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Government is possibly the worst provider of goods and services available. The only time we ought to depend on government to provide something is if it absolutely has to get done and there is absolutely no one else that can do it.

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Government is the problem, not the solution.

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Odd to see the New York Times talking about elitism.

Apple represents the “auteur model of innovation,” observes John Kao, a consultant to corporations and governments on innovation. In the auteur model, he said, there is a tight connection between the personality of the project leader and what is created. Movies created by powerful directors, he says, are clear examples, from Alfred Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” to James Cameron’s “Avatar.”

Rather like Obama in politics — except that Jobs can actually do it, and Obama actually can’t.

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Notice the lengths to which people will go to live free in spite of oppressive government regulation.

Sometimes it even works.

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Not that the Nanny State laws against doing that will be repealed, oh no — God forbid any governmental entity would consult Actual Facts in formulating policy.

Many will interpret this as meaning that people are obeying the law and it doesn’t matter. I think it more likely that people are just ignoring the law and, again, it doesn’t matter. The key thing to take away from it in either case, however, is that IT DOESN’T MATTER.

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But they can’t shoot you or put you in jail, as the minions of government can, so ask yourself why NPR is wasting time on this crap when Obama is out there with his hand in your wallet.

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Guess who needs ’em? Us.

These 15 consecutive lanthanide elements have, uniquely among all the elements in the periodic table, chemical properties so similar that they are difficult and expensive to separate from one another. However, once these metals have been separated from one another, the individual physical properties of these materials put them in today’s top tier of the rarest and in many cases the most critical of metals for technological application. These metals are used to manufacture environmentally friendly products such as electric cars and in alternative power generating technologies such as wind turbines.

Guess who owns ’em? China.

The main accessible concentrations of the rare earths are found in China, where more than 95% of rare earths are now produced. Over the last seven years, China has reduced the amount of rare earths available for export by some 40%.

Chinese officials are openly concerned that the elements mined in the Bayanobo region are so valuable and important to China’s technological future that they must be conserved for future Chinese use. Rare earth production is or may soon be too low to keep up with growing demand.

For the rest of the world, the problem is that the rare earths which the Chinese deem so important to their technological and green future are already critical for maintaining the West’s technological and green present, let alone a future of green growth and sustainable production.

Does that bother you? It bothers me.

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Until they run out, of course. Then what will they do?

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Obama lies, and health care dies.

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Doing well by doing good.

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1. Thank God you don’t live in Britain.
2. Without eternal vigilance, it could happen here. Probably in D.C. (Oh, wait, they already did that….)

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Was more polite than mine would have been.

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Taxpayers may look at the unlimited federal credit line now enjoyed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and see disaster. But New York Senator Chuck Schumer sees opportunity.

Yesterday he demanded that the two failed mortgage giants guarantee low rent for tenants in a Manhattan property they now own after the owner defaulted. As they say in Democratic Washington, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

People like Chuck-You Schumer foster anti-Semitism by being high-profile Jews who are blatantly crookeder than a dog’s hind leg. Abraham Foxman needs to worry more about people like Schumer and less about people like Rush Limbaugh.

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Well, that’s not something that you’d want to rush into.

Say not that the struggle nought availeth.

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Oh, no! You mean a U.N. organization is run by corrupt morons? How did that happen?

Radley Balko explains why ‘Police and prosecutors won’t give up their license to steal.’

Over the past three decades, it has become routine in the United States for state, local, and federal governments to seize the property of people who were never even charged with, much less convicted of, a crime. Nearly every year, according to Justice Department statistics, the federal government sets new records for asset forfeiture. And under many state laws, the situation is even worse: State officials can seize property without a warrant and need only show “probable cause” that the booty was connected to a drug crime in order to keep it, as opposed to the criminal standard of proof “beyond a reasonable doubt.” Instead of being innocent until proven guilty, owners of seized property all too often have a heavier burden of proof than the government officials who stole their stuff.

Hey, stealing is what governments do.

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Let that be a lesson to us all. Frederick Barbarossa must have rolled over in his sleep or something.

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Truly, you cannot make this stuff up.

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A perfectly rational response to the situation, I think.

In fact, I admire his restraint. Were I a multi-millionaire with so dorkish a neighbor, it wouldn’t have been the alarm that would have been blasted with a shotgun. One of the advantages of being a multi-millionaire is that you can afford Minions and Henchmen to do such things for you.

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New federal data indicate that, “Last year, for the first time in American history, there were more union members who worked for the government than there were in the private sector, though the private sector workforce is more than five times larger.

The Other McCain discusses three views of the same tumor.

Here’s a classic example: Disney has a program called Give a Day, Get a Day in which kids can earn a free trip to DisneyLand by doing charitable volunteer work in their community.

Who could be against that? Liberals, that’s who.

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Well, since they’re not allowed to use actual terrorists, apparently this is the next best thing.

But you know it had to happen:

But Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat MP for Lewes, questioned the use of live animals in military experiments.

Talking to the Sunday Times he said: “These are revolting and unnecessary experiments. Sadly, we are too familiar with the effects of terrorism. It is perfectly possible to find out things we don’t know without blowing up pigs to find out.”

Sure. They could blow up Liberal Democrat MPs instead. I’m sure the honorable gentleman would be glad to volunteer to help his country out in a pinch. Granted, pigs are closer to actual human beings, but we work with what we’ve got.

A spokeswoman for Porton Down said anecdotally there was already evidence that the research was helping to save lives.

Sadly, MPs are immune to facts when they conflict with a political position that might help them get re-elected. They’re a lot like Congresscritters in that respect.

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It is highly unusual to see a prominent newspaper editorial board publicly change its mind.

The Washington Post supported the Obama administration’s treatment of Christmas day bomber Umar Abdulmuttalab as a criminal rather than as an enemy combatant. In an editorial published yesterday, It has nevertheless retracted its support. The Post writes that it “originally supported the administration’s decision in the Abdulmutallab case, assuming that it had been made after due consideration. But the decision to try Mr. Abdulmutallab turns out to have resulted not from a deliberative process but as a knee-jerk default to a crime-and-punishment model.”

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Requiring taxpayers to file returns without being told what the government already knows makes as much sense “as if Visa sent customers a blank piece of paper, requiring that they assemble their receipts, list their purchases — and pay a fine if they forget one,” said Joseph Bankman, a professor at the Stanford Law School.

Yeah, well, Visa is there  to make money, the IRS is just there to steal money. If you can legally steal peoples’ money, then you can legally steal their time, too.

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Yet another reason not to use Facebook.

‘Put not your trust in princes, [nor] in the son of man, in whom [there is] no help.’

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DO NOT piss off the Men in Black.

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Another good reason not to fly.

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We have the technology.

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Metaphor alert:

Some parents have taken the advice to such an extreme that they’re hesitant to impose any consequences at all on their children. These include the helicopter parents who monitor their children’s every move and the lawnmower parents who mow down any obstacle in their children’s path. They, in turn, have spawned a backlash movement of free-range parents who encourage their children to roam freely and slacker parents (see the books “Bad Mother” and “The Three-Martini Playdate”) who brag about who’s been the most neglectful. It’s a parenting free-for-all.

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I hereby declare the ACLU to be an anti-American organization.

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Senator John McCain has been forced to issue a statement clarifying his position on gay marriage after his wife Cindy and daughter Meghan posed for campaign posters.

Well, John, as my granny used to day, “Lie down with dogs, get up with fleas.”

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But nary a dinar for Haiti, of course.

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Every day thousands of Americans vote with their feet on the best places to live and work, and these migration patterns can tell a lot about state economies—and economic policies.

But first the biggest loser, which was Michigan for the fourth year in a row. More than two families left the state for every family that moved in. The fall of GM and Chrysler has obviously hurt. But two-term Governor Jennifer Granholm has also made her state the test case for the policy mix of raising taxes on higher incomes, increasing regulation, and steering taxpayer money at favored programs like job retraining and renewable energy. It hasn’t worked for Michigan, even with the auto bailouts.

Ms. Granholm continues to be a regular economic policy adviser to the White House. Yikes.

As for the biggest winner, well, our readers won’t be surprised to learn that it was Washington, D.C. by a large margin. United Van Lines moved nearly seven families to the federal city last year for every three it moved out. As always when the feds gear up the income redistribution machine, the imperial city and its denizens get a big cut of the action.

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Because, after all, who would want science to break out in a middle school?

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How could they not? Under the existing American Crust regime, invertebrates moving slowly down the sidewalk are a tax target.

S corps have one key tax advantage. The general partners of a partnership are subject to payroll taxes (that is, Social Security and Medicare levies) on all their earnings. So, too, are taxpayers who run their businesses as unincorporated sole proprietors and report their earnings on Schedule C of their individual returns. By contrast, folks who own and run S corps must cough up payroll taxes only on their salaries, not on what is passed through to them as profits.

This is how people like John Edwards can afford a McMansion the size of a football field.

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Eighteen months after being laid off, Judith Lederman, a 50-year-old divorcee who lives in Scarsdale, N.Y., is ready to consider jobs paying half the $120,000 she earned as a publicity manager at Lord & Taylor. That’s mostly because she’s desperate, but it also makes sense when you consider how this country punishes work effort. While the first $60,000 of her income would be lightly taxed, the next $60,000 would be hit with what is in effect a 79% tax rate. Given a choice between a part-time or easy job paying $60,000 and a demanding, stress-ridden job paying $120,000, Lederman would be wise to take the former. In the tougher job she would be contributing twice as much to the economy. But she wouldn’t be doing herself much good. It would make more sense to take it easy and spend more time with her high school senior daughter, Casey.

We’re from the government, and we’re here to help … ourselves to your money.

Work isn’t the only middle-class virtue that is getting punished. The system penalizes savings, too–not just through taxes, but also through programs that reward debtors, the profligate and college families that show up at the financial aid office with empty pockets. Yet another series of tax and benefit rules penalizes marriage.

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Let that be a lesson to us all.

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A shootout between rival Somali pirate gangs over their biggest ransom ever threatened to turn an oil supertanker and the 28 hostages aboard into a massive fireball until bandits begged the international anti-piracy force for help.

Truly, you cannot make this stuff up.

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Hint: They’re all going up. (Hey, you expected something different from Democrats?)

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Who needs strings when you can have buttons?

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As everyone knows, in response to the Northwest flameout, the Obama administration has adopted policies that are almost exactly the same as those of the Bush administration, turning the flying experience into a political advertisement for all the wonderful things that the president is doing to fight the war on terror.

Why people put up with this shit is just beyond me.

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A WARNING that climate change will melt most of the Himalayan glaciers by 2035 is likely to be retracted after a series of scientific blunders by the United Nations body that issued it.

My, what a surprise. Aren’t you surprised? I’m sure surprised.

Andrew Stuttaford pulls no punches.

The myth that all religions are basically the same—and basically benign—is a nonsense that could only flourish in a society that has little knowledge of the past and, for that matter, of the nature of religious belief. Naturally it’s an idea that is being actively peddled in both Europe and America today.

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Yeah, that government-run health care in Britain is miles better than what we have in the U.S.

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Soon to be a best-selling novel by Dan Brown.

Peter Suderman has the goods.

Last month, I noted the possibility that health care reform could give states an incentive to withdraw from Medicaid. Health care reform legislation currently includes approximately $25 billion in unfunded state Medicaid expansions. But many states are in terrible fiscal shape and would have a tough time coming up with the cash to pay for the expansion. Now, the governor of Nevada is saying that his state’s response could be to simply drop out of Medicaid—a voluntary program—entirely.

Of course, the response of the federal government will be to make the program mandatory.

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The World Food Programme has said that its warehouses in Haiti’s capital Port-au-Prince have been looted and that it would have to restock in order to provide urgent food aid for 2 million people affected by the deadly earthquake.

It would appear to me that they’ve already got all the ‘urgent food aid’ that they ought to get.

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Not to mention the apparent innate human desire to dick around with something that works perfectly well as is.