Joe Biden's Daughter & Cocaine

Reports are circulating about a video supposedly showing Vice President Joe Biden's daughter doing a line of coke. This IS and SHOULD BE a non issue. The people her age who do coke is vast. It's extremely stupid to do it, but then there are a lot of stupid people in this world. This is not a partisan issue. This happens to the kids of Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians, and Greens. This happens to the kids of prominent Christians, Jews, and Atheists. It is extremely tough being a parent and raising good kids. It's that much tougher when they do stupid stuff like this. To then have it garner widespread media attention doesn't help.

Joe Biden repulses me in many many ways. I disagree with him on virtually every position he takes (assuming it's possible to know what his real position is at any given time.) That he is a heartbeat away from being president gives me indigestion. Nevertheless, this issue with his daughter and cocaine needs to be dropped from national attention.

Obama's new tax on charitable contributions

The Obama administration is planning, for the first time ever, to reduce the tax deduction for charitable contributions. Today those contributions are fully deductible. I don't pay any tax on money that I give to charities. Under Obama's new plan I will have to pay anywhere from 7% to 16% on contributions to charity. That's a chunk of change and will negatively impact how much we give. We budget how much we give each year and will have to lower our contributions to cover the tax. In some cases we may choose to simply not give to several organizations that have been borderline for us in the past. I want to give them a $, not give them 80 cents and the government 20 cents.

One thing I question is why Obama is doing this? Why hurt charities in this way? Could it be that he really doesn't care about the impact to charities? That he'd prefer if the charities didn't get the money at all so the government will have an excuse to step in and do things it's way instead of the way charities do things? Um...

Electric Vehicles Update

Today we have Tesla (250th roadster delivered, building 20-30/week, $49k S Model Sedan coming in 2011) with Fisker, Miles, and EV Innovations on the near (or semi near?) horizon. We should also see the Smart ED (smarte or smarty?) 100% electric very soon and now Think have announced plans for bringing their City to the US and are looking at a US based factory to follow soon thereafter. Rumors from VW and BMW continue to swirl. Toyota's all electric IQ is rumored for 2011 and an all electric 'Celica' for 2012. Rumors are also eminating from Mitsubishi and Subaru.

Mike Huckabee: Truthfulness and Accuracy?

Tonight on his Foxnews show Mike Huckabee told a wonderful story about Sir Winston Churchill and Sir Alexander Fleming (discoverer of Penicillin). And that's just what it is, a story. But Huckabee told it as if it were as true as the sun coming up in the morning.

Now this isn't that major of a deal. I don't think this story had any bearing on anything, just a fun story. At most is just indicates that Huckabee is rather sloppy in his pursuit of truthfulness and accuracy.

Several weeks ago he devoted a fair amount of his program to a discussion of 'a church in Ocean Grove, NJ that had been ordered by a NJ Court to allow a gay couple to use it's pavilion to marry.' This was, best case, a huge stretch of the truth and a big load of hyperbole. Most reasonable people would deem it simply misleading and lying. The pavilion in question was actually a public facility, not privately owned and maintained by the church. This was NOT a case of government interference with a private church as Huckabee led his audience to believe.

Huckabee claims to be a Christian. As Christians it is absolutely critical that we strive to be completely truthful and accurate in everything that we say - especially when we're saying it to an audience the size of Huckabee's. It's one thing when we spout off without thinking to a few friends, something I've been guilty of far too often, it's another when we do it in a planned way to mislead people as Huckabee did.

Need to get in touch with your inner dude?

Too many frustrations from cell phone drivers? Next time you're near Kassel, Germany stop in at Männerspielplatz, a 'playground for men'. And we're not talking naked women here. This place is full of horsepower from ATV's to D12 Bulldozers. They even have a tank. Thanks to Chuck Shepherd for the tip on this one.

Frustrated with people driving on cell phones?

Are Union Members Just Dumb Idiots?

What’s wrong with allowing employees to choose with secret ballots if they want to unionize or not?

According to a number of folks fighting for Card-Check legislation (otherwise known by the misnomer of the Employee Free Choice Act or EFCA) it’s not the secret ballot that’s the biggest problem, but that when an employer calls for a secret ballot they also get a chance to tell employees their side of things. Supporters of Card-Check don’t want their union members to hear the employers side. And we thought this kind of thing only happened in Cuba or Venezuela.

So union bosses and their supporters are saying one of two things;

- Union members are not intelligent enough to make decisions for themselves and to decide if they are better off with or without a union representing them. Or,

- Union members are intelligent and if they hear both sides they will vote against unions.

This doesn’t make sense no matter how you look at it. Are union members too dumb to decide for themselves? Union bosses and legislators must think so because they're treating them like immature little children. The average 15-year-old has the intelligence to make a decision like this, are union members dumber than average 15-year-olds?

Some, maybe so. Any union member who supports this legislation, who is supporting union bosses taking away his own free choice to vote, truly is an idiot. Why would anyone do that?

If you believe that union members are immature little children who can’t decide for themselves what is best for their own employment – by all means vote for the EFCA. But if you do, have the maturity yourself to openly state that you are doing so because you do not believe union members have the intelligence to decide for themselves.

Elsewhere: We Need Unions (and $50 billion to bail them out)

Abstinence Ignorance in North Carolina

In this article on Foxnews about states moving away from abstinence-only sex education to more comprehensive education John Rustin, director of government relations for the North Carolina Family Policy Council, had this to say:

But Rustin said teaching contraception and disease prevention is similar to teaching kids how to be safe when they engage in other risky behaviors like smoking, drinking and taking drugs.

"North Carolina public schools have a no-tolerance policy when it comes to tobacco, alcohol and drug use. Our question is, why in the world would we take a different position when it comes to sex?"

The first question I would have for Rustin is how many problems do they have with alcohol among teens in North Carolina vs teens in Italy where parents DO teach their children responsible behavior with regard to alcohol?

My second question is how he expects to achieve zero tolerance with regard to sex? Will he require that every girl over 12 wear a chastity belt locked on by the school district? Will the North Carolina Family Policy Council lock chastity belts on every guy over 14?

I’m a proponent of waiting on sex until marriage, but I’m also a realist that knows that some folks do not believe this and that even of those who do many do not poses the self-discipline to make it until marriage.

Obesity, drugs, and self-control

Companies such as Entero-Medics and Leptos Biomedical are striving to develop devices that will curb people's appetites so they'll eat less. Eat less, fewer calories, and your weight goes down. It's really rather simple. What ever happened to basic self-control? With products like these all we're doing is reinforcing a belief that we don't need self-control. This is a dangerous thing to teach. We do need self-control and controlling our gastronomical system is a great way to develop self-control that will then benefit us in other areas. And we wonder why we're so quickly falling behind other countries.

Next question: How long will it be before, thanks to a government program, we're paying for these devices for those poor obese souls who lack the self control to eat normally?

Government Intrusion

You own a commercial building. The city 'suggests' that you add some off-street parking. You purchase an abandoned house next door in a area that is appropriately zoned for razing the house and using the land for the off-street parking. Oops, the city decides, after your purchase, that the house is of historic significance so you can't raze it. It's crumbling and falling apart and will cost you far more to repair than it will ever be worth. You can't sell it because nobody wants it. City: "Tough."

More here.

I have a thing for historic architecture. I wish we had a lot more of it. I wish we hadn't destroyed the thousands of historic buildings we did in the 60's and 70's (and many of the buildings that replaced them have now be destroyed as ugly and poorly designed and built mistakes). BUT, this burden cannot be put on individuals. If we want to preserve a building then we (or those who want to preserve it) need to purchase it for a fair price.

The biggest unreported event at CPAC

The line, often 3 people wide, snaked down the hallway, around a corner, dodged a glass table, and mooned the hotel lobby. Groups here and there made up of the 8,000 attendees of CPAC saw some of their cohorts in this thing and wondered what they were missing. By the time they found out, it was too late. There were already over 700 people in line for an event that expected 200 and was only able to fit the first 500 in the room. According to many at the end of the line or who never even got in line, they turned away more than had originally even been expected.

CPAC had the opportunity to host this as an official event. They turned it down. Too controversial I suppose. It ended up in a far off side room a ways from the main event. Not announced or advertised. Not Rush Limbaugh. Not Glenn Beck or Shaun Hannity. But a Dutch politician with a dangerous weapon - a mirror. Geert Wilders holds the mirror up and people don't like what they see. But then, he's the offender holding it up.

More at Atlas Shrugs.

Update: Thus far Fox News has not mentioned one peep about Geert Wilders visit to the US last week. On the other hand, during the month of February they featured 5 articles about his difficulties entering the UK.

The Problem with Electric Boats

As I've noted in several posts on this blog, the day of the all electric recreational boat is coming. It's actually a more technically and economically feasible deal than electric cars. The drawback? As electric boats become readily available we'll start to see pressure for lakes and sections of rivers to be classified as electric only. No gas engines allowed. No more air and noise pollution. And this won't wait until all or even most of the current users of the waterway have electric boats, it will happen very early in the electric boat epoch. Those who own gas powered boats will start to find fewer and fewer places to use them and with fewer places to use them comes huge devaluation of gas powered boats making it difficult for these folks to afford to purchase a new electric boat (or get their gas guzzler converted?)

How much you want to bet we'll see a government program to help people cover the difference in their devalued gas boat and a new electric boat? It can be modeled on the similar government program to help people who had devalued horses purchase new gas powered cars. (Is this the government program that was a model for the government program that gave everyone $40 to help buy a new digital TV tuner?)

Brits confuse me.

They bar Dutch MP Geert Wilders from entering the country because he's too controversial and now, just a few days later, they say this is OK. Confused? I am.