ANOTHER THREAD COMMING OFF THE BALL OF YARN

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=2158072e-802a-23ad-45f0-274616db87e6

Why the Federal Goverment should keep out

The subprime mortgage meltdown has been the perfect example of why the federal goverenment should never have this much power over our day to day private transactions. They should never have been given this type of power via the commerce clause and we must eventually do something to scale back the power of the federal goverment.

I just read this AP article...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20081208/D94UMEC00.html

Take a look at the levels of corruption and influence peddling that helped lead to this mess. It came from both parties. My problem is do you think there is anything average involved citizens can do to know about this or stop it? No. That is why we cannot give away so much power to a goverment we truly cannot control. They can ruin the industry, our jobs and our economy simply by a few taxpayer subsidized agencies like Freddie and Fannie throwing around some cash$. Read the part about the private banks licking their lips hoping that Freddie and Fannie would fail so that the government would stop competing with private companies...

No Communism in America?

There is often discussion among politicians and political parties of “Communism” and whether what policies proposed are actually verging on a “Command Economy”. Well we may have a partial free market economy, but yesterday’s AP story is the perfect example of where we do have parts of a command economy. (ie where the government decides what business will produce).

Oregon Senate Democrats nix gas tax hike
http://www.kgw.com/news-local/stories/kgw_082608_news_gas_tax_nixed.166bb41b.html

Notice the grand plan for the health industry as the article explains the Senate Democrats plans. “Among other things, (Senate Democrats) said they would … create more jobs by investing in health care”. Then a few sentences later we find out… “Lawmakers also might look for ways to raise more money from provider taxes on health care organizations”.

So the government will tax health care providers to make and “investment” in those same health care providers. Thus the government will determine what the health care providers produce (be deciding what gets subsidized), then the tax will determine at least part of what the health care provides stop producing.

For instance consider the following example. The state decides we need to invest money into obesity treatment (i.e. house candidate Jim Gilbert). Ok sounds good, some doctors will then logically spend more of their time and service in that type of treatment since someone will now pay them to do that. This means that less of their time is available for other services. But the state also wants to pay for that by taxing normal treatments say for instance broken bones. So any doctor that has to look at the bottom line now sees that it makes more financial sense to treat obese patients and turn away broken bones. Less doctors will then treat broken bones and WAAA-LAA the government has now successfully manipulated the market so that obesity is served more than broken bones.

Republican Donate More to Charity than Democrats

Charity's Political Divide
Republicans give a bigger share of their incomes to charity, says a prominent economist Arthur C. Brooks. He finds that religious conservatives are far more charitable than secular liberals, and that those who support the idea that government should redistribute income are among the least likely to dig into their own wallets to help others.


http://www.philanthropy.com/free/articles/v19/i04/04001101.htm

Pro-Life Pessimism?

Last night I recieved my Voter's Guide from Oregon Right to Life. As a strong Pro-Life person I was a bit shocked to see the pessimism coming from ORTL. The rumors still abound that they endorse Pro-Choice Candidates for political expediency. If that is true- and I don't know if it is or not but am trying to find out -- then no wonder they are pessimistic.

The thing that surprised me the most is that their Political Director Lois Anderson wrote her piece with such shallow intellectual analysis. I am what I call and evangelical Catholic, so I can speak about Catholics without my friends getting upset. Lois claims that Catholic voters are "flocking back to the Democratic Party". Lois I beg to differ. If you know anything about the Catholic Church you know that we have a strong pro-life policy. We have very strong pro-marriage policy. We have very strong anti-suicide policy. We have very strong stance on adultry, sodomy and that they are sin. So Lois, I say to you that Catholic Voters are not leaving the Republican Party. Rather, Democratic voters are leaving the Catholic Church.

Oregon #1 in the Nation

Have you heard about the new study the Pew Center released? Oregon spends a bigger percentage of its state budget to lock up criminals and supervise their parole than any other state, according to a new study that examined three decades of prison growth across America.

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1204259110324800.xml&coll=7

What do you think about that? I for one am not a big fan of what some call "rehabilitation". Criminal law is based on one of two theories, retribution (ie punishment) or rehabilitation. I believe that both have a place in preventing crime, however our system has gone WAY too far to the rehabilitation side. Prison is not a babysitter or college. We must re-institute the concept of punishment. There are many ways to make the punishment more severe. One of those ways is to lengthen prison sentences (ie Measure 11). The other would be to make prison less attractive (ie miserable).

Did you hear the story two days ago about prisoners fighting about what they would watch on TV, and this nearly caused a riot. Are you kidding me? On what planet are prisoners entitled to watch TV? I think that we should make prison just as miserable as the law and courts will allow us to. That will help keep the recitivism rates down. Last time I looked it was way over 50% of people that go to prison once, go back again. That is horrible and speaks to show that the rehabilitation theory that we have been implementing since the 60's does not work.