My Beauty Best Teacher

More evidence on the hidden strength of the informal economy in a 234Next report by Ngozi Sams:

The campaign for made-in-Nigeria products is gradually yielding good results as new information indicates that about 50 per cent of products consumed in West Africa as at today are made in Nigeria.Michael Awunor, president of (NAMACCIMAT), who disclosed this in Abuja, also said that Mali and Burkina Faso alone import, informally, over 300 tonnes of made-in-Nigeria products on a weekly basis, which amounts to 14,400 tonnes annually.

More here
Photo courtesy of 234Next

D.C. Public Education Reform Forum

Panel members include:

Nathan A. Saunders, WTU General V.P.

Dr. Clifford B. Janey, Former DCPS Superintendent

Mary Levy, DCPS Expert

Keith White, DCPS Parent

Mia Pettus, DCPS Parent

Lee Glazer, DCPS Parent

Maria Jones, DCPS Parent

Keynote speaker:

Dr. Katherine Tobin

Deputy Assistant Secretary for Performance Review,

Office of Management,

U.S. Department of Education

Wednesday, March 31, 2010

6:30*pm – 9:00pm

Room 412

John A. Wilson Building

1350 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW

Washington, D.C.

*Reception 6:30-7:00pm

Sponsored by:

D.C. Federation of Civic Associations • D.C. Federation of Citizens Associations

Ward 4 Council on Education • Ward 5 Council on Education

In The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare (Penguin Classics), by G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton describes anarchists this way:

This is a vast philosophic movement, consisting of an outer and inner ring. The outer ring- the main mass of their supporters- are merely anarchists; that is, men who believe that rules and formulas have destroyed human happiness. They believe that all the evil results of human crime are the results of the system that has called it a punishment. They do not believe that the crime creates the punishment. They believe that the punishment has created the crime. These people talk about 'a happy time coming,' 'the paradise of the future,' 'mankind freed from the bondage of vice and the bondage of virtue,' and so on.

And so also the men of the inner circle speak. But in their mouths these happy phrases have a horrible meaning. They are under no illusions; they are too intellectual to think that man upon this earth can ever be quite free of original sin and the struggle. And they mean death. When they say that mankind shall be free at last, they mean that mankind shall commit suicide. When they talk of a paradise without right or wrong, they mean the grave. They have but two objects, to destroy first humanity and then themselves.

In my post Book Review: The Man Who Was Thursday I noted that:

Chesterton might have called them anarchists or philosophers, and later they might go by other names like fascist or communist, but to me, their ideas about economic suicide for no reason, their dislike of labeling things right and wrong, and their views on life and mark them as the modern Democratic Party. And at the center of the inner circle there is a man who speaks to applauding crowds and says pleasing phrases, but he is under no illusions, and his actions have terrible consequences for our great nation.

The idea of an inner circle of committed revolutionaries surrounded by an outer circle of people who are more moderate in their views is an idea that I have never read or heard about before. Reading it in Chesterton's book was the first time I had ever even thought about viewing the world in this way.

President Obama, on the other hand, jumps quickly to viewing the world this way, and in a classic case of the pot calling the kettle black he has ascribed his personal world view to his enemies, the American people who go to Tea Parties.

Via The Politico story Obama dissects demonstrations:

Obama describes tea party movement this way: "There's some folks who just weren't sure whether I was born in the United States, whether I was a socialist. So there's that segment of it, which I think is just dug in ideologically." "Then," he continued, "I think that there's a broader circle around that core group of people, who are legitimately concerned about the deficit, who are legitimately concerned that the federal government may be taking on too much."

Obama sees in the Tea Party movement structure and order that he is familiar with- an inner circle preaching bad things, and an outer circle who are being fooled into following the movement, but both circles are bad and wrong and do not have legitimate views.

Now, I've been to Tea Parties (see my posts Best State of the Union Address Ever, My Report from the Birmingham Healthcare Rally, or Report from Peters Townhall Sept 09) and to be honest, I don't have the slightest freaking clue what Obama is talking about. I saw the core of Tea Parties as people with legitimate views about spending and government power, and a couple hanger's on who even Tea Party people didn't like who talked about Obama's birth certificate and who waved posters of Obama as Hitler. But, there was no inner and outer core of organization to the Tea Parties- they are just masses of concerned patriots who are trying to make the world a better place.

On the other hand, let's take a look at the Democratic Party... it increasingly is attempting to centralize all decisions with Pelosi, Reid, and Obama, Democratic members of Congress increasingly have 95% party line voting records (like my Congressman Peters, who is as far from moderate and independent as possible), and money that flows into the Democratic Party increasingly flows to the inner circle and then out again. That party, as it is increasingly becoming, is an inner circle of men preaching destruction (pro-abortion, pro-economic destruction, anti-allies, pro-war) surrounded by an outer circle of people duped and who chant hope and change and say the most naive and stupid ideas about the role of government in making people better.

The Democrats fit Obama's narrative better than the Tea Party movement- an inner core of devoted liberals surrounded by a mass of weak willed 'Blue Dogs' who follow orders when push comes to shove.

Get the book today!

"...based in Goma, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Kampala, Uganda Yole Africa promotes peace through art and culture. It also operates as an exchange platform where young people from different backgrounds and social strata come together to express themselves through their talent..."

Frequently on my blog I talk about how the policies of Democrats like Pelosi, Reid, Obama, Peters, or your Democratic Congressman threaten 'life, liberty, and property.' I don't do this just to evoke our founding fathers and our Declaration of Independence- I do it because in reality, these principles are increasingly under attack when your friends and family put Democrats into office.

On Thursday and Friday, several major American companies- including AT&T, Verizon, Caterpillar, Deere, Valero Energy, AK Steel and 3M- said a tax provision in the new health care law will make it far more expensive to provide prescription drug coverage to their retired employees. These major job providers and major providers of important goods and services in our nation stated that they think that this new health care law will hurt their companies in many ways. In a free nation, companies should be allowed to state how government policies will adversely affect their bottom lines without fear of the government attacking them. But America is not a free country when Democrats are in charge.

Via the Washington Examiner article Democrats threaten companies hit hard by health care bill by Byron York:

Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, has summoned some of the nation's top executives to Capitol Hill to defend their assessment that the new national health care reform law will cost their companies hundreds of millions of dollars in health insurance expenses. Waxman is also demanding that the executives give lawmakers internal company documents related to health care finances.

Waxman has ordered the executives (of those companies) to (fly to Washington DC and) explain themselves at an April 21 hearing before the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigative subcommittee.

Waxman's request (for internal company documents relating to finances) could prove particularly troubling for the companies. The executives will undoubtedly view such documents as confidential, but if they fail to give Waxman everything he wants, they run the risk of subpoenas and threats from the chairman. And all as punishment for making a business decision in light of a new tax situation.

If you own and operate a business, or work for a business that is owned and operated by someone, you are under attack by the government of the United States of America. If your business speaks out against a law, they will be dragged off to far away locations (Washington DC) to answer to the lords and masters of our empire, where in front of cameras and the howling masses, they will be subjected to ridicule and threats and intimidation. If your business does not show up, then the government that the Democrats are running will pass laws targeting your company for punishment or will not distribute government funds to you in 'stimulus' bills or other corrupt government give-aways.

This is no longer a free nation of a free people. Democrats like Waxman are turning it into a tyranny.

Drima Abu Hamdan writes in the Sudanese Thinker:

Image via Wikipedia

In both cases, Ahmad(a suicide bomber) and Muhammad(imaginary forgiving character) did not derive their morality from the Quran.
Their ethical intuitions came from within themselves.
Their ethical institutions directed their attention to verses they chose to focus on and be inspired by, whether knowingly or uknowingly.
Their ethical intuitions influenced their choice of interpretation.
And hence, their morals did not come from the Quran itself.
Their morals ultimately came from within themselves thanks to their own ethical intuitions about what’s right and wrong, and were influenced by their near social context.

More here

This letter was sent to the American Federation of Teachers national union president.

Vin Suprynowic, writing in the Las Vegas Review Journal, writes:

The modern Prussian police state was built by Bismarck and others in the 19th century on a Spartan model, giving the central government vastly greater control over the individual than had ever been considered possible before.

Bismarck's program centered squarely on insurance programs designed to increase support for the ever larger and more powerful government. The program included health insurance, workman's compensation, disability insurance and old-age retirement pensions, all innovations at the time.

Starting with the model of Prussian compulsory schooling, American "educators," starting with John Dewey and Edward Thorndike eagerly imported this Prussian model to America.

Trained to accept such state control (and now the new "green" religion) in the schools for most of the past century, then made dependent on government insurance programs (Social Security, Medicare) as surely as the pimp makes sure his young ladies are dependent on the needle and the fix only he can provide, slavery to the state soon appears inescapable, even ordained by God and nature.

"It is possible that all our politics will come to nothing when I am dead, but state socialism ("Der Staatssozialismus") will push itself through," Bismarck said in 1881.

"State socialism," he called it.

We're told that for some reason we're not allowed to call the Obama-Reid-Pelosi agenda "socialism," "communism," "Marxism," "state socialism" "fascism," or anything else that might sound unpleasant.

Much as I hate to cite the tyrant Lincoln, if we call a dog's tail a leg, does it have five legs? Telling us we're not "allowed" to use an accurate label for something doesn't change what it is.

Instead of allowing General Motors and Chrysler to go through normal bankruptcies, through which new and more efficient private operators could have purchased their worthwhile assets while shedding their crippling union contracts, the two giant auto makers have now been effectively nationalized. Meantime, an unelected federal "pay czar" decides on the compensation of executives, even at supposedly private banks that have paid back all their "bailout" loans. Does that sound like the normal function of the American free market, as understood in 1910, 1960 or even 1990?

Thanks to thoroughly unconstitutional "bailouts," the federal government now de facto manages our major banks and/or credit card companies, along with our airlines and airports.

The health care bill was "sweetened" with a federal takeover of college loans. Why? You don't imagine the federal government will ever try to manipulate the behavior of college graduates, offering to "forgive their college loans" if they agree to behave in ways favored by the fedgov, do you?

"Federalizing" all these programs shifts money and employment from the private to the government-bureaucrat sector. Unionized government bureaucrats tend to belong to outfits like the SEIU, which actively back Democrat/socialists, while dispatching purple-shirted thugs to beat up black freedom-fighters handing out "Don't tread on me" Gadsden flags outside rigged Democratic "town hall" meetings.

The so-called "health reform" bill authorizes $10 billion to field 16,500 more IRS agents to collect and enforce mandatory "premiums," which we're assured are not a "tax." Providing you're a "normal" citizen with a job and house, of course. (Illegal aliens Get Out of Jail Free, as usual.)

Last week the Review-Journal mentioned in passing, in an editorial about socialist Congresscritter Dina Titus' move to facilitate the takeover of Nevada Occupational Safety and Health enforcement by the federal government, that the Constitution grants the federals no authority to regulate workplace safety within the states. One letter writer couldn't wait to write in that the newspaper was wrong: turns out the preamble to the federal OSHA law as adopted specifies that it's all constitutional, since the federal government is empowered to regulate interstate commerce, and "workplace health and safety can impact interstate commerce."

So we're right back to "If you call a dog's tail a leg, does it have five legs?" If Washington can do anything it likes because everything somehow "impacts interstate commerce," why do we have a Constitution with that two-page list of specifically delegated powers? Why not just one sentence: "Congress shall have power to do anything it figures might promote the general welfare and/or impact interstate commerce"?

Vin is right- our Constitution was written for the expressed purpose of limiting the power of the national government so that our god-given rights to life, liberty, and property would be better protected. As the federal government expands, so does its threat to your life, your liberty, and your property, and that is what our founding fathers were trying to protect us against. They wanted to unleash the best of human potential, and knew that that is best done when man is allowed to be free from the constraints of the state. Our economy is more prosperous when we are free and property is protected, and our society is more civil when people provide funds for charities rather than having the government take money from people and redistribute it to favored charities.

In Michigan, I have observed what happens when Democrats run government, and I predicted accurately what would happen if Obama and the Democrats won the elections of 2008. Democrats turned Michigan into Detroit, and Democrats are now turning the United States into Michigan. You need to make sure that everyone you know votes Republican next election, or else your kids will grow up in a nation that is less civil, less prosperous, and less free than then one they are growing up in now. We need to stop these Prussians who are running out government today before they turn us into Germany in 1900... 1920... or 1940.

TEDx Euston speaker Chika Unigwe writes:

First of all, get rid of any hang-ups you might have about Africa being a continent. It is a country, and so when people ask if you speak African, or eat African, do not get all worked up trying to explain how a homogenous Africa only exists in a lazy imagination. And certainly do not go the complicated route of explaining about how a country like Nigeria has over three hundred different languages. (Languages‌ Not dialects‌ Are you sure‌) Do everyone a favour and smile and say Yes or No as the spirit moves you. It will save you some frustration. Believe me, I know. It will also save your interrogator some bafflement. If you want to be humorous though, you can ask your interrogator if they speak European. Be prepared for some lessons on history though. Europe is a continent of history. Unlike that country, Africa, which is too dark for any sense of history to permeate...[continue reading]

Open data comes to the development business:

AidData 1.0, …assembles more aid projects from more donors totaling more dollars than have ever been available from a single source before. AidData catalogues nearly one million projects that were financed between 1945 and 2009, adding or augmenting data on $1.9 trillion of development finance records. We currently have data from 87 different donors, and data from even more donors will come online every few months.

via Aid Watchers

The media is making a big deal about the historic nature of Obama's nuclear arms reduction treaty with Russia is and conservatives are making noise like it isn't a big deal or perhaps may even be a bad idea. I've been reading and researching the issue before trying to decide what I feel about it, and think that I've finally read something worthwhile on the issue.

This comes from The Weekly Standard blog post START All Over Again:

Has President Obama ended a second cold war? A cascade of news stories and editorials are creating the impression that his newly concluded START agreement with Moscow heralds a breakthrough in an intensifying standoff between Russia and the United States. "The new treaty represents perhaps the most concrete foreign policy achievement for Mr. Obama since he took office 14 months ago," gushes the New York Times. The Washington Post, for its part, hails the treaty as "the most extensive nuclear arms-control agreement in nearly two decades”; it represents “President Obama's first victory in his ambitious agenda to move toward a nuclear-free world."

This narrative rests on a single premise: namely that between the 1991 START agreement and Obama’s new treaty, nothing of genuine significance ccurred in the arms control arena with Russia. Particularly under the George W. Bush administration, the argument goes, the nuclear standoff with the Kremlin was treated with benign neglect as security perils multiplied. But all this is myth wrapped in a legend, shrouded by fable, and also almost wholly irrelevant—except in the imagination of arms-control enthusiasts—to American security.

One central development largely airbrushed out of the picture is the 2002 Moscow Treaty negotiated by President Bush and ratified 95 to 0 by the Senate seven years ago this month. The Moscow Treaty required each side to reduce its operationally deployed strategic nuclear warheads to a level of between 1,700 and 2,200 by the year 2012. At the time the treaty was signed, the United States had roughly 6,000 of such warheads. In May of last year, before the Obama administration had gotten even a toe wet in the nuclear realm, the number had already been cut to 2,126. The Bush administration had brought about a radical decrease of more than 60 percent—retiring 4,000 warheads from operational service—from the 2002 level, achieved nearly four years ahead of the Moscow agreement’s schedule.

By contrast, President Obama’s START agreement cuts American warheads from the current 2,100 to a level of 1,550. The United States will thus be making, thanks to Obama’s negotiating prowess, a reduction of, at most, a mere 550 warheads. Which president made the larger cuts, and which president reaped a larger reward?

Of course it was Obama who won a free trip to Oslo to pick up a Nobel Prize even before he had a single arms-control notch with Russia in his belt. Though Bush’s legacy remains far more significant, it is unimaginable that the former president would ever be considered even a runner-up for such a tribute. His abiding inability properly to pronounce "nuclear" was the least significant of many peccadilloes that made him ineligible for plaudits even when, by the stated objectives of arms-control advocates, praise was heavily warranted. The pillars of the liberal establishment would no doubt prefer to sit all day on plutonium pits than give Bush credit for beating warheads into ploughshares.

But ironies abound here. There may be conservatives in Congress and elsewhere who also prefer to sit on plutonium pits rather than support Mr. Obama’s new treaty, which they say weakens America’s deterrent or is inadequately verifiable. The trouble is that many of these voices were quiet or silent while George W. Bush slashed the U.S. arsenal over the course of his two terms in office. This raises the question of whether high strategy or low politics is behind the criticism of the new START agreement.

Whatever the answer, a plague should descend on both camps. For the disquieting reality is that arms-control accords with Russia are a diversion from the real security challenge before us in the nuclear arena.

In the world we live in today, whether Russia has 2,000 or 1,000 nuclear warheads matters far less than whether North Korea and Iran have one nuclear warhead or zero. North Korea’s Kim Jong Il and Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad can thus share a chuckle at our tragicomic celebration of a treaty with Russia that leaves the central security issue of the day untouched. The fundamental flaw of the new START treaty is that it will do nothing to end their laughter.

This is pretty good...

Sam Harris contends that:

Questions of good and evil, right and wrong are commonly thought unanswerable by science. He argues that science can -- and should -- be an authority on moral issues...

In Prospect, Stewart Brand on what we can learn from Shadow Cities

There are plenty more ideas to be discovered in the squatter cities of the developing world, the conurbations made up of people who do not legally occupy the land they live on—more commonly known as slums. One billion people live in these cities and, according to the UN, this number will double in the next 25 years. There are thousands of them and their mainly young populations test out new ideas unfettered by law or tradition. Alleyways in squatter cities, for example, are a dense interplay of retail and services—one-chair barbershops and three-seat bars interspersed with the clothes racks and fruit tables. One proposal is to use these as a model for shopping areas. “Allow the informal sector to take over downtown areas after 6pm,” suggests Jaime Lerner, the former mayor of Curitiba, Brazil. “That will inject life into the city.”

More here
Image courtesy of Prospect Magazine

Sometimes it is amusing to slum around and read liberal blogs and comments. One blog that pretends to be a rival of mine here in Michigan is called "Michigan Liberal." On this blog, people who attend tea parties are routinely called 'teabaggers' as an insult, and the headlines are witty and clever like "Putting the ass back in jackass" or "Granholm, Freep slam the attempted Cox Block" (for those of you who are not used to liberal intelligence, put your mind in the gutter and pretend you are a foul-mouthed ugly person- the author was trying to make a play on words using male genitalia).

Eric Baerren runs Michigan Liberal, and is a big supporter of Democrats and their policies, and proves his liberal credentials by engaging in foul-mouthed low-level thuggery whenever he gets a chance. You can contact him at ebaerren@michiganliberal.com and contact one of his employers, the Midland Daily News, to let them know what you think of their employee, at janderson@hearstnp.com.

Reading liberal blogs or reading their comments gives you some insight into the level of intellectual depth and intelligence that these people have when approaching issues. I was reading a recent story over at the Oakland Press about how Peters is all sad that his opponents are going to make an issue over him voting for Obamacare and how Peters isn't a left-wing super liberal like his voting record shows and instead is some sort of moderate that only votes liberal. The story itself was kind of lame- Peters being a big cry baby and his spokesman injecting talking points- but the comments under it were interesting.

Here are some typical liberal comments, demonstrating the type of voters who vote Democrat and the kinds of people who support the modern-day Democratic Party:

• Joe wrote "Gary Peters is going to win another term and he'll keep winning until he retires. All the teabaggers complaining about how "Gary Peters' doesn't listen to his constituents" is a load of bull. He does listen to the MAJORITY of his constituents, not the fringe, America-hating right who think having to buy private insurance makes us a totalitarian dictatorship and still wants to see Obama's birth certificate. "
• I heard... wrote "that Paul Welday was a birther. Does anyone know if it's true? " (Welday is running against Peters, and there is no evidence of him being a 'birther').
• Mary wrote " A majority now support health care reform. It will only get more popular."
• Drop the Cover wrote "Call it the Tea Party all you want. But I know the Klan when I see it! "
• G wrote " silly tea baggers.. think they shouldnt have to pay taxes. "
• timmmy wrote "the republicans have turned into the party of racist, homophobic,sexist, azzclowns unable to tell the truth if their mothers life depended on it. t-baggers they are. "
• Get over it conservatives you lost wrote " Whaa whaa whaa like little crybabies you conservatives act like. I'm lmao at you nut cases. The 9th district is becoming more and more progressive and you can't stop it. Peters will be re-elected and I hope it twists you guts. "
• To Get Over It Conservatives wrote " We're not the ones that lost......YOU ARE. You're just to dumb to realize it. Wait a couple of years. Maybe then you'll grow up and face reality. "
• Watcher wrote " Rubbing my eyes here. Did I see and read what I thought I did. Welllll, yes.An Oakland County idiot claiming that the Aryans of Oakland County have values????They do have value, they like a good value on pillow cases with slits for eyes.Peters is going nowhere. He will win in a landslide. Even an idiot like peters is a lesser evil then a fascist Republican. "
• Eyerock wrote " Where do all the tea partiers and right wing nuts live in Oakland County?All my neighbors and friends are far more liberal than most of those posting on the OP.We support our President, are for Health Care Reform, and are all for closing the gap in America between the haves and the have nots. And we like to burn one every now and then. "
• Tim T wrote " Thanks Gary for standing up for the People instead of the insurance industry. "

There you have it- just a selection of the kind of voters who supported health care and support Gary Peters, and a little bit of a window inside their heads. I hope you all enjoyed reading that!

UPDATE: Michigan Liberal responds to my post by mocking me and simply denying that he is foul-mouthed. Typical liberal- the evidence I provided above (Eric's casual use of cuss words and foul phrases like cock blocking and tea bagging) is just crazy right-wing hysteria. Eric Baerren is a foul-mouthed low level thug, and if he doesn't like it, perhaps he should not use such foul language or foul phrases in his posts. But he won't- as a liberal, he is unable to rise above the tendency to think above gutter-level, so will likely continue with foul phrases and crude sexual innuendo in his posts.

And if you want to let his employer know what you think about his journalism abilities or use of language to get his points across, his editor can be reached at janderson@hearstnp.com.

Clad in blue t-shirts that read “Health is the heritage of the people,” and grey t-shirts with “Health Committee,” participants in the new national health program waited patiently with street vendors selling red t-shirts with ironed-on images of President Barack Obama with text that read “With Obama the people continue to rule.”

Maria Sojo, a volunteer for Obama's political action team, has been waiting years for Obamacare. “Nothing like this (Obama) ever existed before. We were never taken into consideration. Now we are and we are grateful to our president for what he has done for us,” Sojo said.

Actually, Sojo said that about Venezuela’s national healthcare program called “Barrio Adentro", and the t-shirts described above had images of Hugo Chavez on them, not Obama, but the idea is the same- that Obama and his policies have more in common with dictators and thugs and socialists from around the world rather than evoking ideals of liberty, life, and protection of property.

The reforms that Obama put in place are closer to the reforms of Russia and China, countries that traditionally the United States has not attempted to emulate. But Obama believes our nations healthcare system should look more like Russia's and China's, and so Obamacare is jammed through.

And although it was not the endorsement President Barack Obama and the Democrats in Congress were looking for, it is not shocking to anyone that Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency. Castro's biggest objection is similar to most Democrats- that it took the US so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago.

Obama, Pelosi, Reid, and Peters have all made communist dictatorships around the world proud with the passage of Obamacare. Myself, I think that if all of those bad countries like someone, maybe it would be smart to think twice about jamming it on our nation.

Now that the healthcare bill has been passed, I see that the news is getting a little more honest about reporting just exactly what the healthcare bill is. For example, the Detroit News says:

The landmark legislation that Obama signed Tuesday would provide health care to 32 million uninsured people. The $938 billion, 10-year price tag would be financed largely by culling savings from Medicare and imposing new taxes on higher income people and the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical device industries.

That's exactly what this healthcare bill was at its heart- a massive expansion of government welfare paid for by raising taxes (the 'savings' from Medicare are fake savings- the government telling doctors that they are going to accept less money for procedures and drugs doesn't affect the real cost of those procedures or drugs).

Welfare and tax raises- that's the Democrats solution to everything, and you can just put 'healthcare reform' in that same boat and that basically is what it is. But, Democrats are still in Washington, so today they went right back to the Obama/Pelosi Democrat plan for America- more welfare spending, more 'construction' spending, and more taxes to pay for this government largess.

A bill passed Wednesday in the House of Representatives would billions of more dollars for construction projects and welfare programs in selected states. Democrats characterized the $16 billion dollar bill as yet another stimulus program, but in reality it is more welfare and government make-work projects funded by increased taxes and fees or increased debt. This is the Democrat's only answer to every problem in society- increase dependence on the unaccountable state, increase the power of the government, increase the number of people in society working for the government, while taxes and fees and regulations go up on free people who are forced to carry the deadweight of government and its dependents around on their backs.

Democrats, like my Congressman Gary Peters, don't make it a secret that what you are voting for when you don't vote Republican is welfare and taxes.

K'naan's World Cup version of "give me freedom, give me fire":


via SocietyHae

It's hard to say goodbye to Principal Pope!

Forbes reports on The Aid Trap by R. Glenn Hubbard & William Duggan:

In The Aid Trap,Hubbard and Duggan argue that the answer has been under our noses since the end of World War II. They propose that the U.S. government make direct loans to businesses and then direct the repayments of principal to host governments for use in building roads, electric grids, schools and the like. This was how the Marshall Plan rebuilt Europe after the war.

On March 18, The Washington Teacher blog first reported from inside sources that Chancellor Michelle Rhee had pushed up the date to oust favored Principal Patrick Pope from Hardy middle in exchange for Dana Nerenburg who was slated to take over the school in June. Hardy is located at located at 1819 35th St. NW. Nerenburg who is principal of Hyde-Addison will now be in charge of three schools which is a problem for many Hardy parents.

Time for a little bit of polling data. According to MRG Michigan, a recent statewide survey shows every major Republican gubernatorial candidate defeating both major Democratic gubernatorial candidates by significant margins- both Republican Attorney General Mike Cox (44%) and Republican Congressman Pet Hoekstra (43%) top Democrat Speaker of the House Andy Dillion (27%) and Democrat Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero (26%). This is a good sign for Michigan, which has been suffering for 7 long years under Democrat Governor Jennifer Granholm, whose liberal policies have been a negative on every aspect of government.

In the GOP primary matchup among likely Republican primary voters Attorney General Mike Cox and Congressman Pete Hoekstra are tied at 21% with businessman Rick Snyder right behind at 20% and Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard trailing significantly with 10%. In my humble opinion, Cox or Hoekstra would be fine choices for Governor of Michigan, both having demonstrated on many occasions their conservative credentials and both being sound experienced politicians who are willing and able to make the tough decisions to bring Michigan back from the brink.

In the Democratic primary matchup among likely Democrat primary voters Speaker Andy Dillon has a 21% to 9% lead over Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero. Until recently, the presumptive nominee for the Democratic Party was Lt Governor Cherry, but he recognized that running on Granholm/Obama policies was the kiss of death, and so he dropped out of the race rather than face the coming trouncing. Andy Dillon is an okay nominee- ever since he survived recall for dramatically raising taxes several years ago, he has moderated his positions considerably, and would make a better Governor than the one currently in office, although would mostly continue the same liberal politics that have driven business out of Michigan and caused this state to be in a recession for most of the decade.

For more data on this poll, here is the source.

"...Sankusem exists to celebrate and promote the composition, performance, choreography and scholarship of contemporary music and dance that significantly derives from African Folk idioms. We do this by organizing African music and dance festivals, and by running an annual African music and dance International competition..."-website

President Barack Obama's remarked today after the passage through the House of his new health control law that "after nearly 100 years of talk and frustration, after decades of trying, and a year of sustained effort and debate, the United States Congress finally declared that America's workers..." have health care reform.

Obama is right- the battle between communism and liberty has been raging for over a hundred years, and last week, communism won a great battle. The headlines are shouting how after years and years of fighting, finally healthcare reform is here. The way they say it makes you think that the reform is the good guy and the bad guys were the people fighting it- but in reality, the good guys were fighting the reform, and in yet another case of bizzaro world striking, the newspapers are cheering on the bad guy, health care reform.

That is not to say that health care reform is a bad thing- don't get me wrong, I think it is nice that millions of people are now going to get healthcare, that people with pre-existing conditions get covered, etc. It's just sad that to do that, the government is going to hold a gun to my head and make me work harder and longer so that others can benefit from the fruits of my labor. In a way it's like forced charity, but not really, because it is a very inefficient charity and it is a charity that makes me not want to give and the recipient not feel thankful for the gift that is being given to him. This healthcare reform, like much of communism, degrades the human condition, by forcing one person to give to another what they did not earn, demeaning the transactions that make our society civilized and humane.

People are claiming this health care reform is historic- it isn't really. Most communist nations long ago jammed through healthcare, overcoming opposition by those who fought for rule of law, liberty, freedom, and private property protection. Stalin greatly expanded health care for poor people in the Soviet Union in the 1930's, and so whatever victory Obama achieved he did so much later than other great communist leaders of the past. I guess what the newspapers are cheering is that Obama is right- after 100 years of determined efforts to keep the government out of private transactions between a medical professional and a person, the government finally managed to do what Mao, Stalin, and Hitler did long ago and inject itself between those groups and gain power and control over the transaction.

The sadness and anger I have is that after 100 years of talk, debate, and deliberation, our nation went stupid for two elections (2006 and 2008) and that was all that Democrats needed to end talk, debate, and deliberation and ram through the society-changing initiatives to move our nation away from a Republic of laws to a Dictatorship of men. Obama is right to gloat- he did what other dictatorships only dream about, and took a society of liberty, life, and property and reformed into into one of tyranny, death, and poverty.

Rosa Whitaker writing in AllAfrica:

The Wall Street Journal recently asked eight prominent philanthropists and NGO executives how they would spend $10 billion to achieve the biggest and longest-lasting impact on the world's problems.All eight came up with great ideas, but the clear winner in my opinion came from leading Swedish businessman and philanthropist Percy Barnevik, who said he would use the money to unleash the entrepreneurship of the world's poorest citizens.
My experience in Africa over the past 27 years has convinced me that this is the only way for people to break out of poverty. People are poor because they have no sustainable income. It's as simple as that. They must be given the tools, training and opportunities to earn an income that they can then put to work to improve the lives of themselves, their children and their communities. That is how the United States achieved prosperity and that is how Africa will do it as well.

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In an article written this weekend in the Washington Post, Bill Turque reports that Chancellor Michelle Rhee turns to Anita Dunn, a media consultant and former White House Communication Director to help re-build her despicable image. Anita Dunn is the wife of Bob Bauer, White House legal counsel and also is the owner of media firm- Squier, Knapp and Dunn. Rhee's contract with Dunn's firm is still being negotiated and will be paid for with private funds, which have yet to be disclosed. Among the objectives for Dunn's firm will be how to effectively handle the local and national media. Turque also reports that Dunn's firm is expected to assist with the upcoming announcement of the Washington Teachers Union tentative agreement which has been three years in the making.

March 21, 1776. The liberal media is apparently outraged that patriots and tea party activists are upset that their liberty, life, and property is being voted away today. Many of the King Obama's supporters are shocked by the unruly behavior of these so-called patriots, who are waving American flags and screaming about law while they apparently should be cheering the massive expansion of welfare and government power that is the Obama Healthcontrol Bill.

A senior editor in the New Republic describes what just transpired here inside the House of Representatives. Moments ago, while members of the Kings faction were on the floor for a vote to put in place the Intolerable Acts, a protester stood up in the visitor's gallery and began shouting "Liberty! Freedom! Life! Property!" Armed thugs quickly removed the man, but while they were doing so, several of those patriotic Republicans actually cheered on the man. This was shocking to the editor of New Republic, who couldn't understand why anyone would believe in the unalienable rights of man, and also was surprising to Representative Barney Frank, who yesterday made up the fact that he was was the target of homophobic epithets (like teabagger), who was "appalled" and that he felt George Washington and James Madision "were encouraging him to resist. ... It's a dangerous situation and the Republicans are cheering him on."

Some Democrats, liberals, and Loyalists even seem a little scared that the continual erosion of liberties and freedom and the increasing taxes and regulations and fees might even spark a revolution. They accuse these patriots of being divisive, feeling that people should just roll over when faced by a determined tyrant.

As the senior editor of this newspaper reported, the scene was more farcical than scary--like a scene out of some movie starring Madonna and not a real attempt by real people to keep their god-given rights to life, liberty, and freedom. But there was still just a little bit of something unsettling to it, even to him- it was almost as if people really believed in the Declaration of Independence or something.

The Republic is dead, Democrats remark- the King by a stroke of the pen can now make laws in our nation (such as the deal made with Congressman Stupid)- and people now face a choice- either be part of the tyranny of the majority, or fade away.

Boing Boing reports on Frank Gossner's compilation:

Lagos Disco Inferno, 12 rare and wild examples of the sound of Lagos in the late 1970s. As Dean Disi (formerly director of Lagos label TYC Records) writes in the liner notes for the album:

Lagos by the 1970s was a huge metropolitan city. Due to the oil boom, there was money to be made with music and nightlife and big international record labels like EMI, Decca and Philips had set up their recording studios that for a big part got equipped with vintage hardware handed down from their European franchises...

...a uniquely vibrant, gritty, energetic and sometimes quite dangerous tropical metropolis has always been much more than just a city. A state of mind where third world poverty met the oil boom, where African traditions clashed with Western decadence. Make no mistake, this stuff will have you dance in a feverish rush in no time.

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The Detroit News today put together a nice article which lays out the key provisions of Obamacare. I'm going to liberally quote from it with my comments added in and review just what Obamacare is about.

• Cost: $940 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office. This estimate includes 10 years of taxing and fees and only includes 7 years of benefits. This estimate also assumes that the program will cost what the government says it will- more often than not, government programs end up costing 2-3 times what they say it will cost. Whatever the cost of Obamacare, there is no money to pay for it anyways, so it is all debt, regardless of the Enron accounting schemes that the Democrats used.
• It would expand coverage to 32 million uninsured, which means that at its heart, it is the largest welfare expansion in a generation. This comes after decades of successful welfare reform that has cut the number of people on government welfare by considerable numbers- this indeed is a change.
• Almost everyone would be required by law to be insured by 2014 or else pay a fine. The government does not have this power or authority, and its that simple. If you doubt me, imagine if the government said everyone needs to buy a Hummer or else pay a fine- do you think the government has that authority and power to? What if the government said everyone needed to buy a plastic bag and put their head in it or else pay a fine- do you think the government has that power to? The insurance mandate is unconstitutional, and anyone who supports it supports shredding the Constitution.
• Major consumer safeguards take effect in 2014. These are 'important safeguards'- but not important enough to put in place now? All of these will make insurance more expensive. All of them will drive up the costs of healthcare.
• Massive new expansion of Medicaid, with massive new costs picked up by the federal government.
• Taxes are raised on investment income by 3.8 percent.
• Businesses are required to provide insurance to employees, or else the government will shut down your company, terrorize your business, or break your kneecaps.

Not included in the bill- anything that reduces the cost of healthcare, anything that reduces the cost of providing healthcare by businesses, anything that improves the economy, anything that provides any sort of jobs, anything that increases liberty and freedom, anything that protects life, and anything that protects property.

Call your Congressman and Senator today and let him/her know where you stand on this bill. It won't matter- thugs are determined to put in place tyranny and destroy our nation- but at least you can say you made the attempt.

Tyler Perry's dependency dig at Spike lee "We do not have to wait for someone to green light our projects, we can create our own intersections."(echoes of Nollywood vs FESPACO?) via TechMasai
How Menes Zenawi continues to strangle Ethiopia-Economist
Senegal plans first bond offering-WSJ
Contributions to Science, Invention and Technology-Africa Within via African Executive

G. Pascal Zachary on the 'The Oracle of Africa'

While Achebe criticizes Western thinkers on Africa, he also sets himself apart from other African intellectuals by his complex stance toward the Christianization of his people. The Igbo are among the most fervent Catholics in Africa, and evangelical Christianity is also strong among them. Achebe’s own father was enlisted by Anglican missionaries to convert other “natives,” and Achebe himself benefited from the schools established by foreigners. Yet he remains alive to the damage done by Christianity and relishes how traditional spiritual beliefs persist among Igbo and other Africans.

The critiques of the colonial and the Christian legacies in Africa come together in Achebe’s powerful indictment against Western do-gooders who, he asserts, demean and diminish Africans in their pursuit of helping them. “Lurid and degrading stereotypes,” he writes, are invoked by aid workers, humanitarians and missionaries in order to drum sympathy for African causes. Yet by “dehumanizing the sufferer,” advocates of assistance for Africa, abetted by international media and Hollywood, promote corrosive stereotypes that drown out authentic African voices.

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This is hot off the press !

When it comes down to it, there is no such thing as a Blue Dog Democrat or a Pro-Life Democrat- when push comes to shove, they are just Democrats, and even if they believe in small government or protecting life, they are willing in the end to vote for a big government 'healthcare' bill that diverts tax money to killing unborn babies.

Over the last day, Dale Kildee, Dennis Cardoza, Jim Costa, and James Oberstar all have said that there concern over protecting the lives of unborn babies or even protecting the right of people in our nation to choose what they believe about abortion is not as important as making sure that taxpayer money is used to support abortion. If you are pro-life or pro-choice, you now will be forced to send your money to the federal government, which will then cycle it through several government agencies before finally sending it to a Community Health Clinic or something, where it will be used to give free abortions on demand.

And Kildee, Cardoza, Costa, and Oberstar think that is super and they will support taxpayer money for abortions. When the rubber hits the pavement, when push comes to shove, when it is time for a person to really look in the mirror and make real decisions about what is important in their lives, their concern for life didn't match their concern for supporting the Democratic Party on its suicide mission to destroy our nation by drowning it in debt and more unfunded liabilities.

In Afrch:

...the real challenge for many African cities may be less how to create a city of 'clean lines' with no poor people working in the streets, and more one of how to amplify existing ways of living and working in the city into an advanced regime of higher information density. The anti-hawker and anti-kiosk stance of the political elite and economically mobile hurts many people's livelihoods and lines many policemen and womens' pockets. Alternatively, this active edge of infrastructure and economies can be understood as a future-oriented system of organization for the city—one in which flexible urban ecologies absorb new human material through a network of small-scale and low-tech productive nodes

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