Paying for Programs

“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money [to spend].”

A quote attributed to Margaret Thatcher



HotAir notes that Michelle Obama’s pet project is being funded by money already allocated for food stamps:

When Democrats paid for their EduJobs bill last week by taking money out of the food stamp program, the media barely noticed it. Undoubtedly that has created an incentive for Democrats and the Obama administration to steal from the poor once again. This time, they will pull $8 billion already allocated to food stamps and other aid in order to fund Michelle Obama’s pet project, the anti-child-obesity bill:

Democrats who reluctantly slashed a food stamp program to fund a state aid bill may have to do so again to pay for a top priority of first lady Michelle Obama.

The House will soon consider an $8 billion child nutrition bill that’s at the center of the first lady’s “Let’s Move” initiative. Before leaving for the summer recess, the Senate passed a smaller version of the legislation that is paid for by trimming the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, commonly known as food stamps.

The proposed cuts would come on top of a 13.6 percent food stamp reduction in the $26 billion Medicaid and education state funding bill that President Obama signed this week.

Food stamps have made multiple appearances on the fiscal chopping block because Democrats have few other places to turn to offset the cost of legislation.

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I wonder if the Democrats will count Michelle’s program a success when reports come back that obesity is down. More specificly, down 8-billion dollars because the kids went to bed hungry? I have my own thoughts on the program, but using progressive Democratic thinking on the matter (these programs are for the poor), where does this lead? Could you imagine if Bush did this? Oh wwhat a firestorm! CS Lewis was erudite enough to pen:

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. They may be more likely to go to Heaven yet at the same time likelier to make a Hell of earth. Their very kindness stings with intolerable insult. To be ‘cured’ against one’s will and cured of states which we may not regard as disease is to be put on a level of those who have not yet reached the age of reason or those who never will; to be classed with infants, imbeciles, and domestic animals.” (C. S. Lewis, God in the Dock, p. 292.)

I Wanted To Post This Here At This Site Because PhotoBucket Took My Drawing for DRAW MUHAMMAD DAY Down

If you did not know about this day long past, here is the info. I just noticed it was removed by photobucket as a violation of their policy. Which is fine, that is there site and they let me use it. So, I will transfer it here to mine where it will remain till next years entry.



Israel Patents Next Gen Sniper Scopes

FireArm Blog Story:

…The patent describes a LIDAR (Laser Identification Detection And Ranging) unit which works by firing a laser beam at the target. The reflection of the laser is captured by an array of photodiodes. Fluctuations in the signals received by the photodiodes are used to detect both the direction and velocity of cross wind…

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(Burris Eliminator LaserScope. Automatically calculates elevation holdover)

Wired Magazine has some more insight on this amazing product:

Earlier this month, a British Army sniper Corporal Craig Harrison broke the world’s record for superaccurate shooting, taking out a pair of Taliban machine gunners from a mile-and-a-half away. It was a one-in-a-million feat — one performed under “perfect” conditions, Harrison says: “no wind, mild weather, clear visibility.”

Darpa, the Pentagon’s way-out research arm, is hoping to use lasers and advanced optical systems to make other snipers Harrison-accurate, even when the winds are howling. The agency is looking for 15 ultraprecise sniper scopes to put in shooters’ hands by next year.

The “One Shot” program originally aimed to give snipers the power to hit a target from 2000 meters away in winds as high as 40 miles per hour. In the first phases of the 3-year-old program, shooters used prototype rifles dressed with lasers and fancy computer hardware to do damage from 1,100 meters away in 18-mile-an-hour winds. The scope-mounted lasers can “see” wind turbulence in the path of the bullet and feed the data to computers, enabling real-time calculation of — and compensation for — the wind-blown trajectory.

The program is just one of several high-tech hardware upgrades the U.S. military is pursuing for its snipers. Plans are also in place to make bullets that can change course in mid-air and a stealth sniper scope that would make shooters all but invisible.

With initial demonstrations complete, the next step for One Shot is to make 15 “field-testable prototype, observation, measurement, and ballistic calculation system[s], which enable [s]nipers to hit targets with the first round, under crosswind conditions, up to the maximum effective range,” Darpa says in its program announcement. Total cost: $7 million….

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