Wednesday, April 8. 2009
They think they own protests. They do not. They have the power now, and I do not like what they do to my country.
Funny how fast compromise and consensus flew out the window.
 Image on right via Surber. Related, at Volokh:
Good to hear that American free speech tradition isn't "too deeply unsettling to world order." But wait -- check out the footnote following this paragraph:
See generally Louis Henkin, Gerald L. Neuman, Diane F. Orentlicher & David W. Leebron, Human Rights 564 (1999). Admittedly, in a globalizing world, our exceptional free speech tradition can cause problems abroad, as, for example, may occur when hate speech is disseminated over the Internet. In my view, however, our Supreme Court can moderate these conflicts by applying more consistently the transnationalist approach to judicial interpretation discussed infra Part III.C.
And what is this "transnationalist approach" that can help "moderate these conflicts" caused by American constitutional protection for "hate speech ... disseminated over the Internet"?
Read it. I say "Good grief."
A vote for sanity: Climate change bill sidetracked
Harvard student takes on Barney Frank
Black Caucus praises Castro. Nice role model. Everybody wants to emigrate to Cuba, don't they? The Gulf of Mexico is packed with Mexicans and Liberals trying to get to the peoples' paradise.
Obama's anti-nuke speech. Dino
Why "quality" medical care is dangerous
Are American housing policies rational? Prof B says no, and I agree. The American Dream isn't home ownership - it's freedom. I am a flat-taxer and opposed on principle to the mortgage interest deduction.
O's foreign apologies: What did you expect? Still, Rick says:
Yes, it discomfits me that Obama seemed eager to disrespect his own country in front of those who, at times, have been equally arrogant, equally dismissive, and certainly more derisive when George Bush was president. But in perilous times, it is best to keep your friends close. And despite a few gaffes (”Austrian” language? Are you fricking kidding me?), Obama’s trip was helpful to our interests and will hopefully pay big dividends in the future.
This is entertaining:
Tuesday, April 7. 2009
 Dept. of Hopey-Changey: A US-based Al Qaida magazine. Does it have a centerfold like the one on the right? If not, I will not subscribe no matter how good the articles may be.
Most Americans have too much wisdom to devote their entire lives to it, but we do have the right to get rich if we want to do that.
Note to depressed Muslims. Keep us out of it.
This may be news to most Americans, from Janet Napolitano: "This is one NAFTA, one area, one continent..."
Too bad. Looking a bit bleak for Coleman. Can't believe those folks voted for the other doofus.
No more buche de chevre? Sucks, dude. Try a government job.
The arrogance. Nobody even knows where the Missouri capitol is. "Hey, Ahmed. I have a great idea. Let's crash into the Missouri capitol to show the infidel the power of Allah." "Cool, dude. Will you do it? But what's Missouri? Show me."
Powerline on the Strib's terminal ailment. Related: Greedy capitalist newspapers want donations from Google. Why not just make them part of the executive branch?
Hey ladies: get your fellow some of this stuff. We need a happier world.
Tiger and Insty both are interested in token Greenie stuff (nothing real), but Tiger at least admits it.
Why docs are refusing Medicare.
Dems push for voting rights for illegals. We saw that coming.
Students: Beware of the one-party classroom
Monday, April 6. 2009
Obama sells himself to the world stage - to help sell himself to the American stage. America is the only audience that matters.
How is he doing?
Is he a pompous windbag? There can be no doubt that he digs himself. That's for certain. More than he merits? You decide.
Went for a family visit and Palm Sunday Mass in MA at the family church yesterday. Still cold up there: rain, wind and snow today. Spring feels very far away, due to Climate Change.
 More Tea Parties. It's a Protest Movement! Power to the Silent Majority!
Not just for out-of-towners. Hop on and hop off tour busses in NYC. Cool.
It's a tie in upstate NY
Charles Blow needs a change of underpants
This is just wonderful. Indeed it is.
AVI rarely seems to have an ugly thought, but he had one.
Why does O bash the US in foreign countries?
McCain rebukes Hispanics for not supporting him.
Our problems:
We've narrowed down our troubles. Neither small pox nor poor crops are really all that troublesome any more. No, our problems are now pretty much each other. (Inasmuch as small pox and poor crops are still problems in some places, see what the men there are up to.)
If you think man-against-man problems went away in ancient times, recollect the 20th century. One hundred million deaths can be attributed to communism alone. Add in perhaps 21 million more thanks to Hitler. R.J. Rummel tried to count 20th century human deaths caused by governments, not including wars between nations. His count: over 260 million. That was before the Congo (3.9 million), Sudan (2 million), Rwanda (937,000) and recent "famines" in North Korea (2 million), all since 1990.
They say I am afraid of Michelle Obama's vegetable garden. WTH? I am usually afraid of the menacing weeds in Bird Dog's garden, however.
College orientation, for whites only. They've gone full circle! No doubt some pomo logician can explain it to me.
Can we afford to bet our economy on the supposition that Freeman Dyson is wrong?
CNN is running out of religions to respect. h/t Driscoll. In my view, respect for peoples' religion is a simple matter of manners - but all religions need criticism. Everybody and everything needs criticism.
Hate to say it, but I think this is true:
Max Borders argues that the President’s motive is, not ending the recession, but using it as an excuse for truly radical restructuring of American society and further deformation of the Constitution.
If the President’s goals become reality, most of the remaining checks and balances of the 1787 Constitution will effectively have been eviscerated, leaving a nation driven by Tocqueville’s tyranny of the majority, ravenously confiscating other people’s money.
We all know a Prez can't "end a recession" anyway.
No country in the Middle East will take in Palestinian refugees. Is there a reason? Obama wants to take them. I thought they had their own country now, with an elected government and tons of weapons etc.
Tom Sowell says we have a rookie President. Related: Most polarizing Prez in the modern era. Related, the brilliant Obama invents a new language: Austrian.
Protesting Obama at Notre Dame.
Taxation:
"That is the American way," Stroger replied. "And the way that it's generally done is, you find some group that's small enough where they can't beat you up, and you tax them and you tell everybody else, 'See? We didn't tax you.' "
Marriage is a contract, but is it just a contract?
Aussie boobs getting bigger. It's Climate Change.
The politics of vouchers. Choice not allowed:
Mr. Duncan's office spurned our repeated calls and emails asking what and when he and his aides knew about these results. We do know the Administration prohibited anyone involved with the evaluation from discussing it publicly. You'd think we were talking about nuclear secrets, not about a taxpayer-funded pilot program. A reasonable conclusion is that Mr. Duncan's department didn't want proof of voucher success to interfere with Senator Dick Durbin's campaign to kill vouchers at the behest of the teachers unions.
The decision to let 1,700 poor kids get tossed from private schools is a moral disgrace. It also exposes the ugly politics that lies beneath union and liberal efforts across the country to undermine mayoral control, charter schools, vouchers or any reform that threatens their monopoly over public education dollars and jobs.
Meanwhile, the DC pols all send their kids to private schools.
How the NYT does politics (h/t, Moonbattery). I know the NYT plays tricks, but this is beyond what I imagined. Are any reporters anywhere covering this story, or are they too much in awe of the NYT...or of Obama?
Or are they too chicken?
 Sunday's New York Times had an op-ed - a Sunday op-ed having particular prominence - by George Bisharat, “Israel on Trial.” Bisharat recites every charge raised by any source accusing Israel of violating international law in its treatment of Gaza.
Surely the NYT would defend its publishing of this screed as giving both sides of a story. A law professor who has known Bisharat, son of a Palestinian father, since law school remarks on Bisharat’s “Personal Intifada”:
Bisharat has devoted the past 25 years towards delegitimizing Israel. The links are too numerous to list, but almost everything Bisharat does and says is geared towards isolating and demonizing Israel. But Bisharat doesn't stop there, he also seeks to delegitimize Israel's supporters in the U.S.
One must wonder if the NYT publishing Bisharat’s op-ed means the NYT disbelieves its own reporting, and if the NYT is even sincere in its attachment to international law.
In January, the NYT examined the charges in long detail, “Weighing Crimes and Ethics in the Fog of Urban Warfare.”
Deciding requires an investigation into battlefield circumstances that cannot be carried out while the fighting rages, and such judgments are especially difficult in urban guerrilla warfare, when fighters like Hamas live among the civilian population and take shelter there. While Israel is the focus of most criticism, legal experts agree that Hamas, a radical Islamic group classified by the United States and Europe as terrorist, violates international law.
Shooting rockets out of Gaza aimed at Israeli cities and civilians is an obvious violation of the principle of discrimination and fits the classic definition of terrorism. Hamas fighters are also putting civilians at undue risk by storing weapons among them, including in mosques, schools and allegedly hospitals, too, making them potential military targets. While urban and guerrilla warfare is not illegal, by fighting in the midst of civilians, often in civilian clothing, Hamas may also bring risk to noncombatants.
But Hamas’s violations tend to be treated as a given and criticized as an afterthought, Israeli spokesmen and officials say. They say that Israel has never sought to hit civilians, medical workers or United Nations facilities or personnel. “The rules of engagement are very clear,” said Mark Regev, the government spokesman. “Not to target civilians, not to target U.N. people, not to target medical staff. All this is very clear in Israeli military doctrine.”
Continue reading "NYT Blows Itself Up In International Law Minefield"
 Prof B:
...the Obama administration is engaged in national industrial policy far more radical than ever before seen in the United States and, worse yet, with policymakers who seemingly know nothing about cars and, for the most part, don't even own American cars.
DC voucher kids performed better. Swedish schools are voucher, I think.
Speaking of Sweden, "The point is that students must feel seen, heard, and affirmed." Or they will set their schools on fire. Arsonist students need special affirmation, no doubt.
Why Levin's is the most important book of the year. But is he preaching to the choir?
God and government. Riehl. Quote:
...if you want to tear down anything and everything beyond man, then man is the only concept you have left in which to invest your rights. And once you do that, rest assured, one day some man is going to come along and take them away.
Dem crook du jour: Monica Conyers
What's more important - getting medical care or having insurance?
Axelrod cashes out before taxes go up
O to N. Korea "Come on, fellas. Please cut it out."
From Diana West's argument against Afghanistan:
The point is that sinking all possible men and materiel into Afghanistan to nation-build an Islamic culture into a pro-Western one (while simultaneously fighting Taliban and wading deep into treacherous Pakistani affairs and wars) is not the way to victory. In fact, it is the best way to bleed and further degrade US military capabilities. If I were a nefarious jihad chieftain, I can't imagine a better strategy than to tie up America's best young men in a grueling and open-ended war of hide and seek in the North West Frontier....
My fellow conservatives will say: But withdrawing from Afghanistan will give sanctuary to terrorists including Al Qaeda! My answer is that sanctuaries for terrorists including Al Qaeda exist all over the world, from Iran to London to . But it will embolden the terrorists! Frankly, I can't imagine anything more emboldening than the disgusting, shameful spectacle of Barack Obama bowing in deference to the oil-garch of Arabia--except maybe serving up Israel on a platter to its jihadist foes...and except maybe exhausting US capabilities indefinitely in Af-pak, as they now say.
Canada update:
About 20 percent of Canadians work for one level of government or their agencies. This is the highest per capita public sector employment in history other than in wartime. According to Statistics Canada, in the last three months of 2008, the number of civil servants grew by 96,000. In 2008, the total compensation package of wages and benefits grew by 4.3%, just over double the rate of the private sector.
A report released in December, 2008 by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business found that federal employees made 42% more than their counterparts in the private sector when salaries, benefits and pensions were factored in. At the provincial level the difference was 25% while at the municipal level the difference was 36%.
Sunday, April 5. 2009
- Planted a ton of purple pansies from Home Depot today as a Palm Sunday celebration. It's cold as heck out, but those Pansies have antifreeze. Dosed them with Miracle-Gro, but they are probably too cold to absorb it.
- Mrs. BD ran down to NYC instead of church to take a long, cold, brisk walk with the Bird Dog-ette along the Hudson River. Chelsea Piers to Battery Park, and back: an fine urban hike. She works in finance. She still needs her Mom sometimes. Her job is secure: they cannot do without her - and she is cheap for what she does. She is worried, though. If her bonus is taxed at 90%, she and her roomates cannot afford their apartment. 80% of her compensation is bonus. The salary is just token. Speaking of token, she doesn't need subway tokens: she speed-hikes 40 minutes each morning in the dark to mid-town from Chelsea, and hikes back home in the dark. 15-hour workdays - and she loves it (most of it). Some people love daily math and complex structured finance challenges at a minute's notice with a 4-hour deadline to redo the details - and some don't. "It's fun. It forces me to think fast, Dad." 80-150 million dollar muni deals. It's not for everybody. A lot of travel too, but she loves that.
- A chat with the gentle young Moslem Bangladeshi mini-mart guy at 5 this morning, whose wife and mother-in-law have arrived after a four-year immigration wait. He takes a cab to work at 1 AM: he is saving all of his money instead of buying a car. "How's the family adjusting to America?" "Pretty good. It's cold for them. I had to buy them coats." "How's their English coming along?" "Good. They study every day. It's coming along fast. My wife just got a job." "Doing what?" "Customer service." "My friend, I love these stories. Tell them I welcome them to America." "I will. Thank you."
No doubt these people are "the poor." America's poor are the young, the new immigrants, the feckless, the self-destructive - plus some plain unfortunate folks who get struck by bad lightning. These new Americans from Bangladesh are as rich as Croesus in spirit, hope, and opportunity, and they ask for nothing from America but a chance to build a life and a friendly word once in a while.
What a wonderful country. No wonder every sturdy soul in the world wants to come here. Too bad we have so many crybabies, when we have people like my minimart guy. Meanwhile, the Obamanauts complain.
Saturday, April 4. 2009
 Photo on right from our webmeister Chris's back yard yesterday. He has hired this fellow to organize his garbage recycling. I did the same. In fact, I have two of them moonlighting for me. The Brits, who seem so obsessed with their "bins," need some of these helpful critters to sort through their trash for them. They do an excellent job of spreading it out for your perusal.
Capt. Capitalism's amusing post about Sam linked to his older post about how the success of Capitalism produced The Mystery
Will Wilkinson outs himself. Come on, Will. Grow up and start drinking Scotch instead.
Speaking of bloggers, have you ever read Cobb? (h/t, 3 Kinds of Black at Vanderleun)
Europe lectures O: Overspending is not the answer. Guess what? It's not meant to be the answer. It's meant to redistribute.
Biofuels are the death of the jungles rainforests
Post-partisan census? This is beyond hardball. This is live ammo.
Where's my bailout?
Democrat debt is morally superior to Republican debt
 Today's Episcopal Church: Lesbian abortion-activist priests. It's not a religion. It's a Lefty, quasi-anarchist propaganda machine. Where are the good old hearty red-nosed Scotch drinking, golf-playing, skirt-chasing, Locust Valley lockjawed Episcopalians I fondly remember?
Re the London protesters last week (via Thompson's Friday Ephemera):
I think that they have looked back at 5,000 years of human history - at pestilence and famine and disease and degradation, at genocide and civil war, at fear and loathing, at bigotry and ignorance, chauvinism and dictatorship - and concluded that our biggest problem is... shopping.
Speaking of shopping, here's the #1 Non-fiction bestseller this week.
How come no bus tours past Fannie and Freddie exec houses?
Obama's political attack machine must be fully staffed. Hopey changey.
China surpasses US in auto production. Capitalism is working well in China.
Hey, Alan Colmes. Who the heck hasn't felt regularly dissed and humiliated? It's a normal part of daily life for everybody.
Why Obama and the NYT do not want the banks to repay their TARP money. Hey - that's my money. Just mail me the check, guys, and say the heck with it.
NYT loves unions - just not their own. They are different.
One more intelligent call to end aid to Africa. Handouts are death to a society, especially a developing one. The only good they do is to feed the egos of the givers.
Two good bits at Flopping: Obama and Krauthammer (unfortunately, not together).
Eric Holder's idea of "constitutional." Says the distinguished Eleanor Homes Norton:
"I don't think members are in the least bit affected in their votes on the question of its constitutionality," she said just last week. "People vote their politics in the House and in the Senate."
We hired these people?
This gives me the creeps: An intarnets czar? First they came for the smokers bloggers...Speaking of smoking, what's with Small Tobacco
Klavan takes on hate. We must always remember that "hate" doesn't mean what it used to. It's been redefined. Now it means expecting decent, civilized, respectful and responsible behavior from other humans.
What do these idiots want? And don't they have jobs? I think they want a free lunch.
MSM ignored O's bow. The House of Saud paid his tuitions, if I am not mistaken.
It's about time. An honest pint in Oregon.
Obama is the Master of Misdirection: Fred Barnes. Yes, we have noticed that too. There's always a distraction from what is really being done. It's effective politics, but it's basically an effort to fool the people who don't follow things carefully.
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Sam is still a child. Lots of Sams out there these days.
I'm glad to see PC finally extending into the fungal kingdom. It's only fair. Don't want to be guilty of speciesism.
Krauthammer: Obama's ultimate agenda
Whither print? Jules
Yet another depraved nominee. Where do they find these people? They are all Moonbats or tax cheats - or both.
Steyn on Obama's faux pas
How the Obamanauts lied about their petitions
Wood pulp and fuel. Your tax dollars at work.
Liberal Fascism at the NYT. Sort-of related: NYT's Bill Keller is losing it.
I wish I had a thick cortex. I do have a thick skull...
Ouch. O loses his place on teleprompter in France. Related: The Guardian's transcript of O's confusion yesterday is darn funny. Cruel, but funny.
Coming soon to your house: O's $163,000 tax bomb
Seems hardly fair that illegals would get a better deal than Americans.
Watts on the winter:
...remember - weather is not climate. and computer models should always supersede observation.
The guy wasn't joking:
The Dignitas clinic in Zurich claims to have assisted in the deaths of more than 100 Britons. The Zurich University Clinic found that more than a fifth of people who had died at Dignitas did not have a terminal condition.
Mr Minelli said that anyone who has “mental capacity” should be allowed to have an assisted suicide, claiming that it would save money for the NHS.
The NHS would be in fine shape if it weren't for all those sick and old people they have to bother with.
Friday, April 3. 2009
Friday art, from friend Theo who appreciates the finer things in life:
It's almost cruel to show the Prez so utterly flummoxed by a question in England (h/t, Am Thinker).
At Financial Times. Drag the slider at the bottom of the graph.
A music-loving buddy is a WXPN fan. OK, I know they are an NPR affiliate. You can enter their See Dylan in London contest without donating something, but that doesn't seem right.
Obama is "keeping score". So am I.
Why these guys do not work in a real business
Is it time for the Atlas Shrugged movie?
Do we now have The Soros Doctrine?
Is this legal?
FIRE's Speech Code of the Month
How money messes with your mind. h/t, Marginal Rev
Via WSJ Best of Web:
To be sure, America has made some racial progress. But the dream of equality will not be truly and fully realized until President Obama’s political detractors treat him with the same respect George W. Bush’s detractors showed him.
The night I met Bob Dylan, via Grow a Brain
The Coon Man of Detroit
They used to call this cowardice
Obama bows to King. WTH? These people don't know how to behave. Isn't there a Protocol Office? And what about that iPod? Is that "It's all about me," or what? These stories make me cringe.
Dem Senator: Obama budget unacceptable. Also, a Nashville Tea Party April 15
Time magazine, looking deep into the news
On shredding the Constitution. Where's the outrage?
Cap and trade is tax farming:
The cap-and-trade mechanism is primarily a method of constricting electricity production. The United States only gets 3% of its electricity from oil. Thus taxing electricity will do nothing to free us from dependence on foreign petroleum. Quite the contrary. To the extent that electrified transport offers an alternative to oil, such as subways, trolleys, and trains actually do today and electric cars might hypothetically do tomorrow, taxing their motive power can only make the situation worse.
The defenders of the cap-and-trade proposal, however, have advanced the proposition that strictly speaking, cap-and-trade is not just a tax, as its mechanism contains features not included in a conventional taxation system. In this they are correct. Cap-and-trade is not just a tax. It is worse than a tax. It is a modern version of tax farming.
Of course, the electric comes from coal. So what's so "green" about electric? We need to persuade the little people to give up electricity, so let's tax the heck out of it. Let them eat cake.
This tidbit via Willisms:
Thursday, April 2. 2009
NYT reports that the ABA has a Leftist bias! Gee, who would have thought so?
Perhaps that is what the NYT views as news. It has been a well-known fact for 20 years. Just one more non-profit org that was hijacked by the Lefties who didn't want to be tested by real jobs, years ago.
Will the Cuba travel ban be ended this year? I hope so. It's about time.
 Why does the most volunteering and most donating nation in the world need this Americorps? Some might be amazed by the good deeds my church does, asking nothing in return.
Success is now an evil for the FDIC
10 terms not to use around Moslems. At first I thought this was an April Fool. I am too insensitive for this.
Groupthink Conference at Duke. I think these folks inhabit an alternate reality.
Good war story at Jules
Is it just possible that the Taliban doesn't want peace? Their pitiful, hateful lives would lose all meaning and purpose.
Homeland Security becoming an employment agency for illegals
The press forgot to ask how much more money the taxpayer is donating to the car companies.
Fighting for free political speech:
BCRA... makes it a federal felony to fund any TV or radio broadcast that names a candidate for federal office in the thirty days prior to a primary election or sixty days prior to a general election, called the "blackout" periods.
The Obama Justice Department defended the FEC's action with a team from the department's elite Solicitor General's Office. But that team was outmatched by the lawyer representing Citizens United, renowned former Solicitor General Ted Olson.
Who is Harold Koh? We should care.
Sen. Gregg on national debt
Jacoby:
For years the political class has taken care of its own at taxpayers' expense. That is why so many former public employees enjoy retirement perks far more lucrative than anything typically found in the private sector. "The nation is dividing into two classes of workers: those who have government benefits and those who don't," USA Today noted in 2007. "The gap is accelerating in every way - pensions, medical benefits, retirement ages."
Dick Morris on Obama's plan to reduce the charity deduction:
In 2006, the most recent year for which data is available, four million taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes of $200,000 or more. They comprised 3% of the tax returns, made 31% of the income, but donated 44% of all charitable contributions. Together, they provided charity with $81 billion in that year.
Obama’s plan will cost them $10 billion in extra taxes on the income they allocated to charitable donations. How can the president be so glibly certain that they will not curtail their charitable contributions by a like amount or even more?
Imagine all the harm Obama’s program will cause. Churches will be hit most hard. They account for the largest share of charitable donations, but universities, disease research, hospitals, soup kitchens, and cultural institutions will also be hard hit. So will international relief efforts that funnel aid abroad through churches or directly.
It is totally dishonest for Obama to pretend that his curtailment of these deductions won’t hurt the poor. It will most directly impact them since most of the charities Obama is hurting focus on helping the impoverished.
This proposal is not about saving money. It is about controlling it. By, in effect, transferring at least $11 billion a year from private philanthropy to government spending, Obama empowers the public sector at the expense of the voluntary one.
That is exactly the point. The Left wants people beholden to The State, not to their neighbor. So they have to take the money from you to give to your neighbor - after taking their cut, of course.
Obama likes to talk about "false choices." It's a lawyer's trick. The false choices he discusses are about fundamental values:
Obama claimed in the Chicago Tribune that Americans “need not choose between a chaotic and unforgiving capitalism and an oppressive government-run economy.” That choice, he said, is a “false choice.” It is a false choice as he phrases it -- capitalism isn’t chaotic and unforgiving. But the simple choice between capitalism and a government-managed economy is a real choice -- and it’s the most important choice Americans have faced in half a century. Obscuring the need to make that choice by glossing over it with happy talk does a profound disservice to the American people.
According to Obama, “false choices” aren’t restricted to the economy...
Wednesday, April 1. 2009
 Here's a cruise I would enjoy
The pythons of the Everglades. Sheesh.
Sounds like a fine new Chaplin bio
What is it about American self-hatred? (I don't know - I don't have any of it.)
NY State once again attempts to drive people and business out of state. Why? Do they want to end up like Michigan?
They say "This is just the beginning"
We have Government Cheese, and now we have a Government Emotional Rescue Kit. Where would we be without those geniuses?
First-person accounts of the Revolutionary War, from common soldiers
NYT spiked ACORN story for political reasons. Duh. They were afraid the facts might affect the election.
Polygamy becoming legal in Canada? That should attract all of the Hollywood stars who used to threaten to leave America - but, sadly, never did.
Did socialized medicine kill Natasha Richardson? Probably
Keith Hennessey has a new economic policy blog
US spending is at the tipping point. Guess who gets to bail out the Feds when they make the nation bankrupt?
Bankruptcy probable for GM? It's only stating the obvious, but is it politically possible? Related re Detroit and the government's role in creating their problems:
...as one federal agency unloads tens of billions of our hard-earned dollars on the seemingly fruitless rescue of the auto industry, another happy group of bureaucrats works day and night to add a quick $1.5 billion to its burden. Is this the clinical definition of insanity or what?
Yes, the fuel standards are part of what is killing Detroit. Nobody is buying those little cars and little hybrids, but they are forced to build them anyway.
Kudlow: A truly breathtaking departure. Related: Cafe Hayek notes every detail that Obama was wrong about
Related, from Wilkinson: Are we flirting with Fascism?
Related: Dino is stunned by it all, and reminds us of Michelle Obama's creepy 2008 speech
But here's the real story behind the auto news, via the WSJ. One quote:
It's a bluff. The same administration that inserted itself into GM's corporate governance to order the resignation of a CEO is hardly likely to defer to the prescribed legal order for a failing company, namely bankruptcy. Even a "prepackaged" filing runs too much risk of a judge imposing more "sacrifice" on the UAW than the administration is prepared to tolerate.
GM bondholders understand this: They've been intransigent precisely because they calculate the UAW is too important to Democratic electoral politics for Mr. Obama to risk losing control of the reorganization process to a bankruptcy judge.
The GM bailout has become a political operation run out of the White House. It will stay that way.
The Guardian seems to have missed the point that the life-preservers for Polar Bears was a hoax. These bears routinely swim vast distances.
Dem cabinet nominee tax cheat du jour. Taxes are for the little people.
Rush to NYC: Drop Dead. I would not have imagined that he has a per diem tax when working from NY.
Via Insty, some affordable fly-fishing gear
In praise of Capitalist exploitation. Front Page
Grandiose and power-hungry: The UN
It seems the UN has got it in its head that it can run the economies of the entire planet. The same folks who ran the Oil For Food program for Saddam and ended up stealing more money than in any other caper in human history are proposing to “reorder” the economies of the world and save us all from rising temperatures.
Grandiose and power-hungry: It's all about me. Also, the hubris is remarkable
Tuesday, March 31. 2009
No time to write today, but I just wanted to post a little reminder that, in every recession in my lifetime, the Left screams "Failure of Capitalism!" and does its best to exploit the opportunity for government power grabs.
It's not about economics - it's all about power and control.
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