>> >> > they
>> >> > do
>> >> > not differentiate between services that make people healthier and
>> those
>> >> that
>> >> > do not, because they pay for services that are not needed, etc. But
>> >> > he
>> >> > is
>> >> > stating the obvious. Government bureaucrats, physicians, patients,
>> >> > and
>> >> > hospitals have known that for as long as these federal programs have
>> >> > existed. In fact, these reimbursement mechanisms have been modified
>> over
>> >> the
>> >> > years to attempt to resolve these very deficiencies in the same way
>> that
>> >> > Soviet and Cuban planners attempted to cure the weaknesses of their
>> >> > resource-allocation formulas.
>> >> >
>> >> > Contrary to Obama's suggestion that knowledge of clinical
>> effectiveness
>> >> and
>> >> > cost effectiveness can be obtained and disseminated, there is no
>> >> > rational
>> >> > way to evaluate cost effectiveness outside of the free market.
>> >> > Central
>> >> > health planners cannot compare and recommend the best option between
>> two
>> >> > different combinations of drugs, hospitals, and physicians to treat a
>> >> > particular ailment. It is not just a matter of figuring out which
>> >> > combination offers better outcomes and lower costs. In fact, the
>> >> bureaucrat
>> >> > actually needs prices to make that comparison! This is also why
>> Obama's
>> >> > ideas on payment reform to change how Medicare pays providers, and
>> >> knowledge
>> >> > reform to investigate which treatments are most cost effective will
>> >> > never
>> >> > work and will increase costs and reduce quality. We have explored
>> >> > this
>> >> > argument in detail here <http://mises.org/story/3428>.
>> >> >
>> >> > Obama also proposes to reduce the cost of health care by upgrading
>> >> medical
>> >> > records from paper to electronic. While the benefits of health
>> >> information
>> >> > technology (HIT) are undeniable, the industry is nowhere near the
>> level
>> >> of
>> >> > development required to have a material impact in productivity and
>> >> quality
>> >> > of care. It is truly in its infancy. We have different manufacturers
>> >> > with
>> >> > different systems, and different silos of solutions to particular
>> >> problems
>> >> > even within the same manufacturer ? silos that at best communicate
>> >> clumsily
>> >> > with each other and at worst make the physician's access to
>> >> > meaningful
>> >> > timely clinical information a nightmare.
>> >> >
>> >> > Billions of dollars have already been invested in HIT. Some systems
>> have
>> >> > worked, while others have not. Billions more will need to be
>> >> > allocated
>> >> until
>> >> > the best systems are adopted. But the idea that somehow a government
>> >> agency
>> >> > with no shareholders at risk will help us better coordinate the
>> >> allocation
>> >> > of capital and the experimentation necessary to develop these
>> solutions
>> >> is
>> >> > laughable, especially when one of its agents, the Department of
>> Veterans
>> >> > Affairs, in all likelihood has the record for the most expensive
>> failed
>> >> HIT
>> >> > experiment to
>> >> > date<
>> >> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-12-22-va-system-scrutiny_x.htm>,
>> >> > the $467 million computer system at its Bay Pines hospital in
>> >> > Florida.
>> >> >
>> >> > The true drive behind government's interest in electronic medical
>> >> > records
>> >> is
>> >> > the desire to acquire as much clinical and cost information as
>> possible
>> >> to
>> >> > further control care delivery and health resources. But this is a
>> futile
>> >> > effort as we have seen above. In addition, the effort runs counter to
>> >> > the
>> >> > logical problem that computer systems at millions of local
>> >> provider-patient
>> >> > levels are capable of generating more data than can be processed
>> >> > expeditiously and meaningfully by a central control agency and its
>> >> computer
>> >> > system. Any information produced by this central planner will be
>> >> erroneous
>> >> > and old by the time it is used to guide central bureaucratic decision
>> >> > making.
>> >> >
>> >> > Obama's plan also includes a reform of our private health-insurance
>> >> market.
>> >> > He would like, first, to make health insurance mandatory for all
>> >> Americans,
>> >> > second, to offer an affordable public option, and third, to eliminate
>> >> > the
>> >> > ability of insurance companies to "cherry-pick" which services to
>> cover
>> >> and
>> >> > which to deny. These changes, he believes, will reduce cost shifting
>> >> > ?
>> >> the
>> >> > practice that providers use to subsidize charity, bad debt, and
>> >> unprofitable
>> >> > government programs by charging more to insurance companies and
>> private
>> >> > payers and patients ? and will spread the risks of the insurance
>> company
>> >> to
>> >> > healthy individuals, thereby reducing the costs to everyone.
>> >> >
>> >> > These insurance reforms ideas are flawed. They are based on the
>> >> assumption
>> >> > that health insurance companies can charge premiums to a pool of
>> >> > policyholders, predict and pay for a large loss triggered by an event
>> >> > outside the control of the policyholder, and make a profit. But
>> sickness
>> >> > combines risks that are uncontrollable with risks that are indeed
>> >> > controllable by the policyholder (eating, exercise, preventative
>> habits,
>> >> and
>> >> > adherence to treatment plans, for example) and the provider
>> >> > (selection
>> >> > of
>> >> > diagnostic tests, specialists and hospitals, for example). As a
>> result,
>> >> > insurance companies are left with tools of rationing via higher
>> >> > premiums,
>> >> > deductibles, copayments and utilization controls placed on providers,
>> >> which
>> >> > have a tendency to create nonrandom groups of policyholders and
>> >> providers.
>> >> > Health insurance companies are more instruments of income
>> redistribution
>> >> > than risk managers, and they are left with only one option: to charge
>> >> > healthy individuals enough to subsidize sick individuals. Eventually,
>> >> when
>> >> > the impact of the redistribution on individuals is high enough, many
>> >> either
>> >> > opt out or are priced out of the market, creating the 50 million
>> >> uninsured
>> >> > individuals.[1] <http://mises.org/story/3543#note1>
>> >> >
>> >> > Obama explicitly states that he wants to force the redistribution of
>> >> income
>> >> > from healthy to unhealthy individuals but with the illogical belief
>> that
>> >> > somehow this scheme will reduce the costs to everyone. But we have
>> seen
>> >> that
>> >> > even if the size of the risk pool is extended to the whole population
>> of
>> >> the
>> >> > United States by mandating every American to have health insurance
>> >> > and
>> >> hence
>> >> > fixing the size and selection of the risk pool to the whole
>> population,
>> >> this
>> >> > does not address the fundamental flaw of mixing controllable with
>> >> > uncontrollable risks. Any sensible insurance reform should separate
>> >> > these
>> >> > risks and only cover uncontrollable risks, allow individual
>> underwriting
>> >> > (the practice of insurance companies assessing each individual's
>> pricing
>> >> and
>> >> > eligibility) move away from community rating (the practice of
>> >> > offering
>> >> the
>> >> > same price to large groups of individuals regardless of each
>> >> > individual's
>> >> > age, sex, health status, and risk level) so that healthy people pay
>> >> > lower
>> >> > premiums and sick people pay higher premiums, exactly the current
>> model
>> >> for
>> >> > life insurance. In other words, we should allow and encourage
>> >> > "cherry-picking," not ban it.
>> >> >
>> >> > The logical tendency of Obama's insurance reforms, despite his
>> explicit
>> >> > denial, will be an inexorable movement towards a single-payer system
>> as
>> >> his
>> >> > reforms will not control costs or utilization, and the only
>> alternative
>> >> left
>> >> > will be to enhance the control of the plan via explicit rationing, by
>> a
>> >> > bureaucrat, of the care delivered. The central authority must then
>> >> > decide
>> >> > which health services are provided and which denied, who should
>> receive
>> >> them
>> >> > and who should not, when they should be given, all in addition to its
>> >> > current function of attempting to determine prices. Such a
>> >> > centralized
>> >> > system must logically retrograde into chaos because pricing signals
>> >> > to
>> >> > patients, doctors, and hospitals will be so distorted that they
>> >> > cannot
>> >> guide
>> >> > resource allocation.
>> >> >
>> >> > Obama concludes his speech by stating,
>> >> >
>> >> >  we're a nation that cares for its citizens. We look out for one
>> >> > another.
>> >> > That's what makes us the United States of America. We need to get
>> >> > this
>> >> done.
>> >> >
>> >> > Besides the obvious demagoguery to justify accelerating further
>> control
>> >> of
>> >> > healthcare by the federal government, we should ask ourselves how we
>> >> > have
>> >> > devolved from a collection of independent states founded by a war of
>> >> > secession from a central government power into one nation with a
>> >> > powerful
>> >> > central state. The justification for independence from the rule of
>> King
>> >> > George III that these states gave was based on the doctrine of
>> >> > natural
>> >> human
>> >> > rights,
>> >> >
>> >> >  that all men are created equally free & independent, & have certain
>> >> > inherent natural Rights, of which they cannot, by any Compact,
>> >> > deprive
>> >> > or
>> >> > divest their posterity; among which are the Enjoyment of Life &
>> Liberty,
>> >> > with the Means of acquiring & possessing property, & pursuing &
>> >> > obtaining
>> >> > Happiness & Safety.
>> >> >
>> >> >  <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
>> >> >
>> >> > $7 $5 <http://www.mises.org/store/Anatomy-of-the-State-P588.aspx>
>> >> >
>> >> > These words are from the original
>> >> > draft<http://www.lva.virginia.gov/whatwedo/k12/bor/draftvdr.htm
>> >written
>> >> > by George Mason for the Virginia Declaration of Rights. Nowhere in
>> >> > this document or in successive drafts by Mason and Thomas Jefferson
>> >> > do
>> >> > we
>> >> > read words that could lead the reader to conclude that the federal
>> >> > government ought to care for its citizens or that we ought to look
>> >> > out
>> >> for
>> >> > one another or that a central government ought to violate our
>> individual
>> >> > natural rights to freedom, independence, and property to achieve the
>> >> > absurdity of mandatory equal access, equal price, equal quantity, and
>> >> equal
>> >> > quality of health care for all.
>> >> >
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
>> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 20 07:17:07 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 07:17:07 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] new opposition to Obamacare
Message-ID: <042BF82105244471879D9BAA53E99D65@YOURB88038198E>

Special Report:

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/study_most_children_strongly?utm_source=infocus

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 20 08:04:30 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 08:04:30 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The man from SCREW - for Rik
Message-ID: <AEC75EDCBD294BB09F6DF8AFCB55FA7A@YOURB88038198E>

Due to the current financial situation caused by the slowdown of the economy, your Government has decided to implement a scheme to put workers 50 years of age and older on early retirement. This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to the government to be eligible for the SHAFT scheme (Special Help After Forced Termination).

Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW program (Scheme Covering Retired Early Workers). A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as the government deems appropriate.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on, will receive as much SHIT (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. The government has always prided itself in the amount of SHIT it gives out. Should you feel that you do not receive enough SHIT, please bring this to the attention of your local civil service bureau. They have been trained to give you all the SHIT you can handle.

Sincerely,

Barack Obama
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 20 18:28:50 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:28:50 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Heavy reading on Conspiracy Theories
Message-ID: <11834BA482E545868E868858C34A43A8@YOURB88038198E>

Check out these two article for some political conspiracy stuff:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/how-the-left-is-spinning-the-banking-crisis

Then this follows:

http://sweetness-light.com/archive/the-many-tentacles-of-cloward-piven

Submitted for educational purposes.

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 20 18:36:48 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:36:48 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad,
	an explaination why the left fears Sara Palin
Message-ID: <E1E188F4BFD8465188F5C291EC86151E@YOURB88038198E>

One of the most important reasons for (re)creating Black Rose magazine was to create a forum for new thinking and discussion of the means for affecting social change. Thinking that wouldn't be based on the usual preconceived notions and methodology and rife with the usual jargon. Thinking that would take into account the realities of the contemporary world. 

Richard Coward and Frances Fox Piven have spent a large part of the last dozen years struggling to develop a realistic strategy to achieve social goals, and to a large extent, we feel, have avoided the pitfalls mentioned above. They discuss in their books-Poor People's Movements, The Politics of Turmoil and Regulating the Poor-and in their numerous articles, many of the questions we're struggling to answer. Since we share some of their ideas and concerns, we were interested in exploring their criticisms of Left thinking. Of particular interest to us is their skepticism about the value of both mass-based organizations and the use of an electoral politics strategy to achieve radical social goals. So. we decided to interview these well-known, controversial, interesting people.

The interviewers are Stephen Amberg, Ann Kotell and Paula Rayman.

-Editor

SA: In Poor People's Movements and elsewhere you support the idea and stress the necessary spontaneity of poor people's movements against would-be political leaders. You've also argued against New Left and anarchist thinking while insisting upon a material analysis of strategy. What is your conception of social movements which reconcile these positions?

FFP: I think that we've often been accused of worshipping spontaneity, and that's misleading. The accusation arises out of our insistence on searching for the actual possibilities for mobilization that will arise within the experience and the situation of poor people, in contrast to a frequent Left emphasis on correct organizational forms. But the term spontaneous is misleading because we think that mobilizations, when they occur, are determined events. They are determined by the situations people experience and their interpretations of them. It is the situations that people find themselves in, and the opportunities for action that emerge in those situations, that we think should be analyzed. What is called our emphasis on spontaneity really is an emphasis on an analysis of the actual possibilities for protest mobilization that exist for people in their situation.

RC: I think that the issue of spontaneity is entirely misplaced. We say that mass protest wells up out of certain institutional conditions which generate high levels of anger, indignation and disaffecton with the legitimacy of the social system. And in that sense it is.socially determined. It's not just a spontaneous event that occurs out of the blue. The issue of spontaneity really arises at a different juncture. It arises at the point where potential leaders, organizers, are confronted by this welling up, this bursting forth of new political energy among the masses of people, whether industrial workers of the 1930s or the blacks of the post-World War II period. The issue is how organizers and leaders approach that situation. They can take the traditional path, they can try to harness it, channel it, fashion, shape it, form it into mass-based bureaucratic membership organizations. It was that which we took issue with. We tried to raise the question of whether there were other strategies for channeling and harnessing this energy that would be more effective. We point, for example, to experiences of the civil rights movement in the American South. We pointed out that the organizers who participated in that movement, whether in SNCC, or CORE or SCLC, did not emphasize building mass membership bureaucratic organizations. They employed what we called in Poor People's Movements the tactic of concerted mobilization. They tried to move with this mass of energy, and tried to enlarge and buttress it rather than to turn it toward bureaucratic organization. And I think one can see the same type of concerted mobilization in a variety of other movements that we've seen in recent years. The environmental, antinuclear, and anti-war movements-they've all emphasized the mobilization of great numbers of people for demonstrations, for example. So. the issue for us was organization versus the natural ways in which people are sometimes led to respond as a consequence of the social conditions that confront them.

SA: After the wave passes and the conditions of that situation pass, are there no possibilities for poor people? Is it possible for poor people to win things cumulatively on a permanent basis?

RC: We tend to think not. Our reading of the history of poor people's protests is that they tend to be episodic. They tend to arise out of particular convergences of various institutional forces which generate anger and indignation and cause people to rise up in the streets. But even as that process is initiated it sets in motion other forces in the society which eventually tend to undermine and to restore some measure of equilibrium. We don't know of any historical examples of mass-based organizations that outlived those periods of turbulence, other than the labor movement. And that's a special case. If you look at other categories of people who have been turbulent it is very difficult to motivate them to any kind of action in periods of quiescence. That led us to the conclusion that what's done during the periods of mass unrest is itself the crucial question, not what can be done between periods of mass unrest.

AK: Have you noticed that some tactics people use during periods of mass unrest are more successful than other tactics? Can you isolate certain tactics or strategies and say: these have tended historically to create larger, more positive social movements?

FFP: There are two issues. One has to do with the forms of defiance that are available to people, with whether or not they act to withdraw the cooperation that they otherwise offer to important institutions in the society. It is there that the core of their power resides. So the first issue has to do with understanding and identifying the institutional position of different groups, trying to analyze the kind of power that is available to them if they were to become defiant. This will vary from one group to another.

The second issue has to do with the kinds of movement action that seem to characterize the rising crest of a movement in contrast with kinds of action that tend to be imposed by elements of leadership that are preoccupied with forming stable, mass-based membership bureaucracies. Within the history of any movement you can distinguish between the exercise of mass defiance as people acquire the capacity and the motive to do so, and the form of action that tends to be imposed by leaders who become preoccupied with organization building and making connections with elites. In the labor movement you can distinguish between the rank and file strikes which characterized the upsurge of the movement and the preoccupation of CIO leadership with preventing strikes after 1937 or even before. They thought continued strikes would jeopardize the organization, and they would have, because the crucial condition attached to unionization was the prohibition of strikes, a condition intended to prevent spontaneous stoppage.

Both issues are very important. The first has to do with forms of defiance that are available to people given their situation, given the interdependencies that exist between them and the institutions of the society. What leverage do they have? And the second issue has to do with the different kinds of movement action that occur within the history of any particular movement as a consequence of the emergence of different influences, the first influence being the welling forth of defiance and the second being the preoccupation with organization building and electoral effectiveness that tends to become dominant as a consequence both of leadership doctrine, and the interest of elites in supporting that doctrine.

AK: Given what you've already said, I think you would say the women's movement is on the right track because they're not out to build anything huge or bureaucratic, but are concentrating on expressing themselves and changing their own lives. Do you feel the women's movement possesses the potential for bringing about a broad-based social change?

FFP: Not as it now exists. I think you're correct that there was a tendency in the women's movement that was not organizational. The transforming power of the consciousness-raising group on the lives of better educated women was not organizational. On the other hand, there are also elements of the women's movements which are preoccupied precisely with organizational and electoral politics, particularly with ERA and anti-ERA. However, the difficulties of the women's movement at this stage don't arise primarily because of its organizational form. They arise because of the character of its base. The movement has divided women of different classes, interests and ideology. In fact, the women's movement has helped to create a broad-based, authentically popular movement which is very hostile to the women's movement: the pro-life movement.

AK: Do you see this as a tactic on the part of the patriarchy to divide women in the classic way movements are usually divided, where people are set up to work against one another?

FFP: The patriarchy, the Catholic hierarchy particularly, is certainly involved. But that doesn't explain the large number of women who feel the issues of the women's movement are not their issues. They see the movement as threatening to them. Many women don't have the opportunities of better educated women. They don't see forfeiting the grace of motherhood as a gain at all. They don't see going out and working just like men as particularly attractive, because the men they know collect garbage or work in the mines. So, in a way all women, or women in both movements, are responding to the erosion of the traditional feminine role in the family. The family is changing. But, for lower middle class and working class women that has not been accompanied by the availability of opportunities to enter into more prestigious occupations. For lower middle class and working class women, the erosion of the family is threatening. The only thing they can do is waitressing or something of that sort. They've tended to cling to whatever grace and respect their families afforded them.

AK: What do you think people can do to combat that? Do you see this response as such a broad-based popular movement that there's nothing effective we can do at the present time?

FR: The women's movement could take up the issues that are central in the lives of these women. ERA doesn't mean anything to most women. It's ominous and threatening because it suggests their protections will be taken away. NOW has undertaken some litigation for equal pay, but that's really swamped by the other stuff they were doing.

RC: What has struck me is the extraordinary conventionality of the tactics the women's movement has employed. It has relied, as far as one can see, mainly on litigation, on various forms of electoral politics, petitioning, things of that sort. And if there's one point that an analysis of protest movements leads to, it's that these are not tactics that generally yield much. My own feeling is that the movement is much more likely to make progress were it to employ more disruptive tactics, tactics of civil disobedience and so on. We have the recent experience of the civil rights movement as a testimony that this is what it takes to overturn institutional patterns of any kind.

FFP: The women's movement has probably made its greatest gains in an institutional arena where I suspect there's been a lot of defiance-in the home. It's hidden and we can't see it, but I suspect there's been a lot of cracking of roles. Women's roles in the family, at least among better educated women, have changed dramatically.

PR: An historical thought on the tactics of the women's movement. During the early part of the century the women's movement was going after the vote and used militant tactics such as strikes, civil disobedience and hunger fasts. It wasn't a mass movement, it wasn't a great outpouring, but it was a strong minority. They were successful. They were much more successful using those tactics. But the goal was the vote.

AK: Do you think having the vote makes people feel they have a vested interest or power in the system? Do you think that's why movements die as soon as people are enfranchised?

FFP: That's one reason. But you have to treat that sort of critique rather delicately. A critique of a movement because it has the wrong goals. Those goals don't emerge just because somebody said, "Well, this is what we should go after." Goals emerge out of very deeply imprinted understandings that people have of what's wrong with their situation, understandings that also tend to be fostered and encouraged by their interaction with elites. The black movement went after the vote because the most powerful spokespersons in America said that's what you need. And that was also consistent with an American ideology which black people shared. You can't change that easily, and there come times when people are going to go after reforms which you can see will contain the seeds for their co-optation. But that they do so reflects their fundamental understandings, which can't be wished away.

SA: You mentioned earlier that labor was a special case and the situation of poor people as different. Do different class groupings, different strata, have their own goals? Can labor change its situation permanently while others cannot?

RC: The issue to which I was addressing myself when I made that comment was the question of the conditions under which an insurgent group can or cannot form some kind of permanent organizational structure which outlives the period of turbulence. What I intended to convey was that for labor it was possible. For most groups it is not. And the difference is that labor organizations were formed within the context of an institutional structure-the factory system. That structure existed and that structure is permanent. Labor unions could themselves develop permanency by drawing upon various of the resources which the structure of the factory system provided. For example, they could get the automatic dues checkoff. That meant they could collect enormous amounts of money without any organizing input. In what other situation is that possible? Organizers who try to form mass-based organizations outside the labor context are constantly knocking on doors trying to get people to pay their dues. Labor could also gain concessions that put management in the position of having to coerce membership-the closed shop, the union shop. Where else is there a structure that organizes and can draw upon a coerced membership? So in those and in other ways you cannot generalize from the labor experience. The institutional context is a decisive determinant of a variety of features of these movements and certainly a decisive determinant of whether or not the movement can be institutionalized and made permanent.

SA: 1 wonder whether National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was faced with a similar situation with the family assistance plan. There was a possibility of having a guaranteed income and recognized entitlements that would have changed the structural base. But apparently in the dynamic of mobilization it was far from clear that it would have had these results. That there might be some time when working class organizations could find some common ground with poor people's demands I think is part of what many people still believe.

RC: I don't think the enactment of Nixon's family assistance plan would have affected either the institutionalization of NWRO or facilitated the growth of a cross-class coalition. I think it would have probably helped spell the demise of the movement. There was nothing in the nature of that concession that would have enabled NWRO to become institutionalized.

If you think about the kind of welfare structure that would have been created it's hard to see anything that would have made possible the classic coalition with the working class. It would have nationalized certain decisions to a substantial degree perhaps. But what we argued was not that NWRO should have resisted FAP because of its organizational needs, or that they should have used FAP to set the stage for a new political movement, but that they should have ignored it. Whatever effect NWRO still could have had was at the local level by trying to revive the sorts of defiant actions that had characterized the early years of that movement. What the family assistance plan signaled for NWRO had nothing to do with whether it was good or bad welfare policy. As a matter of fact NWRO had trouble deciding whether it was good or had, but what was always clear from the beginning was that they were going to get involved in it, and they were going to use the occasion of the legislation to make themselves prominent. They also did it because they felt that was the way to go.

RC: NWRO went to Washington. You never saw one of the leaders in a welfare center again. They substituted symbolic resources for a mass base. They had no mass base left nor did they make any concerted effort to try to revive it.

SA: Part of the goals of NWRO was to achieve immediate economic aid and a national income standard. If those goals were achieved they would presumably change the conditions of poor people. They would not be as readily seen as pariahs, the status of poor people would change, which would be a major change.

FFP: There were certain goals that were impossible, precisely because they would have had the reverberations that you predict. It's no doubt true that a decent income maintenance system that allowed people who were not working some degree of self-esteem, and that allowed them a minimally decent income, would change the meaning of poverty. It would change the material condition of the poor and it would also change the meaning of being poor. But that is also probably why it can't happen. A related reason that it can't happen is that then the meaning of low wage work would also change. Low wage work would no longer be enforced by the fact that there was a fate even worse than being a dishwasher in a crummy little restaurant. Or in a similar way, the original Humphrey-Hawkins bill, which would have guaranteed government employment to everyone on demand when unemployment rose above 3 percent, would have had enormous reverberations. It never could happen simply as legislative innovation for that reason. The structural opportunities for reform don't derive simply from our good ideas. When we fix on a reform that will have widespread reverberations, we have to expect that the other side has a capacity for understanding those reverberations. When Senator Long said in the hearings on FAP that "If a family could be guaranteed $1,600 a year in the South, who was going to wash his shirts?", he understood the connection between low wage work and welfare. Just for that reason the structural opportunities for welfare reform are limited.

AK: I've felt for a long time that the electoral strategy is a dead end and that most people who use it in an attempt to affect social change are manipulated by those controlling the system.

RC: The civil rights movement, after winning the vote in '65, left the streets and went into electoral politics. It was a mindblowing transformation that occurred between 1965 and 1970.

There was unwarranted optimism. An illusory optimism about the possibilities of electoral politics. What they had won they had won by protest. Now suddenly they decided they could take on all the economic ills of the black community, its low wages, its lousy housing, its unemployment, these really difficult problems, far more difficult than the winning of political rights, by a much softer conventional sort of political action. It just seemed to us that was a contradiction in terms. Look at what they had to do just to win the vote. Look at the tactics they had to employ. Now they are going to undertake a genuine class struggle, a struggle against various forms of economic deprivation and inequality which were deeply rooted in the American social structure. And how were they going to do it? With votes. It seemed to us incredibly naive. When people say we are pessimistic, I feel quite the opposite. I think we have a certain optimism about the use of non-conventional tactics, and we think that the optimism displayed by those who employ conventional tactics is simply misplaced.

FR: The black leadership that went into electoral politics demonstrated an outward optimism about electoral politics. At least you can say for them they had a certain self-interest in being optimistic because they got elected. Or appointed, or whatever. So it served them well. But in general when the Left calls us pessimistic what they mean-they mean two sorts of things I suppose-is first that we don't talk about how to get total, radical social transformation, how to get socialism. We don't say much about how to do it. We even seem to be saying that the best you can hope for is smallish gains. And I suppose the second dimension of our "pessimism" has to do with the fact that we don't believe in the doctrine of how to get those gains-working class organizations contriving certain formulae about organization and indoctrination. We would say that they're not optimistic, but rather doctrinaire and contemptuous, that they haven't evaluated their own strategy against contemporary experience, and that's mindless! Also, when they dismiss the struggles of the sixties generally, they're contemptuous about the situation of actual people.

RC: I have yet to see a critic of the black movement of the sixties who acknowledges that blacks in the South won an historically important victory. They won a major reduction in the use of terror as the means by which they were controlled. That was the real meaning of the winning of political rights in the South, the right to sit on the previously all-white juries, and so forth. The vote did have some important consequences with respect to the terror question-blacks can vote out terroristic sheriffs and other public officials. Now from our point of view, anytime a group succeeds in weakening the use of terror to control it, it has made a major gain, it's just not to be dismissed.... It may not be utopia, but that doesn't mean it isn't extraordinarily significant. And if you talk to ordinary black people in the South today, that is what they talk about; they don't have to kow-tow nearly as much, they don't live in fear nearly as much; and in their lives, that's an extraordinary gain.

PR: I haven't seen very much mention in your work of the nonviolent movement. Nonviolent organizations tend to be highly decentralized and use mass protest, staying out of electoral politics. You haven't given that very much attention or applause. Is there a reason for you neglecting this movement? It's complementary to a lot of things you're saying, and falls into your perspective more closely than many of the other movements with which you deal.

RC: Do you mean the use of nonviolent civil disobedience?

PR: I'm talking about nonviolence not just in terms of strategy and tactics, but as a movement: it has been a movement in U.S. history. It certainly was an organizing force and very anti-legislative. I see it as the movement which comes closest to fulfilling some of the ideas you put forth.

FFP: That's probably so, but it had to do also with our understanding of the issue of violence, a term which is misunderstood and misused. Violence is a peripheral issue to us. Whether or not a movement is violent has to do more with its strategic opportunities. We are not against violence, in general or in principle. We think that it is not accidental that most popular movements in the U.S. have not been violent, because they've understood their extreme vulnerability, the repression that violence would bring down upon their heads. On the other hand, most popular movements have resulted in violence, and we don't think that's accidental either, but is very much a strategic question. The Southern civil rights movement consistently precipitated violence, and it knew what it was doing. It selected or targeted cities where violence was most likely and did so because it understood that Southern violence would add to their national support.

PR: Do you really think they picked those cities just because the violence there would be most publicly useful?

FFP: Yes, look what they were doing-they were exposing the Southern system before the eyes of the nation, so Washington would have to intervene. Those were the fundamental elements of their strategy.

PR: Perhaps they went to those places where injustice was most systematic, so that the violent confrontation was not the compelling reason to go to these cities.

RC: It depends on which city and which episode. Sometimes the movement massed in certain cities because something boiled up in that city, and they responded to it. That was true in Albany, Georgia, in '61 and '62. But when they picked Birmingham in '63, they did it very deliberately. They knew it was probably the most racist city in the South, with the most repressive police force, and they expected a great deal of bloodshed and arrests.

PR: It seems to me that it is recognized that state violence depends on a highly centralized form of organization, and that it's one of the compelling strategies of violent action to demand a high degree of centralization and to demand a certain kind of organization to perform in a certain way. Nonviolent action in fact is based on a very decentralized view of organization; a very different set of tactics and goals are attached to the nonviolent strategy. What I'm asking is if the kind of things you're suggesting in your writing wouldn't be much more compatible with a nonviolent strategy.

FFP: I don't think a high level of organization and centralization is inherent in violence or nonviolence. What of the numerous occasions in American history when strikers have had the ability to keep out scabs by violent means, with the result that they sometimes won?

PR: No doubt; violence has won sometimes, nonviolence has won sometimes. I think the point is though it's a level of organization, a kind of centralization that's necessary.

FFP: But you can keep out scabs by violent means without a centralized organization. There can be that degree of infrastructure and consensus in the community of workers, and basically that's how miners understand to this day how to keep out scabs. You threaten them. And you shoot them if you have to.

PR: I think the way in which miners have been engaged is a more spontaneous "case" kind of effort.... you've got to think in terms of strategy, especially in the U.S. which is such an inherently violent society. That has to be dealt with in terms of sustained struggle. What we're up against is so sustained, so planned, and we're constantly going through cycles of being stilled and then rising up. How do we get out of that kind of cycle and create a more sustaining culture, without necessarily falling into the pitfalls and becoming highly centralized, doing the kinds of things you have suggested?

FFP: I don't think we can get out of the cycles. Movements set in action the forces that lead to their demise. But we can try to develop a popular culture of rebellion, a culture which carries the memories of earlier struggles. Still, it's hard to develop a popular culture in contemporary America that has any degree of autonomy-the capacity of people to remember their own experience and interpret their own experience has been virtually obliterated by the propaganda forces of modern society. But the Left could try to develop a reservoir of popular experience to keep it intact for people. We think that what the left has really done is to get it all wrong-that the left has developed a series of myths about the past that are consistent with Left doctrines but give people very little credit and also draw the wrong lessons about past experiences. This is true, for example, of the sorts of understandings that are available of what really happened in the 1930s and later struggles. "Well, the CIO went out and organized industrial workers and then the industrial workers were all organized and they were happy ever after!" But it didn't happen that way, even the organizers don't think it happened that way, and the version that is passed down gives workers themselves far too little credit. That's one problem. The other problem is that if you tell it wrong, then people learn the wrong lessons. So, we don't have a big answer, a total solution to the problem of the cyclical pattern of popular struggles. Our only answer is that we could do better in trying to build on past struggles. If you look at the history of struggles by French working people and peasants in the nineteenth century, you can see clearly marked the memories of each struggle on the next. That doesn't happen in the U.S., both because the Left has not cultivated this tradition and because people's capacities for developing their interpretations are being rapidly overtaken by the mass media.

RC: I think another point in the same direction is that a lot of these periods of insurgency by low-income people just pass without being recorded. Take Poor People's Movements, for example. We had a chapter on the unemployed movement in the thirties but practically nothing is written about it. That was only forty years ago, and no historian has really turned to it. Let's take other aspects of insurgency which are really quite dramatic-the breakdown of morale in the armed forces in Vietnam, the fragging and so forth.. One of the reasons that the American military was finally prepared to allow the defeat to be conceded is because they understood that in some important way they had lost control of their own troops. Now that's a phenomenal story-who's going to tell it? Who's going to go around and find those soldiers and interview them and trace the whole process by which morale broke down, how the legitimacy of the war broke down and how their defiance-court martial type defiance-so weakened the American war effort that it was a crucial variable in the equation that led finally to our conceding defeat. Even the draft resistance movement has not been written about much. Or what about the anti-nuclear movement that's going on now? Are we going to get a history of that, or all these episodes just going to be forgotten?

AK: People put up with a lot of oppressive, unhappy situations in their lives that are created for them by authorities of various kinds-in school, in the workplace, from politicians and other "leaders." I think they acquiesce for a variety of reasons: because they can't imagine society could function any other way; because they believe the current way to be the only moral way; because they can't see any other way out; and so forth. I think the key to bringing about a broad-based social change is to help lots of people to start thinking they don't have to put up with all the negative things in their lives; that they can develop and use their personal power; that they can begin to feel they can get together with other people and shape some of their own destinies. Do you look at these issues, and if so, how do you approach them?

FFP: We think that the way in which people acquire that sense of themselves, collectively, is by having a degree of power and acting on whatever power they do have. True, one way of approaching that problem is through political education, where you try to change people's sense of themselves. But we think that people's sense of themselves, the power to control their own destiny, is most thoroughly transformed by militant action.

AK: The most important reason for me in deciding to work with battered women at Transition House was the thought that I would be encouraging women who'd actually left a very oppressive situation and had taken that big first step toward saying, "We're not going to put up with that shit anymore." My work was to help them to cement that step. But I want to find other ways to do that same thing. Do you believe when people accomplish some political goal and have a good feeling about it that they probably go away with the feeling that since they accomplished the one thing they probably can accomplish others?

FFP: It depends a little bit on the spirit in which they accomplish it, their understanding of what it is they're doing while they're doing it. That matters. I don't think that the looting thing a couple of years ago in New York, which no doubt yielded a lot of goods, developed a sense of collective strength and a stronger sense of indignation and so forth. They probably thought of it as hustling, and since hustling is life in those communities anyway, that's not as good as other forms of collective action. On the other hand, there were blacks in the South, who in the entire memory of their people, always had to kow-tow. They confronted their masters and oppressors and they said "no more." That must have changed their sense of themselves forever.

RC: The same point, by contrast, did not hold for the welfare rights movement, because they were dealing with an issue that was morally much more ambiguous, given the American value system. They were asking for the right to be dependent. The civil rights movement was asking for the right to be free, which resonates with American traditions in ways which the right to be dependent does not. There wasn't in the welfare rights movement the same moral spirit, the sense of self-righteousness, that was true of the civil rights movement. There was a problem of moral ambiguity that plagued the welfare rights movement from the first day it was formed.

AK: What do you hope will be the result of people reading your books? Is your priority to help people to see the various opportunities open to them?

RC: One of our main purposes was to try to alter the debate about strategy: To try to undermine the commitment, even among Left leaders and organizers, to electoral politics as the means by which significant changes can be made. Our reading of the history of these movements suggested the contrary. It was only when these movements moved outside the arena of electoral politics to employ militant, disruptive, non-institutional forms of political action, that any chance of winning gains of any kind emerged. So one of our main concerns was to raise a large question of doubt about the use of conventional political channels by groups at the bottom of the society.

FFP: In writing Regulating the Poor, I think our orientation was a little bit different. We were trying to cast welfare in a different light. We were trying to make people see it differently. and at that time part of our audience was the welfare rights movement itself. Our analysis was often considered to be pessimistic, in the sense that we did not hold out much hope for "welfare reform." But we don't consider ourselves to be pessimistic. Do you consider yourself pessimistic, Richard?

RC: It's a difference I think between being starry-eyed and being realistic, rather than being pessimistic and optimistic. Why should I be optimistic about the possibilities for significant gains for oppressed groups through the electoral system if I think the electoral system is really controlled by other and more powerful groups? Why is it pessimistic to say that if people are going to make gains they are going to have to move outside that system and use unconventional channels of political influence? That's not a pessimistic statement. I think it's a realistic statement. 

http://www.waste.org/~roadrunner/ScarletLetterArchives/BlackRose/BR2/FrancisFoxPivenInterview.htm

(summer 1979)
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 20 18:40:43 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:40:43 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik, one of your favorite subjects
Message-ID: <EE2F670F616D46D2942AAD351F69C3B1@YOURB88038198E>


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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Jul 20 18:42:32 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 17:42:32 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The World Has Gone Mad!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907161958t5ac6922ai80d5d6b1dd8997f8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907161958t5ac6922ai80d5d6b1dd8997f8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907201542p2b32d4epf9b9a0bf26c6dd55@mail.gmail.com>

Day three here of China Postpartum Blues and I'm still dragging ass.
Jet lag sucks.  I'm having serious reservations about this next career
move. I proposed to Fan that she quit her job - now I'm thinking about
her staying to the 'bitter end' and me down-bidding to a smaller jet
and flying short domestic hops. I'm not quite sure what the magical
marginal rate is that makes striving for the top 5% worth it, but if
means feeling like I do today for the rest of my life, I'm ready to
sign-up for my 'gubmint' check and start parking in handicapped
spaces.  I've caught-up with what's going on in both my older boy's
lives, and they don't seem all that interested in taking me on as a
pet project quite yet.  Damn it!  Someone has to pay for all this!

Here's some more information on how the "the other side" lives.  They
eat horses, don't they?  I say we could make some Parisians happy and
solve the problem in less than a months time. But what good is simple
logic these days?

Brad

-------------

The Gelded Age
The mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we?re all headed.

By Mark Steyn

On Friday July 17, the House of Representatives met to debate . . . Go
on, take a guess: Health care? The cap-and-tax racket? Stimulus Two?
No, none of the above. Don?t worry, they?re still spending your money.
Wild horses couldn?t stop them doing that.

And, as a matter of fact, that?s the correct answer: wild horses. On
Friday, the House voted on the Restore Our American Mustangs Act ? or
ROAM.  Like all acronymically cute legislation, its name bears little
relation to what it actually does: It?s not about ?restoring?
mustangs. The federal Bureau of Land Management aims for a manageable
population of 27,000 wild mustangs. Currently, there are 36,000, and
the population doubles every four or five years. To prevent things
getting even more out of hand, the BLM keeps another 30,000 mustangs
in holding pens ? or, if you prefer, managed-care facilities. That?s
to say, under federal management, one in every two ?wild? horses now
lives in government housing. The American mustang population is
road-testing the impending demographic profile of Japan and Germany:
one worker for every retiree.

The welfare mustangs are supposed to be put up for adoption. But, what
with the government taking all our money to fund the Barney Frank
Institute of Bureaucracy Studies, many of us no longer have the
necessary discretionary income to stable a mustang in the rec room. A
lot of the nags in managed-care facilities are getting a bit long in
the tooth, and thus unlikely ever to find homes. So, rather than go on
attempting to flog near-dead horses, the BLM was considering inviting
the seniors to do the decent thing and sign up for ?assisted suicide?
? or, in the designated euphemism, ?death with dignity.? In the
Netherlands, pretty much everyone over 47 who goes into hospital for a
minor hernia winds up getting talked into ?death with dignity.? And,
given that mustangs were introduced to America by the Spanish, it?s
not inappropriate that they should meet a European end.

ROAM would prohibit this option. In that sense, it would be
acronymically more precise to name it REAM ? the Restore Elderly
American Mustangs Act. Under this legislation, no horses or burros
could be, ah, terminated, and they would have to be released from
their holding pens after six months. To facilitate the release of the
tame ?wild horse? population, the act adds to their present 33-million
acre habitat (that?s bigger than New York State) another 20 million
acres ? or approximately the size of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
Hampshire, and Vermont combined. The Congressional Budget Office
estimates the total tab at around $700 million ? ie, chump change. If
you look for it in the line-item budget, it comes down at the bottom
under ?rounding error.?  It?s a mere ten-and-a-half grand per mustang.
If you?re wondering why it costs more to keep a horse on 52 million
acres of wilderness than it does to stable him at an upscale horse
farm in New England, that?s because, in order to prevent the mustang
population doubling again by 2013 and requiring the annexation of
another 50 million acres (ie, an area the size of Ireland, Denmark,
Belgium, and the Netherlands combined), the bill mandates ?enhanced?
contraception for horses and burros.

John Hinderaker of the Powerline website mused on whether this would
involve Nancy Pelosi (who?s very keen on federally funded
contraception) personally installing the enhanced prophylactic device
on every stallion. The pay-per-view rights on that would surely be
worth $700 million at least. And it would certainly stimulate the
American latex industry. Or perhaps we could import them from
overseas. I seem to recall the European Union introduced shape and
size regulations for a harmonized Euro-condom a few years back, only
to have the Germans complain that these things were too small and
obviously made for Greeks ? or possibly vice-versa, before any Greek
readers file a federal hate-crimes suit. Anyway, the point is that
somewhere in a European warehouse there are piles of ill-fitting
Euro-condoms gathering dust. Surely it?s not beyond the wit of
Congress to convert a few superfluous GM plants in Michigan into
facilities for sewing together unwanted Euro-contraceptives to fit
federally condomed mustangs. Just thinking outside the horse-box here.

But I digress. The bill also calls for a biennial horse census
(presumably run by ACORN) and mandates that government bureaucrats
perform home inspections before Americans can adopt wild horses or
burros. Presumably this will require a Federal Burro of Investigation
or some such.


It?s hardly worth batting an eyelid over equine welfare queens. It?s a
mere drop in the mountain of federal horse manure. But, in their own
poignant way, the mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we?re
all headed. The old west has been succeeded by the new California, in
which a bloated government bureaucracy rides herd on the ever more
emaciated workhorses of the private sector. And as California goes ?
and it?s going, going, gone ? so goes the nation.

There aren?t enough of us to pay for all this ? for government health
care, government banks, government mortgages, government automobiles,
government horses, government burros, for cap-and-trade, for
stimulating phony-baloney non-jobs like Deputy Executive Associated
Assistant Stimulus Resources Manager on the Stimulus Co-ordination &
Compliance Commission. The wealthiest 1 percent already pay 40 percent
of all taxes, the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of taxes ? and there
simply are too few of them ? or, more to the point, of you: You?ll be
surprised what percentage of you fall into ?the top 2 percent? by the
time Obama is through with you. This isn?t merely Swedenization. As
that insouciant 19-million acre annexation suggests, when America
Swedenizes, it does it on supersized scale. The salient point of that
1,200-page cap-and-trade monstrosity was that, in its final form, it
was so huge that at the time the House voted it into law there was no
written version of the bill, because Congressional typists were unable
to type as fast as Congress can spend: They?re legislating on such a
scale that the poor bleeding typing fingers of the House stenographers
can?t keep up. Which means you can?t keep up the payments on it all.
If you?ve got a small business, you?re wasting your time. You?re going
to be taxed and regulated into the ground because you?re the
designated sucker. Tell your kids to forget about the private sector
and sign up with the Equine Census Bureau: Jobs for life, early
retirement. Government is where it?s at. When in ROAM do as the
ROAMens do.

In 1971, the United States Congress recognized mustangs as ?living
symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.? And surely
nothing captures the essence of the ?pioneer spirit? than living on
welfare in a federal care facility while being showered with
government contraceptives. Welcome to America in the gelded age.
On 7/16/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well Boys and Girls, time to leave the land of "anything is possible"
> shortly for a return to the land of "you owe me".  Enjoy this little
> jewel (below).  We are so screwed!
>
> Brad
>
> -----------
>
>
>
> July 16, 2009 Posted by John at 7:33 PM
>
> The news is coming so thick and fast these days that it's hard to keep
> up. The Supreme Court, socialized medicine, cap and trade, record
> deficits, foreign policy fecklessness--it's easy to lose track of
> smaller issues with all that is going on. Still, H.R. 1018 shouldn't
> be allowed to pass unnoticed.
>
> H.R. 1018 is the "Restore Our American Mustangs Act." It can fairly be
> described as a welfare program for horses. Believe it or not--this
> isn't satire--here is what the bill will do:
>
> [T]he "Restore Our American Mustangs Act" ... would create a new $700
> million welfare program for wild horses. The program:
> * Conducts a horse census every two years
>
> * Provides "enhanced contraception" and birth control for horses
>
> * Establishes an additional 19 million acres of public and private
> land for wild horses
>
> * Covers $5 million tab to repair horse damage to land
>
> * Mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before
> Americans can adopt horses
>
>
>
> "Enhanced contraception" for horses? Maybe I'm out of touch, but I
> didn't realize that wild horses use contraception at all. Maybe the
> measure would be worth voting for if Nancy Pelosi would commit that
> she will personally attempt to fit a wild stallion with an "enhanced
> contraception" device at a critical moment. (Just kidding, liberals.)
>
> Nineteen million acres, by the way, is around 28 times the area of
> Rhode Island. If you think Rhode Island is too small to worry about,
> it's also more than a third of the state of Minnesota.
>
> The Democrats have scheduled a vote on H.R. 1018 tomorrow.
>
>
> ---------------
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Mon Jul 20 19:29:49 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:29:49 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The World Has Gone Mad!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907201542p2b32d4epf9b9a0bf26c6dd55@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907161958t5ac6922ai80d5d6b1dd8997f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907201542p2b32d4epf9b9a0bf26c6dd55@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907201629s2241b7f9ree877e48a32b1dc3@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Speaking of "There aren?t enough of us to pay for all this ? for government
health
care, government banks, government mortgages, government automobiles,
government horses, government burros, for cap-and-trade, for
stimulating phony-baloney non-jobs like Deputy Executive Associated
Assistant Stimulus Resources Manager on the Stimulus Co-ordination &
Compliance Commission."

Check out the numbers this guy is throwing out there. This is some mind
boggling scary shit. Can you even imagine EVER being able to pay all this
back???

Rik

____________________________

TARP Special Investigator Says Bailout Total May Reach $23.7
Trillion<http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/tarp-special-investigator-says-bailout.html>

Some numbers are so large they simply become incomprehensible.

Remember when costs of the bailout were projected to be $0.5 Trillion, then
$1 Trillion, then $3 Trillion.

Now, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury?s Troubled
Asset Relief Program says U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7
Trillion<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM>
.

U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster
the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special
inspector general for the Treasury?s Troubled Asset Relief Program.

The Treasury?s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of
all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8
trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report
released today.

?TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and
complexity,? Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow
before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Costs include $2.3 trillion in programs offered by the Federal Deposit
Insurance Corp., $7.4 trillion in TARP and other aid from the Treasury and
$7.2 trillion in federal money for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, credit unions,
Veterans Affairs and other federal programs, he said.

Barofsky offered criticism in a separate quarterly report of Treasury?s
implementation of TARP, saying the department has ?repeatedly failed to
adopt recommendations? needed to provide transparency and fulfill the
administration?s goal to implement TARP ?with the highest degree of
accountability.?

As a result, taxpayers don?t know how TARP recipients are using the money or
the value of the investments, he said in the report.

Banks Fail to Make Adequate Loan-Loss Provisions

Moody's says Banks Fail to Make Adequate Loan-Loss
Provisions<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBURZpfwyFKc>
.

Banks have failed to make adequate provision for the losses on loans and
securities they face before the end of next year, Moody?s Investors Service
said.

U.S. banks may incur about $470 billion of losses and writedowns by the end
of 2010, which may cause the banks to be unprofitable in the period, the
ratings company said in a report published today. ?Large loan losses have
yet to be recognized in the banking system,? Moody?s said. ?We expect to see
rising provisioning needs well into 2010.?

Banks and financial firms worldwide have reported losses and writedowns of
$1.5 trillion since the credit crisis began in 2007, according to data
compiled by Bloomberg. New York-based Citigroup Inc. has reported $112
billion of writedowns, more than any other firm, the data show.

?The fundamentals of financial institutions are still traveling on a
downward slope,? Moody?s said. ?No-one should consider recent improvements
as assurance that the current rebound can be sustained.?

Fed's Game is Delay and Pretend

In spite of writing off $112 billion, Citigroup is still sitting on $800
billion in SIVs, off its balance sheet, not marked to market. What's that
worth? No one really knows and the Fed does not want anyone to find out
either. That is why mark-to-market accounting is still suspended.

Geithner's PPIP also masks price discovery (on purpose) given the public is
on the hook for 93% of the losses. The PPIP encourages speculation (at
best), and at worst is a purposely fraudulent scheme to dump assets on the
backs of taxpayers to benefit bondholders.

The Fed's game is to delay discovery and pretend things are getting better.
Things might be for some assets. In the meantime however, data suggests more
foreclosures, more credit card writeoffs, and more commercial real estate
losses. Is the Fed winning or losing the battle? On the surface, with no
price discovery, it's hard to know. However, if you give any credence to
Neil Barofsky, the Fed may be losing a $23.7 trillion battle.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
<http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/>

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Day three here of China Postpartum Blues and I'm still dragging ass.
> Jet lag sucks.  I'm having serious reservations about this next career
> move. I proposed to Fan that she quit her job - now I'm thinking about
> her staying to the 'bitter end' and me down-bidding to a smaller jet
> and flying short domestic hops. I'm not quite sure what the magical
> marginal rate is that makes striving for the top 5% worth it, but if
> means feeling like I do today for the rest of my life, I'm ready to
> sign-up for my 'gubmint' check and start parking in handicapped
> spaces.  I've caught-up with what's going on in both my older boy's
> lives, and they don't seem all that interested in taking me on as a
> pet project quite yet.  Damn it!  Someone has to pay for all this!
>
> Here's some more information on how the "the other side" lives.  They
> eat horses, don't they?  I say we could make some Parisians happy and
> solve the problem in less than a months time. But what good is simple
> logic these days?
>
> Brad
>
> -------------
>
> The Gelded Age
> The mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we?re all headed.
>
> By Mark Steyn
>
> On Friday July 17, the House of Representatives met to debate . . . Go
> on, take a guess: Health care? The cap-and-tax racket? Stimulus Two?
> No, none of the above. Don?t worry, they?re still spending your money.
> Wild horses couldn?t stop them doing that.
>
> And, as a matter of fact, that?s the correct answer: wild horses. On
> Friday, the House voted on the Restore Our American Mustangs Act ? or
> ROAM.  Like all acronymically cute legislation, its name bears little
> relation to what it actually does: It?s not about ?restoring?
> mustangs. The federal Bureau of Land Management aims for a manageable
> population of 27,000 wild mustangs. Currently, there are 36,000, and
> the population doubles every four or five years. To prevent things
> getting even more out of hand, the BLM keeps another 30,000 mustangs
> in holding pens ? or, if you prefer, managed-care facilities. That?s
> to say, under federal management, one in every two ?wild? horses now
> lives in government housing. The American mustang population is
> road-testing the impending demographic profile of Japan and Germany:
> one worker for every retiree.
>
> The welfare mustangs are supposed to be put up for adoption. But, what
> with the government taking all our money to fund the Barney Frank
> Institute of Bureaucracy Studies, many of us no longer have the
> necessary discretionary income to stable a mustang in the rec room. A
> lot of the nags in managed-care facilities are getting a bit long in
> the tooth, and thus unlikely ever to find homes. So, rather than go on
> attempting to flog near-dead horses, the BLM was considering inviting
> the seniors to do the decent thing and sign up for ?assisted suicide?
> ? or, in the designated euphemism, ?death with dignity.? In the
> Netherlands, pretty much everyone over 47 who goes into hospital for a
> minor hernia winds up getting talked into ?death with dignity.? And,
> given that mustangs were introduced to America by the Spanish, it?s
> not inappropriate that they should meet a European end.
>
> ROAM would prohibit this option. In that sense, it would be
> acronymically more precise to name it REAM ? the Restore Elderly
> American Mustangs Act. Under this legislation, no horses or burros
> could be, ah, terminated, and they would have to be released from
> their holding pens after six months. To facilitate the release of the
> tame ?wild horse? population, the act adds to their present 33-million
> acre habitat (that?s bigger than New York State) another 20 million
> acres ? or approximately the size of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
> Hampshire, and Vermont combined. The Congressional Budget Office
> estimates the total tab at around $700 million ? ie, chump change. If
> you look for it in the line-item budget, it comes down at the bottom
> under ?rounding error.?  It?s a mere ten-and-a-half grand per mustang.
> If you?re wondering why it costs more to keep a horse on 52 million
> acres of wilderness than it does to stable him at an upscale horse
> farm in New England, that?s because, in order to prevent the mustang
> population doubling again by 2013 and requiring the annexation of
> another 50 million acres (ie, an area the size of Ireland, Denmark,
> Belgium, and the Netherlands combined), the bill mandates ?enhanced?
> contraception for horses and burros.
>
> John Hinderaker of the Powerline website mused on whether this would
> involve Nancy Pelosi (who?s very keen on federally funded
> contraception) personally installing the enhanced prophylactic device
> on every stallion. The pay-per-view rights on that would surely be
> worth $700 million at least. And it would certainly stimulate the
> American latex industry. Or perhaps we could import them from
> overseas. I seem to recall the European Union introduced shape and
> size regulations for a harmonized Euro-condom a few years back, only
> to have the Germans complain that these things were too small and
> obviously made for Greeks ? or possibly vice-versa, before any Greek
> readers file a federal hate-crimes suit. Anyway, the point is that
> somewhere in a European warehouse there are piles of ill-fitting
> Euro-condoms gathering dust. Surely it?s not beyond the wit of
> Congress to convert a few superfluous GM plants in Michigan into
> facilities for sewing together unwanted Euro-contraceptives to fit
> federally condomed mustangs. Just thinking outside the horse-box here.
>
> But I digress. The bill also calls for a biennial horse census
> (presumably run by ACORN) and mandates that government bureaucrats
> perform home inspections before Americans can adopt wild horses or
> burros. Presumably this will require a Federal Burro of Investigation
> or some such.
>
>
> It?s hardly worth batting an eyelid over equine welfare queens. It?s a
> mere drop in the mountain of federal horse manure. But, in their own
> poignant way, the mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we?re
> all headed. The old west has been succeeded by the new California, in
> which a bloated government bureaucracy rides herd on the ever more
> emaciated workhorses of the private sector. And as California goes ?
> and it?s going, going, gone ? so goes the nation.
>
> There aren?t enough of us to pay for all this ? for government health
> care, government banks, government mortgages, government automobiles,
> government horses, government burros, for cap-and-trade, for
> stimulating phony-baloney non-jobs like Deputy Executive Associated
> Assistant Stimulus Resources Manager on the Stimulus Co-ordination &
> Compliance Commission. The wealthiest 1 percent already pay 40 percent
> of all taxes, the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of taxes ? and there
> simply are too few of them ? or, more to the point, of you: You?ll be
> surprised what percentage of you fall into ?the top 2 percent? by the
> time Obama is through with you. This isn?t merely Swedenization. As
> that insouciant 19-million acre annexation suggests, when America
> Swedenizes, it does it on supersized scale. The salient point of that
> 1,200-page cap-and-trade monstrosity was that, in its final form, it
> was so huge that at the time the House voted it into law there was no
> written version of the bill, because Congressional typists were unable
> to type as fast as Congress can spend: They?re legislating on such a
> scale that the poor bleeding typing fingers of the House stenographers
> can?t keep up. Which means you can?t keep up the payments on it all.
> If you?ve got a small business, you?re wasting your time. You?re going
> to be taxed and regulated into the ground because you?re the
> designated sucker. Tell your kids to forget about the private sector
> and sign up with the Equine Census Bureau: Jobs for life, early
> retirement. Government is where it?s at. When in ROAM do as the
> ROAMens do.
>
> In 1971, the United States Congress recognized mustangs as ?living
> symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.? And surely
> nothing captures the essence of the ?pioneer spirit? than living on
> welfare in a federal care facility while being showered with
> government contraceptives. Welcome to America in the gelded age.
> On 7/16/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Well Boys and Girls, time to leave the land of "anything is possible"
> > shortly for a return to the land of "you owe me".  Enjoy this little
> > jewel (below).  We are so screwed!
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > -----------
> >
> >
> >
> > July 16, 2009 Posted by John at 7:33 PM
> >
> > The news is coming so thick and fast these days that it's hard to keep
> > up. The Supreme Court, socialized medicine, cap and trade, record
> > deficits, foreign policy fecklessness--it's easy to lose track of
> > smaller issues with all that is going on. Still, H.R. 1018 shouldn't
> > be allowed to pass unnoticed.
> >
> > H.R. 1018 is the "Restore Our American Mustangs Act." It can fairly be
> > described as a welfare program for horses. Believe it or not--this
> > isn't satire--here is what the bill will do:
> >
> > [T]he "Restore Our American Mustangs Act" ... would create a new $700
> > million welfare program for wild horses. The program:
> > * Conducts a horse census every two years
> >
> > * Provides "enhanced contraception" and birth control for horses
> >
> > * Establishes an additional 19 million acres of public and private
> > land for wild horses
> >
> > * Covers $5 million tab to repair horse damage to land
> >
> > * Mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before
> > Americans can adopt horses
> >
> >
> >
> > "Enhanced contraception" for horses? Maybe I'm out of touch, but I
> > didn't realize that wild horses use contraception at all. Maybe the
> > measure would be worth voting for if Nancy Pelosi would commit that
> > she will personally attempt to fit a wild stallion with an "enhanced
> > contraception" device at a critical moment. (Just kidding, liberals.)
> >
> > Nineteen million acres, by the way, is around 28 times the area of
> > Rhode Island. If you think Rhode Island is too small to worry about,
> > it's also more than a third of the state of Minnesota.
> >
> > The Democrats have scheduled a vote on H.R. 1018 tomorrow.
> >
> >
> > ---------------
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Jul 20 19:40:43 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:40:43 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad,
	an explaination why the left fears 	Sara Palin
In-Reply-To: <E1E188F4BFD8465188F5C291EC86151E@YOURB88038198E>
References: <E1E188F4BFD8465188F5C291EC86151E@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907201640n73e69704l50c61516d45026e7@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Where to begin on this issue?  The left fears Sarah because she reeks
of common sense. Someone has to produce!  Her husband Todd has to work
the North Slope because they have bills to pay.  So, she can quit her
job and write a book and make millions (and she's actually done some
things that are worthy of talking about) versus sucking 'left rear
hind tit' for what? Maybe I'm just getting old and cranky, or maybe
I'm on to something.  Fan and I went to a large grocery store for
"stuff" and she told me the story of how the store we were shopping in
was located on her grandfather's land.  They took it.  They just stole
it!  It was the "boiling  a frog" kinda thing, first, they made him an
employee in his own business, then he was a "bad" person for starting
the business in the first place and owning the land, and then he was
just bad because he wasn't one of "THEM'.

God, I miss Mr. Shen.  He had been through so much and still, always
had a smile on his face.  He loved working on the Rhodes 22 in the
back yard, and somehow through his limited English and my non-existent
Mandarin, he would praise the builder for a great design (Mr. Shen was
a mechanical engineer if you recall).  He and Stan would have had a
ball together.

So where were we?  Oh yeah, back to America.  There aren't enough of
of left to support all this shit! Reading the bills coming out of the
Congress is like reading SciFi.  In an alternate universe - maybe!

You elect some kid who hasn't done JackSchit in life but talk a good
game, and you expect positive results? Pleeeeease!

Brad

On 7/20/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> One of the most important reasons for (re)creating Black Rose magazine was
> to create a forum for new thinking and discussion of the means for affecting
> social change. Thinking that wouldn't be based on the usual preconceived
> notions and methodology and rife with the usual jargon. Thinking that would
> take into account the realities of the contemporary world.
>
> Richard Coward and Frances Fox Piven have spent a large part of the last
> dozen years struggling to develop a realistic strategy to achieve social
> goals, and to a large extent, we feel, have avoided the pitfalls mentioned
> above. They discuss in their books-Poor People's Movements, The Politics of
> Turmoil and Regulating the Poor-and in their numerous articles, many of the
> questions we're struggling to answer. Since we share some of their ideas and
> concerns, we were interested in exploring their criticisms of Left thinking.
> Of particular interest to us is their skepticism about the value of both
> mass-based organizations and the use of an electoral politics strategy to
> achieve radical social goals. So. we decided to interview these well-known,
> controversial, interesting people.
>
> The interviewers are Stephen Amberg, Ann Kotell and Paula Rayman.
>
> -Editor
>
> SA: In Poor People's Movements and elsewhere you support the idea and stress
> the necessary spontaneity of poor people's movements against would-be
> political leaders. You've also argued against New Left and anarchist
> thinking while insisting upon a material analysis of strategy. What is your
> conception of social movements which reconcile these positions?
>
> FFP: I think that we've often been accused of worshipping spontaneity, and
> that's misleading. The accusation arises out of our insistence on searching
> for the actual possibilities for mobilization that will arise within the
> experience and the situation of poor people, in contrast to a frequent Left
> emphasis on correct organizational forms. But the term spontaneous is
> misleading because we think that mobilizations, when they occur, are
> determined events. They are determined by the situations people experience
> and their interpretations of them. It is the situations that people find
> themselves in, and the opportunities for action that emerge in those
> situations, that we think should be analyzed. What is called our emphasis on
> spontaneity really is an emphasis on an analysis of the actual possibilities
> for protest mobilization that exist for people in their situation.
>
> RC: I think that the issue of spontaneity is entirely misplaced. We say that
> mass protest wells up out of certain institutional conditions which generate
> high levels of anger, indignation and disaffecton with the legitimacy of the
> social system. And in that sense it is.socially determined. It's not just a
> spontaneous event that occurs out of the blue. The issue of spontaneity
> really arises at a different juncture. It arises at the point where
> potential leaders, organizers, are confronted by this welling up, this
> bursting forth of new political energy among the masses of people, whether
> industrial workers of the 1930s or the blacks of the post-World War II
> period. The issue is how organizers and leaders approach that situation.
> They can take the traditional path, they can try to harness it, channel it,
> fashion, shape it, form it into mass-based bureaucratic membership
> organizations. It was that which we took issue with. We tried to raise the
> question of whether there were other strategies for channeling and
> harnessing this energy that would be more effective. We point, for example,
> to experiences of the civil rights movement in the American South. We
> pointed out that the organizers who participated in that movement, whether
> in SNCC, or CORE or SCLC, did not emphasize building mass membership
> bureaucratic organizations. They employed what we called in Poor People's
> Movements the tactic of concerted mobilization. They tried to move with this
> mass of energy, and tried to enlarge and buttress it rather than to turn it
> toward bureaucratic organization. And I think one can see the same type of
> concerted mobilization in a variety of other movements that we've seen in
> recent years. The environmental, antinuclear, and anti-war movements-they've
> all emphasized the mobilization of great numbers of people for
> demonstrations, for example. So. the issue for us was organization versus
> the natural ways in which people are sometimes led to respond as a
> consequence of the social conditions that confront them.
>
> SA: After the wave passes and the conditions of that situation pass, are
> there no possibilities for poor people? Is it possible for poor people to
> win things cumulatively on a permanent basis?
>
> RC: We tend to think not. Our reading of the history of poor people's
> protests is that they tend to be episodic. They tend to arise out of
> particular convergences of various institutional forces which generate anger
> and indignation and cause people to rise up in the streets. But even as that
> process is initiated it sets in motion other forces in the society which
> eventually tend to undermine and to restore some measure of equilibrium. We
> don't know of any historical examples of mass-based organizations that
> outlived those periods of turbulence, other than the labor movement. And
> that's a special case. If you look at other categories of people who have
> been turbulent it is very difficult to motivate them to any kind of action
> in periods of quiescence. That led us to the conclusion that what's done
> during the periods of mass unrest is itself the crucial question, not what
> can be done between periods of mass unrest.
>
> AK: Have you noticed that some tactics people use during periods of mass
> unrest are more successful than other tactics? Can you isolate certain
> tactics or strategies and say: these have tended historically to create
> larger, more positive social movements?
>
> FFP: There are two issues. One has to do with the forms of defiance that are
> available to people, with whether or not they act to withdraw the
> cooperation that they otherwise offer to important institutions in the
> society. It is there that the core of their power resides. So the first
> issue has to do with understanding and identifying the institutional
> position of different groups, trying to analyze the kind of power that is
> available to them if they were to become defiant. This will vary from one
> group to another.
>
> The second issue has to do with the kinds of movement action that seem to
> characterize the rising crest of a movement in contrast with kinds of action
> that tend to be imposed by elements of leadership that are preoccupied with
> forming stable, mass-based membership bureaucracies. Within the history of
> any movement you can distinguish between the exercise of mass defiance as
> people acquire the capacity and the motive to do so, and the form of action
> that tends to be imposed by leaders who become preoccupied with organization
> building and making connections with elites. In the labor movement you can
> distinguish between the rank and file strikes which characterized the
> upsurge of the movement and the preoccupation of CIO leadership with
> preventing strikes after 1937 or even before. They thought continued strikes
> would jeopardize the organization, and they would have, because the crucial
> condition attached to unionization was the prohibition of strikes, a
> condition intended to prevent spontaneous stoppage.
>
> Both issues are very important. The first has to do with forms of defiance
> that are available to people given their situation, given the
> interdependencies that exist between them and the institutions of the
> society. What leverage do they have? And the second issue has to do with the
> different kinds of movement action that occur within the history of any
> particular movement as a consequence of the emergence of different
> influences, the first influence being the welling forth of defiance and the
> second being the preoccupation with organization building and electoral
> effectiveness that tends to become dominant as a consequence both of
> leadership doctrine, and the interest of elites in supporting that doctrine.
>
> AK: Given what you've already said, I think you would say the women's
> movement is on the right track because they're not out to build anything
> huge or bureaucratic, but are concentrating on expressing themselves and
> changing their own lives. Do you feel the women's movement possesses the
> potential for bringing about a broad-based social change?
>
> FFP: Not as it now exists. I think you're correct that there was a tendency
> in the women's movement that was not organizational. The transforming power
> of the consciousness-raising group on the lives of better educated women was
> not organizational. On the other hand, there are also elements of the
> women's movements which are preoccupied precisely with organizational and
> electoral politics, particularly with ERA and anti-ERA. However, the
> difficulties of the women's movement at this stage don't arise primarily
> because of its organizational form. They arise because of the character of
> its base. The movement has divided women of different classes, interests and
> ideology. In fact, the women's movement has helped to create a broad-based,
> authentically popular movement which is very hostile to the women's
> movement: the pro-life movement.
>
> AK: Do you see this as a tactic on the part of the patriarchy to divide
> women in the classic way movements are usually divided, where people are set
> up to work against one another?
>
> FFP: The patriarchy, the Catholic hierarchy particularly, is certainly
> involved. But that doesn't explain the large number of women who feel the
> issues of the women's movement are not their issues. They see the movement
> as threatening to them. Many women don't have the opportunities of better
> educated women. They don't see forfeiting the grace of motherhood as a gain
> at all. They don't see going out and working just like men as particularly
> attractive, because the men they know collect garbage or work in the mines.
> So, in a way all women, or women in both movements, are responding to the
> erosion of the traditional feminine role in the family. The family is
> changing. But, for lower middle class and working class women that has not
> been accompanied by the availability of opportunities to enter into more
> prestigious occupations. For lower middle class and working class women, the
> erosion of the family is threatening. The only thing they can do is
> waitressing or something of that sort. They've tended to cling to whatever
> grace and respect their families afforded them.
>
> AK: What do you think people can do to combat that? Do you see this response
> as such a broad-based popular movement that there's nothing effective we can
> do at the present time?
>
> FR: The women's movement could take up the issues that are central in the
> lives of these women. ERA doesn't mean anything to most women. It's ominous
> and threatening because it suggests their protections will be taken away.
> NOW has undertaken some litigation for equal pay, but that's really swamped
> by the other stuff they were doing.
>
> RC: What has struck me is the extraordinary conventionality of the tactics
> the women's movement has employed. It has relied, as far as one can see,
> mainly on litigation, on various forms of electoral politics, petitioning,
> things of that sort. And if there's one point that an analysis of protest
> movements leads to, it's that these are not tactics that generally yield
> much. My own feeling is that the movement is much more likely to make
> progress were it to employ more disruptive tactics, tactics of civil
> disobedience and so on. We have the recent experience of the civil rights
> movement as a testimony that this is what it takes to overturn institutional
> patterns of any kind.
>
> FFP: The women's movement has probably made its greatest gains in an
> institutional arena where I suspect there's been a lot of defiance-in the
> home. It's hidden and we can't see it, but I suspect there's been a lot of
> cracking of roles. Women's roles in the family, at least among better
> educated women, have changed dramatically.
>
> PR: An historical thought on the tactics of the women's movement. During the
> early part of the century the women's movement was going after the vote and
> used militant tactics such as strikes, civil disobedience and hunger fasts.
> It wasn't a mass movement, it wasn't a great outpouring, but it was a strong
> minority. They were successful. They were much more successful using those
> tactics. But the goal was the vote.
>
> AK: Do you think having the vote makes people feel they have a vested
> interest or power in the system? Do you think that's why movements die as
> soon as people are enfranchised?
>
> FFP: That's one reason. But you have to treat that sort of critique rather
> delicately. A critique of a movement because it has the wrong goals. Those
> goals don't emerge just because somebody said, "Well, this is what we should
> go after." Goals emerge out of very deeply imprinted understandings that
> people have of what's wrong with their situation, understandings that also
> tend to be fostered and encouraged by their interaction with elites. The
> black movement went after the vote because the most powerful spokespersons
> in America said that's what you need. And that was also consistent with an
> American ideology which black people shared. You can't change that easily,
> and there come times when people are going to go after reforms which you can
> see will contain the seeds for their co-optation. But that they do so
> reflects their fundamental understandings, which can't be wished away.
>
> SA: You mentioned earlier that labor was a special case and the situation of
> poor people as different. Do different class groupings, different strata,
> have their own goals? Can labor change its situation permanently while
> others cannot?
>
> RC: The issue to which I was addressing myself when I made that comment was
> the question of the conditions under which an insurgent group can or cannot
> form some kind of permanent organizational structure which outlives the
> period of turbulence. What I intended to convey was that for labor it was
> possible. For most groups it is not. And the difference is that labor
> organizations were formed within the context of an institutional
> structure-the factory system. That structure existed and that structure is
> permanent. Labor unions could themselves develop permanency by drawing upon
> various of the resources which the structure of the factory system provided.
> For example, they could get the automatic dues checkoff. That meant they
> could collect enormous amounts of money without any organizing input. In
> what other situation is that possible? Organizers who try to form mass-based
> organizations outside the labor context are constantly knocking on doors
> trying to get people to pay their dues. Labor could also gain concessions
> that put management in the position of having to coerce membership-the
> closed shop, the union shop. Where else is there a structure that organizes
> and can draw upon a coerced membership? So in those and in other ways you
> cannot generalize from the labor experience. The institutional context is a
> decisive determinant of a variety of features of these movements and
> certainly a decisive determinant of whether or not the movement can be
> institutionalized and made permanent.
>
> SA: 1 wonder whether National Welfare Rights Organization (NWRO) was faced
> with a similar situation with the family assistance plan. There was a
> possibility of having a guaranteed income and recognized entitlements that
> would have changed the structural base. But apparently in the dynamic of
> mobilization it was far from clear that it would have had these results.
> That there might be some time when working class organizations could find
> some common ground with poor people's demands I think is part of what many
> people still believe.
>
> RC: I don't think the enactment of Nixon's family assistance plan would have
> affected either the institutionalization of NWRO or facilitated the growth
> of a cross-class coalition. I think it would have probably helped spell the
> demise of the movement. There was nothing in the nature of that concession
> that would have enabled NWRO to become institutionalized.
>
> If you think about the kind of welfare structure that would have been
> created it's hard to see anything that would have made possible the classic
> coalition with the working class. It would have nationalized certain
> decisions to a substantial degree perhaps. But what we argued was not that
> NWRO should have resisted FAP because of its organizational needs, or that
> they should have used FAP to set the stage for a new political movement, but
> that they should have ignored it. Whatever effect NWRO still could have had
> was at the local level by trying to revive the sorts of defiant actions that
> had characterized the early years of that movement. What the family
> assistance plan signaled for NWRO had nothing to do with whether it was good
> or bad welfare policy. As a matter of fact NWRO had trouble deciding whether
> it was good or had, but what was always clear from the beginning was that
> they were going to get involved in it, and they were going to use the
> occasion of the legislation to make themselves prominent. They also did it
> because they felt that was the way to go.
>
> RC: NWRO went to Washington. You never saw one of the leaders in a welfare
> center again. They substituted symbolic resources for a mass base. They had
> no mass base left nor did they make any concerted effort to try to revive
> it.
>
> SA: Part of the goals of NWRO was to achieve immediate economic aid and a
> national income standard. If those goals were achieved they would presumably
> change the conditions of poor people. They would not be as readily seen as
> pariahs, the status of poor people would change, which would be a major
> change.
>
> FFP: There were certain goals that were impossible, precisely because they
> would have had the reverberations that you predict. It's no doubt true that
> a decent income maintenance system that allowed people who were not working
> some degree of self-esteem, and that allowed them a minimally decent income,
> would change the meaning of poverty. It would change the material condition
> of the poor and it would also change the meaning of being poor. But that is
> also probably why it can't happen. A related reason that it can't happen is
> that then the meaning of low wage work would also change. Low wage work
> would no longer be enforced by the fact that there was a fate even worse
> than being a dishwasher in a crummy little restaurant. Or in a similar way,
> the original Humphrey-Hawkins bill, which would have guaranteed government
> employment to everyone on demand when unemployment rose above 3 percent,
> would have had enormous reverberations. It never could happen simply as
> legislative innovation for that reason. The structural opportunities for
> reform don't derive simply from our good ideas. When we fix on a reform that
> will have widespread reverberations, we have to expect that the other side
> has a capacity for understanding those reverberations. When Senator Long
> said in the hearings on FAP that "If a family could be guaranteed $1,600 a
> year in the South, who was going to wash his shirts?", he understood the
> connection between low wage work and welfare. Just for that reason the
> structural opportunities for welfare reform are limited.
>
> AK: I've felt for a long time that the electoral strategy is a dead end and
> that most people who use it in an attempt to affect social change are
> manipulated by those controlling the system.
>
> RC: The civil rights movement, after winning the vote in '65, left the
> streets and went into electoral politics. It was a mindblowing
> transformation that occurred between 1965 and 1970.
>
> There was unwarranted optimism. An illusory optimism about the possibilities
> of electoral politics. What they had won they had won by protest. Now
> suddenly they decided they could take on all the economic ills of the black
> community, its low wages, its lousy housing, its unemployment, these really
> difficult problems, far more difficult than the winning of political rights,
> by a much softer conventional sort of political action. It just seemed to us
> that was a contradiction in terms. Look at what they had to do just to win
> the vote. Look at the tactics they had to employ. Now they are going to
> undertake a genuine class struggle, a struggle against various forms of
> economic deprivation and inequality which were deeply rooted in the American
> social structure. And how were they going to do it? With votes. It seemed to
> us incredibly naive. When people say we are pessimistic, I feel quite the
> opposite. I think we have a certain optimism about the use of
> non-conventional tactics, and we think that the optimism displayed by those
> who employ conventional tactics is simply misplaced.
>
> FR: The black leadership that went into electoral politics demonstrated an
> outward optimism about electoral politics. At least you can say for them
> they had a certain self-interest in being optimistic because they got
> elected. Or appointed, or whatever. So it served them well. But in general
> when the Left calls us pessimistic what they mean-they mean two sorts of
> things I suppose-is first that we don't talk about how to get total, radical
> social transformation, how to get socialism. We don't say much about how to
> do it. We even seem to be saying that the best you can hope for is smallish
> gains. And I suppose the second dimension of our "pessimism" has to do with
> the fact that we don't believe in the doctrine of how to get those
> gains-working class organizations contriving certain formulae about
> organization and indoctrination. We would say that they're not optimistic,
> but rather doctrinaire and contemptuous, that they haven't evaluated their
> own strategy against contemporary experience, and that's mindless! Also,
> when they dismiss the struggles of the sixties generally, they're
> contemptuous about the situation of actual people.
>
> RC: I have yet to see a critic of the black movement of the sixties who
> acknowledges that blacks in the South won an historically important victory.
> They won a major reduction in the use of terror as the means by which they
> were controlled. That was the real meaning of the winning of political
> rights in the South, the right to sit on the previously all-white juries,
> and so forth. The vote did have some important consequences with respect to
> the terror question-blacks can vote out terroristic sheriffs and other
> public officials. Now from our point of view, anytime a group succeeds in
> weakening the use of terror to control it, it has made a major gain, it's
> just not to be dismissed.... It may not be utopia, but that doesn't mean it
> isn't extraordinarily significant. And if you talk to ordinary black people
> in the South today, that is what they talk about; they don't have to kow-tow
> nearly as much, they don't live in fear nearly as much; and in their lives,
> that's an extraordinary gain.
>
> PR: I haven't seen very much mention in your work of the nonviolent
> movement. Nonviolent organizations tend to be highly decentralized and use
> mass protest, staying out of electoral politics. You haven't given that very
> much attention or applause. Is there a reason for you neglecting this
> movement? It's complementary to a lot of things you're saying, and falls
> into your perspective more closely than many of the other movements with
> which you deal.
>
> RC: Do you mean the use of nonviolent civil disobedience?
>
> PR: I'm talking about nonviolence not just in terms of strategy and tactics,
> but as a movement: it has been a movement in U.S. history. It certainly was
> an organizing force and very anti-legislative. I see it as the movement
> which comes closest to fulfilling some of the ideas you put forth.
>
> FFP: That's probably so, but it had to do also with our understanding of the
> issue of violence, a term which is misunderstood and misused. Violence is a
> peripheral issue to us. Whether or not a movement is violent has to do more
> with its strategic opportunities. We are not against violence, in general or
> in principle. We think that it is not accidental that most popular movements
> in the U.S. have not been violent, because they've understood their extreme
> vulnerability, the repression that violence would bring down upon their
> heads. On the other hand, most popular movements have resulted in violence,
> and we don't think that's accidental either, but is very much a strategic
> question. The Southern civil rights movement consistently precipitated
> violence, and it knew what it was doing. It selected or targeted cities
> where violence was most likely and did so because it understood that
> Southern violence would add to their national support.
>
> PR: Do you really think they picked those cities just because the violence
> there would be most publicly useful?
>
> FFP: Yes, look what they were doing-they were exposing the Southern system
> before the eyes of the nation, so Washington would have to intervene. Those
> were the fundamental elements of their strategy.
>
> PR: Perhaps they went to those places where injustice was most systematic,
> so that the violent confrontation was not the compelling reason to go to
> these cities.
>
> RC: It depends on which city and which episode. Sometimes the movement
> massed in certain cities because something boiled up in that city, and they
> responded to it. That was true in Albany, Georgia, in '61 and '62. But when
> they picked Birmingham in '63, they did it very deliberately. They knew it
> was probably the most racist city in the South, with the most repressive
> police force, and they expected a great deal of bloodshed and arrests.
>
> PR: It seems to me that it is recognized that state violence depends on a
> highly centralized form of organization, and that it's one of the compelling
> strategies of violent action to demand a high degree of centralization and
> to demand a certain kind of organization to perform in a certain way.
> Nonviolent action in fact is based on a very decentralized view of
> organization; a very different set of tactics and goals are attached to the
> nonviolent strategy. What I'm asking is if the kind of things you're
> suggesting in your writing wouldn't be much more compatible with a
> nonviolent strategy.
>
> FFP: I don't think a high level of organization and centralization is
> inherent in violence or nonviolence. What of the numerous occasions in
> American history when strikers have had the ability to keep out scabs by
> violent means, with the result that they sometimes won?
>
> PR: No doubt; violence has won sometimes, nonviolence has won sometimes. I
> think the point is though it's a level of organization, a kind of
> centralization that's necessary.
>
> FFP: But you can keep out scabs by violent means without a centralized
> organization. There can be that degree of infrastructure and consensus in
> the community of workers, and basically that's how miners understand to this
> day how to keep out scabs. You threaten them. And you shoot them if you have
> to.
>
> PR: I think the way in which miners have been engaged is a more spontaneous
> "case" kind of effort.... you've got to think in terms of strategy,
> especially in the U.S. which is such an inherently violent society. That has
> to be dealt with in terms of sustained struggle. What we're up against is so
> sustained, so planned, and we're constantly going through cycles of being
> stilled and then rising up. How do we get out of that kind of cycle and
> create a more sustaining culture, without necessarily falling into the
> pitfalls and becoming highly centralized, doing the kinds of things you have
> suggested?
>
> FFP: I don't think we can get out of the cycles. Movements set in action the
> forces that lead to their demise. But we can try to develop a popular
> culture of rebellion, a culture which carries the memories of earlier
> struggles. Still, it's hard to develop a popular culture in contemporary
> America that has any degree of autonomy-the capacity of people to remember
> their own experience and interpret their own experience has been virtually
> obliterated by the propaganda forces of modern society. But the Left could
> try to develop a reservoir of popular experience to keep it intact for
> people. We think that what the left has really done is to get it all
> wrong-that the left has developed a series of myths about the past that are
> consistent with Left doctrines but give people very little credit and also
> draw the wrong lessons about past experiences. This is true, for example, of
> the sorts of understandings that are available of what really happened in
> the 1930s and later struggles. "Well, the CIO went out and organized
> industrial workers and then the industrial workers were all organized and
> they were happy ever after!" But it didn't happen that way, even the
> organizers don't think it happened that way, and the version that is passed
> down gives workers themselves far too little credit. That's one problem. The
> other problem is that if you tell it wrong, then people learn the wrong
> lessons. So, we don't have a big answer, a total solution to the problem of
> the cyclical pattern of popular struggles. Our only answer is that we could
> do better in trying to build on past struggles. If you look at the history
> of struggles by French working people and peasants in the nineteenth
> century, you can see clearly marked the memories of each struggle on the
> next. That doesn't happen in the U.S., both because the Left has not
> cultivated this tradition and because people's capacities for developing
> their interpretations are being rapidly overtaken by the mass media.
>
> RC: I think another point in the same direction is that a lot of these
> periods of insurgency by low-income people just pass without being recorded.
> Take Poor People's Movements, for example. We had a chapter on the
> unemployed movement in the thirties but practically nothing is written about
> it. That was only forty years ago, and no historian has really turned to it.
> Let's take other aspects of insurgency which are really quite dramatic-the
> breakdown of morale in the armed forces in Vietnam, the fragging and so
> forth.. One of the reasons that the American military was finally prepared
> to allow the defeat to be conceded is because they understood that in some
> important way they had lost control of their own troops. Now that's a
> phenomenal story-who's going to tell it? Who's going to go around and find
> those soldiers and interview them and trace the whole process by which
> morale broke down, how the legitimacy of the war broke down and how their
> defiance-court martial type defiance-so weakened the American war effort
> that it was a crucial variable in the equation that led finally to our
> conceding defeat. Even the draft resistance movement has not been written
> about much. Or what about the anti-nuclear movement that's going on now? Are
> we going to get a history of that, or all these episodes just going to be
> forgotten?
>
> AK: People put up with a lot of oppressive, unhappy situations in their
> lives that are created for them by authorities of various kinds-in school,
> in the workplace, from politicians and other "leaders." I think they
> acquiesce for a variety of reasons: because they can't imagine society could
> function any other way; because they believe the current way to be the only
> moral way; because they can't see any other way out; and so forth. I think
> the key to bringing about a broad-based social change is to help lots of
> people to start thinking they don't have to put up with all the negative
> things in their lives; that they can develop and use their personal power;
> that they can begin to feel they can get together with other people and
> shape some of their own destinies. Do you look at these issues, and if so,
> how do you approach them?
>
> FFP: We think that the way in which people acquire that sense of themselves,
> collectively, is by having a degree of power and acting on whatever power
> they do have. True, one way of approaching that problem is through political
> education, where you try to change people's sense of themselves. But we
> think that people's sense of themselves, the power to control their own
> destiny, is most thoroughly transformed by militant action.
>
> AK: The most important reason for me in deciding to work with battered women
> at Transition House was the thought that I would be encouraging women who'd
> actually left a very oppressive situation and had taken that big first step
> toward saying, "We're not going to put up with that shit anymore." My work
> was to help them to cement that step. But I want to find other ways to do
> that same thing. Do you believe when people accomplish some political goal
> and have a good feeling about it that they probably go away with the feeling
> that since they accomplished the one thing they probably can accomplish
> others?
>
> FFP: It depends a little bit on the spirit in which they accomplish it,
> their understanding of what it is they're doing while they're doing it. That
> matters. I don't think that the looting thing a couple of years ago in New
> York, which no doubt yielded a lot of goods, developed a sense of collective
> strength and a stronger sense of indignation and so forth. They probably
> thought of it as hustling, and since hustling is life in those communities
> anyway, that's not as good as other forms of collective action. On the other
> hand, there were blacks in the South, who in the entire memory of their
> people, always had to kow-tow. They confronted their masters and oppressors
> and they said "no more." That must have changed their sense of themselves
> forever.
>
> RC: The same point, by contrast, did not hold for the welfare rights
> movement, because they were dealing with an issue that was morally much more
> ambiguous, given the American value system. They were asking for the right
> to be dependent. The civil rights movement was asking for the right to be
> free, which resonates with American traditions in ways which the right to be
> dependent does not. There wasn't in the welfare rights movement the same
> moral spirit, the sense of self-righteousness, that was true of the civil
> rights movement. There was a problem of moral ambiguity that plagued the
> welfare rights movement from the first day it was formed.
>
> AK: What do you hope will be the result of people reading your books? Is
> your priority to help people to see the various opportunities open to them?
>
> RC: One of our main purposes was to try to alter the debate about strategy:
> To try to undermine the commitment, even among Left leaders and organizers,
> to electoral politics as the means by which significant changes can be made.
> Our reading of the history of these movements suggested the contrary. It was
> only when these movements moved outside the arena of electoral politics to
> employ militant, disruptive, non-institutional forms of political action,
> that any chance of winning gains of any kind emerged. So one of our main
> concerns was to raise a large question of doubt about the use of
> conventional political channels by groups at the bottom of the society.
>
> FFP: In writing Regulating the Poor, I think our orientation was a little
> bit different. We were trying to cast welfare in a different light. We were
> trying to make people see it differently. and at that time part of our
> audience was the welfare rights movement itself. Our analysis was often
> considered to be pessimistic, in the sense that we did not hold out much
> hope for "welfare reform." But we don't consider ourselves to be
> pessimistic. Do you consider yourself pessimistic, Richard?
>
> RC: It's a difference I think between being starry-eyed and being realistic,
> rather than being pessimistic and optimistic. Why should I be optimistic
> about the possibilities for significant gains for oppressed groups through
> the electoral system if I think the electoral system is really controlled by
> other and more powerful groups? Why is it pessimistic to say that if people
> are going to make gains they are going to have to move outside that system
> and use unconventional channels of political influence? That's not a
> pessimistic statement. I think it's a realistic statement.
>
> http://www.waste.org/~roadrunner/ScarletLetterArchives/BlackRose/BR2/FrancisFoxPivenInterview.htm
>
> (summer 1979)
>

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Mon Jul 20 19:43:24 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:43:24 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Rik, one of your favorite subjects
In-Reply-To: <EE2F670F616D46D2942AAD351F69C3B1@YOURB88038198E>
References: <EE2F670F616D46D2942AAD351F69C3B1@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907201643n40cbf468g9075858e0553d2db@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Who would one expect our *Let the gov't take care of it for you* messiah to
nominate besides someone with "empathy". Fortunately the guy she will
replace, if she gets in, (we can only hope not) was just about as bad. So
until one of the justices who still resides in the real world retires, (God
help us when that happens) we shouldn't lose too much.

Still sucks though.

It has been truly amazing to watch the speed at which our new savior has
been able to run our country into the ground.

Rik

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 5:40 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 20 20:22:58 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:22:58 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's Plan (old but good)
Message-ID: <3F9A4979EDC34B31AE937F546BE9D2CB@YOURB88038198E>

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

Maybe this was posted last year, but it is being discussed again...

      
September 28, 2008 
Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis
By James Simpson

America waits with bated breath while Washington struggles to bring the U.S. economy back from the brink of disaster. But many of those same politicians caused the crisis, and if left to their own devices will do so again.


Despite the mass media news blackout, a series of books, talk radio and the blogosphere have managed to expose Barack Obama's connections to his radical mentors -- Weather Underground bombers William Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn, Communist Party member Frank Marshall Davis and others. David Horowitz and his Discover the Networks.org have also contributed a wealth of information and have noted Obama's radical connections since the beginning.


Yet, no one to my knowledge has yet connected all the dots between Barack Obama and the Radical Left. When seen together, the influences on Obama's life comprise a who's who of the radical leftist movement, and it becomes painfully apparent that not only is Obama a willing participant in that movement, he has spent most of his adult life deeply immersed in it. 


But even this doesn't fully describe the extreme nature of this candidate. He can be tied directly to a malevolent overarching strategy that has motivated many, if not all, of the most destructive radical leftist organizations in the United States since the 1960s.


The Cloward-Piven Strategy of Orchestrated Crisis


In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?


Why? 


One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.


I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.


The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:


  The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.


Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:


  "Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)




Newsmax rounds out the picture:


  Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth.


In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:


  By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.


No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:


  1.. The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can. 
  2.. The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits. 
  3.. The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.


Capitalizing on the racial unrest of the 1960s, Cloward and Piven saw the welfare system as their first target. They enlisted radical black activist George Wiley, who created the National Welfare Reform Organization (NWRO) to implement the strategy. Wiley hired militant foot soldiers to storm welfare offices around the country, violently demanding their "rights." According to a City Journal article by Sol Stern, welfare rolls increased from 4.3 million to 10.8 million by the mid-1970s as a result, and in New York City, where the strategy had been particularly successful, "one person was on the welfare rolls... for every two working in the city's private economy." 


According to another City Journal article titled "Compassion Gone Mad":


  The movement's impact on New York City was jolting: welfare caseloads, already climbing 12 percent a year in the early sixties, rose by 50 percent during Lindsay's first two years; spending doubled... The city had 150,000 welfare cases in 1960; a decade later it had 1.5 million.  


The vast expansion of welfare in New York City that came of the NWRO's Cloward-Piven tactics sent the city into bankruptcy in 1975. Rudy Giuliani cited Cloward and Piven by name as being responsible for "an effort at economic sabotage." He also credited Cloward-Piven with changing the cultural attitude toward welfare from that of a temporary expedient to a lifetime entitlement, an attitude which in-and-of-itself has caused perhaps the greatest damage of all. 


Cloward and Piven looked at this strategy as a gold mine of opportunity. Within the newly organized groups, each offensive would find an ample pool of foot soldier recruits willing to advance its radical agenda at little or no pay, and expand its base of reliable voters, legal or otherwise. The radicals' threatening tactics also would accrue an intimidating reputation, providing a wealth of opportunities for extorting monetary and other concessions from the target organizations. In the meantime, successful offensives would create an ever increasing drag on society. As they gleefully observed:


  Moreover, this kind of mass influence is cumulative because benefits are continuous. Once eligibility for basic food and rent grants is established, the drain on local resources persists indefinitely.


The next time you drive through one of the many blighted neighborhoods in our cities, or read of the astronomical crime, drug addiction, and out-of-wedlock birth rates, or consider the failed schools, strapped police and fire resources of every major city, remember Cloward and Piven's thrill that "...the drain on local resources persists indefinitely."


ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear


In 1970, one of George Wiley's prot?g?s, Wade Rathke -- like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) -- was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income "rights." Shortly thereafter they changed "Arkansas" to "Association of" and ACORN went nationwide.


Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN's website: "ACORN is the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country," It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts.


Voting


On voting rights, ACORN and its voter mobilization subsidiary, Project Vote, have been involved nationwide in efforts to grant felons the vote and lobbied heavily for the Motor Voter Act of 1993, a law allowing people to register at motor vehicle departments, schools, libraries and other public places. That law had been sought by Cloward and Piven since the early1980s and they were present, standing behind President Clinton at the signing ceremony. 


ACORN's voter rights tactics follow the Cloward-Piven Strategy:


  a.. 1. Register as many Democrat voters as possible, legal or otherwise and help them vote, multiple times if possible. 
  b.. 2. Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names. 
  c.. 3. Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards.


In this effort, ACORN sets up registration sites all over the country and has been frequently cited for turning in fraudulent registrations, as well as destroying republican applications. In the 2004-2006 election cycles alone, ACORN was accused of widespread voter fraud in 12 states. It may have swung the election for one state governor.


ACORN's website brags: "Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote." Project vote boasts 4 million. I wonder how many of them are dead? For the 2008 cycle, ACORN and Project Vote have pulled out all the stops. Given their furious nationwide effort, it is not inconceivable that this presidential race could be decided by fraudulent votes alone.


Barack Obama ran ACORN's Project Vote in Chicago and his highly successful voter registration drive was credited with getting the disgraced former Senator Carol Moseley-Braun elected. Newsmax reiterates Cloward and Piven's aspirations for ACORN's voter registration efforts:


  By advocating massive, no-holds-barred voter registration campaigns, they [Cloward & Piven] sought a Democratic administration in Washington, D.C. that would re-distribute the nation's wealth and lead to a totalitarian socialist state.


Illegal Immigration


As I have written elsewhere, the Radical Left's offensive to promote illegal immigration is "Cloward-Piven on steroids." ACORN is at the forefront of this movement as well, and was a leading organization among a broad coalition of radical groups, including Soros' Open Society Institute, the Service Employees International Union (ACORN founder Wade Rathke also runs a SEIU chapter), and others, that became the Coalition for Comprehensive Immigration Reform. CCIR fortunately failed to gain passage for the 2007 illegal immigrant amnesty bill, but its goals have not changed.


The burden of illegal immigration on our already overstressed welfare system has been widely documented. Some towns in California have even been taken over by illegal immigrant drug cartels. The disease, crime and overcrowding brought by illegal immigrants places a heavy burden on every segment of society and every level of government, threatening to split this country apart at the seams. In the meantime, radical leftist efforts to grant illegal immigrants citizenship guarantee a huge pool of new democrat voters. With little border control, terrorists can also filter in. 


Obama aided ACORN as their lead attorney in a successful suit he brought against the Illinois state government to implement the Motor Voter law there. The law had been resisted by Republican Governor Jim Edgars, who feared the law was an opening to widespread vote fraud. 


His fears were warranted as the Motor Voter law has since been cited as a major opportunity for vote fraud, especially for illegal immigrants, even terrorists. According to the Wall Street Journal: "After 9/11, the Justice Department found that eight of the 19 hijackers were registered to vote..."


ACORN's dual offensives on voting and illegal immigration are handy complements. Both swell the voter rolls with reliable democrats while assaulting the country ACORN seeks to destroy with overwhelming new problems.


Mortgage Crisis


And now we have the mortgage crisis, which has sent a shock wave through Wall Street and panicked world financial markets like no other since the stock market crash of 1929. But this is a problem created in Washington long ago.  It originated with the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), signed into law in 1977 by President Jimmy Carter. The CRA was Carter's answer to a grassroots activist movement started in Chicago, and forced banks to make loans to low income, high risk customers. PhD economist and former Texas Senator Phil Gramm has called it: "a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks."


ACORN aggressively sought to expand loans to low income groups using the CRA as a whip. Economist Stan Leibowitz wrote in the New York Post:


  In the 1980s, groups such as the activists at ACORN began pushing charges of "redlining"-claims that banks discriminated against minorities in mortgage lending. In 1989, sympathetic members of Congress got the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act amended to force banks to collect racial data on mortgage applicants; this allowed various studies to be ginned up that seemed to validate the original accusation.


In fact, minority mortgage applications were rejected more frequently than other applications-but the overwhelming reason wasn't racial discrimination, but simply that minorities tend to have weaker finances.


ACORN showed its colors again in 1991, by taking over the House Banking Committee room for two days to protest efforts to scale back the CRA. Obama represented ACORN in the Buycks-Roberson v. Citibank Fed. Sav. Bank, 1994 suit against redlining.  Most significant of all, ACORN was the driving force behind a 1995 regulatory revision pushed through by the Clinton Administration that greatly expanded the CRA and laid the groundwork for the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac borne financial crisis we now confront. Barack Obama was the attorney representing ACORN in this effort. With this new authority, ACORN used its subsidiary, ACORN Housing, to promote subprime loans more aggressively.


As a New York Post article describes it:


  A 1995 strengthening of the Community Reinvestment Act required banks to find ways to provide mortgages to their poorer communities. It also let community activists intervene at yearly bank reviews, shaking the banks down for large pots of money.



  Banks that got poor reviews were punished; some saw their merger plans frustrated; others faced direct legal challenges by the Justice Department. 


Flexible lending programs expanded even though they had higher default rates than loans with traditional standards. On the Web, you can still find CRA loans available via ACORN with "100 percent financing . . . no credit scores . . . undocumented income . . . even if you don't report it on your tax returns." Credit counseling is required, of course.


Ironically, an enthusiastic Fannie Mae Foundation report singled out one paragon of nondiscriminatory lending, which worked with community activists and followed "the most flexible underwriting criteria permitted." That lender's $1 billion commitment to low-income loans in 1992 had grown to $80 billion by 1999 and $600 billion by early 2003. 


The lender they were speaking of was Countrywide, which specialized in subprime lending and had a working relationship with ACORN.


Investor's Business Daily added:


  The revisions also allowed for the first time the securitization of CRA-regulated loans containing subprime mortgages. The changes came as radical "housing rights" groups led by ACORN lobbied for such loans. ACORN at the time was represented by a young public-interest lawyer in Chicago by the name of Barack Obama. (Emphasis, mine.)


Since these loans were to be underwritten by the government sponsored Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the implicit government guarantee of those loans absolved lenders, mortgage bundlers and investors of any concern over the obvious risk. As Bloomberg reported: "It is a classic case of socializing the risk while privatizing the profit."


And if you think Washington policy makers cared about ACORN's negative influence, think again. Before this whole mess came down, a Democrat-sponsored bill on the table would have created an "Affordable Housing Trust Fund," granting ACORN access to approximately $500 million in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac revenues with little or no oversight.


Even now, unbelievably -- on the brink of national disaster -- Democrats have insisted ACORN benefit from bailout negotiations! Senator Lindsay Graham reported last night (9/25/08) in an interview with Greta Van Susteren of On the Record that Democrats want 20 percent of the bailout money to go to ACORN! 


This entire fiasco represents perhaps the pinnacle of ACORN's efforts to advance the Cloward-Piven Strategy and is a stark demonstration of the power they wield in Washington.


Enter Barack Obama


In attempting to capture the significance of Barack Obama's Radical Left connections and his relation to the Cloward Piven strategy, I constructed following flow chart. It is by no means complete. There are simply too many radical individuals and organizations to include them all here. But these are perhaps the most significant. 





The chart puts Barack Obama at the epicenter of an incestuous stew of American radical leftism. Not only are his connections significant, they practically define who he is. Taken together, they constitute a who's who of the American radical left, and guiding all is the Cloward-Piven strategy.

Conspicuous in their absence are any connections at all with any other group, moderate, or even mildly leftist. They are all radicals, firmly bedded in the anti-American, communist, socialist, radical leftist mesh.


Saul Alinsky


Most people are unaware that Barack Obama received his training in "community organizing" from Saul Alinsky's Industrial Areas Foundation. But he did. In and of itself that marks his heritage and training as that of a radical activist. One really needs go no further. But we have.


Bill Ayers


Obama objects to being associated with SDS bomber Bill Ayers, claiming he is being smeared with "guilt by association." But they worked together at the Woods Fund. The Wall Street Journal added substantially to our knowledge by describing in great detail Obama's work over five years with SDS bomber Bill Ayers on the board of a non-profit, the Chicago Annenberg Challenge, to push a radical agenda on public school children. As Stanley Kurtz states: 


  "...the issue here isn't guilt by association; it's guilt by participation. As CAC chairman, Mr. Obama was lending moral and financial support to Mr. Ayers and his radical circle. That is a story even if Mr. Ayers had never planted a single bomb 40 years ago."


Also included in the mix is Theresa Heinz Kerry's favorite charity, the Tides Foundation. A partial list of Tides grants tells you all you need to know: ACLU, ACORN, Center for American Progress, Center for Constitutional Rights (a communist front,) CAIR, Earth Justice, Institute for Policy Studies (KGB spy nest), National Lawyers Guild (oldest communist front in U.S.), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), and practically every other radical group there is. ACORN's Wade Rathke runs a Tides subsidiary, the Tides Center.


Carl Davidson and the New Party


We have heard about Bomber Bill, but we hear little about fellow SDS member Carl Davidson. According to Discover the Networks, Davidson was an early supporter of Barack Obama and a prominent member of Chicago's New Party, a synthesis of CPUSA members, Socialists, ACORN veterans and other radicals. Obama sought and received the New Party's endorsement, and they assisted with his campaign. The New Party also developed a strong relationship with ACORN. As an excellent article on the New Party observes: "Barack Obama knew what he was getting into and remains an ideal New Party candidate."


George Soros


The chart also suggests the reason for George Soros' fervent support of Obama. The President of his Open Society Institute is Aryeh Neier, founder of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). As mentioned above, three other former SDS members had extensive contact with Obama: Bill Ayers, Carl Davidson and Wade Rathke. Surely Aryeh Neier would have heard from his former colleagues of the promising new politician. More to the point, Neier is firmly committed to supporting the hugely successful radical organization, ACORN, and would be certain back their favored candidate, Barack Obama.


ACORN


Obama has spent a large portion of his professional life working for ACORN or its subsidiaries, representing ACORN as a lawyer on some of its most critical issues, and training ACORN leaders. Stanley Kurtz's excellent National Review article, "Inside Obama's Acorn." also describes Obama's ACORN connection in detail. But I can't improve on Obama's own words:


  I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career (emphasis added). Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work. - Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007 (Courtesy Newsmax.)


In another excellent article on Obama's ACORN connections, Newsmax asks a nagging question:


  It would be telling to know if Obama, during his years at Columbia, had occasion to meet Cloward and study the Cloward-Piven Strategy.


I ask you, is it possible ACORN would train Obama to take leadership positions within ACORN without telling him what he was training for? Is it possible ACORN would put Obama in leadership positions without clueing him into what his purpose was?? Is it possible that this most radical of organizations would put someone in charge of training its trainers, without him knowing what it was he was training them for?


As a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN's Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN's successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN's representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns -- both with money and campaign workers; it is doubtful that he was unaware of ACORN's true goals. It is doubtful he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy. 


Fast-forward to 2005 when an obsequious, servile and scraping Daniel Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus swearing in ceremony for newly-elected Illinois Senator, Barack Obama. Mudd called, the Congressional Black Caucus "our family" and "the conscience of Fannie Mae." 


In 2005, Republicans sought to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Senator John McCain was at the forefront of that effort. But it failed due to an intense lobbying effort put forward by Fannie and Freddie.


In his few years as a U.S. senator, Obama has received campaign contributions of $126,349, from Fannie and Freddie, second only to the $165,400 received by Senator Chris Dodd, who has been getting donations from them since 1988. What makes Obama so special?


His closest advisers are a dirty laundry list of individuals at the heart of the financial crisis: former Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson; Former Fannie Mae CEO and former Clinton Budget Director Frank Raines; and billionaire failed Superior Bank of Chicago Board Chair Penny Pritzker.


Johnson had to step down as adviser on Obama's V.P. search after this gem came out:


An Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight (OFHEO) report[1] from September 2004 found that, during Johnson's tenure as CEO, Fannie Mae had improperly deferred $200 million in expenses. This enabled top executives, including Johnson and his successor, Franklin Raines, to receive substantial bonuses in 1998.[2] A 2006 OFHEO report[3] found that Fannie Mae had substantially under-reported Johnson's compensation. Originally reported as $6-7 million, Johnson actually received approximately $21 million.


Obama denies ties to Raines but the Washington Post calls him a member of "Obama's political circle." Raines and Johnson were fined $3 million by the Office of Federal Housing Oversight for their manipulation of Fannie books. The fine is small change however, compared to the $50 million Raines was able to obtain in improper bonuses as a result of juggling the books.


Most significantly, Penny Pritzker, the current Finance Chairperson of Obama's presidential campaign helped develop the complicated investment bundling of subprime securities at the heart of the meltdown. She did so in her position as shareholder and board chair of Superior Bank. The Bank failed in 2001, one of the largest in recent history, wiping out $50 million in uninsured life savings of approximately 1,400 customers. She was named in a RICO class action law suit but doesn't seem to have come out of it too badly.


As a young attorney in the 1990s, Barack Obama represented ACORN in Washington in their successful efforts to expand Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) authority. In addition to making it easier for ACORN groups to force banks into making risky loans, this also paved the way for banks like Superior to package mortgages as investments, and for the Government Sponsored Enterprises Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to underwrite them. These changes created the conditions that ultimately lead to the current financial crisis. 


Did they not know this would occur? Were these smart people, led by a Harvard graduate, unaware of the Econ 101 concept of moral hazard that would result from the government making implicit guarantees to underwrite private sector financial risk? They should have known that freeing the high-risk mortgage market of risk, calamity was sure to ensue. I think they did.


Barack Obama, the Cloward-Piven candidate, no matter how he describes himself, has been a radical activist for most of his political career. That activism has been in support of organizations and initiatives that at their heart seek to tear the pillars of this nation asunder in order to replace them with their demented socialist vision. Their influence has spread so far and so wide that despite their blatant culpability in the current financial crisis, they are able to manipulate Capital Hill politicians to cut them into $140 billion of the bailout pie!


God grant those few responsible yet remaining in Washington, DC the strength to prevent this massive fraud from occurring. God grant them the courage to stand up in the face of this Marxist tidal wave.

Jim Simpson is a former White House staff economist and budget analyst. His writings have been published in American Thinker, Washington Times, FrontPage Magazine, DefenseWatch, Soldier of Fortune and others. His blog is Truth and Consequences..

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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Jul 20 20:30:19 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:30:19 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] The World Has Gone Mad!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907201629s2241b7f9ree877e48a32b1dc3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907161958t5ac6922ai80d5d6b1dd8997f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907201542p2b32d4epf9b9a0bf26c6dd55@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907201629s2241b7f9ree877e48a32b1dc3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907201730h2b68efexc7b97fedd69c4bfe@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

We're listening to bar talk bullshit. There aren't enough of us "rich
folks" to pay for all this crap. This is like the student government
passing resolutions "against something".  Here are the raw numbers -
we've got .3 Billion versus 1.3 Billion living and breathing Chinese.
Then there's the One Billion plus Indians, and another Billion Muslims
with 2/3ds of the worlds oil supply. And somehow we're the problem?

Brad

On 7/20/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Speaking of "There aren?t enough of us to pay for all this ? for government
> health
> care, government banks, government mortgages, government automobiles,
> government horses, government burros, for cap-and-trade, for
> stimulating phony-baloney non-jobs like Deputy Executive Associated
> Assistant Stimulus Resources Manager on the Stimulus Co-ordination &
> Compliance Commission."
>
> Check out the numbers this guy is throwing out there. This is some mind
> boggling scary shit. Can you even imagine EVER being able to pay all this
> back???
>
> Rik
>
> ____________________________
>
> TARP Special Investigator Says Bailout Total May Reach $23.7
> Trillion<http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/2009/07/tarp-special-investigator-says-bailout.html>
>
> Some numbers are so large they simply become incomprehensible.
>
> Remember when costs of the bailout were projected to be $0.5 Trillion, then
> $1 Trillion, then $3 Trillion.
>
> Now, Neil Barofsky, special inspector general for the Treasury?s Troubled
> Asset Relief Program says U.S. Rescue May Reach $23.7
> Trillion<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aY0tX8UysIaM>
> .
>
> U.S. taxpayers may be on the hook for as much as $23.7 trillion to bolster
> the economy and bail out financial companies, said Neil Barofsky, special
> inspector general for the Treasury?s Troubled Asset Relief Program.
>
> The Treasury?s $700 billion bank-investment program represents a fraction of
> all federal support to resuscitate the U.S. financial system, including $6.8
> trillion in aid offered by the Federal Reserve, Barofsky said in a report
> released today.
>
> ?TARP has evolved into a program of unprecedented scope, scale and
> complexity,? Barofsky said in testimony prepared for a hearing tomorrow
> before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.
>
> Costs include $2.3 trillion in programs offered by the Federal Deposit
> Insurance Corp., $7.4 trillion in TARP and other aid from the Treasury and
> $7.2 trillion in federal money for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, credit unions,
> Veterans Affairs and other federal programs, he said.
>
> Barofsky offered criticism in a separate quarterly report of Treasury?s
> implementation of TARP, saying the department has ?repeatedly failed to
> adopt recommendations? needed to provide transparency and fulfill the
> administration?s goal to implement TARP ?with the highest degree of
> accountability.?
>
> As a result, taxpayers don?t know how TARP recipients are using the money or
> the value of the investments, he said in the report.
>
> Banks Fail to Make Adequate Loan-Loss Provisions
>
> Moody's says Banks Fail to Make Adequate Loan-Loss
> Provisions<http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aBURZpfwyFKc>
> .
>
> Banks have failed to make adequate provision for the losses on loans and
> securities they face before the end of next year, Moody?s Investors Service
> said.
>
> U.S. banks may incur about $470 billion of losses and writedowns by the end
> of 2010, which may cause the banks to be unprofitable in the period, the
> ratings company said in a report published today. ?Large loan losses have
> yet to be recognized in the banking system,? Moody?s said. ?We expect to see
> rising provisioning needs well into 2010.?
>
> Banks and financial firms worldwide have reported losses and writedowns of
> $1.5 trillion since the credit crisis began in 2007, according to data
> compiled by Bloomberg. New York-based Citigroup Inc. has reported $112
> billion of writedowns, more than any other firm, the data show.
>
> ?The fundamentals of financial institutions are still traveling on a
> downward slope,? Moody?s said. ?No-one should consider recent improvements
> as assurance that the current rebound can be sustained.?
>
> Fed's Game is Delay and Pretend
>
> In spite of writing off $112 billion, Citigroup is still sitting on $800
> billion in SIVs, off its balance sheet, not marked to market. What's that
> worth? No one really knows and the Fed does not want anyone to find out
> either. That is why mark-to-market accounting is still suspended.
>
> Geithner's PPIP also masks price discovery (on purpose) given the public is
> on the hook for 93% of the losses. The PPIP encourages speculation (at
> best), and at worst is a purposely fraudulent scheme to dump assets on the
> backs of taxpayers to benefit bondholders.
>
> The Fed's game is to delay discovery and pretend things are getting better.
> Things might be for some assets. In the meantime however, data suggests more
> foreclosures, more credit card writeoffs, and more commercial real estate
> losses. Is the Fed winning or losing the battle? On the surface, with no
> price discovery, it's hard to know. However, if you give any credence to
> Neil Barofsky, the Fed may be losing a $23.7 trillion battle.
>
> Mike "Mish" Shedlock
> http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
> <http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com/>
>
> On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 5:42 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Day three here of China Postpartum Blues and I'm still dragging ass.
>> Jet lag sucks.  I'm having serious reservations about this next career
>> move. I proposed to Fan that she quit her job - now I'm thinking about
>> her staying to the 'bitter end' and me down-bidding to a smaller jet
>> and flying short domestic hops. I'm not quite sure what the magical
>> marginal rate is that makes striving for the top 5% worth it, but if
>> means feeling like I do today for the rest of my life, I'm ready to
>> sign-up for my 'gubmint' check and start parking in handicapped
>> spaces.  I've caught-up with what's going on in both my older boy's
>> lives, and they don't seem all that interested in taking me on as a
>> pet project quite yet.  Damn it!  Someone has to pay for all this!
>>
>> Here's some more information on how the "the other side" lives.  They
>> eat horses, don't they?  I say we could make some Parisians happy and
>> solve the problem in less than a months time. But what good is simple
>> logic these days?
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> -------------
>>
>> The Gelded Age
>> The mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we?re all headed.
>>
>> By Mark Steyn
>>
>> On Friday July 17, the House of Representatives met to debate . . . Go
>> on, take a guess: Health care? The cap-and-tax racket? Stimulus Two?
>> No, none of the above. Don?t worry, they?re still spending your money.
>> Wild horses couldn?t stop them doing that.
>>
>> And, as a matter of fact, that?s the correct answer: wild horses. On
>> Friday, the House voted on the Restore Our American Mustangs Act ? or
>> ROAM.  Like all acronymically cute legislation, its name bears little
>> relation to what it actually does: It?s not about ?restoring?
>> mustangs. The federal Bureau of Land Management aims for a manageable
>> population of 27,000 wild mustangs. Currently, there are 36,000, and
>> the population doubles every four or five years. To prevent things
>> getting even more out of hand, the BLM keeps another 30,000 mustangs
>> in holding pens ? or, if you prefer, managed-care facilities. That?s
>> to say, under federal management, one in every two ?wild? horses now
>> lives in government housing. The American mustang population is
>> road-testing the impending demographic profile of Japan and Germany:
>> one worker for every retiree.
>>
>> The welfare mustangs are supposed to be put up for adoption. But, what
>> with the government taking all our money to fund the Barney Frank
>> Institute of Bureaucracy Studies, many of us no longer have the
>> necessary discretionary income to stable a mustang in the rec room. A
>> lot of the nags in managed-care facilities are getting a bit long in
>> the tooth, and thus unlikely ever to find homes. So, rather than go on
>> attempting to flog near-dead horses, the BLM was considering inviting
>> the seniors to do the decent thing and sign up for ?assisted suicide?
>> ? or, in the designated euphemism, ?death with dignity.? In the
>> Netherlands, pretty much everyone over 47 who goes into hospital for a
>> minor hernia winds up getting talked into ?death with dignity.? And,
>> given that mustangs were introduced to America by the Spanish, it?s
>> not inappropriate that they should meet a European end.
>>
>> ROAM would prohibit this option. In that sense, it would be
>> acronymically more precise to name it REAM ? the Restore Elderly
>> American Mustangs Act. Under this legislation, no horses or burros
>> could be, ah, terminated, and they would have to be released from
>> their holding pens after six months. To facilitate the release of the
>> tame ?wild horse? population, the act adds to their present 33-million
>> acre habitat (that?s bigger than New York State) another 20 million
>> acres ? or approximately the size of Connecticut, Massachusetts, New
>> Hampshire, and Vermont combined. The Congressional Budget Office
>> estimates the total tab at around $700 million ? ie, chump change. If
>> you look for it in the line-item budget, it comes down at the bottom
>> under ?rounding error.?  It?s a mere ten-and-a-half grand per mustang.
>> If you?re wondering why it costs more to keep a horse on 52 million
>> acres of wilderness than it does to stable him at an upscale horse
>> farm in New England, that?s because, in order to prevent the mustang
>> population doubling again by 2013 and requiring the annexation of
>> another 50 million acres (ie, an area the size of Ireland, Denmark,
>> Belgium, and the Netherlands combined), the bill mandates ?enhanced?
>> contraception for horses and burros.
>>
>> John Hinderaker of the Powerline website mused on whether this would
>> involve Nancy Pelosi (who?s very keen on federally funded
>> contraception) personally installing the enhanced prophylactic device
>> on every stallion. The pay-per-view rights on that would surely be
>> worth $700 million at least. And it would certainly stimulate the
>> American latex industry. Or perhaps we could import them from
>> overseas. I seem to recall the European Union introduced shape and
>> size regulations for a harmonized Euro-condom a few years back, only
>> to have the Germans complain that these things were too small and
>> obviously made for Greeks ? or possibly vice-versa, before any Greek
>> readers file a federal hate-crimes suit. Anyway, the point is that
>> somewhere in a European warehouse there are piles of ill-fitting
>> Euro-condoms gathering dust. Surely it?s not beyond the wit of
>> Congress to convert a few superfluous GM plants in Michigan into
>> facilities for sewing together unwanted Euro-contraceptives to fit
>> federally condomed mustangs. Just thinking outside the horse-box here.
>>
>> But I digress. The bill also calls for a biennial horse census
>> (presumably run by ACORN) and mandates that government bureaucrats
>> perform home inspections before Americans can adopt wild horses or
>> burros. Presumably this will require a Federal Burro of Investigation
>> or some such.
>>
>>
>> It?s hardly worth batting an eyelid over equine welfare queens. It?s a
>> mere drop in the mountain of federal horse manure. But, in their own
>> poignant way, the mustangs are almost too apt a symbol of where we?re
>> all headed. The old west has been succeeded by the new California, in
>> which a bloated government bureaucracy rides herd on the ever more
>> emaciated workhorses of the private sector. And as California goes ?
>> and it?s going, going, gone ? so goes the nation.
>>
>> There aren?t enough of us to pay for all this ? for government health
>> care, government banks, government mortgages, government automobiles,
>> government horses, government burros, for cap-and-trade, for
>> stimulating phony-baloney non-jobs like Deputy Executive Associated
>> Assistant Stimulus Resources Manager on the Stimulus Co-ordination &
>> Compliance Commission. The wealthiest 1 percent already pay 40 percent
>> of all taxes, the top 10 percent pay 70 percent of taxes ? and there
>> simply are too few of them ? or, more to the point, of you: You?ll be
>> surprised what percentage of you fall into ?the top 2 percent? by the
>> time Obama is through with you. This isn?t merely Swedenization. As
>> that insouciant 19-million acre annexation suggests, when America
>> Swedenizes, it does it on supersized scale. The salient point of that
>> 1,200-page cap-and-trade monstrosity was that, in its final form, it
>> was so huge that at the time the House voted it into law there was no
>> written version of the bill, because Congressional typists were unable
>> to type as fast as Congress can spend: They?re legislating on such a
>> scale that the poor bleeding typing fingers of the House stenographers
>> can?t keep up. Which means you can?t keep up the payments on it all.
>> If you?ve got a small business, you?re wasting your time. You?re going
>> to be taxed and regulated into the ground because you?re the
>> designated sucker. Tell your kids to forget about the private sector
>> and sign up with the Equine Census Bureau: Jobs for life, early
>> retirement. Government is where it?s at. When in ROAM do as the
>> ROAMens do.
>>
>> In 1971, the United States Congress recognized mustangs as ?living
>> symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West.? And surely
>> nothing captures the essence of the ?pioneer spirit? than living on
>> welfare in a federal care facility while being showered with
>> government contraceptives. Welcome to America in the gelded age.
>> On 7/16/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Well Boys and Girls, time to leave the land of "anything is possible"
>> > shortly for a return to the land of "you owe me".  Enjoy this little
>> > jewel (below).  We are so screwed!
>> >
>> > Brad
>> >
>> > -----------
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > July 16, 2009 Posted by John at 7:33 PM
>> >
>> > The news is coming so thick and fast these days that it's hard to keep
>> > up. The Supreme Court, socialized medicine, cap and trade, record
>> > deficits, foreign policy fecklessness--it's easy to lose track of
>> > smaller issues with all that is going on. Still, H.R. 1018 shouldn't
>> > be allowed to pass unnoticed.
>> >
>> > H.R. 1018 is the "Restore Our American Mustangs Act." It can fairly be
>> > described as a welfare program for horses. Believe it or not--this
>> > isn't satire--here is what the bill will do:
>> >
>> > [T]he "Restore Our American Mustangs Act" ... would create a new $700
>> > million welfare program for wild horses. The program:
>> > * Conducts a horse census every two years
>> >
>> > * Provides "enhanced contraception" and birth control for horses
>> >
>> > * Establishes an additional 19 million acres of public and private
>> > land for wild horses
>> >
>> > * Covers $5 million tab to repair horse damage to land
>> >
>> > * Mandates that government bureaucrats perform home inspections before
>> > Americans can adopt horses
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > "Enhanced contraception" for horses? Maybe I'm out of touch, but I
>> > didn't realize that wild horses use contraception at all. Maybe the
>> > measure would be worth voting for if Nancy Pelosi would commit that
>> > she will personally attempt to fit a wild stallion with an "enhanced
>> > contraception" device at a critical moment. (Just kidding, liberals.)
>> >
>> > Nineteen million acres, by the way, is around 28 times the area of
>> > Rhode Island. If you think Rhode Island is too small to worry about,
>> > it's also more than a third of the state of Minnesota.
>> >
>> > The Democrats have scheduled a vote on H.R. 1018 tomorrow.
>> >
>> >
>> > ---------------
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul 21 19:57:24 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 21 Jul 2009 19:57:24 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Example of Government Surgery
Message-ID: <82DE644875744BAB861DE0CBA3BB28B6@YOURB88038198E>

 
A Texas Airman stationed at an Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif. has lost both legs after surgeons reportedly botched a routine surgery to remove his gallbladder.

Colton Read, 20, underwent laproscopic surgery last week at David Grant Medical Center at Travis Air Force Base near Sacramento. Laproscopic surgery is a minimally invasive procedure that involves making a tiny incision to minimize pain and speed recovery time.

About an hour into the surgery, something went wrong. Read's wife Jessica told CBS11TV.com.

"A nurse runs out, 'we need blood now' and she rounds the corner and my gut feelings is 'oh my God, is that my husband?'" Jessica Read said. Read's wife said an Air Force general surgeon mistakenly cut her husband's aortic valve, which supplies blood to the heart, but waited hours to transport Colton Read to a state hospital with a vascular surgeon.

Read, who is still in intensive care, lost both legs as a result of the blood loss. Meanwhile, his gallbladder still has not been removed. Jessica Read said the doctor admitted his mistake, but under federal law the Reads cannot sue.

The future of Colton Read's career is now uncertain, FOX 40 in Sacramento reported.

Jessica Read told FOX 40 she is appalled that the Air Force is even considering medical retirement or medical discharge while Airman Read is incapable of making any type of decision. She said he is not 100 percent lucid and is still heavily medicated.

The Air Force is conducting a review of the case using outside experts.

Click here to read more on this story and to see a picture of Airman Colton at CBS11TV.com
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 23 06:11:38 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:11:38 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Special moitvational for Rik
Message-ID: <2E03C30E99864E1A83ECEC8EBC176EC1@YOURB88038198E>

Rik,

Here is something to keep you busy:

http://www.kickthemallout.com/

Just for fun.

Think of it as an investment obligation.

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 23 06:22:31 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:22:31 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] New Federal Program Explained:
Message-ID: <E3BCC276C89D4C25B15BBCBF800C5FF6@YOURB88038198E>

New federal program explained:

By Daniel Taylor
Old-Thinker News

 Mandatory home inspections could be performed by Obama's Clean Energy Corps if the controversial Climate bill is passed through congress.

The National Service bill, which Obama signed in April, established a "Clean Energy Corps" under AmeriCorps that is tasked with performing - among other things - home energy audits as part of their "national service". As the act states, the Corps is charged with "conducting energy audits for low-income households and recommending ways for the households to improve energy efficiency." As job losses accelerate daily, "Green jobs" are increasingly being offered as an alternative to the gutted American economy.

The original national service bill stated that service would be mandatory, but the language was later removed and added to a separate piece of legislation, HR 1444. As originally stated, a commission would be set up to investigate,


  "Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds."


Along with the establishment of the Clean Energy Corps, the recent American Clean Energy and Security Act will make home inspections mandatory for all homeowners in the United States.

Armies of bureaucrats and young Energy Corps workers could be knocking on your door soon

submitted by 
Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 23 06:43:00 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 06:43:00 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] RFID coming your way
Message-ID: <D2CE25360AA74AF39DB23E33CCEEB821@YOURB88038198E>

Have they put your chip in yet?

If not, be ready when they tell you to come to the clinic.

Here is the source:

The moment you put items into your cart at a supermarket, the payment is made automatically. Customers no longer have to wait in long lines at the counters. You can have detailed information on products on the shelves if you put your cell phone next to them. You can also have your own health checked and have access to a u-healthcare system built using wireless or wired networks anytime, anywhere.

 
Choi Sung-kyu, CEO of the Korea Association of RFID/USN

You can also build an anti-disaster system that updates information in real time by making the most of the communications infrastructure based on a ubiquitous sensor network (USN). You can turn your electronic appliances at home on or off, or operate assembly line machines in your factory - all through the use of your cell phone or the Internet.  This is based on radio frequency identification (RFID) technology.

The term ubiquitous refers to an information technology environment or an IT paradigm in which various computer-installed devices or systems make communications with their users seamless. We live in a world where what was considered impossible only a few years ago is now put within our grasp. In reality, this occurs in any country where an information and communications infrastructure is established. With computers naturally emerging as part of people's everyday lives, everything has become intelligent and networked, making communications among people and between remote devices possible.

This shows that people are now entering a world where it is possible to do what they want anytime and anywhere. All this is possible thanks to a 1mm by 1mm microchip - an electronic RFID tag, which is an identification tag that symbolizes the era of digital technology. This microchip gives identifying information about target objects. USN is a combination of key computer science and engineering area technologies, including wireless networking, which can pick up and process various kinds of information that the sensor collects in real time.

As such, RFID/USN is the key infrastructure component of a ubiquitous society. With boundless growth potential, it can bring changes to all industrial sectorsas great as the Internet once did. This new technology is expected to lead a new information revolution, if it is applied to public and private sectors, including health, education, national defense, industrial logistics, living convenience, safety, dietary life, medical services, environment, and manufacturing. How we can develop this new industry is now emerging as a major task facing all of us today. The Korea IT Times interviewed Choi Sung-kyu, CEO of the Korea Association of RFID/USN, on tasks facing the RFID/USN industry today.



FYI, submitted by:

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 23 08:35:17 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:35:17 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sailboat Electric Outboard
Message-ID: <4162E2F448CA4FA59C1DA9D46CBCEBB7@YOURB88038198E>

See:

http://www.solidnav.com/traveler.html

and then look at data page -- 67 lbs.

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 23 10:15:14 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 09:15:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] RFID coming your way
In-Reply-To: <D2CE25360AA74AF39DB23E33CCEEB821@YOURB88038198E>
References: <D2CE25360AA74AF39DB23E33CCEEB821@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907230715k3f453445p4fcd2fdd11e0d3a4@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

This has become an issue on my Bonanza list because the OSH fly-in is
starting next week, and they landed a Predator drone there for the
first time. About half the Bo list is data-geek guys (computers)
because pilots can't afford airplanes - the data-geek guys can.
They're all excited because the landing showcased their skills.

Thank God for China.  One, they save like crazy and loan to our silly
asses. Two, there's too many of them to round-up all at once.  I don't
think about the Warsaw ghetto often, but somehow, it is on my mind
this morning. A few guns scattered here and there in the right hands
makes all the difference.

Brad
On 7/23/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> Have they put your chip in yet?
>
> If not, be ready when they tell you to come to the clinic.
>
> Here is the source:
>
> The moment you put items into your cart at a supermarket, the payment is
> made automatically. Customers no longer have to wait in long lines at the
> counters. You can have detailed information on products on the shelves if
> you put your cell phone next to them. You can also have your own health
> checked and have access to a u-healthcare system built using wireless or
> wired networks anytime, anywhere.
>
>
> Choi Sung-kyu, CEO of the Korea Association of RFID/USN
>
> You can also build an anti-disaster system that updates information in real
> time by making the most of the communications infrastructure based on a
> ubiquitous sensor network (USN). You can turn your electronic appliances at
> home on or off, or operate assembly line machines in your factory - all
> through the use of your cell phone or the Internet.  This is based on radio
> frequency identification (RFID) technology.
>
> The term ubiquitous refers to an information technology environment or an IT
> paradigm in which various computer-installed devices or systems make
> communications with their users seamless. We live in a world where what was
> considered impossible only a few years ago is now put within our grasp. In
> reality, this occurs in any country where an information and communications
> infrastructure is established. With computers naturally emerging as part of
> people's everyday lives, everything has become intelligent and networked,
> making communications among people and between remote devices possible.
>
> This shows that people are now entering a world where it is possible to do
> what they want anytime and anywhere. All this is possible thanks to a 1mm by
> 1mm microchip - an electronic RFID tag, which is an identification tag that
> symbolizes the era of digital technology. This microchip gives identifying
> information about target objects. USN is a combination of key computer
> science and engineering area technologies, including wireless networking,
> which can pick up and process various kinds of information that the sensor
> collects in real time.
>
> As such, RFID/USN is the key infrastructure component of a ubiquitous
> society. With boundless growth potential, it can bring changes to all
> industrial sectorsas great as the Internet once did. This new technology is
> expected to lead a new information revolution, if it is applied to public
> and private sectors, including health, education, national defense,
> industrial logistics, living convenience, safety, dietary life, medical
> services, environment, and manufacturing. How we can develop this new
> industry is now emerging as a major task facing all of us today. The Korea
> IT Times interviewed Choi Sung-kyu, CEO of the Korea Association of
> RFID/USN, on tasks facing the RFID/USN industry today.
>
>
>
> FYI, submitted by:
>
> Ed K
>

From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 23 13:39:11 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:39:11 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Warsaw Getto
Message-ID: <D72371DAF8694F6B96F48937931EE200@YOURB88038198E>

Brad said, "I don't think about the Warsaw ghetto often, but somehow, it 
is on my mind this morning. A few guns scattered here and there in the 
right hands makes all the difference.

I believe that you are seconding Rik's opinion...

And after his news conference, it might be happen sooner, and so many 
do not believe...

Gee, I need to buy my workout partner a kelvar vest and helmet.  He is 
in Obama's cross hairs.  I haven't gotten his latest book, but he sounds
too much like me for him to be safe in Washington, D.C.

Ed K

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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 23 14:31:33 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 2009 13:31:33 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Warsaw Getto
In-Reply-To: <D72371DAF8694F6B96F48937931EE200@YOURB88038198E>
References: <D72371DAF8694F6B96F48937931EE200@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907231131v15cba3fbvf6a7e9319f7d793d@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

I was going to mention that before I accepted their chip, I had a chip of my
own for them.

Frankly, I have a hard time imagining the man that would believe putting
chips in people is even an acceptable idea. Harder still to imagine the
person who would accept one.

I guess I missed "his" news conference. What could he possibly have said
that could be more wrong-headed and unAmerican than the things he has spewed
already???

Rik

On Thu, Jul 23, 2009 at 12:39 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  Brad said, "I don't think about the Warsaw ghetto often, but somehow, it
> is on my mind this morning. A few guns scattered here and there in the
> right hands makes all the difference.
>
> I believe that you are seconding Rik's opinion...
>
> And after his news conference, it might be happen sooner, and so many
> do not believe...
>
> Gee, I need to buy my workout partner a kelvar vest and helmet.  He is
> in Obama's cross hairs.  I haven't gotten his latest book, but he sounds
> too much like me for him to be safe in Washington, D.C.
>
> Ed K
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Jul 25 06:57:58 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 05:57:58 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Free Speech
Message-ID: <400985d70907250357j7bb4e774w948a40090d8728ff@mail.gmail.com>

There's a couple of interesting developments gaining momentum in
cyberspace. The first is blocking access to news links -

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/24/business/media/24content.html?_r=3

What I just did would be impossible under the proposed AP business
model.  Ironically, the NYT's tried to hide their content behind a $50
firewall and it failed.  They discovered that people really weren't
all that interested in what they had to say when they had to pay for
it, as opposed to the Wall Street Journal where I still pay about $80
per year for online access.  The business model remained pretty
constant for newspapers from the time of the Civil War until recently
? you sell advertising for buggy whips, patent medicines, etc., and
charge for ?news?.  Prior to that, most newspapers were house organs
for political parties.  This could explain a lot about the NYT's
current financial problems. The AP is no better.  I think this will be
a foolish move on their part (and I hope they try it).

Slim's buddy, one of our guests in China this year, and I spent a
wonderful evening solving the world's problems over a glass (or maybe
it was two) of social lubricant.  The music industry is facing similar
issues on how to charge for content.  That industry tried some
heavy-handed approaches to protect content with limited success as
well. We came to the conclusion that "walls don't work".  Maybe it had
something to do with the fact they had been to The Great Wall that
day. I'm not sure what the business solution is for either industry,
but I'm pretty confident this isn't going to work. On another China
note, I followed my usual protocol this year of being respectful of
the fact that I was using someone else's IP address ? nothing about
Tienanmen unless it was ?here's a photo of Slim and I at Tienanmen
Square?, etc.  This next trend (posted below) is the really disturbing
one.  As one commenter pointed out, totalitarians always hijack words
and give them new meaning, ala Animal Farm.  The old ?liberal? is the
new left-wing Marxist.  Now, the would be overlords are after the word
?Libertarian?. Speaking of Orwell and Animal Farm, I had just ordered
my new Kindle DX when Amazon pulled their stunt of deleting content
the very next day (Animal Farm).  Their CEO showed a lot of class by
making a unqualified apology - ?we screwed up?.  I wish we'd see more
of that frankness in politics.
Brad
-------------

Will Internet Free Speech Crackdowns Come to America?
Posted By Kathy Shaidle On July 24, 2009 @ 12:30 am In . Column2 04, .
Positioning, Australia, Canada, Free Speech, Internet, Politics,
Science & Technology, US News, World News | 47 Comments
We don?t hear much about ?the Anglosphere? anymore. The term was
coined after 9/11 to distinguish freedom-loving Western allies from
those nations sympathetic or indifferent to Islamic jihad.
Sadly, the Anglosphere?s cheerleaders have since learned that the West
isn?t always a reliable champion of liberty, either. Two
?Anglospheric? nations in particular ? Australia and Canada ? have
revealed a troubling urge to stifle free speech, especially on the
Internet.
Recently, for example, Canada?s ruling Conservative government
introduced the [1] Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C)
Act.
The act, observes [2] Dr. Michael Geist, ?is pretty much exactly what
law enforcement has been demanding and privacy groups have been
fearing.?
Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at
the University of Ottawa and an internationally recognized expert on
technology law. He warns that the act ?will embed broad new
surveillance capabilities in the Canadian Internet.?
First, IP21C would force Internet service providers (ISPs) to install
expensive surveillance systems on their networks, supposedly to combat
child pornographers.
?This feels a bit like a surveillance stimulus package,? remarks
Geist, ?with ISPs making big new investments? and the government
promising the inevitable raft of grants and other goodies to ensure
their compliance. Naturally, taxpayers will foot the bill.
Smaller ISPs will be exempt from this onerous requirement for three
years, but as Geist says, that exemption ?undermines the claims that
[the act] is an effective solution to online crime?; criminals will
simply continue doing ?business? through those smaller ISPs, while
developing ways to get around the new surveillance systems.
Equally troubling, the act also gives Canadian police wide-ranging new
powers. ISPs will be obliged to surrender customer names, addresses,
IP addresses, and email addresses on demand, without a warrant.
?Preservation orders? will require ISPs to refrain from deleting
subscriber information, while ?tracking warrants? will let police
?remotely activate tracking devices that are found in certain types of
technologies such as cell phones.?
Canada?s [3] Ezra Levant has become the nation?s most high-profile
critic of any clampdowns on the free flow of information. [4] After
publishing the notorious ?Danish Mohammed? cartoons in his now-defunct
magazine, Levant?s battles against the country?s so-called human
rights commissions made him the bane of government censors,
do-gooders, and busybodies.
Now ever-attuned to threats to free speech around the world, Levant
quickly weighed in when another Commonwealth country announced its own
ham-fisted attempts to police the web.
?Australia?s government nannies have officially banned 1,370
websites,? [5] explains Levant, and anyone who links to a blacklisted
site can be fined AUS$11,000 a day.
At first, though, the Australian government refused to tell anyone
what these websites were, because that would violate its own ban.
You?d only find out you?d broken the law after you linked to a banned
site.
But, of course, the blacklist was duly leaked and published on a
government watchdog site called Wikileaks. So now there are 1,370
banned sites in Australia ? plus one: Wikileaks.
?The Australian blacklist wasn?t written by a court,? adds Levant,
himself a lawyer. ?There was no hearing where evidence was brought
that these sites were criminal sites.?
For instance, poker-playing sites are heavily represented on the
blacklist, even though such sites aren?t illegal. Most confusing is
the inclusion of www.vanborkhorst.nl, a Dutch company that rents
forklifts. (Who knows? Perhaps a dimwitted yet dirty-minded Aussie
bureaucrat mistook the words ?fork? and ?poker? for something
earthier.)
?The Canadian Human Rights Commission wants an Internet blacklist,
too,? Levant adds, referring to his one-time arch-nemesis, which
apparently hasn?t learned much following [6] its humiliating run-in
with the former publisher. ?It wants to expand Canada?s
www.cybertip.ca to cover political sites, not just child porn sites it
targets now.?
Internet law is in its infancy and [7] technology is hackable, so how
such government crackdowns will ultimately affect American websites
and ordinary ?surfers? is impossible to say. But Americans who believe
their First Amendment protects them from similar interference from
their own government are mistaken.
The [8] Cybersecurity Act of 2009, now in committee, ?risks giving the
federal government unprecedented power over the Internet,? says [9]
Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Among other things, the act gives the president the authority to shut
down Internet traffic (run mostly on privately owned networks) in an
emergency ? with ?emergency? left undefined.
As well, the Commerce Department would have ?absolute, non-emergency?
access to ?all relevant data?; like its Canadian equivalent, the
Cybersecurity Act allows authorities access to this data without
judicial review.
Others are concerned about President Obama?s choice to lead the White
House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Harvard Law
Professor Cass Sunstein. As [10] Paul Hsieh reported earlier this year
for Pajamas Media, Sunstein?s book [11] Nudge posits a philosophy of
?libertarian paternalism?: that it is government?s role to ?nudge? its
citizens into behaving in a particular fashion ? for their own good,
of course.
If ?nudging? sounds like a cuddly synonym for ?creeping government
control,? there?s a reason for that. [12] Sunstein?s forthcoming book,
[13] On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can
Be Done, he argues for the passage of a ?notice and take down law,? to
force websites to remove ?falsehoods? from their pages upon government
request. These ?falsehoods? would include remarks left by anonymous
commenters.
?A ?chilling effect? on those who would spread destructive falsehoods
can be an excellent idea,? writes Sunstein ? words that should in turn
chill anyone who values lively debate about the issues of the day. Is
denial of ?global warming? a ?destructive falsehood,? for example?
Apparently, Sunstein considers the government a reliable arbiter of
such decisions.
Americans may laugh at Australia?s ham-fisted attempts to control the
Internet or presume that, if passed, Canada?s proposed legislation
won?t affect them. But it is safe to assume that the powers that be
are watching what other countries do with great interest. When someone
as matter-of-factly pro-censorship as Cass Sunstein has the ear of the
president of the United States and the draconian Cybersecurity Act is
on its way to being passed, Americans must remain vigilant if they
want the Internet to remain a robust tool for debate and dissent.

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com
URL to article:
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/will-internet-free-speech-crackdowns-come-to-america/
URLs in this post:
[1] Investigative Powers for the 21st Century (IP21C) Act:
http://www.justice.gc.ca/eng/news-nouv/nr-cp/2009/doc_32388.html
[2] Dr. Michael Geist: http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4069/125/
[3] Ezra Levant:
http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/the-committee-of-public-sensitivity-an-interview-with-ezr
a-levant/

[4] After publishing the notorious ?Danish Mohammed? cartoons:
http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/the_suicide_of_reason_in_canad/
[5] explains Levant:
http://ezralevant.com/2009/07/australias-internet-censorship.html
[6] its humiliating run-in with the former publisher:
http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/ezra-levant-1-canadian-thought-police-0/
[7] technology is hackable:
http://www.westernstandard.ca/website/article.php?id=3008
[8] Cybersecurity Act of 2009:
http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s111-773
[9] Jennifer Granick of the Electronic Frontier Foundation:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/04/cybersecurity-act
[10] Paul Hsieh:
http://pajamasmedia.com../../../../../blog/obamas-regulatory-chief-believes-in-paternalistic-governm
ent/

[11] Nudge: http://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/0300122233
[12] Sunstein?s forthcoming book:
http://townhall.com/columnists/AustinHill/2009/07/19/should_president_obama_control_the_internet
[13] On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can
Be Done: http://www.amazon.com/Rumors-Falsehoods-Spread-Believe-Them/dp/0809094738/


From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Jul 25 15:27:46 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:27:46 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Bad News for China
Message-ID: <400985d70907251227v123bda7etdf27be59f856f452@mail.gmail.com>

http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/07/giant-us-money-leak-ruins-floors.html

From flybrad at gmail.com  Sat Jul 25 20:46:45 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 19:46:45 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] California Melons
Message-ID: <400985d70907251746q38de8dfcwb19796a64f4cdc80@mail.gmail.com>

Where do melons come from in the middle of winter?  A lot of the fruit
I ate in China came from South Africa, and that got me thinking,
"ain't it Winter there?"  Maybe some "fruits" last too long.  Are
melons a mineral, a spirit, or a vegetable? I'm guessing in this case,
vegetable -

http://tinyurl.com/kk49d3

Ed, the next time you throw that "why don't you run for public office"
line at me, I'm replaying this video. I couldn't listen for that shit
for 10 seconds without throwing melons.  Apparently, someone else
suffered the same fate.

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sat Jul 25 22:41:14 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:41:14 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Lou Dobbs reports on UTube...
Message-ID: <A322D1259ECC4538A455E7E9A3965B66@YOURB88038198E>

For educational purposes, I now have the direct utube of Lou Dobbs reporting:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oP1UQMd7VMw  

Ed K
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From tapartnews at fastmail.net  Sat Jul 25 19:43:54 2009
From: tapartnews at fastmail.net (tapartnews at fastmail.net)
Date: 25 Jul 2009 23:43:54 -0000
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ethics Box: Must look back in order to go
	forward - it's economic deja vu
Message-ID: <20090725234354.17135.qmail@qs1688.pair.com>


Your friend Ray Tapajna - Tapsearch Com Editor has sent you a link to the following post:

Blog Title: Ethics Box
Post Title: Must look back in order to go forward - it's economic deja vu
Post URL: http://www.ethicsbox.com/dejavueconomics1/


See also Ray Tapajna Chronicles review of Pope Benedict economic encyclical at http://tapsearch.com/pope-benedict-economic-encyclical 


Regards,

The Orble Team

From tapartnews at fastmail.net  Sat Jul 25 22:14:06 2009
From: tapartnews at fastmail.net (tapartnews at fastmail.net)
Date: 26 Jul 2009 02:14:06 -0000
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ethics Box: Must look back in order to go
	forward - it's economic deja vu
Message-ID: <20090726021406.48979.qmail@qs1688.pair.com>


Your friend Ray Tapajna - Tapsearch Com Editor has sent you a link to the following post:

Blog Title: Ethics Box
Post Title: Must look back in order to go forward - it's economic deja vu
Post URL: http://www.ethicsbox.com/dejavueconomics1/


See also Ray Tapajna Chronicles review of Pope Benedict economic encyclical at http://tapsearch.com/pope-benedict-economic-encyclical 
( now registered member )


Regards,

The Orble Team

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 08:14:14 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:14:14 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's Plan for ordering pizza in 2012
Message-ID: <54F6BDE94A854877BBED592D838BF995@YOURB88038198E>



You need high speed access... to see the Feds proposed plan:

http://www.aclu.org/pizza/images/screen.swf

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 07:54:41 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:54:41 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Officia Obama Birth So-tiff-e-kut hear:l!!
	(political humor)
Message-ID: <404CD61AA5904B09AA34DEC4D4C19E83@YOURB88038198E>



      THE Birth Certificate - FINALLY!
            NOW IT'S OFFICIAL! After spending $950,000
            on attorneys to fend off releasing ANYTHING
            to prove he is a citizen of USA

      Obama recently released his Hawaii birth certificate
      ......and I hope, once and for all the matter will be
      dropped and I will not have five or six emails each
      day from all you ultra-right-wingers with a different
      conspiracy angle...
      He was elected as our President and we need to get
      over the fact we lost... !! So please stop stirring up
      things and trying to discredit him with all these stupid
      and groundless rumors.....
       Attached is a copy of his birth certificate
      and I hope this will put the matter to rest
      once and for all!
         Scroll down


                                          From the Law Firm of??









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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 26 08:32:25 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 07:32:25 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ethics Box: Must look back in order to go
	forward - it's economic deja vu
In-Reply-To: <20090725234354.17135.qmail@qs1688.pair.com>
References: <20090725234354.17135.qmail@qs1688.pair.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907260532h6ebaa7e9p6522f93a3f9aaf4e@mail.gmail.com>

Dear Tapajna?

Welcome, but you are full of shit!  Allow me to present exhibit one -
your statement.

"The working poor here cannot buy that much to balance this out, and
certainly the destitute workers outside the United States cannot even
afford to buy the products they make, let alone have any extra money
to buy what products we have left in this country to sell to them."

The "poor" here don't work, we have programs for that.  Here's a clue
on how not to be "poor".  Graduate from HS, don't have children before
you are married, and don't get addicted to drugs or alcohol. This
formula works across all cultural boundary's and social/economic
backgrounds.

As to those "destitute" workers you speak of, you obviously haven't
been to a factory in China lately, have you? I feel sorry for the
mechanical robots, but as for the human workers, they seem pretty damn
happy.  They might not have a car, AND a color TV, AND
air-conditioning, like over 90% of the "poor" in our country have all
three, but they are working on that.

Emphasis on the "working". I love all this talk about "screw the rest
of the world".  China tried that a few thousand years ago - they've
got the Wall to prove it!

BTW, what congregation of the Church of Luddite do you belong to?

Brad


On 7/25/09, tapartnews at fastmail.net <tapartnews at fastmail.net> wrote:
>
> Your friend Ray Tapajna - Tapsearch Com Editor has sent you a link to the
> following post:
>
> Blog Title: Ethics Box
> Post Title: Must look back in order to go forward - it's economic deja vu
> Post URL: http://www.ethicsbox.com/dejavueconomics1/
>
>
> See also Ray Tapajna Chronicles review of Pope Benedict economic encyclical
> at http://tapsearch.com/pope-benedict-economic-encyclical
>
>
> Regards,
>
> The Orble Team
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 09:02:55 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:02:55 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ethics Box: Must look back in order to go
	forward - it's economic deja vu - some analayis and commentary
Message-ID: <6016DBAE6FA74C2BABC503CC16869A3F@YOURB88038198E>

In reading this post and related other on line leads referred to in it, there is a lack of understanding of capitalism.  And that lack of understanding is based on a socialist point of view.

That failure to understand was best illustrated in Ronald Reagan's quotation of the story of the "Red Hen".

And that is who is entitle to ones work product.  And what that work product is.  Simply put when one's work product is sold over its cost, then profit is the result.  Under capitalism that profit is the individuals.  Under socialism it is the states, hence the current term 'statism'.

A different issue is the corporation and the question can a artificial creation, that is a corporation, have the same rights as an individual.  

My answer is that an individuals rights are delineated in under the term natural law referred to and defined in the U. S. Constitution.  A corporation only has rights expressly given it under laws enacted by the Congress and individual states.  This same applies to municipal corporations and federal bureaucracies.

The Pope's view according to artiles referred to is that profits are exploitative.  That view is wrong as a starting point.  Read and understand Reagan's Red hen.  Gain referred to as profits are not exploitive and wrong in fact.  But like lust of power, and thru manipulation might be.  And that might be has to be judged separately from using the economic system of capitalism which as a system has raised our standard of living.  

And in way of comparison, that might be under capitalism has resulted in much less evil than under socialism.  Compare the results of capitalism in the U. S. with socialist based systems such as nazism, communisim, etc.

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 09:18:50 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 09:18:50 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad, regarding   http://tinyurl.com/kk49d3
Message-ID: <1F7C198D540A482DA137BAD3F3416A42@YOURB88038198E>

That was great.  Small wonder California has issues.  

So you are still thinking about running then...  Good, let us know when to decide to do something.  

Alternativley, I am soliticing contribution for Senator Jim Demint who has been getting personal attacks fro B.O.  I want to buy him a bullet proof vest.  

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 26 09:48:18 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:48:18 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ethics Box: Must look back in order to go
	forward - it's economic deja vu - some analayis and commentary
In-Reply-To: <6016DBAE6FA74C2BABC503CC16869A3F@YOURB88038198E>
References: <6016DBAE6FA74C2BABC503CC16869A3F@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907260648t23d47d0eu2d30080e100b3f42@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Funny you should mention the Pope. I'm not Catholic but did send both
of my boys to Catholic high schools.  You've heard my stories about
Father Tribou before so I won't repeat them all today, but the dear
Father (actually he was a Monseigneur but he wasn't much for
formalities) never let the kids forget who paid for the auditorium
where they were seated. The sponsor (also not Catholic) was a former
client of mine who was rich. I kinda liked the fact that he was rich,
it helped pay my way through college.

A friend of mine, a Presbyterian Minister (never set foot in his
church) and his wife invited me over for dinner on Thursday because
they knew I was running solo for the week.  I asked him if the economy
had hurt the collection plate (knowing what the answer was in
advance). He's a recovering Obama supporter, so just for
enlightenment,  I asked him what he thought the effect of higher taxes
on his parishioners and the elimination of charitable deductions on
the "rich" would have on his funding. Like I said, he's in recovery
but at least he's crossed the first step - denial.

My oldest niece is married to a pig farmer.  Before you start feeling
sorry for my niece, her husband runs a 5000 acre farm that grows lots,
and lots of corn and feeds it to a gazillion pigs.  He's very adept at
playing the corn price against the pork belly price.  But the
government with their infinite wisdom has decided to subsidize ethanol
(pure politics) so the pigs have been the loser. The real losers are
the "destitute workers" in third world countries who have seen their
food prices rise 30%.

I love reading all the grandiose plans our 'gubment' has been
designing for us lately. At least  Chairman Mao kept his failed ideas
to a five year limit in the planning phase.  What's next, a thousand
year Reich?

Brad





On 7/26/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> In reading this post and related other on line leads referred to in it,
> there is a lack of understanding of capitalism.  And that lack of
> understanding is based on a socialist point of view.
>
> That failure to understand was best illustrated in Ronald Reagan's quotation
> of the story of the "Red Hen".
>
> And that is who is entitle to ones work product.  And what that work product
> is.  Simply put when one's work product is sold over its cost, then profit
> is the result.  Under capitalism that profit is the individuals.  Under
> socialism it is the states, hence the current term 'statism'.
>
> A different issue is the corporation and the question can a artificial
> creation, that is a corporation, have the same rights as an individual.
>
> My answer is that an individuals rights are delineated in under the term
> natural law referred to and defined in the U. S. Constitution.  A
> corporation only has rights expressly given it under laws enacted by the
> Congress and individual states.  This same applies to municipal corporations
> and federal bureaucracies.
>
> The Pope's view according to artiles referred to is that profits are
> exploitative.  That view is wrong as a starting point.  Read and understand
> Reagan's Red hen.  Gain referred to as profits are not exploitive and wrong
> in fact.  But like lust of power, and thru manipulation might be.  And that
> might be has to be judged separately from using the economic system of
> capitalism which as a system has raised our standard of living.
>
> And in way of comparison, that might be under capitalism has resulted in
> much less evil than under socialism.  Compare the results of capitalism in
> the U. S. with socialist based systems such as nazism, communisim, etc.
>
> Ed K

From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 11:16:50 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 11:16:50 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Another Iran brewing
Message-ID: <EBDFA3A42D5144E2BC6227311561A4DF@YOURB88038198E>

In a few weeks I will be making a two week trip to Ukraine as a tourist.  It is an organized tour.

However, I routinely correspond with some insiders in the Ukraine.

Ukraine will be having national elections in October 2009.  There have been three major factions and several minor groups since Ukraine became independent of the Soviets in 1992.  

Recall the recent turmoil in Georgia.  

Ukraine has several major divisions.  Western Ukraine is from the Diepro river west.  Eastern Ukraine and the more industrial part east of the river.  Also, Eastern Ukraine is much more Russian in both population and language.  The Crimea where the Russian Black Sea Fleet anchors is the third issue.

My contacts are very worried about what is about to happen.  They predict violence and a major upheaval.  Come October, Obama may have a major conflict on his hands and a real war.  The Ukrainians are making serious preparations for war and violence.

Just for your information.

Ed K
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 17:24:08 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:24:08 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Part of email on Ukraine received
Message-ID: <660D84458C3B422E9F818E4651F53FA5@YOURB88038198E>


Some politicians in Ukraine and Russia are using the 'creating a crisis' technique to influence their elections.
So much for the breadbasket of Europe:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Ed,

I am sending you just a short part of the large article about the present serious difficulties of the Agricultural industry of Ukraine that can lead to the paralysis of this seemingly successful year to gather the wheat from Ukrainian fields:

http://exo.at.ua/news

"The large store of the wheat of the last year in Ukraine that mainly lost its food quality and quick falling of the world prices do not give any opportunities to hope for sufficiently high prices for the wheat grain on the inner market during the harvesting time. There are other prognoses and most of them are very pessimistic for Ukrainian farmers. According to these prognoses, the price can fell to 800 hrivnas (about $100.0-$110 per metric ton) during next several weeks. And it is under the condition that the cost price to produce 1.0 metric ton of wheat grain during this agricultural season is higher than 1200 hrivnas in Ukraine (or $155.0-$160.0) for our farmers, as stated Mr. Leonid Kozachenko, the President of Ukrainian Agricultural Confederation. Many farmers have stopped to harvest the wheat and other grain because it is cheaper to leave the grain on the fields than to keep harvest it and to suffer total bankruptcy losses. It seems that being passive in this very dangerous situation, the Ukrainian Government wants to make the situation just catastrophic thus creating some doubtfully preferable conditions for some political leaders during the coming Parliament and the President elections*.. What does expect us during the next several months taking into account that the situation with importing the natural gas from Russia and the visible financial fiasco of the state company NaftoGasUkraine can lead to the total financial paralysis of the economics of the country?. "

I will be looking for the official and independent Ukrainian Internet sources of information that have the English translation to let you read them.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Does this sound like Obama's technique of creating crisis situations that require government intervention?


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From ekroposki at charter.net  Sun Jul 26 17:24:08 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 17:24:08 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Part of email on Ukraine received
Message-ID: <D36C46D261D4498D81FF5AE8EFE6AE12@YOURB88038198E>


Some politicians in Ukraine and Russia are using the 'creating a crisis' technique to influence their elections.
So much for the breadbasket of Europe:

_______________________________________________________________________________________________

Dear Ed,

I am sending you just a short part of the large article about the present serious difficulties of the Agricultural industry of Ukraine that can lead to the paralysis of this seemingly successful year to gather the wheat from Ukrainian fields:

http://exo.at.ua/news

"The large store of the wheat of the last year in Ukraine that mainly lost its food quality and quick falling of the world prices do not give any opportunities to hope for sufficiently high prices for the wheat grain on the inner market during the harvesting time. There are other prognoses and most of them are very pessimistic for Ukrainian farmers. According to these prognoses, the price can fell to 800 hrivnas (about $100.0-$110 per metric ton) during next several weeks. And it is under the condition that the cost price to produce 1.0 metric ton of wheat grain during this agricultural season is higher than 1200 hrivnas in Ukraine (or $155.0-$160.0) for our farmers, as stated Mr. Leonid Kozachenko, the President of Ukrainian Agricultural Confederation. Many farmers have stopped to harvest the wheat and other grain because it is cheaper to leave the grain on the fields than to keep harvest it and to suffer total bankruptcy losses. It seems that being passive in this very dangerous situation, the Ukrainian Government wants to make the situation just catastrophic thus creating some doubtfully preferable conditions for some political leaders during the coming Parliament and the President elections*.. What does expect us during the next several months taking into account that the situation with importing the natural gas from Russia and the visible financial fiasco of the state company NaftoGasUkraine can lead to the total financial paralysis of the economics of the country?. "

I will be looking for the official and independent Ukrainian Internet sources of information that have the English translation to let you read them.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

*Does this sound like Obama's technique of creating crisis situations that require government intervention?


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From flybrad at gmail.com  Sun Jul 26 20:32:48 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 2009 19:32:48 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Sweeden Has Had Enough!
Message-ID: <400985d70907261732p4481761by8f9e04d90e9f281a@mail.gmail.com>

2009 International Investing Guide
Sweden's Public Downsizing
Anita Raghavan, 08.03.09, 12:00 AM ET

Think the answer to America's problems is bigger government? Swedish
Finance Minister Anders Borg has seen the result up close and says
it's not pretty for the economy or investors.

Anders Borg has a message for those who look to government to take
over health care, rescue the financial system and run troubled
corporations: I have seen the future--and it doesn't work.

As the finance minister of Sweden, Borg is the chief financial officer
of a country long known as a walking billboard for a social welfare
state. In Borg's view, the 1970s and 1980s were lost decades for
Sweden. Left-leaning politicians pushed government spending, excluding
investment outlays, from 22% of gross domestic product in 1970 to 30%
in 1980. Real growth fell from an average of 4.4% annually in the
1960s to 2.4% in the 1970s and remained low for the next two decades.

"Like many societies, we went too far in our welfare-state ambitions,"
say Borg (pronounced "Bor-ee").

These days President Obama is overseeing the largest increase in the
U.S. government's share of the economy since it was conducting a world
war almost seven decades ago. Economic stimulus, bailouts and expanded
health care will all have to be paid for someday with either taxes or
inflation. Borg is pushing Sweden in the opposite direction,
encouraging the legislature to cut taxes, cap spending and privatize
parts of health care.

"If you're working yourselves upwards in taxes and deficits, we're
working ourselves downwards," says Borg. (FORBES recently interviewed
him in Berlin, where he had delivered a speech.)

If you think Borg has the right idea, put your money on it. Sell some
U.S. stocks and buy some Swedish ones (see table, below).

Borg, 41, doesn't look like a finance minister or fiscal conservative.
The Stockholm native wears a long ponytail and gold loop earring. His
hippie appearance hides a dyed-in-the-wool free marketeer who
champions the idea of "making work pay." That is a revolutionary
concept in a country where the penalty for working has historically
been high taxes and the reward for staying home a comfortable welfare
or unemployment check.

In a 1988 debate that is now a YouTube favorite of conservative
Swedes, Borg calls for a "night watchman's state" in which the
government provides security but little else. In a book from that era,
The Sleeping People, Borg's boss, Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt,
compared the effects of Sweden's welfare state to the plague and aids.

"It was a very youthful comment," Borg says of his call for
near-elimination of government. "When you become older, you get
children. [He is married with three children.] You change your views."

Or you go into politics and tone them down. Borg was born into a
family of Social Democrats. He became disenchanted after concluding
the indulgent government was turning Sweden into a "boring, stagnant
society." Borg's idols were free marketeers Margaret Thatcher and
Ronald Reagan.

After studying political science, economic history and philosophy at
Uppsala University, Borg worked for four years as a political advisor
to then prime minister Carl Bildt. Following Sweden's 1990s financial
crisis, when it bailed out its own banks, he became a securities
analyst. The first thing he noticed was how little faith investors had
in Sweden because of the size of its government sector. He came away a
firm believer in free markets and sound government finances.

Next year Sweden's government is projected to be on the hook for gross
financial liabilities equal to 57% of GDP, which is up from 48% two
years ago. The debt of U.S. government entities, by contrast, is
expected to nearly equal GDP by next year, versus 63% in 2007, says
the Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development.

Borg says it's quite possible to combine "a flexible, market-oriented
system with the traditional values of Sweden." By "traditional" he
means valuing social cohesion, a publicly financed safety net of some
sort and gender equality. Parity between the sexes is a tenet of the
Social Democratic swing of the 1980s and, Borg says, of the Viking
era.

Though no longer the rabble-rouser he was in his youth, Borg has a
penchant for throwing listeners off-balance with an impish smile and
unstatesmanlike comments. He chides the U.S. for its huge deficits and
ballooning entitlements. "The U.S. needs to produce more, export more
and save more," he suggests, savoring the irony that it should look to
Sweden for free-market guidance. Even its Social Democrats quickly
privatized banks after bailing them out in the 1990s.

Since sweeping to power in 2006, Reinfeldt's center-right Alliance has
been shrinking Sweden's welfare state. The government is resisting
calls to rescue its struggling auto industry. To hear Borg tell it,
his government isn't inspired by coldhearted Darwinism but by cold,
hard evidence that the easier the state makes life for people, the
easier they take it.

Sweden has long had among the most lavish unemployment benefits in the
OECD, and when Borg's Alliance came to power one-quarter of Swedes
were subsisting on the government dole through unemployment or
sickness benefits. That figure is now down to 20%. As part of its
makeover, the government tightened sickness and unemployment benefits
to strip Swedes of some of the world's highest sickness absentee rates
(40.2 days yearly when Borg's government came into power, 34.6 days
now).

Borg's prescription for growth is simple: cut taxes. His government
has slashed the tax rate on low incomes from 30.7% to 17.1%. The
combined tax take (national and local; income and other) has fallen by
2.5 percentage points in three years to 46.6% of gross domestic
product.

Borg's enemies accused him of using "black-market cleaners" in his
home. The finance minister counters he was cleared in an
investigation--the cleaners' wages didn't reach the threshold above
which taxes are due--and that he's not an antitax extremist.

"Given that we're taking money out of people's paychecks, we have to
be responsible," he says of his low-tax ethos. As for domestic help,
Borg has proposed a cash-for-cleaners policy in which individuals
would receive annual 50,000 kroner ($6,300) tax credits for employing
any in-home help.

Among other tax cuts: Reinfeldt has done away with a wealth tax and
cut corporate and property taxes. Those are on top of the Social
Democrats' elimination of inheritance taxes before Borg came to power,
as well as investment of a portion of the state's pension assets in
the stock market--something reminiscent of George W. Bush's failed
attempt to reform Social Security.

As the U.S. takes over some corporations outright, and offers others
financial lifelines, Sweden is unloading scores of industries. It is
selling state-owned pharmacies and plans to put its remaining 37%
stake in telecom incumbent TeliaSonera on the block when market prices
improve. Last spring it unloaded Absolut Vodka. A distillery, Borg
notes drily, is not a core function for either a welfare state or a
night watchman's state.

Swedish health care is getting a whiff of free marketeering, too. The
government's abolition of the "Stop Law" is expected to give a green
light to hospital privatization, and starting next year local
authorities will have to offer private primary care options.

Investors in Sweden may already be reaping modest dividends. Since the
Alliance government came to power, the OMX Stockholm 30 Index has lost
an annualized 11.3% of its value (in dollar terms), which is 1.8
percentage points better than the S&P 500 and 2.2 percentage points
ahead of the MSCI EAFE Index.

Borg says he's risking not only his nation's future but also his own
money on free markets.

"I'm not a rich man, but what little I have I invest in Swedish
stocks" via index funds, he says.

From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 27 08:24:15 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:24:15 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] What is in a name (Rummy sent this)
Message-ID: <C85CDAB4246F4580B6B6BD46F5425EE8@YOURB88038198E>



A good looking man walked into an agent's office in Hollywood and said 'I
want to be a movie star.' 
Tall, handsome and with experience on Broadway, he had the  right
credentials. The agent asked, 'What's your name?'
The guy said, 'My name is Penis van Lesbian.'
The agent said, 'Sir, I hate to tell you, but in order to get into
Hollywood, you are going to have to change your name.'

'I will NOT change my name! The van Lesbian name is centuries old, I will
not disrespect my grandfather by

changing my name. Not ever.' 

The agent said, 'Sir, I have worked in Hollywood for years....you will NEVER
go far in Hollywood with 

a name like Penis van Lesbian! I'm telling you, you will HAVE TO change your
name or I will not  be able to represent you.' 



'So be it! I guess we will not do business
together' the guy said and he left the agent's office. 



FIVE YEARS LATER... The agent opens an envelope sent 

to his office. Inside the envelope is a letter and a check 

for $50,000. The agent is awe-struck, who would possibly

send him $ 50,000? 



He reads the letter  enclosed... 
'Dear Sir, Five years ago, I came into your
office wanting to become an  actor in Hollywood, 

you told me I needed to change my name. 

Determined to make  it with my God-given birth name, I refused.

You told me I would never make it in  Hollywood with a name 

like Penis van Lesbian. After I left your office, I 
thought about what you said. I decided you were right. I
had to change my name.  I had too much pride to return to your office, 

so I signed with another agent. I would never have made it 

without changing my name, so the enclosed check is a token of my
appreciation.' 


Thank you for your advice. 

Sincerely, 




Dick van Dyke 
(Now I don't care who you are, that's funny!) 


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From ekroposki at charter.net  Mon Jul 27 08:30:17 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:30:17 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] economic - political information where I am
	heading in a couple of weeks:
Message-ID: <DCB16E9BCFF14F1997C5170C4BCB9A45@YOURB88038198E>




1.  Alex continued to send me information Sunday, his supposed day off:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ukrainian/domestic/story/2009/06/090611_yusch_naftogas_oh.shtml

 

The President Yushchenko calls save NJSC Naftogaz of Ukraine''''

 

President Yushchenko called on the government and leadership Neftegaz within 10 days to develop a plan of salvation, calling critical condition Neftegaz. 

 

According to Mr. Yushchenko, to, as he argued disastrous state, the company came through the new gas agreement with Russia, signed by the Government earlier this year, as well as through non-payment for consumed gas. President proposes to revise contracts with Gazprom and reduce the volume of gas, which Ukraine undertook to buy, to avoid penalties by Gazprom.

 

Victor Yushchenko also suggested that transportation of Russian gas and Ukrainian territory was carried out on a transport for a fee. "

 

According to the President since the beginning of Naftogaz gas sold for 23 billion USD, and got him to 5 billion USD less

 

The President said: ?Critical charges taken, may not last long. They bear, or pyramid, where the "lie" ?Naftogaz?, or lead to the total collapse of financial system ?.

 

According to Viktor Yushchenko, from the beginning, the amount of imported gas over 4 billion cubic meters and the company for payment using credit Sberbank worth 140 million dollars, and 485 million dollars, and received an advance payment for transit of gas a year in advance of $ 450 million.

 

The President has repeatedly stated that the NAC ?Naftogaz Ukrainy? is on the verge of bankruptcy, on June 9 this year.  He said that the government should reform the energy market and improve the financial status of the NAC in the next 30-50 days.

 

Problems ?Naftogaz Ukrainy? is not resolved for years, and critics noted that loss of artificially created by the opaque network of intermediaries who select the company billions of dollars in state revenues, leaving the state billions of dollars of losses.



So I check the BBC and found this page to evaluate his sources:



http://search.bbc.co.uk/search?go=homepage&scope=all&q=ukraine&Search=Search

 

2.  I quoted Alex's appraisal of the Ukrainian situation from a previous email back to him:  "It seems that being passive in this very dangerous situation, the Ukrainian Government wants to make the situation just catastrophic thus creating some doubtfully preferable conditions for some political leaders during the coming Parliament and the President elections.. What does expect us during the next several months taking into account that the situation with importing the natural gas from Russia and the visible financial fiasco of the state company NaftoGasUkraine can lead to the total financial paralysis of the economics of the country?. "

 

I sent him a copy from the web site American Thinker which discussed the political intent of creating artificial crises:  "Barack Obama and the Strategy of manufactured Crisis By James Simpson"

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/09/barack_obama_and_the_strategy.html

 

Here is his reply:

 

Dear Ed, 

 

Thank you very much for so deep and wonderful article. Here in the office we will have the perfect subject for discussions having coffee breaks during this working day. I believe some of our local political leaders will be very thankful to know the main points of the article though it will take me some time to translate it. Later I will call (a translator helper) and ask her to help me with the written translation.

 

Well, well, well.. Here in Ukraine we have our problems and you have the similar problems in your country. It is difficult to believe that the similar article can appear just several years ago in your country commenting the politics of any previous Presidents of the United States. I guess, James Simpson has to be very-y-y careful writing such articles. In my country I would not bet even a nickel for his life.

 

The only difference between the top leaders of our countries is that:

 

a) our present President plays the role of passive idiot-beekeeper that spends most of his time on his apiary paying no attention to the dangerous problems for the nation;

 

b) our Prime-Minister and the leader of the political opposition fight with each other who bring faster the country to the brink of inevitable and complete disaster and to throw it into the Russia's pocket again to get the Russia's support during the coming President's election. 

 

 During the Soviet time we heard The Voice of America and BBC and we knew the real situation in and around the Soviet Union. Now, practically nobody cares about Ukraine. We do not have the true description and comments on the situation in and around Ukraine. The nation does not have any reliable sources of information and analytic analyses of the situation. People do not know who can be trusted. And it is perfectly used by local political frauds and scoundrels that destroy Ukraine either to their personal needs or/and fulfilling the interests of their bosses/benefactors in Russia.

 

 To our great pity, there is no one organization of Ukrainians abroad or foreigners with Ukrainian roots who could try to restore supply of Ukrainians here and abroad with the true information and serious and reliable analyses and predictions as it was done by James Simpson and other bright analysts in your country. 

 

Thank you. Have a nice day.

 

Alex 

 

 

 

 

 
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Mon Jul 27 13:22:51 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:22:51 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racism
Message-ID: <400985d70907271022q61c41dbfg611b0474c6927c36@mail.gmail.com>

Yup!
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 08:43:06 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:43:06 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Another Obama Friend With Tax Problems
Message-ID: <400985d70907280543g7063f92ek89efd61ac465c336@mail.gmail.com>

Go figure, another Obama friend who can't seem to figure out his taxes.  Brad

- article from InsideHigherEd.com

Scrutiny for Foundation Run by Henry Louis Gates

A foundation created and led by Henry Louis Gates Jr. is amending its
federal tax form after questions were raised about $11,000 paid to
foundation officers -- funds that the original tax form called
research grants, but that should have been classified as compensation,
ProPublica reported. When the payments are accounted for accurately,
the foundation's administrative expenses will account for 40 percent
of its spending in 2007, not 1 percent as originally reported to the
Internal Revenue Service. Gates created the Inkwell Foundation with
the goal of supporting work on African and African-American
literature, history and culture, the article said. The report by
ProPublica also noted that some of the actual grants went to people
close to Gates. Gates told ProPublica that the foundation's
second-largest grant, for $6,000, went to his fianc?e, Angela DeLeon.
DeLeon was formerly on the foundation board and Gates said he recused
himself from a vote on the grant. A grant of $500 went to Evelyn
Higginbotham, chair of the foundation's board and chair of Harvard
University's Department of African and African-American studies. Gates
said she didn't vote on the grant. ProPublica is an organization that
conducts investigative journalism. The article noted that Gates -- the
Harvard scholar who is a leading figure in African-American studies
whose arrest at his home has set off a national debate about the way
black men are treated by law enforcement -- also serves on
ProPublica's board.


From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul 28 08:44:33 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:44:33 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's method of reducing health care costs
	related to age
Message-ID: <EE791340F977417D9552B57BC9E207A4@YOURB88038198E>

See:  

http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104719


Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 08:56:34 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 07:56:34 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
Message-ID: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>

http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 09:10:54 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:10:54 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's method of reducing health care
	costs related to age
In-Reply-To: <EE791340F977417D9552B57BC9E207A4@YOURB88038198E>
References: <EE791340F977417D9552B57BC9E207A4@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907280610w63f36e7fwe8c0ef279e39995c@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Beating Obamacare is a watershed event for the nation - we must beat
Obama on this issue! My parents have been living on Medicare for over
25 years and I'm glad they have it, but it is hardly the model for the
nation to follow.  Neither is the VA system which my father uses for
his hearing aids. My mother is a hard bargainer and so far they've
been successful in finding doctors who would accept Medicare, but it
hasn't always been easy. The "you can keep your current insurance" is
THE BIG LIE.  Joseph Goebbels must have written this line. Companies
will pass off health insurance to the government system immediately.
This problem can be solved and I'd love for it to be solved.  I know
too many self-employed, unemployed, and others (like my brother) that
need access to affordable health care.  Any one of us could generate 5
workable ideas off the top of our head that wouldn't bankrupt the
treasury.  Speaking of which, we need to assure the long-term
viability of Medicare before we take on another program.

This is not about health care, THIS IS A MARXIST POWER PLAY!

Brad

On 7/28/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> See:
>
> http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104719
>
>
> Ed K

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 09:31:50 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:31:50 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>

Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they wanted
to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
starting see through this guy for what he is.

Brad

------------

July 28, 2009
A Post-Racial President?
By Thomas Sowell

Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United
States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.

That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
financially, and socially.

Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it
expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first
posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned
to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
elected.

Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
anything.

With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite
of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.

As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to
be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
Cambridge.

For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
beyond recognition by politics.

The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes
the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
racial paranoia.

For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
received far too little attention, though it should have been a
high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.

What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a
community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.

To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
triumph of wishful thinking over reality.

Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of
cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
expect from Eric Holder.

The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
than any words from him or his president.

President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
racial entitlement.

An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media.
But we should never forget what we saw.

On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 09:50:00 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 08:50:00 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] For Ed - Don't Let The Door Hit You In The Ass!
Message-ID: <400985d70907280650r7792ccebyea7e15c3ece5033f@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Here's what one GOP Senator had to say about your friend (below).
He's retiring next year and it won't be soon enough.  Maybe Ted
Stevens will invite him to go fishing together in Alaska. The two
belong together.  Lott is already gone, hmmm, maybe McCain next?

And by the way, asswipe, Oklahoma is not a Southern state.

Good Riddance!

Brad

-----------

Too many conservative senators like Jim DeMint (R-S.C.) and Tom Coburn
(R-Okla.) are to blame for the GOP's downfall, one of their retiring
Republican colleagues complained Monday.

"We got too many Jim DeMints and Tom Coburns," Sen. George Voinovich
(R-Ohio) told the Columbus Dispatch. "It's the southerners."

Voinovich, a native Clevelander who retires after the 2010 election,
continued after the southern elements of the GOP.

"They get on TV and go 'errrr, errrrr,'" he said. "People hear them
and say, 'These people, they're southerners. The party's being taken
over by southerners. What they hell they got to do with Ohio?'"

From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Tue Jul 28 10:58:24 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:58:24 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>

Brad,

I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In this 
essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not that it 
truly matters to the issue.

We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:

    "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
    rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
    that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
    the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."

In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current political 
"leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for 
President and global warming for race.  Political Science and Political 
Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.

Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"

Mike

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
To: "Letters to the Editor" 
<swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!


> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they wanted
> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>
> Brad
>
> ------------
>
> July 28, 2009
> A Post-Racial President?
> By Thomas Sowell
>
> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United
> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>
> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
> financially, and socially.
>
> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it
> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first
> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned
> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
> elected.
>
> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
> anything.
>
> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite
> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>
> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to
> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
> Cambridge.
>
> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
> beyond recognition by politics.
>
> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes
> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
> racial paranoia.
>
> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>
> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a
> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>
> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>
> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of
> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
> expect from Eric Holder.
>
> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
> than any words from him or his president.
>
> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
> racial entitlement.
>
> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media.
> But we should never forget what we saw.
>
> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> 


--
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We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 10:57:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:57:33 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Obama's method of reducing health care
	costs related to age
In-Reply-To: <EE791340F977417D9552B57BC9E207A4@YOURB88038198E>
References: <EE791340F977417D9552B57BC9E207A4@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907280757r7fb374e5m1d8d12662d916042@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

I hadn't read this article yet when I posted earlier, but it supports
everything I said before, the Obamacare plan will suck. It is time for
everyone to go into a "full court press".  Write your legislators,
call, e-mail.  Party affiliation doesn't matter.  We have to gain mass
and scare the shit out of these people.  Later, we can slow down and
come-up with a sane and rational plan.  Even if it is was a good deal,
which it isn't, we can't possibly afford it.  China isn't going to
loan us the money.  We can't tax the "rich" enough - even if we just
confiscated all the wealth of the "rich" we couldn't afford it. BTW,
don't mention that last idea too loudly, some in this administration
would start salivating.  Fan and I shopped in a huge grocery store on
land that the communists stole from her grandfather in the 50's.

Brad

--------------

from Forbes -

By Shawn Tully, editor at large
July 24, 2009: 10:17 AM ET

NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President
Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their
existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize
will be enhanced through reform.

A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the
House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee,
contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to
comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by
page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that
would radically change your health-care coverage.

If you prize choosing your own cardiologist or urologist under your
company's Preferred Provider Organization plan (PPO), if your employer
rewards your non-smoking, healthy lifestyle with reduced premiums, if
you love the bargain Health Savings Account (HSA) that insures you
just for the essentials, or if you simply take comfort in the freedom
to spend your own money for a policy that covers the newest drugs and
diagnostic tests -- you may be shocked to learn that you could lose
all of those good things under the rules proposed in the two bills
that herald a health-care revolution.

In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive,
and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people
would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a
highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and
tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the
wrong direction.

Let's explore the five freedoms that Americans would lose under Obamacare:

1. Freedom to choose what's in your plan

The bills in both houses require that Americans purchase insurance
through "qualified" plans offered by health-care "exchanges" that
would be set up in each state. The rub is that the plans can't really
compete based on what they offer. The reason: The federal government
will impose a minimum list of benefits that each plan is required to
offer.

Today, many states require these "standard benefits packages" -- and
they're a major cause for the rise in health-care costs. Every group,
from chiropractors to alcohol-abuse counselors, do lobbying to get
included. Connecticut, for example, requires reimbursement for hair
transplants, hearing aids, and in vitro fertilization.

The Senate bill would require coverage for prescription drugs,
mental-health benefits, and substance-abuse services. It also requires
policies to insure "children" until the age of 26. That's just the
starting list. The bills would allow the Department of Health and
Human Services to add to the list of required benefits, based on
recommendations from a committee of experts. Americans, therefore,
wouldn't even know what's in their plans and what they're required to
pay for, directly or indirectly, until after the bills become law.

2. Freedom to be rewarded for healthy living, or pay your real costs

As with the previous example, the Obama plan enshrines into federal
law one of the worst features of state legislation: community rating.
Eleven states, ranging from New York to Oregon, have some form of
community rating. In its purest form, community rating requires that
all patients pay the same rates for their level of coverage regardless
of their age or medical condition.

Americans with pre-existing conditions need subsidies under any plan,
but community rating is a dubious way to bring fairness to health
care. The reason is twofold: First, it forces young people, who
typically have lower incomes than older workers, to pay far more than
their actual cost, and gives older workers, who can afford to pay
more, a big discount. The state laws gouging the young are a major
reason so many of them have joined the ranks of uninsured.

Under the Senate plan, insurers would be barred from charging any more
than twice as much for one patient vs. any other patient with the same
coverage. So if a 20-year-old who costs just $800 a year to insure is
forced to pay $2,500, a 62-year-old who costs $7,500 would pay no more
than $5,000.

Second, the bills would ban insurers from charging differing premiums
based on the health of their customers. Again, that's understandable
for folks with diabetes or cancer. But the bills would bar rewarding
people who pursue a healthy lifestyle of exercise or a
cholesterol-conscious diet. That's hardly a formula for lower costs.
It's as if car insurers had to charge the same rates to safe drivers
as to chronic speeders with a history of accidents.

3. Freedom to choose high-deductible coverage

The bills threaten to eliminate the one part of the market truly
driven by consumers spending their own money. That's what makes a
market, and health care needs more of it, not less.

Hundreds of companies now offer Health Savings Accounts to about 5
million employees. Those workers deposit tax-free money in the
accounts and get a matching contribution from their employer. They can
use the funds to buy a high-deductible plan -- say for major medical
costs over $12,000. Preventive care is reimbursed, but patients pay
all other routine doctor visits and tests with their own money from
the HSA account. As a result, HSA users are far more cost-conscious
than customers who are reimbursed for the majority of their care.

The bills seriously endanger the trend toward consumer-driven care in
general. By requiring minimum packages, they would prevent patients
from choosing stripped-down plans that cover only major medical
expenses. "The government could set extremely low deductibles that
would eliminate HSAs," says John Goodman of the National Center for
Policy Analysis, a free-market research group. "And they could do it
after the bills are passed."

4. Freedom to keep your existing plan

This is the freedom that the President keeps emphasizing. Yet the
bills appear to say otherwise. It's worth diving into the weeds -- the
territory where most pundits and politicians don't seem to have
ventured.

The legislation divides the insured into two main groups, and those
two groups are treated differently with respect to their current
plans. The first are employees covered by the Employee Retirement
Security Act of 1974. ERISA regulates companies that are self-insured,
meaning they pay claims out of their cash flow, and don't have real
insurance. Those are the GEs (GE, Fortune 500) and Time Warners (TWX,
Fortune 500) and most other big companies.

The House bill states that employees covered by ERISA plans are
"grandfathered." Under ERISA, the plans can do pretty much what they
want -- they're exempt from standard packages and community rating and
can reward employees for healthy lifestyles even in restrictive
states.

But read on.

The bill gives ERISA employers a five-year grace period when they can
keep offering plans free from the restrictions of the "qualified"
policies offered on the exchanges. But after five years, they would
have to offer only approved plans, with the myriad rules we've already
discussed. So for Americans in large corporations, "keeping your own
plan" has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you'll get
dumped into the exchange. As we'll see, it could happen a lot earlier.

The outlook is worse for the second group. It encompasses employees
who aren't under ERISA but get actual insurance either on their own or
through small businesses. After the legislation passes, all insurers
that offer a wide range of plans to these employees will be forced to
offer only "qualified" plans to new customers, via the exchanges.

The employees who got their coverage before the law goes into effect
can keep their plans, but once again, there's a catch. If the plan
changes in any way -- by altering co-pays, deductibles, or even
switching coverage for this or that drug -- the employee must drop out
and shop through the exchange. Since these plans generally change
their policies every year, it's likely that millions of employees will
lose their plans in 12 months.

5. Freedom to choose your doctors

The Senate bill requires that Americans buying through the exchanges
-- and as we've seen, that will soon be most Americans -- must get
their care through something called "medical home." Medical home is
similar to an HMO. You're assigned a primary care doctor, and the
doctor controls your access to specialists. The primary care
physicians will decide which services, like MRIs and other diagnostic
scans, are best for you, and will decide when you really need to see a
cardiologists or orthopedists.

Under the proposals, the gatekeepers would theoretically guide
patients to tests and treatments that have proved most cost-effective.
The danger is that doctors will be financially rewarded for denying
care, as were HMO physicians more than a decade ago. It was consumer
outrage over despotic gatekeepers that made the HMOs so unpopular, and
killed what was billed as the solution to America's health-care cost
explosion.

The bills do not specifically rule out fee-for-service plans as
options to be offered through the exchanges. But remember, those plans
-- if they exist -- would be barred from charging sick or elderly
patients more than young and healthy ones. So patients would be
inclined to game the system, staying in the HMO while they're healthy
and switching to fee-for-service when they become seriously ill. "That
would kill fee-for-service in a hurry," says Goodman.

In reality, the flexible, employer-based plans that now dominate the
landscape, and that Americans so cherish, could disappear far faster
than the 5 year "grace period" that's barely being discussed.

Companies would have the option of paying an 8% payroll tax into a
fund that pays for coverage for Americans who aren't covered by their
employers. It won't happen right away -- large companies must wait a
couple of years before they opt out. But it will happen, since it's
likely that the tax will rise a lot more slowly than corporate
health-care costs, especially since they'll be lobbying Washington to
keep the tax under control in the righteous name of job creation.

The best solution is to move to a let-freedom-ring regime of high
deductibles, no community rating, no standard benefits, and
cross-state shopping for bargains (another market-based reform that's
strictly taboo in the bills). I'll propose my own solution in another
piece soon on Fortune.com. For now, we suffer with a flawed
health-care system, but we still have our Five Freedoms. Call them the
Five Endangered Freedoms.


On 7/28/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
> See:
>
> http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=104719
>
>
> Ed K

From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 11:19:14 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 10:19:14 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
Message-ID: <400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>

Mike,

It get's worse.  Watch this!

http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG

Your government at work.

Brad

On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In this
> essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not that it
> truly matters to the issue.
>
> We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
>
>     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
>     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
>     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
>
> In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current political
> "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
> President and global warming for race.  Political Science and Political
> Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
>
> Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
>
> Mike
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
> To: "Letters to the Editor"
> <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
> Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
> Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
>
>
>> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
>> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they wanted
>> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
>> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> ------------
>>
>> July 28, 2009
>> A Post-Racial President?
>> By Thomas Sowell
>>
>> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United
>> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
>> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>>
>> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
>> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
>> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
>> financially, and socially.
>>
>> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it
>> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
>> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
>> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
>> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first
>> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned
>> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
>> elected.
>>
>> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
>> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
>> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
>> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
>> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
>> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
>> anything.
>>
>> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
>> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite
>> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>>
>> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
>> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
>> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
>> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to
>> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
>> Cambridge.
>>
>> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
>> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
>> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
>> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
>> beyond recognition by politics.
>>
>> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes
>> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
>> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
>> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
>> racial paranoia.
>>
>> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
>> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
>> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
>> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>>
>> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
>> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a
>> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
>> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
>> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>>
>> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
>> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
>> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>>
>> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
>> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of
>> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
>> expect from Eric Holder.
>>
>> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
>> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
>> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
>> than any words from him or his president.
>>
>> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
>> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
>> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
>> racial entitlement.
>>
>> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
>> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
>> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media.
>> But we should never forget what we saw.
>>
>> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
> --
> I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
> We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
> SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
> Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
>
> The Professional version does not have this message
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>

From mweisner at ebsmed.com  Tue Jul 28 11:52:40 2009
From: mweisner at ebsmed.com (Michael D. Weisner)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 11:52:40 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com><400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com><E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6C975DB2CA0F4E96AF9433C3F4958427@ebsoffice>

Brad,

Although I would not express myself in the way that Conyers did, I tend to 
agree with his statement - it IS IMPOSSIBLE to read and digest a 1,000 page 
document in a couple of days.  I take it that this is exactly the intention 
of the administration - they call it full disclosure, although I label it 
ridiculous and irresponsible.

Mike


From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com> Tuesday, July 28, 2009 11:19 AM
> Mike,
>
> It get's worse.  Watch this!
>
> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
>
> Your government at work.
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
>> Brad,
>>
>> I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In this
>> essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not that 
>> it
>> truly matters to the issue.
>>
>> We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
>>
>>     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>>     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
>>     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
>>     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
>>
>> In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current political
>> "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
>> President and global warming for race.  Political Science and Political
>> Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
>>
>> Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
>>
>> Mike
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> To: "Letters to the Editor"
>> <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
>> Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
>> Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
>>
>>
>>> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
>>> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they wanted
>>> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
>>> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>> ------------
>>>
>>> July 28, 2009
>>> A Post-Racial President?
>>> By Thomas Sowell
>>>
>>> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United
>>> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
>>> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>>>
>>> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
>>> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
>>> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
>>> financially, and socially.
>>>
>>> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it
>>> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
>>> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
>>> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
>>> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first
>>> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned
>>> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
>>> elected.
>>>
>>> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
>>> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
>>> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
>>> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
>>> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
>>> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
>>> anything.
>>>
>>> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>>> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
>>> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite
>>> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>>>
>>> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
>>> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
>>> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
>>> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to
>>> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
>>> Cambridge.
>>>
>>> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
>>> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
>>> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
>>> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
>>> beyond recognition by politics.
>>>
>>> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes
>>> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
>>> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
>>> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
>>> racial paranoia.
>>>
>>> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
>>> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
>>> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
>>> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>>>
>>> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
>>> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a
>>> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
>>> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
>>> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>>>
>>> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
>>> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
>>> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>>>
>>> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
>>> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of
>>> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
>>> expect from Eric Holder.
>>>
>>> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
>>> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
>>> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
>>> than any words from him or his president.
>>>
>>> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
>>> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
>>> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
>>> racial entitlement.
>>>
>>> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
>>> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
>>> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media.
>>> But we should never forget what we saw.
>>>
>>> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
>> We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
>> SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
>> Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
>>
>> The Professional version does not have this message
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
> 


--
I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len

The Professional version does not have this message



From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 13:25:48 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 12:25:48 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that you
didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?

Does no good to read it indeed

Rik

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> It get's worse.  Watch this!
>
> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
>
> Your government at work.
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> > Brad,
> >
> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In this
> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not that
> it
> > truly matters to the issue.
> >
> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
> >
> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
> >
> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current political
> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and Political
> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
> >
> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
> >
> > Mike
> >
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
> >
> >
> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they wanted
> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> ------------
> >>
> >> July 28, 2009
> >> A Post-Racial President?
> >> By Thomas Sowell
> >>
> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United
> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
> >>
> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
> >> financially, and socially.
> >>
> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it
> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first
> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned
> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
> >> elected.
> >>
> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
> >> anything.
> >>
> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite
> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
> >>
> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to
> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
> >> Cambridge.
> >>
> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
> >> beyond recognition by politics.
> >>
> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes
> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
> >> racial paranoia.
> >>
> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
> >>
> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a
> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
> >>
> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
> >>
> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of
> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
> >> expect from Eric Holder.
> >>
> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
> >> than any words from him or his president.
> >>
> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
> >> racial entitlement.
> >>
> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media.
> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
> >>
> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
> >>>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
> >
> > The Professional version does not have this message
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 14:15:43 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 13:15:43 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Here's another spin on the bill -

http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927

Of course we "whiteys" aren't allowed opinions on things like this because were
 R-A-C-I-E-S-T-S!  BTW, how's your cotton crop doing in Minnesota?
They recently kicked me out of the KKK and changed the secret
handshake at the local chapter of the Skinheads once they found out
about my miscegenation daughter.

Dr. Sowell pegged this guy in his article.  He's a two-bit race
hustler with a Harvard degree.  We told you so!

Brad



On 7/28/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that you
> didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?
>
> Does no good to read it indeed
>
> Rik
>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Mike,
>>
>> It get's worse.  Watch this!
>>
>> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
>>
>> Your government at work.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
>> > Brad,
>> >
>> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In
>> > this
>> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not
>> > that
>> it
>> > truly matters to the issue.
>> >
>> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
>> >
>> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
>> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
>> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
>> >
>> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current political
>> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
>> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and Political
>> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
>> >
>> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
>> >
>> > Mike
>> >
>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
>> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
>> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
>> >
>> >
>> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
>> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they wanted
>> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
>> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>> >>
>> >> Brad
>> >>
>> >> ------------
>> >>
>> >> July 28, 2009
>> >> A Post-Racial President?
>> >> By Thomas Sowell
>> >>
>> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the United
>> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
>> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>> >>
>> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
>> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
>> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
>> >> financially, and socially.
>> >>
>> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found it
>> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
>> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
>> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
>> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it first
>> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which turned
>> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
>> >> elected.
>> >>
>> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
>> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
>> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
>> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
>> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
>> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
>> >> anything.
>> >>
>> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
>> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the opposite
>> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>> >>
>> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
>> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
>> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
>> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed to
>> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
>> >> Cambridge.
>> >>
>> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
>> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
>> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
>> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
>> >> beyond recognition by politics.
>> >>
>> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it polarizes
>> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
>> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
>> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
>> >> racial paranoia.
>> >>
>> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
>> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
>> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
>> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>> >>
>> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
>> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a
>> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
>> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
>> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>> >>
>> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
>> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
>> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>> >>
>> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
>> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation of
>> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
>> >> expect from Eric Holder.
>> >>
>> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
>> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
>> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
>> >> than any words from him or his president.
>> >>
>> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
>> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
>> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
>> >> racial entitlement.
>> >>
>> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
>> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
>> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the media.
>> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
>> >>
>> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>> >>>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
>> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
>> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
>> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
>> >
>> > The Professional version does not have this message
>> >
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul 28 15:07:10 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:07:10 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] For Ed - Don't Let The Door Hit You
Message-ID: <02A810A65E8948F2BAA5E61D8C8975CC@YOURB88038198E>

Brad,

A couple of weeks ago he told me he was running for reelection.  Not dropping out like the Ohio Senator.

Actually, he does not talk southern.  The upper part of Greenville County is in the southern Appalachian Mountains.  He is a native southern Appalachian...  And talks like it... Which is different from low county southern.  In fact, most people do not understand Greenville Politics.  Greenville voted against succession and openly discussed succeeding from South Carolina in 1860.  

However, he hates trying to raise money.  He said he will need to raise a couple of million.  You get the idea the national Democrats will be gunning for him.  He expects opposition from some big name South Carolina Democrat.

He typically comes home every Friday to get out of Dodge.  I suggested to an old long time newspaper man that he run a drive to buy Jim a Kelvar Vest...

Now if only Mike would run against his cousin from Brooklyn, Chucky boy.

Ed K
-------------- next part --------------
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 15:11:16 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 14:11:16 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907281211u1439b43cp23fcfb128177a3f6@mail.gmail.com>

I need to correct the spelling of "racist" anyway, so I'll add this
while I'm in the process (from a few days ago) -

http://tinyurl.com/mn347u

Since the Attorney General said we're "cowards" about discussing race,
and the POTUS wants a "teaching moment", let's have it!

Brad

On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Rik,
>
> Here's another spin on the bill -
>
> http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927
>
> Of course we "whiteys" aren't allowed opinions on things like this because
> were
>  R-A-C-I-E-S-T-S!  BTW, how's your cotton crop doing in Minnesota?
> They recently kicked me out of the KKK and changed the secret
> handshake at the local chapter of the Skinheads once they found out
> about my miscegenation daughter.
>
> Dr. Sowell pegged this guy in his article.  He's a two-bit race
> hustler with a Harvard degree.  We told you so!
>
> Brad
>
>
>
> On 7/28/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Brad,
>>
>> I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that you
>> didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?
>>
>> Does no good to read it indeed
>>
>> Rik
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Mike,
>>>
>>> It get's worse.  Watch this!
>>>
>>> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
>>>
>>> Your government at work.
>>>
>>> Brad
>>>
>>> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
>>> > Brad,
>>> >
>>> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In
>>> > this
>>> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not
>>> > that
>>> it
>>> > truly matters to the issue.
>>> >
>>> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
>>> >
>>> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>>> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
>>> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
>>> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
>>> >
>>> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current political
>>> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
>>> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and
>>> > Political
>>> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
>>> >
>>> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
>>> >
>>> > Mike
>>> >
>>> > ----- Original Message -----
>>> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
>>> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
>>> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
>>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
>>> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
>>> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they
>>> >> wanted
>>> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
>>> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>>> >>
>>> >> Brad
>>> >>
>>> >> ------------
>>> >>
>>> >> July 28, 2009
>>> >> A Post-Racial President?
>>> >> By Thomas Sowell
>>> >>
>>> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the
>>> >> United
>>> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
>>> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>>> >>
>>> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
>>> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
>>> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
>>> >> financially, and socially.
>>> >>
>>> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found
>>> >> it
>>> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial candidate,
>>> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
>>> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
>>> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it
>>> >> first
>>> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which
>>> >> turned
>>> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
>>> >> elected.
>>> >>
>>> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
>>> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
>>> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
>>> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
>>> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
>>> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can believe
>>> >> anything.
>>> >>
>>> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>>> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
>>> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the
>>> >> opposite
>>> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>>> >>
>>> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
>>> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
>>> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
>>> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed
>>> >> to
>>> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
>>> >> Cambridge.
>>> >>
>>> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
>>> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
>>> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
>>> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been distorted
>>> >> beyond recognition by politics.
>>> >>
>>> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it
>>> >> polarizes
>>> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
>>> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
>>> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
>>> >> racial paranoia.
>>> >>
>>> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock in
>>> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
>>> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
>>> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>>> >>
>>> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a
>>> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within
>>> >> a
>>> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
>>> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
>>> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>>> >>
>>> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
>>> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
>>> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>>> >>
>>> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
>>> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation
>>> >> of
>>> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
>>> >> expect from Eric Holder.
>>> >>
>>> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
>>> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
>>> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
>>> >> than any words from him or his president.
>>> >>
>>> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
>>> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
>>> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense of
>>> >> racial entitlement.
>>> >>
>>> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask. When
>>> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
>>> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the
>>> >> media.
>>> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
>>> >>
>>> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>>> >>>
>>> >> _______________________________________________
>>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> >>
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>> >>
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > --
>>> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
>>> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
>>> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
>>> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
>>> >
>>> > The Professional version does not have this message
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > _______________________________________________
>>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>> >
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>> >
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>>
>>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
>> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>>
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 16:39:15 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 15:39:15 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Health Care Gets Even Worse!
Message-ID: <400985d70907281339u48088816u97a336714f6af536@mail.gmail.com>

First, here's a video -

http://tinyurl.com/nbz9ny

The kid is hard to understand so I'm posting a transcript below.
Here's the scary part about what he said -

"Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
from being or becoming participating citizens?"

I did a little homework on that and indeed he said it, here is the
just part of what the doctor said -

Emanuel, however, believes that ?communitarianism? should guide
decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved
for the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly
prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An
obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with
dementia? (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ?96). Read the whole
thing - http://tinyurl.com/l3knuk

It gets worse -

- Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention
and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving
quality are merely ?lipstick? cost control, more for show and public
relations than for true change,? he wrote last year (Health Affairs
Feb. 27, 2008).

- Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about
their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, ?as
an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost
or effects on others? (Journal of the American Medical Association,
June 18, 2008)."

- Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious
discrimination; every person lives through different life stages
rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority
over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25
years? (Lancet, Jan. 31).

Now I knew Rahm Emanuel was crazy, but his brother the medical doctor
sounds like Dr. Mengele to me. And what the hell is  communitarianism?
THIS IS THE PERSON WRITING THE HEALTH CARE BILL! What he's saying is
that some government employee, maybe someone from ACORN, will
determine if you're too old, or too crazy to receive treatment.

Read the whole source article in the New York Post here -

http://tinyurl.com/lasau2

Pass the word, share this, is this what you want? PLEASE! Fight this
thing! (don't forget the transcript below)

Brad

-------------

CONCERNS FROM A VOTER WITH A DISABILITY
McCASKILL TOWN HALL MEETING
JULY 27, 2009

I am a young adult who is profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant,
starting my second year of college in September.

I would not be able to hear anything without my implant, except maybe
a jet engine.

With my cochlear implant, I can talk on the telephone, I can carry on
oral conversations, and I can hear music. It has enriched my life
tremendously.

Cochlear implant surgery is not inexpensive. Currently it costs
between $50,000 and $60,000 per ear.

After this surgery it is important to receive the correct education
afterward so the child can learn how to talk. It is expensive to
educate a child who is deaf.

It is also expensive to provide services to a child who is deaf who is
not oral. Interpreters are needed for them to talk to people who are
hearing.

When my mother told me of the health bills being considered by the
House and Senate, and how they impacted disabled people, I wanted
people to know how that would impact me and how difficult it would be
to succeed in life without the services I have received.

Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
from being or becoming participating citizens?? ?.

Does that include me? If medical decisions are being made by the
government; not by my doctors, my parents, or me, I would be
determined to be too expensive to receive the services I need to be
able to navigate my way in the world.

This is a bad plan for those with special needs. Tell Senator
McCaskill to vote NO.

Noah Logue
St. Louis, MO


From ekroposki at charter.net  Tue Jul 28 18:50:52 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:50:52 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Ben Stein on Barack Obama...
Message-ID: <9A9408F9248B40B8B5D0A3010D5C5752@YOURB88038198E>

      The American Spectator
      July 24, 2009
      http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/24/weve-figured-him-out
      By Ben Stein 
      We've Figured Him Out
      Why is President Barack Obama in such a hurry to get his socialized medicine bill passed?
      Because he and his cunning circle realize some basic truths:
      The American people in their unimaginable kindness and trust voted for a pig in a poke in 2008. They wanted so much to believe Barack Obama was somehow better and different from other ultra-leftists that they simply took him on faith.

      They ignored his anti-white writings in his books. They ignored his quiet acceptance of hysterical anti-American diatribes by his minister, Jeremiah Wright.
      They ignored his refusal to explain years at a time of his life as a student. They ignored his ultra-left record as a "community organizer," Illinois state legislator, and Senator.
      The American people ignored his total zero of an academic record as a student and teacher, his complete lack of scholarship when he was being touted as a scholar.
      Now, the American people are starting to wake up to the truth. Barack Obama is a super likeable super leftist, not a fan of this country, way, way too cozy with the terrorist leaders in the Middle East, way beyond na?vet?, all the way into active destruction of our interests and our allies and our future.
      The American people have already awakened to the truth that the stimulus bill -- a great idea in theory -- was really an immense bribe to Democrat interest groups, and in no way an effort to help all Americans.
      Now, Americans are waking up to the truth that ObamaCare basically means that every time you are sick or injured, you will have a clerk from the Department of Motor Vehicles telling your doctor what he can and cannot do.
      The American people already know that Mr. Obama's plan to lower health costs while expanding coverage and bureaucracy is a myth, a promise of something that never was and never will be -- a bureaucracy lowering costs in a free society. Either the costs go up or the free society goes away.
      These are perilous times. Mrs. Hillary Clinton, our Secretary of State, has given Iran the go-ahead to have nuclear weapons, an unqualified betrayal of the nation. Now, we face a devastating loss of freedom at home in health care. It will be joined by controls on our lives to "protect us" from global warming, itself largely a fraud if believed to be caused by man.
      Mr. Obama knows Americans are getting wise and will stop him if he delays at all in taking away our freedoms.
      There is his urgency and our opportunity. Once freedom is lost, America is lost. Wake up, beloved America.

      Ben Stein is a writer, actor, economist, and lawyer living in Beverly Hills and Malibu. He writes "Ben Stein's Diary" for every issue of The American Spectator. 


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From flybrad at gmail.com  Tue Jul 28 19:38:31 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:38:31 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Health Care Gets Even Worse!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907281339u48088816u97a336714f6af536@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907281339u48088816u97a336714f6af536@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907281638n77143663y9e36f26273d948b0@mail.gmail.com>

Update and a good article I stumbled across today -

We may, I repeat may, have dodged a bullet until after the August
recess. About 4pm today the GOP got word from the majority that there
would be no vote on Friday. Then Queen Nancy sent word, "not so fast".
 Keep your fingers crossed.  The Senate doesn't leave town until a
week later so they could pass a watered down bill and then the House
comes back and puts everything back in place. The House members did
not want to go home and face their constituents on this - let's hope
they do.  Keep the pressure on, it's working.

I've been saying for years, look at TennCare, look at TennCare! These
idiots are trying to re-invent the wheel, a broken wheel. This article
explains it all -

http://tinyurl.com/lk4cvd

Bredesen, the TN Guv, is a smart guy and one of the Democrats I voted
for.  He's wealthy from the health care business and even he can't
figure out how to keep TennCare solvent.  Marsha Blackburn is my
congressman - I live about a hundred yards in her district.  Pay
special attention to the part about employers dumping employees.

Why won't these a*holes study TennCare?  Because it isn't about
providing health-care, it's a power grab.

Brad

On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> First, here's a video -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/nbz9ny
>
> The kid is hard to understand so I'm posting a transcript below.
> Here's the scary part about what he said -
>
> "Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
> wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
> the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
> from being or becoming participating citizens?"
>
> I did a little homework on that and indeed he said it, here is the
> just part of what the doctor said -
>
> Emanuel, however, believes that ?communitarianism? should guide
> decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved
> for the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly
> prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An
> obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with
> dementia? (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ?96). Read the whole
> thing - http://tinyurl.com/l3knuk
>
> It gets worse -
>
> - Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention
> and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving
> quality are merely ?lipstick? cost control, more for show and public
> relations than for true change,? he wrote last year (Health Affairs
> Feb. 27, 2008).
>
> - Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about
> their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, ?as
> an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost
> or effects on others? (Journal of the American Medical Association,
> June 18, 2008)."
>
> - Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious
> discrimination; every person lives through different life stages
> rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority
> over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25
> years? (Lancet, Jan. 31).
>
> Now I knew Rahm Emanuel was crazy, but his brother the medical doctor
> sounds like Dr. Mengele to me. And what the hell is  communitarianism?
> THIS IS THE PERSON WRITING THE HEALTH CARE BILL! What he's saying is
> that some government employee, maybe someone from ACORN, will
> determine if you're too old, or too crazy to receive treatment.
>
> Read the whole source article in the New York Post here -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/lasau2
>
> Pass the word, share this, is this what you want? PLEASE! Fight this
> thing! (don't forget the transcript below)
>
> Brad
>
> -------------
>
> CONCERNS FROM A VOTER WITH A DISABILITY
> McCASKILL TOWN HALL MEETING
> JULY 27, 2009
>
> I am a young adult who is profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant,
> starting my second year of college in September.
>
> I would not be able to hear anything without my implant, except maybe
> a jet engine.
>
> With my cochlear implant, I can talk on the telephone, I can carry on
> oral conversations, and I can hear music. It has enriched my life
> tremendously.
>
> Cochlear implant surgery is not inexpensive. Currently it costs
> between $50,000 and $60,000 per ear.
>
> After this surgery it is important to receive the correct education
> afterward so the child can learn how to talk. It is expensive to
> educate a child who is deaf.
>
> It is also expensive to provide services to a child who is deaf who is
> not oral. Interpreters are needed for them to talk to people who are
> hearing.
>
> When my mother told me of the health bills being considered by the
> House and Senate, and how they impacted disabled people, I wanted
> people to know how that would impact me and how difficult it would be
> to succeed in life without the services I have received.
>
> Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
> wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
> the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
> from being or becoming participating citizens?? ?.
>
> Does that include me? If medical decisions are being made by the
> government; not by my doctors, my parents, or me, I would be
> determined to be too expensive to receive the services I need to be
> able to navigate my way in the world.
>
> This is a bad plan for those with special needs. Tell Senator
> McCaskill to vote NO.
>
> Noah Logue
> St. Louis, MO
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 07:48:40 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 06:48:40 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Global Warming
Message-ID: <400985d70907290448q41c419c1vb900616181d61e11@mail.gmail.com>

Oh boy, another author farts in the Church of Global Warming (below).
Better not let the Senate read this before they vote on the Cap-n-tax
bill the House passed. Remember what the POTUS said, "under my plan,
electricity rates would skyrocket".

Brad

----------------------

Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites

Geologist Ian Plimer takes a contrary view, arguing that man-made
climate change is a con trick perpetuated by environmentalists

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver SunJuly 28, 2009



Ian Plimer has outraged the ayatollahs of purist environmentalism, the
Torquemadas of the doctrine of global warming, and he seems to relish
the damnation they heap on him.

Plimer is a geologist, professor of mining geology at Adelaide
University, and he may well be Australia's best-known and most
notorious academic.

Plimer, you see, is an unremitting critic of "anthropogenic global
warming" -- man-made climate change to you and me -- and the current
environmental orthodoxy that if we change our polluting ways, global
warming can be reversed.

It is, of course, not new to have a highly qualified scientist saying
that global warming is an entirely natural phenomenon with many
precedents in history. Many have made the argument, too, that it is
rubbish to contend human behaviour is causing the current climate
change. And it has often been well argued that it is totally
ridiculous to suppose that changes in human behaviour -- cleaning up
our act through expensive slight-of-hand taxation tricks -- can
reverse the trend.

But most of these scientific and academic voices have fallen silent in
the face of environmental Jacobinism. Purging humankind of its
supposed sins of environmental degradation has become a religion with
a fanatical and often intolerant priesthood, especially among the
First World urban elites.

But Plimer shows no sign of giving way to this orthodoxy and has just
published the latest of his six books and 60 academic papers on the
subject of global warming. This book, Heaven and Earth -- Global
Warming: The Missing Science, draws together much of his previous
work. It springs especially from A Short History of Plant Earth, which
was based on a decade of radio broadcasts in Australia.

That book, published in 2001, was a best-seller and won several
prizes. But Plimer found it hard to find anyone willing to publish
this latest book, so intimidating has the environmental lobby become.

But he did eventually find a small publishing house willing to take
the gamble and the book has already sold about 30,000 copies in
Australia. It seems also to be doing well in Britain and the United
States in the first days of publication.

Plimer presents the proposition that anthropogenic global warming is
little more than a con trick on the public perpetrated by
fundamentalist environmentalists and callously adopted by politicians
and government officials who love nothing more than an issue that
causes public anxiety.

While environmentalists for the most part draw their conclusions based
on climate information gathered in the last few hundred years,
geologists, Plimer says, have a time frame stretching back many
thousands of millions of years.

The dynamic and changing character of the Earth's climate has always
been known by geologists. These changes are cyclical and random, he
says. They are not caused or significantly affected by human
behaviour.

Polar ice, for example, has been present on the Earth for less than 20
per cent of geological time, Plimer writes. Plus, animal extinctions
are an entirely normal part of the Earth's evolution.

(Plimer, by the way, is also a vehement anti-creationist and has been
hauled into court for disrupting meetings by religious leaders and
evangelists who claim the Bible is literal truth.)

Plimer gets especially upset about carbon dioxide, its role in Earth's
daily life and the supposed effects on climate of human manufacture of
the gas. He says atmospheric carbon dioxide is now at the lowest
levels it has been for 500 million years, and that atmospheric carbon
dioxide is only 0.001 per cent of the total amount of the chemical
held in the oceans, surface rocks, soils and various life forms.
Indeed, Plimer says carbon dioxide is not a pollutant, but a plant
food. Plants eat carbon dioxide and excrete oxygen. Human activity, he
says, contributes only the tiniest fraction to even the atmospheric
presence of carbon dioxide.

There is no problem with global warming, Plimer says repeatedly. He
points out that for humans periods of global warming have been times
of abundance when civilization made leaps forward. Ice ages, in
contrast, have been times when human development slowed or even
declined.

So global warming, says Plimer, is something humans should welcome and
embrace as a harbinger of good times to come.

jmanthorpe at vancouversun.com

From newsworld at fastmail.net  Mon Jul 27 12:35:02 2009
From: newsworld at fastmail.net (Tapart News Editor)
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 12:35:02 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] A total free courtesy of Tapsearch Com sites
Message-ID: <1248712502.13604.1326998293@webmail.messagingengine.com>

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http://www.fastmail.fm - Does exactly what it says on the tin


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 09:38:18 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:38:18 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907281211u1439b43cp23fcfb128177a3f6@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281211u1439b43cp23fcfb128177a3f6@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907290638x370c4c11w296f07930c61e4f8@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

I think Barack Obama is living proof that if a black man wants a better job
all he needs to do is 1. buy a pair of pants that fits, 2. put his cap on
straight, and 3. learn how to speak English (even if he has to use a
teleprompter) and he'll be able to bullshit his way into almost any job he
wants.

The biggest trouble most poor black people have is, you can give them a lot
of things, but a job isn't one of them. And, to be honest, this is true for
much of the "poor" community, not just the poor black community.

But I suppose it is racist to suggest that if a person would look and act
like a civilized human being, other civilized human beings might want to
have them around.

We spent about 30 years,from the '60s to the '90s trying to make affirmative
action work. I think it's been pretty well proven that it doesn't. Why is it
SO hard for some people to learn from history??? I'll tell you why .....
'cause they make a lot of money at it.

Rik


On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> I need to correct the spelling of "racist" anyway, so I'll add this
> while I'm in the process (from a few days ago) -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/mn347u
>
> Since the Attorney General said we're "cowards" about discussing race,
> and the POTUS wants a "teaching moment", let's have it!
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Rik,
> >
> > Here's another spin on the bill -
> >
> > http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927
> >
> > Of course we "whiteys" aren't allowed opinions on things like this
> because
> > were
> >  R-A-C-I-E-S-T-S!  BTW, how's your cotton crop doing in Minnesota?
> > They recently kicked me out of the KKK and changed the secret
> > handshake at the local chapter of the Skinheads once they found out
> > about my miscegenation daughter.
> >
> > Dr. Sowell pegged this guy in his article.  He's a two-bit race
> > hustler with a Harvard degree.  We told you so!
> >
> > Brad
> >
> >
> >
> > On 7/28/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> Brad,
> >>
> >> I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that you
> >> didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?
> >>
> >> Does no good to read it indeed
> >>
> >> Rik
> >>
> >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Mike,
> >>>
> >>> It get's worse.  Watch this!
> >>>
> >>> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
> >>>
> >>> Your government at work.
> >>>
> >>> Brad
> >>>
> >>> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> >>> > Brad,
> >>> >
> >>> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In
> >>> > this
> >>> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not
> >>> > that
> >>> it
> >>> > truly matters to the issue.
> >>> >
> >>> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
> >>> >
> >>> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> >>> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
> >>> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have been
> >>> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
> >>> >
> >>> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current
> political
> >>> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
> >>> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and
> >>> > Political
> >>> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
> >>> >
> >>> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
> >>> >
> >>> > Mike
> >>> >
> >>> > ----- Original Message -----
> >>> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
> >>> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
> >>> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
> >>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
> >>> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could figure
> >>> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they
> >>> >> wanted
> >>> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
> >>> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Brad
> >>> >>
> >>> >> ------------
> >>> >>
> >>> >> July 28, 2009
> >>> >> A Post-Racial President?
> >>> >> By Thomas Sowell
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the
> >>> >> United
> >>> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
> >>> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of us
> >>> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
> >>> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
> >>> >> financially, and socially.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found
> >>> >> it
> >>> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial
> candidate,
> >>> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
> >>> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
> >>> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it
> >>> >> first
> >>> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which
> >>> >> turned
> >>> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
> >>> >> elected.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
> >>> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
> >>> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
> >>> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
> >>> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
> >>> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can
> believe
> >>> >> anything.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> >>> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
> >>> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the
> >>> >> opposite
> >>> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
> >>> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
> >>> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
> >>> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed
> >>> >> to
> >>> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
> >>> >> Cambridge.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
> >>> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
> >>> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac Donald.
> >>> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been
> distorted
> >>> >> beyond recognition by politics.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it
> >>> >> polarizes
> >>> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
> >>> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
> >>> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest in
> >>> >> racial paranoia.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock
> in
> >>> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
> >>> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
> >>> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize
> a
> >>> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within
> >>> >> a
> >>> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
> >>> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
> >>> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
> >>> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
> >>> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
> >>> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation
> >>> >> of
> >>> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
> >>> >> expect from Eric Holder.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young black
> >>> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
> >>> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks louder
> >>> >> than any words from him or his president.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
> >>> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
> >>> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense
> of
> >>> >> racial entitlement.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask.
> When
> >>> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for a
> >>> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the
> >>> >> media.
> >>> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
> >>> >>
> >>> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
> >>> >>>
> >>> >> _______________________________________________
> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>> >>
> >>>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>> >>
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > --
> >>> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
> >>> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
> >>> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
> >>> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
> >>> >
> >>> > The Professional version does not have this message
> >>> >
> >>> >
> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>> >
> >>>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>> >
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>>
> >>>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> >> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
> >>
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 10:29:43 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:29:43 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907290638x370c4c11w296f07930c61e4f8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281211u1439b43cp23fcfb128177a3f6@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907290638x370c4c11w296f07930c61e4f8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907290729i3abb2655xd33e513ae259de92@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

The way to end racial discrimination is to quit discriminating based
on race. A co-worker of mine as an instructor was admitted to the Air
Force Academy on an athletic scholarship, but he could easily have
been admitted on grades and scores as well. He's a great guy, a
terrific instructor, and a solid pilot.  But, he bears the stigma of
"The Black Pilot" - is he here because of his abilities or
affirmative-action?  Personally, I think affirmative-action has out
lived its usefulness. The same is true for special treatment for
women.  Back in the early 80's, white males got passed over for pilot
hiring or had their class dates postponed (me for example) to hire
women who were marginally qualified.  Some were able to "hack it" and
others created a hostile environment that lasted for two decades. I
can accept that affirmative action might have been needed at one time
to "open the doors", but that time has passed.

BTW, I got my class roster for training starting at the end of AUG and
my sim partner is a former 727 student of mine from 15 years ago.
Nancy was a fun student and could "fly the dogshit" out of the '72.
It should be a fun trip through the school house.

As they say, time to MoveOn!

Brad

On 7/29/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> I think Barack Obama is living proof that if a black man wants a better job
> all he needs to do is 1. buy a pair of pants that fits, 2. put his cap on
> straight, and 3. learn how to speak English (even if he has to use a
> teleprompter) and he'll be able to bullshit his way into almost any job he
> wants.
>
> The biggest trouble most poor black people have is, you can give them a lot
> of things, but a job isn't one of them. And, to be honest, this is true for
> much of the "poor" community, not just the poor black community.
>
> But I suppose it is racist to suggest that if a person would look and act
> like a civilized human being, other civilized human beings might want to
> have them around.
>
> We spent about 30 years,from the '60s to the '90s trying to make affirmative
> action work. I think it's been pretty well proven that it doesn't. Why is it
> SO hard for some people to learn from history??? I'll tell you why .....
> 'cause they make a lot of money at it.
>
> Rik
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I need to correct the spelling of "racist" anyway, so I'll add this
>> while I'm in the process (from a few days ago) -
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/mn347u
>>
>> Since the Attorney General said we're "cowards" about discussing race,
>> and the POTUS wants a "teaching moment", let's have it!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Rik,
>> >
>> > Here's another spin on the bill -
>> >
>> > http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927
>> >
>> > Of course we "whiteys" aren't allowed opinions on things like this
>> because
>> > were
>> >  R-A-C-I-E-S-T-S!  BTW, how's your cotton crop doing in Minnesota?
>> > They recently kicked me out of the KKK and changed the secret
>> > handshake at the local chapter of the Skinheads once they found out
>> > about my miscegenation daughter.
>> >
>> > Dr. Sowell pegged this guy in his article.  He's a two-bit race
>> > hustler with a Harvard degree.  We told you so!
>> >
>> > Brad
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 7/28/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Brad,
>> >>
>> >> I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that you
>> >> didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?
>> >>
>> >> Does no good to read it indeed
>> >>
>> >> Rik
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Mike,
>> >>>
>> >>> It get's worse.  Watch this!
>> >>>
>> >>> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
>> >>>
>> >>> Your government at work.
>> >>>
>> >>> Brad
>> >>>
>> >>> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
>> >>> > Brad,
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In
>> >>> > this
>> >>> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not
>> >>> > that
>> >>> it
>> >>> > truly matters to the issue.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
>> >>> >
>> >>> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> >>> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
>> >>> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have
>> >>> > been
>> >>> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
>> >>> >
>> >>> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current
>> political
>> >>> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
>> >>> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and
>> >>> > Political
>> >>> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Mike
>> >>> >
>> >>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> >>> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> >>> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
>> >>> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
>> >>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
>> >>> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could
>> >>> >> figure
>> >>> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they
>> >>> >> wanted
>> >>> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
>> >>> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Brad
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> ------------
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> July 28, 2009
>> >>> >> A Post-Racial President?
>> >>> >> By Thomas Sowell
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the
>> >>> >> United
>> >>> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
>> >>> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of
>> >>> >> us
>> >>> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
>> >>> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
>> >>> >> financially, and socially.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found
>> >>> >> it
>> >>> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial
>> candidate,
>> >>> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
>> >>> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
>> >>> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it
>> >>> >> first
>> >>> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which
>> >>> >> turned
>> >>> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
>> >>> >> elected.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
>> >>> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
>> >>> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
>> >>> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
>> >>> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
>> >>> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can
>> believe
>> >>> >> anything.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> >>> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
>> >>> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the
>> >>> >> opposite
>> >>> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
>> >>> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
>> >>> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
>> >>> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed
>> >>> >> to
>> >>> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
>> >>> >> Cambridge.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
>> >>> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
>> >>> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac
>> >>> >> Donald.
>> >>> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been
>> distorted
>> >>> >> beyond recognition by politics.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it
>> >>> >> polarizes
>> >>> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
>> >>> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
>> >>> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest
>> >>> >> in
>> >>> >> racial paranoia.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock
>> in
>> >>> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
>> >>> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
>> >>> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize
>> a
>> >>> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia
>> >>> >> within
>> >>> >> a
>> >>> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
>> >>> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
>> >>> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
>> >>> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
>> >>> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
>> >>> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation
>> >>> >> of
>> >>> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
>> >>> >> expect from Eric Holder.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young
>> >>> >> black
>> >>> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
>> >>> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks
>> >>> >> louder
>> >>> >> than any words from him or his president.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
>> >>> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
>> >>> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense
>> of
>> >>> >> racial entitlement.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask.
>> When
>> >>> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for
>> >>> >> a
>> >>> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the
>> >>> >> media.
>> >>> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>> >>> >>>
>> >>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>> >>
>> >>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > --
>> >>> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
>> >>> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
>> >>> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
>> >>> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
>> >>> >
>> >>> > The Professional version does not have this message
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > _______________________________________________
>> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>> >
>> >>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>> >
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch,
>> >> and
>> >> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>> >>
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 10:51:02 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 09:51:02 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Health Care Gets Even Worse!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907281638n77143663y9e36f26273d948b0@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907281339u48088816u97a336714f6af536@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281638n77143663y9e36f26273d948b0@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907290751h1492ae37leeeac63c1c46478b@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

It all comes down to this: If we're going to put safety nets out there, we
must understand that people will intentionally fall into them, think it's
pretty nice and stay. Eventually they come to think of them as a "right".
Giving people free stuff doesn't work, never has, never will.

Rik

On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Update and a good article I stumbled across today -
>
> We may, I repeat may, have dodged a bullet until after the August
> recess. About 4pm today the GOP got word from the majority that there
> would be no vote on Friday. Then Queen Nancy sent word, "not so fast".
>  Keep your fingers crossed.  The Senate doesn't leave town until a
> week later so they could pass a watered down bill and then the House
> comes back and puts everything back in place. The House members did
> not want to go home and face their constituents on this - let's hope
> they do.  Keep the pressure on, it's working.
>
> I've been saying for years, look at TennCare, look at TennCare! These
> idiots are trying to re-invent the wheel, a broken wheel. This article
> explains it all -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/lk4cvd
>
> Bredesen, the TN Guv, is a smart guy and one of the Democrats I voted
> for.  He's wealthy from the health care business and even he can't
> figure out how to keep TennCare solvent.  Marsha Blackburn is my
> congressman - I live about a hundred yards in her district.  Pay
> special attention to the part about employers dumping employees.
>
> Why won't these a*holes study TennCare?  Because it isn't about
> providing health-care, it's a power grab.
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> > First, here's a video -
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/nbz9ny
> >
> > The kid is hard to understand so I'm posting a transcript below.
> > Here's the scary part about what he said -
> >
> > "Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
> > wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
> > the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
> > from being or becoming participating citizens?"
> >
> > I did a little homework on that and indeed he said it, here is the
> > just part of what the doctor said -
> >
> > Emanuel, however, believes that ?communitarianism? should guide
> > decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved
> > for the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly
> > prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An
> > obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with
> > dementia? (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ?96). Read the whole
> > thing - http://tinyurl.com/l3knuk
> >
> > It gets worse -
> >
> > - Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention
> > and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving
> > quality are merely ?lipstick? cost control, more for show and public
> > relations than for true change,? he wrote last year (Health Affairs
> > Feb. 27, 2008).
> >
> > - Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about
> > their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, ?as
> > an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost
> > or effects on others? (Journal of the American Medical Association,
> > June 18, 2008)."
> >
> > - Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious
> > discrimination; every person lives through different life stages
> > rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority
> > over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25
> > years? (Lancet, Jan. 31).
> >
> > Now I knew Rahm Emanuel was crazy, but his brother the medical doctor
> > sounds like Dr. Mengele to me. And what the hell is  communitarianism?
> > THIS IS THE PERSON WRITING THE HEALTH CARE BILL! What he's saying is
> > that some government employee, maybe someone from ACORN, will
> > determine if you're too old, or too crazy to receive treatment.
> >
> > Read the whole source article in the New York Post here -
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/lasau2
> >
> > Pass the word, share this, is this what you want? PLEASE! Fight this
> > thing! (don't forget the transcript below)
> >
> > Brad
> >
> > -------------
> >
> > CONCERNS FROM A VOTER WITH A DISABILITY
> > McCASKILL TOWN HALL MEETING
> > JULY 27, 2009
> >
> > I am a young adult who is profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant,
> > starting my second year of college in September.
> >
> > I would not be able to hear anything without my implant, except maybe
> > a jet engine.
> >
> > With my cochlear implant, I can talk on the telephone, I can carry on
> > oral conversations, and I can hear music. It has enriched my life
> > tremendously.
> >
> > Cochlear implant surgery is not inexpensive. Currently it costs
> > between $50,000 and $60,000 per ear.
> >
> > After this surgery it is important to receive the correct education
> > afterward so the child can learn how to talk. It is expensive to
> > educate a child who is deaf.
> >
> > It is also expensive to provide services to a child who is deaf who is
> > not oral. Interpreters are needed for them to talk to people who are
> > hearing.
> >
> > When my mother told me of the health bills being considered by the
> > House and Senate, and how they impacted disabled people, I wanted
> > people to know how that would impact me and how difficult it would be
> > to succeed in life without the services I have received.
> >
> > Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
> > wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
> > the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
> > from being or becoming participating citizens?? ?.
> >
> > Does that include me? If medical decisions are being made by the
> > government; not by my doctors, my parents, or me, I would be
> > determined to be too expensive to receive the services I need to be
> > able to navigate my way in the world.
> >
> > This is a bad plan for those with special needs. Tell Senator
> > McCaskill to vote NO.
> >
> > Noah Logue
> > St. Louis, MO
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 11:11:18 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:11:18 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Health Care Gets Even Worse!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907290751h1492ae37leeeac63c1c46478b@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907281339u48088816u97a336714f6af536@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281638n77143663y9e36f26273d948b0@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907290751h1492ae37leeeac63c1c46478b@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907290811q7b076a4es6a3fc23f1b93291d@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

That was certainly what we witnessed after Katrina.  People who were
paying $500 per month rent plus utilities for a small house or
apartment got right cozy, right quick in their FEMA trailer plus a
stipend.  The program ended just a few months ago and they had to drag
the remaining ones out, kicking and screaming, from "their" home.
Those are the ones that didn't sue FEMA for formaldehyde issues. The
biggest sufferers will be the next round of disaster victims.  FEMA is
out of the trailer business for good.

Health insurance is, well, insurance.  What's next, free car
insurance, homeowners? The government is the only entity that can
issue flood insurance.  Now the wailing and 'nashing of teeth' is that
the Army CORP came out with their new flood maps and they pretty much
prove if you build too near the coast, you'll get flooded. So we
taxpayers have to foot the bills for others desires and/or stupidity,
or listen to them bitch because reality doesn't fit their mold of
fantasy.

So we have the brother of the White House Chief of Staff writing a
bill that will be voted on without it being read.  Yea, that ought to
work out well.

Brad

On 7/29/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> It all comes down to this: If we're going to put safety nets out there, we
> must understand that people will intentionally fall into them, think it's
> pretty nice and stay. Eventually they come to think of them as a "right".
> Giving people free stuff doesn't work, never has, never will.
>
> Rik
>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 6:38 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Update and a good article I stumbled across today -
>>
>> We may, I repeat may, have dodged a bullet until after the August
>> recess. About 4pm today the GOP got word from the majority that there
>> would be no vote on Friday. Then Queen Nancy sent word, "not so fast".
>>  Keep your fingers crossed.  The Senate doesn't leave town until a
>> week later so they could pass a watered down bill and then the House
>> comes back and puts everything back in place. The House members did
>> not want to go home and face their constituents on this - let's hope
>> they do.  Keep the pressure on, it's working.
>>
>> I've been saying for years, look at TennCare, look at TennCare! These
>> idiots are trying to re-invent the wheel, a broken wheel. This article
>> explains it all -
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/lk4cvd
>>
>> Bredesen, the TN Guv, is a smart guy and one of the Democrats I voted
>> for.  He's wealthy from the health care business and even he can't
>> figure out how to keep TennCare solvent.  Marsha Blackburn is my
>> congressman - I live about a hundred yards in her district.  Pay
>> special attention to the part about employers dumping employees.
>>
>> Why won't these a*holes study TennCare?  Because it isn't about
>> providing health-care, it's a power grab.
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > First, here's a video -
>> >
>> > http://tinyurl.com/nbz9ny
>> >
>> > The kid is hard to understand so I'm posting a transcript below.
>> > Here's the scary part about what he said -
>> >
>> > "Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
>> > wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
>> > the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
>> > from being or becoming participating citizens?"
>> >
>> > I did a little homework on that and indeed he said it, here is the
>> > just part of what the doctor said -
>> >
>> > Emanuel, however, believes that ?communitarianism? should guide
>> > decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved
>> > for the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly
>> > prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An
>> > obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with
>> > dementia? (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. ?96). Read the whole
>> > thing - http://tinyurl.com/l3knuk
>> >
>> > It gets worse -
>> >
>> > - Vague promises of savings from cutting waste, enhancing prevention
>> > and wellness, installing electronic medical records and improving
>> > quality are merely ?lipstick? cost control, more for show and public
>> > relations than for true change,? he wrote last year (Health Affairs
>> > Feb. 27, 2008).
>> >
>> > - Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about
>> > their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, ?as
>> > an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost
>> > or effects on others? (Journal of the American Medical Association,
>> > June 18, 2008)."
>> >
>> > - Unlike allocation by sex or race, allocation by age is not invidious
>> > discrimination; every person lives through different life stages
>> > rather than being a single age. Even if 25-year-olds receive priority
>> > over 65-year-olds, everyone who is 65 years now was previously 25
>> > years? (Lancet, Jan. 31).
>> >
>> > Now I knew Rahm Emanuel was crazy, but his brother the medical doctor
>> > sounds like Dr. Mengele to me. And what the hell is  communitarianism?
>> > THIS IS THE PERSON WRITING THE HEALTH CARE BILL! What he's saying is
>> > that some government employee, maybe someone from ACORN, will
>> > determine if you're too old, or too crazy to receive treatment.
>> >
>> > Read the whole source article in the New York Post here -
>> >
>> > http://tinyurl.com/lasau2
>> >
>> > Pass the word, share this, is this what you want? PLEASE! Fight this
>> > thing! (don't forget the transcript below)
>> >
>> > Brad
>> >
>> > -------------
>> >
>> > CONCERNS FROM A VOTER WITH A DISABILITY
>> > McCASKILL TOWN HALL MEETING
>> > JULY 27, 2009
>> >
>> > I am a young adult who is profoundly deaf with a cochlear implant,
>> > starting my second year of college in September.
>> >
>> > I would not be able to hear anything without my implant, except maybe
>> > a jet engine.
>> >
>> > With my cochlear implant, I can talk on the telephone, I can carry on
>> > oral conversations, and I can hear music. It has enriched my life
>> > tremendously.
>> >
>> > Cochlear implant surgery is not inexpensive. Currently it costs
>> > between $50,000 and $60,000 per ear.
>> >
>> > After this surgery it is important to receive the correct education
>> > afterward so the child can learn how to talk. It is expensive to
>> > educate a child who is deaf.
>> >
>> > It is also expensive to provide services to a child who is deaf who is
>> > not oral. Interpreters are needed for them to talk to people who are
>> > hearing.
>> >
>> > When my mother told me of the health bills being considered by the
>> > House and Senate, and how they impacted disabled people, I wanted
>> > people to know how that would impact me and how difficult it would be
>> > to succeed in life without the services I have received.
>> >
>> > Ezekiel Emanuel, Rahm Emmanuel?s brother, who is involved in the
>> > wording of the House Bill said, ?Medical care should be reserved for
>> > the non-disabled, not given to those ?who are irreversibly prevented
>> > from being or becoming participating citizens?? ?.
>> >
>> > Does that include me? If medical decisions are being made by the
>> > government; not by my doctors, my parents, or me, I would be
>> > determined to be too expensive to receive the services I need to be
>> > able to navigate my way in the world.
>> >
>> > This is a bad plan for those with special needs. Tell Senator
>> > McCaskill to vote NO.
>> >
>> > Noah Logue
>> > St. Louis, MO
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 18:14:40 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 17:14:40 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cash for Clunkers
Message-ID: <400985d70907291514g348c958do75f34b1be4d59953@mail.gmail.com>

Finally, I time something right!  Two months ago the local VW dealer
had plenty of inventory and they were heavily discounting to move
cars.  Plus, the diesels qualify for a $1300 tax rebate.  What I found
interesting about the following article was that Germany takes August
off -

http://tinyurl.com/logky3

Does this mean Mexico takes August off as well?  How about Chattanooga
when the new VW plant there comes on line?  What a novel concept, why
doesn't the whole US just go on vacation until we run out of inventory
of everything, and then the recession is over!

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Wed Jul 29 18:31:11 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:31:11 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] So much for wind power...
Message-ID: <B3C2635487B54E8E813157BB008F6D1A@YOURB88038198E>

See:

http://ceramictechweekly.org/?p=3937

Ed K
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Wed Jul 29 20:27:51 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 19:27:51 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Too Funny! Swine Flu
Message-ID: <400985d70907291727w2f818eadx7e14e3556f8231bd@mail.gmail.com>

Rumor has it that a Senate page has swine flu and that house may shut
down by Friday.

Ed, call your buddy and check this out.

Brad

From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 30 08:06:45 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 08:06:45 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Brad said, "...
Message-ID: <2EF58E49BD204168BF45D3DBC9F71EB6@YOURB88038198E>

Brad said, "Ed, call your buddy and check this out."

Jim is very busy and I am only one voter.  I do not overstay my welcome.  He recognizes me, occassionally comments but I give him distance.  He gets too much pressure and advice.

Actually I understand it is four pages.

Now if it only occurs when they come back in session!

Ed K

The study of history is a powerful antidote to contemporary arrogance. It is humbling to discover how many of our glib assumptions, which seem to us novel and plausible, have been tested before, not once but many times and in innumerable guises; and discovered to be, at great human cost, wholly false.  --Paul Johnson as quoted by Thomas Sowell





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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 08:06:41 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:06:41 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907290638x370c4c11w296f07930c61e4f8@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281211u1439b43cp23fcfb128177a3f6@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907290638x370c4c11w296f07930c61e4f8@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907300506h5dc93c45q99e8ec25bbf0b225@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Remember this incident?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU&feature=player_embedded

Here's the latest from an article in today's Washington Times (below).

Brad

--------------

 Thursday, July 30, 2009
EXCLUSIVE: No. 3 at Justice OK'd Panther reversal

Jerry Seper (Contact)

EXCLUSIVE:

Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in
the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a
decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing
three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in
Philadelphia during November's election, according to interviews.

The department's career lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil
Rights Division who pursued the complaint for five months had
recommended that Justice seek sanctions against the party and three of
its members after the government had already won a default judgment in
federal court against the men.

Front-line lawyers were in the final stages of completing that work
when they were unexpectedly told by their superiors in late April to
seek a delay after a meeting between political appointees and career
supervisors, according to federal records and interviews.

The delay was ordered by then-acting Assistant Attorney General
Loretta King after she discussed with Mr. Perrelli concerns about the
case during one of their regular review meetings, according to the
interviews.

Ms. King, a career senior executive service official, had been named
by President Obama in January to temporarily fill the vacant political
position of assistant attorney general for civil rights while a
permanent choice could be made.

She and other career supervisors ultimately recommended dropping the
case against two of the men and the party and seeking a restraining
order against the one man who wielded a nightstick at the Philadelphia
polling place. Mr. Perrelli approved that plan, officials said.


Questions about how high inside the department the decision to drop
the case went have persisted in Congress and in the media for weeks.

Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler told The Washington
Times that the department has an "ongoing obligation to be sure the
claims it makes are supported by the facts and the law. She said that
after a "thorough review of the complaint, top career attorneys in the
Civil Rights Division determined the "facts and the law did not
support pursuing the claims against three of the defendants.

"As a result, the department dismissed those claims, she said. "We are
committed to vigorous enforcement of the laws protecting anyone
exercising his or her right to vote.

While the Obama administration has vowed a new era of openness,
department officials have refused to answer questions from Republican
members of Congress on why the case was dismissed, claiming the
information was "privileged, according to congressional correspondence
with the department.

Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican and a senior member of the
House Appropriations Committee who has raised questions about the
case, said he also was prevented from interviewing the front-line
lawyers who brought the charges.

"Why am I being prevented from meeting with the trial team on this
case? Mr. Wolf asked. "There are many questions that need to be
answered. This whole thing just stinks to high heaven."

Ms. Schmaler said the department has tried to cooperate with Congress.
"The Department responded to an earlier letter from Congressman Wolf
in an effort to address his questions. Following that letter, the
Department agreed to a meeting with Congressman Wolf and career
attorneys, in which they made a good-faith effort to respond to his
inquiries about this case. We will continue to try to clear up any
confusion Congressman Wolf has about this case.

Ms. King and a deputy are expected to travel to Capitol Hill on
Thursday to meet behind closed doors with House Judiciary Committee
Chairman John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, and Rep. Lamar Smith of
Texas, the top Republican on the panel, to discuss continuing concerns
about the case.

The department also has yet to provide any records sought by The Times
under a Freedom of Information Act request filed in May seeking
documents detailing the decision process. Department officials also
declined to answer whether any outside groups had raised concerns
about the case or pressured the department to drop it.

Kristen Clarke, director of political participation at the NAACP Legal
Defense Fund in Washington, however, confirmed to The Times that she
talked about the case with lawyers at the Justice Department and
shared copies of the complaint with several persons. She said,
however, her organization was "not involved in the decision to dismiss
the civil complaint.

She said the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People has consistently argued that the department should bring more
voter intimidation cases, adding that it was "disconcerting that it
did not do so.

Mr. Perrelli, a prominent private practice attorney, served previously
as a counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton
administration and was an Obama supporter who raised more than
$500,000 for the Democrat candidate in the 2008 elections. He
authorized a delay to give department officials more time to decide
what to do, said officials familiar with the case but not authorized
to discuss it publicly. He eventually approved the decision to drop
charges against three of the four defendants, they said.

At issue was what, if any, punishment to seek against the New Black
Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP) and three of its members accused
in a Jan. 7 civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court in
Philadelphia.

Two NBPP members, wearing black berets, black combat boots, black
dress shirts and black jackets with military-style markings, were
charged in a civil complaint with intimidating voters at a
Philadelphia polling place, including brandishing a 2-foot-long
nightstick and issuing racial threats and racial insults. Authorities
said a third NBPP member "managed, directed and endorsed the behavior.

The election-day incident gained national attention when it was
captured by a voter-fraud citizen activist group on videotape and
distributed on YouTube (below).

None of the NBPP members responded to the charges or made any
appearance in court.

"Intimidation outside of a polling place is contrary to the democratic
process, said Grace Chung Becker, a Bush administration political
appointee who was the acting assistant attorney general for civil
rights at the time the case was filed. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965
was passed to protect the fundamental right to vote and the department
takes allegations of voter intimidation seriously.

Mrs. Becker, now on a leave of absence from government work, said she
personally reviewed the NBPP complaint and approved its filing in
federal court. She said the complaint had been the subject of numerous
reviews and discussions with the career lawyers, and she agreed with
their assessment to file the case.

Mrs. Becker said Ms. King was overseeing other cases at the time and
was not involved in the decision to file the original complaint.

A Justice Department memo shows that career lawyers in the case
decided as early as Dec. 22 to seek a complaint against the NBPP; its
chairman, Malik Zulu Shabazz, a lawyer and D.C. resident; Minister
King Samir Shabazz, a resident of Philadelphia and head of the
Philadelphia NBPP chapter who was accused of wielding the nightstick;
and Jerry Jackson, a resident of Philadelphia and a NBPP member.

"We believe the deployment of uniformed members of a well-known group
with an extremely hostile racial agenda, combined with the brandishing
of a weapon at the entrance to a polling place, constitutes a
violation of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act which prohibits
types of intimidation, threats and coercion, the memo said.

The memo, sent to Mrs. Becker, was signed by Christopher Coates, chief
of the Voting Section; Robert Popper, deputy chief of the section; J.
Christian Adams, trial attorney and lead lawyer in the case; and
Spencer R. Fisher, law clerk. None of the four has made themselves
available for comment.

Members of Congress continue to ask questions about the case.

"If showing a weapon, making threatening statements and wearing
paramilitary uniforms in front of polling station doors does not
constitute voter intimidation, at what threshold of activity would
these laws be enforceable? Mr. Wolf asked.

Mr. Smith also complained that a July 13 response by Assistant
Attorney General Ronald Weich to concerns the congressman had about
the Philadelphia incident did not alleviate his concerns.

"The administration still has failed to explain why it did not pursue
an obvious case of voter intimidation. Refusal to address these
concerns only confirms politicization of the issue and does not
reflect well on the Justice Department, Mr. Smith said.

Mr. Smith asked the department's Office on Inspector General to
investigate the matter, and the request was referred to the
department's Office of Professional Responsibility.

Lawmakers aren't alone in the concerns.

The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said in a June 16 letter to
Justice that the decision to drop the case caused it "great confusion,
since the NBPP members were "caught on video blocking access to the
polls, and physically threatening and verbally harassing voters during
the Nov. 4, 2008, general election.

"Though it had basically won the case, the [Civil Rights Division]
took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges , the
letter said. "The division's public rationale would send the wrong
message entirely -- that attempts at voter suppression will be
tolerated and will not be vigorously prosecuted so long as the groups
or individuals who engage in them fail to respond to the charges
leveled against them.

The dispute over the case and the reversal of career line attorneys
highlights sensitivities that have remained inside the department
since Bush administration political appointees ignored or reversed
their career counterparts on some issues and some U.S. attorneys were
fired for what Congress concluded were political reasons.

Mr. Weich, in his letter to the congressman, sought to dispel any
notion that politics was involved. He argued that the department
dropped charges against three of the four defendants "because the
facts and the law did not support pursuing them. He said the decision
was made after a "careful and through review of the matter by Ms.
King. He said:

? While the NBPP made statements and posted notice that more than 300
of its members would be deployed at polling places throughout the
United States during the Nov. 4 elections, the statement and posting
did not say any of them would display a weapon or otherwise break the
law.

? While the complaint charged that the NBPP and Mr. Zulu Shabazz
endorsed the activities at the polling places, the evidence was
"equivocal since both later disavowed what happened in Philadelphia
and suspended that city's chapter after the incident.

? The charges against Mr. Jackson were dropped because police who
responded to the polling place ordered Mr. Samir Shabazz to leave but
allowed Mr. Jackson to stay. He also noted that the department
approved "appropriately tailored injunctive relief against Mr. Samir
Shabazz for his use of the nightstick.

The injunction prohibits Mr. Samir Shabazz from brandishing a weapon
outside a polling place through Nov. 15, 2012, and Ms. Schmaler said
the department "will fully enforce the terms of that injunction.

On its Web page, the NBPP said the Philadelphia chapter was suspended
from operations and would not be recognized until further notice. It
said the organization did not condone or promote the carrying of
nightsticks or any kind of weapon at any polling place.

"We are intelligent enough to understand that a polling place is a
sensitive site and all actions must be carried out in a civilized and
lawful manner, it said.


Witnesses who supported the Justice Department case said they were
surprised by the reversal.

Stephen R. Morse, a blogger hired by Republicans to be at the polls
and who videotaped the confrontation, said the NBPP members blatantly
used racial insults on would-be voters and other poll watchers,
telling one man, "Cracker, you about to be ruled by a black man.

Mr. Morse, a University of Pennsylvania student, said he was "outraged
that the complaint was dismissed, saying he hoped Democrats would join
Mr. Smith and Mr. Wolf in attempting to ensure that the incident
"doesn't become a partisan issue, but rather an issue of right vs.
wrong.

Chris Hill, national director of operations for a Gathering of Eagles,
an organization dedicated to the support of U.S. troops, said the NBPP
members visibly intimidated voters with racial slurs as they tried to
enter the building.

Mr. Hill, a U.S. Army veteran who also served as a Philadelphia poll
watcher for Republicans, said several voters at the location said they
were afraid. He said the NBPP members tried to deny him access to the
poll although he was a certified poll watcher, telling him, "White
power don't rule here.

A Justice Department memo also says that a black couple, Larry and
Angela Counts, both Republican poll watchers, told authorities they
were scared, worried about their safety and concerned about leaving
the polling place at the end of the day because of the actions of the
NBPP members. Mrs. Counts said she wondered whether someone might
"bomb the place and Mr. Counts said the NBPP members called him a
"race traitor, the memo said.

U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell in Philadelphia entered default
judgments against the NBPP members April 2 after ordering them to
plead or otherwise defend themselves. They refused to appear in court
or file motions in answer to the government's complaint. Two weeks
later, the judge ordered the Justice Department to file its motions
for default judgments by May 1 a ruling that showed the government had
won its case. The men also have not returned calls from The Times
seeking comment.

On May 1, Justice sought an extension of time and during the
tumultuous two weeks that followed the career front-line lawyers tried
to persuade their bosses to proceed with the case.

The matter was even referred to the Appellate Division for a second
opinion, an unusual event for a case that hadn't even reached the
appeals process.

Appellate Chief Diana K. Flynn said in a May 13 memo obtained by The
Times that the appropriate action was to pursue the default judgment
unless the department had evidence the court ruling was based on
unethical conduct by the government.

She said the complaint was aimed at preventing the "paramilitary style
intimidation of voters at polling places elsewhere and Justice could
make a "reasonable argument in favor of default relief against all
defendants and probably should. She noted that the complaint's purpose
was to "prevent the paramilitary style intimidation of voters while
leaving open "ample opportunity for political expression.

An accompanying memo by Appellate Section lawyer Marie K. McElderry
said the charges not only included bringing the weapon to the polling
place, but creating an intimidating atmosphere by the uniforms, the
military-type stance and the threatening language used. She said the
complaint appeared to be "sufficient to support the injunctions sought
by the career lawyers.

"The government's predominant interest is preventing intimidation,
threats and coercion against voters or persons urging or aiding
persons to vote or attempt to vote, she said.

The front-line lawyers, however, lost the argument and were ordered to
drop the case.

Bartle Bull, a civil rights activist who also was a poll watcher in
Philadelphia, said after the complaint was dropped, he called Mr.
Adams to find out why. He said he was told the decision "came as a
surprise to all of us and that the career lawyers working on the case
feared that the failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act "would
embolden other abuses in the future.


On 7/29/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> I think Barack Obama is living proof that if a black man wants a better job
> all he needs to do is 1. buy a pair of pants that fits, 2. put his cap on
> straight, and 3. learn how to speak English (even if he has to use a
> teleprompter) and he'll be able to bullshit his way into almost any job he
> wants.
>
> The biggest trouble most poor black people have is, you can give them a lot
> of things, but a job isn't one of them. And, to be honest, this is true for
> much of the "poor" community, not just the poor black community.
>
> But I suppose it is racist to suggest that if a person would look and act
> like a civilized human being, other civilized human beings might want to
> have them around.
>
> We spent about 30 years,from the '60s to the '90s trying to make affirmative
> action work. I think it's been pretty well proven that it doesn't. Why is it
> SO hard for some people to learn from history??? I'll tell you why .....
> 'cause they make a lot of money at it.
>
> Rik
>
>
> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I need to correct the spelling of "racist" anyway, so I'll add this
>> while I'm in the process (from a few days ago) -
>>
>> http://tinyurl.com/mn347u
>>
>> Since the Attorney General said we're "cowards" about discussing race,
>> and the POTUS wants a "teaching moment", let's have it!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Rik,
>> >
>> > Here's another spin on the bill -
>> >
>> > http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927
>> >
>> > Of course we "whiteys" aren't allowed opinions on things like this
>> because
>> > were
>> >  R-A-C-I-E-S-T-S!  BTW, how's your cotton crop doing in Minnesota?
>> > They recently kicked me out of the KKK and changed the secret
>> > handshake at the local chapter of the Skinheads once they found out
>> > about my miscegenation daughter.
>> >
>> > Dr. Sowell pegged this guy in his article.  He's a two-bit race
>> > hustler with a Harvard degree.  We told you so!
>> >
>> > Brad
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > On 7/28/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> Brad,
>> >>
>> >> I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that you
>> >> didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?
>> >>
>> >> Does no good to read it indeed
>> >>
>> >> Rik
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >>
>> >>> Mike,
>> >>>
>> >>> It get's worse.  Watch this!
>> >>>
>> >>> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
>> >>>
>> >>> Your government at work.
>> >>>
>> >>> Brad
>> >>>
>> >>> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
>> >>> > Brad,
>> >>> >
>> >>> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.  In
>> >>> > this
>> >>> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race, not
>> >>> > that
>> >>> it
>> >>> > truly matters to the issue.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified in:
>> >>> >
>> >>> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> >>> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
>> >>> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have
>> >>> > been
>> >>> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
>> >>> >
>> >>> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current
>> political
>> >>> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP for
>> >>> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and
>> >>> > Political
>> >>> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
>> >>> >
>> >>> > Mike
>> >>> >
>> >>> > ----- Original Message -----
>> >>> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
>> >>> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
>> >>> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
>> >>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
>> >>> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could
>> >>> >> figure
>> >>> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they
>> >>> >> wanted
>> >>> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
>> >>> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Brad
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> ------------
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> July 28, 2009
>> >>> >> A Post-Racial President?
>> >>> >> By Thomas Sowell
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the
>> >>> >> United
>> >>> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
>> >>> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of
>> >>> >> us
>> >>> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
>> >>> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
>> >>> >> financially, and socially.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He found
>> >>> >> it
>> >>> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial
>> candidate,
>> >>> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
>> >>> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in government,
>> >>> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it
>> >>> >> first
>> >>> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which
>> >>> >> turned
>> >>> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
>> >>> >> elected.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
>> >>> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis Gates
>> >>> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
>> >>> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
>> >>> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did not
>> >>> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can
>> believe
>> >>> >> anything.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
>> >>> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that is
>> >>> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the
>> >>> >> opposite
>> >>> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial profiling"
>> >>> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the conclusion
>> >>> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
>> >>> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone seemed
>> >>> >> to
>> >>> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
>> >>> >> Cambridge.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do not
>> >>> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of racial
>> >>> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac
>> >>> >> Donald.
>> >>> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been
>> distorted
>> >>> >> beyond recognition by politics.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it
>> >>> >> polarizes
>> >>> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay in
>> >>> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments, as
>> >>> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest
>> >>> >> in
>> >>> >> racial paranoia.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a stock
>> in
>> >>> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
>> >>> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
>> >>> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize
>> a
>> >>> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia
>> >>> >> within
>> >>> >> a
>> >>> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities, from
>> >>> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
>> >>> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
>> >>> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
>> >>> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same story.
>> >>> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a nation
>> >>> >> of
>> >>> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
>> >>> >> expect from Eric Holder.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young
>> >>> >> black
>> >>> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in blatant
>> >>> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks
>> >>> >> louder
>> >>> >> than any words from him or his president.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like Obama
>> >>> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with an
>> >>> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a sense
>> of
>> >>> >> racial entitlement.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask.
>> When
>> >>> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped for
>> >>> >> a
>> >>> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the
>> >>> >> media.
>> >>> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
>> >>> >>>
>> >>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>> >>
>> >>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>> >>
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > --
>> >>> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
>> >>> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
>> >>> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
>> >>> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
>> >>> >
>> >>> > The Professional version does not have this message
>> >>> >
>> >>> >
>> >>> > _______________________________________________
>> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>> >
>> >>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>> >
>> >>> _______________________________________________
>> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> --
>> >> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch,
>> >> and
>> >> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>> >>
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 08:30:21 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 07:30:21 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cash for Clunkers
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907291514g348c958do75f34b1be4d59953@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907291514g348c958do75f34b1be4d59953@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907300530i261844erf1a7b9b469be6d70@mail.gmail.com>

Go figure!

http://www.startribune.com/business/51943937.html?page=1&c=y

Do you really want these people in charge of your health care?

Brad

On 7/29/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> Finally, I time something right!  Two months ago the local VW dealer
> had plenty of inventory and they were heavily discounting to move
> cars.  Plus, the diesels qualify for a $1300 tax rebate.  What I found
> interesting about the following article was that Germany takes August
> off -
>
> http://tinyurl.com/logky3
>
> Does this mean Mexico takes August off as well?  How about Chattanooga
> when the new VW plant there comes on line?  What a novel concept, why
> doesn't the whole US just go on vacation until we run out of inventory
> of everything, and then the recession is over!
>
> Brad
>

From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 10:08:22 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:08:22 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Health Care Debate
Message-ID: <400985d70907300708v18286a7p769e33d7675fe62f@mail.gmail.com>

I don't agree with Paul Ryan on some of his recent votes, but he is an
articulate spokesperson. Here is what is disturbing about this video -
you have two "reporters" who are obviously pushing the President's
agenda.  They may as well be in the employ of the Obama
administration.  MSNBC has long ago given up all pretense of being an
objective news organization.  I just bought Michelle Malkin's new book
"Culture of Corruption" about the Obamas.  Nothing new yet that myself
or Bill E didn't tell you prior to the election, just more
documentation and more research about the first six months in office.
It isn't pretty. The MSM should really be ashamed for not doing their
homework.  Don't hold you breath.

http://tinyurl.com/nrhd7u

I'm heading for the Gulf.  Run the world for me, will ya?

Brad

From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 10:15:33 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 09:15:33 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Air Bus Hard Landing
Message-ID: <400985d70907300715s19d74f1s4a7b95c108204c4d@mail.gmail.com>

AirBus landed their A380 at the airshow in Oshkosh this week.  It wasn't pretty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yi9C8NE3Ek

I'd explain what went wrong but I'm headed out the door.  The guy
obviously forgot to flare. Maybe his arms were weak.  Here is great
device to improve arm strength.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S3C4AC908w

From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 11:09:39 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:09:39 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907300506h5dc93c45q99e8ec25bbf0b225@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907280556r4c5ac49et60fb7cea9f9acca2@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907280631x52155192g503513db6814d894@mail.gmail.com>
	<E83C6CBE61684DEF87E0D34AED8A0080@ebsoffice>
	<400985d70907280819i6269acf2v502e96e4769d4ca3@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907281025t32738020se631ba7cbfa9f85c@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281115u3267f768p821469a714182161@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907281211u1439b43cp23fcfb128177a3f6@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907290638x370c4c11w296f07930c61e4f8@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907300506h5dc93c45q99e8ec25bbf0b225@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907300809q2f073307sf3c9d5b3458a2764@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Seems like I first took part in a presidential election in '72. Now,
admittedly all the (major) candidates in the 8 previous elections I attended
were white men, but I find it interesting that no one ever seemed to feel
the need to stand outside a polling place with a billy club until a black
man was running for president.

Had those men been white, they wouldn't have been out there for ten minutes
before the cops hauled them away and my bet is they'd still be rotting in
jail right now. Lord knows I can't see any possible racial bias coming out
of this administration.

Congressman Wolf has it right "This whole thing just stinks to high heaven."

If this man is allowed to continue on the path he is on, after the war,
people will look back and compare him to another rather prominent German
fellow from the '40s.

Rik

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 7:06 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> Remember this incident?
>
> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neGbKHyGuHU&feature=player_embedded
>
> Here's the latest from an article in today's Washington Times (below).
>
> Brad
>
> --------------
>
>  Thursday, July 30, 2009
> EXCLUSIVE: No. 3 at Justice OK'd Panther reversal
>
> Jerry Seper (Contact)
>
> EXCLUSIVE:
>
> Associate Attorney General Thomas J. Perrelli, the No. 3 official in
> the Obama Justice Department, was consulted and ultimately approved a
> decision in May to reverse course and drop a civil complaint accusing
> three members of the New Black Panther Party of intimidating voters in
> Philadelphia during November's election, according to interviews.
>
> The department's career lawyers in the Voting Section of the Civil
> Rights Division who pursued the complaint for five months had
> recommended that Justice seek sanctions against the party and three of
> its members after the government had already won a default judgment in
> federal court against the men.
>
> Front-line lawyers were in the final stages of completing that work
> when they were unexpectedly told by their superiors in late April to
> seek a delay after a meeting between political appointees and career
> supervisors, according to federal records and interviews.
>
> The delay was ordered by then-acting Assistant Attorney General
> Loretta King after she discussed with Mr. Perrelli concerns about the
> case during one of their regular review meetings, according to the
> interviews.
>
> Ms. King, a career senior executive service official, had been named
> by President Obama in January to temporarily fill the vacant political
> position of assistant attorney general for civil rights while a
> permanent choice could be made.
>
> She and other career supervisors ultimately recommended dropping the
> case against two of the men and the party and seeking a restraining
> order against the one man who wielded a nightstick at the Philadelphia
> polling place. Mr. Perrelli approved that plan, officials said.
>
>
> Questions about how high inside the department the decision to drop
> the case went have persisted in Congress and in the media for weeks.
>
> Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler told The Washington
> Times that the department has an "ongoing obligation to be sure the
> claims it makes are supported by the facts and the law. She said that
> after a "thorough review of the complaint, top career attorneys in the
> Civil Rights Division determined the "facts and the law did not
> support pursuing the claims against three of the defendants.
>
> "As a result, the department dismissed those claims, she said. "We are
> committed to vigorous enforcement of the laws protecting anyone
> exercising his or her right to vote.
>
> While the Obama administration has vowed a new era of openness,
> department officials have refused to answer questions from Republican
> members of Congress on why the case was dismissed, claiming the
> information was "privileged, according to congressional correspondence
> with the department.
>
> Rep. Frank R. Wolf, Virginia Republican and a senior member of the
> House Appropriations Committee who has raised questions about the
> case, said he also was prevented from interviewing the front-line
> lawyers who brought the charges.
>
> "Why am I being prevented from meeting with the trial team on this
> case? Mr. Wolf asked. "There are many questions that need to be
> answered. This whole thing just stinks to high heaven."
>
> Ms. Schmaler said the department has tried to cooperate with Congress.
> "The Department responded to an earlier letter from Congressman Wolf
> in an effort to address his questions. Following that letter, the
> Department agreed to a meeting with Congressman Wolf and career
> attorneys, in which they made a good-faith effort to respond to his
> inquiries about this case. We will continue to try to clear up any
> confusion Congressman Wolf has about this case.
>
> Ms. King and a deputy are expected to travel to Capitol Hill on
> Thursday to meet behind closed doors with House Judiciary Committee
> Chairman John Conyers Jr., Michigan Democrat, and Rep. Lamar Smith of
> Texas, the top Republican on the panel, to discuss continuing concerns
> about the case.
>
> The department also has yet to provide any records sought by The Times
> under a Freedom of Information Act request filed in May seeking
> documents detailing the decision process. Department officials also
> declined to answer whether any outside groups had raised concerns
> about the case or pressured the department to drop it.
>
> Kristen Clarke, director of political participation at the NAACP Legal
> Defense Fund in Washington, however, confirmed to The Times that she
> talked about the case with lawyers at the Justice Department and
> shared copies of the complaint with several persons. She said,
> however, her organization was "not involved in the decision to dismiss
> the civil complaint.
>
> She said the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
> People has consistently argued that the department should bring more
> voter intimidation cases, adding that it was "disconcerting that it
> did not do so.
>
> Mr. Perrelli, a prominent private practice attorney, served previously
> as a counsel to Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton
> administration and was an Obama supporter who raised more than
> $500,000 for the Democrat candidate in the 2008 elections. He
> authorized a delay to give department officials more time to decide
> what to do, said officials familiar with the case but not authorized
> to discuss it publicly. He eventually approved the decision to drop
> charges against three of the four defendants, they said.
>
> At issue was what, if any, punishment to seek against the New Black
> Panther Party for Self-Defense (NBPP) and three of its members accused
> in a Jan. 7 civil complaint filed in U.S. District Court in
> Philadelphia.
>
> Two NBPP members, wearing black berets, black combat boots, black
> dress shirts and black jackets with military-style markings, were
> charged in a civil complaint with intimidating voters at a
> Philadelphia polling place, including brandishing a 2-foot-long
> nightstick and issuing racial threats and racial insults. Authorities
> said a third NBPP member "managed, directed and endorsed the behavior.
>
> The election-day incident gained national attention when it was
> captured by a voter-fraud citizen activist group on videotape and
> distributed on YouTube (below).
>
> None of the NBPP members responded to the charges or made any
> appearance in court.
>
> "Intimidation outside of a polling place is contrary to the democratic
> process, said Grace Chung Becker, a Bush administration political
> appointee who was the acting assistant attorney general for civil
> rights at the time the case was filed. "The Voting Rights Act of 1965
> was passed to protect the fundamental right to vote and the department
> takes allegations of voter intimidation seriously.
>
> Mrs. Becker, now on a leave of absence from government work, said she
> personally reviewed the NBPP complaint and approved its filing in
> federal court. She said the complaint had been the subject of numerous
> reviews and discussions with the career lawyers, and she agreed with
> their assessment to file the case.
>
> Mrs. Becker said Ms. King was overseeing other cases at the time and
> was not involved in the decision to file the original complaint.
>
> A Justice Department memo shows that career lawyers in the case
> decided as early as Dec. 22 to seek a complaint against the NBPP; its
> chairman, Malik Zulu Shabazz, a lawyer and D.C. resident; Minister
> King Samir Shabazz, a resident of Philadelphia and head of the
> Philadelphia NBPP chapter who was accused of wielding the nightstick;
> and Jerry Jackson, a resident of Philadelphia and a NBPP member.
>
> "We believe the deployment of uniformed members of a well-known group
> with an extremely hostile racial agenda, combined with the brandishing
> of a weapon at the entrance to a polling place, constitutes a
> violation of Section 11(b) of the Voting Rights Act which prohibits
> types of intimidation, threats and coercion, the memo said.
>
> The memo, sent to Mrs. Becker, was signed by Christopher Coates, chief
> of the Voting Section; Robert Popper, deputy chief of the section; J.
> Christian Adams, trial attorney and lead lawyer in the case; and
> Spencer R. Fisher, law clerk. None of the four has made themselves
> available for comment.
>
> Members of Congress continue to ask questions about the case.
>
> "If showing a weapon, making threatening statements and wearing
> paramilitary uniforms in front of polling station doors does not
> constitute voter intimidation, at what threshold of activity would
> these laws be enforceable? Mr. Wolf asked.
>
> Mr. Smith also complained that a July 13 response by Assistant
> Attorney General Ronald Weich to concerns the congressman had about
> the Philadelphia incident did not alleviate his concerns.
>
> "The administration still has failed to explain why it did not pursue
> an obvious case of voter intimidation. Refusal to address these
> concerns only confirms politicization of the issue and does not
> reflect well on the Justice Department, Mr. Smith said.
>
> Mr. Smith asked the department's Office on Inspector General to
> investigate the matter, and the request was referred to the
> department's Office of Professional Responsibility.
>
> Lawmakers aren't alone in the concerns.
>
> The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights said in a June 16 letter to
> Justice that the decision to drop the case caused it "great confusion,
> since the NBPP members were "caught on video blocking access to the
> polls, and physically threatening and verbally harassing voters during
> the Nov. 4, 2008, general election.
>
> "Though it had basically won the case, the [Civil Rights Division]
> took the unusual move of voluntarily dismissing the charges , the
> letter said. "The division's public rationale would send the wrong
> message entirely -- that attempts at voter suppression will be
> tolerated and will not be vigorously prosecuted so long as the groups
> or individuals who engage in them fail to respond to the charges
> leveled against them.
>
> The dispute over the case and the reversal of career line attorneys
> highlights sensitivities that have remained inside the department
> since Bush administration political appointees ignored or reversed
> their career counterparts on some issues and some U.S. attorneys were
> fired for what Congress concluded were political reasons.
>
> Mr. Weich, in his letter to the congressman, sought to dispel any
> notion that politics was involved. He argued that the department
> dropped charges against three of the four defendants "because the
> facts and the law did not support pursuing them. He said the decision
> was made after a "careful and through review of the matter by Ms.
> King. He said:
>
> ? While the NBPP made statements and posted notice that more than 300
> of its members would be deployed at polling places throughout the
> United States during the Nov. 4 elections, the statement and posting
> did not say any of them would display a weapon or otherwise break the
> law.
>
> ? While the complaint charged that the NBPP and Mr. Zulu Shabazz
> endorsed the activities at the polling places, the evidence was
> "equivocal since both later disavowed what happened in Philadelphia
> and suspended that city's chapter after the incident.
>
> ? The charges against Mr. Jackson were dropped because police who
> responded to the polling place ordered Mr. Samir Shabazz to leave but
> allowed Mr. Jackson to stay. He also noted that the department
> approved "appropriately tailored injunctive relief against Mr. Samir
> Shabazz for his use of the nightstick.
>
> The injunction prohibits Mr. Samir Shabazz from brandishing a weapon
> outside a polling place through Nov. 15, 2012, and Ms. Schmaler said
> the department "will fully enforce the terms of that injunction.
>
> On its Web page, the NBPP said the Philadelphia chapter was suspended
> from operations and would not be recognized until further notice. It
> said the organization did not condone or promote the carrying of
> nightsticks or any kind of weapon at any polling place.
>
> "We are intelligent enough to understand that a polling place is a
> sensitive site and all actions must be carried out in a civilized and
> lawful manner, it said.
>
>
> Witnesses who supported the Justice Department case said they were
> surprised by the reversal.
>
> Stephen R. Morse, a blogger hired by Republicans to be at the polls
> and who videotaped the confrontation, said the NBPP members blatantly
> used racial insults on would-be voters and other poll watchers,
> telling one man, "Cracker, you about to be ruled by a black man.
>
> Mr. Morse, a University of Pennsylvania student, said he was "outraged
> that the complaint was dismissed, saying he hoped Democrats would join
> Mr. Smith and Mr. Wolf in attempting to ensure that the incident
> "doesn't become a partisan issue, but rather an issue of right vs.
> wrong.
>
> Chris Hill, national director of operations for a Gathering of Eagles,
> an organization dedicated to the support of U.S. troops, said the NBPP
> members visibly intimidated voters with racial slurs as they tried to
> enter the building.
>
> Mr. Hill, a U.S. Army veteran who also served as a Philadelphia poll
> watcher for Republicans, said several voters at the location said they
> were afraid. He said the NBPP members tried to deny him access to the
> poll although he was a certified poll watcher, telling him, "White
> power don't rule here.
>
> A Justice Department memo also says that a black couple, Larry and
> Angela Counts, both Republican poll watchers, told authorities they
> were scared, worried about their safety and concerned about leaving
> the polling place at the end of the day because of the actions of the
> NBPP members. Mrs. Counts said she wondered whether someone might
> "bomb the place and Mr. Counts said the NBPP members called him a
> "race traitor, the memo said.
>
> U.S. District Judge Stewart Dalzell in Philadelphia entered default
> judgments against the NBPP members April 2 after ordering them to
> plead or otherwise defend themselves. They refused to appear in court
> or file motions in answer to the government's complaint. Two weeks
> later, the judge ordered the Justice Department to file its motions
> for default judgments by May 1 a ruling that showed the government had
> won its case. The men also have not returned calls from The Times
> seeking comment.
>
> On May 1, Justice sought an extension of time and during the
> tumultuous two weeks that followed the career front-line lawyers tried
> to persuade their bosses to proceed with the case.
>
> The matter was even referred to the Appellate Division for a second
> opinion, an unusual event for a case that hadn't even reached the
> appeals process.
>
> Appellate Chief Diana K. Flynn said in a May 13 memo obtained by The
> Times that the appropriate action was to pursue the default judgment
> unless the department had evidence the court ruling was based on
> unethical conduct by the government.
>
> She said the complaint was aimed at preventing the "paramilitary style
> intimidation of voters at polling places elsewhere and Justice could
> make a "reasonable argument in favor of default relief against all
> defendants and probably should. She noted that the complaint's purpose
> was to "prevent the paramilitary style intimidation of voters while
> leaving open "ample opportunity for political expression.
>
> An accompanying memo by Appellate Section lawyer Marie K. McElderry
> said the charges not only included bringing the weapon to the polling
> place, but creating an intimidating atmosphere by the uniforms, the
> military-type stance and the threatening language used. She said the
> complaint appeared to be "sufficient to support the injunctions sought
> by the career lawyers.
>
> "The government's predominant interest is preventing intimidation,
> threats and coercion against voters or persons urging or aiding
> persons to vote or attempt to vote, she said.
>
> The front-line lawyers, however, lost the argument and were ordered to
> drop the case.
>
> Bartle Bull, a civil rights activist who also was a poll watcher in
> Philadelphia, said after the complaint was dropped, he called Mr.
> Adams to find out why. He said he was told the decision "came as a
> surprise to all of us and that the career lawyers working on the case
> feared that the failure to enforce the Voting Rights Act "would
> embolden other abuses in the future.
>
>
> On 7/29/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Brad,
> >
> > I think Barack Obama is living proof that if a black man wants a better
> job
> > all he needs to do is 1. buy a pair of pants that fits, 2. put his cap on
> > straight, and 3. learn how to speak English (even if he has to use a
> > teleprompter) and he'll be able to bullshit his way into almost any job
> he
> > wants.
> >
> > The biggest trouble most poor black people have is, you can give them a
> lot
> > of things, but a job isn't one of them. And, to be honest, this is true
> for
> > much of the "poor" community, not just the poor black community.
> >
> > But I suppose it is racist to suggest that if a person would look and act
> > like a civilized human being, other civilized human beings might want to
> > have them around.
> >
> > We spent about 30 years,from the '60s to the '90s trying to make
> affirmative
> > action work. I think it's been pretty well proven that it doesn't. Why is
> it
> > SO hard for some people to learn from history??? I'll tell you why .....
> > 'cause they make a lot of money at it.
> >
> > Rik
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 2:11 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> I need to correct the spelling of "racist" anyway, so I'll add this
> >> while I'm in the process (from a few days ago) -
> >>
> >> http://tinyurl.com/mn347u
> >>
> >> Since the Attorney General said we're "cowards" about discussing race,
> >> and the POTUS wants a "teaching moment", let's have it!
> >>
> >> Brad
> >>
> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> > Rik,
> >> >
> >> > Here's another spin on the bill -
> >> >
> >> > http://www.ibdeditorial.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=333586760867927
> >> >
> >> > Of course we "whiteys" aren't allowed opinions on things like this
> >> because
> >> > were
> >> >  R-A-C-I-E-S-T-S!  BTW, how's your cotton crop doing in Minnesota?
> >> > They recently kicked me out of the KKK and changed the secret
> >> > handshake at the local chapter of the Skinheads once they found out
> >> > about my miscegenation daughter.
> >> >
> >> > Dr. Sowell pegged this guy in his article.  He's a two-bit race
> >> > hustler with a Harvard degree.  We told you so!
> >> >
> >> > Brad
> >> >
> >> >
> >> >
> >> > On 7/28/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >> Brad,
> >> >>
> >> >> I just gotta ask ...... why the hell would you vote for a bill that
> you
> >> >> didn't/couldn't understand, even though you had read it?
> >> >>
> >> >> Does no good to read it indeed
> >> >>
> >> >> Rik
> >> >>
> >> >> On Tue, Jul 28, 2009 at 10:19 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com>
> >> wrote:
> >> >>
> >> >>> Mike,
> >> >>>
> >> >>> It get's worse.  Watch this!
> >> >>>
> >> >>> http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=GduzuzqGqG
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Your government at work.
> >> >>>
> >> >>> Brad
> >> >>>
> >> >>> On 7/28/09, Michael D. Weisner <mweisner at ebsmed.com> wrote:
> >> >>> > Brad,
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > I always find Dr. Sowell's pieces well written and to the point.
>  In
> >> >>> > this
> >> >>> > essay, it is interesting to remind oneself of Dr. Sowell's race,
> not
> >> >>> > that
> >> >>> it
> >> >>> > truly matters to the issue.
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > We must constantly explore the political rhetoric as exemplified
> in:
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> >     "With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> >> >>> >     rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and
> >> >>> >     that is what he has said. But his policies as president have
> >> >>> > been
> >> >>> >     the opposite of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues."
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > In fact, such nonsense seems to apply to most of the current
> >> political
> >> >>> > "leaders" - just substitute Al Gore for Barack Obama, former VP
> for
> >> >>> > President and global warming for race.  Political Science and
> >> >>> > Political
> >> >>> > Leaders are oxymorons.  No wonder this country is in this mess.
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > Rik, lead on to the "Gulch"
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > Mike
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > ----- Original Message -----
> >> >>> > From: "Brad Haslett" <flybrad at gmail.com>
> >> >>> > To: "Letters to the Editor"
> >> >>> > <swiftwatergazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com>
> >> >>> > Sent: Tuesday, July 28, 2009 9:31 AM
> >> >>> > Subject: Re: [Swiftwater Gazette] Racist in Chief loses a voter!
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> >> Dr. Sowell weighs in (below).  Anyone with half a brain could
> >> >>> >> figure
> >> >>> >> this guy out during the election process.  People saw what they
> >> >>> >> wanted
> >> >>> >> to see and ignored the obvious.  It is a bit late, but folks are
> >> >>> >> starting see through this guy for what he is.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> Brad
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> ------------
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> July 28, 2009
> >> >>> >> A Post-Racial President?
> >> >>> >> By Thomas Sowell
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> Many people hoped that the election of a black President of the
> >> >>> >> United
> >> >>> >> States would mark our entering a "post-racial" era, when we could
> >> >>> >> finally put some ugly aspects of our history behind us.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> That is quite understandable. But it takes two to tango. Those of
> >> >>> >> us
> >> >>> >> who want to see racism on its way out need to realize that others
> >> >>> >> benefit greatly from crying racism. They benefit politically,
> >> >>> >> financially, and socially.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> Barack Obama has been allied with such people for decades. He
> found
> >> >>> >> it
> >> >>> >> expedient to appeal to a wider electorate as a post-racial
> >> candidate,
> >> >>> >> just as he has found it expedient to say a lot of other popular
> >> >>> >> things-- about campaign finance, about transparency in
> government,
> >> >>> >> about not rushing legislation through Congress without having it
> >> >>> >> first
> >> >>> >> posted on the Internet long enough to be studied-- all of which
> >> >>> >> turned
> >> >>> >> to be the direct opposite of what he actually did after getting
> >> >>> >> elected.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> Those who were shocked at President Obama's cheap shot at the
> >> >>> >> Cambridge police for being "stupid" in arresting Henry Louis
> Gates
> >> >>> >> must have been among those who let their wishes prevail over the
> >> >>> >> obvious implications of Obama's 20 years of association with the
> >> >>> >> Reverend Jeremiah Wright. Anyone who can believe that Obama did
> not
> >> >>> >> understand what the racist rants of Jeremiah Wright meant can
> >> believe
> >> >>> >> anything.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> With race-- as with campaign finance, transparency and the
> >> >>> >> rest-- Barack Obama knows what the public wants to hear and that
> is
> >> >>> >> what he has said. But his policies as president have been the
> >> >>> >> opposite
> >> >>> >> of his rhetoric, with race as with other issues.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> As a state senator in Illinois, Obama pushed the "racial
> profiling"
> >> >>> >> issue, so it is hardly surprising that he jumped to the
> conclusion
> >> >>> >> that a policeman was racial profiling when in fact the cop was
> >> >>> >> investigating a report received from a neighbor that someone
> seemed
> >> >>> >> to
> >> >>> >> be breaking into the house that Professor Gates was renting in
> >> >>> >> Cambridge.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> For those who are interested in facts-- and these obviously do
> not
> >> >>> >> include President Obama-- there has been a serious study of
> racial
> >> >>> >> profiling in a book titled "Are Cops Racist?" by Heather Mac
> >> >>> >> Donald.
> >> >>> >> Her analysis of the data shows how this issue has long been
> >> distorted
> >> >>> >> beyond recognition by politics.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> The racial profiling issue is a great vote-getter. And if it
> >> >>> >> polarizes
> >> >>> >> the society, that is a price that politicians are willing to pay
> in
> >> >>> >> order to get votes. Academics who run black studies departments,
> as
> >> >>> >> Professor Henry Louis Gates does, likewise have a vested interest
> >> >>> >> in
> >> >>> >> racial paranoia.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> For "community organizers" as well, racial resentments are a
> stock
> >> in
> >> >>> >> trade. President Obama's background as a community organizer has
> >> >>> >> received far too little attention, though it should have been a
> >> >>> >> high-alert warning that this was no post-racial figure.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is
> organize
> >> a
> >> >>> >> community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia
> >> >>> >> within
> >> >>> >> a
> >> >>> >> community, directing those feelings against other communities,
> from
> >> >>> >> whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever
> >> >>> >> rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> To think that someone who has spent years promoting grievance and
> >> >>> >> polarization was going to bring us all together as president is a
> >> >>> >> triumph of wishful thinking over reality.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> Not only Barack Obama's past, but his present, tell the same
> story.
> >> >>> >> His appointment of an attorney general who called America "a
> nation
> >> >>> >> of
> >> >>> >> cowards" for not dialoguing about race was a foretaste of what to
> >> >>> >> expect from Eric Holder.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> The way Attorney General Holder has refused to prosecute young
> >> >>> >> black
> >> >>> >> thugs who gathered at a voting site with menacing clubs, in
> blatant
> >> >>> >> violation of federal laws against intimidating voters, speaks
> >> >>> >> louder
> >> >>> >> than any words from him or his president.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> President Obama's first nominee to the Supreme Court is, like
> Obama
> >> >>> >> himself, someone with a background of years of affiliation with
> an
> >> >>> >> organization dedicated to promoting racial resentments and a
> sense
> >> of
> >> >>> >> racial entitlement.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> An 18th century philosopher said, "When I speak I put on a mask.
> >> When
> >> >>> >> I act I am forced to take it off." Barack Obama's mask slipped
> for
> >> >>> >> a
> >> >>> >> moment last week but he quickly recovered, with the help of the
> >> >>> >> media.
> >> >>> >> But we should never forget what we saw.
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >> On 7/28/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> >>> >>> http://tinyurl.com/nmbtgx
> >> >>> >>>
> >> >>> >> _______________________________________________
> >> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> >>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >>> >>
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > --
> >> >>> > I am using the free version of SPAMfighter.
> >> >>> > We are a community of 6 million users fighting spam.
> >> >>> > SPAMfighter has removed 2152 of my spam emails to date.
> >> >>> > Get the free SPAMfighter here: http://www.spamfighter.com/len
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > The Professional version does not have this message
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> > _______________________________________________
> >> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> >>> > SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >>> >
> >> >>>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >>> >
> >> >>> _______________________________________________
> >> >>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> >>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >> >>>
> >> >>>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >> >>>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >>
> >> >> --
> >> >> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch,
> >> >> and
> >> >> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry
> Browne
> >> >>
> >> >
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 30 11:10:00 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 11:10:00 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] White House becomes 51st Ward
Message-ID: <E7CC29FC38C04A6CB8A97BFB9D0D780F@YOURB88038198E>

The L goes to Washington: White House becomes 51st Ward
THE 51ST WARD | D.C. gathering could as easily have been in Daley's City Hall 
Comments 

July 26, 2009 

BY LYNN SWEET Sun-Times Columnist

WASHINGTON -- It's a Tuesday in June, and I am in one of the high-ceiling big rooms of the old office building next to the White House.

As I look around the room at the players assembled here -- including this scribe -- I'm thinking that with a few twists of fate, this all-Chicago gang could be huddling in Mayor Daley's City Hall. 

In front of me is Valerie Jarrett, a senior adviser to President Obama who today is chairing a roundtable marking the 37th anniversary of Title IX, the sports equity law. Across the room is Arne Duncan, the education secretary.

Seated in the first row is Tina Tchen, director of the White House public engagement office. Leaning against a wall is Susan Sher, chief of staff for Michelle Obama. In back of me in the vestibule is Daniel Hornung, a graduate of the University of Chicago Lab School who is working this summer for Jarrett. He is a friend of the daughter of Desiree Rogers, the White House social secretary. Marilyn Katz, a public affairs consultant visiting from Chicago, is also at the Title IX event.

Jarrett, Sher, Duncan and Tchen were all Daley appointees on boards or in top posts at City Hall, as was Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel. David Axelrod was Daley's political adviser. First lady Michelle Obama worked a stint at City Hall.

The Chicagoans have replaced the Texans in the White House. 

In Washington, the relationships among the key players in government are subject to speculation and fascination over whether there is a "Chicago way" in the six-month-old Obama White House. There is a romanticized notion of Machine politics in the air here, though only remnants of it still exist in Chicago.

I've wisecracked that there are so many Chicagoans in the Obama administration, it's like covering the 51st Ward. Obama has swept into office with him dozens of Chicagoans, in all kinds of jobs. 

Evanston's Jon Samuels is in the White House legislative affairs office and Ben LaBolt, a LaGrange native, is a White House spokesman. Ellie Schaefer, from Lincolnwood, runs the White House visitors office. They worked on the Obama presidential campaign. 

The late, great Chicago political scientist Milton Rakove titled one of his books We Don't Want Nobody Nobody Sent, and that's what I see so far: concentric circles of interlocking social, personal and political relationships that go back years. The University of Chicago is one focal point; City Hall is another.

Think Muckety, not machine. (Muckety.com is a Web site that pulls together a person's interlocking relationships.) 

Jarrett disagrees with my 51st Ward metaphor. The Chicagoans, after all, are now operating on a national and international stage. 

But I brought up the analogy because I wanted to figure out if there is a Chicago sensibility in the Obama White House.

What was exported from Chicago to Washington, Jarrett said, was "personal relationships that we have that creates a foundation of trust. . . . Some of my closest friends today are people who have been at City Hall," she said, referring to Sher, Mrs. Obama and Axelrod.

The Chicagoans at the top tier of the Obama White House have actually known each other longer than they have known the Obamas. 

"We shared a common history in that so many of us did have ties back to City Hall and had relationships that grew out of that experience, and we have grown up in a sense together,'' Jarrett told me. "And then to come here together, it would have been much harder without each other." 

Duncan, the former Chicago Public Schools chief, also brought a contingent with him to Washington.

"There is a Chicago crowd of people here, and a lot of us learned our politics from some pros," said Peter Cunningham, who worked for Duncan at CPS. Cunningham, a former speechwriter in Daley's City Hall, is now assistant secretary for communications and outreach in the Education Department. 

Obama named three Chicagoans -- all major fund-raisers -- to be ambassadors: Lou Susman to Great Britain, David Jacobson to Canada and Fay Hartog-Levin to the Netherlands. Hartog-Levin's husband, Daniel Levin, is the chairman of the Habitat Co. Jarrett is the former president and CEO of Habitat. 

Chicago lawyer Ertharin Cousin -- who worked on the Obama campaign and is a veteran of city, state and national politics -- was nominated last month to be U.S. ambassador to the Rome-based United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.

Cindy Moelis was tapped by Obama last April to be the director of the President's Commission on White House Fellowships. Moelis is a friend of Mrs. Obama and worked with her at City Hall. Moelis later became the executive director of the Pritzker Traubert Family Foundation. 

That's Pritzker as in Penny Pritzker -- the Obama presidential campaign finance chairwoman. Obama headlined a Democratic National Committee fund-raiser at her Lincoln Park home Thursday. Moelis' husband is Robert Rivkin, who wound up in the Obama administration as general counsel to the Transportation Department. Rivkin is a former CTA general counsel. Jarrett formerly chaired the CTA Board. 

Rivkin's boss is Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, the former Illinois congressman who worked closely with Emanuel while they were both in the House. (Chicago author Carol Felsenthal, writing for the Huffington Post, noted that Rivkin's brother Charles, also an Obama fund-raiser, was picked to be ambassador to France.)

Last month, Obama named Bryan Traubert, Pritzker's husband, as a member of the commission Moelis now runs. The president also named to the commission Eleanor Kaye Wilson, a former DePaul University official and a friend of Marian Robinson, Mrs. Obama's mother. Wilson is godmother to Obama daughters Malia and Sasha.

Last December, Obama said he would try to get back home every four to six weeks. While Obama stopped at his Kenwood home briefly Thursday night, more-regular visits haven't been possible. 

"The world is a busy place," Jarrett said. 

Even with all the Chicagoans in Washington, "we're all a little homesick. Everyone misses Chicago," Jarrett said.



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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 11:24:50 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 10:24:50 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Cash for Clunkers
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907300530i261844erf1a7b9b469be6d70@mail.gmail.com>
References: <400985d70907291514g348c958do75f34b1be4d59953@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907300530i261844erf1a7b9b469be6d70@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907300824y57b2f506y66e1719d5db0a40@mail.gmail.com>

Hey .... how'd the gov't know I wanted to buy that guy a new truck.

That question wasn't in the American Community Survey.

Rik

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Go figure!
>
> http://www.startribune.com/business/51943937.html?page=1&c=y
>
> Do you really want these people in charge of your health care?
>
> Brad
>
> On 7/29/09, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Finally, I time something right!  Two months ago the local VW dealer
> > had plenty of inventory and they were heavily discounting to move
> > cars.  Plus, the diesels qualify for a $1300 tax rebate.  What I found
> > interesting about the following article was that Germany takes August
> > off -
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/logky3
> >
> > Does this mean Mexico takes August off as well?  How about Chattanooga
> > when the new VW plant there comes on line?  What a novel concept, why
> > doesn't the whole US just go on vacation until we run out of inventory
> > of everything, and then the recession is over!
> >
> > Brad
> >
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From ekroposki at charter.net  Thu Jul 30 13:04:29 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 13:04:29 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
Message-ID: <368916BB5C864930A4802416B6F99A50@YOURB88038198E>

First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants

July 7, 2009

"In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service, " Michelle Obama

No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the salary for her personal secretary.

How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Miz Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q. Public:

1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)

2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)

3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and White House Social Secretary)

4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and Director of Communications for the First Lady)

5. Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the First Lady)

8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for the First Lady)

9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for the First Lady)

10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
Secretary)

11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)

12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and Events Coordinator For The First Lady)

13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director for the First Lady)

14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First
Lady)

15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press Secretary To The First Lady)

16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and Traveling Aide To The First Lady)

17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence For The First Lady)

18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)

19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)

20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
Secretary)

21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)

22. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the First Lady)


There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has
created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much help,
at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy
one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came from
the President's own pocket.

Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
"First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom travelled aboard Air
Force One to Europe.

Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press.Com

She is more intellectual than the other First Ladies.  That was the reasoning of a White House spokesperson.  What????

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From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 16:24:15 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:24:15 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
In-Reply-To: <368916BB5C864930A4802416B6F99A50@YOURB88038198E>
References: <368916BB5C864930A4802416B6F99A50@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907301324j340f38f0q6dded85ccf1e4223@mail.gmail.com>

Ed,

Does the phrase "nigger rich" come to mind???

Rik

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:

>  First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
>
> July 7, 2009
>
> "In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this
> country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a job
> at a big law firm for a career in public service, " Michelle Obama
>
> No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she
> doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from
> hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and to
> satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
> Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the
> White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out the
> salary for her personal secretary.
>
> How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of Americans
> facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking the
> shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to scream
> and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of Miz
> Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense
> departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q.
> Public:
>
> 1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
>
> 2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and
> Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
>
> 3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and
> White House Social Secretary)
>
> 4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and
> Director of Communications for the First Lady)
>
> 5. Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief
> Of Staff to the First Lady)
>
> 6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
>
> 7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the
> First Lady)
>
> 8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for
> the First Lady)
>
> 9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for
> the First Lady)
>
> 10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
> Secretary)
>
> 11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
>
> 12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and
> Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
>
> 13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director
> for the First Lady)
>
> 14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First
> Lady)
>
> 15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
> Secretary To The First Lady)
>
> 16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and
> Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
>
> 17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence
> For The First Lady)
>
> 18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
>
> 19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of Staff
> to the First Lady)
>
> 20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
> Secretary)
>
> 21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
>
> 22. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for the
> First Lady)
>
>
> There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has
> created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
> of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much help,
> at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy
> one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came from
> the President's own pocket.
>
> Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
> "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom travelled aboard Air
> Force One to Europe.
>
> Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press.Com
>
> She is more intellectual than the other First Ladies.  That was the
> reasoning of a White House spokesperson.  What????
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>
>


-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 21:10:27 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 20:10:27 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907301324j340f38f0q6dded85ccf1e4223@mail.gmail.com>
References: <368916BB5C864930A4802416B6F99A50@YOURB88038198E>
	<6634e19e0907301324j340f38f0q6dded85ccf1e4223@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907301810v2fac8272s84ff4bfe262536ec@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

Pick-up a copy of "Culture of Corruption" by Michelle Malkin.  You
won't learn anything new, you'll just get more documented evidence of
what we as a nation are facing. We have elected a radical as POTUS -
and we expected what? He's sinking rapidly. and the American populace
is catching on quickly.  You have to shop around the area WalMarts,
but some have .40 cal, hit or miss. This won't stand!

Brad


On 7/30/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ed,
>
> Does the phrase "nigger rich" come to mind???
>
> Rik
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>
>>  First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
>>
>> July 7, 2009
>>
>> "In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this
>> country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a
>> job
>> at a big law firm for a career in public service, " Michelle Obama
>>
>> No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she
>> doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from
>> hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim and
>> to
>> satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
>> Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the
>> White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out
>> the
>> salary for her personal secretary.
>>
>> How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of
>> Americans
>> facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking
>> the
>> shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to
>> scream
>> and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of
>> Miz
>> Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense
>> departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q.
>> Public:
>>
>> 1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
>>
>> 2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and
>> Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
>>
>> 3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and
>> White House Social Secretary)
>>
>> 4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President and
>> Director of Communications for the First Lady)
>>
>> 5. Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy Chief
>> Of Staff to the First Lady)
>>
>> 6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
>>
>> 7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the
>> First Lady)
>>
>> 8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for
>> the First Lady)
>>
>> 9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects for
>> the First Lady)
>>
>> 10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
>> Secretary)
>>
>> 11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
>>
>> 12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and
>> Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
>>
>> 13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip Director
>> for the First Lady)
>>
>> 14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First
>> Lady)
>>
>> 15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
>> Secretary To The First Lady)
>>
>> 16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and
>> Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
>>
>> 17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of Correspondence
>> For The First Lady)
>>
>> 18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
>>
>> 19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of
>> Staff
>> to the First Lady)
>>
>> 20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
>> Secretary)
>>
>> 21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
>>
>> 22. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for
>> the
>> First Lady)
>>
>>
>> There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has
>> created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
>> of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much help,
>> at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy
>> one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came from
>> the President's own pocket.
>>
>> Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
>> "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom travelled aboard Air
>> Force One to Europe.
>>
>> Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press.Com
>>
>> She is more intellectual than the other First Ladies.  That was the
>> reasoning of a White House spokesperson.  What????
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From sanderico1 at gmail.com  Thu Jul 30 22:02:22 2009
From: sanderico1 at gmail.com (Eric Sandberg)
Date: Thu, 30 Jul 2009 21:02:22 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
In-Reply-To: <400985d70907301810v2fac8272s84ff4bfe262536ec@mail.gmail.com>
References: <368916BB5C864930A4802416B6F99A50@YOURB88038198E>
	<6634e19e0907301324j340f38f0q6dded85ccf1e4223@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907301810v2fac8272s84ff4bfe262536ec@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <6634e19e0907301902q3a3640f1p877b68a3f297b4@mail.gmail.com>

Brad,

Just picked up 2 long guns and a few hundred assorted rounds last weekend.
Seems like you need to take the road less traveled to get stuff these days.

I'll check into the book, but many times I find that I'm better off not
reading the darn things because the more I see wrong the more frustrating it
gets that nobody else seems to be able to see the problem. I already know
the guy is a bonehead. When I have read MM's stuff I have tended to agree
with her most of the time.

Rik

On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:

> Rik,
>
> Pick-up a copy of "Culture of Corruption" by Michelle Malkin.  You
> won't learn anything new, you'll just get more documented evidence of
> what we as a nation are facing. We have elected a radical as POTUS -
> and we expected what? He's sinking rapidly. and the American populace
> is catching on quickly.  You have to shop around the area WalMarts,
> but some have .40 cal, hit or miss. This won't stand!
>
> Brad
>
>
> On 7/30/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Ed,
> >
> > Does the phrase "nigger rich" come to mind???
> >
> > Rik
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>
> wrote:
> >
> >>  First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
> >>
> >> July 7, 2009
> >>
> >> "In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this
> >> country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a
> >> job
> >> at a big law firm for a career in public service, " Michelle Obama
> >>
> >> No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she
> >> doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from
> >> hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim
> and
> >> to
> >> satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
> >> Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the
> >> White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out
> >> the
> >> salary for her personal secretary.
> >>
> >> How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of
> >> Americans
> >> facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages stocking
> >> the
> >> shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to
> >> scream
> >> and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of
> >> Miz
> >> Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense
> >> departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q.
> >> Public:
> >>
> >> 1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
> >>
> >> 2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and
> >> Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
> >>
> >> 3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President and
> >> White House Social Secretary)
> >>
> >> 4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President
> and
> >> Director of Communications for the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 5. Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy
> Chief
> >> Of Staff to the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to the
> >> First Lady)
> >>
> >> 8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance for
> >> the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects
> for
> >> the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
> >> Secretary)
> >>
> >> 11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
> >>
> >> 12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and
> >> Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
> >>
> >> 13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip
> Director
> >> for the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First
> >> Lady)
> >>
> >> 15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
> >> Secretary To The First Lady)
> >>
> >> 16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and
> >> Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
> >>
> >> 17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of
> Correspondence
> >> For The First Lady)
> >>
> >> 18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
> >>
> >> 19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of
> >> Staff
> >> to the First Lady)
> >>
> >> 20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
> >> Secretary)
> >>
> >> 21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
> >>
> >> 22. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for
> >> the
> >> First Lady)
> >>
> >>
> >> There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has
> >> created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
> >> of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much help,
> >> at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy
> >> one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came from
> >> the President's own pocket.
> >>
> >> Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
> >> "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom travelled aboard Air
> >> Force One to Europe.
> >>
> >> Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press.Com
> >>
> >> She is more intellectual than the other First Ladies.  That was the
> >> reasoning of a White House spokesperson.  What????
> >>
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
> >>
> >>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>
> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>



-- 
?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Jul 31 05:55:53 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:55:53 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
In-Reply-To: <6634e19e0907301902q3a3640f1p877b68a3f297b4@mail.gmail.com>
References: <368916BB5C864930A4802416B6F99A50@YOURB88038198E>
	<6634e19e0907301324j340f38f0q6dded85ccf1e4223@mail.gmail.com>
	<400985d70907301810v2fac8272s84ff4bfe262536ec@mail.gmail.com>
	<6634e19e0907301902q3a3640f1p877b68a3f297b4@mail.gmail.com>
Message-ID: <400985d70907310255r470b9ffct601de149c31287cb@mail.gmail.com>

Rik,

This is MM's appearance on Today with Matt Laur -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxwkzSKlESU&feature=player_embedded

Note the smirk on his face at the very end. The MSM has a lot invested
in The One and they will be the last to admit their failure, assuming
they ever do. The MSM has gone out of its way to ignore the Tea Party
movement, yet every organized MoveOn.org supported demonstration in
favor of government run health care has been overwhelmed, sometimes by
10 to 1, by Tea Party counter-protesters. They can't hide forever.

Brad


On 7/30/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Brad,
>
> Just picked up 2 long guns and a few hundred assorted rounds last weekend.
> Seems like you need to take the road less traveled to get stuff these days.
>
> I'll check into the book, but many times I find that I'm better off not
> reading the darn things because the more I see wrong the more frustrating it
> gets that nobody else seems to be able to see the problem. I already know
> the guy is a bonehead. When I have read MM's stuff I have tended to agree
> with her most of the time.
>
> Rik
>
> On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 8:10 PM, Brad Haslett <flybrad at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rik,
>>
>> Pick-up a copy of "Culture of Corruption" by Michelle Malkin.  You
>> won't learn anything new, you'll just get more documented evidence of
>> what we as a nation are facing. We have elected a radical as POTUS -
>> and we expected what? He's sinking rapidly. and the American populace
>> is catching on quickly.  You have to shop around the area WalMarts,
>> but some have .40 cal, hit or miss. This won't stand!
>>
>> Brad
>>
>>
>> On 7/30/09, Eric Sandberg <sanderico1 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > Ed,
>> >
>> > Does the phrase "nigger rich" come to mind???
>> >
>> > Rik
>> >
>> > On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:04 PM, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> >>  First Lady Requires More Than 20 Attendants
>> >>
>> >> July 7, 2009
>> >>
>> >> "In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this
>> >> country that has given me so much," she said. "See, that's why I left a
>> >> job
>> >> at a big law firm for a career in public service, " Michelle Obama
>> >>
>> >> No, Michele Obama does not get paid to serve as the First Lady and she
>> >> doesn't perform any official duties. But this hasn't deterred her from
>> >> hiring an unprecedented number of staffers to cater to her every whim
>> and
>> >> to
>> >> satisfy her every request in the midst of the Great Recession.
>> >> Just think Mary Lincoln was taken to task for purchasing china for the
>> >> White House during the Civil War. And Mamie Eisenhower had to shell out
>> >> the
>> >> salary for her personal secretary.
>> >>
>> >> How things have changed! If you're one of the tens of millions of
>> >> Americans
>> >> facing certain destitution, earning less than subsistence wages
>> >> stocking
>> >> the
>> >> shelves at Wal-Mart or serving up McDonald cheeseburgers, prepare to
>> >> scream
>> >> and then come to realize that the benefit package for these servants of
>> >> Miz
>> >> Michelle are the same as members of the national security and defense
>> >> departments and the bill for these assorted lackeys is paid by John Q.
>> >> Public:
>> >>
>> >> 1. $172,2000 - Sher, Susan (Chief Of Staff)
>> >>
>> >> 2. $140,000 - Frye, Jocelyn C. (Deputy Assistant to the President and
>> >> Director of Policy And Projects For The First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 3. $113,000 - Rogers, Desiree G. (Special Assistant to the President
>> >> and
>> >> White House Social Secretary)
>> >>
>> >> 4. $102,000 - Johnston, Camille Y. (Special Assistant to the President
>> and
>> >> Director of Communications for the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 5. Winter, Melissa E. (Special Assistant to the President and Deputy
>> Chief
>> >> Of Staff to the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 6. $90,000 - Medina, David S. (Deputy Chief Of Staff to the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 7. $84,000 - Lelyveld, Catherine M. (Director and Press Secretary to
>> >> the
>> >> First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 8. $75,000 - Starkey, Frances M. (Director of Scheduling and Advance
>> >> for
>> >> the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 9. $70,000 - Sanders, Trooper (Deputy Director of Policy and Projects
>> for
>> >> the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 10. $65,000 - Burnough, Erinn J. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social
>> >> Secretary)
>> >>
>> >> 11. Reinstein, Joseph B. (Deputy Director and Deputy Social Secretary)
>> >>
>> >> 12. $62,000 - Goodman, Jennifer R. (Deputy Director of Scheduling and
>> >> Events Coordinator For The First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 13. $60,000 - Fitts, Alan O. (Deputy Director of Advance and Trip
>> Director
>> >> for the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 14. Lewis, Dana M. (Special Assistant and Personal Aide to the First
>> >> Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 15. $52,500 - Mustaphi, Semonti M. (Associate Director and Deputy Press
>> >> Secretary To The First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 16. $50,000 - Jarvis, Kristen E. (Special Assistant for Scheduling and
>> >> Traveling Aide To The First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 17. $45,000 - Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (Associate Director of
>> Correspondence
>> >> For The First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 18. Tubman, Samantha (Deputy Associate Director, Social Office)
>> >>
>> >> 19. $40,000 - Boswell, Joseph J. (Executive Assistant to the Chief Of
>> >> Staff
>> >> to the First Lady)
>> >>
>> >> 20. $36,000 - Armbruster, Sally M. (Staff Assistant to the Social
>> >> Secretary)
>> >>
>> >> 21. Bookey, Natalie (Staff Assistant)
>> >>
>> >> 22. Jackson, Deilia A. (Deputy Associate Director of Correspondence for
>> >> the
>> >> First Lady)
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> There has never been anyone in the White House at any time that has
>> >> created such an army of staffers whose sole duties are the facilitation
>> >> of the First Lady's social life. One wonders why she needs so much
>> >> help,
>> >> at taxpayer expense, when even Hillary, only had three; Jackie Kennedy
>> >> one; Laura Bush one; and prior to Mamie Eisenhower social help came
>> >> from
>> >> the President's own pocket.
>> >>
>> >> Note: This does not include makeup artist Ingrid Grimes-Miles, 49, and
>> >> "First Hairstylist" Johnny Wright, 31, both of whom travelled aboard
>> >> Air
>> >> Force One to Europe.
>> >>
>> >> Copyright 2009 Canada Free Press.Com
>> >>
>> >> She is more intellectual than the other First Ladies.  That was the
>> >> reasoning of a White House spokesperson.  What????
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> _______________________________________________
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> >> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>> >>
>> >>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
>> > then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>> >
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> SwiftwaterGazette mailing list
>> SwiftwaterGazette at mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com
>>
>> http://mailman.theswiftwatergazette.com/mailman/listinfo.cgi/swiftwatergazette
>>
>
>
>
> --
> ?The government is great at breaking your leg, handing you a crutch, and
> then saying, ?You see, without me, you couldn?t walk.? ?. Harry Browne
>


From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 31 07:15:54 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:15:54 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Poltical Humor
Message-ID: <AB23C1B937254EAB827D1AD9EA3F6353@YOURB88038198E>

See if the pictures show up as attachments:






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From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 31 07:17:34 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:17:34 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 7-30-09 Beer at White House
Message-ID: <236E6963CCE34120A0753C775694D3A4@YOURB88038198E>


Check out attachments:






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From flybrad at gmail.com  Fri Jul 31 08:06:30 2009
From: flybrad at gmail.com (Brad Haslett)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 07:06:30 -0500
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] 7-30-09 Beer at White House
In-Reply-To: <236E6963CCE34120A0753C775694D3A4@YOURB88038198E>
References: <236E6963CCE34120A0753C775694D3A4@YOURB88038198E>
Message-ID: <400985d70907310506r46b00623ia37ad98abc95438c@mail.gmail.com>

Funny that Mr. O would choose Bud Light.  I read a great book a few
years ago on Jessie Jackson called "Shakedown".  Jesse started a
boycott against Budweiser several years ago called "Bud's a Dud".  How
did it end?  Jesse, Jr. became a Budweiser distributor in Chicago.
The same Jr. who was supposed to get O's Senate seat until Blago
screwed things-up for them.

Brad


On 7/31/09, Ed Kroposki <ekroposki at charter.net> wrote:
>
> Check out attachments:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 31 09:02:55 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:02:55 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Where have all the leaders gone?
Message-ID: <F9073FABFE304787BA0C897025CFFA4C@YOURB88038198E>



      Wonder why we haven't heard more from him lately? Guess I need to find his book and read it..this sounds like it will be interesting..




         

       
       


      Remember  Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler  Corporation from its death throes?  He's now 82 years old and  has a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders  Gone?'.
       
       

      Lee  Iacocca  Says: 
       

      'Am I the  only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the  hell is our outrage? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a  gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of state right over a cliff,  we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even clean  up after a hurricane much less build a hybrid  car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods  their heads when the politicians say, 'Stay the  course..'

       

       

      Stay the  course? You've got  to be kidding. This is  America , not the damned, 'Titanic'. I'll give you  a sound bite: 'Throw all the bums  out!' 


       

      You might  think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have.  But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country  anymore..

       
       
       

      The most  famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs..  While we're fiddling in  Iraq , the    Middle East is burning and nobody seems to  know what to do. And the press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard  questions. That's not the promise of the '  America ' my parents and yours  traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about  you? 

       

       

      I'll go a  step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged.  This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis!  (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the  first.)

       
       
       

      Leaders are  made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit  there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone  else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's  another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling  down.

       
       
       
       

      On September  11, 2001, we needed a  strong leader more than any other time in our  history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a  mess, so here's where we stand.



       

      We're  immersed in a bloody war with no plan for winning and no plan for  leaving. 

       

       

      Obama is  running the biggest deficit in the history of the  country. 

       



      We're losing  the manufacturing edge to  Asia , while our  once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care  costs. 

       
       

       

      Gas prices  are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. Our  schools are in trouble due to poor leadership in school districts. 

       
       

      Our borders  are like sieves.. 

       
       
       

      The middle  class is being squeezed every which  way. 

        
       
       

      These are  times that cry out for  leadership.

        
       

      But when you  look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where  are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of  character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a  sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the   point.

       
        

      Name me a  leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off  our shoes in airports and throw away our  shampoo?

       
       
       
        

      We've spent  billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how  to do is react to things that have already  happened.

       
        

      Name me one  leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane  Katrina. Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the  response to the hurricane or demanding accountability for the decisions  that were made in the crucial hours after the  storm. 

       
        
       

      Everyone's  hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again. Now,  that's just crazy. Storms happen. Deal with it. Make a plan. Figure out  what you're going to do the next  time.

       
       
        

      Name me an  industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our  competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there  could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car  companies? How did this happen, and more important, what are we going to  do about it?

       
       
        

      Name me a  government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or  solving the energy crisis, or managing the  health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises  that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class  dry. 

       
       
       
       
      I have news  for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do  nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our  greatness is being replaced with mediocrity.. What is everybody so afraid  of? That some bonehead on NBC news or CNN news will call them a  name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a  change?

       
       
        
       

      Had  Enough? Hey, I'm  not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here.  I'm trying to  light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America  . In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of    America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst  crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War  II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the  'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent  years culminating with 9/11.

       
       
       If I've  learned one thing, it's this: 'You don't get anywhere by standing on the  sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action. Whether it's building  a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a  role to play. 
       

      Only a few people in the  US know you elected a illegal alien to be President! A Muslim at that! And he jumped

      right in destroying the  US from the inside. Osama bin Laden is smiling from ear to ear because he is winning the war on terror and you helped by voting his man in as President!

      That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a "Call to Action" for people who, like me, believe  in  America '. It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's  shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had  'enough.'
     

Make your  own contribution by sending this to everyone you know and care about. It's  our country, folks, and it's our future. Our future is at  stake!!







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From ekroposki at charter.net  Fri Jul 31 19:25:47 2009
From: ekroposki at charter.net (Ed Kroposki)
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 2009 19:25:47 -0400
Subject: [Swiftwater Gazette] Fine print in cash for clunkers contract
Message-ID: <FE5A8FAECF7B45C0931AF20EA1596D2F@YOURB88038198E>

Has anybody heard or have a reference to the clause in the contract of the cash for clunkers that says you are supposed to supply your email address and that the clause gives the government the right to review all files in your computer?

I was talking to a guy on the phone when his wife started yelling that information at him.

And if that is true, and one guy in a office gives them his email does that mean they can peruse all the files on the office server?

Ed K
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