Saturday, January 31. 2009
 Global warming: The greatest fraud in history?
Some tasty meat flesh from PETA
Union-Leader: Stimulus bill is sickening. Walter Williams explains how stupid it is. Maybe the tide is turning.
A non-profit with a Gulfstream! And, related, how do pols do this? And why so many Dem tax cheats anyway?
Iran: Obama's desire to talk proves America's weakness
I like Michael Steele.
Why is the MSM still attacking Sarah Palin? So much hate.
Photo: New Hampshire last week, from And Rightly So
From our guest poster Bruce Kesler -
President Obama’s told congressional Republicans, suggesting changes to the Porkapalooza recovery bill, “I won.” So much for the promised cooperation across the aisle. Today, discussing the bill with an avid Obama supporter, I suggested a compromise: Let the Democrats’ bill pass but with one amendment, that all provisions and spending sunset (expire) December 31, 2009. He agreed. If there’s anything of merit buried in the dungpile, it will flower. Congress can then renew it. Otherwise, most of the waste will die, having been demonstrated worthless. Another major promise by the new administration, for greater transparency, is quickly showing itself subject to crossed fingers behind the back.
The open-government advocate Sunlight Foundation reveals that the very first bill signed by Obama broke his promise to wait at least 5-days before signing any non-emergency legislation, to receive public comments to be considered by the President. Sunlight notes: “It is too bad they let this transparency promise slip on the very first piece of legislation that hit the President’s desk.” The Columbia Journalism Review finds its ill and unprofessional treatment by the White house Press Office fails to meet Obama’s promise, possibly to “indicate that President Obama’s messages about open government have not reached press secretary Robert Gibbs and his staff.” The CJR reporter comments:
Talking to working reporters is not the only way to communicate with the people. The Obama administration seems to be embracing direct delivery of its messages via the whitehouse.gov website and YouTube. They seem to be saying “We don’t need the press to communicate our messages to the people. We can talk to the people ourselves.” The media honeymoon with Obama is fading, after so much support from the media to his campaign. Another now dispensable Obama supporter under the bus.
So, it seems that the Obama messages will be delivered directly to his supporters, but the feedback from any disagreeing or questioning is less welcomed. The definition of a dysfunctional system is one lacking feedback, for adaptivity. It’s going to be a long, and dangerous, four years.
Remember kids, no matter how delicious your pork products are, some people aren't interested in them, and might fix you a different dish.
Friday, January 30. 2009
Every day I feel more steamed about this "stimulus." This is no stimulus. Dear readers, we are in the process of getting scammed, hoodwinked, tricked - in a way that Bernie Madoff could only dream about doing in his wildest dreams. The statists are literally trying to pull a fast one over on me. It's the biggest money and power grab since Lyndon Johnson, and nobody knows all of the details, implications, or the long-term consequences - not to mention the undiscussed or unintended (or quietly-intended) consequences.
It's a trickster's delight. Are we such easy marks? I hope not. They hope most of us are uninformed morons and will defer to their superior wisdom. The House bill goes far beyond the usual pork. It changes the role of the federal government in our lives, and is intended to do so. This is no short-term stimulus for an ugly recession; this is long-term change via centralization of power and money using today's fears about the economy as a convenient excuse.
Why is it long-term? Heck, it's not just long-term; this stuff is forever. How difficult is it to "cut" a program? Well, no more difficult than trying to take a lollypop out of a kid's mouth. The socialist ratchet wrench has no reverse setting.
Yes, I am not pleased with hopey-changey thus far.
From WSJ's Look at the Time:
 That's what the stimulus bill was about—not knowing what time it is, not knowing the old pork-barrel, group-greasing ways are over, done, embarrassing. When you create a bill like that, it doesn't mean you're a pro, it doesn't mean you're a tough, no-nonsense pol. It means you're a slob.
That's how the Democratic establishment in the House looks, not like people who are responding to a crisis, or even like people who are ignoring a crisis, but people who are using a crisis. Our hopeful, compelling new president shouldn't have gone with this bill. He made news this week by going to the House to meet with Republicans. He could have made history by listening to them.
Via NRO:
To call the economic legislation now moving through Congress a stimulus bill obscures its full implications. The measure represents the most ambitious effort in decades to swell public spending on domestic priorities such as education, infrastructure, and scientific research that many Democrats consider the foundation stones of sustained prosperity.
The Democratic plan . . . provides the biggest surge in long-term public investment since President Johnson's Great Society in the 1960s. . . .
[T]he bill also emphatically expands programs targeted more at the far term than the near term — from aid to schools in low-income areas ($13 billion) to expanded college loans ($16 billion) and scientific research ($10 billion). In normal times, Congress might never enlarge so many programs at once. But, as with Reagan's tax cut, the crisis-induced demand for action may suspend the normal laws of political gravity — and allow Democrats to redirect federal priorities as boldly as Reagan did. "This is a once-in-a-25-year opportunity to [implement] a lot of our agenda," a top House Democratic aide says.
How big is the "stimulus"? Bigger than any program or war in history.
The stimulus will undo two decades of welfare reform.
Via Insty:
For the amount spent we could have given every unemployed person in the United States roughly $75,000.
We could give every person who had lost a job and is now passing through long-term unemployment of six months or longer roughly $300,000.
There has been pork barrel politics since there has been politics. The scale of this pork is beyond what had ever been imagined before — and no one can be sure it will actually do much stimulation.
Wall Street didn’t have Obama’s chutzpah. And it didn’t do nearly the damage to the nation that this bill will do. (Via Dan Riehl).
Via SDA:
The U.S. National Debt was $930 billion in 1980, or 33% of GDP. Today it is $10.7 trillion, or 76% of GDP. The National Debt has grown by 1,150% in 28 years. With the planned fiscal stimulus (taxing future generations), the National Debt will reach 100% of GDP during the Obama administration. When Argentina’s economy collapsed in 1998, their National Debt as a percentage of GDP was 65%. The Great Deniers say we are not Argentina. They say we are safe because the U.S. dollar is the reserve currency of the world. This is like jumping off a 20 story building and as you pass the 10th floor someone yells out the window asking how you are doing. You answer, “Good, so far”.
Leaving for NH this morning. Back Monday.
Buy the crap sandwich, for the kids
Make 'em sick to fight their cancer
The right wine glasses. It's simple. A nice wine tastes lousy in a jelly jar.
No more Roquefort? Or Irish Oatmeal? (h/t Marg. Rev)
The economy, and our national roots. TCS
Sen. Vitter: ACORN's multi-billion payoff
Vermont foreclosures held off by Yankee ways. A quote:
Vermont is avoiding the foreclosure crisis plaguing homeowners across the U.S., perhaps owing to traditions of thrift, modesty and self-reliance -- bolstered by laws that protect buyers and land.
The foreclosure rate in Vermont is the lowest in the U.S., 0.04 percent of all homes in the state, according to RealtyTrac Inc. of Irvine, California.
“People in this part of the country don’t like to risk anything unless they really have to,” said Gary Ely, 71, of St. Johnsbury. “Across the country people charge, charge, charge; people in this part of the country tend to be conservative.”
We need cynics. Will Wilkinson
via Jules, the WaPo has a little fun with The Goracle. well, the Pres. clearly doesn't take him seriously.
Did you see this? No He Can't, by Ann Wortham
Let's be fair to Mayor Bloomberg: He defends Geert Wilders
Weak women in the NYT. Heather MacDonald
Stealth Fairness Doctrine. Classical
What the stimulus does to medical care. Watch out! They threw everything in there, so fast that nobody sees it all.
Kudlow thinks the economy has bottomed.
Hoover tried it already.
Why protectionism is a terrible idea
The nuclear -free Berkeley library. Just cranks, or mentally-ill?
Thursday, January 29. 2009
 I thought he was elected to run the city, but he seems to prefer controlling what we put in our mouths. Fats, smokes, soda pop - and now salt!?!
What an idiot. There is not a darn thing wrong with salt. Furthermore, food without salt tastes like cardboard. As a lover of NYC, I have had it with this nanny Mayor. Let's go back to a normal machine sleazebag Dem who will rip you off and pad his pocket and pass money to his buddies - but won't tell you what to eat or drink or smoke. Towns like NYC are for people who want to be free to do what the heck they want, and are not terrified by death.
This Bloomberg guy is a nut. Rich, but still a control freak and a crank. Dietarily-obsessed, too, it seems, with a mild form of eating disorder which causes him to be concerned with what other people do. He's neither my doctor nor my nutritionist nor my Mom, even though he seems to imagine that he is and that I want him to be.
What will be next on his list? Meat? Alcohol? Coffee? Chocolate? Broccoli (which raises cancer risk)? Greens (whose folate raises risk of cancer recurrence)?
Quote from Brussels Journal:
Question: What are these people doing in Europe? Who invited them? Who let them in? Who let them stay? What has allowed them to even dream about moving to Europe, let alone realizing a colonization plan?
In Great Britain alone, intelligence agencies are tracking 200 terrorists plots among Pakistani Brits, of whom some 2,000 are under observation. More than 400,000 Pakistani citizens of Great Britain travel every year to Pakistan – a country of 12,000 madrassas and, as of mid-2005, 55 terrorist training camps.
Why are there a million (1) Pakistanis in Great Britain? Just what has been going on in the brains of the British ruling elites these past 40 years? What has been going on in the brains of the ruled British people?
Dino calls this the Age of Foolishness but I call it The Age of Cranks. Somewhere along the way, nuts, cranks and moonbats became newsworthy rather than objects of pity or mockery. How did that happen?
Do you believe this author? Count me as a skeptic.
They want to control it all. Dr. Clouthier
At Q&O:
What we are trying to do now, though, is a return to the original Keynesianism, that I thought pretty much everyone had agreed was basically unworkable in the real world. Even Paul Krugman seems now to have rejected his own academic work, which was broadly Neo-Keynesian, and abandoned his academic arguments that government intervention, even in cases of market failure, was more harmful than helpful.
As far as the stimulus bill goes, it appears "we are all Keynesians now".
We should know better.
The audacity of moonbat greed. Related: Wishful Thinking at Attack Machine. And more stimulus skepticism. Althouse. Pork, or hot dogs (see below)?
You will never eat another hot dog. Damn. I love(d) hot dogs. How long will it take for me to forget that video?
Warming fanatic James Hansen's boss Theon:
Theon declared “climate models are useless.” “My own belief concerning anthropogenic climate change is that the models do not realistically simulate the climate system because there are many very important sub-grid scale processes that the models either replicate poorly or completely omit,” Theon explained. “Furthermore, some scientists have manipulated the observed data to justify their model results. In doing so, they neither explain what they have modified in the observations, nor explain how they did it. They have resisted making their work transparent so that it can be replicated independently by other scientists. This is clearly contrary to how science should be done. Thus there is no rational justification for using climate model forecasts to determine public policy,” he added.
 A new novel about Agincourt
5000 drones busy in Iraq and Afghanistan
The wolves of the Rockies and the balance of nature
Ten sure-fire ways to be a failure (h/t, Conservative Grapevine)
The college scam. Stossel
Wednesday, January 28. 2009
 The 40-year wish list. That's exactly what I've been thinking. Every Dem in Congress has his long pent-up list, and suddenly he is the kid in the candy shop, with unlimited funds.
In the telling words of Rahm Emanuel, "Never let a serious crisis go to waste."
Who is going to pay for all of this candy?
The earth has a fever a cold! AlGore trudges through snowstorm to deliver warning to Congress. Does anybody take him seriously any more? Related: Hansen's former NASA supervisor calls Hansen an embarassment.
It's the economy, girlfriend. NYT
Who was Arthur Rimbaud? A teenage dirtbag?
Your government bureaucrats at work.
Some scummy, low-life, ungrateful guy wants to sue US Airways. Maybe he doesn't believe in Hell. He should believe: he is it, or is in it.
Texas added jobs in 2008.
Bernard Goldberg on the press' man-crush on Obama
Culinary Olympics begin in France
All sorts of good stuff to read at Powerline
Obama admin tries to destroy US auto biz. No, not rational.
Economists against the stimulus. Krauthammer on stimulus follies.
The Sarah PAC. Why not?
The Pope and Mozart's Mass in C Major. SISU. The Pope:
I understood that we experienced something other than a simple concert, that it was music at prayer, the divine office, in which we almost could touch something of the magnificence and beauty of God himself, and we were touched.
I am snowed-in today. Going nowhere past the end of my driveway with my snowplow. My road hasn't seen a plow yet this morning, and it's coming down hard and fast and blowy. Beautiful. I will light a fire, feed the birds, do some plowing, sip some sherry, catch up on some paperwork, and do some billable work too. Maybe find a new topic for a future post, if something piques my curiosity. Maybe bundle up and boot up and take a hike in the woods.
Re the Kesler post below, via the above-named essay at Politico:
“All this stimulus money is geared toward getting consumers spending and borrowing again. But spending and borrowing were the problem in the first place.”
I agree. But since when is politics rational? It's sales and marketing.
From guest poster Bruce Kesler -
I heard Rush Limbaugh on radio say that the stimulus bill being worked on in Washington should be split in proportion of the popular vote percentages for Obama and McCain between Democrat ideas of “infrastructure” and Republican ideas of “tax cuts.”
One is never sure whether Rush is joking. Regardless, I gagged. (Ed note: It was irony, BK)
Indeed, I’m gagging at the whole stimulus discussions. Whether spending or tax cuts. The concept of the stimulus bill is that by putting more money in some people’s pockets, demand for goods and services will be increased, which will stimulate business spending. There are several slips between cup and lip in this.
First, much of the demand we were accustomed to was speculation, and much else was reckless to prudent family budgets. Much home and auto buying, as well as much other consumer spending, was by those who couldn’t afford the purchases. This should not be restimulated. Those who can afford purchases will make purchases.
Second, relatively few of those who can afford purchases are rejected for credit. Loosening credit will mostly reallow those who cannot afford purchases to resume.
Third, though the stimulus bill is not based on currently increasing most taxes, unless we want to see a future major inflation tax on everyone due to this huge deficit spending we will see huge future tax increases on most to pay for the otherwise unsustainable deficit spending.
In short, the very idea of the stimulus bill is inane.
There may be grounds for some very, very limited and targeted, proven boosts to some people or businesses in real dire need, provided it does not become ongoing or contrary to their getting their affairs and operations in effective order.
The rest is sheer hooey. The politicians who support it are just trying to buy votes and contributions from their constituencies, at the expense of everyone else and of reason.
See John Cochrane's Fiscal Stimulus, Fiscal Inflation, or Fiscal Fallacies
 John Updike died. I read all of his Rabbit books, and a few others. But I like his essays best.
Germany's choice: Power, or sitting cold in the dark
What Euroland is up against in recession
Mankiw on Barro on stimulus
JR Dunn on Obama's first week and the economy:
Human beings are not economic robots mindlessly following ironclad laws. They are, in Isaiah Berlin's acute formulation, "Kettles that watch themselves come to a boil". Most of the problems of today's economy aren't economic at all, but functions of mass psychology. We'd be far better off if people like Bernanke, Greenspan, and Obama himself weren't continually quoted about how bad things are and how much worse they'll get, if reporters who insist on using the verb "deteriorate" were treated the same as the Iraqi shoe guy, and if the president's entire economic staff were given copies of Canetti's Crowds and Power and Mackay's Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.
Tuesday, January 27. 2009
Stolen in toto from Insty:
 Right Wing Prof's Clown Awards for 2008. Nice job, Prof. You had lots of material from which to chose.
Why shrinks are allowed to insult you. If you want to be told that you're perfect, don't talk to one.
Dems full of denial and hypocrisy on the stimulus package. We have been sufficiently frightened by the MSM, and now we are about to get mugged.
Before radar
Hut For Sale, and other unusual real estate offerings
Those innocent Gitmo grads
Muggers advise on how to deal with muggers. Hmmm.
Is dissent still patriotic? Driscoll. Probably not.
The swindle of carbon credits. No kidding. Big-time scam.
How come Jeff Skilling is in jail and Rick Wagoner isn't? Coyote
The Obama campaign will live on as a propaganda machine
This isn't what I marched and petitioned for. Classical V
Wilmington, Ohio, and what a stimulus cannot do.
California passes the tipping point. Yes, it is called "serfdom," but the crazy thing about it is that this return to the 12th century is voluntary. I guess many voters find the role comforting: I will work for the Lord of the Manor, and he will care for me. Freedom and independence aren't for everybody, maybe.
Obama's graciousness deficit. It isn't consistent with his public Fred Astaire, metrosexual presentation.
Kristol leaving NYT after one year. I generally like to read him, but never found his NYT pieces to be all that good. They should give John Hinderaker a call.
Shut up and sing or play. Can you ever go to hear music without getting a political lecture, or at least some gratuitious political comment? Powerline. Ed: Funny, I just commented to somebody yesterday that what bugs me the most about this sort of thing is the assumption that "we're all bien pensant, sophisticated, smart people here and not knuckle-draggers or gun-clinging rednecks, and so we surely all agree that (enter name of Repub or Conservative) is a total ignorant a-hole."
Monday, January 26. 2009
Finally, nice and warm this morning for a change from VT. 16 F here in NYC. That's global warming for you. Funny how it can feel colder without any wind, and the air itself feels frozen into a lifeless stillness. That's why I never bought into that wind chill nonsense.
US Navy tries catch-and-release on Iranian rockets. Yes, let's be careful not to annoy the Iranians. Related: Iranian verbal attacks on Obama grow shriller.
The NHS: A National Disgrace
Feel sorry for wildly irresponsible people. Ben Stein
The Global Warming Scare is over. Monckton
The Afghanistan quagmire? Why does the NYT label everything difficult as a "quagmire"? As Jules notes, they are in one of their own.
A stimulus package for ACORN. Good grief. Can any organization be more discredited?
Asset prices need to fall. I agree. It's bad-tasting medicine. Related: A sensible critique of Dem spending. I think it's pure pork, and will do harm. A full-daylight raid on the treasury, and a theft from our kids.
Tax The Rich Punish the Economically Successful is on its way. Why do they bother, if their plan is to print trillions?
Caroline: Profile in Vanity
Did Medicare improve the health of those over 65? Not at all. You cannot buy health. You can only buy treatment. Related: Forecasting health care costs in 2040.
Quote from Weisberg:
Obama's vagueness about the federal role comes at a moment when clarity is especially needed. Our government is about to become bigger, more powerful and more expensive in order to deal with a sprawling economic crisis. Washington will take on responsibilities it hasn't shouldered in 75 years, such as directly alleviating unemployment and perhaps nationalizing banks. Many who would ordinarily reject such interventions on principle can justify them as misery relief, Keynesian stimulus or emergency management. But some see in the expansion something further-reaching—a redefinition of the government's relationship to markets transcending the current crisis.
Related: How it's difficult to refuse a goody-bag, from Dr Sanity, Pelosi basically confirms that.
Sunday, January 25. 2009
This is why Rush remains so good. He responds to Obama with good cheer and without rancor, while going straight to the heart of the matter. Byron York. One quote:
One more thing, Byron. Your publication and website have documented Obama's ties to the teachings of Saul Alinksy while he was community organizing in Chicago. Here is Rule 13 of Alinksy's Rules for Radicals:
"Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it."
Completely related, The Audacity of Obama at Powerline. He has big plans for us, and it makes me uncomfortable.
Photo above via Moonbattery. It would be a good ad for Dunkin Donuts. (Yes, that is The Kid from Brooklyn.) Starbucks seems to be in trouble.
Went to see Slumdog last night, but both seatings were sold out.
Waxman as Boogie Man
Would a nicer NRA be more effective? Reason
Mitch Daniels, Hoosier rock star
Black preachers did not like Obama's religious references
What's up with GE? Megan. Always been one of my favorite stocks...
Obama's attack on Rush. Good for Rush. His plan is working. Says Insty:
WERE OBAMA’S ATTACKS ON LIMBAUGH AND FOX A MISTAKE? “Beyond the absurdity of a Democrat barking orders at his political opposition, he’s especially foolish to air his fear of Limbaugh and talk radio in a public setting.”
Plus this: “I’m picturing Rush delirious with glee, pacing the cavernous rooms of his mansion, booming out monologues to his kitty cat Pumpkin, as he waits for Monday noon to finally roll around. This will be good.”
Is Iran terrorism's Mother Regime?
I didn't know PBS did stuff like this: Lesson Plan on the Economy
Welcome back Carter? Anchoress
Sarkozy to rescue French newspapers.
Eric Holder on the fairness doctrine. NRO
Headline comparison:
Headlines 4 years ago:
"Republicans spending $42 million on inauguration while troops Die in unarmored Humvees"
"Bush extravagance exceeds any reason during tough economic times"
"Fat cats get their $42 million inauguration party, Ordinary Americans get the shaft"
Headlines last week:
"Historic Obama Inauguration will cost only $120 million"
"Obama Spends $120 million on inauguration; America Needs A Big Party"
"Everyman Obama shows America how to celebrate"
"Citibank executives contribute $8 million to Obama Inauguration"
Female tree below from Theo, of course.
Saturday, January 24. 2009
Amusingly pointed, from Steyn. He rightly quotes Matthew Parris:
This recession is not a failure of market economics. It is a reassertion of market economics after a decade in which we paid ourselves more than we were producing, and funded it precariously and temporarily by complicated credit instruments that it took a while for the market to rumble.
Moonbat warmist crank James Lovelock interviewed by a sexy babe named Gaia, at Jules. Lovelock predicts a "90% cull" of humans. I predict that somebody in his family will get him back on his medication.
Close Gitmo? OK. And then what? Laura Ingraham suggested sending them all to Barbra Streisand's neighborhood. The Obama transcript is an embarassment. The guy doesn't know what the heck he's talking about.
Big Lizards has good thoughts on the subject.
Friday, January 23. 2009
Remarkable photos of the Airbus salvage in the Hudson on the Manhattan shore, taken mainly by the crane crew. Jersey shore opposite. Photos are in sequence in continuation page below.
Continue reading "Salvage photos of Flight 1549"
Israel discovers huge oil reserves.
 I am heading to Killington for a weekend of skiing and general merriment in the snow and cold, and leaving these droppings behind.
Yo Yo and Itzhak faked it? Sheesh. Just like Milli Vanilli. Would have thought it beneath their dignity.
How to get your wife to screw you. (Just thought I'd throw that in the pile to surprise you.)
Too busy for the Medal of Honor Ball? A sick and sickening decision.
Your orange juice is killing the planet. Thought you would like to know. I'll have a Screwdriver, hold the OJ. (h/t, Junk Science)
Major fault in Arkansas. But when?
Are Republicans too nice? I do think they have trouble playing the dirty pool. Dems don't mind looking bad, and accept the reality that politics is the ugliest sport.
Rick Moran:
...are we to endure 4 or 8 years of this over the top, out of control, masturbatory media overkill? Everything about him his so perfect that any criticism at all seems harsh. Obama doesn’t necessarily invite this sort of thing but it seems to happen anyway. I’m sure we’ll have plenty of time to examine this phenomenon as the months pass and reality sets in.
First time I ever heard of Hillary's "people skills." I've heard that she is a chain-smoking, no-class, potty-mouthed, menopausal bitch on wheels butchy harridan who expects to be treated like royalty. But otherwise a very nice person. I do not think I would want to work for her sort.
Related: The new US foreign policy - Make them love us. Didn't Jimmy Carter try that? Guess what. They have their own interests, and do not give a damn about ours.
Frum's new website: New Majority
Vanderleun's personal journey with abortion
Scientists get misty-eyed over Obama
Stephanopoulis gets misty-eyed over Obama
From Bruce Kesler:
Now that the grand coronation, er inauguration, is old news, with our major media continuing in its electoral path of ignoring the troubling portents of the policies and appointments coming from now President Obama, can we look forward to the major media resurrecting its role as -- it likes to view itself, but polls showing majority distrust from its consumers -- speaking truth to power?
There are plenty of opportunities for the major media to do so, from a bloated economic recovery bill that explodes with political payoff boondoggles and catastrophically expands inflation-inducing inflation, to payoffs to unions that reduce independent worker protections and hobble efficient business management, to ignoring the desires of the 85% of Americans who don’t want their health care dictated by bureaucrats in Washington, to half-hearted defenses against worldwide terrorists.
As readership and viewership continue their sharp declines, and major newspapers shrink in content and TV networks increase their cheaper to produce unreality offerings, they might stop to reconsider the poor survival sense of being inane lackies of the reckless ideologies and pontifications that now hold power at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, and its echoing commercial failures from Hollywood.
Not likely, but one can hope for change, can’t one?
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