After a little thought about today’s nobody-showed-up-to-see-Joe-Biden-in-Erie-PA fiasco….
“Rural broadband build-out” has become a new Golden Calf of Liberalism….
(Note that it says “a” not “the” - it’s just one of them, but a relatively new one….)
Default here to Open Thread….
Here’s a picture that’s worth many thousands of words:
That’s what I call “A Convenient Truth”….
(H/T - Tim Blair and his international band of minions….)
No, I’m not joking.
If you don’t believe me, just click here.
(H/T - “Planet Gore” at NRO)
I wonder what they replaced the carbon with - silicon?
Help….
Okay, we weren’t expecting much of the local news media up here behind the Maple Curtain.
Among the three local television outlets, the largest of them has nothing at all. The combined Fox/ABC (separate stations, but merged news team) has a small and anodyne story.
But the national prize for obtuse media bias has to go to….
This is impressive, and has a big carbon footprint:
(Courtesy: Tim Blair)
Sunday open thread….
A few days ago, your humble correspondent noted the story of a trio of British “explorers” who were on a “global warming” icepack survey in the Arctic - and who had become marooned by (surprise) frigid Arctic weather conditions. The story was too hard to pass up, since it had been given the deadpan-irony headline of:
Global Warming Team Stranded by Cold Weather
In some sense it was good fun to mock them for their foolishness. But on the other hand, they were clearly in very deep trouble - marooned by the cold and bad weather, and nearly out of food.
Fortunately, they were rescued in the nick of time by a (carbon-belching) Twin Otter, and are now safe.
But one really does have to wonder about the bone-headedness (and sanity) of people who do silly things like this and nearly get themselves killed.
More below the fold….
A couple of days ago, I pounded out a late-evening diatribe, complaining about the oddities in how U.S. tax law handles the repatriation (or lack thereof) of profits earned outside the country by U.S.-based corporations - and how these odd policies are hobbling U.S-based corporations…. and how the effort to make this mess even worse would increase the problems even further.
There were no problems here, but when others cited it elsewhere, it was quickly noted that I had missed something (oops) and this caused a problem. Yeah, I botched the job a bit.
I’ll plead fatigue, anger, …. and the “misfortune” of dealing almost exclusively with low-tax overseas jurisdictions.
But the key point is that the core contention of that Tuesday post stands unchanged. Both quantitative and procedural aspects of the U.S. system for taxing corporate profits are putting U.S.-based corporations at a serious disadvantage. And worse, it seems that pigheaded, purely-ideologically-motivated changes being bruited in Washington (in the interest of “fairness”) will, if implemented, make the situation even worse.
So, let’s walk through this again, get the mechanics right…. and note with a little more care the points-of-contact that seem likely to be exploited by the suddenly-resurgent zombie-progressive demagogues….
More below the fold….
Some years back, there was a winter mountaineering disaster in New Hampshire. The post mortem (literally) summary of why this happened was nicely encapsulated in the phrase, “A plan of breathtaking stupidity.”
I was reminded of that today as details continue to emerge of what seems to almost be an overt Obama-Geithner plan to drive as many corporations as possible from the U.S. and to other jurisdictions.
Given that we’re the ONLY jurisdiction on the planet that double-taxes out-of-country foreign earnings (if repatriated - and that seems to be the “loophole” that they want to close), this is almost a death wish.
Now, instead of just the “off-shoring” of jobs, it will make perfect economic sense to offshore entire companies elsewhere.
This is a stimulus plan for Bermuda and Grand Cayman….
What am I ranting about? More below the fold….
Earlier today, several of us participated in conference call with Congressman Kevin McCarthy of California.
Congressman McCarthy was just coming out of a meeting with fellow Republican (of Wisconsin) Paul Ryan, and he pointed out something remarkable about the “Obama” budget that is now slithering its way up for consideration by the beginning of April.
More below the fold….
