Friday, September 25. 2009
 Going fishing off Montauk this weekend. Will do mostly catch and release. I will never keep a big breeder Striper. One medium legal fish maybe.
I will leave these with y'all:
I did think that St. Francis said that.
The plusses (mostly) and minuses of community colleges
Health care scrubbed from NEA website. Lots of things getting scrubbed these days. Even the NYT tried to cover this story.
Congress: Let's own the newspapers. How would you tell the difference?
Why to the jihadists still want to kill us? Aren't we all hopey-nicey now?
Is this admin the last hurrah of Liberalism? Am Thinker. One can only hope.
If you missed Bibi's speech
Getting ugly: ACORN Funded Political, For-Profit Efforts, Data Show
Unbelievable: treat misbehaving kids differently, based on race. Is the racist assumption that "others" are incapable of civilized behavior?
Since when is playing doctor evil? Good wholesome fun for kids.
The continuing Dem war against business. Who is supposed to make the money they want to spend?
Photo is Montauk Light. It comes in handy.
Thursday, September 24. 2009
 It's Beerfest time in Germany. Theo keeps us up to date.
Nuclear energy is the only solution. Or is coal the new clean fuel?
Dem health bills and their kickbacks to AARP. Lots of folks are quitting AARP
Pelosi tries to veer health bills to the Left again
Religious Left targets Conservatives with venom and hate
Our first "post-American" President? (I thought Carter was)
Telegraph: Was this Obama's most naive speech ever?
Start running. The O says the water is rising!
School children taught to sing praise to Obama. Yes, very sick indeed.
ACORN's lawsuit: A thin theory
Insty: "All these Chavez admirers who want to control media are making me nervous."
Related: How can the government tell Humana what to say?
Wednesday, September 23. 2009
 My life is good but I'm worried yours is better. h/t, Tiger
I agree with Kate that you can't make this up: Career Fair needs to include left out liberal arts majors. How many times does it need to be said that a liberal arts education is not job training? American Liberal Arts education was designed to be life-enrichment for the ruling class gentry, and job training for the clergy.
Dems on path to repeat housing disaster
Do we now have the worst foreign policy ever?
Desperate law grads: Law firms just aren't hiring right now.
More legal fun: Prof B on corporations as persons
Roughing up the middle class. Insty
Most recent polls: terrible news for the admin
Axelrod nixes medical insurance across state lines. Cannot give a reason, but we all know why.
The NYT aims low - really low. Am Thinker. A quote:
...so columnist Bob Herbert tells us that a black man in the White House has "so unsettled much of white America that the lid is coming off the racism" that is this nation. This "garbage" is a "scourge" spread by the "hate-mongers on talk radio" and the Internet.
No black can succeed in this racist nation, he says, especially the one in the White House. And the racists themselves are tools of a Republican Party that has historically engaged in "race-baiting" and "hatred" for political gain. Herbert: These people killed John F. Kennedy and they will do the same to Obama.
Who killed JFK again? And is he referring to internet hatemongers like us who had once wanted Colin Powell to run for Pres? The NYT is publishing trash. It is deplorable.
Photo: Tractor time from Theo
Tuesday, September 22. 2009
Art that we masses can comprehend: the above stolen from a Protein Wisdom post on the O admin and the NEA
The earth is cooling off (especially here right now). They say it's just going to be a 20-50 year blip - but they did not predict this. So what good are their computer models at prediction? I would submit that they are not half as good as economic models at prediction - and theirs stink too. Only difference is that economists do not claim that their computer models are accurate at prediction.
At the end of the day, liberals want the government to be generous so they can avoid being generous on a personal level.
The hot dog across America
A re-post: Krauthammer on the preventive care myth
WalMart has good medicine for routine problems
Spot the dishonest slimeball. The WaPo and VA politics
My government just called me an irresponsible teenager. I'm rubber and you're glue...
Tom Sowell: Nobody ever told me that I couldn't be successful.
Michelle on the SEIU
Neoneo is wondering who the O is. A quote:
We may never know much about Obama the Man, but I believe we now know enough about Obama the President, despite his efforts to hide: he is a statist of the far Left, who wants to implement a statist Leftist agenda for America both domestically and in foreign affairs, and he will do everything he can to achieve these goals.
I never try to analyze people I don't know. I just go by their actions.
Monday, September 21. 2009
 Book du jour on right, with thanks to Theo.
Using artists for political purposes. Powerline. Darn greedy artists will do anything for a check. They are all filthy Capitalists.
I did not get enough out of Bertrand Russell's effort. Maybe this one is better, I will give it the old college try.
Send your kids to ACORN High School! They will learn how to exploit the money made by the producers of society! Who they hold in contempt! Perfect for arrogant, supercilious weenies!
Phi Beta Cons:
Derb's piece nicely supports my contention that only a very wealthy country could afford an educational system that costs as much and delivers as little as ours.
Insty on how to gain respect in the UK:
...should Christians start sawing off heads to gain some respect? Perverse incentives . . . .
Quoted at Q&O:
“Further, a perception that our resolve is uncertain makes Afghans reluctant to align with us against the insurgents.”
Duh.
Is Federal mandatory medical insurance Constitutional? It depends on the politics.
Glen Beck embarasses me but
But he also very often seems to be right (small r). Beck has been the first and, for quite a while, the only one to be assiduously connecting the dots between Obama, Ayers, the two Joneses and the rest of the post-sixties crew that seems to have never gotten over the Port Huron Statement, with the Chicago School of neo-Boss Tweed politics. These are dots that should have been connected by the mainstream media long ago, but, as we all know, they didn’t want to look at them. New Media hasn’t done a great job of connecting these dots either because, frankly, we don’t yet have the skills or manpower. But Beck is doing it. More power to him.
The obnoxious nanny state in New York.
Sweden is on fire, and the firemen can't help. They are afraid of the Moslem immigrants.
Friday, September 18. 2009
 Travel tips: "Come to Denmark. Our women are easy." (Photo of an easy Danish Pastry from Theo.)
Driscoll:
The far left Common Dreams Website drops the mask and exclaims, “Climate change is not an environmental issue. It’s about resources and global justice, about the future direction of capitalism, about where the next wars will be.”
Is anybody listening to the doctors?
75 Percent of Oklahoma High School Students Can't Name the First President of the U.S.
Kling: Not What They Had in Mind: A History of Policies that Produced the Financial Crisis of 2008
The O:
So I just want everybody to know, Congress will have time to read the bill. They will have time to debate the bill. They will have all of August to review the various legislative proposals. When we come back in September, I will be available to answer any question that members of Congress have. If they want to come over to the White House and go over line by line what’s going on, I will be happy to do that.
But it just ain't true.
How green energy can be an environmental disaster
Jules on the O:
...as long as this opposition = racism story line is allowed to continue unchallenged, it ultimately reflects badly on him. Because it is an insult and a condescension for his prominent supporters to refuse to let him govern as anything but a black man.
Related, from Anchoress:
In her most recent rambling discourse Maureen Dowd writes that President Obama is “at the center of a period of racial turbulence sparked by his ascension.”
Is that true? Have we had 9 months of “racial turbulence” or have we had about six weeks of it, spurred on in great measure by a press/punditry corps has been wondering “is this opposition actually racism?” since the springtime Tea Parties, but really starting panting the question once the August townhall meetings got hot and it became clear that the Democrats were not effectively selling their bill.
Related, from Kimball:
In our culture, the charge of racism is not only a conversation-stopper it is a thought-stopper. We cannot publicly tell the truth about race, so the charge of racism always carries with it not only an element of intimidation, but also an element of exposure. Everyone knows that Al Sharpton, say, is a mountebank, but we must be chary of saying so because of his race.
Stanley Kaplan died. From Minding the Campus:
As a Jew with a degree from a public university (City College), Kaplan felt that he had been discriminated against in his attempt to gain admission to medical school. So he turned standardized tests into a weapon to be used by students who might otherwise have no chance of getting into a quality university. With high scores, he reasoned, they could not be ignored.
In doing so, Kaplan called the test makers' bluff. The College Board, which sponsors the SAT, and Educational Testing Service, which develops and administers the test, had long maintained that the test was not coachable. Kaplan exposed this as the blatant and self-serving falsehood that it was.
Thursday, September 17. 2009
 Honduras: For the first time in this country's history, our leaders in government are siding with Marxists Hugo Chavez, Daniel Ortega, Raul Castro and Evo Morales against a democratic foreign leader.
W.H. collects Web users' data without notice
More details of Baucus' bill. Who would like this? More grim details at WaPo.
Why Dems are balking at health care reform
From Doug Ross, on What do Jimmy Carter, Maureen Dowd and Mike Lupica have in common?
ObamaCare -- Unlike previous Democrat efforts to implement socialized medicine, if you oppose Barack Obama's form of National Socialized Democrat health care, you're a Nazi racist bastard. That is, according to:
• Jimmy Carter
• Maureen Dowd
• Mike Lupica
• and numerous other liberal crackpots.
Even though Republicans, Libertarians and those who support the United States Constitution have been fighting socialized medicine for 75 years, your opposition represents: RACISM. You're all f***ing racists, get it?
Screw the Constitution! Screw the Bill of Rights! Screw the Declaration of Independence! You've got a President with a slightly different skin color: you're not allowed to express dissent! You're all racists! So shut the hell up, you wingnuts!
Simpson at Am Thinker:
As I reported last September, and as Glenn Beck and others have reported since then, ACORN was created specifically to execute the Cloward Piven Strategy of manufactured crisis across our country. This series of videos demonstrates in microcosm how ACORN workers promote the strategy.
We linked to Cloward-Piven last year thus: "Here's an excellent explanation of it. Yes, it's Alinsky/Gramsci-type strategy."
From Why are liberals still angry?
See things from their point of view. The most fundamental principle liberals have is that they are all very, very smart, and everyone should listen to them. Nothing angers them more than something that challenges them to reexamine that core tenet. And that’s why they were so delighted by the election of President Obama and further wins in the House and Senate. For a moment they thought the American people had recognized liberals as their superiors and said to them: “Please! Smart people! Lead us and tell us what to do!”
Of course, it is quite obvious right now that that’s not at all what the election was about.
How Waxman-Markey would be a gigantic middle-class tax. As the guy says:
... it is - make no mistake - a tax on the middle class of huge proportions. This is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme and a bureaucracy-building program for the Federal government.
More than that, it will lead to additional costs for everything that uses energy. Food will cost more, the things you buy will cost more, eating out in a restaurant will cost more - everything will cost more. A lot more. So the hit will be amplified. It will cost jobs, steal wealth and ruin us as a great nation.
That is it will cost whatever jobs, wealth and greatness is left after the ObamaCare health care “reform” robs us and our children of the future.
And it will not do one darn thing about dropping carbon in the atmosphere - something its crafters realize full well. It is a lie, top to bottom.
Wednesday, September 16. 2009
 The Mayflower and the Speedwell left Holland on Sept 6th, 1620, and left England on Sept. 16th. They were headed for New York Harbor where the Dutch already had a flourishing small trading colony (and Boston already had some rowdy, all-male Brit settlers with no evident religious inclinations and with a taste for rum and violence), but those Pilgrims never made it to New York because of bad autumn weather. How would American history be different had they made it to NYC? Our post on the story.
Health care reform and the unions. It's a boondoggle.
George Will: Why nobody believes Obama
NPR jumps to defend ACORN, with a condescending and insane theory like "You can't expect poor black folks to act any differently." I can't? Why not? I expect decent behavior from everybody.
I thought the League of Women Voters was non-partisan.
As the O's proposals struggle, the race card gets played. It won't work, though, because so many of the O's struggles are with the Dems.
Mark Levin's book has sold 1 million copies - without a single MSM review.
Your choices show your character, and the Declaration of Dependency. Dr. Sanity.
Chavez challenges the US: Stop us from going nuclear
I agree that this is nuts: Three quarters of a million arrested for possession of pot in 2008
Tuesday, September 15. 2009
h/t, NYM.
Here's Health care reform the right way. Anybody would sign onto this, I think.
Salad-eating threatens the planet (h/t, Thompson). That means no more salads for me, thank goodness. It's just rabbit food, anyway.
Michelle: ACORN is a criminal enterprise. My question is how many of the bad housing loans they were responsible for. And now Senate votes to deny funds to ACORN. Notably, the MSM still ignores the story.
Obama as Soros' Manchurian Candidate
Why don't we permit interstate insurance sales?
How government policies helped create medical care inflation.
Kimball on the will to believe
Related: The O is deliberately misleading the people. I have no doubt about it.
Monday, September 14. 2009
Sunday, September 13. 2009
Or the Patriot's Woodstock?
Photo below from a report and good collection of photos - and many amusing signs - at Looking at the Left.
Here's how the NYT briefly covered it.
Sen. Feinstein sounding like Rush
Sullivan skates after being caught smoking pot in Cape Cod park
Honduran "ruler"? I cannot believe the US policy towards these guys. The guy just rescued the country from a dictator.
Why men love crazy women
The O admin explained, in terms of community organizing
A 100 mph anti-smuggling boat
They are nuts. Sarkozy's new carbon tax
Why the MSM is losing money: propaganda is boring
Canadian Human Rights Commission goes after the Catholic Church. h/t, SDA
Yes, reader, we did miss this: Who owns the news?
It's so smart, I am relinking to this Steyn piece via Barrister:
...governmentalization of health care is the fastest way to a permanent left-of-center political culture — one in which elections are always fought on the Left’s issues and on the Left’s terms, and in which “conservative” parties no longer talk about small government and individual liberty but find themselves retreating to one last pitiful rationale: that they can run the left-wing state more effectively than the Left can. Listen to your average British Tory or French Gaullist on the campaign trail pledging to “deliver” government services more “efficiently.”
Saturday, September 12. 2009
 Reagan still rules. Odd, isn't it?
Who was Rick Rescorla? He helped save a guy I met in NYC.
Dave Barry on 9-11, at Wizbang:
"The people who did this to us are monsters; the people who cheered them have hate-sickened minds. One reason they can cheer is that they know we would never do to them what their heroes did to us, even though we could, a thousand times worse. They know that when we hunt down the monsters, we will try hard not to harm the innocent. Those are the handcuffs we willingly wear, because for all our flaws, we are a decent people."
Bickering? I'm sorry, but the time for messy democracy is now
My time with ACORN. Related: Census Bureau (finally) cuts ties with ACORN
What is it about Dems and not paying taxes?
Docs: Our patients are not livestock on a government ranch
From Rick Moran:
Obama is saying that if it’s not written into the bill that a public option will lead eventually to a single payer system, then you cannot draw logical conclusions that such would be the case. I totally reject that idea, based not only on the way the system is set up but also because several liberals have made absolutely no bones about the fact that this is exactly what the public option is for. When your opponent admits that your slippery slope argument is true, why would it be a lie?
The same holds true for the few other slippery slope arguments I believe are legitimate. For instance, is it possible for a bill (HR3200) that contains provisions to create 53 new panels, committees, and boards with regulatory or statutory authority over health care in America really, really lead to more “efficient” and “cheaper” health care?
Related: First do harm, then exploit the crisis
Related, from Carpe Diem:
As I have pointed out before, basic medical insurance is currently available right now for millions of Americans at about the same monthly cost of a cell phone.
Related, from Krauthammer:
Friday, September 11. 2009
 500,000,000 year-old photos from Hubble. It's the "Butterfly nebula." Who knew they had digital photography back then?
Just 8 years ago. Lucianne
If you haven't seen those ACORN videos yet, here they are. Why am I not surprised?
10 questions to ask your Congresscritter, with a sample letter. Villainous
All about the Science Czar. The guy is beyond the pale.
Palin: Obama is pretty much a dick.
Why so many polls of "concern" are worthless.
What good are weak students with mushy degrees?
Is GDP per capita a good measure of well-being?
Goldberg says it: Tom Friedman is a Liberal Fascist. Yes he is. Sad thing is, he doesn't know it: he just thinks he is better than me. Volokh rips him a new one. Who the heck do these people think they are?
Where does the Federal government get these powers?
Look for the union label: Need more proof that the Dem “health care” reform is more about political power than it is about protecting Americans health?
The climate frenzy is unraveling fast. Related: The Brit government is certifiably insane.
Organic farms are bad for the birds
Olasky: What's up with "social justice"?
What do you know about ERISA? Plus a very simple explanation of medical insurance It matters a lot. The devil is always in the details. h/t, Vermont Tiger
From a commenter at a CNN piece:
For every $1 spent on private healthcare insurance, 3c is insurance company profit, 6c government taxes and 10c malpractice insurance and defensive medicine.
It seems to my simple mind, that the place to start with reform is with the lawyers. Malpractice insurance and defensive medicine currently gets more than 3x what the healthcare insurance companies gets.
How did Putin get elected? Those bombings remain a mystery.
AVI thinking about Archie Bunker and himself
The long recent history of heckling Presidents during formal speeches
"If we only spent more money on education..." From Coyote:
Thursday, September 10. 2009
Toon above via Theo
Powerline: This was not, to put it kindly, a speech that was directed at thinking people. Tucker Carlson wonders at the O: It's a bunch of lies.
Percent of crimes solved.
Movement Conservatives vs. The Pragmatists: The Battle is Joined
Thomas Friedman goes over the edge. Thus is the inner Fascist revealed. Even O supporter Camille Paglia is beginning to get it.
Mr. Free Market: Why We Drink
The angry mobs just don't quit.
We are never going to see that auto bailout money again. What a waste of taxpayers' hard-earned funds.
Barone: The convenient fantasies of Pres. Obama
Do our ROE make sense? I do not get the concept of a "nice" battle.
Coyote:
The leftist political strategy for over 100 years has been
- Regulate something
- Blame the free market for inevitable disruptions caused by the regulation
- Use the above to justify more regulation
- Repeat
Wednesday, September 9. 2009
How Castro got his job through the NYT
Why medical care is not a "right". I can easily make a case for the right to "legal care," however. Related: 10 things I hate about health care reform
What's the real unemployment rate?
Why are Jews Liberals?
Obama everywhere, all the time. He is turning out to be a lightweight, which is a good thing for all of us.
What exactly does a union leader know about creating manufacturing jobs? They surely know how to destroy them...
The minimum wage hike damaged teens the most
If you are from Chris Murphy's district (D-CT), he needs to hear from you
The Rubber Room: The battle over NYC's teachers
Via Marginal Rev:
The Required Reports Prepared by State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education is not itself listed in the Required Reports Prepared by State Agencies and Institutions of Higher Education.
Steyn: It's official! Environmentalism is now a religion.
The speech begins:
Members of Congress, Ladies and Gentlemen, Children of the Obama Youth Corps—I come to you tonight to speak frankly about our nation's health-care crisis and how we in Washington can make it worse.
Related, from Insty: TIM NOAH: Please God, no more health reform speeches.
Using your computer is killing the planet. Yikes. But I am an addict. I need free help.
Wisdom from Milton Friedman, via Dr. Helen's Who cares what a President thinks?:
The paternalistic "what your country can do for you" implies that government is the patron, the citizen the ward, a view that is at odds with the free man's belief in his own responsibility for his own destiny. The organismic, 'what you can do for your country' implies that government is the master or the deity, the citizen, the servant or the votary. To the free man, the country is the collection of individuals who compose it, not something over and above them. He is proud of a common heritage and loyal to common traditions. But he regards government as a means, an instrumentality, neither a grantor of favors, and gifts, nor a master or god to be blindly worshipped and served.
Tuesday, September 8. 2009
BD must be hankering for a real cup of coffee this morning after drinking those teeny Euro coffees. They bring it to you and you think "That's it?" And if you ask for a "cafe Americano" they react with disgust, and just add hot water and put it in a bigger cup.
Why women have sex: Surber. Sheesh. I thought it was because they were getting damp and crazed with desire for my magnificent body, my Apollonian face, my endless charm and wit, and my six-pack abs... and that it is a gentleman's duty to meet her overheated physical need.
Obama the Mortal. Krauthammer
Alinksy nods. Tiger
The Great Crittendino does economics.
How to avoid taxes: run for Congress
Cuba's free health care. Wizbang
What is it with all of these Czars? Dino. Who are these people? Related: One Czar gone, 30 to go.
People Power. A quote:
For a while now, the message from Washington has been that we know what's good for the public, whether the public likes it or not. One after another, both parties have attempted to foist a series of grand reforms on a skeptical populace--in areas ranging from Social Security and immigration to energy and health care. Politicians have made decisions affecting millions of lives without accountability and oversight. The upshot has been more government, more debt, and--coming soon to a 1040 form near you--more taxes. No wonder the public is anxious.
It should hardly come as a surprise that the public views American elites with suspicion and disdain.
Related, from Powerline:
Obama portrays himself as a visionary, able to view the petty disputes that preoccupy the rest of the world from a higher plane, divorced from anything as banal as America's interest. That posture is offensive enough. But what if, like so many extreme leftists who came before him, he's just a man without a moral compass that points anywhere other than in direction of sharing the wealth and increasing government power?
I got a kick out of Dr. Merc's post about Life on Other Worlds
It's always fun to catch up on Moonbattery when you have been away for four weeks or so.
A book: The Complete Therese of Lisieux.
The O and the Dems face a tough September.
Am Thinker:
...what actually is preventing Democrats from finally realizing their authoritarian dream of controlling the multi-trillion dollar healthcare industry?
The Democrat leadership is afraid to pass the bill unilaterally because, once voters realize they were duped, the Democrats will need Republicans to blame. Democrats reportedly are targeting the usual suspects for defection, Maine Senators Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe. But so far, Senator McCain appears to be the only Republican lawmaker gullible enough to be lured into that political wood chipper.
Frugality is the new normal.
Hollywood goes nuts over Chavez. What is more greedy-Capitalist than Hollywood? Go figure.
"First we socialize all the lawyers": Am Digest.
Dr. Merc found this site. Cool. Here's another from them:
Sunday, August 23. 2009
 I am home for a moment to do some wash, re-pack my gear, and to get some fresh cash. Then up to Maine by boat with excellent new girlfriend.
While our news linking team is on vacation until after Labor Day, I recommend these large volume news link sites (which have always tended to have plenty of overlap with our posts anyway):
Doug Ross Journal
Conservative Grapevine
Newsmax
and, of course, RCP.
Dig ya later...
Friday, August 14. 2009
Bitchy Virgin is now closed, and a darn nesting Peregrine Falcon plus rockfalls have closed off some of my weekend climbing warm-ups in the Gunks. I do not do serious technical climbing, but I like to know how to handle gnarly rocks. I am headed for Banff (photo above) this week to catch some mountain air, then down to Maine 'til Labor Day. Will post when and if I have time on a machine, and will pre-post a few time-insensitive items if I have the chance. NYC is wonderful in the summertime - especially during this cool summer - but I need to hit the road and put some adventure under my belt while I have the chance, while I am still single and free. One of these days some adorable sexy little cutie is going to catch me in her web. I know my weaknesses, and I know I will play along with it if she is from a nice family, because having a partner is a good thing. Not having one is pretty good, too.
Here are a few important links:
Some gay guys' ideas of what Harvard students wear. I thought it was satire at first.
The O's obese Surgeon General nominee advises Burger King for $. On nutrition! Haha. The Dems crack me up. Burger King isn't the worst of the burger chains, though.
Goldberg: Healthcare is the key to controlling everything. That why this is war!
Forbes: Public Spending's Day Of Reckoning
GOP thinks Victory in 2010. My only concern is that it will be too late.
Note to Editor: Pls put Fabius Maximus on our Mostly Political blogroll.
Shootout in Harlem. Speedy justice.
Ugly dirt on Rahm Emanuel. Sheesh. The Dems crack me up. Their greed for money and power knows no bounds. Every Lefty I know is either filthy rich, or a born whiner with a serious case of ingratitude and/or entitlement.
Is Hillary back to being First Lady again? Althouse
"Bye bye ACORN. Don't come back. Get a job." Gateway
Sippican went to the doctor's.
Via Lucianne: Obama's Forfeited Credibility Sabotaging Obamacare
Rush: The left's fragile mask of sanity is peeling... Video with good song borrowed from Randy Newman
Did the Prez realise what he was saying when he said “I mean, if you think about it, UPS and FedEx are doing just fine, right? No, they are. It’s the post office that’s always having problems.”
It's a disease. Climate changist:
Schelling was quoted in The Atlantic as wishing for natural disasters: "I sometimes wish we could have over the next five or 10 years a lot of horrid things happening, you know, like tornados in the Mid west and so forth. That would get people concerned about climate change."
Morano called characterized such statement as insane.
Indeed. Freakin' nuts. Keep it up, Mr. Morano.
Wish I had written about the Genie. From Am Thinker, which begins:
He's not happy, this Genie. In normal times, he sits there quietly inside the bottle. Sometimes watching. Mostly not. He finds politics boring, if not disgusting.
He sat and watched in silence as the TARP bill passed. Told the sky was falling, he looked up and saw it wasn't. But he shrugged, trusting the bipartisan nature of the effort. Then, as TARP rolled out, he stood up. The bailouts plowed a furrow across his forehead; his eyebrows lowered; his gaze intensified. But he stayed inside the bottle.
"Obama has lost control of the debate, and when that happens, it's over," said health care consultant Robert Laszewski. "The well's been poisoned."
Let's hope so. There are plenty of good reforms which do not involve government power grabs.
Too many fun posts at Moonbattery for me to link separately.
Pharmaquiddick. Drug deal gone bad. Is secret collusion between government and industry legal?
Jammie on New York pols:
It's not only the fact people are very suspicious of government taking over an entire industry that's dooming this scheme, but it's the smug arrogance, the imperious pomposity of the Weiners of the world that will relegate this to the dustbin. Here you have a man whose entire career is based on focus group talking points and tired liberal cliches whining that someone is using talking points, as if a constituent who's speaking his or her mind is carefully coached on what to say in public like Weiner is.
Very comforting - Obama: We'll Ship Patients Anywhere. How about to a private clinic in Switzerland or Mexico?Quoted by Betsy:
Robert Wright notes that "we already ration health care; we just let the market do the rationing." This is a true point made by the proponents of health care reform. But I'm not sure why it's supposed to be so interesting. You could make this statement about any good:
"We already ration food; we just let the market do the rationing."
"We already ration gasoline; we just let the market do the rationing."
"We already ration cigarettes; we just let the market do the rationing."
And indeed, this was an argument that was made in favor of socialism. (No, okay, I'm not calling you socialists!) And yet, most of us realize that there are huge differences between price rationing and government rationing, and that the latter is usually much worse for everyone. This is one of the things that most puzzles me about the health care debate: statements that would strike almost anyone as stupid in the context of any other good suddenly become dazzling insights when they're applied to hip replacements and otitis media.
Quoted at Rick Moran:
It’s not like there aren’t free market ideas out there to reform health care - despite what our president and the Democrats want you to believe. They are attempting to ram this health care reform package through the Congress while saying that their opponents have no new ideas to solve the same problems.
But covering the uninsured by making insurance affordable for all, covering those with pre-existing conditions, bringing down the cost of health care, and assuring that the patient, in consultation with his doctor, has the most control over his own treatment are goals that can be achieved more cheaply, and by using a mostly free market approach to reform.
Unfortunately, a completely market oriented solution is not politically viable or realistic at this time. More than six dollars in every ten we spend on health care in America is spent by government. Medicare, Medicaid, Veterans benefits, Indian health care, active duty military care, and the children’s insurance program S-CHIP are just a few of the programs that have skewed the market in health insurance and health care so that a purely free market solution is not in the cards. And doing away with these government programs - even if it were possible - would not be the answer.
But believe me, we can do better than what the president and the Democrats are proposing.
Right. Fine with me, as long as politicians do not control my medical choices.
Thursday, August 13. 2009
 Who knew that Vermont has had a school voucher program since 1869?
Apple Cake! Why not make one today?
Michigan is determined to commit suicide. If they want to, nothin' you can do to stop 'em. It's a free country.
Jules on Boston fog.
Surging seas? What? Where? At the NYT, here we go again. Even worse, Bombay Mumbai is freezing. Time to burn some more rain forest jungle.
Obama as Hitler was a Dem plant to discredit the critics. Good stunt, jerks. I'm rubber and you're glue; it bounces off me and sticks on you.
Union orders to drown out opposition magically disappears from the web
Insty notes that American pols are unused to give-and-take. Brit pols seem to love it, as in Question Time. Dem terms protesters "political terrorists." What a weenie. The public seems to appreciate their challenging the pols. If the press won't, somebody has to.
The always-interesting Lefty Paglia on Pelosi
Via Kaus:
We should be having two debates. One should be about the obligation to ensure universal access to health care, which will directly benefit millions of struggling families and make this a better society. The other -- a more complicated, difficult and painful discussion -- should be about the long-term problem of out-of-control health-care costs, which would be a looming crisis even if President Obama had never uttered the word "reform."
Conflating the two has made the nation's nerves jump and its skin itch. And now, anything can happen.
Just for the heck of it, substitute the word "food," or "legal care," or "clothing," or "housing," or "ammo" or "car insurance" for the phrase "health care" in that paragraph.
The seasoned citizens are getting worried. They love their unlimited Medicare freebies. In Obamaland, Medicare will be folded into Obamacare.
From Human Events:
The notion that Americans may not want the federal government making health care decisions on their behalf appears to be truly beyond the comprehension of Democrats in Congress and the White House. So they have responded by slandering honest folks looking to have their voices heard.
The arrogance which the Democrats have displayed by name-calling and discrediting these people reveals their insolence and hypocrisy.
It appears that community organizing and grassroots are terms reserved solely for liberal activism. A number of taxpayer and patients rights groups post the location of town halls on the internet, and Democrats in charge act as though it is an abomination to democracy. Yet when then Senator Obama throws together an operation of a million liberal activists, so organic they created an iPhone app for it, that’s just good old fashioned political organizing. Right!
The less impact the government has on my life, the better. They can worry about the safety net, and leave the able-bodied alone.
But Q&O asks: What Does Parental “Education” Have To Do With Health “Insurance” Reform? Are there really experts on raising kids? If so, give me a chance first to check out their own kids.
Dorothy Rabinowitz on the O:
The president has a problem. For, despite a great election victory, Mr. Obama, it becomes ever clearer, knows little about Americans. He knows the crowds—he is at home with those. He is a stranger to the country's heart and character.
He seems unable to grasp what runs counter to its nature. That Americans don't take well, for instance, to bullying, especially of the moralizing kind, implicit in those speeches on health care for everybody. Neither do they wish to be taken where they don't know they want to go and being told it's good for them.
Who would have believed that this politician celebrated, above all, for his eloquence and capacity to connect with voters would end up as president proving so profoundly tone deaf?
Photo on loan from theo
Wednesday, August 12. 2009
Bird Dog is killing me with beautiful antique architecture. I needed a cleansing, ordinary, mis-spelled pizza joint to look at. I wonder how that little building started out. Shoe repair? Dressmaker? Hat shop?
Atlantic Salmon are returning to the Seine. Cool.
Stealing in childhood does not make a future crim.
What colleges are looking for in girls. Via Dr. Helen:
Selective schools are not interested these days in girls who like English and history, like to read and are able to write clearly and well. Those skills fill the bell curve for smart girls ... Selective schools have absorbed the folk myths of bobo culture. So cool girls are math smart, genetically destined to be hackers, risk takers, and into competitive sports. Cool girls for selective schools prefer engineering over history, math over English, computer science over political science, and economics over psychology. A touch of Asperger's isn't a bad thing for a girl, either. Actually, it's a great thing.
UN: We have only 4 months to save the planet. Will they promise to shut up after November, since it will be too late?
"It's free money." "Thank God for Obama. He's looking out for us."
The Seven Basic Plots. Love it.
Horseman, Pass By. Am Digest. Smart cops know when to leave well-enough alone.
Correcting the misinformation about Pelosicare
Faith is an alternate universe. Anchoress. Alternate to what?
A retreat on the public option?
Finally, the Prez himself brings up comparisons to the Post Office
How to screw up with your Alinsky tactics. Am Thinker
In the O's Potemkin Town Hall, even the little girl was a plant. She thinks I am mean. I am not.
We already know that gummint screws things up, then tries to come in as the savior. From the WSJ:
Mr. Obama does have a point about insurance security. If you develop an expensive condition such as cancer or heart disease, and then get fired or divorced or your employer goes out of business—then individual insurance is going to be very expensive if it's available. But what the President and Democrats won't tell you is that these problems are the result mainly of government intervention.
Because the tax code subsidizes private insurance only when it is sponsored by an employer, the individual market is relatively small and its turnover rate is very high. Most policyholders are enrolled for fewer than 24 months as they move between jobs, making it difficult for insurers to maintain large risk pools to spread costs.
Via Ace:
Health care in the US is covered by three main systems-- Medicare,
medicaid, and private insurance. Two of these systems are bankrupt, and will be unable to make payments beyond 2032 (insert correct date here, I don't know). The third is solvent, and can make all of its payments for the foreseeable future.
Barack Obama's plan is to take the one system meeting its obligations
and fold it into the two systems that are bankrupt.
Sissy gets it. Of course she does. A quote with her photo:
We had a Eureka Moment when we realized the affectless, top-down graphics of the "Health Care for America Now!" signs (above) are the precise visual equivalent of the statist's astroturf vision. Even as the we-know-best-what's-good-for-you, central-planning Utopianists and their fellow travelers in the media project their own top-down, Alinskyesque tactics upon us, Adam Smith's Invisible Hand is scrawling our grassroots messages upon a shining sea of one-of-a-kind protest signs. Check out our own efforts from Tea Parties past here, here, here, here and here. The Tenth Amendment lives:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively or to the people.
President Obama wants those who disagree with him to "stop talking" and "get out of the way." Begging your pardon, sir, but getting "out of the way" is not the America Way.
37% of Americans seem to want to entrust their medical care to Congress. The only person in DC I would trust for that would be Sen. Tom Coburn, MD.
Here's what the government did in Oregon (h/t, Dr. Clouthier) as a cautionary tale of how government and politics screw up everything they touch:
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