Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

Apparently our government runs a lottery every year that normally attempts to issue 50,000 green-cards to people seeking residency here.  I say "normally" because this year the computer program that randomly selects the winners messed up.  To make matters worse the U. S. State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, which runs the program through something called the Diversity Visa Program, didn't properly test the program before 22,000 would be citizens had already been notified.  So 22,000 people who thought they were getting a chance to come to our shores may not have a chance after all.  Additionally, the computer mistakenly picked the first list of winners from applications taken in just the first week of the program rather than over the course of the entire 30-day period.  So to fix things, government officials have decided to rerun the computer lottery from a record 15 million applications.

Thus far the Obama Administration doesn't have a very good record in picking winners and losers.  Witness Solyndra, the "shovel ready" stimulus, Cash for Clunkers, Recovery Summer, the Ground Zero mosque, and its close cousin, the attempt to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Manhattan.  The Diversity Visa Program might just be another plan gone horribly awry.  In any case, why question a computer program that randomly selected its first 22,000 winners from early applications.  Does it really matter?  It's still random, right?  Good grief!    

Biased Numbers

During last night's Republican presidential debate on Bloomberg Television, a screen shot, right before a commercial, informed us that the national debt has increased $4 trillion under President Obama, but that it had gone up $5 trillion under President George W. Bush.  I'm not about to defend W for starting what would become a decade of out-of-control spending, but a little math does shed some light on this factoid.  It has taken Obama only a third of the time (34 months) to effectively achieve what Bush did in 96 months.  

How Green Was His Valley

Right before our eyes, Obama's green jobs initiative has all but withered away, dried up in the harsh light of reality.  Candidate Barack Hussein Obama promised he would invest $150 billion in solar, wind, geothermal, and other green technologies, that would create 5 million new jobs by the end of the decade.  To date, about $90 billion has been frittered away to the likes of Solyndra, Evergreen Solar, and SpectraWatt, with little but red faces to show for it.  Why? Economics.

According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, the Energy Information Administration estimates that the cost of electricity generated by natural gas is $63.10 per megawatt hour.  Conversely, electricity generated by wind costs $243.20 per megawatt hour.  A whopping $311.80 for solar generated power.  Get the picture?  But Obama and his bureaucrats know better.  They just dumped another $1.1 billion in new loan guarantees to green firms in Nevada and Arizona two weeks ago.  What's more unbelievable is that between them, Tonopah Solar and Sempra Energy, the two companies that will share those loan guarantees, promise only 45 permanent jobs!  Meanwhile, the Obama administration and leftist environmentalists continue to fight the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the Gulf Coast.  This project promises 13,000 union jobs and 118,000 "spin-off" jobs at no cost to taxpayers.

Speaking of misguided policies and priorities, the U. S. Attorney for North Dakota has charged seven oil and gas companies in federal court for killing a combined 28 birds.  28 birds.  According to the American Bird Conservancy, from data derived from the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 440,00 birds are killed annually by wind turbine operations.

Code Blue

Obamacare, the gift that keeps on giving, is responsible for a new federal mandate that increases the number of codes used to translate medical information between medical providers and insurance companies. There are currently 18,000 codes used to describe an injury, where it took place, and how it was remedied.  Obamacare increases the number of codes to around 140,000.  According to a story in the Wall Street Journal, "There are codes for injuries in opera houses, art galleries, squash courts and nine locations in and around a mobile home." "It will also have a code for recording that a patient's injury occurred in a chicken coup."  Is this really helpful?

The federal agencies charged with developing the new system is collectively known as ICD-10, for International Classification of Diseases, 10th Revision.  "It's for accuracy of data and quality of care," says an advisor at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Some of the new provisions include coding to describe "bizarre personal appearance", or "very low level of personal hygiene."  A W22.02XA for example is code for "walked into lampost, initial encounter."  That's to distinguish it from a W22.02XD, "walked into lampost, subsequent encounter."  Not dumb enough for you?  How about a  V91.07XA, code for "burn due to water-skis on fire."  I suppose a person who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 could be coded OV.08 or "uninformed."  Someone who plans to vote for him again in 2012 should  be labeled "mentally challenged."

One of the more upsetting aspects of the article was the fact that there exists in our country a credentialing organization known as the American Academy of Professional Coders.  If that isn't a sign that government busybodies have truly run amok then I don't know what is.  Honestly, wouldn't you rather tell your wife that you were going to Las Vegas for the Adult Video Awards, then to a convention of coders?





     

Obamanomics

Here in the City of Saginaw, $19 million in stimulus funds are being spent on cleaning up blighted neighborhoods by leveling houses and rehabbing others.  So far taxpayer funds from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act have rehabbed a dozen homes, raised and additional 250, and acquired a couple of hundred more.  Sounds terrific doesn't it?  What's even more terrific is the price that some lucky buyer gets to pay for one of these rehabs.  $130,000 in stimulus money was used to rehab one particular house and was flipped for $34,900!  Another was...wait, what?  Yes, that's right.  Most of these homes are being fixed up at a cost that is four to five times more than what they will fetch on the open market.  Still sound terrific?

In 2009, $3.2 million in stimulus funds was provided to Arlington, VA for energy grants.  According to the Wall Street Journal, nearly $300,000 was used to install solar panels on a local library.  By doing so city officials hope to save $14,000 annually on their electric bill.  Unfortunately the fancy solar panels only last 10 to 15 years, so the $300,000 that was spent will only net a total savings of $150,000.  Speaking of solar power what's happened to all those "green" jobs that were promised?  In just the past two weeks Evergreen Solar and Solyndra, both prime examples of Obama's green jobs initiative and subsidized taxpayer investments, have gone belly-up throwing thousands out of work and losing  hundreds of millions in credits and loans.

Joseph Goebbels, Adolph Hitler's Propaganda Minister, is often attributed (in error perhaps) as saying "A lie repeated often enough will become truth."  No matter how many times the Obama administration, the media, Democrats, progressives, liberals, what have you, tell us how necessary and wise their "investments" are, they simply cannot be trusted nor believed.  The government cannot replace the free market without great harm to both freedom and commerce.  Two plus two will never equal five!

Shadow Boxing

Yesterday President Obama told us that growing the economy and creating jobs are his top two priorities.  "That's our urgent mission," said Obama, "That's what I'm fighting for every single day."  Great!  Swell.  So who's he fighting against?  Who's not in favor of growing the economy and creating millions of jobs?  He has blamed the Japanese tsunami, the Arab Spring, Greece, the debt ceiling fiasco, and now Hurricane Irene for creating "headwinds", bad karma in general really, for his weak economy and joblessness.  Has he identified a particular person or group that is working behind the scenes to destroy all that he images.  Republicans perhaps?  The Tea Party?

What the president supposedly fights against on a daily basis, when he's not golfing, raising campaign cash, or lounging with other millionaires and billionaires on Martha's Vineyard, are his own reckless policies.  Runaway spending, exploding debt, unrestrained entitlements, the constant threat of tax increases, and the ceaseless writing of new job killing regulations, are all hallmarks of his administration.  Singularly, each one of these can be a catalyst for economic doom.  In combination, they've combined to make a toxic elixir that has left or economy in tatters and is the true enemy of growth, economic solvency and shared prosperity.  Enough with the BS Mr. President.  The enemy you fight is yourself and your  stupid policies.  

The Only Thing You Need To Remember About School Reform

In a school building in Harlem in New York City, two schools share the same building.  Both schools draw from the same community and population of students.  PS 149 is a traditional unionized public school.  The other, Harlem Success Academy, is a non-union public charter school.  PS 149 spends $1,000 more per student, yet their students are only 29% proficient in English and only 34% in math.  Meanwhile at Harlem Success Academy, the students are 86% proficient in English and 94% in math.  The next time you hear the teacher's union bark about the need for more money, or more teachers, or more of anything, just remember PS 149 and the Harlem Success Academy.