Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Net Neutrality; Stimulus Money Buys Detroit Schoolchildren's Computers; Brian Williams' Schmegeggy; Deficit Reduction High Priority of Last House; Federal Debt Ceiling Deal; High Oil Prices Must Delight Obama

Patriot Update writes: “Net neutrality” rules must be implemented for content control while the government should quintuple federal funding for public and community broadcasting, Ben Scott, the State Department’s recently appointed policy adviser for innovation, argues.
Scott’s writings, last year in a radical magazine, were in an article co-authored by Robert W. McChesney, an avowed Marxist activist who has called for the dismantlement “brick-by-brick” of the U.S. capitalist system, with America being rebuilt as a socialist society.
McChesney is the founder of the George Soros-funded Free Press, which petitions for more government control of the Internet and news media. http://patriotupdate.com/1077/look-who-wants-500-bump-in-funding-for-government-media
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Detroit Public Schools will spend $49 million in federal money to push technology in the district, including distributing 40,000 new laptop computers to students in grades 6-12 for use in class, as well as more than 5,000 new desktop computers

The massive technology infusion totals 50,000 pieces of equipment -- including 4,300 printer/scanners and more than 500 HP desktop computers for the 138 early childhood classrooms in the district. [There is already a report that one of the teachers has tried to pawn her computer.  This demonstrates the Law of Unintended Consequences, doesn't it?]
Read more: Detroit Public Schools: 40,000 kids to get laptops from stimulus funds | freep.com | Detroit Free Press http://www.freep.com/article/20110104/NEWS05/101040378/Detroit-Public-Schools-40-000-kids-to-get-laptops-from-stimulus-funds#ixzz1A4U4X300
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
NBC's Brian Williams, on air travel: "They go, they go right in. This new thing, they go right after Dave and the twins. ... Either you go in the little thing and you put your arms up and parade around, and somebody in a booth somewhere looks at you naked through your clothing, or you can get the prod of your schmegeggy."
http://www.politico.com/click/stories/1101/brian_williams_tsa_groped_me_.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
And here is my first candidate to be a Quote of the Year 2011, as reported by Fox News: At her final press conference as House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said, "Deficit reduction has been a high priority for us. It is our mantra, pay-as-you-go."
The numbers tell a different story.
When the Pelosi Democrats took control of Congress on January 4, 2007, the national debt stood at $8,670,596,242,973.04. The last day of the 111th Congress and Pelosi's Speakership on December 22, 2010 the national debt was $13,858,529,371,601.09 - a roughly $5.2 trillion increase in just four years. Furthermore, the year over year federal deficit has roughly quadrupled during Pelosi's four years as speaker, from $342 billion in fiscal year 2007 to an estimated $1.6 trillion at the end of fiscal year 2010. http://nation.foxnews.com/nancy-pelosi/2011/01/04/speaker-pelosi-leaves-whopper
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
National Review opines: Unlikely as it may seem at the moment, I’m becoming more and more convinced that congressional Republicans can get a lot — in terms of spending cuts, entitlement reforms, and the like — in exchange for agreeing to raise the federal debt ceiling at some point in the next few months.
My argument is dead simple.
P1) The debt ceiling won’t be raised without a ‘yea’ vote from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.)
P2) Senator Graham said on Meet the Press that
“I will not vote for the debt ceiling increase until I see a plan in place that will deal with our long-term debt obligations, starting with Social Security, a real bipartisan effort to make sure that Social Security stays solvent, adjusting the age, looking at means tests for benefits. On the spending side, I’m not going to vote for debt ceiling increase unless we go back to 2008 spending levels, cutting discretionary spending.”
P3) The debt ceiling must be raised.  http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/256230/why-republicans-will-get-lot-exchange-raising-debt-ceiling-daniel-foster
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Financial Times writes: High oil prices threaten to derail the fragile economic recovery among developed nations this year, the leading energy watchdog has warned, putting pressure on the Opec oil cartel to increase production.
“Oil prices are entering a dangerous zone for the global economy,” said Fatih Birol, the IEA’s chief economist. “The oil import bills are becoming a threat to the economic recovery. This is a wake-up call to the oil consuming countries and to the oil producers.”
[I am sure this pleases our President, as the next item will demonstrate.]
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PajamasMedia writes: While campaigning for the presidency in 2008, Barack Obama spoke to the $4 a gallon gasoline prices Americans were facing by making it clear he had no problem with gas prices at that level. He simply “would have preferred a gradual adjustment” toward that price. In other words, he wasn’t bothered that gasoline hit $4 a gallon, just that it did so too quickly.
Fortunately for the American consumer, shortly after fuel prices had skyrocketed to those levels they dropped enough that when Obama took office they were hovering around $1.81 a gallon. But two years into the Obama presidency, and one offshore drilling moratorium later, prices are well over $3 a gallon in much of the country and climbing fast. http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/when-gas-hits-four-dollars-a-gallon-will-it-be-slow-enough-for-obama-this-time/
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


No comments:

Post a Comment