Old bags of the nanny state...

A ban on the use of traditional plastic bags by retail stores failed in City Council today under pressure from the business community and the plastics industry.

Councilman Frank DiCicco's bill was rejected by Council this morning in a 6-10 vote. Council President Anna C. Verna, whose husband was buried yesterday, was absent.

I've noted that a number of urban centers are playing around with this nonsense concerning plastic bags as of late. Philadelphia just gave it a shot in their City Council, and it was defeated.

Councilman Jim Kenney, a co-sponsor, blamed ShopRite for lobbying against the bill, and encouraged Philadelphians not to shop there. DiCicco accused the plastic bag industry for undermining the bill.

"I have never dealt with an industry that has been so manipulative," DiCicco said on the Council floor.

A city councilman is encouraging Philadelphians not to shop at ShopRite because they put up opposition to something that would hurt their business. The sponsor of the nonsensical bill claims the plastic industry is "manipulative." Uh...it would seem to me that the only manipulation applied here is by the jackass politicians on the local level who are trying to ramrod a bill through their municipality that would be a detriment to the plastics and retail food industries while making is more inconvenient to the customer based purely on junk science (which wasn't even part of the council's discussion). Who's manipulating...really?

Oh...by the way, I have the whole issue under control. Should my municipality ever decide to outlaw plastic bags at the grocery store, I'm going to buy them bulk on the internet and hand them out for free at the local grocer.

Define "American"

LAREDO, Tex. — When he was finally caught, Rosalio Reta told detectives here that he had felt a thrill each time he killed. It was like being Superman or James Bond, he said.

“I like what I do,” he told the police in a videotaped confession. “I don’t deny it.”

Mr. Reta was 13 when he was recruited by the Zetas, the infamous assassins of the Gulf Cartel, law enforcement officials say. He was one of a group of American teenagers from the impoverished streets of Laredo who was lured into the drug wars across the Rio Grande in Mexico with promises of high pay, fancy cars and sexy women.

After a short apprenticeship, the young men lived in an expensive house in Texas, available to kill whenever called on. The Gulf Cartel was engaged in a turf war with the Sinaloa Cartel over the Interstate 35 corridor, the north-south highway that connects Laredo to Dallas and beyond, and is, according to law enforcement officials, one of the most important arteries for drug smuggling in the Americas.

I noticed in this three page piece that none of the "American" assassins were named Joe Smith, or Billy Mumphry. They all have Latino names. This article seems to uphold the truth that immigration at our southern border is very damaging. I, also, noticed that no effort was made by the journalist to inform us of the history of these "Americans." For all we know, they came to the US as illegal aliens a short time ago.

Family members say Mr. Reta grew up with nine brothers and sisters, living in a tiny wood house, propped up on cinder blocks, in a yard devoid of grass. His father worked construction; his mother was a hairdresser. Before the age of 12, he was a well-mannered boy, respectful of his elders, who did tolerably well in school and spent most afternoons playing ball in a nearby park.

Nine brothers and sisters with very minimal income. Family members who knew what he was doing, but made no effort to report him...

Yeah...these are great "Americans." Put up the freakn' fence!!!!

Both sides wrong...

A federal judge dealt another setback on Monday to the Bloomberg administration’s two-year effort to convert the city’s yellow taxi fleet to gas-and-electric hybrids from the ubiquitous Ford Crown Victoria.

Judge Paul A. Crotty of Federal District Court in Manhattan said a plan to financially penalize taxi owners who refused to buy hybrid cars amounted to an effort by the city to mandate emissions standards — a right that, under existing laws, belongs solely to the federal government.

The same judge made much the same argument last October when he struck down an earlier plan to set a minimum miles-per-gallon rating for taxis.

1. Actually, the true way to describe the ruling would be to reinforce that the United States is a Republic in which each State applies their own laws. Nothing belongs to the federal government relative to requiring hybrid vehicles v. penalties. The fed has absolutely not jurisdiction what-so-ever in that regard.

2. I'd absolutely love to see Ford Motor Company file suit against the State of New York, and the United States of America under the RICO Act stating that the State and the Fed are conspiring in unfair business practices. Ford's balance sheet is so dismal and pathetic, they would not lose business in the process. My thoughts are that they would actually gain patrons by showing a little innovation and backbone.

3. As a form of solidarity, I refuse to ride in a hybrid anything.

Pope-n-tate

Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday that countries must continue receiving refugees despite the difficulties they create while also addressing the causes that drive so many people from their homes.

Hear that, everyone? The Vatican (a country within itself) is accepting refugees.

Wait...what? They aren't?

OK...carry on. It's just an naive old man wearing a funny hat spouting fairytales of the standard hypocrisy.

A lack of consistency...by union insistency...

SACRAMENTO — When a company called Ausra filed plans for a big solar power plant in California, it was deluged with demands from a union group that it study the effect on creatures like the short-nosed kangaroo rat and the ferruginous hawk.

By contrast, when a competitor, BrightSource Energy, filed plans for an even bigger solar plant that would affect the imperiled desert tortoise, the same union group, California Unions for Reliable Energy, raised no complaint. Instead, it urged regulators to approve the project as quickly as possible.

One big difference between the projects? Ausra had rejected demands that it use only union workers to build its solar farm, while BrightSource pledged to hire labor-friendly contractors.

Unions...

Incidentally, this is the same hypocrisy thrown towards Wal-Mart on a daily basis. Most folks just whine and complain about Wal-Mart because their political party does so...or their Liberal political candidate suggests it. The whole basis of the friction lives within the fact that Wal-Mart refuses to unionize. As a result, unions do all they can to tarnish Wal-Mart's image with the public hoping that the pressure will lead to unionization (and an instant $300 Million in new member fees).

The above example is no different. This "California Unions for Reliable Energy" is not interested in the short-nosed kangaroo rat and the ferruginous hawk. They are interested in the membership dues. End of story...

There...that's better...

Climate-Change Report: From Bad to Worse

In reality:

"From FAD To PERVERSE"

Timmmmay!!!!!!!

WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says it is clear that the government could have done more to prevent the economic downfall.

In prepared testimony, Geithner says that gaps and weaknesses in the regulatory framework governing banks and other financial institutions "presented challenges" to the government's ability to monitor and address risky market bets.

One problem, he says, is that no single regulator saw its job as protecting the economy and financial system as a whole.

The administration's plan, which Geithner outlined Thursday before the Senate Banking Committee, calls for the Federal Reserve to do that job supported by a new council of regulators.

Meanwhile...sane people are aware of the fact that tax cheat, Geithner...had and has no idea what he's doing. So inept was his application that the White House couldn't get anyone to work with him. The Bail Out Bonanza was the improper response to the problem. It was applied ineptly, and abused by Congress as they threw tax payer money at their own pet projects.

In short, Geithner says we should have done more. Individuals with an understanding of the market and capitalism know we should have done less. Then again, the current administration is not interested in a strong market or capitalism.

Poetic Justice...

Word of the deal spread swiftly among Ecuadorean immigrants, along a robust grapevine from New York City out to Long Island and into Westchester County. In Peekskill, N.Y., a gas station worker named Henry León heard about it through a friend of his wife’s: The pastors of a storefront Pentecostal church in Corona, Queens, had the inside track on a special allotment of green cards the government had earmarked for church congregations.

Mr. León and his wife made the two-hour trip by train and subway to Corona to meet with one of the two pastors, Gregorio Gonzalez. He told them that all they had to do was to fill out a form and provide $8,000 each in cash and some personal identification documents, Mr. León recalled. The green cards would be ready in a month.

It seemed too good to be true. And it was, according to prosecutors in the Queens district attorney’s office.

Mr. León and his wife are among at least 120 illegal immigrants in the New York region, most of them Ecuadoreans, who the authorities say were defrauded out of a total of nearly $1 million by Mr. Gonzalez, 56, and two accomplices who were arrested in March and April. The authorities say it was one of the region’s largest cases of immigration fraud in recent years.

Overlook the New York Times' attempt to show how debased and abused the illegal aliens are. Instead concentrate on the fact that the two illegal aliens in this story had access to $16,000 with no problem. They likely don't pay taxes on their income. And, billions upon billions of such wages (untaxed) are sent back to their originating countries without issue.

That's what pisses me off. I could care less if people in the country illegally fall for fraud schemes. In fact, I kind of hope they do. Poetic justice...

Wrong way...

STAMFORD, Conn. — Sixth graders at Cloonan Middle School here are assigned numbers based on their previous year’s standardized test scores — zeros indicate the highest performers, ones the middle, twos the lowest — that determine their academic classes for the next three years.

Ok...that makes sense. You want to group students of similar learning potential so that the curriculum can be adjusted for interest and aptitude. Otherwise, the most able students are going to get bored and slack. They will not be pushed to their potential.

But this longstanding system for tracking children by academic ability for more effective teaching evolved into an uncomfortable caste system in which students were largely segregated by race and socioeconomic background, both inside and outside classrooms. Black and Hispanic students, for example, make up 46 percent of this year’s sixth grade, but are 78 percent of the twos and 7 percent of the zeros.

So in an unusual experiment, Cloonan mixed up its sixth-grade science and social studies classes last month, combining zeros and ones with twos. These mixed-ability classes have reported fewer behavior problems and better grades for struggling students, but have also drawn complaints of boredom from some high-performing students who say they are not learning as much.

Good grief!!! You're kidding me. Guess what? There is a caste system in everything you do. Some students are smarter than others. Some employees are more valuable than others. Some atheletes are more talented than others. Some folks are better public speakers. Some people are more motivated. Some just care more.

So, instead of facing reality and teaching students on their selected comprehension levels, this school idiocy has decided to hold back those with the most potential so as not to hurt the feelings of those students who make up the bottom percentile. This is all predicated on ethnicity. FOOLS!!!!

I'm curious...everyone seems to be ignoring the two ton pink elephant in the room. Why is it that the "minorities" make up a larger percentage of lower level students in terms of standarized test scores? I'll bet that there are a significant number of half-wits out there who would call me a racist just for asking the question, and then try to float an answer that just wouldn't track.

Why are we always catering to those on the bottom? Why are we rewarding their poor behavior and performance? Probably the same reason we are bailing out those mortgage holders who didn't take the time to understand the legal contract. For some reason it's trendy to do this nonsense. The Liberal mentality is all about feeling good and massaging their self-imposed guilt. It makes no difference who they damage in the process. In this case, it is students who value education, and excel at it.

Good Grief...Tarzan was made up...

Western culture understands, or misunderstands, non-Western cultures. Is Tarzan a sexist and a racist who subjugates Jane and treats black men like children? Is he a macho colonialist in a leopard-skin loincloth, rather than a pith helmet? Or was he the first ecological super-hero: a man in recyclable, locally-sourced clothes who fought to protect his pristine jungle from greedy commercial interests?

According to the curator of the exhibition, the celebrated French sociologist and anthropologist Roger Boulay, it depends which Tarzan of the Apes you are talking about. "There is a big difference between the original Tarzan of the Burroughs novels and the culturally impoverished Tarzan of Hollywood movies, starting with silent movies," he told The Independent. "The Burroughs character is complex and eventually speaks 12 languages. The movie character is often a caricature who speaks only in grunts."

Sociologists are obtuse. Anthropologists even more so. When you mix and match, you can only hope the recipient of both degrees has velcro instead of laces.

Here's a clue Mr. Socioanthro-apologist...TARZAN IS A FREAKIN' CHARACTER IN A WORK OF FICTION!!!! He is made up. You won't find him anywhere. He's not a sexist...or a racist...or an ecological super-hero (huh?)...because he just is...not anything other than a figment of Edgar Rice Burroughs' imagination...a man who never step foot in Africa.

Now...on to more important matters. Is Harry Potter gay? Did Fat Albert have a thyroid problem...and was Bill Cosby being insensitive to fat people by calling the fat kid...Fat Albert? Does Dennis the Menace have ADD? Was Wil Robinson really a smart midget?