Congressional Reform Act of 2010:
1. Term Limits: 12 years only, one of the possible options below.
A. Two Six year Senate terms
B. Six Two year House terms
C. One Six year Senate term and three Two Year House terms
2. No Tenure / No Pension: A congressman collects a salary while in office and receives no pay when they are out of office.
3. Congress (past, present & future) participates in Social Security: All funds in the Congressional retirement fund moves to the Social Security system immediately. All future funds flow into the Social Security system, Congress participates with the American people.
4. Congress can purchase their own retirement plan just as all Americans.
5. Congress will no longer vote themselves a pay raise. Congressional pay will rise by the lower of CPI or 3%.
6. Congress loses their current health care system and participates in the same health care system as the American people.
7. Congress must equally abide in all laws they impose on the American people.
8. All contracts with past and present congressmen are void effective 1/1/11. The American people did not make this contract with congressmen congressmen made all these contracts for themselves.
Serving in Congress is an honor, not a career. The Founding Fathers envisioned citizen legislators, serve your term(s), then go home and back to work.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Proposed Congressional Reform Act of 2010...
Yeah, I know it will never happen – but we can dream, can't we? Or is that a taxable event now, too? Via my cousin Mike D.:
Another AGW Trope Bites the Dust!
The anthropogenic global warming crowd has found supposed effects of global warming all over the place (think polar bears and drowning islands). One of these effects, given much credence over the past decade or so by scientists, was the demise of the cave bear. For whatever reason, this didn't seem to catch fire in the public imagination – but to biologists and anyone studying historical ecosystems, an explanation for the cave bear's extinction was sorely needed. And global warming seemed to fit the bill perfectly, with the timing of the cave bear's decline matching the timing of alleged global warming quite nicely.
Oops. Not so much. Looks like those danged Homo sapiens were at it again – they wanted the caves (and maybe those herbivorious bears were tasty, too!).
It's also interesting how the mainstream science media (which Science Daily, the linked-to site above, is an example of) treads very gently and carefully on this topic. The study they're reporting on demolishes one of the examples the AGW folks held up and trumpeted as an obvious negative consequence of global warming – but you'll have to read that article very carefully to see even a hint of that...
Oops. Not so much. Looks like those danged Homo sapiens were at it again – they wanted the caves (and maybe those herbivorious bears were tasty, too!).
It's also interesting how the mainstream science media (which Science Daily, the linked-to site above, is an example of) treads very gently and carefully on this topic. The study they're reporting on demolishes one of the examples the AGW folks held up and trumpeted as an obvious negative consequence of global warming – but you'll have to read that article very carefully to see even a hint of that...
Morning, Weather, Etc...
Took the dogs out for their morning walk just a bit later this morning, around 4 am (I'm working from home today, and slept just a bit longer). It was noticeably warm outside, and I see from our weather station that our low last night was 77°F (25°C) – unusually warm, indeed. Yesterday we had our first blast-furnace summer day: the high was 105°F (40°C). Today is forecast to be even hotter – but by Sunday the forecast calls for 30°F (17°C) cooler temperatures, once again below average. Funny weather this year, but overall, still a very much cooler-than-usual summer...
One effect of the warm temperature this morning was that the crickets sound different – they “chirp” at a noticeably higher frequency as the temperature rises, and this morning the temperature was different enough for that to be easily observable.
The full moon was high in the southern sky this morning, not far separated from Jupiter. I'm expecting them to be quite close together tomorrow morning. The dogs didn't care about the moon, Jupiter, or the temperature – after relieving themselves we were back in our most common pattern. Race was bouncing around at the end of a leash as he sought a pine cone. The three field spaniels were snuffling up the aromas of the morning, with the kind of self-importance often seen with a useless bureaucrat. A rabbit slowly hopped away from the four dogs that suddenly appeared; none of the dogs noticed. I could almost hear that rabbit breathing a huge sigh of relief, and it's easy to imagine the stories that it is now telling its buddies...
One effect of the warm temperature this morning was that the crickets sound different – they “chirp” at a noticeably higher frequency as the temperature rises, and this morning the temperature was different enough for that to be easily observable.
The full moon was high in the southern sky this morning, not far separated from Jupiter. I'm expecting them to be quite close together tomorrow morning. The dogs didn't care about the moon, Jupiter, or the temperature – after relieving themselves we were back in our most common pattern. Race was bouncing around at the end of a leash as he sought a pine cone. The three field spaniels were snuffling up the aromas of the morning, with the kind of self-importance often seen with a useless bureaucrat. A rabbit slowly hopped away from the four dogs that suddenly appeared; none of the dogs noticed. I could almost hear that rabbit breathing a huge sigh of relief, and it's easy to imagine the stories that it is now telling its buddies...