Wednesday, September 23, 2009

A Must Read

A must read.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090923/ap_on_go_co/us_health_care_overhaul

For those with company paid health insurance, when they drop you and pay the fine (cheaper) you'll be in the same boat as everyone else. For Medicare, you already know you're going to lose benefits. When 15 to 20 million illegals join the program who do you suppose will pay for that? 40 million new members, zero new doctors, you do the math. If they don't hear from the voters you get what they want you to have!

Bridge to No Where

Our $2 Trillion Bridge to Nowhere
Americans believe Washington squanders half of every tax d
By STEPHEN MOORE
If you want to know why Americans are so fearful of a government takeover of the health-care system, take a look at the results of a new Gallup poll on government waste released Sept. 15. One question posed was: "Of every tax dollar that goes to Washington, D.C., how many cents of each dollar would you say is wasted?" Gallup found that the mean response was 50 cents. With Uncle Sam spending just shy of $4 trillion this year, that means the public believes that $2 trillion is wasted.
In a separate poll released on Monday, Gallup found that nearly twice as many Americans believe that there is "too much government regulation of business and industry" as believe there is "too little" (45% to 24%).
Perhaps most significantly, in both of these polls Gallup found that skepticism about government's effectiveness is the highest it's been in decades. "Perceptions of federal waste were significantly lower 30 years ago than today," say the Gallup researchers. Even when Ronald Reagan was elected president in 1980 with the help of the antigovernment revolt of that era, Americans believed only 40 cents of every dollar was wasted, according to Gallup.
These results are in some ways surprising because voters just elected a president who promised expensive government expansion almost across the board—from health care to foreign aid to housing to energy policy. Mr. Obama was the first president elected since Lyndon Johnson who didn't even pretend to want to cut the size of government.
Now there's a powerful voter backlash against the Bush-Obama agenda of bailouts, stimulus plans and trillion dollar-plus deficits. The rage began with the bank bailouts last fall. It grew with the $787 billion stimulus bill, which was little more than a refill of the budgets of every left-wing program Democrats have wanted to throw money at for 40 years. The nearly $100 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler—some $300,000 for every auto job saved—was a bridge too far for debt-weary voters. When Mr. Obama then released his 10-year budget plan—which even he admitted would double the national debt with $9 trillion of new borrowing over the next decade—he was lighting a match in a munitions factory.
There are several political lessons we can learn from the Gallup results. One is that Republicans' strategy of creating a unified bloc of "no" votes to Obama spending initiatives like government-run health care and the cap-and trade-energy bill is in line with where voters are. The Washington establishment is dead wrong: Americans don't want bipartisan cooperation in supersizing the government right now. Pollster Frank Luntz tells me that Republicans can kill ObamaCare by relentlessly hammering home one message: This is a government takeover of health care. "Americans hate that idea," he says.
But the polling suggests something even bigger: Americans are in the mood for a radical shrinking of government in order to reduce debt and waste. Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats should be talking nonstop about how to achieve this goal.
First, they should push for a 15% cut in every federal agency budget before the debt cap is raised later this year. Given that most agencies saw their budgets expand by more than 50% in the past year, according to the House Budget Committee, this is hardly going to throw programs into the poor house.
They should also propose an immediate freeze on federal pay and benefits until the budget is balanced—even furloughs of federal workers to save money. A new report from the Cato Institute shows that federal pay packages are nearly twice as generous as those in the private sector for jobs that require similar skill levels. They should call for the elimination of hundreds of useless and obsolete agencies like the Legal Services Corporation. Finally, they should demand that every penny of TARP money repaid by banks should go into a fund to reduce the debt—rather than allow the Obama administration to create a new slush fund for pet projects.
Over the last decade, the federal government has become bloated and inefficient. Voters are on to the scam. Mr. Obama keeps calling federal spending an "investment," but Americans apparently feel this is the worst investment they've ever made. They've come to regard Washington as a $2 trillion Bridge to Nowhere. They are right.
Mr. Moore is senior economics writer for The Wall Street Journal editorial page.
--- The trick is calling your Reps and telling them to quit spending and reduce the bottomless pit government has become. Look up their phone numbers for the local offices and call them, calling their DC office works too IF enough people do it.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Scouts to no longer bring penknives on camping trips

Scouts to no longer bring penknives on camping trips
Scouts will now be a little worse prepared after they were banned from carrying their traditional penknives due to the fears of those in charge of health and safety.

By Chris IrvinePublished: 10:44AM BST 06 Sep 2009
Scouts used to be allowed to carry sheath knives on their belts
New advice published in Scouting, the official in-house magazine, says neither Scouts nor their parents should bring penknives to camp except in "specific" situations.
Scouts have traditionally been taught how to use knives correctly, using them on camping trips to cut firewood or carve tools.

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At one point Scouts were allowed to carry a sheath knife on their belt as part of their uniform although this is no longer the case. In recent years the Scout Association guidance has been that parents should carry knives to camps or meetings.
Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades, wrote that the growing problem of knife crime meant action had to be taken.
"Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife," he wrote. "The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK.
"I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required."
Troops leaders however have said the decision is "very sad". Sheila Burgin, from 4th Sevenoaks Scout Group in Kent, said: "Scouts by law are allowed to have Swiss army knives. I think this is going too far – you just don’t know when a Scout will need a knife.
"It is also suggested that the leader keeps control of the knives when they go camping, but I think that is completely wrong. The first Scout Law is 'The Scout is to be trusted'. Scouts love having knives and using them properly. There is nothing wrong with it."
Miss Burgin, who offers lessons in carving using penknives, added: "If you teach children to use a knife properly they won’t abuse it. If someone wants to cause harm they will do it anyway. It is a real shame it has come to this."
A Scouts spokesman said: "We believe that young people need more places to go after school and at weekends, where they can experience adventure without the threat of violence or bullying and the need to carry weapons.
"Scouting helps to prepare young people with valuable life skills, while keeping them safe by not carrying knives."
Meanwhile a school has banned giving out goldfish as prizes at its fetes after it was criticised by animal welfare societies.
John Porteous, the headteacher of Turton School, in Bromley Cross, near Bolton, Greater Manchester, has pledged that they will not hand out goldfish as prizes after coming under fire from the Captive Animals' Protection Society (CAPS) and RSPCA.