Archive for June 9th, 2007

NEO COMMS

June 9, 2007

“It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore, in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people…” —Adam Smith

Hilrya Rodhamovich Clintonov’s economic plan

Demo-gogue presidential candidate Hillary Clinton gave a little-noticed stump speech this week that should’ve sent up countless red flags.

By now, all of us know about Clinton’s re-warmed plans for socializing medicine, regulating healthcare services and providers and centralizing government control of about ten percent of the U.S. economy.

This week, however, Clinton went national with her classist “it takes a village” model, claiming that free-enterprise Capitalism is the root of all evil.

In a speech on “shared prosperity,” she proclaimed that it’s time to replace the conservative notion of an “ownership society” and economy with one based on communal responsibility and prosperity, alleging that the current system is really an “on your own” society that increases the income gap between “poor” and “rich” Americans.

Now, if Clinton is implying that individual initiative, self-reliance, responsibility and ingenuity—the very foundation of free enterprise—are the keys to creating wealth, then she is right. If she is implying that dependence upon the state and redistribution of income creates poverty, then she is right here, too—but that was not her message.

“I prefer a ‘we’re all in it together’ society,” she went on. “I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none.”

In a quintessential example of Clintonista doublespeak, Hillary outlined her economic fairness doctrine: “There is no greater force for economic growth than free markets, but markets work best with rules that promote our values, protect our workers and give all people a chance to succeed. Fairness doesn’t just happen. It requires the right government policies.”

So, according to Ms. Clinton, free markets work best when they’re constrained by the right government policies. In other words, free markets work best when they’re not free.

Apparently Hillary has also been smoking Fidel’s hand-rolled cigars. How else are we to account for her failure to recall that centralized economies, like that of the former Soviet Union, are doomed to fail and have cost millions of lives along the way?

Of course, Clinton’s allusion to “rules” is Demo-code for taxation, which, as we know, is often the forcible transfer of wealth from one group to another. This taxation, in turn, creates reliable political constituencies for Democrats. As George Bernard Shaw once noted, “A government that robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend upon the support of Paul.”

Clinton’s economic plan is nothing more than a contemporary remake of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s class-warfare proclamation: “Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.”

In fact, Roosevelt’s “principle” was no more American than Clinton’s. It was a paraphrase of Karl Marx’s Communist maxim, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”

Soviet dictator Nikita Khrushchev said of Roosevelt’s “New Deal” paradigm shift, “We can’t expect the American people to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders in giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.”

Echoing that sentiment was perennial Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas (the grandfather, incidentally, of Newsweek Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas): “The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

No irony was spared in another interview this week, when Hillary Clinton was asked about the enormous wealth that she and Bill have amassed since their co-presidency. Clinton replied, “My husband and I never had any money. Now suddenly we’re rich. I have nothing against rich people.”

Never had any money”? Spare me. She and Bill were long ago cashing in on commodity futures and real-estate deals. Still, the wealth they have accumulated in recent years must make those good ol’ days seem Spartan by comparison.

Hillary claims that if elected, she will “hit the restart button on the 21st century and redo it the right way.” I checked, and the Clintons were in the White House the first year of the 21st Century. Did they push the wrong button then?

Only when the Clintons voluntarily surrender for redistribution all their assets to the U.S. Treasury will I then consider her economic views with at least the sincerity afforded one who is not a complete hypocrite. In the eternal interim, her Socialist “we’re all in it together” claptrap should be considered a perilous hazard to prosperity for all.

source: Patriot Post

Record Lake Trout « Conservative Libertarian Outpost

June 9, 2007

Record Lake Trout « Conservative Libertarian Outpost

Record Lake Trout

June 9, 2007

NEW COLORADO RECORD LAKE TROUT TOPS 50 POUNDS

During the 40 years Don Walker has fished at Blue Mesa Reservoir he’s caught plenty of big lake trout. But none measured up to the one he caught May 23.
  
Walker, 61, now holds the record for the biggest lake trout caught in Colorado: The  fish weighed 50 pounds, 5 ounces, measured 44 1/4 inches long with a girth of 34 3/8 inches. The record lake trout, also known as a Mackinaw, weighed nearly 4 pounds more than the previous record lake trout caught in 2003 that weighed 46 pounds 14 ounces and measured 42 1/2 inches long.  

“I’ve been fishing over there for a long time, so when it hit I knew I had a big fish on,” Walker said from his home in Florence.  

Walker and his wife, Paula, were fishing from a boat near Soap Creek in about 40 feet of water. He used a tube jig and was bouncing the lure on the bottom. The technique is known as “jigging.” The temperature of the water at the surface was 53 degrees. Walker explained that lake trout fishing seems to be the best when the surface water temperature is between 50 degrees and 55 degrees.  

With his graphite rod rigged with 12-pound test line, Walker fought the fish for 25 minutes before bringing it up to the boat.  

“You have to play a fish like that just right or you’ll break the line. The rod was bent double,” Walker said.  

His wife netted the fish when it got near the boat.  
“You need a lot of help with a fish like that, you need a good netter. Paula did a good job,” Walker said.  

Ironically, the man who held the record previously was fishing from another boat a short distance away. Larry Cornell of Pueblo, who is also Walker’s brother-in-law, watched as the new record Mackinaw was brought to the surface.  

“I was there when he caught that one,” Walker said.  

Walker weighed his fish in the boat and was surprised to see that it probably weighed 50 pounds. They went to shore and weighed it again to be sure. Then they took it to the Gunnison office of the Colorado Division of Wildlife for an official weigh-in and measurement. A DOW wildlife officer verified that the fish set the new record.  

Blue Mesa Reservoir is one of Colorado’s most productive fisheries. The water warms up more than other higher-elevation reservoirs and that encourages abundant growth of phyto- and zooplankton – microorganisms that provide a food source for fish. Kokanee salmon, brown trout and rainbow trout thrive in the lake. In turn those fish provide a food source for lake trout which are a predator species.  

The daily bag limit for lake trout is 8 per day of any size.  
Walker plans to have his big fish mounted.  

His tip for catching big Mackinaws: “We’ve sat out there many days and haven’t caught any fish. You’ve got to have a lot of patience and be at the right place at the right time.”  

Blue Mesa Reservoir is located about 10 miles east of Gunnison in south central Colorado.

###

Editors: A picture of the fish can be downloaded from this web address:
http://dnr.state.co.us/imagedb/images/3736.JPG

Photo caption:
Don Walker of Florence, holds the new Colorado record lake trout he caught May 23 at Blue Mesa Reservoir. The fish weighed 50 pounds 5 ounces, and measured 44 1/4 inches in length with a girth of 34 3/8 inches.

For more information about Division of Wildlife go to: http://wildlife.state.co.us.

Bill O’Reilly « Conservative Libertarian Outpost

June 9, 2007

Bill O’Reilly « Conservative Libertarian Outpost

Bill O’Reilly

June 9, 2007

‘With great power there must also come – great responsibility!” So said the first Spider-Man comic book, in 1962. In the last few weeks, talk radio’s The Caplis & Silverman Show has abused its great power.Since May 16, almost every C&S Show has incited a campaign against Boulder High School. I wish that hosts Dan Caplis and Craig Silverman would focus their considerable talents elsewhere, rather than harassing the Boulder High community, and attempting to impose the censorious morality of outsiders on Boulder.

Last April, several panels of the CU Conference on World Affairs were held, as is the custom, at next-door Boulder High. For the panel “STDs: Sex, Teens and Drugs,” some students attended on their own, with parental permission; several classes were brought to the panel by teachers. Not every teacher specifically restated the universal policy at Boulder High – applicable to all films, books and speakers – that anyone who was uncomfortable could opt out.

In the ensuing fallout, the Boulder Valley School District immediately stated that the failure to re- announce the opt-out rule was an error. Moreover, the panel violated BVSD policy that a broad range of views be presented on controversial subjects. The responsible employees were reprimanded.

End of story? Not for C&S. Day after day it has been playing selected quotes from the panel. Caplis has demanded that “each school authority” be “severely disciplined.” C&S has orchestrated an e-mail and telephone deluge against Boulder High.

Conspicuously missing from the C&S daily expression of “outrage” is support from Boulder High parents of students who actually listened to the panel. One parent of a student who was brought in to hear the panel complained at a school board meeting. Neither C&S nor other media have found even a second upset family of a student who actually attended the panel.

Given the school board’s appropriate response to the single aggrieved parent – ensuring that in the future every parent have the opportunity to opt out of any CWA panel beforehand – C&S should have moved on long ago from a story that merited, at most, a couple days’ attention. The silent majority of Boulder families apparently are not as repressive as C&S about how free the speech in public high schools should be.

Many parents who tell their teenagers to “say no” know that students must learn to think for themselves. A comment on the Boulder Daily Camera Web site aptly quoted John Milton: “I cannot praise a fugitive and cloistered virtue, unexercised and unbreathed, that never sallies out and sees her adversary . . . ”

Harping on the need to protect “the children,” C&S arrogates to itself a decision that properly belongs to BHS parents.

Statements of panelists have been shorn of context. C&S tells its audience that panelist Antonio Sacre said that he had stopped using condoms because it “doesn’t feel as good.”

Literally true, but nearly libelous. What C&S did not tell the audience was that Sacre explained his regret for his foolish choices about condoms as a teenager. Sacre warned his audience that they should always use condoms – even if the female is taking birth-control pills – because of the danger of sexually transmitted diseases, and because there is always a risk of pregnancy. (The full transcript and audio are available at , which C&S, to their credit, have linked to on their KHOW Web page.)

Caplis insists that teachers should have driven the students out of the auditorium because “within five minutes” the panel was promoting drug use and sex. In fact, the opening 10 minutes consisted of introductions and a presentation by Sanho Tree of the Institute for Policy Studies, who simply critiqued counterproductive programs, such as DARE, which loses credibility because of its reckless exaggerations.

C&S claimed that the panel was in accord with panelist Joel Becker, who encouraged students to have sex and use drugs “appropriately” because they would be having sex and using drugs anyway. Actually, Sanho Tree, the panel’s drug policy expert, said not a single word encouraging the students to use drugs. Instead, he criticized the harmful effects of current drug policies.

Appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s Fox TV show, The O’Reilly Factor, Caplis did not even know the name of the school’s good-hearted and excellent principal Bud Jenkins, but was sure that Jenkins and every administrator should be fired. Heedless of First Amendment case law, O’Reilly proclaimed that the panel’s speech constituted a crime. The only crime was perpetrated by the O’Reilly producer who, attempting to ambush interview school board President Helayne Jones, criminally trespassed into her garage.

As a Boulder High parent, I have discovered that the school is a much more tolerant place than the average large high school. Respect for freedom of speech is part of what makes Boulder High special.

O’Reilly tells the world that Bud Jenkins is “the villain.” As Boulder High students are learning, media scandal- makers sometimes tell you much less than the full story.

Dave Kopel is research director at the Independence Institute, an attorney and author of 10 books. He can be reached at .

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BE MINDFUL OF MOUNTAIN LIONS

June 9, 2007

From our friends at the Colorado Division of Wildlife some words of wisdom, so that you don’t end up with a story about you in “Stupid is as stupid does.”