Wednesday, March 03, 2010

Hiding the Truth is Standard Procedure

I am not prone to conspiracy theories as I think said theories mostly gain legs, analogy wise, via the old adage to test the doneness of spaghetti by throwing it against the wall and see whether it sticks.

With that said, I point to the latest revelations of hiding the truth emerging out of Washington, D.C.  That revelation is headlined as follows, BREAKING: ‘Anti-Lobbyist’ Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus ‘Green Jobs’, and the story informs Americans that the green jobs so heralded as being just over the horizon if Amercia would just invest billons of dollars in wind energy are a fantasy.

I think that this newest revelation regarding government malfeasance in manipulating data of so called green initiatives, if not actually in bed with the foolishly named “climategate” revelations, with cap and trade filling out the threesome, reveals something dark and forboding, not only about the United States but all governments currently in power throughout the world.

Hiding the truth, which is more commonly called lying when an individual is caught in the act of hiding the truth, is now standard procedure for States throughout the world to maintain and expand their control of individual lives and businesses.

Link to bogus green jobs story via Instapundit.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/03 at 07:07 PM
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Looking Straight at the Problem Which is Obama

Malone Vandam, in a post titled Why America is nervous, points to and quotes from a Victor Davis Hanson piece titled Obama Fatigue.

Hanson’s piece is definitely worth a read, but Vandam’s comment, after reading Hanson’s piece, are point on and a must read.  Vandam’s complete comments follow.

Hanson is good throughout that piece, but still, like almost everyone writing about Obama, he’s averting his eyes to some extent. This president is not just the Democrats’ version of George Bush. There’s something so wrong about him that it’s nearly impossible to miss. What that thing is has nothing to do with his race. In fact, he is helped by being nominally black. It distracts the mind and the eye from the more fundamental problem: the sense that this man has no respect for America or Americans and, worse, means to bring harm to this country under the mask of a political messiah.

Yes, he’s an amateur in the wrong sense of the word, he can’t lead and wouldn’t know where to lead if he could, he’s cheesy and deft at being cheesy, and he creeps out anyone prepared to look the situation in the eye. But that leads to something else. It leads to a burning existential reality: he is being reckless with our lives and our future and he does not or cannot care.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/03 at 02:55 PM
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Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is a Crybaby

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, according to this article, is crying to the government for more regulatory oversight over one of its competitors, Google.

Microsoft Corp. CEO Steve Ballmer intends to keep the regulatory heat on Google as his company strives to lessen its rival’s dominance of Internet search.

In an appearance Tuesday at a search engine conference, Ballmer said Microsoft believes Google Inc. has done things to gain an unfair advantage in the Internet’s lucrative search advertising market. He didn’t specify the alleged misconduct.

How unfair of Google to be so successful and to have such a dominant search engine capability enabling Google to rake in millions of advertising dollars, so naturally Microsoft CEO Ballmer wants the government to strong arm some of the market profitability into Microsoft’s pockets, with the support of other jealous search engine companies.

The article also informs us that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is against government intervention in the search engine advertising market profitability.

“I am actually not interested in government intervention in anything,” Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz told reporters during a Tuesday lunch to celebrate the company’s 15th anniversary. “I think for the most part markets work. I don’t wish antitrust on anyone.”

Which could make one think that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is a principled individual, but, alas, that is not the case at all as is evidenced by this sentence from the article.

Yahoo also lobbied regulators to oppose the agreement that would give Google the electronic rights to millions of hard-to-find books.

One of the last quotes from Ballmer in the article is the following.

“There is an advantage to having the power of two, as opposed to the power of one,” Ballmer told the crowd at the Search Marketing Expo.

Yeah, and the advantage of the power of two is that it would allow Microsoft to gang up on Google, since the one to one battle for success in maximizing search engine advertising revenue is being sorely lost by Microsoft.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/03 at 02:22 PM
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Civil Disobedience Can Be Rewarding

Civil disobedience, as Thoreau advocated, though recognized and admired by many individuals, is seldom put into action by individuals due to fear of the State for whatever act of civil disobedience may be contemplated or acted on.

Though the State should fear its citizens, that is seldom the case, as is amply illustrated by the State’s continued intrusive control of individuals through various forms of legislation, all of which carry some penalty for non-compliance to install the fear the State so badly needs to control individuals.

With that said, here is an act of civil disobedience wherein the State loses and the civil disobedient individual is rewarded.

A nurse who was handcuffed when she refused to draw blood from a drunken-driving suspect has settled her lawsuit against a Chicago Police officer for $78,000, according to city records.

Here’s a quote from the nurse’s attorney.

“It is important to remember that nurses work for hospitals and not the Chicago Police Department,” Hofstra’s attorney Blake Horwitz said Tuesday. Horwitz said his client understands the need for officers to obtain blood samples, but “it just has to be done through proper means.”

Horowitz’s quote begins well, but then wanders off course when he concedes the State’s force backed request would be legitimate if “done through proper means.”

Handcuffed nurse settles for $78,000

Viddies of arrest at linked story.

Via The Obscure Store.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/03 at 12:20 PM
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AARP - Are You Sick or Something?

I’ll shortly hit the half century mark, and in commemoration of this auspicious event the AARP, always on the ball and in search of aging recruits to swell their ranks like an aged persons ankles, has sent me an AARP membership application, though I am assured that my admission is “guaranteed,” if I am the age of 50 or over.  Isn’t that special?

The AARP “application” informs me that I will receive handsome benefits, in exchange for my sixteen dollar ($16.00) membership payment, good for one (1) year, which are as follows.  The “award-winning” AARP The Magazine, AARP website access, which anyone can access anyway, the AARP Bulletin, and lots of AARP email spam in the form of newsletters.  Other benefits the AARP promises are discounts on travel and other services, access to health related benefits, note that said access to health related benefits is not a guarantee of benefit, and access to financial programs.

Additionally, the AARP membership application informs me that another of the benefits I’ll enjoy for joining AARP is that they will provide a spokesperson for my rights, in case I’ve gone mute or lost my marbles I guess, to represent me in Washington and all 50 states, fighting age dimscrimination, protecting pension rights, Social Security and Medicare.  My own personal lobbyist whose job is to somehow enable me to claim what I have not earned, with the State as my strong armed robber and the AARP as the State’s cheerleader.  How nice.

To round out the benefits which are to accrue to me for turning 50 years old the AARP also notes that they have over 2,000 local chapters, safe driving courses, volunteer opportunities and a reduced-fee legal service network.  Wow!

In small print, on the back of the detachable AARP application, for aging folks who can still read unaided by spectacles, magnifying glass or other reading aid, I am informed that if I become an AARP member they will share my information with companies the AARP has selected to provide AARP member benefits and which “support AARP operations.”  Though I can opt out of this information sharing by calling an 800 number or emailing them, if I joined, it would probably be too late for my opting out to be effective, as the application would have been processed and my information sold via payment by the selected companies’ support for AARP operations.

I’m going to pass on joining, as I do not need or want the AARP’s supposed benefits of membership, and besides, these type of groups make me want to aarp in my commode.

Posted by John Venlet on 03/03 at 09:10 AM
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