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POPSMuseum of Unintended Use An interesting new blog. And oh yeah, that last pic was taken in a pet supply store; it's a dog beg with an unintended sleeper inside. :)
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POPSThe Latter-day Liberal What, in short, would prevent such a policy in the conduct of our affairs, disguised as liberalism, from ultimately emerging as undisguised totalitarianism?
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POPSState Sovereignty What freedom-loving American would ever advocate the idea that a group of freeborn persons in Sovereign States should be forced to be governed by a government that was initially created by the will and assent of those people in their sovereign and independent capacities, especially where that artificial creation (i.e., the federal government) has usurped the powers originally granted to it by the sovereigns of the States? Such a thought is repugnant to free society, free government, and American ideology, and mirrors more of the hereditary-right-to-rule notion argued by monarchs of yesteryear and forced upon its not-so-loyal subjects. That's just it...I get the feeling that a portion of Americans are not "freedom-loving" at all.
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POPSFreddie & Fannie PAC Spending In the 2008 cycle, Fannie Mae PAC has contributed a total of $617,900 to congressional members; Freddie PAC gave $202,997 to members of Congress. More than half of that total — $489,998 — was designated for persons in leadership positions or who sit on either the House Financial Services Committee or the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs.
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POPSChevy Volt Gets 230 MPG? The media no longer sees itself as an arbiter of truth or a purveyor of information, but as a cheerleading booster of particular causes – typically the causes supported by the urban intelligentsia of the coasts. High on the list of fashionable political causes to be evangelized is the war against oil, which before an election always seems to become “foreign” oil. (After the election, petro-equality returns and domestic oil is bad-mouthed, too).
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POPSHealthcare Market Failure? From what I can decipher from his and other claims to support “universal” medical care, a “market failure” occurs when someone is not able to access immediately all of the medical care he or she “needs” immediately. Now, if this is what he means by a “market failure,” then every market (including the distribution of government-produced goods) falls into that category. If I cannot afford a Rolls-Royce, is that due to “market failure”? The very term "market" implies the presence of voluntary exchanges being transacted by individual parties to their mutual benefit...not the mandates of government.
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POPSMoney For Nothing Incredibly, the lesson Obama draws from history is that past administrations didn't spend enough..."The real problem was that Roosevelt slowed down on public spending in the first two years," the president said, according to one congressman who was in the room. "If he'd just kept on spending that money, we'd have gotten out of the Depression quicker."
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POPSWhat Right to Health Care? Those who want to see an end to spiraling medical costs should challenge the premises behind the government interventions. The first premise is moral: that medical care is a right. It is not. There was no right to such care before doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies produced it. Health care is a service, which we all need, and none of us are better served by placing our lives and our doctors under coercive bureaucratic control. The second premise is economic: that the government can produce a positive result by redistributing thousands of billions of dollars from its most productive citizens. This is the road to stagnation and national bankruptcy, not universal prosperity.
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POPSFive Endangered Freedoms In short, the Obama platform would mandate extremely full, expensive, and highly subsidized coverage -- including a lot of benefits people would never pay for with their own money -- but deliver it through a highly restrictive, HMO-style plan that will determine what care and tests you can and can't have. It's a revolution, all right, but in the wrong direction.
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POPSCronyism in My Hometown A must read letter by the president of a local Dodge dealer. In the past year, we have embarked on several creative initiatives in order to remain profitable and out of bankruptcy court. Though Dodge district sales are down by about 50%, our new vehicle sales actually increased comparing April 2008 and April 2009. Though I am a Washington, DC-educated attorney and former employee of the US Department of Labor and the US Senate and an active advocate of the American way of life, it is difficult for me to view this abrogation of our franchise rights as anything more than a manipulation of US bankruptcy court and law so that Chrysler LLC can transfer wealth between dealers they like and those they dislike, those that have agreed to under-table favors and those that haven't, and to settle old vendettas. This is not the purpose of US bankruptcy protection and, surely, it isn't why the US Treasury has given billions to Chrysler to keep them in business.
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POPSNo-Fly List = No-Guns List: McCarthy's Crusade Continues Rep. McCarthy was elected to Congress on a wave of sympathy over the murder of her husband and injury of her son during a mass murder on the Long Island Railroad. She has dedicated her career to a seemingly obsessive effort to restrict legal access to firearms by civilians (but not by government officials). Her sponsorship of H.R. 2401 adds fuel to charges that McCarthy's hostility to private firearms ownership overrides any concerns she might have about due process or simple justice.
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POPSLive Cats Used in College Medical Training The school could easily adopt better, more humane training methods, a PETA spokeswoman said. Most universities use human-like manikins instead of animals to practice life-saving procedures, PETA Research Associate Ian Smith said. PETA studied medical training methods at hundreds of universities, Smith said, and TTUHSC is the only one he is aware of that still uses cats, he said.
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POPSSoak the Rich, Lose the Rich One last point: States aren't simply competing with each other. As Texas Gov. Rick Perry recently told us, "Our state is competing with Germany, France, Japan and China for business. We'd better have a pro-growth tax system or those American jobs will be out-sourced." Gov. Perry and Texas have the jobs and prosperity model exactly right. Texas created more new jobs in 2008 than all other 49 states combined. And Texas is the only state other than Georgia and North Dakota that is cutting taxes this year.
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POPSCoverage of Obama's First 100 Days The First Family’s adoption of a puppy was chronicled in 12 stories, or more than were focused on the President’s education policies (9 stories). While these stories contained no substantive policy discussion, their highly positive approach certainly added to the public relations glow that surrounded both the President and his administration during the policy battles of the first 100 days and beyond.
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POPSObama's Blood Tax James’s proposal is as far from the animating ideas of the Founders as one can go without falling off the edge of comprehension. President Barack Obama does not question the idea that young Americans ought to serve. “Who could argue with so noble an idea as ’national service’? On the surface, the idea is irresistible.” Who could? Individuals who value their freedom would find the idea not only iniquitous, but ignoble, and condemn it as slavery.
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POPSEnergy Nonsense In an April 4 Newsweek guest editorial, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu also proved that -- his Nobel Prize notwithstanding -- common sense and rudimentary knowledge are lacking. First he did not offer one sentence on securing the 87 percent of energy supplies that the US needs other than to discuss “advanced biofuels.” Not to be outdone in slogan-style exaggeration, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar chimed in...Salazar, the Wall Street Journal reported, “raised eyebrows when he said offshore wind farms could replace 3,000 coal-fired plants.” Never mind that the US only has 600 of them. He also claimed that offshore wind in the Atlantic could deliver 1,000 gigawatts of capacity – approximately equal to the entire electric generation capacity of the US...Salazar’s statement should raise a lot more than eyebrows.
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POPSPlastic People Where do you draw the line? Or do you even have a line? Essential questions to ask yourself, unless you are in fact, a plastic person.
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POPSA Comprehensive Look at Liberalism I personally don't see much liberty in the theories that don't value the individual's ability to own, use, and dispose of property as they deem best. But then, almost by definition, I guess you're free to call almost anything liberalism. This only illustrates my hesitation to accept most common political labels thrown around today; rather considering, accepting, or rejecting the ideologies based on its merit.
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