Internet Goodness!

HughesNet is up and running. When I got home from work, I rerouted the ethernet cable to the Apple Airport 802.11g and back to Texas Grandma’s computer. Then I told my MacBook Pro to connect to the Airport, which it did on the first try. I hadn’t used it in 8 or 9 months, but the passwords were still in there, so it connected instantly. Then I took my iPhone and went into settings, told it to connect to the WiFi and fed it the password – worked on the first try.

Now I get internet on every device, at home or at work, without plugging anything in and without changing any settings. That’s nice, after months of fooling with a USB dingus from Alltel, and needing to tell it to connect. Tomorrow I cancel the Alltel service.

It’s all good, so far.

-Popgun

Internet Goodness?

This morning, I’m getting HughesNet to come install new internet service here at the home place. I’ve used them before, so I pretty much know what to expect. I’ll let you know how it goes.

To balance out the costs, I’m going to drop my Alltel cellular broadband contract. It has certain advantages, but I have Wi-Fi at work and later today, I’ll have Wi-Fi at home; so the times are rare that I actually need it. The major advantage cellular has over satellite service is that it will work in a thunderstorm. It’s also a bit less expensive. The major disadvantage is that it can’t easily be shared.

-Popgun

OS X Snow Leopard

OS X Snow Leopard – if you’ve got an Intel based Mac, get Snow Leopard.

I installed it Friday. Install time was about an hour and 15 minutes. In my case, at least, no glitch so far. It freed up about 7 GB of disk space, and everything runs noticeably faster. Many things open up much faster.

For an upgrade cost of $29, it’s a great value. So far, I like it!

-Popgun

Social Security and Medicare

On the way in to work this morning, I heard on the radio, audio from a town hall meeting somewhere. A congressman or senator was trying to justify socialism by trying to take a vote on how many wanted to get rid of Medicare. I did not hear the outcome, and I don’t know where this took place. I just heard a few seconds of it.

But I know my response to his query.

I would ditch Medicare in a heartbeat on one condition – that the government pay me back every dime I’ve put in to Medicare, with interest, along with every dime my employer put in. That large chunk of change should be available to me to purchase my own insurance. The chances of me ever seeing that money is nil.

The same is true of Social Security, another socialist program. I get a statement every so often which shows my vesting in social security. The last several have had notices stating that I probably won’t get the full benefits to which I am entitled. Why?

From Wikipedia:

William G. Shipman of the Cato Institute argues:

In common usage a trust fund is an estate of money and securities held in trust for its beneficiaries. The Social Security Trust Fund is quite different. It is an accounting of the difference between tax and benefit flows. When taxes exceed benefits, the federal government lends itself the excess in return for an interest-paying bond, an IOU that it issues to itself. The government then spends its new funds on unrelated projects such as bridge repairs, defense, or food stamps. The funds are not invested for the benefit of present or future retirees.

Draw your own conclusions. It looks like stealing, to me. If the “Trust Fund” was actually set up like a trust fund, then the funds would be there. Instead, the government has been robbing the fund to be used for other things.

This is reason enough to be against any government-run social program. History shows that such programs consistently run into financing problems – because of poor design, or poor management, or outright misallocation of funds. I don’t really know why – I just know that the contract is going to be broken – by the government.

After this example, it’s hard to see why anyone would trust the government with these programs. I most certainly do NOT want any new government-run socialist programs.

-Popgun

Bearing False Witness

Someone (ie Obama) who accuses another of ‘bearing false witness‘ really ought to make sure his own house is in order, first.

As demonstrated, for instance, in the article ‘5 Liberal Lies About Obamacare‘ over at TownHall.com.

The Obama administration is lying through their teeth, but they accuse US of bearing false witness. All we’re guilty of is reading the perversion of a bill – something they haven’t done!

It is now obvious that Obama and the people in his administration, like most politicians, will not hesitate to lie with a straight face when it serves their purpose.

-Popgun

Have You Noticed ??

So now, all of a sudden, the Obama administration again wants to investigate and prosecute CIA and military interrogators.

Have you noticed the timing?

This suddenly hot topic made the news within a day or two of the news that:

• Social Security won’t get cost of living adjustments this year.
• ObamaCare is meeting great resistance in the population it is supposed to serve.
• The Obama administration was forced to admit that they were off on the 10 year deficit projection – short by $2 trillion dollars!

I have no way of knowing for sure, but it certainly looks like Obama needed a distraction, so he produced one.

UDATE: Snort! Tamara says it so much better than I do!

-Popgun

Magnitude of the National Debt, #2

Back in May, I noted that the the U.S. national debt equaled about $2.25 per day since the creation of the universe / big-bang event. ALL previous administrations combined have saddled us with this amount of debt.

The Obama administration has announced that the 10-year deficit projection (NEW debt) is 9 trillion dollars.

That means that the U.S. National debt today will increase by about $1.79 on Obama’s watch.

All prior administrations combined = $2.25. Obama’s administration alone = $1.79.

If this prediction is correct, the U.S. National debt in 2019 will be an amazing $4.04 for every day since the creation of the universe.

Wow.

-Popgun

Prosperity in the United States

We need to re-achieve prosperity in the United States. I think we can all agree that this would be a good thing. Health care is a bogus issue – if we don’t have prosperity, we won’t have good health care. First you make a living, then you pay the doctor.

Our leaders have failed us. They have not addressed the real problems of the land. Instead, they have done everything in their power to force this country to move to socialism and statism, which, it is now apparent, is their true goal. Everything they’ve done demonstrates this, from the histories of the people Obama has appointed, right down to the philosophy behind the bills they have passed (or attempted to pass).

This is why Obama and the democrats have rushed all of these major changes through so quickly that nobody had time to read them; like a fast-talking salesman that doesn’t want you to read the fine print.

With the attempt to nationalize health care, which I’ve read is around 20% of the total budget, the general public has finally realized what is going on. It is not about health care, it is about manipulating the health care industry so that the federal government gains control of it. Our leaders are not doing this for our benefit.

We, the people, have expressed our displeasure with all this. What does the administration do? They call us mobs, special interests, right-wing radicals, terrorists, and more. (See today’s Day by Day). Obviously, they are denigrating us in order to discredit our testimony – they want that bill passed whether we want it or not.

The economy is in crisis. What has this administration done about it? Spend money like it was water. Ocean water. They are spending money exponentially faster than the country can produce it, and damn the consequences!

Short term, this may work to prop up certain segments of the economy – but long term, there will be a terrible cost. It is like borrowing money to make your house payment. That’s not progress, that’s deeper in debt. And now you have to make more monthly payments, so it will be harder to do next month.

This is not the way to prosperity.

Prosperity is achieved by producing more than you spend. This is fundamentally true for a person, and it is fundamentally true for a nation.

Government is always parasitic, financially – like a vampire, it lives off the blood of the host, the citizens of the country. We need to restrict the federal government to those functions that are necessary to the maintenance of the country. Things like maintaining standards for roads and highways; national defense; and international diplomacy.

All else is non-essential baggage that we simply cannot afford.

We need to strip the government of unnecessary programs and personnel. When people work for the government, we are paying their salaries; when they get a job in the private sector, they actually have to produce wealth instead of spending ours. Kick ‘em out and let ‘em get a real job! We can start with ALL the ‘Czars’. It wouldn’t hurt to give congress a pay cut, and eliminate those automatic raises they get, as well. If Nancy Pelosi wants to commute to California, let her fly commercial, just like the rest of us. That would be demonstrating some financial restraint!

It is now time to return to financial responsibility. Things are a bit tight here at home, and I’m watching how I spend my money. Our government needs to do the same – and be critical of every dollar they spend.

That is something this administration will never do.

-Popgun

Conspiracy Theories?

Now, Obama is inventing conspiracy theories to explain away the distaste most Americans have for ObamaCare. He blames it on a plan, or conspiracy, by the Republican leadership. I don’t know about you, but I made up my mind about it long before I heard anything about it from the Republicans. Therefore, either Obama is lying, or he’s delusional. It’s got to be one or the other.

He seems to be in denial about the fact that most of us are too smart to buy another pig-in-a-poke; having already bought several from this same snake-oil salesman.

-Popgun

Cap and Trade Bill

The Cap and Trade bill has already been rushed through the house, and will come to the Senate when they are back in session in the fall.

An excerpt from a letter to me from U.S. Senator John Cornyn:

Several analyses show that Texas, as the nation’s leading energy producer and key manufacturing center, would be saddled with a disproportionate amount of the cost to implement a cap-and-trade program. In fact, the Texas Comptroller’s office notes that if H.R. 2454 was enacted, it could cost Texas families a total of $6.9 billion dollars and, in its first year of implementation, displace up to 277,000 Texas jobs.

This is how Obama and the democrats are taking care of us. They’re costing us a ton of money, and causing jobs to be lost on a massive scale. Whatever their reason for doing so, this is going to hurt, if it passes.

I’d personally appreciate it if you would all push your U.S. Senators to vote against this bill. I have contacted mine, as you can see.

-Popgun