Monday, November 2, 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Investors.com - Cap-And-Trade For Babies?
This is not a joke. There is now a "fringe" movement to issue so-called carbon credits as an incentive to curb childbirth, which is now a hazard to the environment.
Revkin volunteered that in allocating carbon credits as part of any cap-and-trade scheme, "if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn't there be a carbon value to that?"He went on to say that "probably the single most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the light or driving a Prius, it's having fewer kids, having fewer children."
"More children equal more carbon dioxide emissions," Rivkin has blogged, wondering "whether this means we'll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation." Save the trees, not the children.
If there can be this kind of incentive to reduce childbirth, could we take it one step further, and issue carbon credit bonuses for each aborted fetus? They could even offer one time, lump sum sterilization carbon credits. This would all certainly fit the abortion agenda for the same ideological crowd, and would be a way to supplement the child tax credit. Get your tubes tied = government handout; get pregnant and have baby = government handout; get pregnant and have abortion = government handout. What better way to line voters up to exercise their "reproductive freedom"? Sound crazy? It used to sound crazy that the government would try to influence our choice in light bulbs and automobiles. It used to sound crazy that the government would own General Motors, have a "Pay Czar", and provide tax "refunds" to those who had paid no taxes. Still sound crazy?
Here's an idea they may not like so much:
How about carbon credits for hunters? It makes sense, really. Think about a deer or an elk, for example. All a deer or elk does for it's entire lifetime is eat grass and foliage, which would have taken "dangerous" CO2 out of the atmosphere, and then "emit" methane flatulence, another dangerous greenhouse gas. Oh, they also create more deer/elk through uncontrolled reproduction, of course exacerbating this environmental hazard. Hunting deer and elk provides safe haven for grass and vegetation to soak up CO2 without risk of being eaten, and cuts dangerous emissions from these wild beasts. Think of the environmental benefit provided by these hunters, thinning the herds of these polluting, environmentally insensitive animals, and the hunters provide this service to the Mother Earth for FREE. The least we could do is issue them some carbon credits.
Monday, October 19, 2009
"Oba Mao"
"Oba Mao" items popular with foreign tourists in Beijing
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Saturday, October 17, 2009
MSNBC's Chris Matthews is not very smart
This is an interview with Phillip Dennis from the Dallas Tea Party, in which Matthews comes out of the gates trying to paint Mr. Dennis to be some kind of idiotic secessionist redneck from Texas. He challenges Mr. Dennis on "knowing history" about Hoover and the depression ("well you know history sir"), then when Dennis demonstrates his thorough knowledge of history--that FDR policy likely EXTENDED the Great Depression by 7 years--all Matthews could do was laugh, and fall back on the fact that FDR was reelected, and that it "wasn't believed at the time".
Matthews also condemned the Bush stimulus while simultaneously defending the Obama stimulus. (Mr. Dennis of course condemned both.) In typical lib fashion, Matthews also equates opposition to Obama's action to support of "doing nothing". Clearly, Mr. Dennis had an alternative proposal, of tax cuts and reduced spending, but Matthews didn't want to hear about that, just continually reducing the ideas to "a big tax cut and lots of speeches", and "doing nothing".
Liberals just don't know what to do when confronted with facts. Everyone knows (not everyone accepts) that the Great Depression was ended by WWII, NOT by FDR's Keynesian economic policy.
Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy
Friday, October 9, 2009
Krauthammer spells it out perfectly on Afghanistan
Answer: NO
Young Hamlet's Agony
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Wednesday, October 7, 2009
my response to the White House on Healthcare reform inquiry
The context of the question was basically this. Watch this video, and tell us if you agree with these doctors who support Obamacare. They also asked "What is the biggest health care problem in your state?" Here was my response:
my experience is quite different from the doctors on the video, and I do not think the proposals currently being discussed by the White House and Congress will solve the problems faced by our healthcare system.
We first should differentiate between the healthcare payor system and MEDICINE. Medicine today in the United States is the best in the world, and in history. Our healthcare PAYOR system is what needs reform, to improve access, choice and competition. Adding new layers of government and bureaucracy will make things worse, not better.
I am happy with my health insurance coverage (Anthem Blue Cross-California), but it is very expensive, and my premiums have gone up. I have employer based coverage, through my company which is based in California, but I live in Texas. I was certain I could get a better deal buying coverage on my own, and began shopping for a plan, including taking a look at high-deductible/catastrophic coverage, combined with an HSA. Unfortunately, even though I found much lower prices for adequate coverage, they were made unaffordable by the federal tax system, which makes health insurance premiums tax deductible only if purchased through my employer. This is a scenario where the federal government is currently LIMITING choice and competition through taxation. I would like to see this fixed in any proposed healthcare reform.
Additionally, it became obvious that my options were limited to what was available in my state. Current regulations prohibit a NATIONAL market for health insurance. This is another example of government currently LIMITING choice and competition. I would like to see this fixed in any proposed healthcare reform.
Professionally, I am very concerned about the federal government having increased involvement in setting fees for services. We already see this with Medicare, which causes a shifting of cost-burden to private insurance companies, driving up premiums for private insurance. As more Americans shift to a public "option", more services/procedures will fall under government fixed fee schedules, which will continue to drive up cost of private insurance, eventually eliminating private health insurance as a viable business model. Government setting prices/fees will quickly affect our medical technology/pharmaceutical innovators, as they will not have a true marketplace in which to market medical innovations. Medical breakthoughs will come to a grinding halt in this country, as the potential reward will be too small to take the risk of investing the necessary capital. This will be a disaster for the continued advancement of MEDICINE in the United States.
Many physicians I work with are already contemplating early retirement, if the plans by the White House are enacted. We need patient, consumer, and physician friendly reform, which should also include tort reform. There is no need to "test" this in certain areas, as the President has suggested. Tort reform has already been successfully implemented in Texas and other states, and should be adopted immediately on a national level. There is no reasonable position that be taken in support of the current medical/legal environment in this country.
I am all for reform, but I am against the proposals being made by the White House and Congress. I am for the right kind of reform, as I have outlined above, and still waiting for it to show up in proposed legislation.
Sincerely,
Joseph D. TerryLinks: