MaxRedline

Calling All (Cash) Cows

States, counties, and cities went out and issued bonds, backed by anticipated revenue from tobacco companies under terms of a 1998 settlement. Just one little problem with that: due in large part to their continuing efforts to demonize smokers, tobacco sales have declined sharply - which means that the governments aren't getting anywhere near the money they'd projected would be flowing in when they sold the bonds. Although the tobacco settlement funds were ostensibly to offset health-care costs and to fund smoking-cessation programs, governments naturally saw a pot of cash and couldn't keep their hands out of it, so they issued bonds backed by the anticipated revenue to fund all sorts of pet projects. Now, some of the bonds are already headed toward default, and the situation's likely to get worse. What a surprise! Who could have seen that coming?

The prospect of eventual defaults among the hundreds of outstanding bonds underscores the risks inherent in forecasting tobacco payments decades down the road. In the rush to market, many overlooked a basic conflict: the states were banking on a certain level of payouts, even as they adopted antismoking measures that would reduce those amounts. As a result, the historically safe municipal bond market has been peppered with something unusual, a type of muni that actually defaults.

It's what government does. Look at their efforts to fight "man-made global warming": they implement CAFE standards mandating increased gas mileage at the very time when the main work-force, the "boomer" generation, is starting to retire - and therefore, driving less. I used to fill the tank twice a month; now, it's around every month and a half. Result: less revenue from gas taxes. Add to that their decisions to use gas-tax revenue to fund bike paths, trails, public transit, and public "art", and they're amazed to find that there's less money available for road maintenance. As a result, they start looking at mileage taxes (which also isn't going to work, because so many are driving so much less) and other forms of revenue "enhancement" when in fact, the problems are directly traceable to the policies adopted by these same politicians.

The cigar explodes in their faces; they want to outlaw cigars.

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• Nassau County Shows Risks of Patching With Tobacco Bonds (nytimes.com)

The Religious Left

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction.
Blaise Pascal

The kid from University of Oregon, who views herself as a sort of scientific prodigy (and she is merely a child), roiled the waters a bit with her pronouncement at a meeting in London last week that people who disagree with her worldview should be recognized as ill, and treated. But she has long held such beliefs: as an assistant professor at Whitman College, fresh out of grad school, she took it upon herself to write to the new President, Barry Obama and among the points that she emphasized in that epistle was this:

Don’t wait for public consensus on climate change

Thanks to the wildly successful efforts of ExxonMobil and a few others to generate skepticism in the media and public mind regarding climate science, Americans have been remarkably out of step in our understanding of climate change. Even so, the tide has finally begun to turn in the past two years. Yet since the economic crisis, polls indicate that climate change has fallen back to the bottom of the public’s priority list.

Public opinion does matter in a democracy, but this is a time when following it would be a serious mistake. 

Public opinion should be ignored, the child advised a few years ago, and today, she publicly states that those who disagree with her should be rounded up and "treated" for their "illness". She embodies in every way the totalitarianism of which Aldous Huxley and George Orwell warned. That she is a recent product of the public employee-dominated American educational systems should be sobering. That she is today loose in the classrooms should be horrifying.

Even the university which employs her has backed away:

The university press release initially began: "Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized and treated before real action can be taken to effectively address threats facing the planet from human-caused contributions to climate change."

The Stalinism in that was widely noted so the words "and treated" have now gone from the University's press statement, which you will find here. The opening sentence now reads:

"Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized before real action can be taken to effectively address threats facing the planet from human-caused contributions to climate change."

For more in-depth material, look here.

It appears that the memory hole and revisionist history are both extant at U of O.

And the Religion of Green is thriving. 

Purge the non-believers.

 

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Just A "Lifestyle Choice"

Petluv (Photo credit: offmessage)

Things are heating up in Germany, these days. Forget about the Euro, the economy, or whatever - the hot topic appears to involve whether or not bestiality brothels should be outlawed. You read that right; sex with animals is being increasingly seen as a lifestyle choice, and thus more acceptable. As a result, "brothels" featuring animals for rent have been sprouting up across the country in order to feed this lifestyle choice.

There are some intolerant folks bent on mucking things up by insisting that this lifestyle choice be banned: Madeleine Martin, the animal protection official for Hessian state government, said the law needed to be changed to make sex abuse of animals – known as zoophilia – a crime. Other, more progressive-minded people argue that it's hypocritical for somebody who KILLS animals (by eating meat) to condemn somebody sexually assaulting them. Murder is worse than rape, plain and simple. (What you find disgusting or not is irrelevant, just as people who find gay sex disgusting cannot prevent gay people from having sex.)

The progressive mindset is a never-ending source of fascination; it appears that they can find ways to rationalize just about anything. Death is worse than rape, some claim - though in general such a perspective must emanate from the thoughts of one who has personally experienced neither. It seems reasonable to suspect, however, that in many cases the opposite may apply: that in fact, a quick and humane death is preferable to ongoing physical and emotional abuse. Although it's entirely possible that such suspicions may be incorrect, having survived an incident that carries a survival rate of two percent, and having spoken with others who endured similar circumstances, it seems not out of bounds to suggest that death may well be preferable to long-term abuse.

In time, perhaps our friends in Germany will be able to enlighten the rest of us in regard to the matter.

After all, they're European - and our "leaders" in America these days keep insisting that Europe is to be emulated here in this country.

Oregon Wolves

The big news as 2011 thankfully draws to a close is that OR7 hiked around 700 miles from the Wallowas to the California border, which the young wolf crossed on Thursday without answering border checkpoint queries regarding whether or not he was carrying any fruit or other vegetable material from Oregon into the pristine environs of northern California. Kids today just got no respect for authority.

Naturally, this development has conversation "conservation" groups wetting themselves in delight. Patrick Valentino, who is on the board of the California Wolf Center, which is dedicated to the preservation of wild wolves, has a different view. "We need to reduce the emotional component about wolves and focus on both the science and conservation of wolves," he said. "The return of wolves should not be seen as an anti-ranching event. In fact, we should find ways to bring stakeholders together whether they are pro- or anti-wolf."

Yeah. That's the same line they fed to Oregon ranchers back when the first 66 Canadian wolves were released in Yellowstone National Park and central Idaho in the mid-1990s. Much like is now happening in California, the first lone wolf was noticed in Oregon about four years after the initial release. Within 9 years, Oregon had a pack. Three years later, Oregon had four packs. And folks like Patrick there were still peeing on ranchers' boots and telling them it was raining.

Over the past two years, they've killed 20 cows and calves. And at anywhere from $700 to $1000 or more per head, you don't have to be a math major to figure out that ranchers have been taking some financial hits while the environmeddlists prattle on. Initially, the state rejected the idea of reimbursing ranchers for the losses, but sombody apparently clued them in that, as the state claims ownership of the wolves, any damage is the state's (taxpayers') responsibility. There's really no difference between that and having a DHS employee, driving a state car while drunk, smashing into your car and totaling it; the state doesn't get to say, Gee, sorry".

So the state has reversed course, and will compensate ranchers - though at what level remains unclear. Probably, they'll try to claim depreciation, much like car dealers do when you drive a new one off their lots. They'll want to estimate the mileage on the cow, try to determine whether the horns were operational, and all that.

Meanwhile, down in California, Patrick and his ilk have found more ranchers, and those boots shore look dusty.

Related articles

• Gray wolf crosses into California, first seen in state in 88 years (mercurynews.com)
• Lone wolf crosses into California from Oregon (latimes.com)
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Remember The Cows

Forget "Remember the Alamo!", the folks who've been trying to sell you on "sea kittens" now want you to Remember the Cows. Yes, just in time for the New Year celebrations, those wacky, fun-loving types from PeTA have cropped up again: they want Illinois to install highway signs in memory of cattle killed when trucks hauling them flipped in two separate wrecks.

An IDOT representative says it's not going to happen because only relatives can request such markers, according to state law. The cows, however, may now be eligible to vote....

This animal "rights" group really needs to cut back on its CO2 emissions.

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Why Do They Waste Our Time?

Image by @daylife

Have you noticed that so-called "news" organizations spend most of their time telling you who they are and what's coming up next? Most of their "news" simply isn't. With the limited content they actually provide, a half-hour "newscast" could be cut to ten minutes or less.

"Hi, I'm Kelley Day. And I'm Joe Blow." "What's the mayor's reaction to (insert latest folly here)? Find out next!"

Here's a novel concept: report news. We don't care who you are, and we don't give a rip about what 20-second "report" you have coming up next. In the time it took to do that riff, you could have simply (gasp!) reported some news. 

What is passed off as "journalism" - at least in the Portland area - whether on television or radio, amounts to nothing more than a continual effort to keep their on-air "personalities" heavily promoted, and running advertisements in place of actual news.

It's why so many people have been dropping MSM in favor of the Internet as a means for obtaining actual news. Broadcast news has become Entertainment Tonight. lite.

 

New Regs For Goat-Herders

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

The Obama Labor Department has come out with new workplace regulations that apply to ranchers who - you can't make this kind of stuff up - hire people to herd sheep or goats. Published in the Federal Register, the new regulations describe strict rules for sleeping quarters, lighting, food storage, bathing, laundry, cooking and new rules for the counters where food is prepared.

“Who knew we needed all of this federal help for herding goats?”

8.7 Million

Image via Wikipedia

That's the number that scientists have come up with in their guess estimate of the number of species presently on the planet. They admit that 86 percent of all terrestrial species and 91 percent of all marine species have yet to be discovered, described and catalogued, but you can trust them on their estimate because, after all, it's Science. They never get anything wrong, as their track record clearly indicates. And they're impartial, as well; it would never occur to a scientist to advance a particular view, such as "human activity causes global warming", for example.

Marine biologist Boris Worm of Canada’s Dalhousie University, one of the paper’s co-authors, compared the planet to a machine with 8.7 million parts, all of which perform a valuable function. See? Absolutely impartial and completely nonprejudiced - this is what Science is all about, today.

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• How Many Species on Earth? 8.7 Million Give or Take (scientificamerican.com)

Forget Kobe

Japan now has glow-in-the-dark beef, perfect for your low-light, energy-efficient dining pleasure.

Eat S***

Image via Wikipedia

The folks at PETA have to be turning cartwheels...

Absurd yes, but Japanese scientists have actually discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces.

Hey. You gonna eat that?

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