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Labels: Csharp WASHINGTON -- Congress plans to spend $550 million to buy eight jets, a substantial upgrade to the fleet used by federal officials at a time when lawmakers have criticized the use of corporate jets by companies receiving taxpayer funds. The purchases will help accommodate growing travel demand by congressional officials. The planes augment a fleet of about two dozen passenger jets maintained by the Air Force for lawmakers, administration officials and military chiefs to fly on government trips in the U.S. and abroad. The congressional shopping list goes beyond what the Air Force had initially requested as part of its annual appropriations. The Pentagon sought to buy one Gulfstream V and one business-class equivalent of a Boeing 737 to replace aging planes. The Defense Department also asked to buy two additional 737s that were being leased. ... Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said the Department of Defense didn't request the additional planes and doesn't need them. "We ask for what we need and only what we need," he told reporters Wednesday. "We've always frowned upon earmarks and additives that are above and beyond what we ask for." Congress turned harshly critical of companies that fly executives on private jets in the weeks following the government bailout of banks and auto makers last year. General Motors, Chrysler LLC and Citigroup Inc. were among those caught in the cross hairs of angry lawmakers. The South Pole trip, led by Rep. Brian Baird (D., Wash.), ranks among the priciest. The lawmakers reported a cost to taxpayers of $103,000. That figure, however, doesn't include the actual flying, because the trip used the Air Force planes, not commercial carriers. Flight costs would lift the total tab to more than $500,000, based on Defense Department figures for aircraft per-hour operating costs. Lawmakers say the trip offered them a valuable chance to learn about global warming and to monitor how federal funds are spent. "The trip we made was more valuable than 100 hearings," said Rep. Baird, its leader. "Are there members of Congress who take trips somewhat recreationally? Perhaps. Is this what this trip was about? Absolutely not." The knowledge gained is "profoundly important to how I do this job," added Mr. Baird, who at the time headed the House Science Committee's subcommittee on research and science education. Labels: politicians behaving badly Labels: 2008 presidential candidates NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- What are people trading their clunkers in for? It depends on who you ask. The government's results showed small cars as the top choice for shoppers looking for Cash for Clunker deals. But an independent analysis by Edmunds.com disputed those results, and showed that two full-size trucks and a small crossover SUV were actually among the top-ten buys. The discrepancy is a result of the methods used. Edmunds.com uses traditional sales measurements, tallying sales by make and model. The government uses a more arcane measurement method that subdivides models according to engine and transmission types, counting them as separate models. For example, the Ford Escape is available in six different versions including two- and four-wheel drive and hybrid versions. The government counts each version as a different vehicle using guidelines from the Environmental Protection Agency. Only the front wheel drive, non-hybrid version made the government's top ten list. The Ford Escape crossover SUV, instead of being the seventh-most popular vehicle under the program, as the government ranked it, was actually the best seller, according to Edmunds.com. The government pegged the Ford Focus as the top seller. Labels: economics Labels: 2008 presidential candidates, low standards of journalism Labels: 2008 presidential candidates In an e-mail, the Times reported, Klein wrote that CNN researchers determined that Obama's 1961 birth certificate no longer exists because Hawaiian officials had discarded paper documents in 2001 — a claim denied Monday by Hawaiian health officials. In 2001, Hawaii's paper documents were reproduced in electronic format, but "any paper data prior to that still exists," Health Department spokeswoman Janice Okubo said. Okubo would not say where Obama's original birth certificate is but said, "We have backups for all of our backups." Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Eureka's Arctic Circle franchise has closed its doors after the restaurant was sued for noncompliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Jack Williams, who has owned the franchise with his wife, Peggy, since 1989, said the couple decided to close the business last Tuesday because they cannot afford the renovations required by the lawsuit. The suit was filed by local attorney Jason K. Singleton, who in recent years has filed ADA-related suits against a number of local establishments, including Village Pantry, Broadway Cinema, Fortuna Theatre, Cafe Waterfront and College of the Redwoods, among others. The Arctic Circle suit -- filed February 25 against the Williamses and property owners Lloyd and Ann Scott on behalf of plaintiff Marcy J. Velasquez -- listed 22 ADA violations, alleging that the counters were too high, the doors were not wide enough and the bathrooms were too small to accommodate a wheelchair. Williams expressed frustration with the suit, claiming that Singleton and other lawyers hunt for businesses with ADA violations in order to make money. ”When you have lawyers like this -- they're within the law, but I think the law should be changed,” he said. “People shouldn't be allowed to prey on businesses like that.” The Eureka restaurant opened in 1967. The owners of Six Rivers Brewery recently had to make that very decision after Singleton filed a case against the McKinleyville establishment alleging 10 ADA violations. ”We got a letter from a lady who claimed she had been in here and the facilities kept her from enjoying her time here,” said co-owner Meredith Maier. “We told her we would reimburse the cost of the meal and we would love to sit down and figure out what we could do to improve things. The way she answered was by suing us.” Chris Jones, executive director of Tri-County Independent Living, defended the 16-year-old federal ADA law, saying it has done more good than harm. ”The intention of the law was to allow access for people with disabilities not only to services and stores, but to not be discriminated against with employment opportunities. It's really a civil rights law. I think it's pretty complete.” Jones said most of these cases could be resolved if business owners simply made the necessary renovations. ”Why fight this?” Jones asked. “Why not, let's work together to resolve this rather than make it a combative situation?” BOISE, Idaho — The Idaho Department of Correction has settled lawsuits with two transgender inmates who castrated themselves after they were denied feminizing hormone therapy. The terms of the settlements were not disclosed, but the department has changed its policy for identifying and treating transgender inmates. The policy now limits the time inmates must wait for treatment, specifies how they may be diagnosed, and clarifies when they qualify for hormone therapy. Josephime Von Isaak sued the state in 2006 and Jenniffer Ann Spencer sued the following year. Both inmates, who were born with male anatomy but consider themselves female, contended they were subjected to cruel and unusual punishment because they were denied treatment for gender identity disorder. Spencer was serving time on a 2000 conviction for possession of a stolen car and escape when she cut off her own testicles with a disposable razor blade in 2004 an apparent effort to rid her body of testosterone. Spencer survived the self-castration, and prison doctors prescribed testosterone replacement therapy - refusing to prescribe the estrogen Spencer wanted. Isaak, who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder, said she was also compelled to remove her own testicles with a razor in 2004 after the state failed to diagnose and treat her disorder. Even then, Isaak said in the lawsuit, she went without the estrogen treatment she wanted, and a year after self-castrating she amputated the tip of her penis with a razor blade. The state cited Isaak's birth gender and schizophrenia diagnosis when it denied her female hormones and a surgical sex change. In Spencer's case, the state said a diagnosis of gender identity disorder wasn't warranted and that Spencer had lied about living as a woman and taking birth control pills before her incarceration. Labels: health care, homosexuality Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: health care He was born in 1961. There was no Republic of Kenya then. Kenya was a colony. Labels: 2008 presidential candidates Labels: Idaho politics
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Things That Drive Me Crazy
In a C# DataTable, you can read values in a DataRow through ItemArray, like this:
for (int i = 0; i < dr.ItemArray.Length; i++)
Debug.WriteLine(dr.ItemArray[i]);
But heaven help you if you try to update a DataRow through ItemArray[i]. It doesn't work. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out why, because I had some code working in a somewhat ugly way, using:
dt.Rows[matchRowNbr][i] = newValue;
This is ugly, because it is more elegant to process one DataRow at a time. In the process of revising this code, the above turned into:
dr.ItemArray[i] = newValue;
And then it no longer worked. You can read through ItemArray, but you can't write back to the DataRow that way. The technical discussion of why is here.
Living High On The Hog
You recall a few months back that Nancy Pelosi, Empress of San Francisco, was complaining that the Air Force couldn't provide her a Gulfstream V to fly back and forth between DC and San Francisco. There were other jets available--but they don't have enough bling for her.
Well, the problem is solved. From the August 7, 2009 Wall Street Journal:
Fortunately, our economy is in fine shape; we're not running deficits of a size that endangers national productivity; and everyone who wants a job has one. Right?
UPDATE: Make sure that you read this August 8, 2009 Wall Street Journal article about members of Congress going snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef as part of investigating (and causing) global warming. Oh yes, many brought along their wives. Look, I do think that there might be times when a member of Congress might actually get more insight from seeing something than merely reading about it--but junkets like this are a little too obviously vacations at taxpayer expense:WASHINGTON -- When 10 members of Congress wanted to study climate change, they did more than just dip their toes into the subject: They went diving and snorkeling at the Great Barrier Reef. They also rode a cable car through the Australian rain forest, visited a penguin rookery and flew to the South Pole.
The 11-day trip -- with six spouses traveling along as well -- took place over New Year's 2008. Details are only now coming to light as part of a Wall Street Journal analysis piecing together the specifics of the excursion.
...
Great Video
It shows the different response of rank-and-file Marines to President Bush, and to President Obama.
I'm not sure that the opinion of the military should be the only factor in deciding what makes a great president--but it is sure interesting that people actually in harm's way seem to have a higher opinion of who put them there, then the guy who campaigned on a promise to pull them out. And I notice that a lot of the black Marines that are visible in these video clips seem pretty enthused about Bush--unlike Obama, for those leftists who insist that any and all opposition to Obama has to be racism!
A Clunker Of A Program
The "Cash for Clunkers" program had at least two goals:
1. Revive the U.S. car industry.
2. Replace vehicles that get terrible gas mileage with cars that get better mileage. That's part of why the list of vehicles that you could trade in for $3500 or $4500 was based on their EPA mileage figures.
So what did Americans buy with these allowances? According to the August 7, 2009 CNN:
You would think, if the goal was to replace low mileage vehicles with high mileage cars (which is a worthy goal), that there would have been some restrictions on the vehicles to purchase. But that would require a bit more intelligence than our government seems to have.
I frequently hear leftists argue in favor of intelligent, thoughtful, farseeing governmental management of the economy. Well, that would be wonderful. Those intelligent, thoughtful, farseeing bureaucrats should be arriving on their flying unicorns shortly.
What If?
This has been floating around for a while, but really captures the absurd way in which the news media simply stopped criticizing the President--as soon as that President wasn't George W. Bush:What if ? If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?
If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?
If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the fourth of May (Cuatro de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?
If George W. Bush had mis-spelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potatoe as “proof” of what a dunce he is?
If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?
If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually “get” what happened on 9-11?
If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?
If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans , would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?
If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had reduced your retirement plan’s holdings of GM stock by 90% and given the unions a majority stake in GM, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had sent his wife and daughters on a shopping trip to London on Air Force One, would you have approved?
If George W. Bush had spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to take Laura Bush to a play in NYC, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 5 months -- so you'll have three years and seven months to come up with an answer.
No common sense, naïve, incompetent, uninformed voters did this to themselves. Insanity is widespread. Real Americans are waking up.
One last question.... Are you stimulated yet?
More Theories About Obama's Birth Certificate
John T. Reed thinks that Obama's birth certificate might be withheld because the name is embarrassing:[P]erhaps because his first name was Barry and/or there was no Hussein middle name. Both Obama senior and junior went by the name Barry in the U.S. Obama, Jr. apparently started using Barack either to use affirmative action to get into Occidental and Columbia or to get street cred as a black guy in the South Side of Chicago when he moved there to start his political career. Hussein would also contribute to black street cred. Obama has admitted using the name Barry until adulthood when he started calling himself Barack. The implication has always been that Barack was his birth certificate name. Revelation that his birth certificate name was “Barry” would reveal that his claiming to be named Barack is simply false and apparently chosen with no basis whatsoever for affirmative action purposes and electoral politics advantage.
I'm hard pressed to see how "Barry" to "Barack" would help from an affirmative action standpoint: race is what matters, not having a foreign sounding name. But I can see another reason why he might have restyled himself as "Barack Hussein Obama." You know the song, "Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off"? Vulgar. But at least when I was in college (and I'm just a bit older than Obama), having an exotic name, background, and appearance was at least as useful as tequila with spoiled rich white college girls--and I wouldn't be surprised if the same strategy worked with spoiled rich black college girls.
One of my readers also points to a possible explanation for Hawaiian newspaper birth announcements of Obama's birth that doesn't require extraordinarily long range planning. Anyone in 1961 who seriously thought that a black kid was going to grow up to be President would need their head examined--unless, of course, they also arranged for all the social change of the period as well. That's long range planning and organization that belongs in a paranoid novel, not the real world.I lived in Texas for some years. Remember the 1986 amnesty bill? If a Mexican illegal could prove that he had lived in the US for 5 years, then he would be granted amnesty and quick citizenship.
There are women who cross into the U.S. from Mexico to have "anchor babies." I would think that even in 1961, it would be obvious that being born in the U.S. would have benefits over being born in Kenya. Admittedly, Obama's mother was only a teenager--but a very smart teenager, who later went to get a Ph.D.
Well, there was a brisk trade in "documents" that would enable an illegal who'd lived here less than five years to "prove" that he had lived/worked here more than five years. They all got citizenship.
Also, if an American citizen Mexican-American was in Mexico when his child was born, he'd call the states and have someone put a birth announcement in the paper. Then later find a cooperative midwife to "swear" that is was a home birth and get a birth certificate issued.
The same holds true for American expatriates.
Anne Dunham was part of the expat community and had access to the collective knowledge of the expat community. She would want her son to have American citizenship (if he was born in Kenya) -- would know enough to call home and have a couple birth announcements published. She could worry about the birth certificate later. But maybe "later" never came....
CNN: Making It Up As They Go Along?
From July 27, 2009 USA Today:Last week, CNN's Lou Dobbs demanded Obama's original birth certificate. CNN/U.S. President Jon Klein told staffers of Lou Dobbs Tonight that the issue is a "dead" story, Kline told the Los Angeles Times in an interview published Sunday.
Now, the article quotes Okubo as reiterating that she has seen the original long-form birth certificate, and that Obama was born in Hawaii. So why would CNN's President make the claim that the original no longer exists? It inclines me to think that Obama really was born in Hawaii--but that there is something really, really severely embarrassing about what is on that birth certificate--so problematic that it is worth spending a million dollars in legal fees, as well as telling Obama's lackeys (like the President of CNN) to tell outrageous falsehoods.
This Makes Me See Red
Look, I understand the motivation for the ADA law requiring businesses to make reasonable accommodations to the disabled. But there does come a moment when the idea of limiting lawyers who file these suits to $30 per hour so that they are filing these suits for the right reasons starts to get very attractive. From the May 6, 2008 Eureka (Cal.) Times-Standard:
You know, I can see a strong case for why government buildings should be brought into compliance. I can see a case for why new buildings should be built to accommodate wheelchairs. I can see a case for why buildings that experience a substantial remodel should be updated. But this building is from 1967--and there are some changes to a building that are hideously expensive. And it's pretty clear that these suits are about money, not improving the situation for those in wheelchairs--with some businesses having to decide whether to shut down or not:
I think the answer is bit earlier up: this is combative because lawyers are making money filing these suits, instead of trying to resolve the situations.
Why I Get Real Nervous About Government Health Care
Here's a purely elective medical treatment being done for convicted felons because a judge ordered it done. From the August 6, 2009 Idaho Statesman:
These are convicted felons--and a judge orders the state to provide them with medical treatment to assist them with self-inflicted sex changes. What do you suppose the chances are that judges are going to order the "government option" to cover this?
Two Theories of the Supposed Kenyan Birth Certificate
1. The reason that Obama doesn't just produce the long form Hawaiian birth certificate is that energy being spent on this is energy that can't be spent on analyzing the very serious disasters that Obama and friends are organizing for America (cap-and-trade, health care too complicated for any member of Congress to read). Plus there's the bonus that it makes anyone raises the issue look like an idiot.
I don't find this a particularly plausible theory because until this last weekend, there has been no discussion in the mainstream media about it--and it isn't like there hasn't been an enormous amount of careful (and some not so careful) analysis of Obama's policy proposals. To tie up World Net Daily on this is really worth a million dollars? I am inclined to think that Obama really was born in Hawaii, but there is something really embarrassing about the long form birth certificate that is worth a million dollars.
2. The Kenyan birth certificate dated 1964 is, in fact, an actual document, but produced fraudulently by a corrupt registrar there at the request of Obama's father so that Barack Obama could go into Kenyan politics. (Remember that he has a cousin who made a serious try there a couple of years ago.) Is that Byzantine enough for you?
I've Been Skeptical Of Obama's "You Can Keep Your Health Insurance" Claim
Ever since the press conference where a reporter asked a question about his "government option" being competitive with private insurance, and he gave one off those answers that suggested that either Obama hasn't a clue what predatory pricing (with taxpayer subsidy) is, or that he intends for the "government option" to drive private insurers out of business.
Some group called Naked Emperor News put together a collection of clips that certainly seems to show that Obama intends exactly that--but careful editing can do wonders for scrambling what someone really said. Context is everything--and the White House is now claiming that this collection misrepresents what he intends. (Although Democratic Congresscritters Jan Schakowsky and Barney Frank seem to be saying exactly that in that collection of clips.)
So here's a much longer clip of Obama in 2003 telling the SEIU that what he wants is single payer health insurance:I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that’s what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that’s what I’d like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.
Now, maybe Obama has changed his mind since 2003 about this. Perhaps he has no intention of using government health insurance as a method of putting private insurers out of business. But with this history of support for single payer--and that a lot of single payer advocates are backing Obama's supposedly non-single payer plan--it's pretty obvious that either Obama has had a major change of heart along the way, or he's lying.
I don't have a problem with the government being the insurer of last resort. There are so many people already on some form of government health insurance that they could add the uninsured into one supersized pool and get enormous economies of scale: every government employee; every member of Congress; every Medicaid and Medicare recipient; every uninsured person. But if there is a subsidy of such a pool from general tax revenues, this is a serious problem.
The Supposed Kenyan Birth Certificate
This supposed Kenyan birth certificate should be utterly devastating. Let's just say that I am going to need some serious proof that it isn't a forgery. But one of the criticisms by Don Surber is just wrong:
A search for the phrase "Republic of Kenya" in books and documents published in 1961 and earlier finds hundreds of examples. It appears that the colonial government used that term in treaties, etc. Full independence from Britain followed a period when Kenya was nominally a republic in the British Commonwealth.
UPDATE: A reader points out that some of the documents in that list were actually published after 1961. The books.google.com engine uses the publication date of the first volume in a serial set--so a number of these items that were returned by a search by date were actually well after 1961.
In any case, the supposed birth certificate was apparently printed in 1964, several years after the supposed birth, and could well have said "Republic of Kenya" on it. I don't know that this is a real birth certificate. It may well be a fraud. But the presence of "Republic of Kenya" on it doesn't preclude it being real.
A Friend Is Running For Boise City Council
Lucas Baumbach. I don't live in Boise, but some of you do! You might want to visit his campaign website, and see if you want to get involved.
