The Rusted Musket

Besides the obvious, like enforcing existing immigration policies, or allowing police to ask if you’re a citizen of the US or not, which by the way, is all Arizona’s totally controversial new law basically does. I believe the most overlooked and utterly obvious place of needed reform is Mexico herself; why do people flee her as if she’s the plague? Could it be the violence, the 22,700 drug war related deaths since 06? Believe it or not, Mexico, not Iraq or Afghanistan, has the dubious pleasure of owning the worlds most dangerous city, Cuidad Juarez, which features more be-headings, torture, and multiply homicides than any other city on the planet.

Then you have the Mexican Government itself, who’s duplicity, makes you wonder. For instance, with the passage of Arizona’s Bill this week, Mexico’s Foreign Secretary had the gall to criticize us for enforcing OUR laws, while at the same time possessing knowledge that Mexico does everything in her power to keep immigrants from crossing their own southern border! And why is it that Mexico even has time to harp on our laws while their own laws appear to give their hardworking countrymen every reason to leave? Instead of enabling illegal immigration to the US, shouldn’t Mexico be enabling Mexican’s to stay in Mexico?

When you have decent hard working folk fleeing your country for somewhere else it’s a slap in the face. This Mexican Foreign Secretary and Mexico proper should be red with shame for shifting the responsibility of the good life for their citizens from their shoulders to ours…

On March 25th I received an email from Wisconsin A/G JB VanHollen informing his constituents that he had reviewed the ObamaCare bill that was signed into law by President Obama and determined it was unconstitutional.  A/G VanHollen was requesting approval from either the Governor or either house of legislature (as required by Wisconsin law) to join other states in pursuing a lawsuit.  At the time he was asking for Wisconsin residents to voice their opinions to lawmakers in asking to join in this venture.  I took this opportunity and wrote a letter to Diamond Jim.  He replied with the following:

Dear Mr. XXXXX

Thank you for contacting me to express your views about the national health insurance reform recently signed by President Obama.  I always welcome your comments and appreciate the opportunity to respond to you.

This is a law passed by the Congress of the United States.  I understand that people may disagree with the policy.  However, I believe the legal challenges raised by the states are without legal merit.  It would be a waste of time and state resources to pursue a frivolous claim.

These reforms are good for the people of Wisconsin and the nation as a whole.

Sincerely,

Diamond Jim Doyle, Governor

Ok, so maybe I added Diamond to his signature.  The job of the A/G is to watch out for the best interests of Wisconsin residents.  If he feels that this law is unconstitutional the Governor should support him in this challenge.

You’ve gotta love partisan politics.  Thank God Diamond Jim won’t be back for another term.

I’ll always wondered what schools really cost and where the money goes… I ran across this article and thought it was pretty interesting. Basically it is saying that despite claiming $8,322 cost per pupil in DC the actual cost is more like $24,600 once you take all the costs into account. Funny thing is that very nice private schools only cost around $10,000 per pupil… Generally private schools give a better educational experience with higher graduate rates. Sooo a better education for cheaper… Who wouldn’t want that?  The interesting thing is that most public schools are in trouble financially right now, and pretty much always. I can’t think of a year that went by when the public school systems asked for more money.

The point I’d like to make is don’t take the numbers that schools give you at face value. The chances are that they are getting more money than you think and really should be able to make due with what they have, but it seems that a lot of schools are mismanaged and money is wasted on trivial things.

The awesome Tax Foundation recently published a “Facts & Figures Handbook” which I’ve attached below.

I highly encourage everyone to read it, or at least glance through it. Some things such as cigarette and “spirits” tax were very interesting. For example in Washington state there is a $26 tax per gallon of hard liquor, whereas Wyoming and New Hampshire have none. Its a lot cheaper to smoke in South Carolina than it is in Rhode Island as there is only $0.07 tax on the former and $3.46 on the latter (that is per 20 pack). Gas tax is highest in Cali and cheapest in Alaska. Contrary to what you may think Alaska has the highest Per Capita debt and Tennessee the lowest with California in the middle of the pack. Shows you what a better run government with less crappy programs can do…

Anywho, check out the file. It is well worth reading. Just make sure to look at the whole tax burden picture.

Facts and Figures

Suppose your job is student loans, you’re employed at a small fry lending institution, or perhaps a larger lender like Great Lakes. Either way, you’d better start looking for a new job because tucked into the Health care bill was another bill installing the Federal Government’s Department of Education as sole originator and collector of student loans; a 100 billion dollar business annually, making it one of our largest banks! Ironically, until last week the government run Direct Loan programs role, upon creation, was as a second fiddle of sorts to private lenders like the Federal Family Education Loan Program, or, FFELP, which had been in existence since 1966. Now, through legislative fiat, the second fiddle is big fiddle, just one more thing the private sector couldn’t be trusted with.

In all fairness, the Direct Loan people say we’ll be saving money by cutting out middle men, ie. the banks, and streamlining the whole receiving and paying affair, making the system more convenient. But does convenience make what was done here right? The way I’m seeing it, government now collects the interest monies private lenders used to. Even better, the Government can loan money at lower rates than the private sector but still choose to run their rates at private sector levels. Can you say profit margin! Can you say advantage! Those cheeky fellows!

Actually, that sounds like a pretty dirty trick played by the Gov on the private sector now doesn’t it?

Image Credit: whitehouse.gov

Check out this hilarious video from The Onion:

U.S. Condemned For Pre-Emptive Use Of Hillary Clinton Against Pakistan

I came across this post a while ago and haven’t gotten a chance to write about this yet… I find it a little strange that the US military has a budget of hundreds of billions and they can’t even create a decent firewall for their combat drones… This worries me because these drones are going to get bigger and more powerful, so its probably only a matter of time before one gets “hacked” and turned on us… Its like Battlestar Galactica, they created the cylons (for those who haven’t seen the show, cylons are bipedal sentient machines) as a work force, I’m sure at first they seemed very benign, but in the end humanity is decimated by their creations.

We ought to be very careful going forward…

Last night, the largest legislative bill in my life was passed and I need to say something, anything. If I’m not mistaken, that’s also how we chased the need for health care reform this season; as something, anything. We’ve become the fools Plato refered to that prefer verbal diarrhea of the mouth and political diarrhea of the legislation. We prefer the fool who speaks because he has to say something over the wise man who speaks because he has something to say.

Sure, greater amounts of candy in the Easter basket, or a health care overhaul that gives the gift of health care to all feels great. I fear though it feels great the same way maxing out your credit card feels great.  In all seriousness, does anyone really think the same government who couldn’t keep Medicare financially afloat for more than forty years, with people who paid into it for decades and decades, is now going to not only keep Medicare afloat, but another, larger program, a program including thirty million people who haven’t paid into it?

I wonder what national health care bankruptcy will look like? Well, we’ve already got the example of Medicare, forty years, maybe less, and regrettably, we’ll probably know…

Photo Credit: AP

At least, that’s what Joe Biden says…

http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1002/biden_its_easy_being_vp.html

Thoughts pressed and squeezed my mind as I left Politics class the other night, the topic was Civil Rights, the bunny trial, Affirmative Action. As a Conservative, I believe I should be more angry with AA than I currently am, I’m probably not so angry because the Professor’s prose was Siren of nature. He broke my classmates with information concerning the illegality of quotas and point based college entrance systems; I didn’t know this, it soothed my rage, I steered my ship towards the Island of Anthemoessa. What AA serves as, we were informed, is a tie breaker between candidates, all things being equal; diversity for the win.

Here is my kernel, what a small kernel it is! I’d like to believe AA is about altruistic equality of all things roughly similar, but I do not, I believe its naked, or somewhat naked advantage. People, deep down, do not want equal opportunity, they want advantage; you want the job over the other person even if you’re not the better candidate. President Johnson’s eloquent altruism delivered to the graduating class of Howard University couldn’t help but head in the direction of unfettered advantage. His line of fairness drawn in the sand of employment, a glorious moment ruined by inertia. For who stops at the the line of fairness when you can go beyond, into the land of advantage?

This is probably why I’m secretly okay with AA, it has nothing to do with altruism or siren song. Rather, the demographics showing shifts that will make me a possible minority in the next fifty years…