A musical break…¹

© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

2010 Elections, Budget Deficit, Campaign Promises, Congress, Constitution, Economy, Ethics, Government Incompetency, Government inefficiency, Government takeover, Gun Control, Healthcare, Integrity, Kick The Bumbs Out, National debt, pelosi, reid, See You In November, Taxes, Unemployment Hide

Paul Revere in the 1790 Census

A recurring topic these days is the 2010 US Census, and what exactly one has to do in response to the tri-fold form currently being mailed to every known “home” in the United States.

Information, misinformation, believes, and rumors abound, and the situation isn’t helped by somewhat misleading information provided by the Census itself. (This will be discussed below.)

It isn’t our intention to interpret law or provide legal advice, but it seems to us that one could take a few different positions on the Census:

1. Respond in full, perhaps using the form as requested, or waiting for a door-to-door Census worker to pay a visit;
2. Not respond at all, and waiting to see if a door-to-door Census worker appears;
3. Respond in full or in part, but making some inaccurate or misleading statements on the form; or
4. Respond only to the part that is required for the Census to perform its Constitutional function.

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© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

1790 Census, 2010 Census, Constitution, Government takeover, Paul Revere, Privacy Hide

Spending your way to debt bondage

In the sea of self-righteous proclamations by Democrats in Congress to wait for the new Republican Senator from Massachusetts before engaging in further healthcare debate, the same induhviduals have carefully neglected to discuss the real elephant in the room. Namely the national debt.

The reason is now obvious. Harry Reid and company clearly wanted to pass the biggest increase in the national debt ever, and saying that they would wait for Brown on such a key issue would have made them liars.

So there it goes, a $1.9 TRILLION dollar addition to the national debt, care of the Democrat Senate.¹ The vote was on party lines, 60-40, and would have failed had Reid waited another few days.

To put this number in perspective, it represents about 53% of the 2010 federal budget, as submitted by the biggest spender ever to occupy the White House. It also increases the national debt by a whopping 15%, the biggest percentage ever, in addition to by far the biggest absolute value ever. And it increases the direct national debt to $45,000 for every American man, woman and child.

This vote by the Democrat controlled Senate shows that Democrats with Harry Reid at the helm take issue with Brown, who might have taken away their credit card and impacted their freespending habits. Should the Democrat controlled House concur that the credit card limit should be raised by this whopper, the Democrats lead by Reid, Pelosi and Obama will be free to spend their way into the worst possible future for the American people. Namely debt bondage.²

© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Budget Deficit, Campaign Promises, Economy, Ethics, Government takeover, Healthcare, Integrity, National debt, Obama, pelosi, reid, Social Security, Unemployment Hide

I Want To Believe

It seems that the “warmers” at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) (University of East Anglia, UEA) aren’t the only ones manipulating climate data to match models and predictions.

Now the Russian Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) in Moscow claims that the Hadley Center for Climate Change (Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature, HadCRUT), based at the British Meteorological Office in Exeter, has tampered with Russian climate data.¹²

The short version is that HadCRUT includes only a small portion of Russian climate data; specifically only those parts that showed measurements to Hadley’s liking. According to Russian analysts, only 25% of stations were actually used. The measurements that were left out showed no substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century.

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© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Climate Change, Ethics, Global Warming, Government takeover, Green Economy, Hoax, Integrity Hide

Speaks for itself…

© 2009 – 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Climate Change, Economy, Global Warming, Government inefficiency, Government takeover, Green Economy, Hoax Hide

Head in the Sand

It has now been 14 days since the ClimateGate matter broke, and major news networks have yet to cover the topic. According to Media Research Center¹ ABC, CBS and NBC have yet to mention ClimateGate. Perhaps this is all one needs to know about the “quality” of “news” from these networks.

Perhaps it’s not just that the news networks haven’t heard about ClimateGate from a “reliable” source — such as Gibbsy² at the White House briefing room — ignoring the stepping down of the head of the Climatic Research Unit³ and the UN calling for an investigation⁴.

Or it could also be that the topic isn’t important enough. What, with the Democratic Congress giving away trillion dollar handouts from healthcare to the umptieth bailout of a union driven industry, they might rightfully be under the impression that legislation based on made up data and inconsistent models is quite ordinary, and therefore not newsworthy.

Or maybe these “news” outlets just want to stay away from commenting on the cap and tax trading scheme voted to the Senate by Pelosi’s House of Representatives, because the trading scheme apparently was originally invented by Ken Lay of Enron fame⁵.

Regardless of the reasons behind it, actions speak louder than words. It would be a good idea for everyone to remember this failure by ABC, CBS and NBC next time when one turns to television for “news”.

© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Climate Change, Economy, Global Warming, Government takeover, Hoax, Media Bias Hide

Michael F. Cannon of the CATO Institute¹ has provided some interesting metrics for estimating the real cost of ObamaCare.

The issue is that while the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) evaluates the cost of ObamaCare at some $1 trillion, give or take, it is restricting itself to the impact to the Federal budget, and excluding several factors that massively increase the real cost of the proposed legislation.

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© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Budget Deficit, Economy, Government inefficiency, Government takeover, Healthcare Hide

Tru$$$t in me...

The Climatic Research Unit (CRU) seems to have destroyed raw weather data that it gathered, only holding onto “value-added (quality controlled and homogenised) data“.¹

Now isn’t that convenient? The same people who manipulated their data to make their models show results they wanted to see are now effectively asking everyone to trust them on the processing of raw measurements into “value-added data”.

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© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Big Business, Climate Change, Economy, Global Warming, Government takeover, Green Economy, Hoax, Integrity, Obama Hide

What Obamacare Means For You

Obamacare

• The Efficiency of the Postal Service
• The Sustainability of Social Security
• and all the Compassion of the IRS

(No further comment)

© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Budget Deficit, Economy, Government inefficiency, Government takeover, Healthcare, Medicaid, Medicare, Obama, Social Security, Unemployment Hide

Climate Change (formerly known as Global Warming) isn’t quite done in the political arena yet.

One would think that the the global warming predictions — and the so-called models they are based on — were sufficiently busted through actual observations of the weather and solid science¹ that there would be no further discussion of laws relying on them. But things aren’t so simple when money becomes part of the discussion.

We could still see Cap and Tax (called Cap and Trade by some) enacted, and create yet another job and economy killer for the United States. Visit NoCapAndTrade.com for details.

© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Climate Change, Global Warming, Government takeover, Green Economy, Unemployment Hide