The mystery of Ireland's worst driver has finally been solved. Prawo Jazdy had been wanted all across Ireland for racking up speeding tickets and parking fines. Authorities knew he was Polish, and he carried a Polish driver's license. However, every time he was stopped, he managed to elude capture by giving a different address.
Finally, some bright boy in the Garda figured out that "Prawo Jazdy" is Polish for ... "Driver's License".
Turns out there were nearly 50 entries in their database for Mr. Jazdy. A notice has gone out to all officers to examine Polish licenses a little more closely in the future. I suspect that authorities all over Europe are doing a quick (and quiet) scrub of their databases, too.
Read the BBC story here!
PS: I just noticed that my previous post was number 100. Hmmm.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Friday, February 13, 2009
The New New Deal
If you do not get Imprimis magazine, you must start now! Subscriptions are free, it's a very brief read (5-10 minutes), and it's always excellent.
Warning: If you are of a liberal political persuasion, exposure to the truth presented in Imprimis could be a shock.
In the January Issue, there is an article by Burton W. Folsom, Jr. He holds the Charles F. Kline Chair in History and Management at Hillsdale College. In the article, he discusses the effects of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal". The amount of political wrangling, graft, and corruption involved in the handouts of Federal money is staggering. In addition, many of the programs created had unintended (and in some cases disastrous) consequences.
His concluding sentence:
Warning: If you are of a liberal political persuasion, exposure to the truth presented in Imprimis could be a shock.
In the January Issue, there is an article by Burton W. Folsom, Jr. He holds the Charles F. Kline Chair in History and Management at Hillsdale College. In the article, he discusses the effects of Franklin D. Roosevelt's "New Deal". The amount of political wrangling, graft, and corruption involved in the handouts of Federal money is staggering. In addition, many of the programs created had unintended (and in some cases disastrous) consequences.
His concluding sentence:
If history is a guide, we have every reason to believe that if President Obama institutes a New New Deal, then universal health care, federal bailouts, and jobs stimulus programs will be costly, will be politicized, and will fail.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
The more things change ...
An interesting story today on the BBC about "banksters", a word which combines "banker" and "gangster".
In 1928, Professor William Z. Ripley of Harvard condemned the practices of Wall Street at that time. He called them "prestidigitation, double-shuffling, honey-fugling, hornswoggling and skullduggery".
He tried to warn then-President Coolidge, but the President was an insider on Wall Street, making money using some of the very practices Ripley was citing. The result was the crash of 1929 and a decade of depression. A depression, by the way, made much worse and much longer by the Socialistic programs of Franklin Roosevelt.
Alas, the situation is remarkably similar today. And we now have a President who will take a slim victory in the polls as a "mandate" to do things far above and beyond what Roosevelt ever dreamed of. I hope you have comfortable shoes. You'll need them when you're standing next to me in the soup line.
Read the BBC story here. There's an interesting twist at the end.
In 1928, Professor William Z. Ripley of Harvard condemned the practices of Wall Street at that time. He called them "prestidigitation, double-shuffling, honey-fugling, hornswoggling and skullduggery".
He tried to warn then-President Coolidge, but the President was an insider on Wall Street, making money using some of the very practices Ripley was citing. The result was the crash of 1929 and a decade of depression. A depression, by the way, made much worse and much longer by the Socialistic programs of Franklin Roosevelt.
Alas, the situation is remarkably similar today. And we now have a President who will take a slim victory in the polls as a "mandate" to do things far above and beyond what Roosevelt ever dreamed of. I hope you have comfortable shoes. You'll need them when you're standing next to me in the soup line.
Read the BBC story here. There's an interesting twist at the end.
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