Saturday, January 29, 2011
Weekend Newsbites: Sat. & Sun., Jan. 29 & 30, 2011
I just sent an email to Shirley Temple!
Why...???
Because this song was swimming around in my brain this morning.
(I don't know why... no conscious memory of hearing the song played on TV or radio...)
Anyway, I basically told Ms. Temple (Black) that it would be good for her and good for the nation if she were to increase her public visibility.
Why...???
Well, to those who know their American history and American film history, you'll no doubt be aware that Shirley Temple's films were a real morale booster to an American Public caught in the midst of the Great Depression.
In my opinion, the remaining "Great Stars" from those days who are still with us can still provide a measure of comfort to America today.
Did you know that Shirley Temple (Black) is only in her 80's? (She was born on April 23, 1928.)
I wasn't able to find anything about her current state of health, but as I wrote to her, my Aunt Ruth is still kick'n like a Rockette at 91... the Great Maureen O'Hara is still going strong at 90... and, hell, tomorrow night the Great Ernest Borgnine with be receiving the 47th Annual Life Achievement Award from the Screen Actors Guild!
All I know is that when I see the great actors - those people whom I grew up watching on TV as a child... the people whose movies and public persona's helped to assimilate me into the American I am today - still playing a role on the public stage it gives me hope that... well... that there's still an America worth fighting for.
Sentimental? Me...??? Yep. You bet.
And proud of it...
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http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Latest-News-Wires/2011/0128/Egyptian-army-storms-museum-to-protect-from-looters
* SUBTITLE THIS POST "THANK GOD...!!!"
The Egyptian army secured Cairo's famed antiquities museum early Saturday, protecting thousands of priceless artifacts, including the gold mask of King Tutankhamun, from looters.
(*THUMBS UP*)
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/01/29/tsa.private/index.html?hpt=T2
A program that allows airports to replace government screeners with private screeners is being brought to a standstill...
Though little known, the Screening Partnership Program allowed airports to replace government screeners with private contractors who wear TSA-like uniforms, meet TSA standards and work under TSA oversight. Among the airports that have "opted out" of government screening are San Francisco and Kansas City.
The push to "opt out" gained attention in December amid the fury over the TSA's enhanced pat downs, which some travelers called intrusive.
Rep. John Mica, a Republican from Florida, wrote a letter encouraging airports to privatize their airport screeners, saying they would be more responsive to the public.
At that time, the TSA said it neither endorsed nor opposed private screening. "If airports chose this route, we are going to work with them to do it," a TSA spokesman said in late December.
* THAT WAS THEN...
* THIS IS NOW...
TSA chief John Pistole said Friday he has decided not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports, saying he does not see any advantage to it.
* CONGRESS SHOULD OVERRIDE PISTOLE.
"I examined the contractor screening program and decided not to expand the program beyond the current 16 airports as I do not see any clear or substantial advantage to do so at this time," Pistole said.
* YET...
[A]irports that currently use contractor screening will continue to be allowed to.
* FOLKS... DOES THIS MAKE ANY FRIGG'N SENSE TO YOU...??? I MEAN IF THERE'S NO DOWNSIDE WHICH MERITS DISCONTINUING PRIVATIZATION WHERE IT ALREADY EXISTS, BUT WHAT LOGICAL AUTHORITY DOES PISTOLE TELL OTHER AIRPORTS THEY CAN'T DECIDE THE ISSUE ON THEIR OWN...???
Told of the change Friday night, Mica said he intends to launch an investigation and review the matter.
"It's unimaginable that TSA would suspend the most successfully performing passenger screening program we've had over the last decade," Mica said Friday night. "The agency should concentrate on cutting some of the more than 3,700 administrative personnel in Washington who concocted this decision, and reduce the army of TSA employees that has ballooned to more than 62,000."
"Nearly every positive security innovation since the beginning of TSA has come from the contractor screening program," Mica said.
* AHH... NOW WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE! NOW PISTOLE'S ACTIONS ARE BEGINNING TO MAKE A SICK SORT OF SENSE!
A union for Transportation Security Administration employees said it supported the decision to halt the program.
(*PURSED LIPS TRANSFORMING INTO A FULL-BLOWN SMIRK*)
* SO IN OTHER WORDS, IT'S NOT ABOUT PUBLIC SAFETY (IF IT WAS, LOGIC WOULD DICTATE TSA REASSUMING DIRECT SECURITY RESPONSIBILITY OVER AIRPORTS ALREADY EMPLOYING PRIVATE SECURITY).
"The nation is secure in the sense that the safety of our skies will not be left in the hands of the lowest-bidder contractor, as it was before 9/11," said John Gage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees. "We applaud Administrator Pistole for recognizing the value in a cohesive federalized screening system and work force."
(*SMIRK*) BUT AGAIN... SINCE PISTOLE IS "ALLOWING" THE PRIVATIZATION WHICH HAS ALREADY TAKEN PLACE TO REMAIN... (*SHRUG*)... IT'S OBVIOUS THIS ISN'T ABOUT SAFETY AT ALL, BUT RATHER IT'S ABOUT FURTHER ENRICHING AND EMPOWERING OBAMA ALLIED UNIONS!
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954004576090051180681020.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Welcome to Central Falls, Rhode Island, U.S.A.
Visitors to this tiny town on the banks of the Blackstone River would never guess that it was once a prospering manufacturing hub. Thousands of Irish and Scottish immigrants flocked here in the 19th century, drawn by opportunities to work in the mills and mines.
Toy maker Hasbro closed up shop over a decade ago. Glass manufacturer Osram Sylvania laid off most of its workers several years ago. The only private-sector jobs left are at a few mom-and-pop shops, a Dunkin Donuts and a CVS.
A mother of three who works at the Dunkin Donuts tells me that she won't let her adolescent sons out of the house because there's nothing for them to do besides get into trouble, like drugs.
* THE "ME" IS ALLYSIA FINLEY, WRITER OF THIS PROFILE.
Just last November, two women were arrested for selling cocaine in a car with their four kids. The mom tells [Finley] that cops patrol the schools because teachers can't, or won't, discipline the students.
It's hard to pinpoint the exact moment when the town started deteriorating, says City Council President William Benson, but "it started with the John Hancock [pension] plan," named after the company that administers the benefits.
(Rhode Island's public employees received the right to collectively bargain in the 1960s, [since then,] government unions have driven Central Falls into the ground.
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
In 1972, the city created a new pension plan for public-safety officers that allowed them to retire after 20 years and earn 50% of their final year's salary thereafter. What the city didn't anticipate was that firefighters would use the minimum staffing requirements that were part of their collective-bargaining agreement to rack up overtime and increase their last year's salary. Or that nearly a third of police officers would retire with a higher-paying disability pension.
(*SIGH*)
Over time, such labor costs have swamped the city's budget.
Last year, labor costs made up roughly 70% of Central Falls's budget. ... Unable to pay its bills, Central Falls wanted to declare bankruptcy, but the state intervened and put the town into receivership. Retired judge Mark Pfeiffer was appointed last summer as receiver to review and fix the city's finances. [H]e hiked property and car taxes by nearly 20%, and cut labor costs by $900,000. Those tax hikes have merely driven more people out of town: City officials tell [Finley] nearly half of the houses are boarded up.
Despite these "reforms," the city will likely face shortfalls of $5 million for each of the next five years. Then there's the $80 million unfunded liability for pensions and retiree health benefits.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
Retiree benefit liabilities are so huge that raising taxes and cutting services aren't enough to save the city.
This is an immigrant community where more than 25% of families live in poverty.
* SO LET ME GET THIS STRAIGH... (*SCRATCHING MY HEAD*)... WE NEED OPEN IMMIGRATION WHY...???
The average teacher at the Central Falls High School earns nearly four times as much as the average town resident, according to the district superintendent.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
The federal government has just awarded the district $1.3 million to buy new computers and to pay teachers for professional-development time.
(*BANGING MY HEAD AGAINST THE WALL*)
State aid to Central Falls schools has nearly quadrupled in the last 20 years, yet over half of Central Falls's high-schoolers drop out.
(*BANGING HARDER*)
Too bad Central Falls was denied bankruptcy, which would allow it to break its collective-bargaining agreements and force public employees to accept significant cuts. Now the city will likely have to be hooked up to the state IV or merge services with Pawtucket. But Pawtucket has its own serious budget and pension liabilities. So do most other cities, and so does the state.
"They're all in trouble," Mr. Benson says. Pension problems have "shown up in every city in the state . . . [and] the governor is scared about the bond ratings" if the town files for bankruptcy. So to preserve the pretense of a safe municipal debt mine, the state must keep the Central Falls canary on life support.
* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... THE FUTURE IS HERE - IT'S CALLED CENTRAL FALLS, RHODE ISLAND.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/258240/waivers-favors-michelle-malkin
President Obama’s storytellers recently launched a White House blog series called “Voices of Health Reform,” where “readers can meet average Americans already benefiting from the health reform law.”
(*CHUCKLE*)
I propose a new White House series: “Voices of Health Reform Waivers,” where taxpayers can meet all the politically connected unions benefiting from exclusive get-out-of-Obamacare passes - after squandering millions of their workers’ dues to lobby for the job-killing, private-insurance-sabotaging law from which they are now exempt.
(*SNORT*) (*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)
[We're talking] 729 Obamacare escapees - in addition to four states, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and Tennessee - that collectively cover about 2.1 million enrollees.
* POLITICALLY CONNECTD ENROLLEES! (OR WOULD IT BE "NON-ENROLLEES...???")
At least one eyebrow-raising waiver recipient - the Left-leaning, nationalized-health-care-promoting Robert Wood Johnson Foundation - has direct ties to the White House. (Obama health-care czar Nancy-Ann DeParle sits on the foundation’s board of trustees.)
(*SMIRK*)
Most noteworthy: One-fourth of all the waivers (182) so far have gone to labor groups.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
The Teamsters Union, which hailed Obama last March for “enacting historic health care reform, providing health insurance to millions of Americans who don’t have it and controlling costs for millions more who do,” obtained waivers for 17 different locals.
* DISGUSTING. THE AGE OF OBAMA IS THE AGE OF CORRUPTION. THE "RULES" OF CHICAGO POLITICS AND ILLINOIS ECONOMICS WRIT LARGE.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which celebrated the passage of Obamacare as “an achievement that will rank among the highest in our national experience,” secured waivers for 28 different affiliates.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers - which exulted after the health-care law’s passage that “finally, affordable and comprehensive health care coverage will be available for millions of working Americans” - saw eight of its affiliates win shelter from the Obamacare wrecking ball.
(*PURSED LIPS*)
The Communications Workers of America, which sent its workers to lobby for Obamacare on Capitol Hill as part of the Health Care for America Now front group funded by Left-wing billionaire George Soros, snagged a waiver that will spare a hefty 19,000 of its members from the onerous federal mandate.
SEIU, which poured $60 million into Democratic/Obama coffers in 2008 and millions more into the campaign for the federal health-care takeover, added four new affiliates to the waiver list... That’s in addition to three other previous SEIU waiver winners... This brings the total number of Obamacare-promoting SEIU Obamacare refugees to an estimated 45,000 workers represented by seven SEIU locals.
(*SIGH*) (*SMIRK*) (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* FOLKS... OBAMA IS A BAD MAN SURROUNDED BY OTHER BAD MEN AND WOMEN. I PROVE THE CASE DAY IN AND DAY OUT.
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://reason.com/archives/2011/01/28/grade-inflation
[A]pproximately 2,000 for-profit colleges in the U.S. rely on federal aid for a huge portion of their revenues...
[T]he $25 billion in federal grants and loans that flows to them each year represents just a fraction of the $113.3 billion the government made available to higher education as a whole in 2009–10.
* WHERE'S THE MONEY GO...? (GLAD YOU ASKED!)
[W]hile college tuition and fees keep rising, it sometimes seems as if the higher education industry is investing in everything but education.
Cornell brags about its “remarkable” 4,800-square-foot climbing wall, which “is the largest indoor natural rock climbing wall in North America.”
Rutgers, Carnegie Mellon, and many other universities have all invested in "eSuds," an “innovative online laundry system” that allows students to see if their socks are dry without leaving their dorm room.
[C]ostly amenities have become typical college perks these days, along with rec center jacuzzis, registered dieticians, and even tanning salons.
In a 1992 essay for Commentary, the economist Thomas Sowell identified a disturbing trend: The cost of college was going up not because the cost of teaching students was going up but rather because “colleges and universities had been greatly expanding what they do.” Between 1975 and 1985, Sowell noted, college professional support staffs increased by more than 60%. Universities were opening campuses in Europe, building costly research facilities that had nothing to do with educating students, and paying for chauffeur services and wedding receptions for administrative bigwigs. “The availability of federal grants and loans to help students meet rising tuition costs,” Sowell wrote, “virtually ensures that those costs will rise.”
* IN OTHER WORDS, GOVERNMENT "AID" WAS FUELING COST INFLATION AND WASTEFUL SPENDING!
* To be continued...
* Continuing... (Part 2 of 2)
In August 2010 the Goldwater Institute, an Arizona-based think tank that monitors government spending, released a report titled Administrative Bloat at American Universities. At the 198 colleges and universities included in the study, the number of full-time administrators per 100 students increased by 39% from 1993 to 2007, while the number of professors and researchers increased by only 18%. During this time, Wake Forest increased its spending on administrators by 600%, while Harvard increased its spending by 300%.
* IT SURE SEEMS AS IF MODERN AMERICAN "HIGHER EDUCATION" IS MORE ABOUT INCOME REDISTRIBUTION FROM STUDENTS, PARENTS, AND TAXPAYERS TO "THE ADMINISTRATIVE CLASSES" THAN IT IS ABOUT EDUCATION PER SE. (*SHRUG*)
In September 2010, a USA Today investigation found that fees charged for athletic funding, which had increased 18% since 2005, were a “key force in the rapidly escalating cost of higher education.” Among 222 Division 1 public schools during 2008–09, students were charged approximately $795 million in athletic fees.
According to the trade publication College Planning & Management, total construction costs for the nation’s colleges ranged from $6 billion to $7 billion per year in the last half of the 1990s. Then there was a construction boom, with $113 billion in new construction occurring between 2001 and 2009. Based on a survey of new buildings completed in 2009 or underway in 2010, the magazine found that physical education and athletic facilities were more popular than performance venues, which were more popular than libraries.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
[W]hile the average pay for full professors rose to $108,749 in 2008–09, according to the American Association of University Professors, little of that money goes toward teaching students. In their 2010 book Higher Education?, Queens College sociologist Andrew Hacker and New York Times columnist Claudia Dreifus report that “the bulk of the undergraduate teaching at our nation’s colleges and universities is performed by part-timers,” many of whom end up making little more than minimum wage.
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)
* AND THE STUPID, STUPID, STUPID SHEEPLE OF THE UNITED STATES WILL JUST KEEP PAYING AND PAYING...
* TWO-PARTER... (Part 1 of 2)
http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/561426/201101281909/Whitewashing-The-Crisis.aspx
The Financial Crisis Inquiry Report blames regulators for falling asleep on the job and missing all the shoddy mortgage lending.
(*SNORT*)
They didn't miss it. They encouraged it[!]
(*THUMBS UP*) (*NODDING*)
But they were only following orders from Washington politicians, who over two decades carried out a relentless and ultimately reckless crusade to "ease credit" for first-time home-buyers.
[This] proved a recipe for disaster.
* YEP!
Predictably, these politicians enjoyed blanket immunity during the inquiry panel's 15-month "investigation."
The sham probe was led by longtime Democrat Phil Angelides, who was hand-picked by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
His biased report, hitting bookstores now, cites nine causes of the crisis, none of which is federal housing policy - the chief culprit.
(*SNICKER*)
Instead, it indicts "Wall Street," and even refers "evidence" of alleged banking violations to the Justice Department for prosecution. (Meanwhile, it lets off scot free the Treasury and HUD officials who pushed risky political loans onto the private sector, while pressuring Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to securitize them.)
(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD IN DISGUST*)
In his panel's 633-page report, Angelides denies banks were pressured by government into making bad loans.
(*SNORT*) (*STILL SHAKING MY HEAD*)
So why then did mortgage lending standards suddenly break down? And how did so many subprime and other risky loans end up in the mortgage securitization pipeline? (The report doesn't answer these questions other than to presume lenders and Wall Street bankers became so greedy they suddenly abandoned centuries-old prudent banking practices and dove into a market they previously avoided like the plague.)
Bankers didn't make dodgy loans to poor and uncreditworthy people out of the goodness of their hearts. Politicians pushed them to make them.
* MOSTLY DEMOCRATS, BUT A FAIR NUMBER OF RINOs AS WELL.
* To be continued...
* CONTINUING... (Part 2 of 2)
The report dismisses the role played by tougher anti-redlining rules under the Community Reinvestment Act...
* PUT INTO PLACE (1977) DURING JIMMY CARTER'S ILL-FATED, INCOMPETENT ADMINISTRATION!
President Clinton added teeth to the 30-year-old regulation for the first time in 1995, marking a tragic turning point in the history of finance. The tightened CRA-influenced subprime underwriting on both the primary and secondary markets. It pushed bankers into riskier territory, and pressured them to bend lending standards - or face stiff penalties and blocked expansion plans.
(*NOD*)
[A]ccording to "The Great American Bank Robbery, The Unauthorized Report About What Really Caused the Great Recession," by former IBD Washington bureau chief Paul Sperry" Clinton's own Treasury found in 2000 that "the CRA may have had a positive 'demonstration effect' on lenders not covered by the Act, and thus indirectly increased lending by these institutions as well."
(*SHRUG*)
In addition, the book reports that Countrywide signed a first-of-its-kind "Fair Lending" Master Agreement with HUD pledging to ease its credit requirements and boost minority lending.
(*SMIRK*)
Hundreds of other other lenders inked similar deals with the government, committing them to riskier subprime lending. Not signing exposed lenders to fair-lending investigations and denial of access to the all-important secondary mortgage market.
Clinton also for the first time authorized Fannie and Freddie to earn HUD "affordable housing" credits by purchasing securities backed by subprime and other CRA mortgages, which HUD promoted as "goals-rich loans." When Fannie and Freddie securitized subprime loans, they suddenly became safe, since the ratings agencies viewed their securitizations as guaranteed by Treasury. When Wall Street jumped into that market, it simply responded to Washington's distorted incentives - a side of the equation conspicuously absent from the report.
(*SIGH*)
The Angelides Commission operated from the mistaken premise that deregulation caused the crisis, when in fact overregulation was to blame.
Overregulation of lending - through the CRA and HUD - created the mortgage bubble, which actually started in 1997 and ballooned thanks to the draconian Affordable Housing Goals that HUD slapped on Fannie and Freddie. Starting in 2000, the HUD-regulated mortgage giants had to devote fully half their business to risky lending to poor and minority borrowers. They met those goals (which remained in effect through the Bush administration) wholesale by buying and guaranteeing subprime securities.
Wall Street may have helped inflate the subprime bubble, but the historical record is clear: Washington created it.
As is typically the case, the government created this problem, and now [the Party of Government is] blaming the private sector.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/peters-e/peters-e15.1.html
Is Detroit responsible for making sure you don't back-up over your child?
What if you don't have a child? Better yet, what if you know how to drive?
Well, it doesn't matter. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is demanding that all new cars be fitted with back-up cameras by 2014 so as to add another layer of "for the children" cost and complexity to all new cars – like it or not, need it or not.
No one knows exactly how much this'll all cost – but $300–$600 per car is a good estimate based on what these systems currently add to the tab as optional equipment. Probably – like air bags – once every car is required to have an LCD display monitor and all the related hardware the cost-per-car will go down some as a result of economies of scale. But overall, cars will be getting more expensive (again) as a result of another round of mandatory "safety" equipment that some of us – but by no means all of us – think every new car ought to have.
(*GRITTING MY TEETH*)
Question: Why is it that the "some of us" have this weird fetish to force the rest of us to pay for what they think we ought to have? Back-up cameras are already available as options in many new cars; those who feel the need can buy them. Why must they force those of us who don't to buy them also?
[W]hile installing back-up sensors on a bloated 19-foot [SUV] with more blind spots than Ray Charles may make some sense, isn't it a bit much to demand that they be installed across the board – even on subcompact coupes, mid-sized sedans and other normal-sized cars? (Whatever happened to turning your head and checking things out before putting it in reverse?)
Where will it end?
Arguably, there's already too much noise clutter and digitized idiot-proofing being grafted onto cars.
Pint-sized Toyotas come with aneurism-inducing BEEP! BEEP BEEP! buzzers that erupt as soon as you put the transmission in reverse – as if a compact-sized car were some gigantic garbage scow or front-end loader that needed to warn all in the vicinity of the imminent rearward movement of its oversized, unwieldy self.
Look behind the vehicle before you back up to make sure no one left a small child taking a nap behind the rear wheels. Don't forget to take your tot with you when you leave the vehicle parked in the broiling mid-day sun with the windows rolled up.
Is it really too much to ask?
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