Saving daylight: What time is it?

This past weekend, most of us in the United States^[1] engaged in the biannual ritual of adjusting our clocks, this time to accommodate the end of daylight savings time.  Of course DST doesn’t actually save any daylight, it just moves it around a little.  Here in Indianapolis our sunrise moved from shortly after 8am to shortly after 7, while this evening’s sunset will be at a-quarter-to-six.  One might ask if all the clock-adjusting is worth it?

Congress seems to think so.  In fact, as is the case with many of the nostrums advocated by our Washington solons, their opinion appears to be “if a little is good, then even more will be better.”  Twice in the last 50 years, in the name of “conserving energy,” Congress extended the daylight time period: First during the 1970s energy “crisis,” when it set the 1974 starting date at January 6^th and the 1975 starting date February 23^rd, and again with 2005’s Energy Policy Act, which (effective 2007) both advanced the starting day (moved to the second Sunday in March from the last Sunday in April), and delayed the ending day (previously, the last Sunday in October, delayed until the first Sunday in November ).  Under this current regime, we are now “saving daylight” for 238 of the year’s 365 days.

The question of “What time is it?” has long been a bone of contention in Indiana.  Logically, the division between the eastern and central time zones should fall at about 85° longitude, close to the state’s eastern border.  But the cities of Indianapolis, South Bend, and Fort Wayne have always looked eastward (out of commercial ties and aspirations of becoming “major metros”), while the corners near Chicago and Cincinnati, along with the southwestern counties around Evansville, prefer to align their time with the adjacent states.  In 1918, Congress placed Indiana in the Central time zone, but over time the boundary crept westward, accompanied by legislative action, court cases, popular uproar, and civil disobedience.^[2]  The federal Uniform Time Act of 1966, which (again) attempted to put the entire state in one time zone, only reignited the confusion.  Finally, in the late 60s, an informal compromise was reached which put the state’s northwest and southwest corners in the Central zone, observing daylight time, and set the rest of the state’s clocks to Eastern time, but with no daylight savings.^[3]  This arrangement was finally ratified by the state legislature (over the governor’s veto) and the U.S. Congress in 1966.

Why no daylight time?  Aside from stubbornness and distrust on the part of the citizenry, the part of the state that observed eastern time could be thought of as already being on daylight time- all year around (when compared to the 1918 division)^[4].  And there was some truth in this: In Indianapolis, Eastern Standard time means sunsets as late as 8:20pm, with civil twilight^[5] continuing until almost 9:00.  Entertainment interests, specifically the Theater Owners of Indiana, lobbied the legislature against daylight time (with daylight-savings sunsets as late as 9:20, drive-ins would have been unable to start their programs until shortly before 10pm).  They were joined by the farmers, who, operating by the sun, saw no reason to move their clocks back and forth.  Others were less satisfied.^[6]

The 1966 compromise held- mostly- until 2005, when Governor Mitch Daniels, spurred by businesses complaining that their customers “could never tell what time we’re on,” re-opened the can of worms by including a statewide daylight time provision in an economic development package.  This time it passed, and Indiana has observed daylight time throughout the state since 2006, although with some jockeying of the boundary between Eastern and Central.

Next: Now what?


Elsewhere:

-----

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 14:33:01 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1024 words, total size 9 kb.

Wall Street Journal wrong (again) on net neutrality

Today’s Wall Street Journal editorial page carried yet another editorial decrying the push for “network neutrality” on the Internet.  And, yet again, the Journal editors got it wrong.

Healined Bad News for Broadband (with the subhead “The FCC wins one for Google.”), the editors begin by intentionally confusing two issues: Network neutrality, and broadband expansion.  Let’s try to untangle them:

President Obama has been a long-time proponent of "net neutrality," which would prevent the use of price to address the increasing popularity of video streaming and other bandwidth-intensive activities that cause Web bottlenecks.

Well, no.  “Net neutrality” says nothing about price, except that the carriers would not be allowed to charge different prices for transporting the similar kinds of packets.  It also says nothing about the option of metered service, where customers who use more bandwidth would pay more.

The new policy is a big political victory for Google and other Web content providers whose business model depends on free-loading off the huge capital investments in broadband made by others.

Ummm... demagogue much?  It’s just as easy- and just as inaccurate- to say that the carriers’ business model depends on “free-loading off the huge capital investments in content and server capacity made by the content providers.”   Either statement ignores the fact that the one needs the other (why a transmission system,  if there’s nothing to transmit?), and that the content folks already pay big buck$ for their connections and bandwidth.  So let’s have no more talk of “free-loading.”

The telecom industry already operates under a set of FCC “principles” of open Internet access, and there have been a mere handful of complaints of network operators abusing them.

Like this, this, this, and this.  Principled?

Mr. [new Federal Communications Commission chair Julius] Genachowski nevertheless wants to codify these principles and extend them for the first time to wireless Internet providers.

Which is a bad thing because...?  Didn’t I just hear something about AT&T blocking Skype connections on the iPhone?

Normally, proponents of government regulation cite a lack of competition as reason to intervene.

...or when companies abuse their customers.  Like credit cards, for example?

But the typical cell phone user...

Woah!  Whiplash!  I thought the topic was Internet access, not cell phones.

...in the U.S. has between four and six carriers to choose from. With all that competition...

I don’t know about “the U.S.,” but in my Indianapolis neighborhood, while I can get dial-up from several suppliers, for high speed I have a total of one choice - the cable TV provider.  (The telco gives me the old “Sorry, too far from the exchange” story every time I ask about DSL.  Then they pipe up with, “But we can get you a T-1 for only $900 installation!”)  What is this “competition” of which you speak?

So what’s the justification for more government regulation?  Beyond lobbying by Google and MoveOn.org, we can't see one.

Ah yes, invoking the evil Google, and evil-er MoveOn.org.  (Do I sense an argument running thin?)

Note that the editors don’t address the core issue of “net neutrality,” which is whether carriers should be permitted to handle different people’s data differently.  Or, more accurately: Can they reduce the quality of someone’s service (and maybe that someone is a competitor) unless that same someone pays a premium for service that the carriers are already being paid for.

(And don’t think AT&T and Verizon haven’t already talked about doing just that.)

But let’s shift the focus for a moment.

Mr. Obama has also complained about the pace of broadband deployment.  If the Administration wants telecom firms to keep expanding their high-speed networks, net neutrality rules are the wrong way forward....

Telecom has been one of the bright spots during this recession.

Which is nice, but irrelevant.

Phone companies like Verizon and AT&T have spent tens of billions of dollars on broadband pipe in the past two years.  To pick one example: AT&T's capital investments in the U.S. totaled some $18 billion in 2008, the highest of any company.  By threatening to limit what telecom companies can charge and to whom, net neutrality rules will discourage such investment.

Well yes, regulation does discourage investment.  Which I might feel a bit more concerned about, except I keep remembering the $200 billion in tax breaks we already gave the incumbent carriers, in exchange for which we were supposed to get fiber-to-the-home by the year 2000(!!!), and for which we actually got nothing.^[1]

(Thank you... I’m all better now!)

Anyway, I’m not particularly concerned with the welfare of companies whose principal problem is too much demand for their product. And AT&T, well, $18 billion in 2008- looks like you have about five more years to go.

Anyway, summing up:

Net neutrality mandates also risk turning broadband service into a commodity...

Strictly speaking, it turns internet service into a commodity.  Which is not necessarily a bad thing.  There are other kinds of broadband that don’t (or wouldn’t) fall under these regulations, just don’t call it “Internet,” ’kay?

...and making it much more difficult for potential new entrants to differentiate their offerings.

Ya mean all those new entrants who won’t be able to get their ideas off the ground because they can’t afford the “AT&T Tax?”  Those new entrants?

An Internet operator hoping to specialize in video or peer-to-peer file-sharing would be prevented from doing so.

Bullshit.

It’s as if the government were saying that if you want to start a supermarket, it has to be a Kroger or Safeway because Trader Joe’s discriminates.

How about that your supermarket it can be a Kroger or a Safeway or a Trader Joe’s; but whichever it is, you won’t have to pay off Big Louie so the delivery trucks can come down your street?

Internet service providers manage their networks to give quality service to the greatest number of people...

Oh?  How about: “Internet service providers manage their networks to make the largest abount of money possible. (NTTAWTT.) And maybe it’s good public policy to make sure internet service providers don’t take advantage of their gatekeeper position to screw their customers.”

...which is as it should be. If the Obama Administration really wants unfettered “competition, creativity and entrepreneurial activity,” the best policy is to stay out of the way.

You know, the Journal’s editors really need to stop blindly rewriting AT&T press releases.  It makes them look dumb.

And when there’s “unfettered competition” facing the big incumbent carriers, they can get back to me.


Related (please read the first before commenting):

Elsewhere:
------

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 21:07:57 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 1102 words, total size 13 kb.

Medical “reform” = $37 billion in new *state* taxes

Nashville’s CityPaper reports that state governors are objecting to

...a provision in House and Senate [Obamacare] bills to expand Medicaid to cover anyone with income less than 133 percent of the poverty level, or $29,327 for a family of four.

Since states pay roughly one third of Medicaid, the provision could add billions of dollars in costs to state governments.
...
In a letter to the Senate, Indiana Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels said: “States will likely have to pick up the tab for this extension of Medicaid.  We have estimated that the price for Indiana could reach upwards of $724 million annually.

“These additional costs will overwhelm our resources and obliterate the reserves we have fought so hard to protect.”

For Tennessee, the extra cost could reach $1.2 billion, according to Sen. Lamar Alexander.

Set aside for a moment my I’d-lay-you-even-money suspicion that these Medicaid cost increases appear nowhere in the administration’s “reform” cost estimates.  Let’s just look at the numbers.

Indiana has a population of about 6¼ million.  Governor Mitch’s $724 million/year estimate, evenly-divided (which you know it won’t be), works out to an annual state tax increase of $115 per capita ($460 for a family of four).  For Tennesseeans (population roughly 6 million), it’s worse: $1.2 billion parcels out at $200 a piece.  Factor in the people who won’t pay these taxes (anybody below poverty+33%, for one), and if you’re one of the productive you can probably double these numbers.

Or how about a back-of-the-envelope calculation, starting with a SWAG estimated annual cost of $750 million per state.  The magic number= $37.5 billion - per year.  Not on the federal books.

And if the states pay only 1/3 of Medicaid’s total cost, doesn’t that mean the federal share goes up $75 billion, too?  Hey, I thought once healthcare got reformed, the existing federal programs were supposed to cost less!  (I know, silly me!)

And of course none of this accounts for all the folks who will be forced below the poverty line by Obama’s new energy taxes!

The Obama promise:  I won’t raise your taxes (well, yes I will, but... Look! Unicorns!), but somebody else will!

-----
And that’s not all...!  (Heh! You wish!):
Crucis has the Americans for Tax Reform’s “List of All Tax Hikes in the Baccus Draft.”  Read ’em and weep.


CityPaper link via Instapundit.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 17:32:58 GMT | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 401 words, total size 5 kb.

How it goes...

Bill Quick on the latest Rangel:

It’s hard to recall just how many times accusations of wrongdoing have been leveled at lefty politicians, after which the MSM “investigates” the matter by interviewing the accused pol and then reporting “nothing to the accusations, the accused says the charges are ridiculous, untrue, and motivated solely by politics.”

The the MSM labels the matter closed.

It never seems to occur to these hacks and flacks that the motherfarkers are lying.

No Bill, it’s just step 10 of the usual process:

• What charges?  There aren’t any charges.
• None that we know about, anyway.
• La-la-la-la-la-la-I-can’t-HEAR-you!
• What, you believe those guys?  That bunch of nuts?
• It’s just x’s usual liberal-bashing.
• It’s just y, trying to stir up a stink.
• It’s just the usual Beltway infighting.
• Amplified by the Right Wing Noise Machine.
• And it’s of no importance, anyway.
• Well you might think its important, but that doesn’t matter because Our Buddy says it’s “ridiculous, untrue, and motivated solely by politics.”
• Hey, he said it was all lies: Go away.
• “Despite Repeated Denials, Wingers Rehash False Accusations”
• Okay, we “looked,” and there’s nothing to see there.  Happy?
  
• Hey, who’s gonna believe somebody in pajamas?
• Hey, who’s gonna believe Glenn Beck?
  
• Hey, who’s gonna believe The Washington Times?
• Whaddaya mean, “The Wall Street Journal found something?"
• Whaddaya mean, “Drudge linked it with a bulletin”?
• “Right Wing Media Creates Issue Out Of Thin Air”
• Our Buddy says he was “told it was O.K.”
• Our Buddy says “everybody did it.”
• Our Buddy says there was “no controlling legal authority,” anyway.
• Our Buddy says that “errors may have been made.”
• But that it was “all the fault of Turbotax.”
• Hey, it was an honest mistake.
• Don’t-cha understand honest mistakes, you mean-spirited right-winger?
• All right, yes, that one was another honest mistake.
• Whaddaya mean, “...and he didn’t even use Turbotax”?
• Hey, why investigate? He fixed it, didn’t he?
  
• “Committee Members Choose Partisan Politics Over Statesmanship”
  
• “Political Witch Hunt Continues”
  
• “Investigation Stalls Vital Childrens’ Legislation”
• Editorial: “Committee Members Neglect Their Responsiblilties”
• “Our Buddy Stands Tall Against Partisan Sniping”
  
• “Portrait of a Political Vendetta”
  
• The special prosecutor is corrupt.
• It’s not really about the charges; it’s about “getting” the accused.
• And prosecutorial abuse.
• This is all too complicated to understand, so we’ll just report it as a horse-race.
• “Endless Investigation Takes Toll On Our Buddy’s Family”
• Editorial: “A Waste of Time and Money”
• Editorial: “Time To Rein In Rogue Prosecutors”
• Oh look!  A Republican is screwing someone who’s not his wife!
• Oh look!  A Republican might be gay!
  
• Oh look!  An outbreak of shark attacks!
• Oh look!  Michael Jackson is dead!
• “America Mourns Michael Jackson”
• “World Mourns Michael Jackson”
• The MEDIA mourns Michael Jackson!
• “Is the media overdoing it with Michael Jackson?”
• Go away, we’re busy.
  
• What prosecution?
• Oh, you mean that old story?
• Editorial: “Justice Must Be Tempered With Mercy”
• Editorial: “Sad Ending For a Faithful Servant”
• Editorial: “Questions Remain In Our Buddy Conviction”
• “Washington Veterans Find Today’s Climate More Partisan, Mean-Spirited”
• Editorial: “Why Good Men Shun Politics”
• (time passes)
• What conviction?
• (repeat from beginning)
  

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 21:00:27 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 463 words, total size 7 kb.

S.773 cybergrab bill resurfaces; changes only cosmetic

And it’s nice to know others are finally noticing.

First, the latest from Declan McCullagh:

Internet companies and civil liberties groups were alarmed this spring when a U.S. Senate bill proposed handing the White House the power to disconnect private-sector computers from the Internet.

They’re not much happier about a revised version that aides to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a West Virginia Democrat, have spent months drafting behind closed doors. CNET News has obtained a copy of the 55-page draft of S.773 (excerpt [Note: contains Title 2 only - o.g.]), which still appears to permit the president to seize temporary control of private-sector networks during a so-called cybersecurity emergency.
...
Probably the most controversial language begins in Section 201, which permits the president to “direct the national response to the cyber threat” if necessary for “the national defense and security.”  The White House is supposed to engage in “periodic mapping” of private networks deemed to be critical, and those companies “shall share” requested information with the federal government.  (“Cyber” is defined as anything having to do with the Internet, telecommunications, computers, or computer networks.)

“The language has changed but it doesn’t contain any real additional limits,” EFF's Tien says.  “It simply switches the more direct and obvious language they had originally to the more ambiguous (version)...  The designation of what is a critical infrastructure system or network as far as I can tell has no specific process. There’s no provision for any administrative process or review.  That’s where the problems seem to start. And then you have the amorphous powers that go along with it.”

Translation:  If your company is deemed “critical,” a new set of regulations kick in involving who you can hire, what information you must disclose, and when the government would exercise control over your computers or network.

And a reminder: The Democrats’ favorite RINO, Olympia Snowe, has signed on as co-sponsor.

I’ve been following this one since April.  My first post was largely snark about the cluelessness of the bill’s sponsors, but it also spotlighted the measure’s less-noted licensing provisions.  Work on a network the government (not your employer) says is “critical”?  Get federal certification, or get unemployed!

My next two posts looked at a pair of suspiciously-timed front-page articles in The Wall Street Journal.  A little consent-manufacturing?:


Elsewhere:

Bill text at THOMAS (at this writing, may not incorporate latest revisions)

Credit where due:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 19:46:15 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 585 words, total size 8 kb.

Hold on, maybe we’re wrong about Congressional Airlines...

RollCall had the early report:

Last year, lawmakers excoriated the CEOs of the Big Three automakers for traveling to Washington, D.C., by private jet to attend a hearing about a possible bailout of their companies.

But apparently Congress is not philosophically averse to private air travel:  At the end of July, the House approved nearly $200 million for the Air Force to buy three elite Gulfstream jets for ferrying top government officials and Members of Congress.

The Air Force had asked for one Gulfstream 550 jet (price tag: about $65 million) as part of an ongoing upgrade of its passenger air service.

But the House Appropriations Committee, at its own initiative, added to the 2010 Defense appropriations bill another $132 million for two more airplanes and specified that they be assigned to the D.C.-area units that carry Members of Congress, military brass and top government officials.

So the story is: “Three private jets (two extra): $200 million,” right?

Well, no.  There’s more...

The Wall Street Journal digs further:

Congress plans to spend $550 million^[1] to buy eight new jets...

The Pentagon [had originally] sought to buy one Gulfstream V and one business-class equivalent of a Boeing 737 to replace aging planes.  The Defense Department also asked to buy two additional 737s that were being leased.

Lawmakers in the House... added funds to buy a total of three Gulfstream planes and two additional 737s on top of the Pentagon’s request...

In summary:

	Pentagon	$	House	$
Gulfstreams ($66m each)	1	$66m	3	$99m
737s ($70m each)	3	$210m	5	$350m
	4	$276m	8	$449m[1]

Demonstrating that, despite record deficits and economic crisis, the members of Congress still have their priorities in order:  Protecting their phoney-baloney perks.  To the tune of half-a-billion dollars.

Ellis Brachman, a spokesman for the House Appropriations Committee, said the changes were part of “Congress’s normal oversight responsibility” to make sure “the troops have everything they need,” upon which his nose sprouted to six feet long, and was promptly struck by lightning.

Oh, I added that last bit.


Elsewhere:
-----

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 17:06:05 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 407 words, total size 7 kb.

How to put your “favorite” Blogspot blogger off the air

Have been watching this one develop for a day or so.  Friday night it made Instapundit:

Sure enough, if you click on Glenn’s link, you get...

If you’re willing to give Blogger a cookie and click the “Continue” button, you finally arrive at...

which (aside from the gray-on-black typography - hard for these old eyes to read - and the plethora of images - the page takes 5 minutes to load on my creaky dialup) includes such NSFW posts as The Libertarian Case For Judicial Activism (’cause that’s the path to Second Amendment incorporation- a good thing, right?), Social Security Administrators’ $700,000 Party (team building at the Biltmore Resort in Phoenix), Beware of Googlers Bearing Gifts (this one about the privacy implications of Google’s Chrome operating system and the company’s mounting stack of knowledge about each one of us) and The Victimization of Sarah Palin (no explanation necessary).

The only risqué or objectionable items that I saw were this a couple of images that accompanied the Palin post:  The risqué (NSFW, provided your employer is Pecksniff & Grundy):



...and the objectionable (news photo, language, not safe for animals or children, eye bleach required after!):

WARNED YOU!

Oh yes, there is a post about Greening Up the World's Sex Life (Yeah, gw’an and clickit, ya pervert!), which turned out to be much less sexy that a lot of what’s available on daytime television.

Oh, she also doesn’t like Barak Obama’s programs and proposals very much.  And she’s pro-life.  And a self-described “recovering attorney” and “post-modern neo-feminist disrespectful dyke”  (NTTAWWT).

So whats going on?  Appears to be another case of “the enlightened” making use of Blogger’s “Flag Blog” button to punish another wrong-thinker.

You know, this button...

Because all it takes is for enough people to click it, and the blog gets flagged... automagically!

This blog chugged along for two and a half years without any problems, but with the Dawn of the Age of Obama—nothing but trouble.  The blog has never changed, and it certainly has not changed since May—the last time this happened, and Google, after an avalanche of complaints from my readers, decided that I am not really a purveyor of smut and removed the content warning splash page.
...
[The Flaggers] are offended that I do not worship the water that Barack Obama walks on—but when I was a pretty severe critic of George Bush these types could not get enough of me.

Liberals can be such spoil sports.

For those who aren’t aware of it, Blogger’s content-warning page will break search-engine spidering and also disconnect the blog from aggregators like Technorati.  And it adds a warning to any remaining Google links.  So being flagged can do horrible things to a blog’s visiblilty.

In fact, the only way word of my posts is getting out, on a regular basis, is through Culture 11—a social conservative site that snags my feed and it is picked up by some of the news wires—including Google News.

I must say, I find it rather amusing that a website started by folks like Bill Bennett, is more tolerant, and less prudish, than the enlightened New Age Yuppies of Mountain View.

And the blog stays flagged until someone at Google/Blogger decides to rescind it.

What’s more dismaying, this go-around is a repeat of a similar one that took place - and was supposedly resolved - one month ago.


As I mentioned at the top, I had noticed this a couple of days back, when I’d been trying to run down the answer to a problem I’ve had making comments on a couple of Blogger-hosted blogs.

Of course there’s no way to contact a real person at Google/Blogger.  So one must be content with its posted documentation, or, failing that, its support forums, where confused and angry users try to help each other.  Turns out that in the Something Is Broken forum there are a lot of questions (with not many answers) from people having problems posting comments.^[1]  But there were also several threads about the GISS blog, including one with this snippy reply from a “Top Contributor,” (preserved here for your amazement, hilighting mine):

There are now a dozen threads taking up space in BHF, with everybody whining about this one blog that had an interstitial warning (and does not have, right now [wrong - o.g.]).  The soonest anything might even possibly be done will be Monday of next week, yet we have dozens of your readers posting daily.

If Blogger is to retain any control over the spam and pimping here, they will most likely have to ignore the whining, and leave the matter unresolved for several additional days, as “punishment”.  Otherwise, every blog that gets graced by an interstitial warning will engender the same amount of bitching and pimping. BHF will become nothing more than a forum of “xxxxxxx blog should not have an interstitial warning!”. We saw this last year, with The Daily Coyote.  [Guess they didn’t fix that problem, did they? - o.g.]
...
If you care about GISS, you will convince your readers to shut the fuck up, and wait until next week.  Either Blogger may remove the interstitial, or they will delete the blog and give you something to really whine about. I am inclined to recommend the latter, right now.

So there we are.  (Real class.)

There are ways to get out from under Blogger’s warnings.  Blogs can be hosted on the blogger’s own server (even using Blogger’s software), or the blogger can obtain a custom domain address.^[2]  Either moves the blog out of the “Blogspot” domain (which seems to be Google’s major concern^[3]).  And, of course, there’s always the possibility of moving somewhere with more liberal terms and conditions guts.^[4]  But any of those options take time, and, if your old site just disappears, your readers will be left wondering what happened.

Which is something that anyone who posts on Blogger and might create (or have) some enemies ought to think about.

UPDATE 090724 20:02:  Google Product Manager Rick Klau tries to spin it as purely a “nudity” issue:

We simply responded to the fact that a number of posts there do, in fact, contain nudity.  Visitors to the site flagged the blog as containing objectionable content, and as set out in our TOS, blogs that contain nudity may contain an interstitial to let readers know what they will find when they click through.

Challenged to address the practice of using “objectionable content” complaints to game the system for ideological suppression, he says

I can’t see how us subjectively applying our standards helps anyone.

Related:

-----

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 23:29:28 GMT | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 1612 words, total size 20 kb.

Raise taxes! (This time, For the ANIMALS!)

Boston Globe:

The Franklin Park Zoo, a Boston institution that has drawn generations of city and suburban families, might be forced to close its doors and possibly euthanize some of its animals as a result of the deep budget cuts imposed by Governor Deval Patrick, zoo officials said Friday.

Without more state funding, those zoo officials said, they will run out of money by October and have to close both the Franklin Park Zoo and its smaller counterpart, the Stone Zoo in Stoneham.  They would lay off most of their 165 employees and attempt to find new homes for more than 1,000 animals, the officials said.

The zoo officials, in a written statement that echoed a letter sent earlier to legislative leaders, said they would be unlikely to find homes for at least 20 percent of the animals, “requiring either destroying them, or the care of the animals in perpetuity.”
...
The Legislature had originally provided $6.5 million to the zoos – which accounts for more than half of their budget – but Patrick, using a line-item veto, cut the state funding to $2.5 million.
...
The total operations budget for the zoos last year was $11 million, about 60 percent of which came from state funding.  The remainder came through admissions, food and gift shop sales, memberships, and fund-raising.

(OK, anyone who hasn’t recognized the usual “We’re gonna lay off all the cops and firemen and close all the schools and let your trash pile up and EVERYBODY’S GONNA DIE unless you let us raise your taxes” whining^[1] might as well stop reading right now.  The rest of us will continue...)

Via Alice H, who, in a post titled “But I thought liberals *loved* animals,” notes:

I’ve figured out what is bothering me so freaking much about this.  The MassHealth program has a FY2010 budget of $10.318 billion.  The cost of shutting down the zoos is $9 million over three years, the cost of keeping the zoos open is $13 million a year (from state funds - I’m certain they’re receiving some sort of private donations).  Now I’m not usually a person to argue that an animal’s life is worth more than a humans, but I’d be willing to bet that at least one half of one percent of the people sucking up MassHealth dollars are perfectly capable of getting up off their lazy asses and getting a job and finding healthcare on their own, but choose to rely on the state to do it for them instead.  That one half of one percent would pay for five years of life for animals who did nothing to humans other than stand around and get captured.

Actually, it’s even worse (or better), because the state’s share of the zoo budget is $6.5 million, so all they’d need would be savings of... let’s see: 6.5/10318... about 6.3x10^-4 ... times 5... say .3% (from one year’s MassHealth operations) to pay the state’s share of funding the zoos for five years.

Or if MassCare is Sacred, how about this:  What’s the total cost (pay +benefits +pension contributions) for the typical Massachusetts bureaucrat?  Would you accept $100k (a typical unionized industry figure for an employee with a $60k base salary)?  Well then: If we need to find $6.5m, that’s 65 employees.  Bet I could easily find 65 timeservers in state govt. who could be shoved (nicely) out the door and long gone before anybody (especially the taxpaying public) noticed.  If we started chopping now, we could probably wrap things up before lunch!

And to answer Alice’s question, of course liberals love animals.  Just ask them!

But they love using your money to build their empires and pay off their clients even more.

-----

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 16:01:00 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 629 words, total size 5 kb.

Giving America the Old One-Two

Clintonista Roger Altman prepares the battlefield for a massive tax increase, and tries to round up some Republicans to go along:

Only five months after Inauguration Day, the focus of Washington’s economic and domestic policy is already shifting.  This reflects the emergence of much larger budget deficits than anyone...

Hold it! Whaddaya mean “anyone,” Democrat?  Over here, we’ve been yelling about the deficit since November’s bailout pork bill (and some of us were yelling long before that).

...expected.  Indeed, federal deficits may average a stunning $1 trillion annually over the next 10 years.

Yep, it’s a stunner, all right:

Why has the deficit outlook changed?  Two main reasons: The burst of spending in recent years and the growing likelihood of a weak economic recovery.

Half right, Roger.  What about “the billions of dollars in payoffs to Democrat clients during the last eight months which have aggravated economic uncertainty and depressed private investment”?  Along with a carbon tax which will pull more billions out of the economy?

A speedy recovery is highly unlikely given the financial condition of American households...

Think it’s bad now?  Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!

Mr. Obama and his economic advisers understand this deficit outlook and undoubtedly view it as unsustainable.

Well, there’s an unsupported assertion, if ever I saw one.  I haven’t noticed any administration concerns about the deficit.  (But then maybe I was out having a beer...)

They also understand that increasing deficit concerns complicate their efforts toward universal health-insurance legislation, which is clearly a top priority of this administration.

You know, somebody could just say, “Hey, we can’t afford to do this right now.”  After all, the public seems to understand...

The public is restive over this threat: In a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll, Americans were asked which economic issue facing the country concerned them most.  Respondents chose deficit reduction over health care by a ratio of 2 to 1.

So in response to rising public concern over the deficit, you Democrats plan to... go ahead with health care?

According to the Congressional Budget Office, which released its latest forecast June 16, such legislation would mandate more than $1 trillion of new federal spending over 10 years.  Winning support for that much new spending -- in the face of record deficits -- will be a challenge.

And why is that?  Democrats have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate, and a majority in the House. ’Sa-matter, Bucky, those 2-to-1 poll figures makin’ you nervous?

The poor budget outlook may impel...

Note the language: “Hey, it’s not our fault!  We’re impelled!”

...the administration to follow up health-care legislation with an effort to fix Social Security... Public anxiety over deficits may make this fix possible now even though it has been elusive for years.

“Elusive.”  That’s rich.  Seems like it wasn’t that long ago that you guys had no interest in doing anything about Social Security.  What was “elusive” was any Democrat who might have been prepared to address the issue.

But back to that deficit...

Sometime soon, perhaps in 2010, Main Street and financial markets will exert irresistible pressure to reduce the deficit.

The problem is the deficit’s sheer size, which goes way beyond potential savings from cuts in discretionary spending or defense...

We could always try, and see how far we get: How about starting with a freeze on federal pay scales, followed by a mandatory 20% downsizing for all non-military agencies.  Then we could abolish the Department of Education, the Department of Energy, and the Department of Hassling American Travelers Homeland Security...

It’s entirely possible that Medicare and Social Security will already have been addressed, and thus taken off the table.  In short we’ll have to raise taxes.

Hey, did somebody let a bunch of cows in here?  Somthing smells: “Entirely possible; ” that’s rich.  What you mean is, you’ll create an untenable situation by spending like drunken sailors Congressmen, and declaring your pet programs “off the table.”  Then say we “have” to raise taxes.

Oh, and Republicans, here’s where you fit in:

...possibly next year, Congress will seriously consider a value-added tax (VAT).  A bipartisan deficit reduction commission... may be necessary to create sufficient support for a VAT or other new taxes.

“Bipartisan commission,” meaning “Republicans providing cover.”

The Democrats are on track to strike a one-two punch against individual liberty, and your pocketbook: They’re half way to cap-and-tax.  On top of that, in the name of “reducing deficits” they want a VAT.  (And given the performance of the last five months, is there anyone who believes this administration is capable of reducing any deficit?)  By the time they’re done, all your income will be going to Washington, and you won’t have a pot to piss in.

Look at that chart again.  The Democrats own the deficit.  Despite the Republican defectors, the Democrats own cap-and-tax.  They also own the Presidency and both houses of Congress.  They can solve things by themselves.

But now they’re scared.  And they want some Republicans along to protect them from the coming wrath of the public.

Well, it’s their mess.  Let ’em take the consequences.

And any Republican who falls for the “bipartisanship” wheeze should be run out of the party.  Starting- right now- with the Cap-and-Tax 8.


LATER (090701 15:55), Related:

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 23:21:19 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 865 words, total size 10 kb.

O.G. reads the weekend WSJ “Opinion” page...

(Wherein O.G. reacts to a wasted 20 minutes at breakfast this morning.)

Peggy Noonan: The Case for Getting off Base

Peter Berkowitz: Conservatism and the University Curriculum

George Ball: Naturalism Has Been Hijacked

Posted by: Old Grouch in Rants at 16:41:53 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 358 words, total size 4 kb.