Opening Thoughts for July 20

It's Monday, July 20, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the day that men first walked on the moon, and six months to the day since America began experiencing the Obama Hopey-Changey Transformation.

Perhaps our best days are behind us, but let's hope not.

A few observations about some things in the news:

First, you have to understand why the Obama Administration, led by the president himself, is pushing so hard to have ObamaCare passed by the end of next week, when Congress goes on its August recess. They have no choice. Once the American people realize the particulars of this plan, the pressure will be turned up on members of Congress to vote against it, and that will doom it. Also, the various groups that have reluctantly "endorsed" ObamaCare, most of them bought off with promises of how they will get some new favored treatment, will realize that the White House has no intention of keeping all of its promises. It can't, because they contradict one another.

The latest example of this is the AMA, whose membership a month or so back opposed ObamaCare, but then reversed its stance when it was promised that the government would terminate its work with MedPAC, an independent group that labors to lower Medicare reimbursement. However, on Sunday the HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told "Meet the Press" that the president hopes to work even more with MedPAC, which will no doubt severely disappoint the physicians who are sick to death of the government's inability to pay Medicare bills at a reasonable price.

The White House has hinted that none of its agreements with the various health groups are binding, once ObamaCare becomes the 800-pound gorilla in the health care field. With Washington, D.C. becoming littered with the debris of broken Obama promises, why would anyone in their right mind trust these guys?

Second, it would be uproariously funny if not such a sick sign of the times in terms of federal spending. The Drudge Report today focuses on various postings at "Recovery.gov" which show exhorbitant sums of money being spent for things like "ham, cheese, and a broken government dumbwaiter." It got Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack so knotted up that he issued a statement defending his ham purchases, only to reveal that he spent $1.50 per pound for meat that you could buy at a Food Lion store for 79 cents.

And government is going to cut health care costs by getting in on the action?

Since when has government ever been efficient at doing anything (except maybe nuking Hiroshima and Nagasaki)?

A Tale of Two Dry Lakes

Researchers at the University of Colorado are excited because they've found conclusive evidence of an ancient lake on Mars. Unfortunately, the water is gone. I guess that means no fishing.

"This is the first unambiguous evidence of shorelines on the surface of Mars," said Di Achille. "The identification of the shorelines and accompanying geological evidence allows us to calculate the size and volume of the lake, which appears to have formed about 3.4 billion years ago."

Pardon me for saying so, but isn't this really, really old news?

Much closer to the good folks in Boulder is another nearly dry ancient lake fortuitously called Optima -- where there still might be some fishing, on occasion. Certainly you can find pheasant.

Optima Lake is located in the verdant Oklahoma panhandle and has never achieved more than 5 percent of its anticipated aqueous capacity since its construction in the mid-'60s. It just wasn't "optimal," I guess.

Sen. Tom Coburn lists Optima Lake as No. 7 on his Top Ten wastes of Stimulus project monies, as the federal government is devoting $1 million for new guard-rails to keep motorists from driving off into Optima's treacherous, albeit non-existent, waters. Details HERE.

Isn't it beautiful? Except for those unsightly and dangerous old guard rails?

A note for non-Oklahomans: The rest of the state is very beautiful with lots of real lakes. And fishing.

Squeezing Out the Little Guy in Stimulus Spending

Socialists like to do things big. They tend to go for big projects that make a splash. They also prefer to deal with big companies.

Apparently the stimulus projects are no exception. From the Billings Gazette of Montana:

KALISPELL - Across the nation, local firms can expect to lose billions of economic stimulus dollars to large multinational corporations, thanks to a government contracting scheme that puts paperwork speed ahead of community recovery.

In Montana, that means qualified building firms are out of the loop, while many millions in federal construction funding will go to a California company that recently earned a stern rebuke for its failures in Iraq - a war-profits scandal that cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.

"It's a farce," said Dewey Swank of Kalispell's Swank Enterprises. "It stinks of politics and big special interests."

Over the past several years, Swank has teamed with Montana-based CTA Architects to successfully design and build four federal border stations. Several more ports now are being built along the Montana-Canada line, thanks to the massive stimulus bill, but this time Swank and CTA didn't have a chance to bid.

That's because California-based Parsons Corp., of Pasadena, has mastered the expedited IDIQ contracting bid process.

Parsons, with 12,000 employees worldwide and revenues pushing $3.5 billion last year, is no stranger to IDIQ contracting, or to the controversy that comes with it.

The company entered Iraq in 2003, with just eight government contracts for reconstruction. But those few vague umbrella agreements eventually came to cover about 1,000 projects in 500 locations. Oversight was spread as thin as the contracts and, when projects stalled, taxpayer money hemorrhaged.

Question: Wasn't the Left howling angry at the Bush administration's contract awards process which went to firms like Halliburton (primarily because they were the only company qualified that was large enough to do the work) and Blackstone?

But here they are, doing the same type of contracts, and we suspect for largely the same reasons. They are in a hurry, and there are more than likely lobbyists aplenty for this mega-firms in Washington to make sure they are first in line at the trough.

Swank, for one, wonders why someone with Parsons' recent history is still winning government contracts, and then he answers his own question: "Someone's palm is getting greased."

In fact, Parsons ranked third among the nation's construction-services firms in terms of federal campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle, donating about $600,000 split almost evenly between Republicans and Democrats. The company also spent more than $1.5 million lobbying federal lawmakers between 2004 and 2008, with $305,000 shelled out during the 2008 presidential election year.

"That," Swank said, "tells me a lot about how things get done."

Jobs at Swank Enterprises have been trimmed by a third, victims of an economic recession fueled by firms deemed "too big to fail."

This is not going to stimulate the economy because these are not jobs that create permanent positions, if any. By consolidating projects into a vary narrow range of companies, it merely means that the big cats get fed, and the smaller companies on the food chain will continue to starve. It is corp-ocracy at its finest.

By concentrating on big contracts, the government is ensuring that small business -- the backbone of America's economy -- are left with the scraps from the table. It means that private projects are squeezed out as credit remains tight. The government is the player at the table with all the chips.

Have I mixed in enough metaphors? Whether it's being done by Republicans or Democrats, big government spending through socialist policies does not make for a healthy economy, even when the projects represent needed infrastructure.

Your Wasted Tax Dollars at Work

From Fox News:

Government researchers are spending more than $400,000 in taxpayer money to hit the bars in Argentina.

The National Institutes of Health are paying researchers to cruise six bars in Buenos Aires to find out why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk -- and just what can be done about it.

Doctors and specialists from the New York Psychiatric Institute are using the generous grant from NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to help tailor HIV prevention programs to work at bars and clubs.

Though public health officials say that HIV/AIDS rates are higher in Washington, D.C., than in some parts of West Africa, U.S. government funds are going to help curb dangerous liaisons in Argentina's capital.

I can save the government a whole lot of money.

The answer to the question, "why gay men engage in risky sexual behavior while drunk" is the same as why straight men do:

They're drunk, stupid!

The second question is incorrectly phrased, which is typical of the federal government. It should be "What should be done about it?"

The answer? While many things could be done, nothing should be done. Make sure anyone old enough to go to a bar understands that if they drink they will lose control of their inhibitions and probably do very stupid, very dangerous things.

And then let them know that it's their personal, individual responsibility to avoid this. Tell 'em we won't bail them out of their troubles, and spend resources we don't have to fix problems that should not exist, gay or straight.

Maybe it's not compassionate, but in the long term it will be more effective at preventing risky behavior than a $400,000 extended cruise of South American gay bars.

Nancy Pelosi's Personal Airline

Another reason Nancy Pelosi needs to become Minority Leader:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has repeatedly requested military aircraft to shuttle her and her colleagues and family around the country, according to a new report from a conservative watchdog group.

Representatives for Judicial Watch, which obtained e-mails and other documents from a Freedom of Information request, said the correspondence shows Pelosi has abused the system in place to accommodate congressional leaders and treated the Air Force as her "personal airline." [SNIP]

The group reported that Pelosi was notorious for making special demands for high-end aircraft, lodging last-minute cancellations, and racking up additional expenses for the military.

In one e-mail, aide Kay King complained to the military that they had not made available any aircraft the House speaker wanted for Memorial Day recess.

"It is my understanding there are NO G5s available for the House during the Memorial Day recess. This is totally unacceptable ... The Speaker will want to know where the planes are," King wrote.

In another, when told a certain type of aircraft would not be available, King wrote: "This is not good news, and we will have some very disappointed folks, as well as a very upset Speaker."

Why minority leader? Because the electorate of San Francisco will never vote her out.

With Over 8,500 Earmarks to Better Waste Your Tax $$$

They've done it again.

The House has just passed the "Omnibus bill" that includes over $407 billion in spending over and above the nearly $800 billion that passed just two weeks ago. The vote was 245 to 178. Sixteen free-spending Republicans were on board with the free-spending Democrats.

It now goes to the Senate for "consideration." I use quote marks because I'm not sure whether that process even takes place anymore.

Congress is spending money so fast now that even Matt Drudge can't keep up. Or he doesn't bother.

According to one analysis of the "Omni" there are 8,500 "earmarks" in the bill. This passes on the day after Mr. President vows that there will be no more earmarks. Heh.

U.S. Sen. Tom Coburn, the tireless budget hawk, has outlined some of the interesting and deplorable aspects of the "Omni" on his twitter page. Among them:

-- $150,000 for lobster research.

-- At least $17 billion for NASA.

-- $250,000 for Bluefin Tuna tagging. (Well, there are an awful lot of tuna swimming around,and if you have to tag every one of them ...)

-- The Department of Justice gets $25 million for its "Weed & Seed" program. (I'm almost afraid to ask what this one covers. The senator said the program paid for a do-nut eating event in Ohio and dance instruction in Georgia. For federal agents?)

-- $10 million for Blue Crab disaster assistance in Maryland and Virginia.

Lots of other fish projects.

And this is just scratching the surface.

Do you feel like your government is out of control?

Speaker Pelosi: 500 Million Americans Lose Jobs Every Month

Drudge linked to the Youtube video, which means it probably will be taken down very soon. The print version of the Speaker of the House talking to reporters:

"Every month we don't have an economic recovery package, 500 million Americans lose their jobs. I don't think we can go fast enough."

For the record, right now there are about 500 THOUSAND layoffs and lost jobs each month. That's bad enough without giving it a 1,000 multiple.

My first thought: With math skills this poor, no wonder Nancy Pelosi and her liberal friends think we need to spend a trillion dollars in economic stimuli. We know she confuses thousands with millions; perhaps she thinks millions are really billions.

Second thought: Why is less than 25 percent of the stimulus-pork-a-palooza going to be spent in the first fiscal year if the situation is so time sensitive?

Failed Ethanol Industry Wants More of Your Money

We nearly missed the Wall Street Journal post on how the corn ethanol industry is begging for bailout money from the federal government because it is going bust. (Hat Tip to Drew Thornley at Planet Gore.)

The commodity bust has clobbered corn ethanol, whose energy inefficiencies require high oil prices to be competitive. The price of ethanol at the pump has fallen nearly in half in recent months to $1.60 from $2.90 per gallon due to lower commodity prices, and that lower price now barely covers production costs even after accounting for federal subsidies. Three major producers are in or near bankruptcy, including giant VeraSun Energy.

So here they go again back to the taxpayer for help.

They want $1 billion in immediate subsidies and several billions more for "expansion." As if expansion of a losing proposition was a good thing. They just want to be too big to fail!

But chillingly there is this:

The lobby would also like Congress to ease the 10% limit on how much ethanol can be added to gasoline for conventional cars and trucks — never mind the potential damage to engines from such an unproven mix.

What we hear is that it goes beyond "potential damage." Corn ethanol is not safe to use. Several mechanics have told me that not only do you lose miles per gallon -- may I be permitted to say that anyone who is willing to lose MPG in this fashion is a dumbass? -- but it corrodes certain plastic parts that are inside every modern auto engine.

That taxpayers already have forked over $25 billion to the Agri-Corp hoax-masters of this travesty is bad enough. No more!