Tuesday, October 4. 2011
Obama's 'solution' for what ails us is to utilize two common political treatments for recessions. First, the standard Monetarist 'Easy Money' solution by lowering interest rates. Second, the Keynesian 'Stimulus'. The unfortunate situation we face is really only getting worse because he cannot do the second without the first — there simply isn't enough money interested in supporting more debt. The solution? Print more money, a concept I discussed in an earlier post.
The printing of money allows banks to purchase Treasury Debt, which funds the deficit, which they then sell back to the Fed in order to keep their reserves intact.
Europe has taken a remarkably different approach. The Eurozone wants to emerge from its difficulties in economically healthy fashion, rather than saddled with massive debt. Some European nations have such huge debt that the only sensible track to follow for other Euro nations that are growing modestly is to manage with restraint. They've been backed into a corner, but it's a good corner to be backed into.
Some are not shy about telling Obama why he's wrong.
If Obama was the head of a sports league having economic struggles, BALCO would still be in business. His steroid policy would put individual players at risk in order to keep interest in the league high based on new records. Like Barry Bonds' records, people will soon wonder how things got to this point. Will Congress review Obama's steroid policy and chart a new course?
 Earliest Christian engraving shows pagan elements
Rin Tin Tin and the making of Warner Brothers
This Week’s Applied Hayek: Socialism vs. “Socialism”
Schumer and Durbin Admit Democrats Won't Vote for Obama's Tax Increases
ERIC HOLDER LIED UNDER OATH!… Documents Confirm the Obama AG Knew of Fast & Furious in 2010
Majority Expects Obama to Lose Re-Election
No Kidding… Obama Admits “The Nation Is Not Better Off”
'Durbin fee' will cost bank customers billions
Canadian gun registry and homicide
Is There Really an Environmental Benefit to Going Paperless?
Neo: The MSM’s battle plan
Consumers are spending, but nobody is investing
Tricare Folly - Control U.S. Military's Health-Care Costs
Representing the Holocaust
Michelle Obama's trip to Target
Are You Ready For The Next Solyndra?
Fun with "art": “If money is so ‘inconsequential,’ why do these parasites always expect to be given loads of someone else’s?”:
...the notion that artists might actually consider earning a living doesn’t register at all. There’s not even the briefest flickering of that possibility. The idea that artists might endeavour to produce work that their customers would pay for voluntarily, without Arts Council coercion and political vetting, appears to be unworthy, and perhaps unthinkable. Artists are much too important to waste their time making beautiful things that people want to buy. According to Laurie, their role is political and much, much grander - to “imagine a culture beyond the control of capital and the nation state.”
Monday, October 3. 2011
The Washington Post is usually a little more careful than the New York Times about blatant bias, but its racism hit-job on Governor Perry sinks to a low, at least so far for this election cycle. Perry is supposed to be responsible for the old slur on a rock at a hunting camp rented by his father, which Perry says his father painted over as soon as they rented the camp.
Porky Pig at his worst would call it “wacism.” That’s the words war crossed with racism, as the last refuge of scoundrels out to wage media war to save President Obama’s re-election.
It takes the Texas Tribune to set matters in perspective, doing the job the big city boys wouldn't:
Wallace Jefferson, the first black chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, said the hunting ranch name controversy is "much ado about nothing" and argued the implication that Rick Perry is insensitive to matters of race is flatly wrong…."To imply that the governor condoned either the use of that word or that sentiment, I find false," Jefferson said….
Even some of Perry's fiercest Texas critics say they do not believe he is racist. They point to his record of appointments as evidence: He appointed the state’s first African-American state supreme court justice, Wallace Jefferson, and later made him chief justice. (Jefferson’s great grandfather was a slave, “sold like a horse,” Perry once said with disgust.) Perry’s former general counsel and former chief of staff, Brian Newby, is black; so is Albert Hawkins, the former Health and Human Services commissioner who Perry handpicked to lead the massive agency in 2002.
“He doesn’t have a racist bone in his body,” said former Democratic state Rep. Ron Wilson, who is black and served with Perry in his early years in the Legislature. “He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now.”
Added Dallas Democratic Sen. Royce West, who is also black: “I don’t agree with him on policy issues, but you can point to many things he has done that were sensitive to ethnic minorities.”
Those on the Left, as expected, trumpeted the WaPo’s Wacism hit-piece. Those on the Right who went along, to bolster their alternative candidate or out of laziness or to kiss a** in their NYC-DC cocoon, have not only hurt their own credibility but also Republican chances of recovering Washington. Way to go, weasily wascals.
California's elected Insurance commissioner is one of the most anti-insurer in the country. He was part of the Democrat slate chosen by state voters in 2010, from Governor on down, despite the Republican tide elsewhere throughout the country.
His latest, lauding the new law signed by the Governor, making it unlawful for health and disability insurers to be the determiner of whether the claimant on a policy is disabled. Now, according to the Insurance Commissioner's press release: "SB 621 protects consumers of life, health, and disability insurance from 'discretionary clauses' in their insurance policies which give the insurer the sole discretion to decide is a beneficiary has become disabled, even if the consumer has a doctor certify that they are disabled," said Commissioner Jones."
How's doctor certifications worked out in California?
According to the Los Angeles Times, 11% of California drivers used a doctor's note to get a disabled parking tag, so they can park for free in any spot and use those reserved for handicapped drivers. Some truly are handicapped. Most of us have witnessed most parking in those spots getting around fine. According to the deputy chief of investigations of the California DMV, "With the emphasis on fraudulent use ... when we go out, typically on average it's in the area of a 30 to 40 percent violation rate." This is just those using someone else's handicap parking tag. There is no verification of those who obtained a tag with a doctor's note.
Yeah, doctor's notes to obtain health insurance or disability insurance payouts. That's the ticket..........to further destroy insurers and leave us all to government-run, taxpayer-paid coverage.
Just got my power restored.
A Huge Housing Bargain -- but Not for You
Extracting Lessons Learned From Having Killed a Killer
Kurtz: Inside Obama's Populist Makeover
What the Frack is Going on Here?
How Much Does the Federal Government Really Spend?
Bank ad brags about 'never taking a bailout'
Culture of death? Palestinian girl's murder highlights growing number of 'honor killings'
Re Krugman: There He Goes Again
Krugman believes in market failures, but not in the far more frequent government failures. Who pays for governmental errors and externalities?
Sunday, October 2. 2011
Several nights ago, I watched Catching Hell on ESPN. I enjoy documentaries and was pleased my wife and boys joined me. My boys have little interest in baseball, and I'm certain my wife got sucked in by the Bill Buckner opening, since she is a longtime Mets fan. Each of them found aspects of the documentary to be interesting and meaningful.
The story centers on Steve Bartman, a young fellow who may have cost the Chicago Cubs a shot at the World Series. It was an unlikely error on his part, one in which fault is questionable. As the documentary points out, many other fans were also reaching for that foul ball. He was unlucky enough to touch it. More importantly, an easy double play ball was booted by the shortstop just a few moments later. Certainly, the lost double play did more to cost the Cubs than a fan preventing a single out.
Continue reading "Baseball Confessional"
Via Insty, The Obama Presidency by the Numbers.
So far, so good, but they still have a ways to go to make everybody poor. Yes We Can! Si se puede! It is not a bug - it's a feature of the Obama economy.
Do you know what Googie Architecture is?
Here's a site: ARCHITECTURAL STYLES of AMERICA
Kimball: Worried about what’s happening to medical care?
Dino: It’s getting hard to read the paper
The Prof: Dodd-Frank is quackery
Obama's EPA: Out with democracy, in with bureaucracy
Let the altruistic geniuses handle it all, same as in your town's government. Just have faith that they know what is best for all...
Solargate Spreads
Taxpayer cash, for friends
From a teacher:
Imagine those kids ignoring you because their parents don't care what they do, the school doesn't allow any disciplinary actions other than calling the parents, the children know that they will pass no matter what and any peep from you about the kids' behavior is interpreted as prejudice. Imagine being required to make a lesson plan for every level of ability, learning style and disability, every day all the while knowing that the kids will probably not even attempt the work because they know they don't have to.
Another Stimulus Fail: Small Business Lending Fiasco
One of the chief tics of Obama's speaking style is a technique I call lying.
"Social Contract". You keep using that phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means. A quote:
The social contract is "We maintain civilization because we all benefit from it. And we all have a responsibility to pay for it." Ms. Warren’s version of the social contract boils down to, "You have to pay more for maintaining our society because you can, and we outnumber you, and can force you to do so." That’s not a contract. That’s just extortion by majority. The millionaire’s responsibility is not to "pay forward" any more than any of the rest of us, because he doesn’t benefit any more than the rest of us.
Conflating "society" or "civilization" with "government" is sneaky and dishonest - a rhetorical trick. Representative governments are meant to be servants of society.
No Rise in Home Prices Until 2020: Bankers
Declaration of the Occupation of Perpetual Grievance
Envy and hate for the financially successful: Rich people are being ‘demonized’ for flaunting their wealth. Poor dears!
She is evil. As I recall, my beautiful, peaceful, spiritual, eco-sensitive and carbon-sensitive ancestral American Indians wore their wampum for show, as there were no iPhones to purchase:
I envy the rich too, even though it is a sin to do so (see below). Especially those with access to private air travel or with over $17 million under their mattress. However, I do not hate them at all, or want to take their money. Everybody has different aspirations in life, and plans and constructs his or her life according to their religious, moral, emotional, intellectual, etc. desires and aspirations. As a major source of choice, wampum is often in high demand and thus strenuous to obtain and even harder to keep given all of life's tempting choices.
Saturday, October 1. 2011
Higher Education Fire Sale: Enroll Now and Save 66 Percent on Tuition!
Why Islam is in Desperate Need of a Reformation
Our Many Layers of Entitlement - The entitlement mindset includes much more than government benefits programs.
Via Driscoll:
“Do you believe in sin?” Cathleen Falsani, the religion correspondent for the Chicago Sun-Times, asked then Senator Obama. “Yes,” he replied. “What is sin?” “Being out of alignment with my values.” That’s one convenient religion: Obama worships at his own personal altar at the First Church of Himself.
Via Michelle:
After examining decades’ worth of failed subsidized solar efforts at home and around the world, the Institute for Energy Research concludes: “Although stand-alone solar power has a certain free-market niche and does not need government favor, using solar power for grid electricity has been and will be an economic loser for ratepayers and a burden to taxpayers.”
Top Obama Advisor Explains the Purpose of Government:
Here she tells an ethnically homogeneous audience that the purpose of government is to “give people a livelihood.”
Let them eat cake?
Chris Christie seriously considering run for president in 2012
Don't do it, big guy
Man, I Like That Guy: Chris Christie's Dude Factor
A tingle, Mr. Breitbart?
How the US is importing poverty
Jonah: Centrists’ Are Abandoning Ship - The establishment solution to unpopular liberal policies is still more liberalism:
The establishment can’t bring itself to blame liberalism (or themselves). So instead they blame the system. Obama’s own reelection theme of running against “Washington” — a town he had near total control over for two years and in which he is still the most powerful figure — is a variant of the same argument. Obama can’t blame the party he leads, so he blames the “system.”
Michael Lewis: California and Bust
It is a major essay by Lewis. The corruption in the attitude towards public service, from service to mindless greed. A quote:
Over the past decade the city of San Jose had repeatedly caved to the demands of its public-safety unions. In practice this meant that when the police or fire department of any neighboring city struck a better deal for itself, it became a fresh argument for improving the pay of San Jose police and fire. The effect was to make the sweetest deal cut by public-safety workers with any city in Northern California the starting point for the next round of negotiations for every other city. The departments also used each other to score debating points. For instance, back in 2002, the San Jose police union cut a three-year deal that raised police officers’ pay by 18 percent over the contract. Soon afterward, the San Jose firefighters cut a better deal for themselves, including a pay raise of more than 23 percent. The police felt robbed and complained mightily until the city council crafted a deal that handed them 5 percent more premium pay in exchange for training to fight terrorists. “We got famous for our anti-terrorist-training pay,” explains one city official. Eventually the anti-terrorist-training premium pay stopped; the police just kept the extra pay, with benefits. “Our police and firefighters will earn more in retirement than they did when they were working,” says Reed. “There used to be an argument that you have to give us money or we can’t afford to live in the city. Now the more you pay them the less likely they are to live in the city, because they can afford to leave. It’s staggering. When did we go from giving people sick leave to letting them accumulate it and cash it in for hundreds of thousands of dollars when they are done working? There’s a corruption here. It’s not just a financial corruption. It’s a corruption of the attitude of public service.”
another:
I notice on his shelf a copy of Fortune magazine, with Meredith Whitney on the cover. And as he talked about the bankrupting of Vallejo, I realized that I had heard this story before, or a private-sector version of it. The people who had power in the society, and were charged with saving it from itself, had instead bled the society to death. The problem with police officers and firefighters isn’t a public-sector problem; it isn’t a problem with government; it’s a problem with the entire society. It’s what happened on Wall Street in the run-up to the subprime crisis. It’s a problem of people taking what they can, just because they can, without regard to the larger social consequences. It’s not just a coincidence that the debts of cities and states spun out of control at the same time as the debts of individual Americans. Alone in a dark room with a pile of money, Americans knew exactly what they wanted to do, from the top of the society to the bottom. They’d been conditioned to grab as much as they could, without thinking about the long-term consequences. Afterward, the people on Wall Street would privately bemoan the low morals of the American people who walked away from their subprime loans, and the American people would express outrage at the Wall Street people who paid themselves a fortune to design the bad loans.
Plunder!
Gingrich on Obama’s healthcare law: ‘About 300 pages are pretty good’
He is possibly right about that.
Obama Charts a New Route to Re-election
Writing off Ohio - and maybe Florida
Woops: Obama now underwater in CT!
$737 Million Green Loan to Pelosi Kin Fuels Outrage
More plunder.
And more plunder: Benefit tourism in the UK
Buffet(t) Rules we all can agree upon
Friday, September 30. 2011
 (Or "Ol' Slobber Jaws", as he's known around the farm)
We're pleased to announce that we're adding a new guest blogger to the assorted collection of drunken reprobates and societal misfits already inhabiting this place. I've grilled him extensively on the finer art of hog sloppin' and how to read the future from chicken scratchings and I think he'll fit right in.
His name is Bulldog. And, when it comes to 'bulldog grip', I can't imagine a better handle. He and I are still arguing about my Magellan post from last April. The guy just won't let go! His condition is so pronounced that we're actually offering up three Official Maggie's Farm Bonus Points if you can win an argument with him in the comments.
Also, like myself, he comes with a dire warning, given the hard turn to the political right this site has taken over the past few years. When I started talkin' politics again a while back, I quickly noted that I was a confirmed Centrist, which I define as hating both sides equally. Thus, when the next thing you know I'm desecrating your favorite candidate with nasty euphemisms that even a hard-core lefty site would have qualms about using, it's understandable. But Bulldog is even worse.
He's a Libertarian.
Which is, of course, why I invited him aboard. The banner does say 'politically centrist', right? So, with only poor little me to fend off the unmitigated horror of the constant outpouring from the right-wing propaganda machine that infuses this place (our president is a "idiot", Greenpeace is "indoctrinating" people, Planned Parenthood is an "abortion mill", the Boomers and/or Hippies are to blame for all your problems, screw poor people and their food stamps, etc, etc, etc), I thought throwing a for-real Libertarian into the mix would help keep that 'politically centrist' part of the banner from becoming the biggest joke in the blogosphere.
Ever the helpful one, I.
Using the strange, archaic moniker 'Rick', Bird Dog and I have already posted two of his pieces. He should have his own account set up by next week. His next post follows this one, but he quickly notes that it's just a throwaway piece; just something he wanted to toss out there. He's going to save the really cruel, biting, acerbic pieces about those gun totin', dawg-lovin', Bible-thumpin', war mongerin' Conservatives until he can get his own byline and take full credit. Libertarians are like that.
Welcome aboard, Bulldog!
Our poll yesterday about workplace romance generated interesting comments. Thanks, readers.
Not from The Onion: NYC Mayor Bloomberg: 'Government’s Highest Duty' Is to Push 'Healthy' Foods
What a putz
The only exercise that’s ever shut me up
This comes recommended: Fr. Barron's Catholicism DVD Box Set
Your morning physics: Faster Than Light Neutrinos Do Not Time Travel To Spoil Your Date
Keep up with the Meteor for your morning giggle
College admissions testing in Britain and France
Turns out, the South is a pretty nice place to live
That is news?
College Students Skipping Law School Amid Stagnant Economy
McCaughey: Surge in Costs Start Of Obamacare Disaster
Red Jahncke: Ignoring cost of ObamaCare’s benefits
At Am Thinker's Justice Kennedy and the Fate of ObamaCare:
Because of its near-limitless reach, if fully implemented, ObamaCare will quickly become a political force surpassing even Social Security and Medicare. Once that happens, the only way to win elections will be to promise not to touch government health care. Every politician will have to accept and even endorse issues that are now championed only by the far left.
Europe must now grasp its chance to turn off the doomsday device
"The Entitlement Mentality" by John Agresto:
In so many places citizens are hardly citizens but subjects -- wards of the government, dependent on the state for their housing, their health care, their monthly salaries, their education, even their weekly food baskets. When troubles come, their first thought is not “How can I help myself and my community” but “Hurry up, government, and help me.” In this regard the contrast, say, between the decidedly independent citizens of the American Heartland on one hand and supinely dependent New Orleans could not be greater.
Best Elizabeth Warren parody yet
How to Make Obama Like Us
What's that quote about "If politicians don't like the voters, they should elect a new citizenry"? Of course, that's what illegal immigration amounts to.
Agreed. Joe Biden Blames Obama for Terrible Economy
NY Transit Workers Union & Teamsters Agree to Support Commie Wall Street Protesters
Garofalo: Cain’s rise in support proves Republican racism, or something
Heather: Half Baked - UC Berkeley’s diversity machine loses its mind over cupcakes.
Students in the ever-expanding roster of official campus victim groups flatter themselves that by attending what is in fact the most caring, protective, and opportunity-rich institution in the history of the world, they are braving unspeakable threats to their ego and even to their physical safety. (Indeed, so desirable is this alleged threatened status that a gender and women’s studies major held a sign during Tuesday’s protest of the bake sale decrying the exclusion of “queer people” from the Republicans’ pricing structure.)
Morning Bell: Time for Action on Pakistan
Taiwan, canary in the coal mine
Krauthammer: The Palis do not want peace
Surber:
Yes, that would work out to more than $1.6 million per job (or 100,000 muffins).
Why not simply scatter cash - $50s and $100s - from airplanes? That would be the way to get re-elected.
Thursday, September 29. 2011
Wednesday, September 28. 2011
Yale Paper Shows That Climate Science Skeptics Are More Scientifically Educated.
Less gullible. Makes sense to me. The people who preach to me about it know nothing. People who have studied the sciences at higher levels know that most scientific knowledge is never settled. Science is about theories, mostly, tested by observation, and eventually replaced by new theories and new information.
Climate science, in my view, is in its infancy, is overfunded compared with more compelling areas, and will ultimately turn out to be largely irrelevant except to those who study it - and to paleontologists.
As regular readers know, we are skeptical but have some hope that some global warming is happening. Gaia would like it. The next ice age would be quite unpleasant.
The Who's 'Quadrophenia' Is Love, Joy & Suffering
Moneyball
Are these people still saying that minorities cannot understand White Math?
Controversial Bake Sale Highlights Debate on Bill Allowing California Colleges to Consider Race, Gender
The Jewish Vote Poll Isn’t, And Is, As Bad As It Looks
Obama’s Jobs Bill: Read It and Weep - An infernal mish-mash of taxes, subsidies, and regulations.
Fracking: If they are against it that seems a pretty good reason to be for it.
From a commenter at a Cafe Hayek post:
Who would provide public education were it not for gov?
This argument is couched improperly. It can be rephrased as Who will force others to provide for my children’s education that I’m not willing to pay for myself? And for this, you are correct – you need government to do that.
I can hear the rebuttal… But what about the poor? Especially the ones who have a lot of children? Certainly you can’t expect them to shoulder any part of the responsibility for their actions! No, of course not. Government must step in to mitigate the consequences of poor planning and personal irresponsibility. Because without government, the poor would have to rely on friends, family, and charity – none of which can be forced to give as much as some might demand. What would the poor (or rich for that matter) do if they had to face the consequences of their own actions? That would just be horrible.
Obama: One Sentence, Three Falsehoods. New World’s Record?
Obamacare sent health premiums up 9%
The Proof is in. Racisim Does Not Exist in Wisconsin
Nobel-winning economist Robert Lucas on the high cost of the welfare state, why he voted for Barack Obama, and how Milton Friedman changed his life.
Saree Makdisi: Eliminating Jewish State More Important than Creating Palestinian One
LA Times Remakes Judah Ben-Hur into 'Palestinian Nobleman'
In 2007, only 11% of enlisted military recruits came from the poorest U.S. neighborhoods.
SANDERS: War on energy at home creates disasters abroad
"... staff should be prepared to be economical with the truth when asked by pupils what their favourite colour is and, in the interests of good race relations, answer “black” or “brown”.
Tuesday, September 27. 2011
The article leaves out one reason: confidentiality.
If I told patients that their records would be electronically accessible, I doubt anyone would speak openly with me. For that same reason, I keep very minimal paper records. My field of medicine is a little different, however.
 Today's toon via Theo
America does run on Dunkin', as does Maggie's HQ. Mediocre coffee but good caffeine - and always a great ambience.
"Let's Take a Traditional City Break 4: Many Variations, One Theme." New World Economics likes The Old Urbanist (as do we) - and posted some dynamite urban street scenes
Families Wise Up About Paying for College
The Escalating Penalty for Asserting Your Right to a Trial
Even if you're innocent, it can make more sense to cop a plea
Via Insty, the price of sex has dropped to record lows
Are American girls hornier than they were when I was young? If so, is it an effect of global warming?
Public Schools Eat Too Much At Gov't Trough
The growing laundry list of Totalitarian Humanism
‘Every Single One’ Fallout: Justice Dept. in Turmoil From PJMedia Series
The Bake Sale:
For the record, the current student body at UC Berkeley is 31.7% white. It is 47% male. According to the 2010 US Census, whites are 72.4% of the population. Women make up 50.7% of the population.
Why can’t we have colleges that look like America?
Europe's Failure Demands Europe Choose A Different Path, And That We Stop Following Their Example In America
Billionaires, Jews and Janitors
New Low: 17% Say U.S. Government Has Consent of the Governed
Mankiw:
If you can remember only one fact, make it this one: The middle class (middle quintile) pays 14.1 percent of its income in federal taxes, while the rich (top tenth of one percent of the population) pay 30.4 percent.
Tax Demagogues Are Lying Liars, in One Graph
Obama The Divider
EPA: Regulations would require 230,000 new employees, $21 billion
Eurozone crisis: there are no miracles in Greek tragedies - Lending ever greater sums to a mismanaged and corrupt economy won’t make it solvent , says Jeff Randall.
Carville: Tea Party a 'Dangerous Political Force That Threatens the Very Future of Our Country'
Which is worse, global warming or Tea Parties?
Americans Express Historic Negativity Toward U.S. Government
Rightly so
R2P is the New COIN: Slaughter on Authority and International Law Part II.
NGO report: 93,000 Copts left Egypt since March:
"Nearly 16,000 migrated to California, while 10,000 moved to New Jersey, 8000 to New York, and 8000 to other American states," according to Gabriel. "Around 14,000 left to Australia, 17,000 to Canada, and 20,000 settled in the Netherlands, Italy, England, Austria, Germany and France."
Arab Spring Countries Pay the Price for the World’s Palestinian Obsession
Obama strategy could spawn future Vietnams
Boot: Breaking Faith with our Heroes and Allies
"The average American does not appear to give government at all levels much credit for being careful in spending tax dollars," Gallup concluded.
Definitive proof of global warming:
Monday, September 26. 2011
Women Outnumber Men for Doctoral Degrees, 142 Women Enrolled in Grad School Per 100 Men, and Women Outnumber Men in 7 Out Of 11 Fields
Do Animals Have Rights? It's complicated.
Unitarian Church Finally Decides To Believe In Something, Nails Al Gore To Their Recycled Cross
IPCC error of the day
Joe Lieberman on the Sabbath
Eco-fun: Swim with the Piranhas
A California students' group has sparked a racism and sexism row over plans for a bake sale in which people are charged according to their ethnic background and gender.
Worried Greeks Fear Collapse of Middle Class Welfare State
VDH: Somewhere around 1985 in California I noticed that my students were hoping for a state job first, a federal job second, a municipal job third — and a private one last. A quote from his post:
When Jimmy Hoffa threatens the non-unionists, one imagines that Detroit is building better, safer, more reliable cars at a better price and has for decades. When Barack Obama urges the Black Caucus to march for equality, and adopts the cadences and pose of a 1960 civil rights leader, one would think the right wing in Florida just picked Bull Connor, not Herman Cain, as their straw poll winner. When the third-generation, hip spokesman for La Raza talks about inequality, one would think she herself just crossed the border from Oaxaca, forced to flee a benevolent Mexico to work in the pits of an American Mordor.
Ga. Middle School: Muslim Polygamy Is Normal, Burkas Good For Women
Michael Moore: "Patriotic Americans" Will Wait Longer For Healthcare
Racist Tea Party loves Herman Cain
It doesn't fit The Narrative
The return of net neutrality
UK update: Bible Banned From Christian Café
It'll be churches next
Obama Puts on His Best Dialect & Tells Black Audience “Stop Complaining & Fight”
Fight for what?
TNR: Left Behind: How Democrats Are Losing the Political Center
Village Voice’s Michael Feingold: “Kill the Billionaires!”
And then who do you tax?
You just know what Eliz Warren is like
Historic: Failed President Craters to 36% in New Poll
Turkey's foreign policy hits a dead end
Inspector general: Bush-era Pentagon officials cleared of wrongdoing
Who said this? Not every human problem deserves a law.
WaPo: Power shift in Asia
Greek Jews and the Holocaust: Recovering the Multiple Stories of Death, Rescue, and Resistance
IMF may need billions in extra funding
"The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other peoples' money"
Samuelson: Repeating Mistakes of the 1930s?
Netanyahu to Clinton: I’m not the one moving the goalposts
Let's face it: there will be no peace until Israel is erased. Thus permanent conflict for the forseeable future. Some problems are insoluble.
Sunday, September 25. 2011
Insty found this one: Is Your Choice Of Food A Fundamental Right? The author rightly comments "Sometimes I think I’ve woken up in a surreal alternate reality."
Indeed, our government's views increasingly resemble self-satire. Who are these a-holes? Here's another one:
Let the inhaler hoarding begin
I guess you can store them right next to your secret stash of incandescent bulbs, your stash of salt, your guns, your Bibles, your tobacco, your home-grown medical pot, and your gold coins.
View from the Wkly Std: The Reactionary in the White House - Barack Obama, throwback.
Obama is quite a throwback. In some ways, he would return us to centuries past. His administration is spending trillions to build high-speed trains, despite minimal consumer demand. Trains are a 19th-century technology. Subsidies are also doled out for wind power, a medieval technology. Meanwhile, the space program is all but jettisoned.
Rather than rely on fossil fuels, the president would make America run on renewable energy. The last renewable in widespread use was the horse.
View at the WaPo: It's time to begin the class war:
Imagine millions of Americans withholding mortgage payments to banks that refuse to adjust underwater loans. Imagine divestment campaigns to pressure public pension funds and universities to pull their money from the private sector and put it into government bonds. Imagine students staging sit-ins to protest teacher layoffs. Imagine families who have lost their homes squatting in vacant, bank-owned properties. Imagine a nationwide call to arms, as passionately nonviolent but as violently passionate as the pro-democracy movements sweeping the Arab world.
Saturday, September 24. 2011
The big man begins:
Okay, now you people know, you are well aware one of the reasons you listen is I know liberals. I know them. I know them like every square inch of my glorious naked body. Dealing with liberals is like dealing with a one-armed lunatic.
He wonders who has been producing the money to pay her salary all these years in non-profits, government, and academia. Read the whole thing - with half his brain tied behind his back, just to keep it fair.
There is a parasitic mind-set out there, and lots of people want to get on board. As I like to say, "Ask first what your country can do for you..." No heavy lifting, no accountability. In Warren's world, who does the real work? Slaves?
I have been a de facto slave to government (taxes) and academia (tuitions) most of my adult life. I give more than I can afford to non-profits and my church too, but at least that is voluntary.
 Red Cross: Obese Now Outnumber Hungry
Thus another crisis requiring government intervention and control
Dr Benjamin Spock: How a Freudianized wimp dismantled parental authority in America - and helped launch the age of permissiveness.
How Much of Law School Is a Waste?
At least 1/3 of it, it seems. Brings in the $, however.
Fast neutrinos: This Extraordinary Claim Requires Extraordinary Evidence!
Always be a skeptic
When love pushes you to fuck up your life and/or someone else’s, it’s your choice to either fight to stay in control or say, well, love is all you want, so whatever happens must be worthwhile:
I promised my wife I’d stop messing around, and I meant it, but last month I did it again and restarted an old fling. I love my wife and the last thing I want is to lose her and the kids’ respect; I’ve got a wonderful family, and I’m not some macho guy who goes cruising to pick up skanks in bars. My problem is that women have always been very attracted to me, I don’t know why, and the sex is very, very satisfying (for both of us), even when we don’t really have much of a relationship. I’m an asshole, and I can’t stop myself. What can I do?
How long does passion last before Mr. Reality enters in?
Five Ways to Screw Up Your Life with the Internet
Age: a terrible equalizer. Except for Paul Newman
Guys tend to fare better than women
Mugged by Mythology - Liberals believe the darnedest things.
Krauthammer: Return of the real Obama
Sees right through the guy
The ineffably annoying conspicuous philanthropy of the haute bourgeoisie
A Poll on Fixing Poor Student Performance - You are invited to weigh in on how universities should deal with slackers.
Throw them out! Oh, I forgot - they need the $ so they won't do that
Obama did it! He made the sea levels fall!
Praise the Lord!
Obamacare rule gives government everyone's medical records
That will go over well...
Obama Administration Set to Ban Asthma Inhalers Over Environmental Concerns
Insane. The news from DC these days cannot be distinguished from The Onion
Walked Into a Lamppost? Hurt While Crocheting? Help Is on the Way - New Medical-Billing System Provides Precision; Nine Codes for Macaw Mishaps
Precision without meaning. Unbelievable waste of time
IBD: We're Sinking Under Obama's Policies
Duh.
Why the government shouldn’t guarantee mortgages or mortgage-backed securities.
Cui bono?
How Rick Perry blew it
He is done. Fine governor but clueless on the big stage.
CO2:
“Many people don’t realize that over geological time, we’re really in a CO2 famine now. Almost never has CO2 levels been as low as it has been in the Holocene (geologic epoch) – 280 (parts per million - ppm) – that’s unheard of. Most of the time [CO2 levels] have been at least 1000 (ppm) and it’s been quite higher than that.”
Where is the righteous indignation among black Americans at being portrayed as helpless children?
Judge questions honesty of Interior Department scientists
Well, good luck, Democrats.
It will be a cold day in hell when I pay to see another of this selfish loon’s movies.
But he was terrific in Shawshank
...a person growing 201 pot plants in a rental unit would receive a longer mandatory sentence than someone who rapes a toddler or forces a five-year-old to have sex with an animal.
The Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon kicked off today in Washington on the National Mall, under inauspiciously dark rainy skies.
White House Fingerprints on LightSquared Scandal
Over GOP objections, Obama pushes education overhaul - States can get waivers to Bush plan benchmarks
D.C. consumes 625 million muffins a day
...what threat did Saddam actually pose? Let’s go through just a sliver of the evidence.
John Mearsheimer Endorses a Hitler Apologist and Holocaust Revisionist
The White House's Advice for Your Rabbi - President presses: Preach politics from the pulpit.
Government Shouldn't Be in the Business of Creating Jobs
Chris Christie Reconsidering 2012 Run, Will Decide in Days
It's not over until the fat man sings. If he wants VP, I prefer Rubio.
Advice to Conservatives: No More "Sound[ing] Like Crazy People" - in Any Language
Hoven: Science for Stupid Idiots
Female promiscuity may be nature's way of dealing with inbreeding, research claims
Science to the rescue!
The moral objection to higher taxes
Another Smoldering Stogie of Misinformation from the Lung Association
WINDFALL PROFITS… Obama Supporter Who Was Awarded $107 Million For Windfarm Will Hold $25,000-Per-Person Fundraiser for President
Eliz Warren gets rich without producing anything: Woops- I forgot that measly 192,000 the government paid me:
Warren, a highly respected lawyer and Harvard University professor, submitted financial disclosure reports with Congress from 2008-10 for her role at the TARP oversight panel.
She was paid more than $347,000 annually for her work at Harvard, plus another $53,428 in royalties, according to a disclosure report filed in May 2009. Warned earned more than $116,000 as a legal consultant, and other $25,000 doing research for the Consumers Union, a non-profit group in Yonkers, N.Y.
Lefties, always greedy parasites, never producing anything useful or beautiful
Neoneo: Looking back at Obama the con man
Most pols are sociopathic, to varying degrees. Everybody knows that. And everybody knows to ignore their lack of integrity if they like what they are doing.
Friday, September 23. 2011
The current uproar about the CLASS longterm care portion of ObamaCare is instructive of both how we got into this mess and how difficult it will be to get out of it. For those who watch TVs Falling Skies, where spinal implant harnesses attached to humans by aliens even when removed leave irremovable control over humans, that could also be our fate under ObamaCare. The blogosphere needs to step up its game to avoid or reduce this implantation.
Major blogs are now writing about the meltdown of the ObamaCare CLASS longterm care program, now that some internal memos have been revealed. But, with facts and figures, readily available reporting (including pre-admissions of failure before Congress reported in the New York Times), and my decades experience and certifications in employee benefits, I wrote about the unsustainability of CLASS long before, to be ignored. ( See here, ObamaCare’s CLASS Failure, and here, The Fraud Admitted.) I saw this before regarding my columns over many years on healthcare issues. Why?
Healthcare and insurance are not sexy issues, and require some deeper understanding to speak about intelligently. Most bloggers are involved in quick-takes on the hot issues of the day. Then, the blogosphere is politicized. Unless that issue can be highlighted quickly to undermine the opposition, and doesn’t require much research, it is passed on. This is even so when the issue is reported in the major media. Bloggers also know that very few of their readers are willing to spend much time on the fine details of most issues.
It wasn’t until ObamaCare that most bloggers began to write about healthcare. Suddenly everyone wrote as an instant expert. And, as often as not, superficially or confusing important facts.
Focus was on ObamaCare’s costs, on government controls over individual choices, and on the mandate, all important. However, the details of ObamaCare make readers' eyes gloss over. The Obama administration counted on that to pass the bill and since to keep the details muted. Of course, some specialized blogs went deeper, but are rarely read.
The CLASS portion of ObamaCare was known to be unsustainable from the get-go, which is why the bill itself required it to be examined after passage before implementation. But, the estimated $75-billion revenues from its early years’ was key to falsely claiming that ObamaCare would not increase federal deficits, before CLASS itself went into huge deficits.
Meanwhile, ObamaCare has step-by-step been entrenching itself within healthcare and its organizations. Early victims are health insurance agents and those many who rely upon them. I’ve yet to find a major blog that has written about this. Their comp is being cut by up to 50%, with more cuts to come, and many are leaving the business and those who need them with lessened defense against ObamaCare or giant insurance companies most interested in profiting from ObamaCare. I wrote about this here, In Defense Of Health Insurance Agents, And You, and here, CBO: ObamaCare Within 5% Of Nationalizing Insurance Companies, and here, Are Health Insurance Agents Worth It: The Canaries In ObamaCare Mine.
There are many more examples I could easily point out. Assuming that after the 2012 elections there’ll be a Republican president and Congress, despite pledges to repeal ObamaCare, we’ll find much of it welded into our spines. The mandate issue is focused upon because it raises libertarian hackles and because it seems the only promising course in the courts. However, even judicially excising mandates may not uproot Obamacare, if found severable despite the ObamaCare bill not including a severability clause. Also, by then, if there is a then at the Supreme Court, many portions of ObamaCare will be so far along, and many aspects of current healthcare so changed, as to be irremovable. Welcome to Falling Skies, the ObamaCare version. Falling Skies next season is next Summer, just in time for the 2012 election season. Will we survive the aliens? Will we survive ObamaCare? Can we reverse the alien harnesses? Will the blogosphere get ahead of instead of behind the ObamaCare issues? Stay tuned.
For good updates on CLASS, see Powerline and Hot Air. Politics analyst Charlie Cook discusses 2012 and ObamaCare.
Thursday, September 22. 2011
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