Random Thoughts on New Orleans Over Morning Coffee

There is a feeling you get when coming in to New Orleans, either by car or by plane. It is the feeling of entering another world, or even another dimension of existence.

New Orleans Could Have Been Spared: The Consequences of Environmentalism

It's been almost six years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans-and the city is still recovering. The 2010 census for Orleans Parish shows 343,829 people; the 2000 census gave the number at 484,674, a drop of almost 141,000. That's about the size of Metairie, the largest suburb of New Orleans, or of Bridgeport, CT., Savannah, GA.,  Sunnyvale, CA., et al.

So it's not an exaggeration to say that Katrina was an apocalyptic event for New Orleans.

Class Warfare...Again?

When will the Left come up with some fresh ideas? They're trottting out their Marxist class warfare schemes...again!

Very recently, there's been a lot of focus in the mainstream media on the class warfare concept, a term used by key Republicans to describe Obama's economic strategy.

"Class warfare" originated as a Marxist term. It was used to describe  what would happen when the poor got sick and tired of being exploited by the rich. "Workers of the world unite!" In popular parlance, it refers to political rhetoric that appeals to envy and resentment.

It goes something like this:

"Joe the Millionaire pays a lower percentage of taxes than his secretary!"

"The rich have to pay their fair share of taxes, too. And they should be willing to pay more, since they're rich enough. A few extra dollars won't hurt them!"

Discredit the Left Now

So you want to help people-you see the media images of the starving and destitute, read about the mass scale of human suffering in the world-and you want to "make a differance", to do something to help. That is a noble sentiment. It is something conservatives and liberals agree on.

However, liberals and conservatives do not usually agree on the means to these noble ends. As for myself, I favor addressing the root causes of these symptoms with far more resources than we use right now. Most of our time and money is spent on addressing the symptoms. We send money and food to the starving and homeless. We give those things that destitute and sick people need right away. That is good. But the problem doesn't go away, and in many instances, becomes worse.

How To Profit From the Death Panels

A Horrible Consequence of Socialized Medicine!

"How to Profit From Death Panels", by forensic psychologist Helen Smith

Dr. Smith's latest blog entry goes into chilling detail about one of the consequences of a free lunch, er uh a free health care system.

Dr. Smith's blog is interesting, well written and designed, and informative.

Seniors should take note here: the death panels will be an objective reality.

Just In: Christians are Stupid

Despite 2 millenia of having, for the most part, turned the world from barbarism and savagery to reason and faith, Christianity is still looked upon by its critics as shameful and suspect. For example, for two thousand years or more, it is has been generally accepted by the Christian community as a whole that homosexuality is a sin, which means: if you engage in this behavior, you are distancing yourself from God.

On Music

First of all, please remember that music is marketed in the same basic process as any other product. What you see on the CD labels, commercials, advertisements and programs is designed to appeal to a specific audience. If the packaging appeals to a specific audience-if the marketing succeeds-then everyone involved in the production of the music wins. They make money, which is a good thing.

But, many times you will read a music critic blast a musician for "selling out", by which the critic usually means the musician has written music that appeals to a large number of people. This is "pop music", and a sure fire way to tell if someone's a sell out,  as if the musician were a greedy charlatan instead of a true artist.