Bookworm on Jul 01 2008 | Filed under: Barack Obama, Britain, England, Government, Medicine
I heard on Dennis Prager today a call from a British man who pointed out that, in the 10 years of Tony Blair’s socialism, every major institution in Britain declined. And the more the government meddled, the greater the decline. Today’s British papers offer yet another example: The dental portion of the National Health Service [...]
Bookworm on Jun 26 2008 | Filed under: Britain, Bureaucracy, England, Europe, Government
People around the world are facing food shortages but, in the magical bureacracy that is the EU, food is being destroyed for being a millimeter off of Brussels regulations:
A market trader has been banned from selling a batch of kiwi fruits because they are 1mm smaller than EU rules allow.
Inspectors told 53-year- old Tim Down [...]
Bookworm on Jun 25 2008 | Filed under: Government
Two anecdotes, and then I’ll get to my point (and the anecdotes do relate to that point):
Anecdote 1: I get my medical care from Kaiser and feel that I get great care. Within its four walls, Kaiser is an extremely efficiently run organization that takes surprisingly good care of vast numbers of people. Kaiser has [...]
Bookworm on Mar 21 2008 | Filed under: African-Americans, Government
I found myself in the car yesterday afternoon listening for perhaps the 30th time to an episode of Avatar being played on the car DVD. I happen to think that Avatar is a rather unusually good kids’ show. Since this was routine car pooling, with the same passel of tired and cranky kids getting [...]
Bookworm on Nov 12 2007 | Filed under: Government
No comment:
No good deed goes unpunished.
At least that’s how Muir Beach resident Sigward Moser felt Friday after he says he was threatened with a Taser gun, forced to the ground and handcuffed by a National Park Service ranger for refusing to stop cleaning up the oily beach beneath his home.
Moser, a 45-year-old communications consultant, said [...]
Bookworm on Nov 01 2007 | Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, San Francisco
I grew up in San Francisco, and always found the intersection at 19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard frustrating and nerve wracking. Sloat runs east/west and 19th Avenue runs north/south. If you’re heading south on 19th Avenue, and want to make a left turn onto Sloat (heading east), there is a left turn signal. [...]
Don Quixote on Jul 22 2007 | Filed under: Government, Law
DQ here. I’ll be dropping in while Bookworm is on vacation. Danny L. picked up on one of my earlier comments and suggested I make a topic out of my belief that we should legalize drugs. Good idea. I’d also legalize gambling, prostitution, and other “victimless” crimes. I take this stand on principle — what [...]
Bookworm on Mar 20 2007 | Filed under: Climate change, Government
One of the things that irritates and amuses me in equal parts is the Left’s habit of crying “censorship” whenever someone disagrees with them. They deliberately (I think) confuse the distinction between government acts shutting down debate and mere disapprobation. Nothing shows the difference more clearly than this story about the climate “scientist” [...]
Bookworm on Jan 31 2007 | Filed under: Climate change, Democrats, Government
Although I find the light they give too sterile and cool to be appealing, we have a bunch of the new compact fluorescent bulbs in our house, both because they are cheap to operate and they are long lasting. Being no fools, Mr. Bookworm and I like to save money and appreciate not having to [...]
Bookworm on Jan 26 2007 | Filed under: Economics, Government
San Francisco, in an effort to increase its revenues, raised its parking meter fees to an average of $3.00 per hour. City officials expected a cash cascade. What happened instead, was that people obligated to pay the fees figured out that they’d do better in private parking garages. By doing so, they’d [...]
Bookworm on Jan 25 2007 | Filed under: Economics, Government
Marin County is one of the bluest of blue counties in America. Lynn Woolsey, the ineffectual and unintelligent Marin representative to Congress garnered close to 80% of the votes in the last election, if I remember correctly. But its easy to be Blue if you’re talking environmentalism and war. How about being [...]
Don Quixote on Sep 25 2006 | Filed under: America, Economics, Government
    If Bookworm were here (she’s on a much needed mini-vacation and will be back tomorrow) she would surely mention that oil prices have dipped below $60 a barrel and are at a 6-month low. Also, the fed declined to raise interest rates for a change.  Assuming the good news continues (always a dangerous assumption) what [...]
Bookworm on Sep 01 2006 | Filed under: Government
Whenever a government agency gets lots and lots of power, businesses get strangled and a State loses its tax base. Certainly California has been an excellent example of this trend, as California businesses have fallen and failed under ever increasing government oversight from government offices staffed with people hostile to business and individual enterprise [...]
Bookworm on Jul 07 2006 | Filed under: Government
I don’t like marijuana. I think it smells bad and that it’s bad for people. I’ve tried it once (yes, I was curious and I did inhale) and hated, just hated, how it made me feel. I had no inclination to revisit it. Of course, I don’t like alcohol either. [...]
Bookworm on Jun 30 2006 | Filed under: Government
We just got yet another reminder (as if we need one), about Government ineptitude at managing its own programs:
Welfare recipients and their friends and relatives are defrauding taxpayers of $500 million a year through the county’s child care programs, a grand jury report concludes.
The report released Thursday found that nearly half the $1.1 billion CalWORKS [...]
Bookworm on May 12 2006 | Filed under: Government
I'm not repeating anything new when I say that, European-like, liberals' idea of a perfect world is one where the Government runs as many things as possible. (Hillary's 1994 healthcare proposal springs to mind.) The other day, I had an experience that reminded me, once again, why the fewer things the government controls, [...]
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