Congrats to our congress critters! We rank number two in ripping off the other 49. Only Alaska does better.
Hat tip: Newmark’s Door w/ link via Instapundit.
Posted by Harry Messenheimer
Archive for category Uncategorized
Bringing Home the Bacon
Jun 8
The animal “rights” activists at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) are none too happy about the Center for Consumer Freedom’s PETAKillsAnimals.com. Thanks to us, millions of people have seen firsthand the irrefutable evidence that PETA, which publicly proclaims that bunnies and babies are morally equal, kills animals by the thousands. (Don’t believe us? Click here for the proof.)
Our damning documents come courtesy of the Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (VDACS), which requires “humane societies” to annually report their euthanasia rates. PETA filed the required “Animal Record” reports from 1998 to 2005.
These records show that during those years, PETA killed over 14,400 dogs, cats, and other shelter pets at its Norfolk headquarters. (Still don’t believe us? We’ve still got the proof.)
PETA is no longer complying with VDACS’ legal reporting requirement. Online records show PETA has only filed 2006 information on collected wildlife, not shelter animals. But even the incomplete figures are true to form: PETA employees killed 248 out of 249.
If they’re willing to admit to that, imagine what they’ve decided to keep secret.
The public has the right to know how many “companion animals” met their demise on the business end of a PETA syringe last year.
We won’t stop digging until we have answers.
Click here for the full story.
The Misuse of Taxpayer Money
Jun 26
This is kind of unbelievable. State legislators in Oregon are going to use electricity ratepayers’ money to pay down a loan for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry.
Portland General Electric customers may be bailing the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry out of a $4.6 million delinquent loan with state money intended to fund efficiency measures and renewable energy.
Opponents of the measure say using that money to pay off OMSI’s debt to the Department of Energy amounts to a legislative raid on ratepayer money.
[...]
Lawmakers insisted that using surcharge money to pay down the loan was consistent with the intent of the original proposal because the loan was given to OMSI based on energy conservation efforts made at the museum’s new building.
And then finally,
The bailout would only affect PGE customers in the Portland metro area because that’s where OMSI is located, but it amounts to a 16 percent overall decrease in the Energy Trust’s state funds.
In other words, it isn’t your money. It belongs to the legislature and the government to do with what they will.
What are we really going to do with the GET surcharge?
Don
Ethanol is Green, Right?
Jun 13
Wrong.
A Cybercast News Service analysis of EPA records found 73 biorefineries – more than 60 percent of those operating – were cited by state or federal agencies for environmental violations in the last three years. The vast majority involve state or federal clean air laws.
Full story here.
don
Will Honolulu learn from Portland’s mistakes?
Probably not.
After years of expanding light rail, streetcars and commuter rail in the Portland Metro area, the money is drying up.
Tri-Met’s fare box only returns between 18 to 21% of the operating cost and that does not include capital construction. Metro has put all our transportation eggs into rail projects that are very expensive and unsustainable.
The answer? To raise taxes!
If the Legislature does not act, however, Metro staffers already have identified several regional funding sources for discussion. As outlined in a memo distributed at the May 16 meeting, they include:
• A regional gas tax collected in most of Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties.
• An increase in systems development charges assessed against builders to fund infrastructure improvements.
• A tricounty motor vehicle registration fee.
• A property tax levy to fund road construction and TriMet vehicle replacements.
Because the voters would have to approve the package, Metro is in the process of retaining a public opinion research firm to determine which elements have the greatest support.
Honolulu can look forward to a 5% GET if Portland is any example.
Link here.
Don
Must see articles on public transit and urban planning (unless you are an environmentalist who wants to build on forest land.)
Link here.
don
The Middle-age Tax Soak
Jun 9
Between $376 billion and $872 billion per year is fiscally transferred from middle-aged groups to the youngest and oldest Americans each year through government taxes and spending, according to a new Tax Foundation study of taxing and spending by age groups.
America’s youngest households, those headed by someone 25 or less, receive $2.32 in government spending for each dollar of taxes paid, and households aged 75 and over receive $4.93 per dollar of taxes paid. Meanwhile, in the middle, households aged 45 to 54 received 73 cents per tax dollar.
In other words those of middle age are subsidizing the lives of the young and the old. If you look at the figures quoted above these subsidizies constitent a rather substantial amount.
The whole Tax Foundation article can be found here.
Don
Rail Unsustainability
Jun 9
Sam Staley at the Reason Foundation has an article on Planetizen.com that details the inefficiencies of rail transit.
His facts are accurate and consistent. What is almost as interesting is the ignorant comments that follow his column. The uninformed never cease with meaningless blather.
Whole article here.
don
More Green Eletism
Jun 9
The following link is a perfect example of just how eletist the Greens and Enviromentalists truly are. The want all the modern conveniences for themselves but the poor, downtrodden villagers must be maintained in noble savage poverty.
A few pertinent excerpts:
“People here have no jobs,” Mark Fenn admitted, after taking documentary producers on a tour of his $35,000 catamaran and the site of his new coastal home.
The locals strongly support the project and want the jobs, development, improved living standards and environmental quality the state-of-the-art operation will bring.
People there live in abject poverty, along dirt roads, in dirt-floor shacks, and are hardly able to afford food on their $1,000-a-year average incomes. There is little power, no indoor plumbing. The local rain forest has been destroyed for firewood and slash-and-burn farming. People barely eke out a living.
These enemies of the poor say they are “stakeholders” wishing to “preserve” indigenous people and villages. They never consider what’s wanted by the real stakeholders — those who live in these communities and must endure the consequences of harmful campaigns waged all over the world.
The WWF, Greenpeace, Oxfam, Sierra Club, Rainforest Action Network and other multinational activist groups battle mines in Romania, Peru, Chile, Ghana and Indonesia; electricity projects in Uganda, India and Nepal; biotechnology that could improve farm incomes and reduce malnutrition in Kenya, India, Brazil and the Philippines; and DDT that could slash malaria rates in Africa, where the disease kills 3,000 children a day.
The whole attitude of Green-Envios is disgusting.
Full article here.
don
Scary Thought
Feb 12
Tom MacDonald, who serves on our Board of Scholars, wrote a thoughtful piece, “US Elections Decided by Know-Nothings.”
He has a great point. But it doesn’t stop with the voter. I fear that our elected representatives are, all too often, “know-nothings.”
Perhaps we should insist that our candidates for public office take a test. You and I get tested before we can drive a car, why not insist candidates know something before they can file for office. What something? How about the basic concepts that founded our nation?
How about being able to read, write and do arithmetic?
Oops. If given such a test how many incumbents would fail?
Scary thought.