I’ve never trusted polls, manipulating to an ordained outcome is far too easy. So I’ll take the ‘most Americans want universal health care’ with a grain of salt – or 3. I just don’t think it’s true,

But the big head-shaker comes from ‘taxing the ultra-rich fairly’. What is ‘fairly’? The rich and ultra-rich already pay 90% of the income taxes collected in this country.

My guess is this idea comes from the leftish concept that the wealth of a country is owned by the citizenry. This is against the fundamental idea of free enterprise and private property – two of the ideas that made the US the most prosperous and powerful nation in history.

Socialism has been tried, and has failed in every singe instance.

“You darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism, tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check.

“Contemplate the mangled bodies of your countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, and supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom – go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

“Courage, then, my countrymen, our contest is not only whether we ourselves shall be free, but whether there shall be left to mankind an asylum on earth for civil and religious liberty. Dismissing, therefore, the justice of our cause, as incontestable, the only question is, What is best for us to pursue in our present circumstances?”

- from a comment by Osamas_Pajamas in the Washington Times

There are almost $250 worth of books here, all in good shape. They have been read, though, so they’re not pristine.

Buy-it-now price: $75 + $10 shipping, total $85. Hit the preloaded PayPal button below or at the end of the post. Yes, you can use credit card or debit card.

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Graphic effects and typographic treatments. Jim Krause, $22.99 USD. ISBN 1-58180-046-0

Brochure, poster/flyer, web design, advertising, newsletter, page layout, stationery ideas. Jim Krause, $22.99 USD. ISBN 1-58180-146-7

An index of 150+ concepts, images and exercises to ignite your design ingenuity. Jim Krause, $24.99 USD. ISBN 1-58180-438-5

Over 1100 Color Combinations, CMYK & RGB Formulas, for print and web media. Jim Krause, $23.99 USD. ISBN 1-58180-236-6

A graphic designer’s guide to designing effective compositions, selecting dynamic components & devloping creative concepts. Jim Krause, $24.99 USD. ISBN 1-58180-501-2

375+ pages of design ideas, edited by the famous David E. Carter, $29.99 USD. ISBN 0-06-008763-3

Design and Typographic Principles for the Visual Novice, Robin Williams, $14.95USD. ISBN 1-56609-159-4

The Non-Designer’s Type Book, Robin Williams, $24.99USD. ISBN 0-201-35367-9

Everything you need to know to create dynamic layouts. Graham Davis, $21.99USD. ISBN  1-58180-260-9

Design principles, decisions, projects. David Dabner, $23.99USD. ISBN 1-58180-435-0

“Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments,” said Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D. This end-of-progress view has been echoed many times, including by Charles Duell, commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office, who in 1899 said, “Everything that can be invented has already been invented.”

It’s worth recalling, especially in a gloomy year like the one drawing to an end, that the opposite is true: The more we invent, the more we invent. Knowledge grows on itself.

So here are the rest of my Top 10 Worst Technology Predictions, which prove that when it comes to tech, optimism pays:

“The Americans have need of the telephone, but we do not. We have plenty of messenger boys,” Sir William Preece, chief engineer at the British Post Office, 1878.

“Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?” H.M. Warner, Warner Bros., 1927.

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers,” Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

“Television won’t be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night,” Darryl Zanuck, 20th Century Fox, 1946.

“The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most,” IBM executives to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959.

“There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home,” Ken Olsen, founder of mainframe-producer Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

“No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer—640K ought to be enough for anybody,” Bill Gates, Microsoft, 1981.

“Next Christmas the iPod will be dead, finished, gone, kaput,” Sir Alan Sugar, British entrepreneur, 2005.

via Gordon Crovitz: Technology Predictions Are Mostly Bunk – WSJ.com.

The people who call themselves ‘progressives’ are on the march to accomplish their vision of a socialist Utopia in the United States, and a lot of us in the heartland don’t like it.

We don’t like it for a number of reasons: we resent that the omniscient, omnipotent lawyers who make up the vast majority of the government are trying to extend their power over we serfs in yet another fashion; we don’t agree that unlimited medical care is a ‘right’ that is endowed on an American (or illegal immigrant, for that matter) by the mere act of being alive; we don’t agree that by virtue of living in the U.S. the fruits of our labors belong to the collective; we believe in the right of the individual over the right of the state; we believe that the Constitution recognizes these principles and has been distorted by those whose vision differs from the vision of the founders; and more.

Thousands of people comment on blogs, write letters to the editors of newspapers and news magazines and news sites. “Give me liberty or give me death!,” “Don’t tread on me!”, “Put me in jail because the government isn’t going to dictate the terms of my existence.”

The grassroots are declaring their intention to fight.

But the people who are advancing the socialist agenda aren’t worried. They’ll write and enact the laws that confiscate your hard-earned money by force, whether it’s for ‘health care’ or ‘cap and trade’, or whatever.

They know you won’t fight.

They know you won’t answer your front door with a gun in your hand when the U.S. Marshal shows up to take you into custody for tax evasion because you refused to pay “your fair share”. They know that you’ll see the FBI coming to your house wrapped in helmets and body armor, carrying automatic weapons and riot shotguns, and you’ll stand in your doorway and piss in your pants and do whatever they say.

They know you’d rather endure and make the best of whatever situation they create than choose to fight back. Because they know if you truly fight back, you’ll die. And you know it too.

And you won’t do it.

Nor will I, honestly. I will take what they dish out and live with it. I’ll be a good little submissive American, knowing that my government knows what’s best for me. I can’t fight city hall. I damned sure can’t fight the federal government.

We all know what happened at Waco, what happened at Ruby Ridge. We know that the people who have the power are itching to use it.

Some people like to spout what Thomas Jefferson wrote:

“God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Powerful words, those. But we as a country are beyond them. Jefferson advised that if our country’s “rulers are not warned from time to time”, that if those that form the government don’t understand “that this people preserve the spirit of resistance” then “Let them take arms.” He also knew that after 20 years, the existing government would be so entrenched that it would be almost impossible to dislodge. Breaking news: 20 years passed a LONG TIME AGO.

Armchair patriots like to quote Thomas Jefferson and spout big. They huff their chests and want to ‘spill the blood of the tyrants’ of government. It ain’t gonna happen, guys and gals. You’re going to go up against the combined firepower of the FBI, the ATF, the NSA, and all the other letter groups? Right-o.

Here’s what’ll really happen: you’ll spout off, you’ll get together with some like-minded buddies, ready to take on the might of the US government. You’ll blog about it, you’ll write about it.

Then, one dark and moonless night, at around 4 in the morning because that’s when you’re most vulnerable, they’ll come to get you. They’ll ram your doors in, yelling at the top of their lungs, flash-bang grenades will go off, you’ll be blind and deaf and you won’t know what’s going on. You won’t be able to move, and you’ll shit your drawers from terror. Then they’ll strap you up, and take you away, whimpering and crying, to a nice safe federal penitentiary.

And another terrorist plot will have been foiled.

Go back to sleep and dream, my fellow Americans, take comfort in the knowledge that you are secure and that the people in Washington, D.C. are diligently watching over you as they slowly, transparently and openly, relieve you of your freedoms.

Liberty, true liberty, is dead. And has been for a long time.

From Sherman Frederick, publisher of  the Las Vegas Review-Journal, on the bullying tactics and threats coming from esteemed senator Harry Reid:

On Wednesday, before he addressed a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce luncheon, Reid joined the chamber’s board members for a meet-’n'-greet and a photo. One of the last in line was the Review-Journal’s director of advertising, Bob Brown, a hard-working Nevadan who toils every day on behalf of advertisers. He has nothing to do with news coverage or the opinion pages of the Review-Journal.

Yet, as Bob shook hands with our senior U.S. senator in what should have been nothing but a gracious business setting, Reid said: “I hope you go out of business.”

Later, in his public speech, Reid said he wanted to let everyone know that he wants the Review-Journal to continue selling advertising because the Las Vegas Sun is delivered inside the Review-Journal.

Good on you, Mr. Frederick.

Statists in the upper pinnacles of power like Harry Reid can get away with or do almost anything because no one will challenge them. They fear the consequences, and rightly so. Mr. Reid (and I use “Mr.” as an honorific just to keep things civil) weilds great clout – no doubt he could ruin me or any other private citizen or small business without so much as batting an eye.

So it is refreshing and encouraging to see people begin to stand against the machine. The machine needs to go away.

House Democrats are probing the nation’s largest insurance companies for lavish spending, demanding reams of compensation data and schedules of retreats and conferences.

Letters sent to 52 insurance companies by Democratic leaders demand extensive documents for an examination of ‘extensive compensation and other business practices in the health insurance industry.” The letters set a deadline of Sept. 14 for the documents.

via Democratic investigators target health insurers – Carrie Budoff Brown and Mike Allen – POLITICO.com.

Welcome to the good ‘ole USofA.

Two Democratic lawmakers are calling on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to relax recently tightened standards for mortgages on new condominiums, saying they could threaten the viability of some developments and slow the housing-market recovery.

[...]

In a letter to the chief executives of Fannie and Freddie, Reps. Barney Frank, the Massachusetts Democrat who is chairman of the House Financial Services Committee [The Hon. Barney's fingerprints are all over this current mess. -ed.], and Anthony Weiner (D., N.Y.) warned that the 70% sales threshold “may be too onerous” and could lead condo buyers to shun new developments. The legislators asked the companies to “make appropriate adjustments” to their underwriting standards for condos.

via Changes Urged to Rules on Condo Loans – WSJ.com.

Isn’t government interference in business decisions largely to blame for the current state we’re in? If the pols would have kept their ignorant hands out of things, maybe we wouldn’t be as bad off as we are now.

The government-anointed judges of risk at Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s and Fitch inflicted upon investors the AAA-rated subprime mortgage-backed security. They also inflicted upon the world’s nest eggs the even more opaque AAA-rated collateralized debt obligation (CDO). Without the ratings agency seal of approval — required by SEC, Federal Reserve and state regulation for many institutional investors — it would have been nearly impossible to market the structured financial products at the heart of the crisis. Yet Team Obama suggests only that regulators reduce the agencies’ favored role “wherever possible.”

via A Triple-A Punt – WSJ.com.

While there are quite a few ways to do that, it takes a lot of time and effort. You request links from other site owners. They slap you down as a spammer. You build your social networks, traffic starts to trickle in.

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I don’t think you’ll be sorry.

They simply don’t provide what we, the information-consuming public, want, in the way that we want it. Namely, yesterday. We’re in a ‘breaking news’ information world.

When the US Navy rescued Captain Phillips, news-hungry interneters knew about it within hours, if not minutes. When the earthquake struck Italy, the world was mobilizing to help almost immediately.

That kind of news delivery doesn’t, can’t, happen with a newspaper.

Some people lament the closing of newspapers as ‘a decline in society’. Where will we be, they ask, when the local newspaper prints its last daily edition?

Who cares?

No, I’m not oblivious to the fact that people who work in the newsrooms will likely lose their jobs. I’m aware that the pressman is very worried that he has worked a lifetime to master a fading technology and has no other skill to substitute. I’m relatively certain that buggy-whip craftsmen felt the same way.

So in that respect, about the people, I do care. But about newspapers as an ‘institution’? Nope.

I don’t know that print newspapers will survive. I definitely don’t think of them as venerable, ‘must have’ institutions that need to be propped up and kept in some sort of zombie limbo by government bailout or capital injection. I know that the companies that run the newsrooms will survive, providing that they re-invent themselves to provide what we want, when we want it, in the way that we want it.

This little missive was inspired by an article by L. Gordon Crovitz in today’s Wall Street Journal (ONLINE!) that detailed the reinvention of that paper by managing editor Barney Kilgore. The WSJ was in trouble. Their monopoly on providing market information to the financial world was gone. Investors and market-watchers were able to get stock pricing immediately. What did Mr. Kilgore do?

Kilgore observed that then new media such as radio meant market news was available in real time. Some cities had a dozen newspapers that had gained the Journal’s once-valuable ability to report share prices.

The Journal had to change. Technology increasingly meant readers would know the basic facts of news as it happened. He announced, “It doesn’t have to have happened yesterday to be news,” and said that people were more interested in what would happen tomorrow. He crafted the front page “What’s News — ” column to summarize what had happened, but focused on explaining what the news meant.

On the morning after Pearl Harbor, other newspapers recounted the facts already known to all the day before through radio. The Journal’s page-one story instead began, “War with Japan means industrial revolution in the United States.” It outlined the implications for the economy, industry and commodity and financial markets.

Kilgore led the Journal’s circulation to one million by the 1960s from 33,000 in the 1940s by adapting the newspaper to a role reflecting how people used different media for news. His rallying cry was, “The easiest thing in the world for a reader to do is to stop reading.”

Even after radio and TV began delivering news in ‘real time’, newspapers survived. Newspapers provided a depth of information that couldn’t be provided in sound bites and video segments.

The internet, obviously, is the game changer.

There is, of course, the question of just who will do the reporting if/when the big papers close. I don’t have a worry of that. If there is a vacuum in the marketplace, some entrepeneur somewhere will move to fill it. “How,” people ask, “will any company be able to pay for a reporter or analyst to be on-scene when everything is moving toward free content on the internet?”

It might happen that way. But one thing I’m sure of – if people don’t get the information they want in the way they want it, for free, they’ll pay for it. Eventually. It may take some scarcity in the news marketplace for people to realize that if they want timely, accurate information and analysis they’ll have to pay for it. But if it’s needed, it will happen, sooner or later.