Saturday, April 14. 2012
The real threat that the Ann Romney's of the world represent to the statist Left is yet another of the many insightful posts by a mom in Marin whose blog Bookworm Room is a must add to your daily web surfing. She and I have become friends over the years sharing our parenting experiences, she and I -- a work at home Dad -- considering how to best raise our young children for a positive life and constructive role in society. An excerpt from her post today:
For the last many years, I have been the single most important influence on my children. Yes, they go to school (public school, yet); and yes, they both have thriving social lives; and yes, I’ve been unable to insulate them from a Leftist pop culture that is hostile to traditional norms and to conservatives generally, but I’m still the most important person. Of all the influences in their lives, I am the one who is most present, most consistent, and most trusted. I’m sure they’ll pull away as they get older, and they may even rebel, but I’ll still be that little voice in their brain, imparting facts, values, and analyses.
I am the counterweight to the state. Therefore, I am dangerous. I am subversive simply by existing. My love for my children is a dominant force that works its way into their psyches and that trumps the state-run schools and the state complicit media world. Some mothers, of course, are entirely in sync with schools and media. They happily reinforce the statist message. But those of us who don’t are a powerful anti-statist force and we must be challenged.
The Left’s problem with Ann Romney transcends her husband’s wealth, her (and his) Republican identification, and her decision to work for her children, rather than for a paying employer. The Left’s problem with Ann Romney is that she represents the triumph of the individual. No wonder they hate her so much.
Thursday, April 12. 2012
Graph of the recovery above, via Mankiw
Mr. Romney also should remind Americans of Mr. Obama's lofty words from his 2008 acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention in Denver. There he said, "If you don't have any fresh ideas, then you use stale tactics to scare voters. If you don't have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from."
Mr. Obama attacked such a strategy then. Lacking any fresh ideas or a record to run on, it's the strategy he's adopted now.
Wednesday, April 11. 2012
The campaign by leftist pressure groups for companies to cease their contributions to the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) may backfire on those feckless companies that have succumbed. So far, that includes Kraft Foods, Intuit, Wendy’s, Arby’s, McDonalds, Walgreens, Pepsi and Coca Cola.
ALEC has over 2000 members who are state legislators, out of the 7282 State legislators across the US, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. ALEC members cooperate on developing model legislation for their states that is pro-growth, pro-jobs, lower taxes. ALEC, also, exchanges model legislation among its members based on the work of a particular state. This has included legislation for Voter ID and for Stand Your Ground self-defense, two bete noires of the left.
ALEC has over 300 companies who contribute up to $25,000 each for the opportunity to engage in conversation with state legislators about issues that affect their business. The few who have turned tail may well find themselves with a weakened hand as state legislatures consider issues. Well, if they don’t support free enterprise, they will be less free.
ALEC issued a “statement today in response to the coordinated and well-funded intimidation campaign against corporate members of the organization…We are not and will not be defined by ideological special interests who would like to eliminate discourse that leads to economic vitality, jobs and fiscal stability for the states.”
The intimidation campaign is made up of the usual Soros and similar organizations on the activist left, as Michelle Malkin outlines. She recommends boycotting their products. Consumer boycotts of companies with such wide distribution seldom amount to much. What will really hit these companies is the legislation that affects them. Go left, Go to someone else, like the leftist groups you respond to that want to raise your taxes and reduce your freedoms to operate profitably, over 25% of state legislators may well say.
Vermont and Maine are the least urbanized states in the US, and close to the bottom of average GDP per hour worked. 
Our friends at Vermont Tiger see these data as a problem, but I don't see what the problem is. These states are in control of their development, their industrialization, their welfare payments, etc. Apparently they do not seek growth or development. What's wrong with that? It's their choice, and apparently most people who live in those states like it that way. Money isn't everything: some seek it, some just want enough to survive until the Social Security gravy train kicks in, paid for by the labor of the folks in the wealthier states. Rural and rustic, with the good and bad (see the Rumford (Maine) Meteor) that come with that.
If those folks want more jobs and urban life, there is a simple solution: bathe, shave, get a haircut, and pile your stuff in a U-Haul and move to the resurgent Bronx in a few short hours. Job choice, no big snow problems, walk to the Stadium, lots of bars and bodegas, quick express subway to the Metropolitan Museum. How bad is that?
I like the idea of each state following its own heart. Each one is crazy and/or corrupt in its own way.
From Stossel's Can Government Do Anything Well?:
Opinion polls suggest that Americans are dissatisfied with government. Yet whenever another crisis hits, the natural human instinct is to say, "Why doesn't the government do something?"
 Document Deep Dive: How the Homestead Act Transformed America
The suicide forest of Japan: Mount Fuji beauty spot where up to 100 bodies are found every year
Tasty beer: Great Achievements in American Capitalism
Transgressive Art Shocks Educators
But I thought the current pomo view of art was to disturb the complacent. Guess not.
Thomas Kinkade, detested by the bien pensant
But I thought the current pomo view of art was to disturb the complacent. Guess not.
Joel Stein Has Four Accountants
Growing Out of Poverty- A World Bank report makes clear how free markets—and U.S. leadership—have led millions to better lives:
Thirty years ago, half of the planet lived in utter misery, and many commentators argued that poverty was destiny. At best, most pundits conceded that pockets of poverty could be alleviated through international aid. Only a handful of economists begged to differ: Theodor Schultz, Milton Friedman, and Peter Bauer were the mavericks advocating free-market policies for every nation as the way out of poverty. They have been proven right. China’s economy has been growing since the mid-1980s—when Deng Xiaoping, its de facto leader, abandoned central planning, opened the borders for foreign investment, and promoted entrepreneurship at home.
Related: The Cure for Humanity's Natural State of Abject Poverty - A review of Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty.
The non-diverse Obama campaign HQ
Sowell: Why Politicians Promise Heaven And Deliver Hell:
In politics, few talents are as richly rewarded as the ability to convince parasites that they are victims. Welfare states on both sides of the Atlantic have discovered that largesse to losers does not reduce their hostility to society, but only increases it. Far from producing gratitude, generosity is seen as an admission of guilt, and the reparations as inadequate compensations for injustices — leading to worsening behavior by the recipients.
Some people say that taxes are the price we pay for civilization. But the runaway taxes of our time are the price we pay for being gullible.
It's a truism that recipients of charity must always hate the giver. It's about pride.
Has the Trayvon Martin incident become more about the media than the shooting?
Yes
University Course on How to Impose Communism
No wonder colleges are so greedy
Mojave Solar Project Killing Threatened Desert Tortoises
Understanding the Resilience of Monarchy During the Arab Spring
The Riddle of the Mufti
Obama's America: Why Black Grievance Will Never End
Why I Called George Zimmerman a Murderer, and Why I Was Wrong - I won't get fooled by media again.
Nearly 60 percent of Americans would move from their communities right now if they could, according to a new survey
Everybody's got to be somewhere...
Hospital Refuses To Hire Overweight People
From what I hear, overweight people are always at an employment disadvantage
Here's How Unpopular ObamaCare Is: Fewer Than Half of Democrats Want the Law Upheld
Hmmm.
NASA Scientists Rebel Against Global Warming Hysteria:
Hansen’s unscientific yammering about global warming has ruined the reputation of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies and gravely damaged the image of NASA.
Hansen has lost it, and his colleagues finally are daring to admit it.
Tuesday, April 10. 2012
Clearly, today the term "disabled" includes many people entirely capable of holding jobs.
Here's the latest on the disabled: Obama administration may soon require all Federal contractors hire 7% disabled workers. There is an interesting hitch, however: "... it is illegal, under the ADA, for employers to query applicants about their disabilities."
Toon via Theo
Surgery may not be necessary for appendicitis
The pomo generator
Fracking is Blamed for … Well, Everything, Really.
VDH: Strangers in a Stranger Land
He's getting confused by all of the new narratives
Obama Will Say and Do Anything
Angry people who demand things, don’t stop being angry when their demands are met.
At Why You Should Learn to Love Pink Slime:
- Food isn't about Nutrition
- Clothes aren't about Comfort
- Bedrooms aren't about Sleep
- Marriage isn't about Romance
- Talk isn't about Info
- Laughter isn't about Jokes
- Charity isn't about Helping
- Church isn't about God
- Art isn't about Insight
- Medicine isn't about Health
- Consulting isn't about Advice
- School isn't about Learning
- Research isn't about Progress
- Politics isn't about Policy
NYM: Defending Derbyshire
Why ObamaCare Has Proved a Hard Sell
Would Roosevelt recognize today’s Social Security?
Obamacare is a Trojan horse, intended, as Barack Obama has said, to lead to the extinction of private health insurance and its replacement by socialized (“single payer”) medicine.
Barone: Can Romney Show Voters That Obama Is Out of Date?
From Satire to Horror Reality Show: Radical Chic Conquers America
Why The U.S. Postal Service Is In Greater Financial Trouble Than Most Foreign Postal Services — The Role Of Government Micromanagement
4 Healthy Fast-Food Failures
Freedom in Post-Democratic Europe
Morning Bell: Hispanics and the 2012 Election
In former Communist states, populations are shrinking fast - Of Romania's 19 million population, fewer than five million are workers paying tax
Study recommends coverage of lung cancer screening
Not from The Onion: Liberal fascism in the NYT
Where do people go when they drop out of the labor force?
Monday, April 9. 2012
Knish:
That is the thing about America that most Americans don't realize. For all the hopeful speeches made by American leaders about exporting the Des Moines way of life to Baghdad or Kandahar, what people in those parts of the world see when they look at America isn't democracy and freedom, it's wealth and power. Those are the things they want, and they don't understand why American leaders keep chattering on about democracy and freedom, no more than we understand why Muslims keep going on about the Koran.
They're not interested in what we believe, but in what we have, and they can't make the connection between one and the other, as far as they are concerned they already believe the right things. Muslims see the West in purely mercantile terms, decadent but rich. Dubai and Riyadh are in their own way crude imitations of us, or how they think we are. Luxury cars, gold encrusted things, prostitutes and tall buildings. The same goes for Moscow and Beijing, which gave rise to their own ruling mafias riding around in limousines, squandering fortunes, building tacky towers and imagining that they are outdoing the West.
Friday, April 6. 2012
 Andrew McCarthy: Future tense, VIII: Enter totalitarian democracy - On the difficulties of making law in the modern world.
Insiders Poll: Enthusiasm Wanes for Rubio as VP Pick; Portman Rising
Me like Rubio
Spain Not Greece Is the Real Test for the European Union
Shelby Steele: The Exploitation of Trayvon Martin - The absurdity of Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton is that they want to make a movement out of an anomaly. Black teenagers today are afraid of other black teenagers, not whites
The Tax Hike Election of 2012
“Freedom of Speech Wanes in Britain”
Mead: First, Let’s Indenture All The Lawyers
Does the Commerce Clause Negate the Rest of the Constitution?
That is a brilliant question. Hinderaker is a smart lawyer.
The National Wildlife Federation Jumps The Shark
Good grief
Knish: The Liberal Jewish Eunuch:
Jewish suffering has been universalized into multicultural pablum that has nothing to do with Jews anymore. The hijacking of Jewish history has been so comprehensive that Jews have become the new Nazis in the mythology of multiculturalism. They wear uniforms, don't they. They have a state that they're proud of. And they're fighting against all the Mohammed Merahs who only kill because they haven't gotten their fill of tolerance. Clearly Jews are the new Nazis.
President Petulant - Obama makes Berkeley liberals look like statesmen.
Eric Holder: My boss is an idiot
Greece to Germany: Only Nazis would give us billions with strings attached
Michelle: The Democrats’ Election Forgery Racket
Klein: Don’t Worry About Deficit That Will Heal Itself
“We won! We won! They pepper-sprayed us!”: Proof that the purpose of protests is to provoke a police response
Curl: "This is going to get ugly, people."
You betcha. It hasn't even really begun.
Italy’s Moment of Truth
Media Suppress Romney’s Human Side
No tingles from Boy Scouts.
One out of five dollars that flow into the pockets of Americans comes from a government check
ie, from your neighbor - or from China
‘Action Camp’ For Children at Soros-Funded Group
Van Jones wins one
Still on the payroll.
A Nation of Cowards: Marion Barry Declares We Have To Get These "Dirty" Asian Shops Out of Our Neighborhoods
"...for the assembled "news" hounds — the most vaunted gathering of news executives from across the country — it was all very serious swooning. They were like a bunch of dogs in heat." (h/t, Am Digest)
Tingles.
Mitt Romney, Antihero
No tingles. Too square to be a media celeb. If he came out as bi-, would the MSM like him a little bit more? Nope. They would use it against him.
Too many students see college as a workplace-credential factory
Duh.
Stock market is now officially overvalued
Duh.
Philadelphia Fed Reports that State Economies Are Improving, with Future Gains Expected
Let's hope so
Wednesday, April 4. 2012
 I read the headline of this article, and expected to see a discussion on why Wall Street is indispensible. Instead I found a discussion on the election and specifically Romney. It's clear he's going to be the Republican nominee, so it's probably best to start cleaning up his somewhat tarnished image. I agree with much of the commentary. But there are a few comments and insights which should be shared.
First, the economy can function without Wall Street. You don't need a capital market in order to have a functioning economy. It's useful to have a capital market, it makes acquiring capital for progress much easier. In fact, stock corporations were originally performed to raise revenues for large projects which were determined to be 'outside the scope' of government responsibility. What most people are critical of is the very concept that Wall Street considers itself indispensible, and uses that as a lever to charge very large fees and pay outsized salaries. These are not required for a fully functioning economy. I'm not opposed to a person making, or earning, whatever he or she can. But even the corporate titans of the Gilded Age put some of their more public displays on hold during times of economic duress.
Second, as a Libertarian, I'm usually opposed to the government regulating anything. But I admit there are some instances where oversight and enforcement are required. The question is - what KIND of oversight and enforcement? Certainly not the kind we're seeing out of this administration:
Ross refers to the Dodd-Frank Act as "at best a very generalized blueprint" that addresses regulators' concerns, and he worries that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which was established as part of Dodd-Frank, will have unforeseen consequences for Wall Street and Main Street.
"I think the regulatory uncertainty and the growing fear that this agency (CFPB) will be witch-hunting are definitely impeding bankers' willingness to make loans," he says.
Sarbanes-Oxley has done nothing to stop the fraud it was supposed to stop. It has added several weeks of work to the audit process in many companies, though. In other words, usually regulations result in nothing but increased costs of doing business.
Finally, I was amused to see Bain Capital misspelled as 'Bane' at one point. I would hate to say this is deliberate, but given my cynicism toward journalists today, I am likely to believe it was. Then again, spelling isn't a strong point with journalists these days. It's a rather unfortunate sign of the times.
Taranto: The Man Who Knew Too Little - President Obama's stunning ignorance of constitutional law.
Well ok. You might expect a Con Law teacher to remember the date of Lochner but, giving Obama the benefit of the doubt, I think he is simply spewing spin and propaganda, hoping most voters won't notice.
How many voters care about Lochner? Or even about the Constitution? Even the President, who did swear to uphold it, admits he doesn't really approve of it.
Perhaps his back-up plan is to run against the Court - and the Constitution. It could work. Politics ain't beanbag.
Who was Casanova?
50,000 videos a day? And no one said, Hey! Turn that off and get back to work?
The New York Sun is back? Since when?
Markets in Everything: $300 Hearing Aids
A Wisconsin Bloody Mary
PETA scrambled about W.H. egg roll
Real estate: "You're not stabilizing the market. You're creating more chaos."
Government help was the problem, is the problem.
Sarah Palin Hosts ‘Today’ and Auditions for a Broader Role
No coal for you: How a Grassroots Rebellion Won the Nation's Biggest Climate Victory
How much do you want to know about David Axelrod, Lefty Lumberjack
Yuval Levin on Obama:
He speaks as though the problem—our unsustainable entitlement state—were the solution, and as though the solution—a budget that restrains the growth of spending, modernizes and reforms our collapsing entitlement and welfare programs to avert their collapse, and charts a path toward economic growth—were the problem. In this upside-down, inside-out world, Barack Obama accuses Paul Ryan of putting the future of America’s younger generation in danger and inviting American decline.
Justice Kennedy's Million Dollar Question
5 reasons liberals are difficult to talk to
Revolt of the Irish Tax Slaves
Unemployment is not 8.3 percent -- it’s 15.1 percent
Sowell "A long-standing legal charade was played out again recently, when Federal Express paid $3 million to settle an employment discrimination case brought by the U.S. Department of Labor."
The Radicalization of the University of California
German States Used Malware to Spy on Their Citizens
View from the Left: Good Jobs - Three Reasons There Aren’t More
Obama Sharpens Kansas Vision - The president's speech to editors and publishers sharpens attack into full campaign mode.
Monday, April 2. 2012
If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made of meat?
The medical benefits of coffee
Attractive women should not include a photo with a job application
Neutrino 'faster than light' scientist resigns
Britain Has Finally Rejected The Bogus Economics Of Climate Change
Is Romney too square?
Here are all thirteen of Alinsky's rules for radicals
Storm clouds gather over Monti's Italy reform drive
Swing States Poll: A shift by women puts Obama in lead
"what Republicans call Obamacare was a strategic vehicle to defuse resistance to a systems overhaul and to lay the groundwork for an inevitable realignment of healthcare into a largely government-centric machine."
University echo chamber drowns out diverse voices
Vanderbilt University Insults Our Intelligence
Here is the wack job who thinks you need medical treatment for climate denial
Why Campus Mascots and Nicknames Are Under Attack
Isn't it about time to admit that Bonfire has turned out to be, just as Wolfe bragged, the Great American Novel of our lifetime?
VDH: Beware of the Mob
Biden on Trayvon: Let's Crack Down on Guns
Says the guy who does not go out in public without armed guards
Remembering Madison:
"The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the federal government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State governments are numerous and indefinite. The former will be exercised principally on external objects, as war, peace, negotiation, and foreign commerce; with which last the power of taxation will, for the most part, be connected. The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects which, in the ordinary course of affairs, concern the lives, liberties, and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the State."
"Truly, we Progressives are the scourge of liberty, but, then, what good has liberty ever done?"
The court can’t stop the health-care revolution
60% of docs are salaried? No wonder they quit making house calls.
Biden: "I never had an interest in being a mayor 'cause that's a real job. You have to produce. That's why I was able to be a senator for 36 years."
Sunday, April 1. 2012
 Image on the right can get you in trouble in Britain. A doctor did the deed. Evil, ain't it? Must be the cross that freaks them out. It should...it's powerful stuff.
Just the usual crisis-mongering
Confessions of an Ivy League Frat Boy: Inside Dartmouth's Hazing Abuses- A Dartmouth degree is a ticket to the top - but first you may have to get puked on by your drunken friends and wallow in human filth
The government unions are being seen as plunderers these days
The youth vote still supports Obama, but in a chastened, conditional way. In hindsight, Obama's 2008 campaign looks like an indulgent fantasy in which the major conflicts in life simply don't exist. There may be no white America and no black America, no blue-state America and no red-state America, but one thing is clear: There is a young America and there is an old America, and they don't form a community of interest. One takes from the other.
When the Archbishop Met the President - Cardinal Dolan thought he heard Barack Obama pledge respect for the Catholic Church's rights of conscience. Then came the contraception coverage mandate.
Dolan is nobody's fool
If I term these people "jerks," is that harassment?
Bullying: It is frankly wrong to try to make childhood into a mindless exercise in kindness.
My plan: Bully the bullies.
Saturday, March 31. 2012
The Best Damn Argument For The Unconstitutionality of ObamaCare... A quote:
The government just decided that all insurance must be comprehensive. And that no one any longer had the freedom to choose anything but that -- even its superior competitor, Catastrophic Coverage.
That's not destroying a "stupid" freedom to be self-destructive. That's taking away a very real and sensible choice.
And on what authority, exactly?
This thing that is supposedly done for me, as if I were a moron and incapable of making life decisions, is not what I want and definitely not what I want done for me. I have a better idea. As readers know, I have Major Medical, high-deductible insurance because it works for me. The law will make my policy illegal. I once worked for a firm which self-insured: the firm paid 80% of the employees' medical bills after a $1000 deductible. Doing that would be illegal too.
The Dems passed a law to eliminate our free choice to purchase a personal item. As a favor to us, of course. Because they know what's best for us proles. Or are we serfs now, living for the greater good of the kings?
From the liberal Mead's The Health Care Disaster and the Miseries of Blue:
Obamacare so far is a political flop and shows ominous early signs of being a policy misfire as well. The benefits don’t seem to measure up to the hype, more people are going to lose their existing insurance, premiums are going up and the impact on the deficit is going to be worse.
This is a horrible piece of legislation — as misbegotten and useless to its friends as it is menacing to its enemies. The question is: why? Why did the blues write such a bad law? Why, given a once in a lifetime chance to pass a program that Dems have longed to achieve ever since the New Deal, did they craft a sloppy mess that nobody understands and few admire, and then leave their law so unnecessarily vulnerable to constitutional challenge?
The answers tell us much about why blue progressive thinking is losing its hold on the body politic — and why blue methods generally aren’t working as well as they used to.
Earth Hour: A Dissent. As usual, North Korea wins!
Every day is Earth Hour there.
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Why 
Sometimes It Takes Money to Make Money (From Insurance Fraud)