Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Barker's Newsbites: Wednesday, February 15, 2012


Another day of newsbiting...

(*WINK*)

You'll find the newsbites within the Comments section of this post.
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10 comments:

William R. Barker said...

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2012/02/14/charles-murray-new-book/

In his interview with Charlie Rose, Charles Murray speaks about his new book, "Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010."

Murray’s argument is that the upper middle class and working class in America are separating on some key, core behaviors and values.

We’re seeing the “collapse of the central cultural institution in one particular part of America” – meaning the collapse of marriage among the working class.

The most stunning statistic in his data-filled book, Murray says, is this one: In 2010, among the white upper middle class, 83% of adults 30-49 years old were married. In 2010, only 48% of working class whites were married.

[W]e’re seeing a “clustering” among the new upper class and elite, which is leading to an increasing isolation between them and the rest of American society, something Murray believes is creating problems for both the upper class and the working class. Murray praises the new upper class for its commitment to traditional values, something he would not have done in the early 1970s, but criticizes it for not “preaching what it practices.” He says they should act more like the elite in Victorian England at the end of the 19th century, who helped “re-moralize” their society.

(*NOD*)

In speaking about what concerns him the most, Murray mentions the increasing denial of access to what he calls “institutions of meaning” – marriage, community, faith, and vocation. Those are the domains within which human beings find deeply satisfying lives. Murray argues that we have “denuded those sources of satisfaction” for the working class in ways we haven’t for the upper class, and that has harmful human consequences.

* NOTE: ANYTHING MURRAY WRITES IS WORTH READING. EACH OF YOU READING THIS NEWSBITE SHOULD IMMEDIATELY HEAD ON OVER TO AMAZON.COM AND PURCHASE A COPY OF MURRAY'S "Coming Apart."

February 15, 2012 at 10:12 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_SWITZERLAND_JANITOR_SATELLITES?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2012-02-15-07-51-16

The tidy Swiss want to clean up space.

Swiss scientists said Wednesday they plan to launch a "janitor satellite" specially designed to get rid of orbiting debris known as space junk.

The 10-million-franc ($11-million) satellite called CleanSpace One - the prototype for a family of such satellites - is being built by the Swiss Space Center at the Swiss Federal Institute for Technology in Lausanne, or EPFL.

EPFL said Wednesday its launch would come within three to five years and its first tasks are to grab two Swiss satellites launched in 2009 and 2010.

The U.S. space agency NASA says over 500,000 pieces of spent rocket stages, broken satellites and other debris are being tracked as they orbit Earth.

The debris travels at speeds approaching 17,500 miles per hour (28,000 kilometers per hour), fast enough to destroy or inflict costly and time-draining damage on a satellite or spacecraft. Collisions, in turn, generate more fragments floating in space.

* GOOD FOR THE SWISS. (SERIOUSLY!)

February 15, 2012 at 10:40 AM
William R. Barker said...

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/omb-director-undercuts-legal-case-obamacare/376561

Testifying before Congress this morning, President Obama's acting budget director Jeffrey Zients directly undercut one of the administration's key legal defenses of its national health care law as it nears a hearing before the Supreme Court.

In a hearing of the House Budget Committee Rep. Scott Garrett (R-NJ) pressed Zients on whether the penalty that the health care law imposes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance constitutes a tax.

Eventually, Zients said it did not.

But this directly contradicts one of the arguments the Obama administration is making before the Supreme Court in defense of the health care law, which is that the mandate is Constitutional because it's a tax and government has taxing power.

In September 2009, Obama told ABC's George Stephanapoulos that the mandate was not a tax. But by the following June, his administration was arguing in court that it was.

Now the administration is making both arguments simultaneously.

(*SNORT*)

February 15, 2012 at 2:41 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.cnbc.com/id/46386779

Student loan debt amassed by parents is growing faster than loans taken out by the student.

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

Parents' loan debt has more than doubled over the last decade — exceeding $100 billion dollars or 10% of all outstanding student loan debt, according to the independent research firm FinAid.org.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

There's [also] been dramatic growth in the percentages of parents who've been borrowing," says FinAid.org founder and publisher Mark Kantrowitz.

As student loan debt has topped U.S. credit card debt, "America faces the very real possibility of another major threat on par with the devastating home mortgage crisis," according to a new study by the National Association of Consumer Bankruptcy Attorneys (NACBA).

* FOLKS... (*SIGH*)... DOES THIS SOUND LIKE AN "ECONOMIC REBOUND" TO YOU?

* UNDERSTAND, PEOPLE... IN REAL TERMS... THINGS KEEP ON GETTING WORSE WITH OBAMA IN THE WHITE HOUSE AND HARRY REID AND THE DEMOCRATS CONTROLLING THE SENATE.

* OH... AND THAT SCUMBAG BOEHNER AND HIS FELLOW RINOs AREN'T HELPING THINGS BY GOING ALONG IN ORDER TO GET ALONG.

Piling up student loans in middle age is "troublesome", says NACBA vice president John Rao...

* YA FUCKIN' THINK SO...?!?!

(*BLOOD SHOOTING OUT OF MY EARS, EYES, NOSE, AND MOUTH*)

Parents have an average of about $34,000 in student loans and that figure rises to $50,000, including interest, over a standard 10-year loan repayment period. Interest rates on the most common parental loan — the federal Parent "PLUS" loan — is fixed at almost 8%. So the return on parents' investments needs to average at least 8% just to break even.　

(*SIGH*)

February 15, 2012 at 2:52 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/venture-capitalists-play-key-role-in-obamas-energy-department/2011/12/30/gIQA05raER_story.html

Sanjay Wagle...

* EVER HEAR OF HIM?

...was a venture capitalist and Barack Obama fundraiser in 2008...

Shortly after Obama’s election, he left his California firm to join the Energy Department, just as the administration embarked on a massive program to "stimulate" the economy with federal investments in clean-technology firms.

During the next three years, the department provided $2.4 billion in public funding to clean-energy companies in which Wagle’s former firm, Vantage Point Venture Partners, had invested, a Washington Post analysis found.

(*SMIRK*)

Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.

* REPEATING:

Overall, the Post found that $3.9 billion in federal grants and financing flowed to 21 companies backed by firms with connections to five Obama administration staffers and advisers.

(*PURSED LIPS*)

White House officials stress that staffers and advisers with venture capital ties did not make funding decisions related to these companies. But e-mails released in a congressional probe of Obama’s clean-tech program show that staff and advisers with links to venture firms "informally advocated" for some of those companies.

(*SMIRK*)

* IT'S A THREE PAGE STORY IN TODAY'S WASHINGTON POST, FOLKS; YOU HAVE THE LINK.

February 15, 2012 at 3:01 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/egypt-state-media-accuses-us-spreading-anarchy-053916490.html

* NOTICE, FOLKS... YAHOO CANADA... (*SMIRK*)

State-run newspapers splashed accusations of a U.S. plan to spread "anarchy" in Egypt across their front pages on Tuesday...

* YEP! THAT HILLARY CLINTON IS SURE DOING A BANG UP JOB AS AMERICA'S CHIEF DIPLOMAT!

Based on remarks by a government minister, the headlines marked another low in the crisis between Washington and Cairo triggered by the investigation into U.S.-based non-governmental organizations that has led to criminal charges against Americans...

(*SARCASTIC CLAP-CLAP-CLAP*)

"America is behind the anarchy," declared the front page of Al Gomhuria newspaper. "American funding aims to spread anarchy in Egypt," read the front page of Al Ahram newspaper. The papers are two of Egypt's most widely distributed dailies.

* HIL-LAR-Y! HIL-LAR-Y! HIL-LAR-Y!

(*WILD - THOUGH INSINCERE - CHEERING*)

The spat is one of the worst in more than 30 years of close U.S.-Egyptian ties and has complicated Washington's efforts to establish relations with the military council that took power from Mubarak after his overthrow in a popular revolt a year ago.

* "SPAT," HUH...??? (*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

* FOLKS... OBAMA'S FOREIGN POLICY HAS CREATED AS MANY PROBLEMS AS HIS ECONOMIC POLICY. IT'S A FRIGG'N DISASTER...

(*SIGH*)

February 15, 2012 at 3:10 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.carolinajournal.com/exclusives/homemade-lunch-replaced-with-cafeteria-nuggets.html

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because a state employee told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

* AND AS FAR AS I KNOW... (*SHRUG*)... THIS STATE EMPLOYEE HASN'T BEEN FIRED.

The girl's turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the agent who was inspecting all lunch boxes in her classroom that day.

* THE "AGENT." THE AGENT WHO WAS "INSPECTING" ALL LUNCH BOXES.

* FOLKS... THIS ISN'T A JOKE. THIS ISN'T A SNL SKIT. THIS IS OUT OF CONTROL GOVERNMENT.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs - including in-home day care centers - to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

* NOTICE, FOLKS... "SERVED." NOTHING ABOUT "EATEN." (*SMIRK*) IT'S FINE AND DANDY THAT THE FOOD BE THROWN STRAIGHT IN THE TRASH AS LONG AS IT'S "SERVED."

When home-packed lunches do not include all of the required items, child care providers must supplement them with the missing ones.

* SO WHY WASN'T THE KID GIVEN AN APPLE AND SOME CARROTS...???

The girl's mother - who said she wishes to remain anonymous to protect her daughter from retaliation - said she received a note from the school stating that students who did not bring a "healthy lunch" would be offered the missing portions, which could result in a fee from the cafeteria, in her case $1.25.

* AND YOU KNOW WHAT... I DON'T BLAME THIS MOTHER FOR BEING SCARED OF GOVERNMENT TO THE EXTENT SHE'S AFRAID TO EVEN GIVE HER NAME. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU ABOUT HOW OUT OF CONTROL GOVERNMENT IS?!

"What got me so mad is, number one, don't tell my kid I'm not packing her lunch box properly," the girl's mother told [this reporter]. "I pack her lunchbox according to what she eats. It always consists of a fruit. It never consists of a vegetable. She eats vegetables at home because I have to watch her because she doesn't really care for vegetables."

* SOUNDS FRIGG'N REASONABLE TO ME...!!!

When the girl came home with her lunch untouched, her mother wanted to know what she ate instead. Three chicken nuggets, the girl answered. Everything else on her cafeteria tray went to waste.

* FOLKS... (*LITERALLY SICK TO MY STOMACH*)

Editor's note, Feb. 15: Neither DHHS nor school officials would identify the person who inspected the homemade lunches and decided they did not meet USDA guidelines. CJ has made multiple requests to DHHS for clarification. In an email to CJ, department spokeswoman Lori Walston said: "As mentioned in the statement from the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) issued last night, this agency is currently working to determine the specifics of this case."

(*SMIRK*)

February 15, 2012 at 3:24 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_ROMNEY_EARMARK_PAST?SITE=FLTAM&SECTION=POLITICS&TEMPLATE=

Mitt Romney takes a hard line against congressional earmarks, but the GOP presidential front-runner had a more favorable view of federal pork-barrel spending when he was governor of Massachusetts.

(*SMIRK*) OH... WHAT A SURPRISE!

Under his leadership, Massachusetts sought tens of millions of dollars in earmarks for transportation projects through the state's congressional delegation.

A prime example was the $30 million that the Romney administration requested to renovate the historic Longfellow Bridge that spans the Charles River between Cambridge and Boston. The landmark is seen in many movies and television shows.

Romney's transportation secretary, Daniel A. Grabauskas, asked the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee to include the money in a transportation spending bill. That bill was full of thousands of earmarks that sparked public furor and became a symbol for Washington's out-of-control spending when Congress passed it in 2005.

In a letter June 17, 2004, to the transportation panel's chief of staff that was obtained by The Associated Press, Grabauskas said federal money for the Longfellow Bridge could be provided as part of the "bridge program, a new mega-project or an outside earmark, or a combination of the three."

A Romney campaign spokeswoman would not respond to questions about how many earmarks the Romney administration asked for, the amount of money involved and the particular projects.

(*SMIRK*)

February 15, 2012 at 3:31 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/291090/obama-s-busted-budget-michael-tanner

In a town where bipartisan budget chicanery has been raised to an art form, President Obama’s latest budget proposal should be hailed as the da Vinci of fiscal obfuscation.

The president claims that his budget proposal reduces debt by $4 trillion over the next 10 years...

(*LAUGHING OUT LOUD*)

That is true only using Washington math, under which a smaller increase is actually a "decrease."

(*NOD*) (*SPITTING ON THE GROUND*)

In reality, the president’s budget adds $6.7 trillion to the national debt over the next 10 years, bringing it to nearly $25.5 trillion by 2022. (That would be more than 100% of our GDP.)

And those spending "cuts?"

The president actually counts $681 billion in cuts that were agreed to *last* year as part of the deal to raise the debt ceiling.

* AND AGAIN... EVEN THOSE WEREN'T REAL CUTS; THEY WERE "CUTS" IN THE AMOUNT OF EXPECTED AUTO-PILOT INCREASES!

The president also counts as a cut the $741 billion we will save from not occupying Iraq over the next 10 years...

* YEP. YOU READ THAT RIGHT!

...and from not being in Afghanistan a decade from now.

(*JUST SHAKING MY HEAD*)

(Considering that we were never going to spend that money in the first place, that seems like slightly dishonest accounting. After all, think of all the savings we can claim by not invading Syria.)

* HEY... FOLKS... REMEMBER HOW LAST YEAR I SAVED ABOUT $300,000.00 BY BUYING MARY A HYUNDAI AND NOT THAT TOP-OF-THE-LINE FERRARI...?!?!

(*SNORT*)

And, finally... $595 billion of the claimed budget cuts is actually interest savings resulting from not having to borrow for the other phony cuts.

* FOLKS... YOU CAN'T MAKE THIS SHIT UP!

On the other hand, the president’s budget does include plenty of new spending. Overall, the president would increase federal spending from $3.8 trillion in 2013 to $5.82 trillion in 2022.

February 15, 2012 at 4:03 PM
William R. Barker said...

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/291186/romneys-debt-ceiling-attack-santorum-andrew-c-mccarthy

I’m inclined...

* THE "I" IN QUESTION IS ANDREW MCCARTHY

...to agree with Bill Kristol that Romney’s attacks on Santorum are lame, but mainly because it is Romney who is making them.

I cannot imagine Mitt voting against any of the things he (or the Romney Super PAC) now chastises Rick for voting yea on — which is why trying to zing Santorum over them results in such embarrassments as Romney-backer Jim Talent blasting Santorum for voting in favor of the Bush prescription drug entitlement … just like Talent did.

(*SMIRK*)

For much of the time Rick was in Congress, Mitt was in his progressive incarnation, and a big part of RomneyCare involved figuring out how the make Uncle Sam pick up the tab for Massachusetts’s medical costs — the sort of thing that drives up federal spending, which, in turn, creates pressure to raise the debt ceiling.

(*SMIRK WIDENING*)

* READ THE REST OF THE PIECE; IT DEALS WITH SANTORUM'S HYPOCRISY REGARDING HIS VOTES WHILE A SENATOR TO RAISE THE NATIONAL DEBT LIMIT TIME AND TIME AGAIN.

* YEAH... IN A LOT OF WAYS SANTORUM IS BETTER THAN ROMNEY... BUT LET'S NOT FORGET THAT SANTORUM'S RECORD AS A SENATOR IS ANYTHING BUT BLEMISHLESS.

February 15, 2012 at 4:13 PM

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