We heard endless about the unsubstantiated charge that some Tea Partier spat on an African American congressman but amazingly, the atrocious behavior of the Occupy movement has largely been ignored or excused. I have friends and family who practically seethe with hatred towards “fucking tea baggers” who I know are sympathetic for the Occupy Wall Street people. What the hell is the matter with these people? While I don’t consider myself a “Tea Partier”, I cannot grasp the antipathy dire...
So, on the one hand, I like the idea of having a 0 emissions house. On the other I have philosophical objections to the federal government picking winners and losers. So I have some trepidation as I install the 20KW solar array because of the almost insane level of tax incentives on it.
Someone asked me recently if there were any activities that I had had to put aside that I really missed. The answer was easy: blogging about social issues. People now take politics very seriously and some people, mostly liberals to be honest, take politics extremely personally. Conservatives and liberals can be very passionate in their beliefs but in my experience, liberals are a lot more likely to hate someone for having a different ideology than themselves. One of the sit...
Today’s USA Today has a bombshell – at least for people who haven’t been paying attention: Nearly half of Americans pay no federal income taxes. I’ve tried to explain this before to my liberal friends who insist that “rich people” don’t pay their fair share and whenever I’ve brought up that nearly half of Americans pay zilch to the fed in income taxes they scoff that it’s probably some far right propaganda. Nope. It’s real. As April 15th comes up and I look at the million...
Great article: What the Top US companies pay in taxes . The reader is meant to get fired up by the fact that these hugely profitable corporations aren’t paying Uncle Sam taxes. Oh, they’re still paying taxes. Billions of taxes. Just not in the United States. That’s because companies liek Wal-Mart, General Electric, AT&T and so forth have overseas divisions and can have the profits show up in any of those countries – countries with lower tax rates. How did this happe...
One of my big frustrations with the environmentalist community (that I like to think I’m part of) is jus how ideological they are. Today’s big hub-bug on TreeHugger.com is that apparently Sarah Palin is hosting a show on TLC about Alaska’s natural wonders. Personally, I don’t care much for Palin one way or the other. I think there’s much ado about nothing with regards to her. She’s a conservative politician. But the Treehuggers are absolutely going bonkers about it because she su...
The answer is almost always: No, actually it doesn’t. In almost any debate, we’ll hear about how the “United States is the only X that does Y [or doesn’t do]”. Except that’s not the case when you compare apples and apples. One of the constant, long-time, ongoing debates in the United States is one that Europeans now find themselves in as well – where do the “states” stop and the “union” start? When you dig into countless numbers of political topics, you find that opposition t...
I am glad that people are actively following politics more these days. However, I am somewhat concerned with the amount of passion that’s been directed towards it. I enjoy a good political debate but I never for a second believe that I’m going to be brought in as Emperor of the world to institute my theories. Discussing topics to try to persuade or educate others on political philosophies that you think are good is a noble thing. However, hating other people over the...
People tend to project their hopes and dreams onto things based on their name. They hear “health care reform” and they see their ideological allies supporting it and they assume it does all kinds of magical things. For those of you glad that the bill passed, be aware that what was passed resembles nothing like what is in Europe or Canada. Here’s what it does (you can read the details at CBS News ): 1. It “provides” insurance to 30 million Americans. How does it do thi...
Warner Todd Huston has written a statement of conservative values that I found very interesting. Here it is below. The Huston Statement Since our political climate has long since drifted from the first principles of our founding and since we now face a crisis threatening to tear down our American moral center we commit ourselves to re-establishing our American character. We believe that our Constitution and the principles...
Phil Jones is “the guy”, as in THE go-to guy when it comes to climate change. In an interview where he complains about skeptics “spinning” statements he ultimately reveals this: "I'm a scientist trying to measure temperature. If I registered that the climate has been cooling I'd say so. But it hasn't until recently - and then barely at all . The trend is a warming trend." You can read the whole thing here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8511701.st...
During my daily journey to Digg to see what’s cool and new I usually fail the temptation test of reading the comments on some of the political articles. For example: http://m.digg.com/political_opinion/George_Will_Progressives_and_the_growing_dependency_agenda The most dugg comment (indicating that the Digg community found this comment to be insightful): Thanks for that myopic right wing rant-o-rama, George. Just because you have the money to afford private school...
As a kook, I’ve been into alternative power sources for a very long time. Before being “green” became fashionable and dumb people started parroting what “the wise scientists [who happen to want grants] say” mantra, the kooks of the world have known an ugly truth about energy: Fossil fuels aren’t going away any time soon no matter what. If you look at the chart above, which I scanned from the December issue of Home Power Magazine (a magazine dedicated to alternative energy so...
campaign finance “reform” healthcare “reform”
Did you watch the most recent “This Week” on ABC? You get a real idea of the bankruptcy of the political left through the dishonesty and pettiness of its advocates. http://abcnews.go.com/video/playerIndex?id=9585338