In regards to my post yesterday about Washington State legislators attempts to pass Maryland like legislation to make Wal-Mart pay big bucks into the state’s coffers for healthcare, it seems that the worst is over. For now anyway.
Chances for ‘Wal-Mart bill’ shrivel at deadline
And the post-deadline story
Do-or-die time: Lawmakers pass key deadline
And the unions are bitching about it not passing
The worst injustice has been done by popular misconception to Commodore Vanderbilt of the New York Central. He is always referred to as “an old pirate” or “a monster of Wall Street”, etc., and was always denounced for the alleged ruthlessness of his Wall Street activites. But here is the actual story.
When Vanderbilt began to organize several small, obscure railroads into what was to become the New York Central system, he had to obtain a franchise from the City Council to permit his railroad, The New York and Harlem, to enter New York City. The Council was known to be corrupt, and if one wanted a franchise, one had to pay for it, which Vanderbilt did (should he be blamed for this, or does the blame rest on the fact that the government held an arbitrary, unanswerable power in the matter and Vanderbilt had no choice?).
The stock of his company went up once it was known that his railroad had permission to enter the city. A little while later, the council suddenly revoked the fanchise, and the stock began to fall. The aldermen (who had taken Vanderbilt’s money), together with a clique of speculators, were selling Vanderbilt stock short. Vanderbilt fought them and saved his railroad. His ruthlessness consisted of of buying his stock as fast as it was being dumped on the market, and thus preventing its price from crashing down to the level the short-sellers needed. He risked everything he owned in this battle, but he won. The clique and the aldermen went broke.
And, as if this were not enough, the same trick was repeated again a little while later, this time involving the New York State Legislature. Vanderbilt needed an act of the legislature to permit him to consolidate the two railroads which he owned. Again, he had to pay the legislators for a promise to pass the necessaary bill. The stock of his company went up, the legislators started selling it short and denied Vanderbilt the promised legislation. He had to go through the same Wall Street battle again, he took on a frightening responsibility, he risked everything he owned plus millions he borrowed from friends, but won and ruined the Albany statesmen. “We busted the whole legislture” he said, “and some of the honorable members had to go home without paying their board bills.”
Nothing is said or known nowadays about the details of this story, and it is viciously ironic that Vanderbilt is used as one of the examples of the evils of free enterprise by those who advocate government controls. The Albany statesmen are forgotten and Vanderbilt is made to be a villian. If you ask people just what was evil about Vanderbilt, they will answer “Why, he did something cruel in Wall Street and ruined a lot of people.”*
*(For details of this story, see David Marshall’s “Grand Central”, pages 60-64)
Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise – Ayn Rand (1959)
You might remember my post from last month about how Washington State Legislators want to force Wal-Mart to pay into their socialist healthcare plan to cover Wal-Mart employees who either don’t have insurance or are underinsured.
In 2004, Wal-Mart had 3180 of its employees use government funded health care services for a cost of $12 Million taxpayer dollars. These figures have spent the last three weeks or so on the lips of every anti-Wal-Mart activist across the state.
But it seems now that the shoe has switched feet, it is a bit uncomfortable for those folks as I haven’t heard word one from them on this.
State government had thousands of workers receiving Medicaid
State government and Wal-Mart had roughly the same number of workers benefiting from the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program in 2004, new state figures released Monday show.
The information released Monday shows that an average of 3,127 state government workers either received Medicaid or had dependents on the joint state-federal health program in 2004.
That cost to taxpayers was estimated at more than $14.7 million.
The Seattle Times article that is linked above repeats the fact, at least twice, that while the total numbers may be similar, the State of Washington actually employs more people than Wal-Mart does, as if that matters in a comparison of total numbers and total spent dollars.
If anything, the fact that the government employs more individuals than the foremost retailer in the state should be a damning strike against the government. I can barely remember the last time I actually spoke to a state employee, but I sure as hell remember my last trip to Wal-Mart.
The Wal-Mart employee was courtious and helpful. While neither of those words could be used to describe the Parks Department person whom I spoke to about aquiring some new maps.
And also, why should any state employee be using Medicare? As a taxpayer, I pay one hell of a premium for their healthcare coverage, which, in comparison, the state employees pay nearly zero and complain any time their co-pays may be increased.
I would really like to see how much of my dollar spent at Wal-Mart goes to the company sponsored healthcare plans. I think it would be a testament as to who uses their money more efficiently.
Of course, this being Washington, it wouldn’t surprise me if the people in this story were some of those included in the state employee’s figures,
This weekend I came to the conclusion, after doing the math out for two months, that I wouldn’t be able to make it to Boomershoot this year.
I had emailed Joe Huffman to let him know that my shooting position was up for dibs and then dropped into my inbox where I saw the daily email that the Seattle Times sends me. I opened the thing up and saw the ‘Local’ section at the top of the email, with this as the top story in that section,
Costs cited in Bumbershoot cut
I can guarantee you that I probably turned a shade resembling printer paper as the paranoid portion of my brain asked itself “How did they know?”
Now, for those not local to the Seattle Metro area, “Bumbershoot” is a yearly music festival held at the Seattle Center, site of the 1962 World’s Fair, that goes on for an entire weekend and is attended by people ranging from patchouli stinking hippies to yuppy snobs who though Smashmouth and Sugar Ray were groundbreaking.
Boomershoot, on the other hand, is a kick-ass long distance precision shooting event that involves the use of impact sensitive explosives as targets that, if life hadn’t kicked me in the scrote two weeks ago, I’d be going to and that you should do whatever you can to go to because it is a hell of a lot of fun.
After reading the headline a second and third time I decided that coincidence had gotten the better of me and that I would have to remember to give it a purple nurple the next time I saw it.
In the Spring of 2004, an incident very similar to what happened on Cheney’s hunting trip happened to a co-worker of mine. I blogged it here, but the archives past January 05 are in such bad shape that I can’t get them to load. So let me re-tell a bit of it now.
My co-worker, Dan, went hunting in eastern Washington with a few friends. One of the guys brought along his 12 year old son for his first hunting trip. I don’t remember what they were gunning for, but that is of neither here nor there. They split up into seperate groups of three to four guys and took to their chosen fields with their respective dogs. Dan’s group included the 12 year old.
Near the end of the first stretch of field that Dan was in, the dogs scared up a good group of five or so birds. Each of the guys in the group shouldered, aimed and fired, taking down all but one of the birds. The 12 year old, probably nervous and a bit over-enthusiastic on his first hunt, went past his designated 60 degree field in persuit of the last bird. In fact, he went so far as to cross Dan with his bead when he finally got the lead on the bird and let the shell go.
Dan was hit with close to 115 of the #8 pellets out of a Browning semi-auto 20 guage, from his left buttock to the top of his head at a distance of around 30-35 feet. Dan dropped like a stone with one yell of pain.
The 12 year old went into immediate shock. His father grabbed and secured the shotgun as he ran past him to check on Dan. Dan was lying face down in the dirt and was only semi-conscious. They used their cell phones to call the local emergency services, who arrived 20 minutes or so later. Dan went off to the ERwhere they got the pain under control and did some stitching up of the major damage. Dan walked out of the hospital the next day and came back to work the next week.
The local Sheriff stopped by the hospital shortly after the EMT’s rolled Dan in and asked questions of those involved, including the 12 year old. The Sheriff ruled accidental and pending any civil charges Dan wanted to file, the Sheriff said his investigation was closed.
In the post in the archives, I have a picture of what his arm looked like a week afterward, and while it isn’t overly disgusting looking, it sure isn’t pretty. It looked like an acupuncturist went crazy. I’ll keep trying to find my copy of the pic. I have donated it to my local hunter safety course instructor for his class. He says it makes quite the impression.
There is only so much even modern medicine can do with #8 shot once it is in the body. They can pick the stuff closer to the surface out, but the goodly portion of it has to stay in. This is because the removal of the pellets cause more trauma coming out than they do going in. The one problem with leaving it in is that there is a possibility of one of the pellets entering the bloodstream and clogging a vein or a capillary.
Even after eight months and countless x-rays to find the damn things, the doctors left 55 pellets in Dan.
The kid is still hunting, and I think that his mistake will haunt him and give him a caution for firearms for the rest of his life that even a number of lifetime firearms owners will never have. As it should. Dan and the father are still friends, although to my knowledge, he hasn’t gone hunting with them since.
Dan still jokes about the day he impersonated a patterning board and lost.
I’m not posting this to excuse Cheney or the fella who got hit. I’m only posting this as an informational bit of data.
Lost in all the news about the VP’s unfortunate ND was the critically revealing statement he made this past week about the NSA brouhaha in an interview on (what else?) the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
“Jim, again let me emphasize here, when we briefed the chairman and ranking members of the committee on this program which we’ve done at least a dozen times, I presided over most of those briefings, there was no great concern expressed that somehow we needed to come get additional legislative authority. In fact, the program has operated for four years, Congress has been informed, a few members of Congress, informed throughout that period of time, and everything was fine until there was publicity in The New York Times. Somebody leaked the program to The New York Times, then there was public disclosure of it, and at that point now we’ve had some members head for the hill, so to speak, and forget perhaps that they were in the briefings and fully informed of the program.
…I think a lot of people decided after it became public that they wanted to take a different position than they had in private. This process of briefing just a few members of Congress is well established, Jim. I’ve been involved one way or another in the intelligence operations of our government going back 30 years to the Ford administration, or when I was on the Intelligence Committee myself in the ’80s, or when I was secretary of defense in the early ’90s. The practice of the president deciding to brief only a few members of Congress on really sensitive programs is well established. We’ve operated that way now for a very long time, and this program was treated in that fashion. It’s important we preserve that capability.”
It is significant that the best of the railroad builders, those who started out with private funds, did not bribe legislators to throttle competitors nor to obtain any kind of special legal advantage or privilege. They made their fortunes by their own personal ability, and if they resorted to bribery at all, like Commander Vanderbilt, it was only to buy the removal of some artificial restriction, such as permission to consolidate. They did not pay to get something from the legislature, but only to get the legislature out of their way.
But the builders who started out with government help, such as The Big Four of the Central Pacific, were the ones who used the government for special advantages and owed their fortunes to legislation more than personal ability.
This is the inevitable result of any kind or degree of mixed economy. It is only with the help of government regulations that a man of lesser ability can destroy his better competitors, and he is the only type of man who runs to government for economic help.
Notes on the History of American Free Enterprise – Ayn Rand (1959)
Make sure to stop by tomorrow for more on Vanderbilt.
From this morning’s local paper, this headline: “Lugers take metal pressure in stride.”
Well, of course! This is not a surprise, given the vast array of different proof marks these fine weapons have sported over the years. Fact of the business, I see, on page 61 of my copy of The Luger Book, a reference to an experimental 11.35mm Parabellum cartridge in the Luger, shooting a 230-grain bullet at 729-790 fps. Don’t know what the pressure would have been, but that’s definitely a big cartridge compared to the 9mm. Lugers could definitely handle the big boys, that’s for sure!
An underrated gun design, the Luger… Oh wait, that’s “medal pressure.” The article seems to be about Olympic Luge. Nevermind.
I certainly hope not!
The following quotes are excerpts from the minutes of the University of Washington Student Senate meeting on Tuesday, February 7th.
The topic at hand is the proposal to erect a memorial for UofW alumni, Gregory ‘Pappy’ Boyington, Colonel, USMC and leader of what is popularly known as ‘The Black Sheep Squadron’ during WWII.
R-12-18: A Resolution to Calling for a Tribute for Col. Gregory “Pappy” Boyington, USMC
Andrew Everett, sponsor of the legislation, summaraized the resolution. He said he wasn’t interested in a large statue, but something on a smaller scale.
A senator asked why Andrew Everett was interested in honoring this particular alumnus.
Andrew Everett said that he had read about Colonel Boyington and thought his achievements warranted recognition.
Tyler Dockins asked why the monument shouldn’t commemorate allt he alumni who fought int he war.
Andrew Everett noted that several statues around campus already serve such a purpose and that Colonel Boyington had many of the qualities the University of Washington hoped to produce in its students.
Jill Edwards said she didn’t believe a member of the Marine Corps was an example of the sort of person the UW wanted to produce.
Ashley Miller commented that many monuments at the UW already commemorate rich white men.
As you all know, it is not very often that I am left speechless, but reading this has had just about that exact effect on me.
WWII USMC combat veteran. Awarded the Navy Cross and the Medal of Honor. And yet only two UW student senators can find the gumption to attempt to pass a resolution that would only “look into the possibility” of erecting a memorial for the man on campus?
The part I excerpted starts on page five of the top link. And there are plenty more ‘objections’ to the proposal where I got the above quotes.Â
Found at Andrew’sDadBlog via The Orb
Why must I have absolutely no free money right now? Of course, if you ask the Analog Wife, she’ll ask why I want another gun.
Do you remember when I linked to Mr. Completely’s Rimfire Round-Up last week? Well, I was leisurely reading through it and found this report by Azreel at FreeSpiritMind on the AMT AutoMag II in .22WMR
That pic is from a gun I found on-line at the same place I bought my newest Ruger MKII
My problem now is that I cannot even afford to go to the range and break the MKII in until at least the second weekend in March, which also means that I’ll miss the opening match of pin shooting season on February 26th (sorry, Mr. C).
So now I’ve got the perfect Iron Sight Class pin gun and I just found the perfect Optics Class pin gun, but I can’t afford to buy it for another month or so.
Oh well, I might as well just pout to myself because not only did I find the .22 Mag gun, but during the search I found something else I also must have.
Go ahead, click on that pic. You will then be looking at an AMT AutoMag II self loading pistol in 30 Carbine.
Now tell me you wouldn’t want one of those too.
Mr. Completely will be out with another Rimfire Round-Up in a couple days.
Until then, you can tide yourself over with the latest Carnival of Cordite.
