Saturday, February 14. 2009
 "Academia outraged" by crucifixes at Boston College
The future for designer babies
A possible relation between Alzheimer's and herpes simplex
Did Obama lie about Caterpillar?
Did you catch that Atlantic swimmer hoax?
Dark comets threaten the earth
How many of our banks are insolvent? Related: Bank recovery stalls on donations to Congress
How Krugman distorts numbers for Dem agenda. It's only blogs that ever call him on it.
Is this a failed presidency already?
Bill Clinton wants more "fairness" on the radio. How come nobody talks about "fairness" on TV?
Photo: A Theo Valentine
Friday, February 13. 2009
But it passed. No Repubs on board, and 7 Dems against it. We just got screwed, big time. It will take a while for us to find out how badly we got screwed, since nobody has read the thing yet.
As he said, Ayn Rand, call your office.
 I found the comments on this CNN Judd Gregg story quite revealing. Man, there is a lot of anger and paranoia out there.
Frederick Kagan: Afghanistan is not Vietnam
Did he or did he not run on a redistribute the wealth platform?
San Francisco: Still insane
Via Mankiw, budget deficits. This will be a big problem for us:
From Sipp:
The people who say they are qualified to micromanage the affairs of the world and everybody and everything in it can't do arithmetic well enough to be a successful bank teller, and can't figure out whether to put an apostrophe in it is.
I've broken ground on many substantial construction projects. We used to paint a shovel to look like it was made of gold, and the bankers and politicians would turn a shovel load of dirt and have their picture taken. Then we'd mount the shovel on a board with an inscription and present it as a keepsake. We used to fashion a box and fill it with sand for the participants, as it was unlikely anyone involved would be capable of turning even one spadeful of real soil from the site.
It's the greatest metaphor possible for today's Zeitgeist. People completely unaware of how anything actually gets done or paid for using an instrument fraudulently tarted up to look valuable to perform a meaningless operation in order to be given credit by the media for everything.
Thursday, February 12. 2009
Finally, it's OK to make jokes about Obama
Bernard Goldberg and the slobbering love affair between Obama and the press
They will not go after that lady whose video we posted last night the way they went after Joe the Plumber/
The press conference: The questioners were pre-picked
The true cost of the stimulus. By the way, the bill is 1473 pages, and the Repubs aren't allowed to read it. The handling of this bill - the largest spending bill in US history - has been a declaration of war on the Repubs.
How Reagan's team built its economic plan
Kondracke: Rush was right about stimulus
Will the stock market recover?
Ten worst cities in the US
NYC's rent control: Insane
Wednesday, February 11. 2009
Why buying these cars is "Buying American"
The new stash of mummies in Egypt
Geithner prevailed in bank bailout debate. Related: Geithner, From Indispensable to Indecipherable
Related: Skepticism about Obama's TARP
More on what the stimulus aims to do with nationalizing medical care
I am a Liberal woman. Hear me meow.
Yes, the Dems did undo Clinton's welfare reform. Why?
In Canada, you may be too old for hip surgery
The CIA is helping Britain with their internal Moslem security problems. Meanwhile, Geert Wilders banned from the UK. What am I missing here?
Equally nutty: UK considers rationing air travel
How do Congressmen accumulate money like Rangel?
John Fund explains why Obama & Co. wants control of the census
Clever but dishonest: Blankley on Obama's first press conference
I didn't know we did things like this in the US.
Job losses in the last 6 recessions (h/t, Mankiw)
Tuesday, February 10. 2009
Be very, very afraid. That's the selling-point of the sh-t sandwich of a ten-year backlog of Lefty projects and political payoffs which constitute the "Stimulus." (See $300 million for golf carts).
It's a recession. We have them regularly. But, given the timing, it's been a golden opportunity to advance every Dem Congressman's pet notion. The tactic wouldn't work, though, unless you scare people into a state of brain paralysis. In Ace's words:
President Barack H. Obama: 'Do what I want, or the economy will melt, and you'll all die poor and alone.'
Irresponsible fear-mongering is not all that presidential. Now that I think about it, weren't we promised a calm, cool, post-partisan president?
We have often observed how Leftist plans are advanced by manufacturing a sense of crisis and urgency, with a government "solution" ready in their back pocket.
How hopey-changey became "We'll scare you into buying this": Dust My Broom, Dino.
In the end, though, the Dems hold a winning hand. The economy will improve: it always does. They will take credit for it. As Paul at Powerline says:
I would add, the Democrats probably have the better political hand because they are betting that the economy, one way or another, will recover. The American economy is usually a good bet, as much as the Democrats are doing (and will do) to impair it.
This from Jonah Goldberg:
Stephen posted the quote from Barro earlier, but I think Will Wilkinson deserves to be quoted at greater length:
The deeper problem, I think, is that the textbook theory doesn’t have any politics in it. In macroeconomics textbooks, government is a benevolent central planner beyond politics. It is assumed, for simplicity’s sake, that governments can act in perfect compliance with theory. It is also assumed that theory is settled before coming to a policy problem, that motivated disagreement over theory is not an essential element of democratic policymaking. But of course, there is politics, which trashes hope of either consensus on or compliance with theory. And that’s how we ended up with the legislative monstrosity actually under consideration in Congress. As Harvard’s Robert Barro puts it:
This is probably the worst bill that has been put forward since the 1930s. I don’t know what to say. I mean it’s wasting a tremendous amount of money. It has some simplistic theory that I don’t think will work, so I don’t think the expenditure stuff is going to have the intended effect. I don’t think it will expand the economy. And the tax cutting isn’t really geared toward incentives. It’s not really geared to lowering tax rates; it’s more along the lines of throwing money at people. On both sides I think it’s garbage. So in terms of balance between the two it doesn’t really matter that much.
The economists can duke it out over the possibility of successful fiscal stimulus. But is there any reason based in up-to-date economic theory to believe that this trillion dollar deficit-spending bill is not, as Barro says, garbage?
Krugman is plumping for it anyway. Hard. So what can one say about Krugman? That he is a creature of extraordinary double consciousness. Perhaps more than any economist of his caliber, Krugman understands that policy is largely determined by the outcome of the public opinion shoutfest. Yet this recognition seems to have no effect on Krugman’s ideas. Rather than bring inside his models disagreement over economic theory and the lack of political incentive to faithfully apply them, which would lead him to radically revise his prescriptions, Krugman leaves his textbook theory untouched and simply tries to win the shoutfest. Krugman’s often unbearable stridency seems to reflect an attempt to overcome the problems of democratic disagreement and incentive compatibility through sheer force of will–as if the deep reality of politics is no match for the rhetorical gifts and gold-plated reputation of Paul Freaking Krugman. It is as if his own imagined ability to singehandedly overwhelm the opposition is part of Krugman’s implicit model of how a politics-free macoeconomic theory can be made politically relevant in a time of perceived crisis, which is to say, a time of rank political opportunism.
Via Insty via Tigerhawk, a brief clip of Friedman on greed and self-interest from 1979. We posted this a year or so ago, but why not post it again?
Monday, February 9. 2009
Dead-Hobo-reporting glitch claims another Obama appointee. This hobo in the basement thing is getting out of hand, but I thought we called them "homeless persons" now - or "Those Difficult to Serve." Oh well. More on the Dem culture of corruption.
CBO: Recession will end in 2009 without stimulus. Related: Will the MSM ever correct Obama's absurd economic statements?. Related: Math says "stimulus" will cost $275,000 per job.
Peter Schiff was right before. Maybe he is right again.
Stimulus gives Milwaukee money for schools they neither want nor need
Remember the guy who linked immunization with autism? Bad person.
Talk radio failure has tantrum
Honeymoon over? Steyn
We have the same problem: Raccoons vs. the White House
The broken window theory of crime prevention works
Why is the White House taking over the Census?
The Vietnam War: Everything you know is wrong. h/t, Driscoll
Illinois sheriffs want citizens armed.
Saturday, February 7. 2009
Heading up to ski at Mt. Snow this morning. It's an excellent mountain when it's not crowded - and it's close. It's the best of the southern VT mountains, unless you count Killington. I'll try to get there when the lifts open. New skis and boots. Wahoo.
Dem John Cole on the "stimulus" porkfest (h/t Outside the Beltway's Obama attacks Repubs for partisanship)
You know, putting aside the stupidity of the Republicans, I would really like it if  the Democrats would make the god damned case for this bill. There is another report up from the CBO (allegedly) that this will be more damaging in the long haul than doing nothing.
It would be nice if the Democrats would sell this bill and explain why it is good, rather than Obama just coming out and warning about catastrophe every now and then. I dealt with eight years of fear-mongering about terrorism, I don’t need it regarding the economy. I recognize our economy is a disaster, and I will support the bill heartily if you give me a reason and make your case. They simply haven’t done that, and part of my ambivalence is I am tired of doing stupid things just to be “doing something.”
Explain why this is a good bill. I double dog dare you. And if you can’t or won’t, explain why I shouldn’t be siding with the GOP in opposition, despite how crazy they are.
A family is a lousy analogy for gummint. AVI
 Ace on the Fairness Doctrine:
...if conservative talk radio 'overwhelms people's opinions' (as Stabenow says), how exactly did the Democrats manage to take control of the Executive and Legislative branches of government?
Somebody should write a book about this kind of illiberal thinking. Maybe they could call is "Liberal Fascism" or something like that.
From EU Referendum:
UN Sec Gen Ban Ki-Moon: "Deserts are spreading. Water scarcity is increasing. Tropical forests are shrinking. Our once prolific fisheries are in danger of collapse," he intones. "Failure to combat climate change will increase poverty and hardship. It will destabilise economies, breed insecurity in many countries and undermine our goals for sustainable development."
All this, of course, is bullshit.
Why Warren Buffet has been buying US equities. He works with a 10-year time horizon. h/t, Mankiw
Most wanted Nazi found. He died.
Nat Hentoff to Cato Institute. That's interesting.
Poll: Stimulus will do harm. Related: Let's give these idiots more of our money to spend, and our kids' future incomes too - which is really what it will be. I agree with this:
Hey! How about tax cuts for people who create jobs?
How about tax cuts for all working people?
How about not insisting on open ballots for unions?
How about tax cuts for everyone, across the board?
How about a suspension of ALL taxes for a year?
How about staying the hell out of the public sector?
How about not nationalizing everything that isn't moving?
How about scrapping this porkorama and starting over?
How about doing what is best for Americans instead of what is best for the Democrat Party?
Related: From Krauthammer on the Fierce Urgency of Pork:
The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting "planted" for "ready to market" would mean a windfall garnered from a new "bonus depreciation" incentive.
After Obama's miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell -- and that this president told better than anyone.
I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.
Upper photo: Mt. Snow. Lower photo: Theo's girlfriend.
Friday, February 6. 2009
 Nanny claims people love nanny. Englishman
Mayor Daley: Chicago's stimulus pork is secret
Sweden lifts nuclear power ban. For the wrong reasons.
Obama to release Cole bombing suspect. What am I missing here?
Via Insty:
Roosevelt: We have nothing to fear, but fear itself!
Obama: Be afraid. Very afraid!!
Heh.
Related: fear tactics at Tangled. Also Sen Graham: Scaring people isn't leadership
Related: The CBO doesn't like the stimulus
Related: Obama's no-confidence game
Related: Stimulus bill will ban religion on campuses
Related, from Jules:
It is clear now that your president, on the verge of bollixing his first major initiative … aside from the ones about letting jihadis go and making kissy face with mullahs, also some environmental nonsense, your money for abortions in other countries, and a bunch of tax cheats for high office and, there’s probably more but I’m having trouble keeping track … needs you, the American people, to weigh in. Judging by the polls, that might not work out too well. I hope he stuck this thing on YouTube and Twittered it and didn’t just leave it in the Washington Post, because I think a lot of the people who read it there, to judge by the polls, are going to be among those who aren’t buying it and the president is going to need the vital support of those people who still think being “cool” is a qualification for leadership of the free world.
Most corrupt White House in history? Surber. Related: 25% of Obama picks have tax problems.
Dems still have their plan to squelch talk radio. No mention of "fairness" on TV. Just radio.
Is a uterus a social construct? Thompson
Judge Bork on Martinis
What's the logic failure in this Obama statement? (My view is that if they see Obama as a dhimmi, it will encourage them.)
Thursday, February 5. 2009
 Theater of the Absurd: It's 9 degrees here, after the coldest January since Christ was born. Or since Moses - I forget. Entire nation is in the freezer, and a homeless man reported seeing a Wooly Mammoth at 2 AM this morning outside the Blarney Stone on 9th Avenue. Predictably, that Mammoth story goes unreported. If this were a heat wave, the story would be about AGW. However, Sec of Energy Chu warns of loss of California's vineyards, and RFK Jr. claims hog farms more dangerous than Bin Laden. Even Lefties are beginning to make jokes, but Congress treated Al Gore's lies and distortions with respect. Good grief, he's talking about Venus.
Related: Save the children from GW propaganda. Please.
The only reason to highlight the Pelosi story is to wonder how the press would have handled the story if Sarah Palin had said it.
Now that Obama is in office, press feels free to report that Al Qaida is dying. More at Tiger
Related: Hawkins on Feith's War and Decision
The strange personnel problems at the White House. What they did to Gen. Zinni is unbelievable. It's not a good idea to piss off guys like Zinni.
Now this is really important: Woman achieves record boobs, proving that everybody is good at something.
Krauthammer: Let's return to what time?
$500,000 is chump change for well-connected Dems
The peanut allergy hysteria. Creating enough fear and hysteria to blind people's intelligence seems to be the current popular mode for cranks to drive their agendas: See Obama Catastrophe if bill not passed. Yes, a catastrophe for the Dems, not for the citizens. Related: Is Obama's arrogance beginning to wear on people already?
From Nyquist on Compound Errors:
More than 100 years ago Gustave Le Bon wrote The Psychology of Socialism (Psychologie du Socialisme). He said that socialism was a religion. “No apostle has ever doubted the future of his faith,” began Le Bon, “and the socialists are persuaded of the approaching triumph of theirs. Such a victory implies of necessity the destruction of the present society, and its reconstruction on other bases.” If we look at civilization closely, we find it to be a “tissue of ideas” and customs determined by heredity. “No society is firmly held together unless this moral heritage is solidly established,” warned Le Bon. And today we find that American society has abandoned its moral heritage – thanks to the cultural influence of the socialists. In the battle between socialist ideas and market freedom, the socialist have defeated their competition – in universities and Hollywood, in publishing houses and major media. “The modern bourgeoisie are no longer sure of their rights,” wrote Le Bon. “Or rather they are not sure of anything. They listen to everything and tremble before the most pitiable windbags.”
The capitalist system cannot defend itself against its critics. The system is not a “dictatorship of the bourgeoisie,” as Marx alleged. Instead, it is a distracted uncle who naively trusts that the best ideas will triumph. What we have seen, instead, is the progressive corruption of our terminology; the abandonment of our folkways; a failure to transmit the heritage of our forefathers to the next generation; the triumph of ideals diametrically opposed to those of our nation’s Founders. When the government’s policies lead us from disaster to disaster, and the people are suffering, the outcome will devolve into an ideological battle between differing brands of nonsense.
Wednesday, February 4. 2009
I hadn't heard about the Hollywood stimulus. Does that mean the gummint controls their pay, like it wants to with TARP? Related: Best stimulus idea ever, from Anchoress. Why not?
Aliens from Planet Islam. Yes, they do view the world differently.
Welcome to the big leagues, Obama. Dr. Clouthier says "Try to act Presidential." There is something light-weight, casual, and un-serious about his manner and his comments.
A State's Rights resolution from NH. Good stuff.
Daniel Pearl and the normalization of evil. WSJ
Busheron! Neocons attack Obama for doing to defence what they did to America's culture
Well, Badminton sounds like a great idea. But the Iranians want to play Badminton with nuke missiles.
The good and the bad about Newt. Rick Moran. He's still the best conceptualist the Conservatives have.
NYT has its panties in a bunch over nativists. I think a nativist is somebody who wants our laws followed. But I am part nativist, on my mother's side.
Stumbling over a sense of entitlement, at WaPo. It begins:
Tom Daschle still doesn't get it.
John Thain never did.
Barack Obama gets it sometimes, Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner not so much.
Corporate executives think they get it but aren't even close.
College presidents, governors and union leaders, for the most part, don't have a clue.
"It" is an understanding of how fundamentally the political and economic environment has been transformed with the bursting of the bubble economy and how that has jeopardized basic assumptions and expectations and the way we do what we do.
Tom Daschle's problem wasn't that he didn't pay his taxes. It was that he -- along with those who vetted his nomination as health and human services secretary and many of his colleagues in the Senate -- found it perfectly ordinary and acceptable that he would be able to cash in on his time in the Senate by earning more than $5 million over two years as a law-firm rainmaker, equity fundraiser, corporate director and luncheon speaker, all the while being driven around town in a chauffeured town car. Not exactly Cincinnatus returning to the plow.
For the American public, Daschle became the latest symbol of everything that is wrong with Washington -- the influence-peddling and corner-cutting and sacrifice of the public good to private interest. Now that this system has let them down, and left them poorer and anxious about the future, people are angry about it and no longer willing to accept the corruption of the public process and the whole notion of public service.
The irony, of course, is that Barack Obama understood all this and tapped into Americans' frustration as the central message of his "change" campaign. But even he, with only four years in Washington, failed to see the depth of the problem or anticipate the ferocity of the backlash.
Tuesday, February 3. 2009
Two tax cheats remove themselves from consideration today, despite admin support. Furthermore, Europe and Canada are freaking out about "Buy American." A trade war? It's been a bad week for the O, and it's only Tuesday. I do not wish the admin ill; I wish them wisdom and honesty - and quickly.
Obama does dhimmitude? Powerline. That is not wise.
It's racist to ask Obama direct questions.
Obama changes his mind about hiring lobbyists.
Novice in Chief: Jules
France rejects an Obama-style stimulus
Lunatics running the asylum. Am Thinker
What's this building? From an architecture quiz at Crescat:
Dem bill creates detention camps in US for "emergencies."
Lehman is now hiring
Dodd refinancing, but has yet to tell us about his previous mortgage deal. It's called hutzpah.
From the WSJ in a Daschle tax cheat summary:
If a certain sort of conservative tends to be moralistic about sex, liberals tend to be moralistic about money. That makes Tom Daschle the equivalent of a televangelist caught in a sex scandal.
Related, at RCP:
Since his re-election defeat in 2004, Daschle has mastered the art of turning humiliating political loss into high-roller riches, much of it coming from his work for a well-connected law firm where he didn't technically operate as a lobbyist but gave policy advice to companies with business before the government.
But trading on his name, his political connections, his ability to tap into Democratic donors and becoming wealthy by virtue of his past public service isn't what has Daschle in trouble. Failure to pay taxes is.
Hamas in Minnesota?
A good rant about Lefty dishonesty. h/t, Am Digest. He does have a point.
Working at WalMart isn't so bad. h/t, Insty
Ace on the Repub vs. Dem stimulus proposals:
These aren't "very modest differences", they are profoundly different versions of the role of government and people in a free society. Also, only one of these will actually work, while the other does nothing more than empower government for generations.
Monday, February 2. 2009
Back from NH. Image of your NJ above. Man, do I enjoy that funky old Cannon Mountain. It's like the anti-Vail. Thanks to all for filling in for me. While away, I see that Pajamas Media is having problems with its biz model. That's too bad, because I like them. But business is business. It's a tough game to appeal enough to make people part with their money or time. We don't even bother trying to make money here. Not worth the hassle, and ads take up space. No, we aren't Commies, nor do we want gummint money. We just do what we like to do.
Speaking of Pajamas, the myth of the widening income gap. But if you repeat it often enough, people believe it.
How government lengthened the Depression. But they "cared," right? Related, is Amity Schlaes right or wrong? Brave of her to question Saint FDR. More from Betsy.
When social retards get together. I have a touch of that, but I can semi-fake normality when I need to. Can't you?
Cabinet pick blames tax overpayment on "sloppiness." I thought tax cheating was wrong. Used to be, didn't it?
Thanks to Madoff, Brandeis is bankrupt. Or almost. h/t, Marginal Rev
The AP's "nihilistic philosophical tic."
The War on Rush. Trouble is, Lefties, every time you hit him he gets stronger. Besides his quick intelligence, his talents are his humor, his self-deprecation, and his obvious genuine warmth towards callers regardless of view.
The labor movement takes its pound of flesh. "Movement"? Maybe it was a "movement" in 1920, but now it's just an antiquated, corrupt, political power and money base of insiders.
Keynes risen from the dead. Related from Mankiw: Cure worse than the disease?
What are banks for?
"I will not forget" these Dem atrocities. Also at Am Thinker: Here comes the Trojan Horse.
There is American Weeniness and American Grit. We prefer the Grit. And we like grits, too.
DC's sole liberal radio axed. What do they listen to, there? Rush?
A key point, which we often make here: Liberals deal differently with foreign and domestic opponents. Is it self-hatred? Or what?
Obama will continue Bush's war crimes. Miraculously, it's not so evil now.
Let's be a little multicultural, and respect wife-beating. Diff'rent strokes, right?
It's a disaster! Neo on disaster-mongering.
Friday, January 30. 2009
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
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.
Wednesday, January 28. 2009
 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
 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.
Friday, January 23. 2009
 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
Broadway, 1894. More here. h/t, Theo
Touching it makes you want it.
The myth of the business cycle, and why Greenspan is bewildered.
The Wilders prosecution persecution. Front Page
A trillion bucks but they cannot promise a single job.
Obama to press: Kiss my ass
Do you want these interrogation centers closed?
What the Left is saying these days. Thompson. Good grief.
Mr. Free Market remembers Rorke's Drift
Still perpetuating the lie of Leftist "compassion"
Declaration of Dependence:
"We hold this truth to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their government with the unalienable right to be taxed, subsidized, regulated, lectured, scolded, herded, harassed, and otherwise ruled in whatever ways work."
Thursday, January 22. 2009
Gummint rules keep WH in dark ages
Docs have to treat anybody? No, they do not. They can treat who they want, when they want, and how they want.
Tax cheat to head IRS. It's "change."
Prosecuted for criticizing Islam. Good grief. Seems like everybody criticizes some religion or other these days.
What we don't know about Obama. Politico
Insty:
STEVE CHAPMAN: “We all know how we got into this economic mess. We spent too much, borrowed with abandon, and acted like the bills would never come due. So what’s the prescription for getting out? Spending more, borrowing more, and acting like the bills will never come due.”
Yeah, that’ll work.
Tiger:
... if Republicans did nothing but expose pork and keep their own noses relentlessly clean for two years -- a tall order, I admit -- they would rehabilitate their reputation as the guardian of the hardworking, taxpaying non-complainer who puts his shoulder to the wheel every day whether he likes it or not, and vastly improve their chances in 2010 and beyond.
Sad to say, I'm not holding my breath.
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Scientist: