Nuggets 06.20.01

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“IT MUST BE DRUGS” AGAIN: In Dallas, Texas, a couple found a bag containing $300,000 and turned it in to police. After nobody claimed to own it, they put in to get it back. Do you think they got it? You’re right. Once the “authorities” get their hands on money, you aren’t going to even be considered when it comes to getting any part of it. The Drug Enforcement Administration said it had “determined” that it is “drug money.” So those honest people who found it and turned it in can whistle to get any of it back. How did they “determine” this? The money had “traces of cocaine” on it. Of course, you can find “traces of cocaine” on just about any money that has been in circulation longer than a week. One time they found traces of cocaine on money that had not yet left the mint. But that’s their story and they’re stickin’ to it. Of course this will have “unintended consequences.” People who find such stashes of cash in the future will just keep it. I know I would. (Source: My “Stack of Stuff” and The Denver Post,) [062001-1]

UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES: This is a malady that seems to hit government planners more than any other. They never take into consideration the consequences of their acts and edicts. Hawaii and Alaska suffered the most pathetic growth rates during the ‘90s, according to the Commerce Department, with Hawaii actually going backward. “Negative growth.” Hawaii tried to explain their 0.3% shrinkage by saying they got “...hard hit by the 1997-1998 Asian currency crisis,” which cut into the state’s tourist business. According to the Associated Press. But what they’re trying hard to ignore is that Hawaii is an excellent example of an almost perfect model of a “high-tax, single-party welfare state where Democratic Party pork and make-work public sector jobs proliferate unchecked by any substantial conservative or libertarian opposition, and where the now-standard run of 'environmental' restrictions on business activity not only proliferate like Kudzu (you can't even put up a billboard in Hawaii, any more), but are then geometrically multiplied by restrictions on virtually any productive new land use which might somehow offend aboriginal sensibilities." When you make private initiative unprofitable, this is what you get. Count on it. (Source: Columnist Vin Suprynowicz, Las Vegas Review-Journal, 6/17/2001) [062001-2]

BUGGY WHIP FARMS: When buggy-whip manufacturers saw the automobile, they screamed: “But we want to preserve our way of life!” When the computer made typewriters largely obsolete, many typewriter repairmen, instead of learning how to repair computers, whined: “They’re putting us out of business!” Well, what did they expect? Progress causes the world to “march on.” I’m a victim of the computerization of the sign painting business. I was a sign painter/billboard pictorial artist for 45 years. I was good at it. I could “write my own ticket” anywhere I went. Imagine my surprise when I last returned to Denver confidently expecting to be working at a well-paying job in days, to find I could not beg, borrow, or steal a sign painting or pictorial job! They now had computers that could do it all, using a $6 an hour keyboard person. I didn’t like it. It took me most of a year to recognize that it “was over” for me in the sign business and move on. Now I’m happily using the computers that destroyed my profession as a web site designer, and selling a product whose time has come, synthetic oil. I’m still not back to where I was, money-wise, so I also work in security -- for the time being. But I didn’t whine about it (for long). I moved on, going into a business that utilized the new technology. As Gary Halbert said in "The Gary Halbert Letter," "Look, part of the wisdom you get from experience is knowing when to quit, knowing when something has run its course and is finished. Failure to recognize this can be very costly. Think about the so-called 'farm problem' in the U.S. You know what the 'farm problem' really is? It's simply we don't need so many farmers anymore. The big farms are so productive and so efficient the little farms aren't needed. 'But we want to preserve our way of life,' cry the small farm owners. 'We've got our pride,' they say. Pride? What kind of human being takes pride in insisting we pay him for not producing?” It’s over. Get used to it. find a new profession. I did. That’s progress. (Source: Gary Halbert, The Halbert Letter, 5/31 /2001) [062001-3]

DRUGS AS PRIMARY CHOICE: This is the statement of an anonymous e-mail writer about the practice of “prescribing” Ritalin and other such cocaine-like drugs to children in spite of the fact that early literature advised it not be used on young children, especially on a regular basis. It’s now used as the first choice” in all cases, and even in preference to “embarrassing” a child: “I have a relative who has a child who has been diagnosed with one of the new ‘fashionable disorders’ since he started to school. Prior to starting school his mom noticed that anytime he got food with food coloring or certain preservatives, he went wild and couldn't, literally could not concentrate on anything. She restricted his diet and he was fine until he went to school and the school started feeding him Kool-Aid and sugary, highly colored cereals for snack-time. When she explained to the teachers and administrators that they must restrict his intake of certain foods, she was told that such was impossible since he would be made to feel "different" if he weren't allowed to have Kool-Aid and candy with the other children. She explained to them that he was okay with that and would be happy with food and juice that she would send to school, since he already realized he is different and doesn't get to have those things at home. No way, they said, you must take him to the doctor and get him medicated.” In other words, ignore the simple treatment and dope him up. Typical “one-size fits all” problem solving, even if the “solution to the problem” permanently injured the child. This is how they force parents to dope their kids up and teach them that dope is the answer to all their problems. (Source: Anonymous) [062001-4]

COUNT ON JESSE: You can always count on Jesse Jackson for an inflammatory statement about race. Which is why the liberal press always calls on him in any case with a possible race angle. So naturally when a Pittsburgh coroner’s jury recommended that 5 white police officers be charged with homicide in the case of a man who died while they were arresting him they called on Jesse, who obligingly called it “a lynching.” Whether the cops are guilty or not, Jesse has no business even commenting. But that never stopped him before so why should it stop him now? One of the best ways to slant the news is to go to people you know will give you the quotes you want, and that will slant the story in the direction in which you want it to go. Another is to purposely take quotes out of context, making sure they indicate the person quoted is saying something completely opposite to that which he/she was really saying. Still another is photographic: find a very unflattering photo (or many) of the person you want to vilify, like the one of JoAnne McGuckin used in the McGuckin land-grab/child snatching case in Sandpoint, Idaho. (Source: Common Sense) [062001-5]

RAY’S SHORTS: These are very short items, but on important subjects: A lot of flapdoodle! “You know how the left and the media (as though they were two separate things) keep telling us that Americans don't want a tax cut, especially the one the president recently signed? Well, as you and I know, that's a lot of flapdoodle.” Makes you wonder what they’re smoking up there in Washington. (Chuck Muth, GOPNews & Views)... Congratulations: to Alan Diaz, who won the Pulitzer prize for that picture of a government storm-trooper putting an automatic weapon in the face of a six-year-old child (Elian Gonzalez). It is a permanent reminder of a “chilling moment the Clinton administration never meant for us to see.” (Mallard Fillmore, by Bruce Tinsley, 5/24/01)... They still can’t prove it: Dan Rather insisted that a new report "may put a harsh light on Mr. Bush’s global warming policy." John Roberts warned that scientists "found compelling evidence that the Earth is getting hotter as a result of human activity." But seconds later, Roberts contradicted the blanket assertion as he conceded the scientists "can’t say precisely how much of the warming is man-made and how much might be part of a natural cycle." Eminent scientists say it is the latter rather than the former. (Dan Rather) [062001-6]