State of the Union by Carl Moore

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wndrwrthg said, 3 months ago

I don’t know if the last is true, but the others are and can be justified. Who will be left after the great purge?
Margueritem said, 3 months ago

Lefty, someguy, and MarkTrail are gone… What is there to talk about?

How about some assorted donuts?
Shaliach said, 3 months ago

7. $2.2 million in Iowa for swine odor research.

I lived downwind of a feedlot. A more offensive odor you have never sniffed. It is so gagging that you can’t breathe.

Millions of dollars have been spent over the years researching and studying odor reduction technology and, still, no solution has been found.

From Iowa state’s website:

Since FY1999 over $17 million in Federal funds have been directed to swine odor and manure management.

In short, this 2009 earmark is $2.2 million to take the stink out of manure.
Shaliach said, 3 months ago

Margueritem

It’s a pleasure to see you. I would love one of your donuts. Maybe Doc can build a pipeline over to SOTU so we can enjoy some Nuclear Coffee with our breakfast.
rricchhterr said, 3 months ago

how about logic, miss ltem?
sablebrush5 said, 3 months ago

Shaliach,

Will someone please take the stink out of this so-called “Stimulus Plan”?
sablebrush5 said, 3 months ago

Are you guys aware that “more than $1 billion in the fiscal stimulus package was allocated to jump-start Comparative Effectiveness Research (CER) and to finance a federal CER advisory council to implement that idea.

“Comparative effectiveness could become the vehicle for deciding whether each method of treatment provides enough of an improvement in health care to justify its cost.

“In the British national health service, a government agency approves only those expensive treatments that add at least one Quality Adjusted Life Year (QALY) per £30,000 (about $49,685) of additional health-care spending. If a treatment costs more per QALY, the health service will not pay for it. The existence of such a program in the United States would not only deny lifesaving care but would also cast a pall over medical researchers who would fear that government experts might reject their discoveries as ‘too expensive.’ ”

The above is quoted from an article by Martin Feldstein. This is where we are headed under Obamacare - government bureaucrats deciding which procedures, drugs, operations, etc. are economically justified. Our health care will not be in our hands or the hands of our doctor, but in the hands of guys like Rahm Emanuel.

You can read Feldsteins’s piece here:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204683204574358233780260914.html
sablebrush5 said, 3 months ago

Tattoo removal for gangbangers? Stimulus money spent on a guy to solicit more stimulus money? Yeah, that’ll kickstart the economy.
Yukoneric said, 3 months ago

Put some perfume and lipstick on the poor swine…………..
Oh, well it was worth a try.
mytinytown said, 3 months ago

mroberts88 (yesterday)
“This is not good. This will make anyone who doesnt agree with Obama look like a neo nazi. Anyone agree?”
Yes I do. A racist, neo nazi, etc. But they can talk about Palin, McCain, Bush and even Powell like they are the scum of the earth.
I love exposing there consistent double standards.
Lewreader said, 3 months ago

Why did you think you bought your house so cheap next to the pig farm? Next time move next to an airport where the land is cheap.When you complain about the noise, I’m sure the Dems will understand that you didn’t know.They will help you sue because your cerebral damage was obviously caused by the airport officials.
jack75287 said, 3 months ago

wndrwrthg

With that kind of logic you can justify anything. Take a look at this statement. Give grasshoppers shotguns so birds won’t mess with them. We are broke. I love wine but I would not give 2.1 million to study grapes at this time. We have stopped termites for almost a century we kill them. Don’t know don’t want to know about there sexual practices. The only thing on this list I can get into is the Lighthouse people still use those.
LibrarianInTraining said, 3 months ago

The bike garages seem ok to me. I don’t drive, and its often hard to find a place to park the bike. Not every store has a bike rack, and I feel bad chaining it up to a sign post, especially if the closest one is kinda far from the store. I wish they’d put on here in Fla. And my friend in DC is dying for one, since her apartment doesn’t have a bike rack or room in the car garage.

Other than that, I don’t see it going to much use.
Shores Gill said, 3 months ago

Does anyone else think this comic is hilarious?
mytinytown said, 3 months ago

I already miss farleftside’s consistent daily blather.
I feel jipped.
Norman said, 3 months ago

Use some money to get the stink out of government.
myhaircut said, 3 months ago

Tattoo removal for (EX) gangbangers will actually contribute to the economy in the long run. There are a lot of young men who would love to leave the gang lifestyle and join the workforce, but who is going to hire a guy with visible gang tattoos all over his arms, neck or sometimes face?
nz4m60 said, 3 months ago

I suspect that most all of these items, calulated to induce an explosion of outrage to the Ditto-Head gang are true. If they are true, it’s money well spent at the local level for basic research. You cannot get by on the cheap. Grapes in NY produce income, lighthouse preservation in Maine produce income, etc. All of these things produce income and increase the quality of life for taxpayers. It’s much better than shooting money down the warfare rat hole that only generates more debt for death and destruction. Remember, it was the crowd that did away with regulation and oversight of the powerful and greedy that got us into this mess in the first place. If this is the worst the knee-jerk reaction crowd can do to self-induce “I told you so” outrage, we’re doing pretty good. I’d rather see my tax money spent on things like this than Gulfstreem jets for Republican senators snoozing cozy deep in the pockets of lobbyist and special interest. Ask yourself: who is really looking out for you? I wish, however, that the Democrats would get rid of Pelosi. Personally, I think she’s an dip that does more harm than good.
WebEditor said, 3 months ago
satipera …

Awesome. You deserve high marks for that response. And anyone really interested in seeing the health care reform efforts for what they really are would be wise to read and understand every word of that post.

I think people are completely misguided about their freedom in the health care system. I think people are unaware that insurance companies already ration what their insured members can get. And that they often deny doctors the chance to use FDA approved medicines and procedures.

If anyone is interested in seeing the reality of insurance companies:
1. Do a Google search for this term: “anthem blue cross medical policies”
2. The first link should bring you to a web page with the headline “Medical Policies and Clinical UM Guidelines”
3. Select “continue” at the bottom of the page
4. People can take it from there, but there’s a tab for a drop-down menu at the top for “Medical Policies”
These medical policies function as operating guidelines and determine what the insurance company will pay for and what they will not. Most, if not all, insurance companies have this info on their site (but most keep it well hidden). The CER is being established to establish the same sorts of “position papers.”

A careful reading of the private insurance medical policies (at least some of them) will show that although a product or device may be FDA approval, and although there is solid, solid science to back the use of certain meds or procedures, insurance companies find a way not to cover. That is, insurance companies enact a secondary regulation above and beyond the FDA.

I’m not suggesting that the CER will be likewise duplicitous; however, the existence of these medical policies should put to rest the ludicrous notion that “Government is going to be making my health decisions and not my doctor.” Also, government will be legally obligated to acknowledge FDA approved meds, procedures and devices, just like private payers ought to be.
jmworacle said, 3 months ago

As the African-American Liberterian economist Walter Williams said: “The only benificiaries to government programs are ‘The Poverty Pimps’ who run them.” If the problems politicians run against were solved then the breaucrats running those programs would have to get a job. When the Demopublicians were screaming about the Republicrats wanting to “cut” the school lunch program by $1,500.00 per child what the mainstream media overlooked was that the Demopublicians were proposing a
$4,200.00 per child over the previous $1,800.00 per child. The Republicrats were proposing a $2,700.00 per child funding. Only in Washington D.C. could a 33% increase be considered a “cut”.

As President Regan said in response about cutting spending: “We cutting the increase in spending.”
mytinytown said, 3 months ago

LIT & Jack
I could agree with both of you here.

myhaircut
I agree, but should tax money pay for it? No.

nz4m60
Nice to know if it has the potential to “produce income” you don’t mind wasting money. Or is it, as long as it is a democrat wasting money it is OK?
BTW There are a few HUGE money makers that I do not support p-o-r-n is one of them.
wndrwrthg said, 3 months ago

Jack, please read up on the Formosan Subterranean Termite.
WebEditor said, 3 months ago

We all want spending in our own backyard. And we all get mad when our neighbor gets a shiny new car. This whole outrage about “your stimulus money at work” can be explained as human envy, and nothing more.

That $475K for beaver management in Minnesota? If I lived in Wisconsin, I’d be upset. But if beavers were causing waterways to be diverged and, thus, disrupting farming activities in my own backyard, I’d be outraged if no one did anything about it.

I think people have irrational affection for lighthouses. Personally, I think they are nostalgic kitsch, and while they are nice to look at, I never understood the appeal. But if I lived in Maine, and I knew that people flocked to my state to see lighthouses, I’d be bleeep sure to pour money into a profit-generating proposition.
tizzo said, 3 months ago

satipera4:

“In his efforts to convince people that all stimulus spending is a criminal waste of money does not even have the little grey cells to pick out 8 examples that all look stupid even on first examination.”

OK, I’ll bite. Which of these 8 examples does NOT look stupid to you, on first examination or otherwise.
GJ_Jehosaphat said, 3 months ago

Nice to wake up see an issues conversation instead of the usual mudslinging.

mytinytown - I figured U’d be the one to miss farleftside, but feeling jipped?

Re: “I already miss farleftside’s consistent daily blather. I feel jipped.”

I knew all that name calling was a form of entertainment for some . So stuff it & try to come up with some original thoughts instead of just AGREE-ING with others.

Well - I’m off to the Mountains - will be gone for several days! Leaving the computer at home & enjoying Mother Nature at her finest.
Shaliach said, 3 months ago

Lewreader said, “Why did you think you bought your house so cheap next to the pig farm?”

With all due respect, we were not unsuspecting city-folk who moved to Green Acres.

We were farmers. Ever since my grandfather fled Nazi Germany, we have been a family of farmers.

That is until we were bought out by agribusiness.

I grew up next to a feedlot and a horse ranch. Wouldn’t trade it for a thing.

I was simply pointing out the humor of trying to take the stink out of manure.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Ok, why is Pelosi putting money into all of that, instead of say, business, which would look like she was trying to help out the economy.

Tiny, I read the comments on that website. From what I read, those people were dispicable human beings, considering they were taking joy in Republicans getting into car wrecks, etc.
Doctor Toon said, 3 months ago

Shaliach - We could extend the Nuclear Coffee pipeline here, but things do tend to get hot enough on their own some days.
What happened to the big 3 bad boys?
jack75287 said, 3 months ago

WartHog

Ok here you go.
The genus Coptotermes contains the largest number of termite pests (28 species) among the >2,800 termite species worldwide, and the Formosan subterranean termite, Coptotermes formosanus, is the most widely distributed and most economically important. The Formosan subterranean termite (FST) acquired its name because it was first described in Taiwan in the early 1900s, but C. formosanus is probably endemic to southern China. This destructive species was apparently transported to Japan prior to the 1600s and to Hawaii in the late 1800s (Su and Tamashiro 1987). By the1950s, it was reported in South Africa and Sri Lanka. During the 1960s it was found in Texas, Louisiana, and South Carolina. In 1980, a well-established colony was thriving in a condominium in Hallandale, Florida. A single colony of FST may contain several million termites (versus several hundred thousand termites for native subterranean termite species) that forage up to 300 ft in soil. Because of its population size and foraging range, the presence of FST colonies poses serious threats to nearby structures. Once established, FST has never been eradicated from an area.

First it dose not say how to kill them it says sex practices. What is going to kill them or at least slow them down is finding something that will work both as a bait and as a poison so they take it back to there little colony and kill the baby termites. We got to stop acting like we are still the richest thing there is. I am sorry if there was some evidence that this could help, ok but no they are not mentioning it here. I might support it but my argument remains the same you can always justify anything.
jack75287 said, 3 months ago

satipera4

We really don’t need your insults no one wants to here them. If you want attention earn it.

What dose you comment about the author say about your intelligence.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

This has gone very, very weird.
Allan Brown said, 3 months ago

@ yukon eric

I got the satire in your comment…. very droll
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

satipera, somehow, a conversation with one of my friends went from how are you, to what is the lowest legal age, in which someone can send you porn, without you having to worry whether or not it is child porn. Really weird series of events caused the topic change on that.

Your entire last sentence to Jack, wow, just wow.

So needless to say, this has been a strange day.
waitliftin said, 3 months ago

What amazes me is how people can actually defend the fact that our government tax dollars are going to remove gang member’s stupid tattoos. What about all those girls who went to college and got “tramp stamps” on their lower backs, why don’t we allocate tax dollars to help them?

I actually have no problem with them spending money on beaver management and control in Minnesota; I mean have you seen the girls from Minnesota?

I am not sure why we need bicycle parking garages at a cost of 11 million dollars to the tax payer, why could you not just chain your bike to a pole or the government could have spent a lot less and just put up bike racks??

The real problem is how little our government respects us the people. They realize they can do whatever they want and they know that the people may shift slightly one way or another but no enough to actually cause an overhaul in the government.

I play racquetball every morning with the mayor of a small Midwest town. This particular mayor has served many terms in this town and currently has 4 deputy mayors who are paid at $54,000 each and he just did a press release about how the city needed to cut spending so he had two options either raise property taxes or fire some police officers. I ask him quite often if he is concerned about voter backlash over his lavish spending and he says this is a democratic city, always has been always will be, as long as I run on the democratic ticket these idiots will keep voting for me. The sad thing he is right.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Now for the subject at hand. Why do we need to study termite sexual practices, and grape genetics? Will this boost the economy?
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Yeah, apparently the legal age in TX is 17, but still, better safe, than trying to not drop the soap. Satipera, as a general rule, if its illegal, I try and not do it. If its a felony, I am nowhere near it.
WebEditor said, 3 months ago

“Now for the subject at hand. Why do we need to study termite sexual practices, and grape genetics? Will this boost the economy?”

Just a for example … if we could kill termites more effectively, we would spend less on termite control. If we could make grapes that are viable in the Northeast and last through harsh winters, they may yield a better crop and more wine yield (or just grapes).

Yes. These things can be a boost to local economies. However, when the connection is not apparent, people like to call these kinds of investments ‘pork.’ But not all pork tastes like chicken, if you catch my drift …
WebEditor said, 3 months ago

satipera said:

“I am sure that someone looking into the other examples on the list would find out that most if not all of them are not such ridiculous examples of waste as Moore thinks they are.

If this is the best he can do it could be time to retire.”

I would like to make a proposal. I would like to earmark some stimulus money to make Carl Moore retire. And think about the boost to the economy that would be: we’d all be going back to work now instead of bickering over minutiae. The stress level of all here would be reduced, thus also reducing the eventual high blood pressure and cardiac fallout from getting an apoplectic reaction to Nancy Pelosi’s mug.

Not to mention … we’d get rid of Carl Moore’s dusty, old, tired, one-track way of thinking. Invest in progress not regression, I always say.
mytinytown said, 3 months ago

GJ_Jehosaphat
Yes everyday I’d come here and read his non-sense and feel dumber. It made me feel I was then on a level playing field.

A bit of sarcasm, sorry.

Cool, have fun in the mountains, been to WV a few times, very wimpy mountains there, but still a wonderful place to visit. Thought even about moving.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Editor, on the termite reproduction, why not study different poisons, to kill them more effectively, and at a lower cost to consumers?
butch1942 said, 3 months ago

Hey what happened to Farleft and Mark ?
Shaliach said, 3 months ago

mroberts88

Earmarks (or grants) are often political pay-offs. The executive branch has been unable to halt the practice because it is in the purview of the United States Congress.

Ronald Reagan lobbied for the president to have the authority to exercise the power of a line-item veto.

Bush called for the end of earmarks, but they peaked during his administration at 13,942 measures totalling $21 billion–and that was in just one year (2005).

Obama said emphatically that he would not sign any bill that contained earmarks, but that would require he veto the entire bill since earmarks are leeched onto ‘good’ legislation without debate or consideration.

One of the first budget measures Obama signed contained 8500 earmarks totalling $7.7 billion.

To date he has ‘approved’ $18 billion in earmarks which–according to the Washington Post–is greater than the budget of the Interior Department.

Obama–in his defense–said, “Show me a bill that doesn’t have earmarks.”

The president needs a line-item veto, but only Congress can authorize that power.

Since they control the purse strings, don’t expect that to happen anytime soon.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Shaliach, thank you for you informative post, but what does that have to do with giving money to study how to more effectively kill termites?
mytinytown said, 3 months ago

butch1942
There were here yesterday in the morning and before you know it farleft, marktrail and someguy were gone. All old posts gone.
I guess gocomics got tired of there consistent name calling.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Tiny, and everyone else, dont complain, so far so good.
Radical-Knight said, 3 months ago

http://www.farleftside.com/
WebEditor said, 3 months ago

“Editor, on the termite reproduction, why not study different poisons, to kill them more effectively, and at a lower cost to consumers?”

I’ll draw you an analogy from the world of medicine. Antibiotics work by two essential mechanisms: apoptosis (they kill the bacteria) or they inhibit (stop, limit or slow down) growth while the body’s natural immune system (or time) does the antimicrobial work. The former works most of the time, but sometimes when the bug won’t die (when it builds resistance), an alternative plan of attack is needed.

So, termites … most are killed by poisons. Some are not. For those that are not, alternative approaches are needed. For example, stopping reproduction of termites in a colony so that time will eventually kill the population without a new one spawning. But to stop reproduction, you first need to understand the target. Hence, research on the sexual reproduction of termites might yield a way to stop colonies from reproducing (and there is most likely a good scientific basis for it if it got government funding).

This kind of research, it should be noted, can have benefit beyond simply understanding how termites get down and dirty. Interspecies comparison, for example, might reveal some interesting, previously unknown information about other species of bugs that are ravaging humanity. Just off the top of my head, if we could design a mechanism to stop reproduction of termites, what’s to say we couldn’t control tse-tse fly populations (carriers of sleeping sickness) or malaria carrying mosquitoes?
jack75287 said, 3 months ago

satipera …
Your first paragraph write in English, your second was perverse.
mroberts88 said, 3 months ago

Good point editor, and if it could stop fire ants, all the better.
Ravensinger said, 3 months ago

Odd, I actually miss seeing FLS’s initial infantile sarcastic ridicule of Mr. Moores cartoon.