| Stack of Stuff Quick Hits Page |
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June 8, 2009 |
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 Story #1: Judge Sotomayor Fractures Her Wise Latina Ankle
RUSH: By the way, Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor has broken her ankle. She fractured her ankle in the airport. She stumbled in the airport on her way to Senate meetings. Now, the question is, would a white male judge have fractured his ankle in the same circumstances at the same airport on the way to Senate meetings? (snip) Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor fractured her ankle in an airport on the way to Senate meetings. Given Sotomayor's preference for Latinas in every walk of life, I hope she can find "a wise Latina" doctor to set that ankle as opposed to an average white doctor because the wise Latina doctor is much richer experience with broken ankles, and would probably do a much better job of setting that ankle than an average white doctor who has not lived the rich experiences of a Latina med student and resident.
Story #2: Scientists: Think Twice About "Green" Transport
RUSH: "You worry a lot about the environment and do everything you can to reduce your carbon footprint -- the emissions of greenhouse gases that drive dangerous climate change." This, by the way, is the French News Agency, of course, the emissions of greenhouse gas that drives dangerous climate change is a hoax. It's factually incorrect. It's an error, but nevertheless the French News Agency includes it as though it is fact. You're one of these people, you worry about your carbon footprint, so "you always prefer to take the train or the bus rather than a plane, and avoid using a car whenever you can, faithful to the belief that this inflicts less harm to the planet.
"Well, there could be a nasty surprise in store for you, for taking public transport may not be as green as you automatically think, says a new US study. Its authors point out an array of factors that are often unknown to the public. These are hidden or displaced emissions that ramp up the simple 'tailpipe' tally, which is based on how much carbon is spewed out by the fossil fuels used to make a trip. Environmental engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath at the University of California at Davis say that when these costs are included, a more complex and challenging picture emerges. In some circumstances, for instance, it could be more eco-friendly to drive into a city -- even in an SUV, the bete noire of green groups -- rather than take a suburban train." Rather than take light rail, it probably is less carbon damaging to drive your SUV into town.
"It depends on seat occupancy and the underlying carbon cost of the mode of transport. 'We are encouraging people to look at not the average ranking of modes, because there is a different basket of configurations that determine the outcome,' Chester said in a phone interview. 'There's no overall solution that's the same all the time.'" Well, you know, we've got a light rail system down here, and it seems like I run into it every time I need to get to the airport because the train tracks get close and I see this little two- and three-car light rail trains go by, nobody is ever on them. I don't know what the ridership actually is, I'm either at the beginning or the end of the line I guess, but I never see anybody on them. So what's the carbon footprint of an empty train or a train not filled to occupancy? Now, these guys are exactly right. There are so many hoaxes out there. These green jobs Obama talks about, green technology, green this, green that. Your SUV is probably less damaging than public transportation.
Story #3: US Prius Sales Stall, but They're Huge in Japan
RUSH: By the way, have you seen sales of hybrids are down across the board in this country like 40 some odd percent? The sales of hybrids down big time.
Story #4: Obama-Style Socialists Rejected in EU Elections
RUSH: The Dutch politician Geert Wilders, member of the freedom party, his party won 17% of the vote in Friday's European Union parliamentary elections in the Netherlands. This was part of the right-wing sweep, part of the conservative sweep all across the European Union in elections that have taken place there the last seven-to-ten days. Geert Wilders was prohibited entry into the United Kingdom because of statements he's made about Islam and they didn't want to deal with any hassles that might come from his presence. Geert Wilders has compared the Koran, the Holy Koran, to Mein Kampf. He campaigned on an anti-European Union and anti-immigrant platform in the Netherlands, anti-socialism, anti-immigrant platform.
"His party won 17% of the vote, which was huge. There's so many parties running, he got 17% of the vote. Now, you might think that people would take notice. This party is only three years old. "Wilders founded the Freedom Party in 2006 and its electoral curiosity is that the party does not have members," and yet it got 17% of the vote. No members, 17% of the vote. Wilders is very pro-Israel. The Labor Party has a left wing which can be defined as anti-Israel. "Wilders has been banned from entering the United Kingdom since February 12 because of his sharp criticisms of Islam. He has delivered talks in the United States and Israel on the rising influence and danger of political Islam in Europe. ...
"The Freedom Party scored a first place victory in the country's second largest city, Rotterdam (22.5%), and in the third largest, The Hague. ... Wilders, following his election triumph, called for early national elections. The EU vote showed that 'the people have a yearning for a different Holland,' he said." The Netherlands, and of course they've had their own problems. Obviously there's a different treatment here. That story, the Jerusalem Post version. The UK Independent portrays the victory by Wilders' party in the Netherlands this way: "Wilders Strikes First Blow for European Extremists." So, you see, if you vote to overthrow socialism, if you vote to preserve your country's borders, the left-wing media will refer to you as extreme and extremist.
Story #5: Saudis Want Obama to "Impose" Mid-East Solution
RUSH: Did you hear about this? We finally have details of the meeting between Barack Obama and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. In that meeting, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia "urged U.S. President Barack Obama to impose a solution on the festering Arab-Israeli conflict if necessary, a Saudi newspaper said on Sunday. Saudi Arabia and other Arab states want Obama to get tough with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has balked at Palestinian statehood and defied U.S. calls to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements." According to the paper, King Abdullah said to Obama, "We want from you a serious participation to solve the Palestinian issue and impose the solution if necessary." The paper is owned by a nephew of King Abdullah. So we're figuring here that these are King Abdullahs leaks to the paper.
Now, somebody needs to tell King Abdullah that Barack Obama doesn't impose his values on people. Barack Obama delivered a big speech after meeting with the king about how the United States doesn't impose its values. Freedom and democracy, he said, those are kind of universal, we don't have to impose those. Yeah, Obama doesn't impose his values on people. Just ask the unemployed. Barack Obama is the one authoritarian with a god complex. He is imposing his values on the US economy, and his values are destroying it. But the other thing to note about this, Obama makes that speech at the University of Cairo, and look at the expectations it raised in the Muslim world. We know what Israel's enemies hope. We know what Israel's enemies expect out of Obama. And Obama is expected to deliver. Obama bowed to the king, and the king had a directive for his subject: Impose a Mideast solution. I don't know if there were any threats to withhold oil shipments or any of that, I have no idea how it went down.
Story #6: Producers Flee, as US Cities Devolve into Anarchy
RUSH: Here is a story from the Baltimore Sun by Peter Hermann. The headline: "Crime Drives Venture Capital Firm From the City -- Executives of a venture capital company that has been a mainstay in Baltimore's Mid-Town neighborhood for a quarter-century told the mayor they are moving to the suburbs because their employees no longer feel safe in the city, an economic blow that demonstrates the far-reaching impact crime can have on a neighborhood. The announcement from Louis Citron, the general counsel of New Enterprise Associates on St. Paul Street, which has offices in Chevy Chase, California, China and India, came in the form of an e-mail Thursday night to Mayor Sheila Dixon and three members of the City Council. 'At this point, our decision is set and cannot be reversed,' Citron wrote.
"In an interview, the attorney said executives signed a long-term lease in Timonium and expect to move their 35 employees in mid-December. He estimated the move would cost the city $200,000 a year in revenue from parking fees, lunches, outings to the Maryland Club and cleaning services. 'We had people held up at gunpoint,' Citron said. 'A number of us have had our cars broken into, and it's very expensive to get them repaired.' In the e-mail, he noted that the 'recent local beatings by roving teenagers during the day in this neighborhood, the raucous club in the basement of the Belvedere and other gang violence throughout the city' were factors in the company's decision," to move to the suburbs.
I think it would be safe to say that many American cities are evolving into big piles of anarchy and crap. I read a story like this, I wonder if people really realize what Rudy Giuliani did for New York City, what did he actually did for New York City. He literally saved that city from the crime problem that it had. It was nothing short of an heroic accomplishment, rarely equaled in any other city. And it worked out for everybody. Equally. These cities that are falling apart have been given over almost totally to liberal, socialist elected leaders. These cities' populations are more and more on some form or multiple forms of welfare. Law enforcement leadership is tough. I know it's tough to say those kind of things out loud, but it is the truth and there's a migration from the cities to the suburbs precisely because it's unsafe, makes no sense to do business in more and more of these cities.
I talked about this a couple weeks ago. This is what happens. This is how cities and states become a hundred percent Democrat. They leave. The responsible people who are producing, who are paying the taxes, finally say to hell with it, they leave. They either leave the city or they leave the state. The people who are left are the welfare class, the underclass, who can't leave, who are saddled with it, and voila, you get a huge blue state or you get a huge blue city. It's exactly how it happens. Now, the mayor of Baltimore we should point out, Sheila Dixon, is a Democrat. You have to look long and hard to find details like that in stories such as this. When there's a story of political corruption, you know that the perp is a Democrat if you can't find any reference to which party the perp is a member of. Because they always start the story, "Republican mayor," blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. In this case, "The mayor of Baltimore, Sheila Dixon…" you can read and read and read and you won't find that she's a Democrat, in most cases. In this story you'll find it but you have to look pretty hard.
She was accused, this mayor, of taking Christmas gifts for needy children that were donated and cashing them in for herself. And what was her explanation, Mr. Snerdley? She got away with it. Oh, that's right. We're waiting for the results of the trial on that one. She'll walk. She'll skate. Who's left to be on the jury? It doesn't matter that the people on the jury's kids were the ones that had the toys stolen from. Wait 'til the defense mounts its case and so forth and so on. Either that or you buy a juror. Doesn't matter.
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 Story #7: It's Supposed to be a Great Day to Have an iPhone
RUSH: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I did forget about that. H.R. sent me a little e-mail here during the break. "You said this a good day if you have an iPhone. What's good about it?" I still don't know. I thought we'd know long before now. The annual Apple worldwide developer conference is taking place in San Francisco. They've already announced some new laptop computers, speeded-up version of the Mac Book Pro which is the 15 and 17 inch versions and they've announced a release date for the next operating system update Snow Leopard 10.6. It's in September but what everybody's waiting for and I haven't seen reported on anywhere yet, is all kinds of rumors about the four new iPhones starting at 99 bucks up to I think 199 bucks, 32 gigabyte storage, a faster processor and increased RAM. Plus what I'm really interested in is the new software, 3.0. And I want to know if they're going to release that today, tomorrow, or later in the month when the new phones come in.
So I haven't found out yet what the real truth is on the upgrade to the phones. I only know what the rumors are. I do know that the software, 3.0 version, is cool. This is a significant software upgrade for the iPhone. Cut-and-paste is going to be in it. You know how when you go to your photos or your web browser you can rotate the phone for a landscape view? That's now going to happen in every application, including e-mail, which is going to widen the keyboard so it'll be easier to use your two thumbs on it. That's been ready. I just don't know when they're gonna release that, you know, via the software update to the iPhone when you connect it to your iTunes to sync it. I'm hoping today. (interruption) Well, I don't know. Snow Leopard is a minor update. We now have Leopard. This is a minor upgrade, Leopard to Snow Leopard.
That's going to cost 29 bucks, the upgrade is, for existing Leopard users. It's going to speed up printing, for one thing right. Now they use the html engine. If I know what I'm talking about here, the printing process and all the apps goes through what's called the web kit, which is an html engine. They're going to change the route that print jobs take to the printer, which is going to make 'em faster. But there are some really other cool things. I can't remember now. I've read they've got their developers testing beta versions of it. I just don't remember -- they said originally it was not going to have major feature improvements or enhancements. I think it will, in a number of instances. But that's not 'til September. I'm really curious about this iPhone software 3.0 and to a lesser extent the phones the new phones will be out, I know for sure, later this month.
I just want to know when the software is going to be release and had they're saving it for last, obviously, because that's what everybody is really interested in. So I've been checking my RSS reader for all my Mac blogs and there's been three or four updates. I haven't bothered to go on the online live blogging where you can keep track of the keynote address and the presentation of it because I am working. I am performing my own program here, executing it flawlessly serving humanity so I haven't had time to devote to that. I'm just waiting for the upgrade -- and of course my IT specialist is on the case waiting for the first bit of information to flash me (hint, hint) the moment he hears anything about the items of the greatest curiosity to me. (hint, hint.)
Here's an update: iPhone 3.0, the operating system 3.0 available on June 17th. And the final test version is being sent to developers today. So we gotta wait nine days. No biggie. I figure nine days I'll probably be down to 223 or 224. Yeah, 'cause I'm 228 now, 62 big pounds. So I was hoping for tonight. I knew it wasn't going to be tonight so I was hoping for tomorrow, but I didn't think it would be tomorrow. Now it's June the 17th for iPhone software 3.0.
Story #8: New Research on Marriage and Working Long Hours
RUSH: We have new research from the UK Telegraph on marriage and working hours. They have concluded here -- who did the research? -- Melbourne Institute. I guess that's in Australia, but this is a UK Telegraph story. "Working long hours play a positive role in prolonging marriages, an Australian study has found. The research has found that men are less likely to divorce their partner if they work for between 40 to 50 hours a week," because if they work 40 to 50 hours a week there's a lot less time to screw around. Now, if they work longer than 50 hours a week, then you've got a problem with the marriage. If they work less than 40 hours a week there's more time to screw around, and, of course, I'm sure some of you wives are wondering how great your marriage might be if your husband worked, period. But anyway, we always chronicle marriage on this program.
We're so devoted to it as an institution, find out what makes it work and apparently the husband working long hours helps marriages thrive. (interruption) Well didn't read the whole thing. If anything, the probability of divorce falls with the number of hours worked by the husband. I just printed the first page. I didn't see anything on the first page about the hours that women work. So I don't know if they studied that. That is a relevant point, Dawn, you do have a point if you're talking about time to screw around. I guess that would be interesting to study as well, but I think this is just devoted to men.
Story #9: California Looks to Flat Tax, Whacking Welfare
RUSH: Two interesting stories out of California. Governor Schwarzenegger said on June the 5th, three days ago, "that he would like to see "radical" proposals such as a flat income tax from a commission studying an overhaul of California's tax system. The governor told the editorial board of the Sacramento Bee that he hoped the commission would not be afraid to propose something like 'a 15% straight tax.'" He means flat tax, fifteen percent. He said straight tax, so maybe homosexuals don't have to pay any taxes -- well, it's California. You never know. Maybe gays will be exempted from the tax since it's a 15% straight tax. (snip)
Schwarzenegger was serious, now, suggesting a flat tax. But of course opponents dislike it because it taxes the wealthy at the same rates as the poor. We really need to be on the watch when the libs talk about a flat tax because what they really mean is a flat tax that completely exempts middle class, low-income people, who aren't paying federal income taxes now, but state taxes they are. And then this. Unbelievable. You talk about a pilot program. We had a corporate guy call earlier saying this national health care is a disaster, everybody knows in the corporate world you test something in a pilot program, see if it works.
Oh, man, I hope they do this. This just can't be, though. This is also from the Sacramento Bee bureau last June 4th. California lawmakers who have this debilitating $24.3 billion budget deficit, are actually contemplating the ultimate welfare reform of canceling it. "County welfare directors are "in shock" at the very idea of getting rid of CalWORKs, which has been widely viewed as one of the most successful social programs in the state's history." How can anything in the state be called a success when there is a world record budget deficit that might lead to insolvency.
Wagstaff said, the guy that runs CalWORKs, "It's difficult to come up with the right adjective to react to this. It would be devastating to the people we serve." Now, that's a pilot program I love. Just whack it, just whack welfare and see what happens. You see, even in California, the strangest, oddest place, when utter disaster hits, look at what ends up being supported: a pair of budget deficits and bloated government, flat tax, and eliminating welfare. That's where the spending is and the exorbitant tax rates don't produce enough revenue to cover it all, plus the other spending.
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