Friday, May 24, 2013

Posted on May 25, 2013 by prageru

How the middle class subsidizes the 1%

The decade-old Tesla debuted its first product, the Roadster, in 2006. With a base price of $109,000, it was discontinued before it hit 2,500 sales. Tesla introduced its Model S a year ago and had sold an estimated 9,650 at a bargain $70,000 through April. By contrast, Ford sold 168,843 F-series pickup trucks in the first quarter alone.

Tesla wouldn’t have sold even that many cars without the extraordinary help of government. In 2009 the company received a $465 million Obama loan guarantee, supplemented last year by a $10 million grant from the California Energy Commission.

That money has underwritten Tesla’s engineering and manufacturing, but federal and state governments also subsidize the purchase of Tesla products. Any U.S. buyer of a Tesla car qualifies for a $7,500 federal tax credit, while states like Colorado throw in up to $6,000 more in state income-tax credits. Taxpayers pay first so Tesla can build the cars and again to help the wealthy buy them.

Thursday, May 23, 2013

Posted on May 24, 2013 by prageru

Peer reviewed report on ideological bias on American campuses

“Even if liberal professors do not oppress conservative students, professorial ideological imbalance causes problems. While conservative students benefit from hearing alternative worldviews, liberal students at many institutions are rarely exposed to ideas challenging their core beliefs. Furthermore, without a critical mass of conservative faculty to challenge their liberal colleagues, social scientific research is inherently skewed to support leftist policy positions.

We argue that, rather than abandon American colleges and universities to the Left, conservatives need to “infiltrate” higher education, joining the faculty and thus reinvigorating higher education. In our recent article for the American Political Science Association’s journal PS: Political Science and Politics, we synthesize more than a decade of research on politics in academe to provide conservatives with a roadmap for success. While conservatives in academe often face special challenges, with hard work, caution, and humility many can prosper in universities seemingly closed to the right.”

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Posted on May 22, 2013 by prageru

FLASHBACK: Killer Tornados Blamed on Global Cooling. Back in the ‘70’s.

“Last April, in the most devastating outbreak of tornadoes ever recorded, 148 twisters killed more than 300 people and caused half a billion dollars’ worth of damage in thirteen U.S. states. To scientists, these seemingly disparate incidents represent the advance signs of fundamental changes in the world’s weather. The central fact is that after three quarters of a century of extraordinarily mild conditions, the earth’s climate seems to be cooling down.”
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SHUT OUT: Ivy League schools bring in 0 conservatives for commencement speeches

The list of keynote commencement speakers at Ivy League institutions for 2013 does not include a single conservative, a recent study authored by the conservative Young America’s Foundation (YAF) found.

Instead seven of the elite schools opted to invite ideological liberal speakers such as media billionaire Oprah Winfrey, Vice President Joe Biden (D), Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D), Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I), among others.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Posted on May 22, 2013 by prageru

Horrifying video of Moore killer tornado
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We are quite confident global warming isn’t responsible for this…or much of anything for that matter (from the BBC)

Scientists say the recent downturn in the rate of global warming will lead to lower temperature rises in the short-term.

Since 1998, there has been an unexplained “standstill” in the heating of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Writing in Nature Geoscience, the researchers say this will reduce predicted warming in the coming decades.
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Monday, May 20, 2013

Posted on May 20, 2013 by prageru

Reality catches up to the Onion. Government asks businesses to fix government miscalculation.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.

Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.
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We should probably be more outraged about our government’s outrageous overreach

Liberalism’s agenda has been constant since long before liberals, having given their name a bad name, stopped calling themselves liberals and resumed calling themselves progressives, which they will call themselves until they finish giving that name a bad name. The agenda always is: Concentrate more power in Washington, more Washington power in the executive branch and more executive power in agencies run by experts. Then trust the experts to be disinterested and prudent with their myriad intrusions into, and minute regulations of, Americans’ lives.
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IRS scandal is third-world banana republic corruption

A year after he was named to the Obama Dishonor Roll, the feds have found nothing on Mr. VanderSloot, but they have caused him to rack up 80 grand in legal bills. This is what IRS defenders (of whom there are more than there ought to be) mean when they assure us that the system worked: Yes, some rich guy had to blow through the best part of six figures fending off the bureaucrats, but it’s not like his body was found in a trunk at the airport or anything, if you know what I mean, Kimmy baby.

Mr. VanderSloot is big enough, just about, to see off the most powerful government on the planet. Most of those who’ve caught the eye of the IRS share nothing in common with him other than his political preferences. They’re nobodies — ordinary American citizens guilty of no crime except that of disagreeing with the ruling party. Yet they were asked, under “penalty of perjury,” to disclose the names of books they were reading and provide the names and addresses of relatives who might be planning to run for public office — a kind of pre-enemies list. Is that banana-republic enough for you yet?

FLASHBACK: IRS to hire nearly 2,000 more agents for ACA implementation

University Damage Alert

Posted on May 18, 2013 by prageru

White heterosexual male deemed not diverse enough to hold diversity position at Northwestern

A student’s bid to become associate vice president of diversity and inclusion at Northwestern University was derailed last Wednesday over accusations that his status as a white heterosexual male would make it impossible for him to perform the position’s duties.

The Wednesday hearing began with student senator Jesse Seitz reportedly asking the nominee, Stephen Piotrkowski, how he could possibly interact and serve a minority community as a white male.

Piotrkowski reportedly attempted to appeal to the Student Senate on the grounds that he identifies as a religious minority and has a lesbian sister, but it was to no avail.

After about thirty more minutes of questioning, the Senate voted to block Piotrkowski’s appointment.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Posted on May 13, 2013 by prageru

IRS SCANDAL WILL BOIL OVER soon if the media wants it to

Lois G. Lerner, the IRS official who oversees tax-exempt groups, said the ‘absolutely inappropriate’ actions by ‘frontline people’ were not driven by partisan motives.

Does anyone actually believe this?

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MAKES OUR SIDE LOOK LIKE GALILEO…and the left like the Church

(Editor’s note: This article is a must read)

The president’s recently formed grass-roots campaign operation revealed Thursday that it plans to attack Republicans who question radical global warming hype, dubbing them “crazy” purveyors of “far-fetched conspiracy theories.”

In a fundraising memo from President Obama’s re-election campaign manager, Organizing for Action slammed “climate deniers” and their doubts, which Jim Messina compared to the nutty things a crazy uncle would say at Thanksgiving dinner.
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FORMER EDUCATION SECRETARY: Only 4% of colleges can justify their tuitions

The U.S. is home to some of the greatest colleges and universities in the world. But with the student debt load at more than $1 trillion and youth unemployment elevated, when assessing the value of a college education, that’s only one part of the story.

Former Secretary of Education William Bennett, author of Is College Worth It, sat down with The Daily Ticker on the sidelines of the Milken Institute’s 2013 Global Conference to talk about whether college is worth it.

“We have about 21 million people in higher education, and about half the people who start four year colleges don’t finish,” Bennett tells The Daily Ticker. “Those who do finish, who graduated in 2011 – half were either unemployed or radically underemployed and in debt.”

Bennett assessed the “return on investment” for the 3500 colleges and universities in the country. He found that returns were positive for only 150 institutions. The top 10 schools ranked by Bennett as having the best “ROI” are below (for the full list he used, click here, and for the latest figures, click here):

Harvey Mudd College
California Institute of Technology
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Stanford University
Princeton University
Harvard University
Dartmouth College
Duke University
University of Pennsylvania
University of Notre Dame

Friday, May 10, 2013

Posted on May 10, 2013 by prageru

AL GORE SAYS THAT there’s “no such thing as ethical oil”…But we guess anything that’s green is inherently ethical, even if it’s prohibitively expensive.

“Mr. Gore also spoke of his wish that U.S. president Barack Obama would cancel the Keystone XL pipeline intended to transport heavy crude from the Alberta oil sands to U.S. refineries. In part because oil-sands crude requires more energy to extract than conventional sources, and so produces more greenhouse gases per barrel, he suggested that the full social and environmental cost of developing the oil sands made it a more expensive proposition than a faster move by the U.S. to renewable sources.

When Mr. Stackhouse asked whether Alberta oil was more ethical because it came from a democratic nation with a commitment to human rights, Mr. Gore rejected the term.

“There’s no such thing as ethical oil,” he said. “There’s only dirty oil and dirtier oil.” The remark triggered applause from a nearly full house at the Globe-sponsored event at a Ryerson University auditorium.”
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Government will spend $150,000,000 to teach people how to comply with government

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday that HHS will spend $150 million to teach people how to enroll in the Obamacare exchanges, after a Democratic senator scolded her for running a poor “public information campaign.”
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John Eastman on church and state while running for California AG

“Too many people think that our Constitution actually requires a separation of church and state. That language is nowhere in the Constitution. The Constitution prohibits the national government from establishing a national church…but the notion that government can’t cooperate or collaborate with religion in order to produce good citizens capable carrying on the traditions of this country would have been completely foreign to [the founders].”

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Posted on May 8, 2013 by prageru

LEE HABEEB on exploding disability benefit claims.
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TONIGHT, 65 YEARS AGO, the Nazis signed surrender documents. Cheers to that.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Posted on May 7, 2013 by prageru

CHILDREN SUSPENDED for pretending pencils are guns

Two Suffolk second graders have been suspended for making shooting noises while pointing pencils at each other.

Media outlets report the 7-year-old boys were suspended for two days for a violation of the Suffolk school system’s zero-tolerance policy on weapons. They were playing with one another in class Friday at Driver Elementary.

“When I asked him about it, he said, ‘Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,’” said Paul Marshall, one of the boys’ fathers. “It’s as simple as that.”

But Suffolk Public Schools spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw said a pencil is considered a weapon when it’s pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made.

“Some children would consider it threatening, who are scared about shootings in schools or shootings in the community,” Bradshaw said. “Kids don’t think about ‘Cowboys and Indians’ anymore, they think about drive-by shootings and murders and everything they see on television news every day.”

Bradshaw said the policy has been in place for at least two decades. It also bans drawing a picture of a gun and pointing a finger in a threatening manner.
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MORE PEOPLE ON DISABILITY in America than the entire population of Greece. Yowzers.

(Editor’s note: This is simply not sustainable)

The total number of people in the United States now receiving federal disability benefits hit a record 10,962,532 million in April, which exceeds the 10,815,197 people who live in the nation of Greece.

In December 1968, 1,295,428 American workers collected disability and, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, 65,630,000 worked full-time. Thus, there were about 51 full-time workers for each worker collecting disability. In April 2013, with a record 8,865,586 American workers collecting disability and 116,053,000 working full-time, there were only 13 Americans working full-time for each worker on disability.
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“SOME APARTHEID”: Irish teachers’ union labels Israel apartheid state

South African non- whites under apartheid were separated by law. They could not vote, form parties or serve in government. The notion that a non-white woman could give birth in the same hospital as a white south African woman would be literally beyond the imagination of anyone in apartheid South Africa.

By contrast, Israeli Arabs, who make up 20 per cent of Israel’s population, are full citizens. They can vote, form parties, hold government posts, become civil servants and lawyers. The judge who sentenced a former Israeli prime minister for sexual transgressions was an Arab. Some apartheid.

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