The Soda Tax explained.

Years ago, President Clinton with help from Congress imposed higher taxes on cigarettes under the guise of funding healthcare and encouraging people to stop smoking.  In other words, to control behavior.  Public support for this measure was gained by promising to help "the children."

Conservatives were scorned and ridiculed for not supporting this measure.  We were told we didn't care about peoples health, the children's health.  The conservative position, is one of personal freedom, responsibility and limited government.  Conservatives also warned that if this were allowed it would set a precedent on other items the left will deem unhealthy.

Fast forward to 2009, Governor Patterson of New York is set to impose a tax on non-diet soda.  Soda is a boogeyman for the Left because of sugar, and of course the justification of the tax is so it can help the children.  Looks like we were right, huh?  But is this really about help anyone, let alone children?  I say absolutely not.

Let's look at the "purpose" of these taxes.  The first purpose is to pay for healthcare.  The second purpose is to encourage people into consuming less of these evil items.  One purpose will kill the other purpose.  First of all the "healthcare for children" argument is a joke.  Since taxing the cigarettes for this purpose in the 1990's there has been no significant change in children's healthcare.

But let's look at the real problem.  Let's say that government collects money and allocates it for healthcare.  Fine and wonderful.  Now let's say that tax meets its second "goal" and fewer people consume non-diet soda.  Revenue (for healthcare) collected by the tax will drop.  What then?  I dunno, maybe raise the tax even more like they did for cigarettes?  That may even out the money, but then fewer people will consume soda.  Then what?  They will find something else to tax, that's what.  What will it be next time?  Chocolate?  Coffee?  Or how about tea?  We've been down that road haven't we?

It comes down to this.  Liberal politicians (and a lot of "conservatives") are only interested maintaining and growing government.  To reach this goal they have to get ever deeper into the pockets of the taxpayers.  If Governor Patterson were concerned that soda pop were killing people why would he not just ban it all together?  I mean afterall, it's a health emergency.  The mistake of the governments prohibition on alcohol in the 20th century was that they were trying to legislate morality.

Now, the government just wants more of your money and want to be more subtle about telling you how to live.

Michelle Obama "chided" for wearing "whitey's" designer clothes.

Who knew that affirmative action reached all the way into what clothes you wear?  According to Politico Michelle Obama has received criticism from the Black Artists Association for the crime of her inaugural outfits not being designed by black designers.

I have to go with Michelle on this one.  Who cares?!  The Black Artists Association asked:

"It's fine and good if you want to be all 'Kumbaya' and 'We Are the World' by representing all different countries. But if you are going to have Isabel Toledo do the inauguration dress, and Jason Wu do the evening gown, why not have Kevan Hall, B Michael, Stephen Burrows or any of the other black designers do something too?"

Here's  a novel idea, maybe she didn't like anything Kevan Hall or any of the other black designers had to offer.  I mean she is still a free person, free to choose what clothes to wear right?  Why is there this notion within minority communities that you have to be beholden to anything and everything within your particular miniority group?  It's asinine.

On the other hand the Obama's are part of the machine that created this monster. 

Obama's new rules already don't apply... to him that is.

Peter Schweizer wrote a book in 2006 that can now be considered prophetic when it comes to the new presidency of Barack Obama.   One the first day of his administration President Obama signed an executive order regarding lobbying and ethics rules.

If you can make it through to about the 3:25 mark President Obama begins outlining his rules for lobbyists in his administration.

1.  Former lobbyists entering Obama's administration will not be allowed to work on things that they lobbied on or agencies they lobbied during the previous 2 years.

2.  After leaving the Obama administration you will not be allowed to lobby the Obama administration as long as Obama is President.

3.  There will be a ban on gifts from lobbyists to anyone in the administration.

That was on the "first day" of work Jan 20th or 21st.  Well guess what?

That's right kids, less than a week and President Obama has already waived his own ethics rules to appoint a lobbyist and executive at Raytheon (a defense contractor) as Deputy Secretary of Defense.  When President Obama stated that his administration would be transparent we had no idea.  What good are rules if you don't follow them?  Obama's ethics rules are about as on the up and up as playing one on one with Kim Jong Il.

America's problems or race and expectation.

First and foremost, we the United States of America, have a race problem.  We do, it's as simple as that.  The nation is obssessed with race.  I watched the inauguration of President Obama on Tuesday.  All of the coverage was about race.  From the reporters covering it to Rev. Lowery praying for the day "when WHITE will embrace what's RIGHT."  I got up this morning this morning to a video on MTV, "My President is Black." completely with caracitures of skinny, bitter whites protesting President Obama.  Were the film of this video shown as a negative with the word black replaced with white it would be hauled off the air like a dump trunk full of gravel.

But this video's wording is very telling.  It speaks in relation to a myth.  That myth is that the President of the United States "gives" to people.  Barack Obama is going to give handouts.   Going to give people a better job, hell a better life.  This implies that George W. Bush and the presidents before him "gave" (to the white man I guess.)  This further evidenced by this voicemail left at CitiBank's collection department.  Notice how the fact that this woman doesn't make her car payment is going to be remedied by President Obama.  I also like the phrase, "WE'VE got Barack Obama."  Lady, he's my president too.

The expectation is there that Barack Obama is going to make their lives better.  That they will not be expected to pay their bills or be responsible or to work.  What it comes down to is that in the mind of these folks Barack Obama's sole purpose is to stick it to "whitey."  Also ,I really think, as scary as it is, that the expectation is for President Obama begin punishing "whitey" for, well, being white.

Tavis Smiley, said on Meet the Press that Obama's election as president is merely a down payment on Rev. King's dream.  That is patently false.  Obama's election is proof of King's dream as being fullfilled.  Have you ever Rev. King's "I have a dream" speech.  I highly recommend that you do.  You can read it here.

If you actually read the speech, what Rev. King is stating is that all of us should be equal, regardless of race, gender or religion and so on.  In mathematical terms:

Not: white people > black people or black peolple >white people or red people > black people.

More like:  white people = black people or black people = red people or how about white = black = red = brown = yellow = green.

Or even better yet, shed the group mentality of color and class all together?  If that were the case it would be:

people = people = people OR just PEOPLE.  That's what King was getting at.

It is going to take all of us to get past race.  It is going to take organizations like the NAACP, La Raza to drop the race classification and getting with the program.  President Obama's election has demonstrated that there is still work to be done.  You will know that we have turned the corner when comments such as, "You have a black President." or "...and she's Mexican." or "...but he's white." are met with, "So?"

Bottom line, in a post racial society, race does not matter and is not a factor.  That's why it's called POST racial.

Idiotic, race obsessed bloggers don't get Gran Torino.

I watched Clint Eastwood's Gran Torino last night and it was an excellent film.  Yesterday I was browsing for news bits on the shooting of Oscar Grant by a BART officer and came across a review of Gran Torino skrewing as a typical racist Hollywood film.  This led me to another negative racially motivated review of the film.  I decided to bring this up since Eastwood had recently taken heat from a race baiting Spike Lee; and few things aggravates me more than small minded twits crying about how one group or another is portrayed in movies, from To Kill a Mockingbird to Hostel. 

The charges against GT is that it is a typical cast of stereotypical minority characters (e.g. 'nerdy asian', 'asian gangster', 'black thug' and so on.)  All of this is centered around a "God-like" white man who comes to everyone's rescue.  This a bogus notion.

Eastwood's character, Walt Kowalski, is a racist and when he is introduced to his Hmong neighbors he makes the "gook" assumption about them.  He does not know them.  The Hmong fought WITH the US in Vietnam and faced holocaust afterward.  The "nerdy asian" and "gangbanger asians" server a purpose here.  It demonstrates that race has nothing to do with evil or virtue.  Thao is the most innocent character in the film and his cousin, Spider, is the most evil.

Walt doesn't save them, they save him.  Sue is a particularly good character.  Despite Walt's insults and attitudes she still shows him hospitality and does not give words any power. She is better than he is.  The Hmong neighbors prove to be better people than Walt.  

What people don't seem to understand is that Walt Kowolski is the central character in this film, everything is about his transformation.  So it stands to reason that the character is surrounded by characters that are minorities, good and bad.

With all of the racially obsessed people out there Clint Eastwood could not please them with this film.  Right now, Clint is being ostracized because his "savior" character is white.  But what would happen had Eastwood cast Morgan Freeman in the role of Walt?  How would it be received for Morgan Freeman to play the racist Korean War vet throwing out generous helpings of "gook" and "swamp-rat"?  I have no doubt that there are black men that share this view of Asian, but Clint would be picked apart for potraying this negative black character.  These race baiters are looking for Klansmen under every rock.  They are literally the Joe McCarthy's of racism.  I never heard a complaint about the barber or foreman being stereotypical.

There is something to be said for realism in movies as well.  The setting of film is around Detroit, MI.  Eastwood could have thrown in some Aryan Nation type gangs for "balance" but it would have been completely un-authentic.  Just for S&Gs I ran a google search on "white gangs" of Detroit.  The only thing a I came across was a white supremicist message board discussing that they don't want to go to Detroit because of the small white population. 

In closing, I thought this a fantastic film that demonstrates our pre-conceived notions about people are often wrong and that we have more in common with each other than we think.

Farwell Mr. President.

I was at the gym last night getting a workout in. I felt kind of crazy getting out in the single digit weather, but I am determined. While on the treadmill I saw the President Bush give his farewell speech. I say "saw" because the volume was muted on the television. When I got home I made it a point to read the transcript on Politico.com.

President Bush made it a point to be gracious, respectful and non-partisan. This is the new tone that Bush entered office on. What really caught my eye was the tone of the comment section of the article. I am very familiar with trolls and moronic people leaving comments on the web. But for some reason it really hit me hard. What I saw was a gathering of the minds of the most un-educated, un-appreciative, simple-minded, angry people in one place. My thought was, you know, these people deserve the President and government they are getting.

From day one President Bush has gotten the shaft and viewed with disdain; disrespected more than any President. It all started from the myth of the "stolen" 2000 election, which in fact Al Gore tried to steal. It only went downhill from there.

Let's look at the circumstances of Bush's presidency.

On day one, President Bush inherited a recession from the outgoing Clinton presidency (aptly called the Bush recession by the media and liberals.) Bush fixed this recession. Less than a year into his Presidency our nation was attacked.

I know that Democrats, liberals and the media do not like to talk about 9/11 other than the kooks who say Bush planned it or otherwise blame him. The reason they do not like to talk about it is because President Bush handled 9/11 and its aftermath in exceptional manner.

At this time the US economy is in dire straits. Let's remember that President Bush pulled us out of an earlier recession with his tax cuts and deregulation. The US economy survived for years despite thousands of attempts to talk it down and stifle it to have something to lay on Bush. The truth is, what killed the economy stems from oil prices and Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac.

The price of oil was too high for the American people to pay. President Bush tried several times to increase our supply of oil and make us less dependent on foreign sources. Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac (aka the DNC piggy bank) forced banks to loan money to people that could not make the payments then would not let them collect. This collapsed the banking industry. Bush also tried to fix Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac only to be rebuffed. It's not that Bush has no blame here. Simply put he should have fought harder for ANWR, investigations into Fannie Mae, etc. But these problems are at the feet of the Democrats.

In the national security realm President Bush has done the impossible. After we were attacked on 9/11 Bush was charged with preventing further attacks. The expectation from Bush's opponents was that there were to be no more attacks. In their mind they were setting him up for failure. The realist expectation was that there would be more attacks. Period. The table set for President Bush by the opposing two parties (Democrats and Media) was anything less than no more attacks is failure.

Basically, it was a game of "Keep the country safe" but:

-You can't secure our borders from people entering illegally
-You can't send the armed forces after the enemy
-You can't put enemy combatants in prison
-You can't interrogate enemy combatants with anything more than cupcakes and puppies
-You can't intercept phone calls originating from outside the US
-France has to agree with your every decision
-No civilians can be killed by action of anyone including the enemy
-No US soldiers can be put in harms way. Ever.
-US intelligence agencies cannot gather intel on suspicious people inside the country.

Make no misake, the President was set up to fail. And he did not. But he has been dragged through the mud for 8 years and will likely be dragged through the mud for a few more.

Mr. President, I think I speak for those of us with a brain when I say, you have done well and you will be missed.

Randi Rhodes demonstrates the divide between conservatives and liberals.

I heard Olbermann whining about this too and I am a little late commenting on this, but here goes.

Basically, the Obamas asked to stay in the Blair House, which is the the guest house for the White House. The Obamas were denied their request because the house was already booked.

I caught clips of Randi Rhodes griping and complaining about this last week. The gist of her statements are ,who is George W. Bush to deny anything to Barack Obama? Who is so important that they would not be bumped out of the way of Barack Obama? As it turns out it was former Australian Prime Minister John Howard (referred to as 'disgraced' former Prime Minister...)

John Howard is a guest of this country, you do not treat your guests like that.

But more importantly, Randi uses a lot of 'who' there. That's the point, to the liberals it is all about status. Barack Obama is a more important person (to them) than John Howard. I mean afterall, Barack Obama is the messiah to these people. There is no equality here, and it surely does not matter that President George W. Bush entered into a commitment with John Howard. All things are to bend to the will of Barack Obama.

Randi Rhodes, once again demonstrating the elitist attitudes of the left.

Global Warming is going to jump the shark.

I love the History Channel, make no mistake about it. When I come home from work or get up in the morning, my TV goes to the History Channel first. That is why it pains me to write this, but here goes: History Channel, stop with all the global warming BS! They are literally tying the global warming hoax into anything and everything.

They recently had "Armageddon Week" on the History Channel, complete with Nostradamus, Edward Cayce, the Bible Code and everything. And don't you know, everything, was tied into global warming. The Bible Code end of the world - global warming. What was Nostradamus talking about? Global Warming. Why do the Mayans predict the world is going to end in 2012? If you guessed GLOBAL F'N WARMING you win a cigar!

But here's the thing. The History Channel is all about, well, history. And some of the history they reviewed debunks the global warming hoax out of hand. While reviewing all of the predicted doom and gloom; famine, drought, floods all the things a good end of the world scenario needs we revisited past instances of famine, drought, floods, etc. And guess what? All of these things have happened before.

That's right boys and girls. For the billions of years that this planet has been here there have been floods, droughts, ice ages, global warming, earthquakes, entire species of animals dying off. And guess what? Not a single SUV in sight. No smoke stacks, no power plants, no Leer Jets, no PCs, no Macs, no incandescent light bulbs. Nothing but nature. And some cases there were no humans around for any of this.

The day is coming, and it is already starting, when people are going to be sick and tired of being preached to by the global warming crowd. And global warming is going to jump the shark.

Wash, Rinse, Repeat

So here we are again with an escalating battle in Israel. And I also see that the usual cast of characters are on full display. The UN, the peacenicks, the Muslim apologists. And we are hearing the same tired line. There must be a stop to the violence.

Funny, nobody gave a crap about the violence when it was a one-sided affair that involved Hamas launching rockets as Israeli civilians; and during a "ceasefire" no less. Where was the UN? Where was ANSWER?

For all the good it is going to do, I am going to play mythbusters.

MYTH: Israel is the oppressive aggressor.
TRUTH: Israel has always shown great restraint (and are now) when dealing with the Palestinians. This last example showed Israel enduring daily rocket attacks with no counter-attack during the latest ceasefire. The fact that Israel defends itself and counterattacks does not back them the aggressor. There is nothing wrong with defending yourself. And there is nothing wrong with defending yourself with overwhelming force.

MYTH: Israel is targeting civilians; committing genocide.
TRUTH: Israel, like the US, take great pains to avoid civilian casualties. The Palestinians on the other hand not only aim specifically at Israeli civilians, they also deliberately put their own civilians in the path Israeli counter attacks. Hence, Hamas launches rockets from school yards and hospitals. Have noticed that Israel is using more and more "smart" weapons, bombs that are smaller and smaller but more and more accurate? This is because they would rather drop a 500 lb bomb directly on an enemy's head as opposed to a 5000 lb bomb on a large area. Both will get the job done, but the smaller bomb lessens civilian deaths. Contrast this with Hamas, they really don't care where their bombs go other than Israel. If Israel's goal was to wipe out the Palestinians, it would have been done 25 years ago. It does not take laser guided bombs to wipe out a population (see Dresden, Germany.)

MYTH: Israel is a racist society.
TRUTH: How many Jews do you see welcome in Gaza? In the West Bank? Or how about anywhere within 300 miles of Israel? On the other hand, Israel will accept anyone who does not wish to kill them. There are several Arab-Israelis who work, live and thrive in Israel. They are fully integrated into the society, the only problem is those darn rockets. Of course, these individuals are viewed with contempt in the rest of the Arab world. Were we talking about the US, they would be called "Sell Outs" or "Uncle Toms."

Regardless, this is not coming to an end soon. Hamas will spend the next weeks or days get trounced all over Gaza. They will continue to put their women and children in the line of fire so they can be paraded around for the cameras. The Moonbats will continue to protest Israel for engaging in the crime of self defense. The UN will continue to posture. Then after completely mopping the floor with Hamas, Israel will sign a ceasefire. Finally, Hamas after suffering combat casualties of 250 to one, gaining no ground, strategic or tactical advantage will declare victory and start shelling Israel again. What a joke.