If you don't like something
change it;
if you can't change it,
change the way you think about it.
Mary Engelbreit
Chart of the Day
Investment newsletter writer Mark Skousen notes:
If you look at the breakdown of government spending by agencies, you find a downward trend in the past few years. Of the 27 categories, 15 are in decline -- including Commerce, Defense (!), Energy, Education (a real waste!), Labor, Treasury, Environmental Protection Agency (hooray!), NASA and the Small Business Administration. The spending of four other agencies has flattened. They include Homeland Security, Health and Human Services (food stamps!) and Housing and Urban Development. And spending for eight agencies is moving up, sharply in certain cases, including Agriculture (for no good reason), Veteran Affairs (all those wars), foreign aid (why?) and Social Security (no surprise there).You have to give the GOP House props on the verge of finally breaking Obama's consecutive streak of trillion-plus deficits; no doubt The (Spendthrift) One will try to claim credit, when as a matter of public record, he and his partisan allies have never seen a bigger budget they wouldn't vote for, and they have been squealing like stuck pigs over spending concessions as a price to increase the debt ceiling and domestic expenditure programs, which have been the driving factor behind the surge in federal spending, and have fought spending cuts tooth and nail. (Federal spending assumptions are based on the false premise that the State can spend and invest "better" than taxpayers; instead, "progressives" insist on anti-economic growth tax increases.) Notice that the spending chart almost goes vertical when the Dems controlled both chambers of Congress from 2007-2010.
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| Courtesy of DownsizingGovernment.org |
Meet the "Superglue Baby": Ashlyn Jane Julian
Ashlyn is a beautiful gift from God. Two months ago, the little sweetie suffered a rare infant brain aneurysm, and her surgeon used micro technology to successfully seal the aneuryism with a drop of superglue. Choose life. Isn't science wonderful?
Go, West Maryland!
Maybe South-West Maryland The 5 more center-right separatist southern and western counties find themselves chafing over being marginalized by the "progressive" deep blue regime largely based on Baltimore and the DC collar counties of heavily Dem federal employee/contractors and minority groups.
This Washington Times editorial excerpt aptly describes the hell pro-liberty centrists and conservatives have to live under Legal-Plunderer-in-Chief Marty O'Malley and an all-Dem contingent in Congress (except for a token Republican from southern Maryland):
The secessionists want to follow a movement of small businesses and taxpayers out of Maryland. Larry Hogan, who served in the Cabinet of Robert Ehrlich, the Republican governor from 2003 to 2007, and is now the chairman of Change Maryland, says 6,500 small businesses and 31,000 taxpayers have already left the state. Four Fortune 500 companies were once based in Baltimore; now there are none. He says state spending has risen by more than $1 billion annually in the O’Malley years and taxes on sales, alcohol, gasoline and even toilet-flushing, have soared. The toll on the Chesapeake Bay Bridge has risen from $2.50 to $6, and the new stormwater management fee, the so-called “rain tax,” pelts businesses with four-figure bills.Abused Statistics, Polls, and Marriage Definition
I have been a critic of polls that have suggested there is a surge of support for "gay" marriage. I think that there has long been a tolerance for alternative relationships, and I think the concepts have been conflated. I remember in the run-up to the recent narrowly-approved Maryland referendum, people were saying something to the effect gay people have the right to have loving relationships, but the issue under discussion was not a ban on gay relationships. For example, I have the right to call myself a king (whether or not genealogy bears that out), but other people don't have to recognize that status.
A recent study by Rice University sociologists reinforces a methodological problem with relevant often-cited polls that I have pointed out with respect to certain income-inequality studies, i.e., they do not track the same subjects over time.
Here is a relevant summary excerpt from NRO's Mark Regnerus:
Here is what the Rice study’s authors say they discovered: First, they found less support for same-sex marriage than polls like Gallup and CNN tend to find. In fact, in 2012, 53 percent of those surveyed agreed that the only legal marriage should be between a man and a woman, while 13 percent sat on the fence, and 33 percent disagreed with the statement. Second, they detected no statistically significant change in overall sentiment on same-sex marriage over those six years. Third, some things did change — minds — and not all of them toward favoring same-sex marriage. The authors write:
. . . when we look behind the overall numbers, we find that many people did indeed change their minds over the 6-year period. The most stable category was among Americans who agreed in 2006 that the only legal marriage should be between one man and one woman. About three-quarters (74%) who agreed with the statement in 2006 also agreed with it in 2012. Among those who disagreed with the statement in 2006, 61% also disagreed in 2012. What is surprising in light of other polls and the dominant media reports that Americans are moving in droves from defining marriage as one man and one woman to an expanded definition is the movement of people in the other direction as well, a fact missed by surveys that do not follow the same people over time.So much for Cato Institute and other pro gay "marriage" sources hyping a contagion of political support. This suggests, if anything, that traditional marriage proponents are more resilient in their conviction, and anti-traditionalists are less so. And, of course, remember California Proposition 8 was widely predicted to fail, and we know how those polls turned out. Why do you think gay advocates went to the courts rather than put out an initiative to repeal Proposition 8?
New Nominees for Bad Judge of the Year: the Supreme Court of New Mexico
In an unconscionable violation of economic and religious freedom, the New Mexico Supreme Court upheld the fine assessed by a so-called "Human Rights Commission" that ruled that a Christian-run photography shop which decided to turn down service for a lesbian "commitment ceremony" had violated gay discrimination statutes. This is a clear violation of the US Constitution: it violates the First, Ninth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments (at the very least), and I encourage ADF to appeal the decision to SCOTUS. A special shout out of contempt for that piece of work, Justice Richard C. Bosson, whom wrote that the plaintiffs are "“now are compelled by law to compromise the very religious beliefs that inspire their lives." "Compromise" is progressive-speak for "surrender".
(I would include the right to contract, but that was undermined by one of the worst decisions in Supreme Court history: Carolene Products. Levy lists it among "The Dirty Dozen", with the indefensible judicial surrender in Footnote 4. Just because SCOTUS unconscionably gave majoritarians the legal authority to unduly restrict economic activities (except for arbitrary, politically correct exceptions)--something which I would argue is directly responsible for our current economic malaise--doesn't mean the right doesn't exist--the Court just won't defend or review legislative violations, which I regard as a violation of professional ethics. Keep in mind that SCOTUS constantly recognized and defended the right to contract before then. So much for "stare decisis"...)
There is no constitutional basis to force a business to engage in transactions for any or no stated reason (with the possible exception of emergency healthcare). I don't think it's a good business practice; I myself have moral objections against alternative relationships, but if a lesbian couple owned a business needing database or other IT consulting services, I wouldn't turn down their business on the mistaken notion I was facilitating their lifestyle choices. The couple has the right to commit to each other (although New Mexico itself doesn't recognize gay "marriage" or civil unions--I guess the "Human Rights Commission" has bigger fish to fry).
By the way, the lesbian couple did find an alternative photography service--instead of moving on, they decided to sic the statist political correctness dogs on them. Look, if I have a relationship with a woman and she decides not to marry me for whatever or no reason--my personality, political or religious beliefs, my Franco-American heritage, my height/weight, hair or other physical attributes, or my being a southpaw or geek--it doesn't matter: she has that freedom. I'm not going to file a legal complaint; there's more than one fish in the sea. Busybody commissions/bureaucrats or legislatures deserve our contempt when they engage in such judgmental nonsense. Now if the state of New Mexico was to ban photographers from providing services to gay clients, I would similarly object to an infringement on the economic liberty of photographers.
Political Cartoon
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| Courtesy of Henry Payne and Townhall |
The Beatles, "Because". This is one of the most distinctive Lennon tracks, reportedly inspired by Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, and the use of a harpsichord and Moog synthesizer, not to mention a 3-part harmony (sans Ringo).
