Rossputin.com: Rational Thinking About Our World

re "Ref C revenue up by $2 billion" (Lynn Bartels, Rocky Mountain News, 12/22/06)
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/drmn/government/article/0,2777,DRMN_23906_5230714,00.html

To the Editor:

Just two months ago, the Rocky ran a story about Referendum C being expected to cost taxpayers $300 million more than we were told in the first year, with the State’s budget office predicting that because of recession the total extra amount fleeced from Coloradoans would be only $200 million over 5 years because of a predicted recession.

Now the news is that the 5-year extra take will be $2 billion, or about 60% more of our money than we were told government would keep from Ref C. While the amount has increased massively, the Democrats’ reaction hasn’t. Two months ago, Andrew Romanoff thought the extra $200 million over 5 years was “good news” and this week his reaction to his hand digging deeper into our pockets than even he thought possible was “That’s great news”.

The Democrats argument that the state “lost money” during the recession is just as ridiculous now as it was during the Ref C battle. The state got less because Coloradoans made less. Just as we all must make do during hard times, so must government. We must never forget that the government does not have their own money; they have ours. And how they will have $2 billion more of it, or almost $600 per adult in the state. The question is what they will do with it. So far, we have no reason they will do anything but fatten the hog of government.

Giant squid caught on video by Japanese scientists

story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061222/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_squid_giant_japan_1

pictures: http://news.yahoo.com/photos/ss/events/sc/122206giantsquid

When I can find a link to the video footage, I'll post it.

As I was reading through the sports headlines on Yahoo news yesterday, I ran across these 4 headlines, which I've shortened, (out of the 5 headlines I was looking at):

Rape charges dropped in Duke case
Football player suspended for substance abuse
Football player gets home confinement for second gun law violation
Baseball player arrested for DUI
Hockey player suspended for blind-side punch to the head

I was going to write a story about the obvious trend in these headlines, even though that's probably an over-exploited subject and maybe not even very interesting anymore.

Instead, as I was digging around in sports news this morning, I came across something entirely different:

Teammates once, friends forever:
Everson Walls donating kidney to Ron Springs
http://www.elpasotimes.com/sports/ci_4887870

It's a great story, especially for this time of year.

That said, it's still not enough to make this Redskins fan cheer for the Dallas Cowboys.

Hello again, everyone,

In an effort to get home from the East Coast, we (my friend Christopher and I, who were out in VA on business) flew to Las Vegas instead of Denver. After staying for about 9 hours in Vegas, including half an hour of poker (lost $45), we drove a rented SUV through Utah for 15 hours, stopping for lunch in St. George, Utah and dinner in Grand Junction, CO, and then getting a motel in Dillon, CO.

This morning, we set out at 7 AM and despite some icy patches on the road, we got to Denver Airport, got my car, returned the rental car, and were out of there by 10 AM.

I finally got home at about 1 PM, more than 48 hours after beginning my journey home from Virginia.

So, I didn't get a chance to write a "serious" blog posting for day. I hope you'll forgive me, and I'll try to get one done for tomorrow.

I wish you all a great weekend and for all my readers who celebrate Xmas, I wish you a very merry Christmas.

re "Is $5.15 enough? Plan would raise Va. minimum wage" (Virginian-Pilot 12/20/06)
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=116333&ran=115592

Two Democratic politicians quoted in your article wondering “Is $5.15 enough?” demonstrate a remarkable and dangerous lack of understanding of economics and the proper role of government. State Senator Mary Margaret Whipple says that “sharing the wealth” is an “issue of simple fairness.” But how is that any different from a mugger who wants to “share the wealth” because his victim has less than he does?

When a politician believes she has the right to decide how to take lawfully- and hard-earned money from citizens to redistribute it to others (no matter how “worthy” they might be”), where does it end? How can an elected official miss the lessons of the Soviet Union, where even they learned that the government can not act like a thief in order to create a civil society.

State Representative Brian Moran makes another economically ignorant argument. He says that the minimum wage will put more money in workers’ pockets. But where does he think that money comes from? The only way to put more money in one pocket is to take it from another, just as a petty thief would do. Every extra dollar that a worker has to spend is a dollar that the employer doesn’t have either to spend or to create a job for another worker.

Economic idiocy lives in Virginia’s state government. We can only hope that Virginians realize before it is too late that socialist policies always produce bad outcomes.

Hello all,

Sorry I didn't get a real blog posting up for today. I was in business meetings in Virginia in the morning and then have spent the rest day learning that Denver Airport (and highways) are closed due to a blizzard, and that I can't get back from here for several days at least. So, we've arranged to fly to Las Vegas from here, and then we're going to rent a car (4WD) tomorrow morning and drive the 14 hours to Denver.

In any case, I didn't get to do a decent blog posting for today, and for that I apologize to my faithful readers.

Wish us luck getting home....

Rossputin

re "President put himself in Iraq corner with tax cuts" (EJ Dionne, Houston Chronicle, 12/16)
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/editorial/outlook/4406834.html

E.J. Dionne believes he can solve a real war by fomenting a domestic class war. His arguments about tax cuts hurting the war effort are wrong-headed in many critical ways:

First, Dionne assumes that it is impossible to redirect money from other parts of government (a bridge to nowhere, for example?) toward defense spending. Second, he assumes that if there were more money today, we would have a different military today, missing the fact that changes to any large organization and particularly the military take many years to enact. (Just ask Donald Rumsfeld.) Third, Dionne forgets that every major tax cut in US history has not only increased revenue to the government but has also make the tax code more progressive.

Most importantly, Dionne gets the issue exactly backwards when comparing tax increases to “extending other people’s tours”. The soldiers who are risking their lives for us daily are volunteers. Yes, longer military tours are difficult and dangerous, but at the end of the day, that is their job, a job they willingly signed up for. Conversely, tax hikes are imposed on citizens, and, if Dionne had his way, they are imposed on the people who already pay a massively disproportionate share of income taxes.

Everything Dionne argues about the relationship between Bush’s tax cuts and the war in Iraq is wrong both in theory and in practice. Attacking the heart of the American economy is no way to help our war effort.

re "Congress's Inaction Threatens Funding" (Washington Post, 12/17/06)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/16/AR2006121601087.html

The final act of the Republican-controlled Congress, or rather their final inaction by not passing spending bills, was the closest thing we have seen to fiscal responsibility in the Federal Government for years.

The idea that one bureaucracy after another will implode if they have to live on the same amount of money as the prior year is too silly to take seriously. Simply fire the heads of those agencies for incompetence if they claim that risk. The laundry list of earmarks whose demise, even if temporary, we are presumably to feel sorry for, is simply another reminder of a government and a Party that has completely lost sight of the fundamental principles of our Republic: The role of government in general and the Federal government in particular is supposed to be limited, leaving us with correspondingly limited costs.

When Republicans like Christopher Shays react to a speed bump in DC wastefulness by promising to “reverse the decision” rather than cheering the victory for taxpayers, it is the perfect reminder that the Republicans so richly deserved what just happened to them.