Racist Reidcare

It is called disparate impact,  Lisa Richwine:

WASHINGTON, Dec 21 (Reuters) – In the rush to fund a U.S. healthcare overhaul, Botox injections to smooth wrinkles will not be taxed, but visiting a tanning salon will be.

Plastic surgeons and Botox maker Allergan Inc (AGN.N) successfully fought a proposed 5 percent tax on breast implants, face-lifts and other elective cosmetic procedures in Senate Democrats’ healthcare legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid dropped that plan, nicknamed the “Botax” after the popular wrinkle fighter, in changes released on Saturday. It was replaced it with a 10 percent tax on indoor tanning services.

Well I suppose the Botox tax would have been sexist.    Women are both more prone to get wrinkles and more prone to worry about  them.    However a tax on tanning parlors is racist.   I mean tanning parlors are frequented by people of pallor.

Welcome, one and all, to the most intense nightly read anywhere on the web ; the BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

• OOPS…. WE MISSED: So how is it that every time an estimate on this neo socialist Healthcare bill comes out from one political body or another, or even the CBO, which is supposedly apolitical, they end up having to issue corrections , and then corrections on the corrections, which make it look far less rosy than the initial report that all the headlines were about?  And, on what basis are we to assume that the correction is any more accurate than the real nonsense?
• CITADEL BROADCASTING FILES CHAP 11: I see Citadel Broadcasting which is one of the largest broadcasting companies in the country owning something like 225 radio stations including a bunch of 50 clears  as we used to call the AM 50,000 watt flamethrowers, has filed for Chapter 11. I’ve been watching them for some time, having something of a history in a radio, and it appears that the majority of their debt load issues stem from having picked up ABC radio from Disney, some years ago.  Reduced advertising of late hasn’t helped much either.
• BRITTANY MURPHY DIES:
  

  Brittany Murphy

  

  Karen Carpenter

  I’m probably going to get into trouble for this one.  I know, usually I will put this kind of announcement up in a separate post, with an RIP somewhere in it. I think this one deserves to be broken out just a little bit into the Ramble, because I have a serious question for you.  What you suppose the chances are that anorexia was involved?  That, or drugs of some kind.   To this day, I still remember sitting in my production room at WSAY here in Rochester, and and sitting in shocked silence on hearing the news from the closed network circuits that Karen Carpenter had died and to be ready to take a bulletin feed at the bottom of the hour.  If I’m not much mistaken she had a heart failure as well.  That was listed as a cause of death, but what led up to that failure was the abuse you’d put her body through.  And as it just me, or does Brittany Murphy look alarmingly like Karen Carpenter? And before you start, I always thought that earlier in her career, Karen Carpenter was a nice looking girl.  So, yes, that’s a compliment….  Albeit an eerie one.

• WATCH THE WATCH, WILL YA? I note Glenn  Reynolds making mention of markdowns on men and women’s watchers.  Just in time for Christmas of course.  A very dear friend of mine gave me a very expensive Rolex watch a number of years ago.  The real thing, too. I’ve had it appraised.  Sadly, I’ve worn it perhaps twice in my lifetime.  A beautiful thing, it is.  Yet after accidentally wiping out several watches over the years, I never wear it, because it serves no practical function. I lost that very dear friend to a heart attack about ten years ago, and that watch was one gift of many that he gave me over the years. But that one is very important to me.   I’d hate to damage it in wearing it simply out of vanity.  Thing is, nobody ever where swatches anymore,  and I think I know why.   The most accurate timepiece I’ve ever owned in my life , I’ve actually owned several of those.  They are the time display in my cell phone.  We’ve certainly gained accuracy, but I can’t help but think that we’ve lost a little style, a little grace.
• THAT’S A NEW WRINKLE: According to a report on CBS news’ web site women tend to get more wrinkled than men.  I’ve been thinking all this time that they got wrinkled about the same it’s just that with guys nobody noticed.  Oh, well.
• ARROGANCE OF MAN:Sarah Palin has this one right. In the last hundred thousand or so years, the scientists tell us that there have been on the order of twenty buyouts of global warming.  The extent of that warming appears to be 18° moralize on each occasion, and on each occasion it took twenty years to get that rise.  Now that people over in Copenhagen last week will tell you that their concern is a rise of a degree and a half over the last 100 years.  (BBCT: Boortz) The fact is, we can even measure things that accurately, much less accurately predict what will change it in either direction.  More, there is no way to determine whether not such a manmade change would be beneficial, or not.  The leaked emails we saw a recently are testimony to the fact that we are being lied to about all of this. It’s as I said yesterday …  Given the history of the thing it seems to me eminently reasonable to make the assumption that when a leftist speaks, his real cause… regardless of the stated cause…. is the increase in the power of a central government , and go on from there.  . Until we face that situation head on, we’re always going to have these discussions about the validity of leftist policy.
• PERSONAL NOTES: First of all, in answer to a number of emails, yes the training precedes apace to put me behind the wheel of a Tractor -Trailer by the end of next month. Well, my own truck, I mean.  Believe me when I tell you, friends, there is a great deal more to handling one of those monsters than most people are aware.  As it turns out, I’m reasonably good at it.  Driving, for me has always been one of my favorite activities.  But much as I like driving, doing it in something that large is an intense experience.  It is made more intense by the rather odd assortment of idiots on four wheels. I’ll tell you some stories about that, when I have some free space.One of the problems involved with the scheduling of that training, however, is that I’m going to have to reschedule the Ramble . I’ve been posting it for the last couple of years at 4:00 EST every day.  That’s a situation that probably won’t work after the end of this year.  So, watch for my Nightly commentary in the Nightly Ramble to be posted some time around 9:00 every evening, starting January 1.  That may not be the last scheduled for a xiong, depending on the nature of the new job.  And, of course, my ability to maintain this website fully from the truck.  We’ll see how that goes.  I’m currently looking at laptops. Obviously, a cell card is required, and the monthly’s on those may be a little excessive until I get some money rolling from the new gig.  I’ll keep you posted.Secondly, I’m amazed at the traffic buildup on this web site, subsequent to my moving to the new server.  I have always known that there was inherent problems trying to run a PHP site on a Microsoft server.  Until I moved off the Microsoft server, I never fully understood just how bad that situation was.  They recorded traffic on this web site has better than doubled in the last month.  I have to assume, that I’ve actually had that level of traffic for this web site along, and that it just wasn’t recording it, or that there was a large number, (approaching 50% of total traffic ) of instances where the server dropped the request.  Take it as my advice of the day; don’t get yourself into a Microsoft server if you plan on relying heavily on PHP, OK?

By JonesToTheGrindstone.com

Living where loud explosions pepper my day is routine. In Warner Robins, Ga., sonic booms are the norm. According to Dictionary.com, sonic booms are “explosive sounds caused by the shock wave preceding an aircraft traveling at or above the speed of sound.” Even after living here for a while, they still scare the crap out of me and make my dogs bark and scatter in confusion. Still, this base isn’t the loudest or weirdest I’ve lived around. It gets much scarier.

I lived on a “fighter base” for two years. It hosted many fighter squadrons there. The jets flying in and out of the base created a lot of noise. While living there, my communication patterns changed. When talking with someone on the phone or outside, having extended, numerous pauses mid-conversation was normal. The loud swoop of a jet flying overhead made hearing each other impossible! Needless to say, using dramatic pauses as a story’s suspense-building tool didn’t work on that base.

Also, it wasn’t unusual for me to hear Islamic chants coming from the speakers for a few days out of the month. The first time I heard the chants; I was like, “What in God’s name…?” It was in God’s name, or Allah’s. At first I thought maybe it was a new, government-sponsored cultural awareness program.  Come to find out that the base had a training camp set up for troops who were about to deploy to the desert, like Iraq. The camp exposed the troops to what the daily routine is like in “The Sandbox”—a term of endearment.

Another fun experience on the fighter base was when the leadership would hold an “exercise” where warlike conditions were simulated. There was a confined area, a “tent city,” and many different scenes were played out—almost like a pick-a-script that is tossed at a theatrical troupe for extemporaneous practice. *Personally, I think it would be fun to play the enemy in this arena. Imagine running into your boss’s office, pulling off a successful coup, and announcing, “Sir, I killed you.” Not good in “real life,” but a bit of a giggle in a fake one.

However, while the military members were playing GI Joe; the outsiders were stuck listening to all sorts of threatening sounds, like blasts and gunfire. I had become numb to the symphony of cacophony. But it made for a funny situation when my mother, a city slicker, came to visit during one of these exercises. Because it had become commonplace to me, I had forgotten to forewarn my mother of the phony pandemonium to come.

The exercise runs all day and night, just like a battle scene would. It had been a particularly noisy night on the base, but I knew it was nothing to worry about. That night, hearing explosions was like counting sheep. But as soon as the sun came up, my mom burst out of the guest room and with big, anxious eyes exclaimed, “Karen, I think I heard bombs going off last night!”

Utterly deadpan I said, “Welcome to my world, Mom.”

I don’t what else you can make of this,  Fox News:

Senate Democrats are warning the House not to make any significant changes to the health care package heading toward a vote in their chamber if they want the bill to survive past Christmas.

Do not mess with this bill.

That was the message Senate Democrats sent to their colleagues on the House side over the weekend,

It either Dirty Harry’s way or the highway.    Obama ran on promise of bipartisan.   Not only can Obama’s democrats not work with republicans,  they can’t even work with their fellow democrats.   Dirty Harry has crafted a bill that  opposed by over sixty percent of voters, and all he can say is take or leave it

Snark of the Day, Bill Kristol, video:

Hat tip: Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

Ron Bailey at Reason:

Ron Bailey, science correspondent for Reason

Given the array of government energy mandates and billions in subsidies poured into cleantech, there is no doubt that those sectors will see increased jobs. The effect on overall employment is far less clear. Cleantech energy is currently more expensive than conventional sources of energy. Many argue that the price difference simply reflects the fact that conventional sources—chiefly fossil fuels—are cheaper because no one is being forced to pay for their externalities, e.g., damaging the climate and health. Once people have to pay for their externalities through, say, a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade scheme, then renewable energy sources become more competitive. Fair enough. But either way, the price of energy is going to go up. If people and businesses are paying more for energy that means that they have less left over to buy other products and services, a fact that would tend to reduce employment downstream.
….

…. a study released in October finds that the German green job miracle is largely a mirage, and an expensive mirage at that. The report, published by the nonprofit German think tank Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI), notes that as a result of the German government’s energy policies, Germany leads the world in solar panel installation and is second only to the U.S. in wind power generation. Great, right? Actually terrible, says the report. Let me quote some of the report’s sobering conclusions at length:

While employment projections in the renewable sector convey seemingly impressive prospects for gross job growth, they typically obscure the broader implications for economic welfare by omitting any accounting of off-setting impacts. These impacts include, but are not limited to, job losses from crowding out of cheaper forms of conventional energy generation, indirect impacts on upstream industries, additional job losses from the drain on economic activity precipitated by higher electricity prices, private consumers’ overall loss of purchasing power due to higher electricity prices, and diverting funds from other, possibly more beneficial investment.

Proponents of renewable energies often regard the requirement for more workers to produce a given amount of energy as a benefit, failing to recognize that this lowers the output potential of the economy and is hence counterproductive to net job creation. Significant research shows that initial employment benefits from renewable policies soon turn negative as additional costs are incurred. Trade and other assumptions in those studies claiming positive employment turn out to be unsupportable.

In the end, Germany’s PV promotion has become a subsidization regime that, on a per-worker basis, has reached a level that far exceeds average wages, with per worker subsidies as high as 175,000 € (US $ 240,000). …

Although Germany’s promotion of renewable energies is commonly portrayed in the media as setting a “shining example in providing a harvest for the world” (The Guardian 2007), we would instead regard the country’s experience as a cautionary tale of massively expensive environmental and energy policy that is devoid of economic and environmental benefits.

Despite the fondest hopes of Kerry, Pelosi, Markey, and other Democrats in Congress, carbon rationing has not noticeably sparked a technological revolution in Europe yet. One might argue that a cleantech takeoff is just around the corner and that the energy revolution is just at the same stage as the Internet revolution was in 1991. Maybe. But the Internet analogy deployed by Kerry and co. misses the mark in another way—the Internet and cell phone boom took off as a result of deregulation and was largely financed by private capital. By contrast, the Capitol Hill denizens now haunting the Copenhagen conference imagine they can spark a similar technological revolution by passing a massive 1,400-page bill, laden with subsidies, tax breaks, and fine-grained regulations for all aspects of energy production.

Well, of course.!

Even the most shallow investigation into the voting records of Kerry, Pelosi, Markey, and the other Neo-Socialists in Congress, will show they have always leaned toward government as the solution to all man’s problems, even if government is the proximate cause of those problems. The reason is simple; This is not about growing jobs, or going green, this is about nothing more than the increase of government… something the left has always desired and worked toward.

I have said it for years, now; the worst thing you can possibly offer a leftist, is an actual solution to a problem.  If you actually solve the problem, you have removed the incentive for granting government (And one assumes the liberals in said government) ever increasing power.  Given the history of the thing it seems to me eminently reasonable to make the assumption that when a leftist speaks, his real cause… regardless of the stated cause…. is the increase in the power of a central government , and go on from there.  . Until we face that situation head on, we’re always going to have these discussions about the validity of leftist policy.

In house traffic:

WordPress version 2.9 is up and running.

That adds a few things, mostly at the editor level. It fixes the picture editing bug we’ve been dealing with on and off for a while.

It also, alas!,  cripples Simple Tags.  I’m looking at it.

“IRANIAN fanatics launched a hack attack on Twitter in REVENGE for the website’s role in anti-government protests, experts warned last night.  The trendy micro-blogging site – used by dozens of celebs – was broken into by a group calling itself the “Iranian cyber army”.  Twitter users trying to log on were directed instead to a page of political slogans. They were unable to post their messages, or Tweets, for hours.  In June Twitter was used to mobilise protests in Tehran after Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was declared the winner in disputed elections.  And experts believe the Iranian government was behind yesterday’s attack on the site.”
Tory MP Patrick Mercer, chairman of Parliament’s counterterrorism sub-committee, said: “Iran is one of the most predatory governments in terms of using the internet and e-attacks.  “It seems this was a revenge attack for Twitter’s role in unsettling the country’s elections.”  Read more at The Sun

It appears that the dim one forget to tell Mother Nature about anthropogenic global warming.

Hat tip photo:   Fox News.

Hershey is 284 miles south of me and Paula  is tough enough to be a Bills fan.   Color me impressed.   More,  Fox News:

WASHINGTON — A blizzard-like storm rocked the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast on Saturday, crippling travel across the region and causing hundreds of thousands of power outages.

Five deaths appeared to have been caused by the storm system, which stretched from the Carolinas north to New England and also spread into some Midwestern states. The 13 inches of snow that had fallen in the nation’s capital by late afternoon was the most-ever for a day in December, while 9 inches had fallen in Philadelphia.

Then look at the bright side, as this morning Rochester, was winning the Snow Derby.

The Bitsblog website of the day, dedicatecd to making sport of Alan Grayson,  is MyCnngressManIsNuts.com.    Not only does Grayson’s elevator not get to the penthouse, it doesn’t get out of the basement.

Hat tip:   William A. Jacobson, Legal Insurrection.

“In the film ‘Dirty Dancing,’ set in 1963, Max Kellerman, the proprietor of a fictional Catskill resort, laments that the golden era of borscht belt resorts is over. “You think kids want to come with their parents and take fox-trot lessons?” he gripes. “Trips to Europe, that’s what the kids want.”  It was a prescient utterance. Of course, the film — released decades after the Catskill summer resort culture began its decline — benefited from hindsight. But as the strain of recession continues into its second winter, how is the economy of the Route 17 corridor faring?  Read more at NY Times Monticello Journal!

The time has come for Barack Obama to have his teleprompter reprogrammed with some fresh material.

Glenn Thrush, Politico:

COPENHAGEN — A visibly angry Barack Obama threw down the gauntlet at China and other developing nations Friday, declaring that the time has come “not to talk but to act” on climate change

Obama was so upset in Copenhagen that he gave essentially the same speech he gave in February to push Porkulus,  from William A. Jacobson,  Legal Insurrection:

Yep, the speech Obama just gave in Copenhagen is basically the speech he gave last February to push through the Stimulus Plan, that foul piece of legislation which has turned into a paradigm of big government gone bad.

Is it my imagination, or all of the one’s speech sound alike,  Jacob Sullum, Reason:

For connoisseurs of Obama-speak, the address featured a trifecta, combining three of his favorite rhetorical tropes. There was the vague reference to “those who” question his agenda, the “false choice” they use to deceive the public, and the determination to “be clear” and forthright, in contrast with those dishonest naysayers. These devices are useful as signals that the president is about to mislead us.

Somebody needs to take Obama aside and tell him that in order to perceived as a leader a person to look and act like a leader.   And leaders do not get visibly upset in public.   Personally, I think somebody lied to Obama, and told him that being President was going to be easy.

,   www.JonesToTheGrindstone

I couldn’t resist using the popular Internet abbreviation, “WTF,” to play-up a question with a complex answer: WTF is blogging? Yes, “what the flip”  (HA!) is blogging?

Well, here is Dictionary.com’s definition, “To write entries in, add material to, or maintain a weblog.” And a weblog is listed as, “A website that displays in chronological order the postings by one or more individuals and usually has links to comments on specific postings.”  In general, it seems like Dictionary.com doesn’t have a complete explanation for the meaning of blogging. It is uncertain that anyone has the complete answer, but there are two agreed upon markers: words and posting online.

But, is blogging journalism? To find out what disease a patient does have, doctors test for what diseases a patient doesn’t have—to cross it off the list of possibilities. In the same vein, is blogging not journalism? Answers.com states that journalism is, “The style of writing characteristic of material in newspapers and magazines, consisting of direct presentation of facts or occurrences with little attempt at analysis or interpretation.” As long as a blog follows the same rules as traditional journalism, like fact-checking and truthful research, blogging can be journalism. But, no, not all blogs are journalistic. However, affiliated blogs, like Geoff Edgers’s “The Exhibitionist” at Boston.com, typically are regarded as journalism. But, Edgers has a blog—just ask him.

An example of non-journalistic blogging is using a blog as a personal essay. Photographer, Phillip Toledano operates a blog about his aging father’s life without short-term memory, “Days with My Father.” Toledano uses brilliant photography paired with words describing brief, impacting moments in his father’s current state. Toledano may be expressing facts, but he certainly does interpret and analyze them. This style of blogging is more of a literary and visual art form hybrid than a newspaper-style article. Phillip Lopate’s book, The Art of the Personal Essay, is an anthology of classic personal essays. If those published essays were posted online as blogs, they would not be viewed as journalism. But, they would still be blogs.

Personal essay blogs can be good and bad. The fact that anyone with Internet access can publish a blog for free allows for both types to exist. Good blogging means using established literary techniques to write the blogs, fiction and non-fiction. Constance Hale, author of Sin and Syntax, hails some of these techniques; for example, avoiding adverbs, using visual verbs, and utilizing specific nouns. Bad blogging would be an absence or overuse of the literary techniques. Knowing where to “draw the line” is a useful skill in blogging, as with writing. But, good or bad, they are still blogs.

The existence of blogs can be a haven for the curious reader who wants to hear many different voices on an incredible array of topics. Unlike at a traditional publishing house, there are no filters in place. This leaves the doors wide open for the next E. B. White to get his start online.  When in the past, perhaps the “Next White” could have erroneously received stacks of rejection letters and never had his writings published. With the Next White’s yang, there is also a ying. There are torturous examples of poorly written blogs online. (I’m sure you can already think of a few.) But, like a beautiful rainbow and a terrible thunderstorm, they both survive in this world.

Blogging fits right in to the scheme of literature and journalism before it. The literary arts have room for new styles and techniques, just like the fine arts. While some people prefer Impressionism, others prefer Romanticism or Cubism. While some people prefer Realism, some people prefer Gothic or “Blogging”—WTF?! Yes, I put Blogging in the same sentence as recognized literary periods. Blogging has left its mark on the literary world and will continue to evolve—no matter its definitions

Ok Keith Olbermann is an arrogant ass, but even an ass can have his day.   Olbermann goes off against Harry Reid health care mandate, albeit for the wrong reasons:

Olbermann is right that the a health care mandate is illegal. He no intention of buying government mandated insurance. Bravo.

Hat tip: Ed Morrissey, Hot Air.

Welcome, dear friends, to the most intense nightly raid available anywhere on the sphere ; The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble.

• BYE BYE, SEIU: When Andy Stern starts making this much noise, it logically raises the question is, as David says earlier today,   the SIEU,  Obama’s biggest supporter… (And Stern, remember has been the most frequent visitor to the White House. has been lost to Obama. Dan Riehl has this one correct:
  

  Today, the Democrats are reaping what Stern, the Phoenix Group, Kos, and others sowed, as they were always out of step with the majority of the country. These are precisely the fights, the changes, they wanted when taking over the DNC. They’ve been plotting it for years. They’re there. And if they fail, the Democrats, the Netroots and all the associated characters will find themselves in disarray.

  I have always said here that the Democrats would runs smack dab into the teeth of reality.  Even excluding the fiscal reality of their Neo-socialist policies forcing this nation to drown in red ink, the political realities were always destined to bite first.  So we’re seeing it today.

• SCARING AMERICANS: For months on and we’ve put up with rhetoric from the White House claiming that anyone who opposed the chosen one and his government takeover of health care was being a scare monger.  “stop scaring Americans” was the unify cry from the Democrats in both Houses, and the White House as well.  cell, perhaps, it is telling that the president has decided to break out some scare tactics of his own, claiming that the U.S. will go bankrupt if we don’t pass the government takeover of health care.  Even as our list examination of that statement does tend to cause most people to go “”hmmm”…. consider that every time we have taken the advice of Mr. Obama we have gotten remarkably closer to irreparable damage to our economy, euphemistically called “bankruptcy”.  It does seem logical to question why we should believe the analysis of Mr. Obama, here.
• PARALLELS: There are a number of amazing parallels happening between the SEIU story above, and what we see going on over in Copenhagen. Ron Bailey has an article up over at Reason that tells an alarmingly similar tale of political reality biting the left in the backside.
  

  It’s déjà vu all over again. Another year, another climate summit on the verge of collapse. As usual, this year’s conference is filled with lots of diplomatic drama, outraged activists, and high-minded rhetoric. This is the sixth time I’ve reported on the annual U.N. climate change conference and the script has not changed. Two years ago the chaotic climate change talks in Bali “nearly collapsed.” The conference concluded with an thirteenth hour “roadmap” for future negotiations. That last minute deal was supposed to set the stage for a legally binding global climate treaty from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change’s (UNFCCC) 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) in Copenhagen.

  But even before the delegates convened at the Bella Center south of Copenhagen, Danish Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen stated that no such comprehensive treaty would be completed at COP-15. The aim shifted to negotiating a political agreement that set out specific goals for cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases and the amount of money that developed countries would pledge to give poor countries to help them adapt to climate change.

  It appears that a lot people assumed going into COP-15 that the replacement of the widely loathed George W. Bush with Barack Obama as U.S. president would change everything. Much to the shock and horror of many of the “climate justice” activists gathered here in Hopenhagen, it hasn’t.

  Of course, there’s a reason for that; political and economic realities, will trump neo -socialist dogma every time.   Oh….and should we mention that environmental reality has also taken a hand.  It’s snowing in Copenhagen, as this is written.  Actually, the better description is “blizzard”, but don’t tell anybody that you heard it here first.

• UNEMPLOYMENT: New Jobless  claims have risen unexpectedly. At least, unexpectedly from the standpoint of the Obama White House and the economists thereunder.  If you noticed the pattern?  Every time unemployment claims rise, it’s “unexpectedly”.  There’s a reason for that; these people of been trying to gild the lily since January of this year.  We are being lied to, people.
• MONICA’S BACK: And the rest of her, too.  She lays it out, you should pardon the pun, in no uncertain terms.  Bill Clinton lied. Not only did he lie, but he lied under oath.  If there’s anything that’s amazing about any of this, it’s that an expose a showing us what we already instinctively knew, can sell so very well.