A Good Christian Raisin’ and a Eighth Grade Education
If the taxpayers of this country wanted you to have their money (or had it to give), a good indicator would have been that they were actually buying your cars.
Didn’t we already vote on this when we decided not to buy?
The federal government has no business running a car company. Congress has proven their inability to be fiscally responsible in any context. Five hundred thirty five CEOs of GM will only screw it up futher.
Now we all get to play bank. Well, it’s more like playing PayDay Lender, since the feds decided in their infinite wisdom yesterday to take over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. As a taxpayer, you now own pieces of bad mortgages all across the country.
When you spread the pain out over so many people it doesn’t hurt so bad, right? More socialism, more burden for tax payers, and (maybe worst of all) now the federal government has the lion’s share of the mortgage market.
Of course, this (it’s not a) bailout is only temporary. Right.
A retired Massachusetts chemist had his home raided (without a warrant of course) and his property stolen by authorities. Why?
Experiments. That’s right. He was doing experiments.
Deeb is not accused of making methamphetamine or other illegal drugs. He’s not accused of aiding terrorists, synthesizing explosives, nor even of making illegal fireworks.
…
Pamela Wilderman, the code enforcement officer for Marlboro, stated, “I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation.â€
Wilderman thinks he has crossed a line…somewhere. Sounds like reason enough to me. I’m really scared by precedents like this when they go unchecked. It’s a threat not only to people who like to tinker with science as a hobby, but also to people who homeschool and people who may be developing new products or processes in their spare time.
One day it may be illegal to develop WordPress themes, and there won’t be any chemists to stand up for us.
via Slashdot
**UPDATE**
Reader Greg Compton sent this via Twitter–“inspector is a former theatre major“.
At least Massachusetts residents don’t have to worry about getting their doors kicked in during charades night.
I drove up to the boonies to help a friend move today. Actually, I drove up through hell Gatlinburg to get to his new place on top of the mountain. On the way back I took the backroads in order to avoid the traffic and enjoy the scenic drive. Something really cool happened on the way back, and it didn’t really strike me as strange until a half hour or so afterwards.
A large tree had fallen across Highway 416, blocking the road in both directions. I was about 5 or 6 cars deep in one of the stuck lanes, but several of us got out of our cars and started disassembling the tree and moving the branches out of the way. Then a couple of guys (presumably locals) pulled up with their chainsaws and started cutting pieces for us to drag off. We had the road cleared in less than 10 minutes, jumped in our cars, and kept going.
This is a great example of why people work and government doesn’t. Sure, there were some people who sat in their cars and watched as everyone else cleared the road for them (“It’s not my job” types). But there were plenty of people who would rather roll up their sleeves and do some work to get where they want to go instead of waiting around on someone else. The guys who had chainsaws did the cutting. The rest of us did the moving. We didn’t have to have someone coordinate it, and we didn’t have to be forced into doing the work.
How long would it have taken for the road to be cleared if we’d all sat in our cars and waited for some gov’ment agency to take care of something we were perfectly able to handle ourselves?
We all saw a benefit in cooperating and working together to achieve a goal. Those of us who were moving limbs sure were happy some people had chainsaws, and I’m sure the guys with the chainsaws were happy they didn’t have to drag big pieces of tree–all they had to do was run the saw.
Notice how everyone, even the people who weren’t willing to help, benefited from the fact that each of us was acting out of 100% pure selfishness? We just wanted to get where we wanted to go.
