Pleading for stimulus money

Posted on February 13, 2009 by ChrisA

No pride among our liberal Boulder County commissioners. They want to make sure to get their “manna from heaven” to maintain and improve camelot.

An agreement reached among U.S. lawmakers Wednesday on a $790 billion economic stimulus package could meet or beat the Boulder County commissioners’ hopes for funding local transportation issues.

In a letter sent Friday, Commissioners Will Toor, Ben Pearlman and Cindy Domenico pleaded with congressional leaders to maintain an earlier House amendment that proposed at least $12 billion in nationwide transit capital funding as part of the government’s massive economic stimulus plan.


No financial sense here. It’s about tradeoff’s and tought decisions, but with the stimulus plan coming down the pike, our government officials are fighting for a place in line. Sickening.

Inflation is coming.

Posted in Boulder is stoopid, stimulus | Leave a comment

Uneducated and unfit

Posted on February 13, 2009 by ChrisA

Joanne Jacobs reports on a Penn State accounting professor who states that todays students are “uneducated and unfit for a college education“.

Color me not suprised at all.

Commenting on math education, Professor Ketz states…

To begin, today’s average accounting major cannot perform what used to be Algebra I and II in high school. Students cannot solve simultaneous equations. Students have difficulty with present value computations, not to mention formula derivations. Students even have difficulty employing the high-low method to derive a cost function, something that merely requires one to estimate a straight line from two points.


Liberals, you can thank “new math” for this situation. Professors don’t want your student to solve the equation in a group setting, or by guessing, or even by “discovering” a new and insightful way to do it. They want their students to APPLY the math they have already learned. Unfortunately, many didn’t learn it.

Joanne comments…

Worst of all: Modern students aren’t willing to work.

But they’ve got great self-esteem.

Unfortunately, as Joanne discusses in another post, the stimulus funding in education is most likely to go to “more of the same“. Troubling indeed.

Posted in Education, math | Leave a comment

Housing sales up signifcantly in high foreclosere states

Posted on February 13, 2009 by ChrisA

Good news on the foreclosre resale front…

Year over year sales…

Nevada + 134%
California +85%
Florida + 12.5%
Arizona +43%

The market appears to be functioning as a clearing mechanism in these foreclosure heavy states.

The world is NOT coming to an end.

Posted in economy, stimulus | Leave a comment

Hey, retail sales are up!

Posted on February 12, 2009 by ChrisA

Who would have guessed? Even with the caveat below, it sure doesn’t sound like the world is coming to an end?

U.S. retail sales jumped 1 percent in January, reversing a six-month declining trend and defying economists’ expectations by posting the biggest increase in 14 months.

But higher gasoline prices and sales, and buyers snapping up other items on post-holiday discounts appeared to aid last month’s results. Analysts cautioned that the relief is unlikely to last.

Note, these are month over month sales. As the article states, retail sales are down 9.7% on a year over year basis. Still, this data point may be the start of stabilization of the retail marketplace.

Posted in financial crisis, stimulus | Leave a comment

Web sites for Boulderites

Posted on February 12, 2009 by ChrisA

Get your Prius
Boulder Carbon Tax Tracker
Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse
Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center
Prairie Dog Coalition
Only Love can Defeat Terrorism

Blantently stolen from a post by “nobama” in the letters to the editor comments section of the Daily Camera.

Posted in Boulder is stoopid | Leave a comment

Financial Crisis: Blame the Jews?

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

I find this mind boggling….

WHILE PEOPLE GO TO ALABAMA TO LOOK FOR RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE: “A poll commissioned by the ADL shows that 33% of Europeans blame the Jews for the financial meltdown. A mind-boggling 74% Spaniards think so.” Pathetic. No wonder they caved so easily to al Qaeda.

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Now that’s the way to do it!

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Get laid off, start your own company!

Our “loser” who should read rule #5 needs to meet these guys for inspiration instead of looking for handouts from the government.

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

Pork: The American people don’t care…

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Chuck Schumer talking down to the “chattering class”.

If you do care, you could phone Schumer’s office at 202-224-6542 or fax him at 202-228-3027, or email him here.

Hat tip to Powerline and Instapundit.

Posted in pork, stimulus, stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Cost of college education

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

How many colleges are like Dartmouth when it comes to responsible spending?

Joe Asch provides a devastating account of the way that Dartmouth has wasted its money over the past ten years. During this period, Joe shows, administrative expenses have sky-rocketed. From 1998 until 2007, they rose by 130 percent, compared to a 27 increase in the cost of living. Then, in 2007 they rose by a whopping 40 percent (excluding the cost of defending the lawsuit by its alumni that Dartmouth foolishly provoked).


Inquiring minds want to know. I feel fairly confident in concluding that Dartmouth is not an isolated event.

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On the lighter side…

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Captured from the world webcam in the sidebar…

Whoops, sorry about capturing the hand cursor!

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

Lies

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

From Newmark’s Door…

As Mark Twain might have put it, there are three kinds of lies — lies, damned lies and global warming science.


His post makes interesting reading with section from a paper by an MIT professor…

Richard S. Lindzen, Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology at MIT, has recently written a paper, “Climate Science: Is it currently designed to answer questions?” that is discouraging. I think that truth in all the sciences eventually wins, but, boy, it sometimes takes a looooong time. Selected passages:


I find this statement particularly troubling, although I’m sure Erika Stutzman and Clay Evans, editors at the local paper see no issue with it at all…

I should add that simple disagreement with conclusions of the IPCC has become a common basis for rejecting papers for publication in professional journals–as long as disagreement suggests reduced alarm.


I think these guys know who butters they’re bread, and with the stimulus package there’s going to be buttered bread falling from heaven!

Posted in Boulder is stoopid, global warming | Leave a comment

“Amen”

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Michelle Maulkin concludes….

It’s sacrilegious to say it in the Age of Obama, but it needs to be said: Home ownership is not an entitlement. Credit is not a civil right. Your property-value preservation is not my problem. Can I get an “Amen!”?

Posted in bailout, stimulus | Leave a comment

Capitulation not “compromise”

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Writing on the passing of the stimulus package, Pat Toomey concludes…

Senator Specter cites John F. Kennedy, who said: “In politics, nobody gets everything, nobody gets nothing, and everybody gets something.” In this case, the Democrats get almost everything, and the American taxpayers get to look forward to generations of debt. We have three “moderate” Republicans to thank for that crowning achievement. Let’s remember who they are.


“They” are:

Olympia Snowe (Maine)

Arlen Specter (Pennsylvania)

Susan Collins (Maine)

What is it about Maine? I think there’s a shortage of ‘L’s!

Oh, and note this nugget…

The ink on the House bill was not yet dry when Senator Specter himself introduced an amendment to add $6 billion in spending for the National Institutes of Health. The bill is stuffed with pork projects and spending programs that don’t even pretend to be about economic growth.


I am totally against the magnitude of this stimulus. There is absolutely no way wise spending will come out of it, and if you drop money from the sky all you’ll get is a great big riot.

Is there a role for government in this rescue, there probably is, but it needs a totally new perspective. The Specter amendment, ONLY $6 Billion f*cking dollars, is a symptom of the disease that infects American politics. Until that disease is put in check, the problems will not be solved. Nothing from the new administration leads me to believe that politics as usual is going to change.

Posted in loser, stimulus, stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Rule #5

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Hey, hey, hey, see previous post!

Rule No. 5: Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grand-parentshad a different word of burger flipping. They called it opportunity. Theyweren’t embarrassed making minimum wage either. They would have beenembarrassed to sit around talking about Kurt Cobain all weekend.

Posted in loser, the weekend | Leave a comment

LOSER

Posted on February 11, 2009 by ChrisA

Where’s the “L” on this guys forehead?

Posted in loser, stimulus, the weekend | Leave a comment

Dodd’s approval rating down to 41%

Posted on February 10, 2009 by ChrisA

My only question is why is it still so high?

Posted in ethics, stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Geithner Talks, Wall Street responds….

Posted on February 10, 2009 by ChrisA

Posted in financial crisis, stimulus | Leave a comment

Presidential?

Posted on February 10, 2009 by ChrisA

Ann Althouse, who voted for President Obama, concludes her liveblogging of his 1st press conference as follows…

8:00: He ends exactly on the button. We hear a stomp as he steps off the podium, and his walk back into the White House is noticeably different from Bush’s. How can I describe the different feeling I get from that walk? You can object to this if you want. It’s just my feeling. I think Bush would walk away in a ritual fashion that said: I am the President and I have accomplished what the President must do. Obama’s walk said: I’m a man who has this job and now I’ve done it and I’m out of here.


How many other Obama converts are starting to wonder?

Posted in Obama, Obamanomics, stimulus | Leave a comment

Hidden in the stimulus package

Posted on February 10, 2009 by ChrisA

To much to spend, you just can’t make this stimulus stuff up.

Speaking of spending money unwisely, the stimulus bill adds another $850 million for Amtrak, the railroad that can’t turn a profit. There’s also $1.7 billion for “critical deferred maintenance needs” in the National Park System, and $55 million for the preservation of historic landmarks. Also, the U.S. Coast Guard needs $87 million for a polar icebreaking ship—maybe global warming isn’t working fast enough.

(bold is mine)
Thankfully the Senate Democrats don’t have enough votes for this pork laden, not to mention simply irresponsible bill.

Posted in stimulus, the weekend | Leave a comment

“Playing chicken” with automobiles?

Posted on February 10, 2009 by ChrisA

Smart, really smart. Amazingly, no one was seriously hurt.

“One person described him as playing chicken with the cars,” Huntley said. “He was running into cars as they were driving and wandering into the street.”

The man was taken to Boulder Community Hospital and given a traffic ticket for interfering with a vehicle in the road, Huntley said. The drivers are not facing any charges at this time, Huntley said, because it “appears he intentionally got in the way of oncoming traffic.”

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment