Maggie's Farm

Great points JC, and greatly appreciated.

Obama bin lottery

What do you do with your last dollar when you are flat broke? You might as well buy a lottery ticket. Putting your last silver dollar into the slot machine with a million-dollar payout is a rational decision after you've
gambled away your whole stake. Absent a miracle, you're going to walk home anyway.

The Democrats of South Carolina chose a miracle over a manager, for the same rational reasons that a down-and-outer spends his last dollar on the lottery.

Obama's South Carolina victory speech was the economic equivalent of a carnival snake-oil pitch . He promised to "stop giving tax breaks to rich companies and instead put the money in the pockets of struggling homeowners
who can't pay their mortgages", and at the same time stop the export of American jobs overseas, while raising everyone's wages.

The crowd chanted, "Yes we can! Yes we can!" Excuse me: No, you can't . You can't keep inefficient American factories open without massive tax breaks to corporations, in the form of tariffs or otherwise.

more
http://atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JA29Dj06.html

Decoupling Big talk in Davos

Judging by the recent mood swings, the global economy can be diagnosed as manic-depressive. Through the haze around the markets last week, a clear reason for this bipolar condition emerges. On the one hand, the United States, the world's largest economy and the destination of many of the world's exports, may be on the brink of recession. But at the same time, the global economy—after a remarkable five-year period in which almost every major economy has been growing in concert—is showing signs of what economists call "decoupling ." What decoupling means is this: even as the globe's economic engine, the United States, has stalled, optimists believe the train cars it has been pulling for the last several decades—especially emerging markets like India and China—may finally be able to chug along under their own power.

more
http://www.newsweek.com/id/105558

McCain's ACU Ratings

By Randall Hoven

Senator John McCain's lifetime rating of 82.3% from the American Conservative Union is often cited as proof that he is conservative. Here is a closer look at that 82.3 rating.


First, a rating of 82.3 is not really that high. It puts Senator McCain in 39th place among senators serving in 2006, the latest year for which the ACU has its ratings posted online. For that most recent year in particular, McCain scored only 65, putting him in 47th place for that year. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Chuck Hagel (R-NE), for example, scored 64 and 75, respectively, in 2006.


Generally, McCain has voted less conservatively in more recent years. His average for 1990-97 was 88, but was only 74 for 1998-2006. Below are his yearly ratings since 1990.


more
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/01/mccains_acu_ratings.html

Chinese already warring on US..a rethink of the realities

In thinking over the Chinese vs. USA military challenge a key component is already being employed by the Chinese.

Several months ago the Chinese targeted one of their aging weather satellites and blew it up. The natural result of this was the creation of a huge debris field.

This past week the US was forced to maneuver two satellites around this debris field. This causes the finite fuel aboard our satellites to be used more rapidly than the syllabus calls for. This shortens their useful life by a huge factor and is very costly.

The Chinese HAD to know the orbits of these US satellites and what blowing up their weather satellite would do to their efficacy.by creating a debris field in their path. It was basically an act of war.

Should the Chinese continue to blow up aging satellites and create larger and larger debris fields our satellites will be eventually trashed.

Washington issued to the Chinese at the time a very stern warning about their "test" of blowing up satellites, but for now the one debris field is costing the US millions.

This could explain the premature degradation and decaying orbit of one of our spy satellites .. knocked out by Chinese created space debris. Very subtle and with built in plausible deniability, the Chinese are at minimum twisting our tail.