Kermit The Frog Hates Oil Companies? Next Muppet Movie Anti-Capitalist?
March 31, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Entertainment, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
News has leaked out from the folks at Muppet central (The Jim Henson Company) that the next Muppet feature film will sport a story line that attacks oil companies. According to CHUD.com, the story will center around all our favorite Muppets producing a show to raise money to save their old theater. They need the money, of course, because an “evil character” is trying to buy the building so that he might tear it down to “get at the oil underneath.”
Why is it we have to turn everything into an anti-capitalism, anti-oil hatefest?
Even more alarming is the fact that it seems that the writer/director team pegged to head the project will be Jason Segel and Nick Stoller, the team that recently gave us the very R rated “Forgetting Sarah Marshall.” One wonders if the Muppets will go from kid friendly to edgie and R rated? (I must admit that I would doubt the owners of the Muppet property would do that to their long standing kid friendly product, though.)
Ill. Law to ‘Protect’ Taxpayers Would Rip Them off Instead
March 31, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 2 Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
OK, let me get this straight. In order to “protect consumers,” the State of Illinois is considering a law that almost seems like a good idea at first hearing.
Currently, Illinois taxpayers can claim their unclaimed property, lost or abandoned property or overpaid property taxes for free. All an Illinois citizen need do is contact the state and the process can be started for free. And, currently the reclaimed overpaid property taxes alone amounts to some $20 million dollars per year not to mention the other items like re-claimed property, etc.
Sounds great, right?
Sure the “free” part sound great, but there is a catch. A citizen has to somehow find out that they are owed this windfall. And the state doesn’t lift a finger to alert any citizen that they have such a windfall coming their way.
So, to help unite the citizen with the overpaid taxes, there are businesses in the state that take the time to do the research and contact the Illinois citizens who are obviously unaware that they have property in their name or cash that is owed them. Then these companies help citizens reclaim the property and cash… all for a fee, of course.
Imagine this, evil business making money off citizens who can get the same thing done for free by the state! The gall of capitalism is revealed once again.
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Green collar jobs to the rescue?
March 31, 2008 | Filed Under Business, Democrats/Leftists, Global Warming, Government, Corruption, Media Bias, Michael Bates, News, Publius Contributor, Science, Society/Culture | No Comments
-By Michael M. Bates
It’s the latest. It’s the greatest. Green collar jobs are going to help turn around the economy if Democrats have their way.
Senator Barack Obama last month promised the government would spend $150 billion to create 5 million such jobs. At $30,000 a pop, that’s placing a great deal of faith in federal job training.
Even your typical white person has hopped on the green bandwagon. Also last month, Senator Hillary Clinton argued in a debate: “We can create at least five million new jobs. . . I helped to pass legislation to begin a training program for green collar jobs. I want to see people. . . trained to do the work that will put solar panels on roofs, install wind turbines, do geothermal, take advantage of biofuels.”
In all the excitement and all the campaign promises, it’s painless for them to overlook, if they ever knew, that federal job training programs have been less than a rousing triumph for many years.
Franklin Roosevelt initiated the Work Progress Administration to ease the mass unemployment of the Great Depression. My Mom lived through that era and said that WPA ended up standing for We Piddle Along to some Americans.
Another observer noted that the WPA gave a bad name to leaning on a shovel.
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You-Tuber Puts Me To Music!
March 30, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Islam, Islamofascism, Media Bias, News, Publius Contributor, Religion, Security/Safety, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | 1 Comment
-By Warner Todd Huston
Last week a You-Tube poster named Karen Smith contacted me and wanted to know if it was OK if she put one of my pieces to music and up on the venerable You-Tube. I said that I didn’t mind at all… and so she did.
The article she chose was called “Free Expression Quashed: YouTube Removes ‘Blasphemies’ Against Islam”, in which I took You-tube to task for allow radical Islamists in Pakistan to censor the video service itself. Not only did You-Tube bow to Islamofascist pressure to stop “insults to Islam” get into Pakistan, but You-Tube agreed to stop such so-called insults on every You-Tube service in the world!
Well, here is the result of Karen’s work and I have to say, I enjoyed it.
Thanks for the effort, Karen. I hope we don’t see You-Tube ban our Karen, though.
Mich. Speaker of House Employs State Paid Thugs to Stop Recall Effort
March 30, 2008 | Filed Under Crime, Democrats/Leftists, Economy/Finances, Government, Corruption, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, Taxes, Warner Todd Huston | 9 Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
Here is a story that details how far Democrats will go to destroy the people’s ability to be heard in government. It also shows Democrat’s penchant to abuse their power, their blatant waste of government funds, and the incestuous relationship that the anti-democratic process unions have with Democrats.
Up in Michigan, the thieves in the Democrat Party voted in a gigantic tax increase. Michigan has been mired in a one state recession for quite a while and Governor Jennifer Granholm’s only solution has been to raise taxes to pay for government “shortfalls” — and by “shortfall” you can read government waste. Well, after years of this localized recession in Michigan, the state legislature finally OKayed this massive tax increase meant to “save” the state from its financial ills.
Now, remember, this increase was supposed to make up for deficits in current commitments. Of course, as soon as the tax increase was passed, Governor Granholm and the state Democrats passed a new budget that raised spending by $760 million dollars. And the state GOP has reckoned that the Granholm tax increases has taken more than $602 million dollars from the pockets of Michigan families just since October of last year.
It is a typical Democrat Party mess of overspending, high, punitive taxes, lost business and a big hurt put on the average citizen.
So, what is the recourse that the people of Michigan have to address these wasteful politicians? The recall. Michigan has a recall law whereby citizens can gather 8,000 signatures to recall any politician under the Governor that they have decided no longer serves them. And a recall effort has been launched against Democrat Speaker of the Michigan House, Andy Dillon.
So, as these citizen activists who are sick of being bled to death by the uncaring masters in the state capitol of Lansing fanned out into Redford Township to ask the folks to sign their recall petition, they were met with harassment from state workers and union members imported for the purpose. The recall effort is all perfectly legal and serves as a fine example of the people acting in the democratic way to try and change the bad habits of their representatives in government, but the unions and the Democrats headed by Speaker Dillon are wholly against this expression of freedom and liberty.
What could be more democratic, more quintessentially American than a recall effort?
Apparently the Democratic Party and Speaker Andy Dillon are not so interested in the democratic process.
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Did French Soldiers Torture Congolese Citizens?
March 30, 2008 | Filed Under Democrats/Leftists, Foreign Policy, Media Bias, Military, News, Publius Contributor, Security/Safety, Society/Culture, War on Terror, Warner Todd Huston | No Comments
-By Warner Todd Huston
Swedish military officials are accusing the French army of torturing civilians in Congo during their participation in the EU-led Artemis mission to stop marauding bandit bands plaguing the north-eastern part of the country.
Operation Artemus, the first major EU-led military effort, was supposed to mark a new era in joint European military operations. The short lived mission was active only a few months ending on Sept. 1 of 2003.
Now the Swedish military is accusing the French of torturing those whom they were supposed to be protecting.
According to the Swedish television news magazine Uppdrag Granskning, Swedish soldiers observed their French compatriots as they tortured a Congolese man in civilian clothes for hours, allegedly beating and strangling him. According to the report, the episode didn’t end until the Swedish soldiers went to the French commander.
Now, we can certainly look to France to investigate this incident and, if found to be true, we should expect them to prosecute these soldiers. But, I want to caution Americans from pointing to this with triumphalism.
We have to wonder why it has taken from 2003 to 2007 to report this torture claim? Second and most importantly, we cannot point at the “French” and say that “they” torture. This sort of behavior is not a French military policy and was likely just the actions of single soldiers. Even if a local French commander either encouraged or simply looked the other way while these things were occurring (if they really did) we cannot claim that it was any sort of official policy to the point where we can say “the French torture.” Any more than we can say with factual confidence that the U.S. military had any sort of policies that would have sanctioned the foolishness in Abu Ghraib.