Thursday, October 15. 2009
Dear Sweden or Finland or wherever: Thanks so much for sending along the handsome coaster. Please forgive us for taking so long to send our regards, but we'd really only been living here for a few weeks when it showed up, and we were a little unsure what to do with the thing. I'm just an intern here, and new on the job, so I don't get to decide anything. But there was something spiffy-looking about the package the little gold candy dish -- or whatever it is supposed to be -- came in, and I couldn't help myself, and kept fishing it out of the trash no matter how many Czars came by my desk and round-filed it while yelling at me to get back to editing Rush Limbaugh's Wikipedia page. I asked Adele, the girl that's been here the longest, what I should do with your merit badge, but she told me that anything that showed up for our first year here, whether it's an oil painting, a North Korean nuke, or a recession, should just get forwarded to the Texan fellow that used to live here, because nothing could be really addressed to us yet. Our new boss is still trying to finish up some work he had left over when he quit his job as a Chicago Alderman or something, and he's in Denmark at a trade show, still handing out his old business cards until they run out. Adele's old and still an intern, and the catty girls say she couldn't even get Clinton to grope her, so I just sort of brushed it off and kept the neato emblem thing here. It says here there's some kind of money that goes with your disk with the picture of Andrew Sullivan on it, but that makes me sort of suspicious. 1.4 million dollars it says here, but maybe that's a typo and you guys meant yen or kronos or Canadian dollars or those big stone rings or whatever you guys use instead of real money with Presidents on it. I'm sorry, you sound like nice people, but it smacks of a "You May Already Be A Winner" letter that's addressed to: Occupant. My mom told me Ed McMahon is dead, and the days of a man showing up at your house with a big cardboard check for no reason are long past, and we should all be suspicious of anyone that promises you money for doing nothing. Besides, ever since we hired Acorn to do the census, we had to keep way more than that in small unmarked bills in my desk, and I don't want you sending me any more. There's barely room for my Carmex, Post-It notes, and all my Apple gear as it is. Tell you what: why don't you split up the money and send a little to every person in America. None of us are good at math here, so I'm not sure how much that would be, exactly. I even asked my only friend here, little Timmy from Treasury, to figure it out, but he says carrying the zeros gets him every time. Timmy's nice and told me not to worry about the exact figure, somehow the President will end up with every penny of it eventually. Thanks so much, Amanda from the secretarial pool.
Megan McA: Is health care reform falling apart?
Tax the sick: Obama's new plan. Maybe people would rather die than pay the taxes.
Betsy: Phony budget promises. Everybody knows they're phony.
Related from Sowell: Magic Numbers in Politics
Jules has a plan to either never die, or at least to be prepared for combat.
Applause when Robert Reich mentions letting old people die. Sheesh.
Over my dead body. Home Depot's Bernie Marcus:
...when it comes to the government's health care program, Marcus said, "I see a very bleak future for health care in the United States, if we pass government controlled health care. The Congress, the federal workers do not participate. This is for you and for me. I mean come on, give me a break will you, please."
Love this. A Viking quote:
This is why I like engineers more than I like politicians. Engineers live in the real world. What they design has to actually function as advertised. So they don’t promise an airplane that is extremely fast, extremely fuel efficient, extremely quiet, and extremely safe. Those goals, each desirable individually, are mutually incompatible given the laws of physics. Politicians live in the political world and need only make sure that the bridges they build and the aircraft they design don’t crash in ruins before the next election. So they blithely ignore the laws of economics and human nature in designing programs. The political press corps equally pretends these laws don’t exist.
Precisely. All through this debate on the mother of all entitlements, nobody has acknowledged the elephant in the room that we're already locked into a mountain of debt due to exploding spending on Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. So the Senate Finance Committee makes up stories to pretend the money is there but it's already been spent ten-times-to-Sunday.
This is for Rodger (a commenter on my Muskrat photo). The game camera took 101 photos of this big Blacktail as he stood around a mineral spring between 1:10 am and 2:40 am on July 31:
Wednesday, October 14. 2009
"Just what is it about the functioning of the government that makes you want to entrust them with your medical care when you get sick?"
That's what I have been hearing people asking.
A good analysis. Jay Tea begins his Headless Snake post:
There's an old saying: "when you want to kill a snake, cut off its head." It's turning out that that doesn't exactly hold true in politics.
I'm finding the current political struggles going on tremendously entertaining. The Democrats have managed to pretty much seize power at the federal level, and have shown very little clue on how to handle the role reversal. It's been a very, very long time since they haven't been the minority in at least one respect, and they've forgotten how to govern.
Their old model simply doesn't work. The old way was to find the leadership of the opposition and focus their attacks on him or them, making them the embodiment of what they opposed, and then tearing that down by proxy.
That can't work now, because there is a schism in their opponents -- and there is no clearly defined leadership.
Read the whole thing. The Repubs are wise to keep their heads low for a while, at least as long as the Left seems to be in process of destroying the Dem party.
So who does the Left have to attack in a target-poor environment? Just the talking heads - the "call 'em like they see 'em" folks. Thus the recent attempted muggings of non-politicians like Rush, Glenn Beck, FOX, Sean, a blogger like Michelle Malkin - and now even Liz Cheney. Plus ex-pols who aren't running for office, like Palin.
Woops. Forgot to mention Michael Steele's obvious racism. An Uncle Tom, ya know?
I bet they wish they had somebody like Newt to smear again.
Addendum - re smearing and sliming
From Legal Insurrection:
The point of this tactic is to repeat accusations frequently enough that fiction and reality merge in the public consciousness. And on the internet, all you have to do is repeatedly put someone's name in close proximity to the inflammatory words, so that the search engines associate the name and the accusation.
And it works.
Yes it does. Just ask Chris Christie. If you haven't heard, he has a fat ass.
The Congressional Budget Office’s guesstimate on October 7 of the federal budget cost of the unwritten Senate Finance Committee bill it sent on yesterday contains $83-billion of tax collection revenues that the CBO and the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation themselves call an “assumption.” That assumption, representing about 10% of the net federal budget effect guessed by CBO, is highly questionable.
Basically, the assumption is that increased federal taxes will be received on the increased wages “to hold total compensation roughly the same” that employers will provide to offset employees’ loss of current employee benefits.
I’ve searched the web to find studies that provide adequate support for that assumption. There are conflicting inferences, but nothing adequate. Neither does it make common sense.
Commenters have been silent. ObamaCare advocates don’t want to expose what will likely be a cut in employees’ total compensation or increase in the federal deficit, nor do business interests want to expose they will largely pocket the labor-cost savings. Page 5 says: …other budgetary effects, mostly on tax revenues, associated with the expansion of federally subsidized insurance, which would reduce deficits by $83 billion.
Changes in the extent of employment-based health insurance affect federal revenues because most payments for that coverage are tax-preferred. If employers increase or decrease the amount of compensation they provide in the form of health insurance (relative to current-law projections), CBO and JCT assume that offsetting changes will occur in wages and other forms of compensation—which are generally taxable—to hold total compensation roughly the same. Such effects also arise with respect to specific elements of the proposal (such as the tax credits for small employers), and those effects are included within the estimate for those elements. For example, a 2006 survey of the economics literature by The Center For A Changing Workforce, a decidedly pro-health care reform think tank, found that, “In a review of 11 studies on health insurance and labor market outcomes, Currie and Madrian (1999) found five studies showing a positive relation between wages and benefits, three studies with a negative relationship, and three inconclusive studies.”
Essentially, in a tight labor market or under union duress some employers may increase wages some to offset cuts in employee benefits. Meanwhile, there’s no incentive to do so otherwise, aside from some wanting to cushion the morale and, maybe, productivity impacts.
We’re not in a tight labor market, nor are we expected to be in one for the foreseeable future. The power of unions is largely in the government jobs sector, and that is realizing increasingly stiff resistance from bankrupt local and state governments, taxpayers resisting hikes in rates, and everyone else suffering services cuts.
$83-billion, poof!
UPDATE: Economist, SmartMoney columnist, blogger of The Conspiracy To Keep You Poor And Stupid Don Luskin writes me:
In one of the earlier House versions of the bill, there was a specific provision dealing with the opposite problem. Specifically, employers were forbidden from cutting wages on workers for whom they would have to offer health coverage for the first time, in order to keep total comp even. Therefore, the House lawmakers must believe that employers will take every chance they can to minimize total compensation. Why would they not have this inclination in the face of a subsidy of their costs?
Ed Morrissey has two important posts: the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation says the Finance Committee bill will increase insurance premiums and depress wages; the former CBO Director says the bill's costs will triple in the second decade.
Let's change my former concluding remark from "$83-billion, poof!" to "$trillions, poof!"
Megan McArdle adds about the $83-billion, "it's not exactly revenue I want to count on."
Re Liberal self-censorship, Am. Thinker begins:
When the BBC finally ‘fessed up last week to the Global Warming Fraud -- without admitting how much they aided and abetted the scam over ten years or more -- a liberal gent I know was shocked. He had sort of gritted his teeth and tolerated my skepticism over the years, but he never wanted to judge the whole fraudulent business for himself, although he had plenty of qualifications to do so. But this fraud was obvious. You had to want to close your eyes not to see it. I say that with all appreciation to the scientists and bloggers like Anthony Watt, who doggedly did the hard work of double-checking the fraud.
And via the WSJ re “Whoops apocalypse,” or perhaps it’s a case of “whoops not the apocalypse.”
We have been warning about the coming ice age. Drudge this morning:
Heavy snow expected in PA...
Chicago record breaking cold continues...
Montana records fall...
CHILL MAP...
FORECASTS BLOWN: '09 Atlantic hurricane season quietest in decade...
Chris Matthews appear to hope somebody will shoot Rush Limbaugh...with a CO2 cartridge? What? I find this disturbing, if not sick - if not incendiary. We have never said anything like that about anybody, and would never want to.
I guess dissent and principled disagreement is no longer the highest form of patriotism. Furthermore, I thought debate about ideas was a healthy, wonderful, American thing. Not when the Dems are in power, I guess.
I still wonder where all the hatred is coming from.
We wouldn't usually bother much about such a detail, but Charles Johnson seems to have gone crazy in a destructive manner. It's not his opinions or his change of opinions - it's the irrationality and anger. He be gone from Ye Olde Maggie's Farm Blogroll (for whatever that's worth - which is nothing).
I will give the empty seat on our blogroll to the worthy Legal Insurrection.
 Aussies hoard incandescent bulbs.
The WH's war against FOX
The Dem war against Rush: State-Run Media Scum Smear Rush Using Fabricated Quotes. Says Steyn: Prove you never said it. But Rush is rightly contemplating legal action.
As a long-time Rush listener, I can state that Rush has no trace of racism. What he does is to refuse to condescend or pander to anybody. Is that considered racism these days?
The Dem dirty political fights this season
Dems: We don't need no steenkin' ethics
Villainous: E.J. Dionne Explains Angry White Men to Blue America
Who's on the hook for the growing state and municipal pension messes?
Blankley: Washington is nuts:
That's right. The federal government is giving the "green light" for the country to drive to the poorhouse -- and drive there, I would argue, by way of the lunatic asylum. Are they nuts?
Sen Mitch McConnell on the Baucus bill:
"The fact is, this proposal will never come before the Senate. But what we do know is that the bill written behind closed doors here in the Capitol will be another 1,000-page, trillion-dollar Washington takeover. We know it will slash a half-trillion dollars from seniors’ Medicare, add new taxes and raise premiums. That’s not reform.”
WSJ: The Baucus bill is nothing but a huge middle-class tax bill
From Powerline:
It probably never occurred to the Russians that a U.S. president would come to power hoping to "reset" relations with Russian on some basis other than the hard bargain and the "trust but verify" mentality. Yet this is precisely what has fallen into the Kremlin's lap. From what I've heard, the Russian elites can neither believe their good fortune nor hide their amusement.
An email from a good pal, with photos (Harley is the Lab, Yankee is the Large Munsterlander with the white chest. I don;t know the name of the other Large Munsterlander.):
BD -
Enjoyed your posts on “Where I wasn’t”, and have very fond memories of the trip to Manitoba with you all. I just returned from a week in Saskatchewan for ducks/geese and then an upland hunt with my Large Munsterlander dog club. Attached is a photo of the Abby Hotel (built ca. 1913) where we stayed, and a couple of the dogs and birds. That’s Yankee with the Hun on the fence post. Harley probably made his last trip. Tired, but happy.
C.
PS On the “tailgate” picture, ignore the biodiesel bumper sticker. Truck belongs to a friend who is a bit liberal. Makes for some long road trips, until we agree to disagree.
Hey - I know what that is like. Been there. Gotta stick to other topics, like the meaning of life and shotshell loads.
Tuesday, October 13. 2009
In considering the motivations of Maine Senator Olympia Snowe’s decision to vote in the Senate Finance Committee in favor of sending its unwritten healthcare bill to the full Senate one should understand that aside from any other reasons Maine would benefit.
Snowe has teeter-tottered, basically desiring an expansion of government health care programs, but the decisive factor may well be that she is a Senator from Maine. Regardless of her political stripe, the best explanation of Senator Snowe’s vote is she wants to bring home the dollars from other states’ taxpayers to provide medical coverage to the voters in her state.
Some of Maine’s latest statistics:
Maine is a gross receiver of $1.41 of federal spending for each dollar of federal taxes paid from the state’s taxpayers.
Maine, however, has one of the highest state and local tax burdens among the states.
Maine’s business tax climate is among the least attractive.
Maine’s Dirigo Health, its attempt at universal health care, is a failure, as in other states. The percent uninsured in Maine did not budge under Dirigo. Dirigo contains a “public” option, which didn’t work, so Senator Snowe has opposed one. She, however, has pushed in the Senate Finance Committee to reduce the penalty for not buying insurance, which together with the guarantee of coverage regardless of health condition will result in increased premiums to those who are insured and make a subsidized government plan more attractive. Similarly, the taxpayers' or overall costs of the expansion aren’t primary to her.
Politico has a discussion of the leverage Senator Snowe may obtain from her vote. Some of those in favor of a more extreme bill fear that. They needn’t, as now that she has voted in the Finance Committee, her voice can and will be ignored by the Democrat leadership patching up whatever they wish to move forward. That will likely include some sort of sub rosa “public” plan.
Others notice the bailout of Maine's failed Dirigo, at the expense of other states. Instapundit wonders "Payola?"
From a duck boat on Lake Winnipegosis, Manitoba, a week ago:
The New York Times makes much of a MIT professor disputing the PriceWaterhouseCooper analysis saying that ObamaCare would escalate the cost of private insurance policies. This same MIT professor in 2007 published the result of his study of 10-years experience with "crowd out," the shift from private insurance to government programs when government programs are expanded.
In Prof. Gruber’s own words after studying the effect of government insurance programs, “Our central estimates suggest that crowd-out is on the order of 60%: private insurance coverage is reduced by 60% as much as public insurance coverage rises when there are public eligibility expansions.”
Prof. Gruber is touted as an advisor to devising the Massachusetts experiment that has resulted in higher costs than promised, less access, and now moves toward rationing top-class care, the state's private insurance policy premiums being among the highest in the US.
Professor, are you willing to swap your MIT health plan to join the plebes?
Between online stuff, books, magazines and journals, I probably do as much non-work-related reading each day as anybody does who also has a day job. I am a rapid reader, except when something forces me to ponder or imagine - or to look something up.
I appreciate a good information-conveyor, whether the info is news, opinions, deep-thinking, alcohol-inspired insights, personal musings and experiences, or plain information of all sorts, including the profoundly-informed and most widely-knowledgeable.
The websites which I frequent are all quite competent - or extremely good - at doing this. There is a definite craft to the pithy, linking, mini-essay (or mini-rant) whether the style is graceful, ironic, lyrical, obsessive, humorous, sly, academic, somber, crude, or whatever. We do not claim to have mastered the craft, but we aspire to do so.
However, real writing is a much rarer, God-given talent to which we would not even presume to aspire. Off the top of my head, I can only think of three website folks I read regularly who are true writers: Sippican (an explorer of mysteries and the creator of the felicitous term "intertubes"), Vanderleun (the often world-weary blogger and poet manque), and Iowahawk, the diabolical mimic, satirist and one-time Presidential candidate who skims the surface of reality before rising above it like a swallow chasing bugs over a lake.
This from Iowahawk's recent treatment of Andrew Sullivan, Dial "M" for Maternity:
I let the Ruger down slowly and put on the safety. Ma Palin was a Northside moll who had worked her way to the top of the Christianist syndicate. She was too violent and stupid for the Ivy League, but she was an expert at the two things that got you made in her gang -- shooting guns and making babies. I had long suspected some of those babies were fakes. If I could prove it, it would spark an internal war among the Christianists -- and bring down their iron-fisted control of the marriage rackets.
"I'm all ears... what did you say your name was?"
"I didn't."
"Suit yourself. Now let's hear that nursery story."
Well, whatever kind of writing one produces, every post needs a hook of some sort because the Hook brings you back. Here's my Hook for this post:
It doesnt matter what I say
So long as I sing with inflection
That makes you feel that Ill convey
Some inner truth of vast reflection
But Ive said nothing so far
And I can keep it up for as long as it takes
And it dont matter who you are
If Im doing my job then its your resolve that breaks
Because the hook brings you back
I aint tellin you no lie
The hook brings you back
On that you can rely
 Afghan Pop. Watch the Afghan Star trailer.
From John yesterday re Columbus Day:
Speaking of Columbus, the Associated Press finds that the boldest explorer in world history did not have quite the same sensibilities as a liberal 21st century schoolmarm. This apparently surprises some.
Is mass transit really green? Probably not, but could you imagine NYC without trains, buses and subways? It just wouldn't work.
Nuclear weapons deserve the Nobel Peace prize
Most ominous graph of the day
So how many properties does Charlie Rangel own?
This kid definitely needs Reform School
Businessman Steve Wynn takes on Michigan Gov.
A fine Driscoll essay: Man’s Crisis Of Identity In The Latter Half Of The 20th Century
Parents & Kids Protest Obama, Democrats & The Teachers' Unions: PJTV Video
Oh great: Obama to SEIU: "Now the Time Has Come For Us to Do It All Across the Country - We Are Going to Paint the Nation Purple With SEIU"
Instructing monsters to be monsters. Am Thinker
Jules:
White House Communications Director Anita Dunn whines that Fox acts as a “wing of the Republican Party.” No complaints about the rest of the White House Press Corps acting as a Democratic high-rise condo development, though.
John at Powerline says of the Dem medical reform "this isn't reform, it is stupidity." I disagree. I believe it is a medium-to-long-term strategy to raise prices to drive people to the government plantation. Trouble is, people will blame the insurance companies instead of the government. The Dems have not really made a secret of their clever but deceptive strategy to achieve government control. Graph from Powerline:
You have to add the sounds yourself: A Red-Tail keering overhead, the rustling leaves, flocks of Blue Jays squawking through the woods, the Chickadee calling from some pine tree, the lowing of distant cattle, the cheerful buzz of a chainsaw back in the woods, and a barking dog or two.
Monday, October 12. 2009
This is the plan - to drive private insurance out of business so we can be relieved of the burden of making our own choices.
The insurers have finally caught on to the Dem strategy.
Yes, at the very least the Dem reform will drive costs far higher in the short term. That is, insofar as anybody knows what the heck is in it.
One thing we do know is that insurance creep will be part of it. Not only will we lose the choice of major medical, or to be self-insured, but we'll end up paying for sex change operations, abortions, hair transplants and massage therapy.
Here's the Dem war against the specialists.
The most insulting thing about this whole mess, however, is that the taxes for it begin right away - but the program doesn't begin until after the next Pres election. Hmmm.
MarketWatch.
In fact, it was won by these guys.
Part 1. Quite entertaining:
Interesting change of heart, from Afghanistan -
LETTER FROM THE ROAD, #37
Rabia Elizabeth Roberts, October, 2009
Kabul: armed guards, machine guns and sand bags at every intersection and at the door to my guest house - open sewers and fecal dust - traffic jams of SUVs, military convoys, bicycles and pedestrians – six-story buildings amidst crumbling houses and filthy refugee encampments - men, lots of men everywhere, and street children. The women on the streets are conservatively dressed (no skin showing) with big scarves. About a quarter of them wear the signature blue head-to-toe burqa.
I have come to Kabul because I want to experience for myself what is happening here, eight years after the U.S. ousted the Taliban. I have spent the past 40 years of my life protesting war and working for peace in conflict areas. I don’t believe that killing leads to peace.
I came here as part of a small peace delegation of mostly women who share my conviction that President Obama must not send more troops and should set a timeline for withdrawal of the 60,000 that are here.
But now - after seven intense days and nights of interviews and meetings in Kabul - I no longer have that conviction.
Continue reading "Letter from a Peace Activist"
External freedom is only an aspect of interior freedom. Political freedom, as the Western world has known it, is only a political reading of the Bible. Religion and freedom are indivisible. Without freedom the soul dies. Without the soul there is no justification for freedom.…
From David Virtue's "England, Oh England, How Often Would I have gathered You...":
Britain is spiritually famished. It is starved from hearing the Word of God. Churches that focus on music and Eucharist are not drawing the crowds. People want to hear something that will change their lives. They want to hear about God, who He is, and what He is doing. They do not want sermons on the environment or Labor's policies for senior citizens. The average pulpit is bereft from hearing the Word of God.
Enter ALPHA. If it wasn't for ALPHA, one wonders if the Church of England would have any relevance at all. The other truth is that if the Church of England would do its job properly, there would be no need for ALPHA.
The very fact that ALPHA exists bespeaks the failure of the church to communicate the simple verities of the gospel to ordinary people. And it took an attorney turned priest to do it. The biggest growth in cities like London is precisely because of ALPHA's outreach into the urban jungle. ALPHA has been so successful they have taken over dying churches and filled them with new converts, much to the chagrin of laissez faire vicars who believe their benefice should not be beholden to these "happy clappy evangelicals."
Here's the link to Alpha USA.
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