Constant Conservative

Goodnight Detroit

ConCon — Sat, 26 May 2012 02:54:27 +0000

It is no fun watching a city die: Detroit, whose 139 square miles contain 60 percent fewer residents than in 1950, will try to nudge them into a smaller living space by eliminating almost half its streetlights. As it is, 40 percent of the 88,000 streetlights are broken and the city, whose finances are to be overseen by an appointed board, can’t afford to fix them. Mayor Dave Bing’s plan would create an authority to borrow $160 million to upgrade and reduce the number of streetlights to 46,000. Maintenance would be contracted out, saving the city $10 million a year.....

Teachers, Taxes and Told-You-So

ConCon — Fri, 25 May 2012 02:02:10 +0000

As the sun sets, we turn our attention to a place getting a couple more hours of daylight–California. As we all know, this once lovely state is rotting from the inside out. One of the reasons? Well, let’s just call it betrayal of a trust: Seen as a national leader in the classroom during the 1950s and 1960s, the country’s largest state is today a laggard, competing with the likes of Mississippi and Washington, D.C., at the bottom of national rankings. The Golden State’s education tailspin has been blamed on everything from class sizes to the property-tax restrictions enforced by....

A Novel Bankruptcy

ConCon — Wed, 23 May 2012 00:17:12 +0000

Generally speaking, student loan debts are not permitted to be included in bankruptcy. This was the exception: A former law student has won a bid in bankruptcy court to discharge nearly $340,000 in education debt because her diagnosis of Asperger Syndrome rendered her unable to repay the loans. Even by today’s standards, that is a substantial amount of debt. How did she rack that up? Todd, who received her high school general equivalency diploma during the late 1980s, at the age of 39, began attending law school in 1992 but did not finish, according to the opinion. She went on....

You Can Leave, But Only if You Own the Hotel

ConCon — Tue, 22 May 2012 01:09:55 +0000

When is it particularly hard to be a small business owner When the local and federal government claim that you materially benefited from the wrongdoing of customers over which you had no real control. George Will has the story: Russ Caswell, 68, is bewildered: “What country are we in?” He and his wife, Pat, are ensnared in a Kafkaesque nightmare unfolding in Orwellian language. This town’s police department is conniving with the federal government to circumvent Massachusetts law — which is less permissive than federal law — to seize his livelihood and retirement asset . Why, you ask? Because in....

Forget 2012, What’s 2027 Looking Like?

ConCon — Sat, 19 May 2012 02:27:59 +0000

Once again, Bill Whittle brings his skill to bear on the subject of money, or more properly, the lack thereof. A cheerful topic this is not. A necessary one it is.

Zimmerman Apology Forthcoming?

ConCon — Fri, 18 May 2012 02:08:09 +0000

No, not an apology from Zimmerman–he already made one. I’m talking about an apology by many of the thousands who were quick to judge his actions based on little to no knowledge at all of what took place. In recent days, it has come to light that Zimmerman had black eyes, a broken nose and cuts on his head–all injuries consistent with being hit by someone else. Now, the news is that Martin, whom Zimmerman claims he shot in self-defense, had THC in his system. Or, in the vernacular, he’d been going out with Mary Jane. It’s becoming more difficult....

Lies, Loss and License

ConCon — Thu, 17 May 2012 01:30:54 +0000

It’s been a while since we checked out the company that built Detroit (or was it the other way around?). Anyway, here’s where things are: Three years ago [Obama's] administration invested more than $100 billion in taxpayer money to bail out General Motors. On Tuesday, the entire company, not just what the government owns, was worth less than $34 billion. By anyone’s definition, that investment is a glaring failure. Yet over the last few days the Obama campaign, in a $25 million marketing blitz, has flooded the airwaves with ads in battleground states, claiming the bailout should be counted a....

Obama’s Image Writ Large

ConCon — Wed, 16 May 2012 02:21:28 +0000

There is at least one person who believes the President’s press: Many of President Obama’s fervent devotees are young enough not to have much memory of the political world before the arrival of The One. Coincidentally, Obama himself feels the same way—and the White House’s official website reflects that. The Heritage Foundation’s Rory Cooper tweeted that Obama had casually dropped his own name into Ronald Reagan’s official biography on www.whitehouse.gov, claiming credit for taking up the mantle of Reagan’s tax reform advocacy with his “Buffett Rule” gimmick. My first thought was, he must be joking. But he wasn’t—it turns out....

Night Falls

ConCon — Tue, 15 May 2012 02:19:58 +0000

Night falls on the prairie as the pheasants regale each other with tidbits of the evenings news and songbirds come to the slow understanding that their shift is over. We’ve a bit of a breeze tonight but not enough to unshackle thousands of dandelion seeds which perch on stalks overlooking my lawn. The mumble mumble giggle of my two eldest offspring has been silenced as they too give in to the need for rest. In the distance, I distinguish the yard light of the neighbor far to our south. From the kitchen, I hear the muted conflict of dishes on....

If They Would Study War More . . .

ConCon — Sun, 13 May 2012 01:29:46 +0000

Yes, I realize the following reads like a script for SNL. But it isn’t, more’s the shame: The Pentagon was inundated with so many studies in 2010 that it commissioned a study to determine how much it cost to produce all those studies. Now the Government Accountability Office has reviewed the Pentagon’s study and concluded in a report this week that it’s a flop. Are you beginning to understand that we simply cannot keep doing this?