Monday, March 16. 2009
 More snow tonight here. Where's that warming they keep promising?
Sex in church in Alabama. Makes sense to me.
Famous war criminal to visit Canada
Dramatic advances sweep Iraq. (h/t, Insty)
Victimology 101 at Yale
Management 101 at Sippican
AIG defends their bonus compensation. Bonuses are how these folks get paid. Not their salaries. Same way with me. My salary is pin money. My bonus is what I get paid for working hard. No bonus means it's your time to leave because you aren't adding enough value to the enterprise. A job is not an entitlement.
Need financial aid for college? Related: Do we really need more college grads?
Also related: The College of Social Change
How is Roubini investing?
How a college defines hate. Idiots.
Paging Dr. Obama: Looking forward to government-run health care. If anbody imagines that the gummint will offer more, better, cheaper, they are dreaming. Gummint will offer controls and rationing of medicines and procedures, way beyond what any "evil insurance company" would do. You can count on it, because they are already saying so.
Related, a quote from Dr. Bob:
Here’s the question I’ve been pondering: is it an absolute good to be continually striving for a longer life span? Such a question may seem a bit odd coming from a physician, whose mission it is to restore and maintain health and prolong life. But the article which Glenn linked to, describing the striking changes in health and longevity of our present age, seemingly presents this achievement as an absolute good, and thereby left me a tad uneasy — perhaps because I find myself increasingly ambivalent about this unceasing pursuit of longer life.
Of course, long life and good health have always been considered blessings, as indeed they are. But long life in particular seems to have become a goal unto itself — and from where I stand is most decidedly a mixed blessing.
The joke is on our kids. (I have no kids, yet. No wife, either, yet: she will need to be lovely, sweet, serene, sexy, competent, smart, outdoorsy, vigorous, and devoted to me despite my flaws - and interested in everything.)
Related: Administration not Socialist enough, at Jules
Related: The Obama team decides to take control of the Capitol. Don't I recall that "one-party rule" was a bad thing? Never mind.
Who is my neighbor?, posted here at Maggie's.
If it's just a symbol, the heck with it. Anchoress
Facebook? Pointless. Twitter? Pointless. No doubt.
Kaus: Is this Admin too preoccupied with morals? Doesn't strike me that way. At all.
Bumpersticker below from Theo:
That's the evaporation of wealth in the US in 2008 - not including 2009. Some of that was mine - enough to make a difference in my plans and in my comfort level. No, I do not expect markets to only go up, nor do I ever expect to sell our house (which still has a significant mortgage) - but this was a tornado. A fluke.
Being no longer a young fellow, I must admit that it causes me some anxiety. We don't have pensions (who does these days, except government employees?). We have 401-Ks. I have no problem with working forever, but I did want some choice about it. I like choices.
IBD explains why it matters to everyone.
Tigerhawk explains why Lefties should be pleased about wealth destruction. More equality, etc. Tigerhawk can be a bit flip about it, though, because he is a young guy, full of beans and ideas, and clever enough to outsmart Obama's Socialist plans for us.
Sunday, March 15. 2009
Steyn: There are no enemies anymore
How the NYT covered the skeptic conference. Related: In denial about denial, Dr Sanity
Also related: Clouding up global warming. Reason
"pour encourager les autres." Origin of the phrase.
Health care reform taking place in secret. With no normal people, either.
Why Keynes is so popular in Washington
Brain begins aging at 27 (but wisdom continues to increase)
Riding the Blame Bush theme as long as possible
Corrupt Dem du jour: Rep. Engel
Obama's overtures to Cuba and Russia have been answered
Private school for me but not for thee
I don't know about you, but I don't want my medical records online
George McGovern revisited. Am Thinker
Hayek grabbing a bull by the balls, photo
Emerging question: Is the Administration incompetent?
The case for big tent parties. National Journal. I agree.
Saturday, March 14. 2009
How computer modeling worsened the financial crisis. American Scholar
How the Wall St. physicists tried to outsmart the markets. NYT.
Everybody loves to find a scapegoat. Never imagined that physicists would be them. Me? I blame Congress.
 Why did Lincoln pick Andrew Johnson?
Representation without taxation
Brussels Journal reports on this week's NYC climate conference. They begin:
More than six hundred scientists, economists, legislators, and journalists from around the world met in New York on March 8-10 for the second International Conference on Climate Change. Presentation after presentation documented the pseudoscience and dictatorial intentions behind the climate alarmism of the UN, EU, and Obama administration.
Read the whole thing.
Stocks that are never coming back.
Pride goeth before a fall in the polls.
Social status prudery. Overcoming Bias
How Radical is Obama? RWNH
The Myth of Relativism and the Cult of Tolerance. Anderson at American Thinker
Friday, March 13. 2009
Toon above from Theo
Some people just want to see the world burn. Goldberg
Cockpit Chatter. Amusing.
Carefully calibrating your fear to accomplish their goals. And it's quite clear what those goals are.
James Lovelock: Anti-Green Ecologist and classic Brit crank/harmless lunatic. How does he get newspaper coverage? If every person who is a bit off in the world got news coverage...never mind.
Now yet another one. Oh, almost forgot. A second one today. (It's usually just one per day.) How many Dems are crooks and finaglers? Has this been studied yet?
The Constitution says we should redistribute wealth. But how often? Hourly? Daily? Monthly? Seems to me that people move in and out of money. Mostly out, lately.
Good old Yankee Pittsfield, where the cops confiscate semen
IPCC Update: We're all gonna drown. I don't care. I have a boat.
Only going to tax the rich - as long as you don't count everybody else
It's tough being a woman making $350,00/yr in a do-nothing job. Government can solve it.
I am all in favor of natural forest fires, but this lady is wacked
Psychology Abuse. Shrinkwrapped
Dang gun lobby won't stop killing people. Will no one stop them?
The Liberal Revolution: Come for the egalitarianism, stay for the bestiality and tyranny.
Photo below from a NYC health food (?) shop in NYC, borrowed from Conspiracy. Worth every penny, no doubt:
Via Right Wing Prof:
"Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy?" - Jimmy Hoffa
 Re Yale: "Get the hell over yourselves, you whiny, parasitic little bitches.” More on Yale's peculiar preoccupation with sexuality from Yalie Never Yet Melted.
Finally, we have affordable housing. (h/t, Coyote)
This guy Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, posted by Roger here yesterday, is a piece of work. Where has he been hiding?
Wisdom from AVI:
I know how dangerous I am when I make pronouncements without examining my own motives. Do I fear poisonous ideas being left out on the buffet for anyone to take? A bit. There should at least be a sign that says, “Some people think this is poison.” But I object more strongly when the poison is being actively loaded onto people’s plates. I tend to intervene.
That comes awfully close to the center of my religious, social, and political arguments. Do you want a particular answer to be true? Then be most suspicious of that. Or, working in reverse, is there an answer you resist? Find out why.
Now Obama: Economic probs "not as bad as we think." Huh? Higher energy taxes and socialized medicine is what economy needs, claims Obama. How dumb does he think I am?
And how about this one: Cigar tax hike and other Congressional bullshit. Must be a tax aimed at Rush - and at The Barrister.
Taxman. You have to give the Brits credit for finding excuses to tax things. Well, maybe it's because they still believe they need to give China economic aid. More likely the opposite is true.
A new and frightening number. Dino
Insty:
BUSTING THE BRADY CAMPAIGN for firearms dishonesty. Of course, the alternative explanation — complete ignorance of what they’ve been banning — is even more damning.
"There will be blood." Henninger says This presidency is going to be an act of retribution (h/t, Blue Crab). Obama is a multimillionaire living off tax money. How about a cut in his salary?
The O's honeymoon fading: The Hill. Obama's quirks: Weekly Standard
We never mentioned the closing of Yucca Mountain. That means they don't want us to have nuclear power.
Sen. Dodd may have worn out his welcome. It's about time.
Americans like Big Government. They just don't know it yet.
How do you cut medical costs without tort reform? asks Zoller at Pajamas. Around here, OBs pay $150-200,000/year in malpractice insurance. In medicine these days, the rule is CYA rather than applying considered judgement. Thus a $2000 MRI for anybody with a bad headache or a dizzy spell.
Powerline:
...the destruction of trillions of dollars in wealth that we have witnessed over the last six months is unique in modern history. It isn't just the bursting of a bubble like the dot com collapse of 2000. It is a sort of neutron bomb effect, in which the physical means of production--buildings, fields, factories--are still standing, but the living heart of the economy, confidence in the future, has been wounded if not killed. I don't think that confidence (or, as Bill says, trust) will return any time soon.
Photo: Jefferson, at a rainy and foggy Quai d'Orsay, taken by our friend Nathan yesterday. He holds his plans for Monticello in his left hand.
Thursday, March 12. 2009
A Mr. Free Marketesque wave of a fine cigar to all of the sites that linked with Bruce Kesler's excellent and well-researched post on ObamaCare here. Light one up for the cause of freedom and choice in medical treatment, with our thanks.
We do want to get those facts out there because in a DC health care debate we will be the recipients of many self-serving and emotionally-manipulative lies and scare tactics.
 Our Editor and I have had an email discussion about Kesler's post. Sad to say, we agree that the facts often play a minor role in politics because Lefty politics is all about accumulating State power. Their term is "by all means necessary." Of course, that means removing notions of freedom, free choice, and self-reliance from all of their political equations. It isn't even discussed.
Except for abortion (which is arguably a political issue of self-determination but not, of course, for the tiny new life that is snuffed out), have you ever heard a single Dem or Lefty argument for more freedom, more independence, and less State power over the individual person? Or his/her hard-earned money?
Here at Maggie's, we tend to believe in the virtues of freedom and self-reliance for most, and the human tragedy of dependency only for those unfortunates who require it. That's the only way to build people with strong spirits. The only "universal" things we want from the Feds are protection from foreign enemies and law-enforcement.
(We should note that our blog friend Shrinkwrapped posted a simultaneous and fine piece on the same subject: Preparing for the "Healthcare Reform in the United States" Debate: Beware of GIGO)
 John Sununu speaks on the Politics of Global Warming.
Not satire: EU considers Fart Tax
Advanced paternal age and neural abnormalities
States ranked by freedom. Barone
Via Insty:
GOOD THING WE’RE NOT FACING A FINANCIAL CRISIS: “More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.”
What "legacy" is that, exactly? Will it include a stone memorial for Mary Jo on Chappaquiddick?
Stimulus for illegals, but no jobs allowed for foreign-born US biz school grads.
Horowitz' book: The One-Party Classroom
NYT: In favor of filibustering GOP nominees, but not for Dem nominees
Warren Buffett's comments. I like them.
Pelosi's air rage. Sheesh. She is shameless. Who does she think she is? The new mandarins.
Sec. of Education Duncan says:
D.C. has had more money than God for a long time, but the outcomes are still disastrous.’
Judd Gregg says:
All the presidents -- including George Bush -- since the beginning of our republic, will not have run up as much debt as this budget will run up in the first period of its term.
And there is no factoring in, really, of what is coming at us in a significant way, which is the retirement of the baby boom generation, the cost of entitlements on top of all of that.
So, you essentially have set up a scenario here under this budget, where we will pass on to our children in the very near future, at about the end of four years from now, a debt-to-GDP ratio which is unsustainable and a deficit ratio which is unsustainable. And that means our kids are going to have a hard time digging themselves out of this hole.
Gitmo guys go back to their same previous job. Moral of the story: Take no prisoners.
Europe warns re US spending
Rush's stats: Not everybody enjoys him. Interestingly, Camille Paglia does. So do I.
Don't kill Armey's Army
The Goracle refuses to debate. Or even to discuss. I think he has a problem of some sort.
Jammy notes Move-On war against medical insurors (and thanks for the link to us, JWF)
Wednesday, March 11. 2009
 Obama wants less college drop-outs. Focus on Outcome. Is "outcome" a piece of paper? That is easily done: High Schools hand them out every June to anybody with the brains and foresight to show up.
Why don't people live within their means, and save for a rainy day? A teed-off Sowell.
Man finds images of D-Day rehearsals
The 11 Most Expensive Catastrophes in History
Remind me again - what's wrong with bottled water? And what's wrong with using water too? Unless there's a local drought. Anybody hear about the water cycle? It all returns. Our drinking water is old dinosaur pee (which is why I stick with beer instead).
Not to worry about the environment. Sweden will save us all!
The results of 10 years of socialism in Britain
The Leftyism of academia is probably underestimated
Why aren't environmentalists celebrating the drop in consumption?
Dems getting worried about Obama. Jack Welch:
[Obama] is locked in another world. And he's throwing all these initiatives into this game in the middle of a crisis. Focus on the crisis! Focus on the economy!
 Related: The Obama Disaster: 50 Days that Changed the World! Related: Why Obama's case for doing so many things at once is pure baloney. (Image from SDA)
Related: Is Obama in trouble? DC Examiner. Is he a charming lightweight with what somebody referred to as a "dorm room philosophy"?
Not a bottom. Short covering. I think so too.
Jacoby at The Boston globe discusses the religion of AGW
2009 college grads face 22% drop in hiring
The new Left Wing conspiracy. Politico
Obama seeks to turn America to the Left of Europe - and the rest of the world. Related from Kimball: An idiot's guide to destroying the economy. Only amateurs can be as arrogant as these folks are.
Quote from Telegraph columnist Janet Daley at Powerline, re the economy:
... I grew up with the Left and what this looks like to me is a power grab: a seizing of the moment by the forces which always believed in state domination. The Left sees an opening here, first for telling a critical lie about the historical origins of this crisis, which was propelled as much by the Left-liberal determination to spread prosperity through easy credit to the poor, as by the greed of bankers. And then, out of the wreckage, to restructure the economy along the lines that it always wanted, complete with central controls over the pay levels in private financial institutions.
Tuesday, March 10. 2009
 North Korea puts Obama to the test.
Last week's purge in Cuba. So progressive!
A shining milestone for social justice. Related: Did Obama intentionally nuke the economy?
Related: Has the O Admin declared a War on Business? Why? It's the private sector which creates the jobs, supports all our charities and non-profits, and pays the gummint's bills. Without strong business, we ain't got nothin...as we are seeing right now. Sometimes I speculate about how many jobs, professions, and industries are ultimately parasitic to Business-produced wealth: law, medicine, advertising, academia, the entire investment and finance industry, every "service" industry, all of government...the list goes on and on. That's why any rational government would be thankful to business enterprise, and would try to get out of the way of those who want to produce and create. We have built a gigantic economically-interdependent superstructure on the backs of our wealth-creators. But this is all obvious, isn't it?
The ten biggest rookie mistakes of the O Admin. Related: Robert Samuelson labels O The Great Pretender
The war on Barbie dolls
Another women-in-science study
The US has 2 million job openings right now
Cap and trade is a tax on everybody. (h/t, Viking) Related: Why "doubling" alternative energy means nothing
Roger Kimball: On the road to serfdom. One quote:
...not only are the President’s naive and utopian fiscal policies exacerbating an already parlous economic situation: his starry-eyed understanding of foreign relations is set to compromise America’s defense capabilities at the very moment when other parts of the world–Iran, Russia, China–are struggling madly to upgrade their military forces.
A simple alternative to socialized medicine. NRO
A Supreme decision which will harm patients
This Pelosi move sounds like something Chavez would do. Only two months, and we have seen the Feds plan government power grabs in the banking biz, the auto biz, the medical biz, the pharmaceutical biz, the oil and energy biz, and the radio biz. And yet no screams about "dictatorship"!
Supremes narrow minority district protections. I find the whole idea disgusting.
Jim Cramer asks "Why am I a target of the Obama Clan?" Cramer is a Dem, I believe, and a free-market Liberal.
Who listens to Rush Limbaugh? Part of what limits and shapes his audience, I think, is work. Most folks cannot listen to the radio at work.
With the job losses, why do we need illegal labor? Opie reminded us about Operation Wetback. Also: Stimulus gives 300,000 jobs to illegals
David Axelrod having a surreal experience
Monday, March 9. 2009
My cousin Oscar offers this comment -
I don't want to sound like a spoilsport, but does anyone in the Mainstream Media or in the Obama Administration understand that the latest unemployment rate of 8.1% as of February, bad as it now feels, is actually close to the normal unemployment rate in France and most of the European Union (EU) without a recession?
Yes, that is the same EU which Obama and his friends want us to emulate in terms of much bigger Government, higher taxes on producers, weaker Free Markets, and much stronger Labor Unions.
In fact, there is no country in the EU which came close to the United States' former unemployment rate of about 4.5%, save Ireland, which adopted our Free Market approach and so was loathed by the other welfare states.
So, if you're an Obama enthusiast, stop whining. This is the norm for governments whose spending absorbs 30+% of their Gross National Product.
Get used to it...this is what you wanted.
Or, is it?
-Oscar
 To Hell with Niceness. I am all for that. I appreciate good manners, but not niceness.
Cockroach rights in Britain. How about some freedom for humans?
Cruel but funny.
Chris Dodd update: The Hartford Courant finally gives him some attention. (h/t, NRO)
In which Robert Reich calls people like us "crypto-fascist demagogues." Sheesh. May I engage in this mature, elevating and highly-informative discussion of the issues by calling Reich a "pinko dwarf"?
If CO2 is classified as a pollutant
Let them fail. Even God doesn't have enough money to support all these things.
Investing: Timing is nothing. Timing is everything.
Spinning it so it looks like Obama did it.
Repubs are The Stupid Party. They ignore tactics. They don't do tactics. Too honorable or too dumb? I don't know.
Nobody's home in Washington. Maybe that's for the best.
The Admin: Britain is just one more country. Not to me. Methinks The Teleprompter dislikes the Brits. Has he ever been there? No.
The Teleprompter signs on to the Cheney view of surveillance. Crickets chirp.
If the entire EU bureaucracy disappeared, would it harm anything?
Brit Hume says it's Obama's Bear Market. Via Gateway:
It's kind of a bear market within a bear market. The market was already down tremendously over the previous year, and I think most people entered this period of the new Obama administration thinking that it probably was bottoming out and that he would give by his very presence and by what he would offer real hope and that it would at least change the psychology a bit. It has changed the psychology, it seems, for the worse and I think he does bear responsibility for that, and the impression that he has managed to leave is that he's too busy with massive new spending and a scatter shot stimulus bill which was reckless and breathless new initiatives. On top of that you have this budget with all these breathtaking new initiatives to reorder our lives in a multitude of ways.
In the meantime, first order of business, the unfinished business of the previous administration. First order of business for the new administration, the financial crisis, the credit crisis. And, so far, no plan of any discernible shape of dealing with that. A couple of pieces in place as Governor Kaine pointed out. But that's what the market is looking for. It hasn't come. It's very hard. But, that's the big problem.
Sunday, March 8. 2009
 Horse domestication moved back 1000 years. Yet they are just as stupid as they ever were. Moron animals that will get you killed on them.
The Davis Cup, with Moslems. I didn't know that Moslems were big tennis fans.
Still forbidden at the NYT: The T Word
More on CT's attack on the RC Church
Jules uses the A Word. Rightly so.
Bloomberg defends the rich
Even Letterman making fun of Al Gore now. His insanity is not my fault. Blame the Supreme Court.
Bad, good; good, bad; and bad, bad. VDH
A great source of advice: A biz that makes no money. Cool, dude.
What is the CDS market telling us?
It was an insult, but nobody realized it except us.
Chavez to Obama: Wash your ass. Why can't the Socialists just get along?
Brits urged to stop visiting Disney World. That is good advice, but the rest of it is pure BS: Alas, the Brit footprint on the world gets smaller every day.
Book him, Dano
Is Obama lazy? Or is he overwhelmed?
CT goes to war against the RC Church
Our blog friend Prof Bainbridge is always re-working his site, but this is a complete change.
Nyquist: Why not the truth? "The truth will set you free. But freedom signifies responsibility, and who wants to be responsible? Ignorance, after all, is bliss – and bears no responsibility whatsoever. The most common excuse in any language is, “I didn’t know.” ?
Moral bankruptcy. Megan McArdle doesnt want to pay her Home depot bill
Harvard climate scientist Willie Soon: It's the sun, stupid. Related: Alternative Energy is a joke. Reality will rule, eventually.
Dems have doubled Rush Limbaugh's audience. Related: Samples of Rush's hate speech. Speaking about freedom and opportunity and human potential is hateful, right? Of course it is.
The triumph of the Fabians in England, and what we face today
Volker: Bring back Glass-Steagall
Obama keeps looking for enemies
Plenty of opposition to cap and trade
Overtures to Cuba
More on the teleprompter story
It was terrible when Bush wanted to do it, but it's OK for Obama to de-list the Gray wolf
Saturday, March 7. 2009
From Stuart Taylor (h/t, Insty). He begins:
Having praised President Obama's job performance in two recent columns, it is with regret that I now worry that he may be deepening what looks more and more like a depression and may engineer so much spending, debt, and government control of the economy as to leave most Americans permanently less prosperous and less free.
Other Obama-admiring centrists have expressed similar concerns. Like them, I would like to be proved wrong. After all, if this president fails, who will revive our economy? And when? And what kind of America will our children inherit?
Read the whole thing.
The media just found out that Sullenberger is a Republican:
A book: What he must be if he wants to marry my daughter
Hopeful about Afghanistan
Imagine what they'd be saying if Bush did this
How did California commit suicide? VDH
Via Animals as Weapons at Ace:
”A couple drove 170 kilometres (100 miles) from South Africa's famous Kruger National Park with a highly venomous spitting cobra in their car, the Beeld newspaper reported on Wednesday.”
“Gordon Parratt, 69, felt the 85-centimetre (33-inch) long snake wind itself around his leg while he was driving.”
Always check your car for snakes.
From Krauthammer's The Big Bang Agenda:
...with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.
What's going on? "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste," said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. "This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before."
Things. Now we know what they are. The markets' recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions -- the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic -- for enacting his "Big Bang" agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.
Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.
From Examiner:
Has this late winter storm left you scratching your head about global warming? This winter itself has proven to be cold and snowy for most of the US, including many southern locations (Las Vegas, New Orleans, Houston, and Hawaii). The snow finally arrived in the Mid Atlantic, albeit late in the season. The irony of five inches of snow still did not stop the Global Warming protest in DC on Monday, but the onslaught of new research may hinder others.
Michael Reilly posted an article in Discovery News that is getting a lot of internet traffic, as well it should. It brings up the possibility that warming of the planet will not resume.
"A financial crisis is the worst time to change the foundations of American capitalism."
Powerline:
Most people ... have figured out that the Obama administration is making war on the private sector. No wonder the stock market is in the tank and employers continue to lay off workers.
The Obama stock market:
Friday, March 6. 2009
 I heard Doris Kearns Goodwin interviewed on Imus this morning during my 6 AM drive to work, and lost all respect for her. She was flacking hard for Obama.
She claimed that "nobody knows what to do about the economy." She said that Obama must experiment with government's role just as FDR did. She said his personal popularity polls show that people believe that he cares, and that's the important thing. She said he needs time to solve all the problems (What!?!). Oh, I almost forgot. She said that teleprompters are the modern way (although neither she nor Don Imus were using one).
Wrong on all counts. Pure flackery by a partisan Dem delivering Dem talking points propaganda. I would have expected more from her.
I'll just take her first point, because I happen to know what to do: 1) Restore the uptick rule to discourage the highly profitable bear raids against solid companies (rumor is that Russian and Chinese hedge funds are making a mint doing that, probably in collusion). 2) Cut corporate taxes to encourage hiring 3) Cut cap gains taxes to encourage investment in business growth 4) Cut individual tax rates to unleash spending and to remove the crushing threat of higher taxes 5) Get rid of "mark to market": it makes it almost impossible to make a long-term inventment in a tree that needs time to bear fruit. 6) Quit the war against business and the delusion of big government "solutions" (ie my money) to everything from my health to GM's de facto bankruptcy, and 7) Talk up the American economy and its resilience.
In other words, unleash the animal spirits of the economy and the creative power of the people instead of frightening everybody by threatening to put it all on a tighter leash. People yearn to be unleashed to do things and to follow their dreams, and not to be hand-fed or to become serfs to The State. Disincentivization to effort and reward has been tried elsewhere, and it does not work very well. (Plus a prosperous nation is in a good position to take decent care of its feckless, unmotivated, parasitic, and unfortunate.)
But they will do none of those things, because they are not about what works. They are about their ideology and their political goals. They are clever, crafty and tricksy - but deeply unwise, and unwilling to think outside their little old 1930s box.
Why? Same old reason: These people live inside government, and thus play the government game. They love power, and somehow became deluded into thinking that they are smarter than us regular folks. Wrong! Disgusting as it may be, whatever 'system" they give us, people will find a way to "work it" for their own interests. It's called "incentive," and it is quite human: people want to take care of themselves, their families and their loved ones - and they want to be free to do things their own way, whether they screw it up or not.
It's about human dignity. Nobody can give anybody that. All anybody can do is to free people to pursue it.
 One last weekend of skiing for me, but already planning for summer. My group just leased our usual 345 Conquest for July and August, which we keep docked in Rhode Island. Thinking about beaches (that's a Theo beach gal) and fishing and clams, and hoping we get a break from this global cooling.
Strange how many people are reconsidering not joining Obama's administration. The acclaimed Dr. Gupta just changed his mind, and two Treasury folks did too. What's that all about? It's possible that they aren't sure they can get with the program. See Nobody wants to work with Timmy.
Related re Geithner: "we've never seen such incompetence."
Obama never speaks without a Teleprompter. That's not magic; that's kinda lame. Plus, what happens when their energy policy eliminates electricity? Related: Obama The Magician at Am Thinker. Truthfulness is turning out not to be one of his virtues.
Instead of "The O," I think I'll start calling him "The Teleprompter," or "The T" for short. No, I do not have ODS yet, but I do not like where things are headed.
Confederate Yank explains why Lefty Dems don't care about the economy. The worse the mess, the better for them. Powerline asks Are they doing it on purpose?
Related: Dem war on small biz may cause 14% to fail next year
Nunchucks are illegal in New York? Sheesh. And they are neither automatic nor semiautomatic.
This story about Obama and Brown's visit is almost too embarassing to read
And the initial stab at "smart diplomacy" with Russia is equally embarassing. Hello. They are pursuing their own interests. For how long will the MSM give Obama "A"s just for showing up? Or what's the plan, bend over for Russia and smack the Brits? Jules
Do the rich vote Republican? No
Sad: GOP outreach to Hispanics a flop
Quote from Cramer:
We had a banking crisis coming into this regime, but now every area is in crisis. Each day is worse than the previous one for this miserable economy and while Obama's champions cite the stimulus plan, it's really just a hodgepodge of old Democratic pork and will not create nearly as many manufacturing or service jobs as we hoped. China's stimulus plan is the model; ours is the parody.
The UN consider laws against criticism of Islam. Good grief. The UN is the joke heard 'round the world.
Obama's energy proposals and your utility taxes. neoneo
Hates debate. Noted at Driscoll:
Liberal talk radio host Stephanie Miller on CNN’s Larry King Live: “maybe Rush Limbaugh should be executed for treason.”
Liberal Fascism?
Note: We had lots of comment interest in our An obsolete model for education. Check it out if you haven't.
Thursday, March 5. 2009
An honest accountant dies and St. Peter tells him that he must first spend a day in hell to decide where he wants to be. In hell, he finds beautiful golf courses without greens fees, alluring women who promise to fulfill his fantasies, and a mansion without cost to him. The accountant returns to St. Peter and tells him that hell is his choice. Upon arriving back in hell, it’s a desolated wasteland full of poor wretched souls, the women are decrepit and reject him, and his home is a hovel. The accountant asks the Devil about the change. The Devil replies: Before you were a recruit, now you’re staff.
The former Director of the Congressional Budget Office, respected for honest accounting, Peter Orszag, is now Director of President Obama’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Now he’s staff.
His fall from grace was on exhibit several times this past week.
Last Friday, Orszag defended the trimming of itemized deductions by asserting that, “the best way to boost charitable giving is to jumpstart the economy and raise incomes – and the purpose of the Recovery Act enacted earlier this month was to do precisely that.”
The conclusion of the current Congressional Budget Office on the stimulus Recovery Act? As Harvard economics professor Greg Mankiew reports:
“they estimate the long-run effect on GDP may be slightly negative due to crowding out.”
In a Congressional hearing on President Obama’s budget forecast, Orszag was questioned how the budget could count savings based on the “surge” in Iraq continuing for 10 more years when President Obama announced all combat troops would be withdrawn by 2010. The YouTube is here. Orszag counts as “savings” not continuing for 10-years the temporary level of “surge” troops in 2008. Peter Wehner, former Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the White House Office of Strategic Initiatives, now a Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, observes: “This is, even by Washington standards, unusually dishonest. And coming from the administration of Barack Obama, who promised us “honest” accounting and made a big show of how much integrity and candor he would bring to his governing, this is astonishing.”
Democrat Senator Max Baucus, a leader in the Obama administration’s effort to enact sweeping, mostly untested or tested and found wanting, changes to Americans’ health care, pressured the current Director of CBO to cook the books. Senator Baucus: “…it’s not too much of an overstatement to say CBO can make or break health care reform, and I mean that because we got to go by your numbers…I do believe that there are several different intellectually honest pathways to get from here to there. It’s not just one automatic, and so it needs - you got to be ever more creative to find intellectually honest pathways to get the savings we have to have - practically and both politically - to get health care reform.”
A crooked employer asks several applicants for an accounting position the answer to 2 + 2. The winning applicant asks the employer what he wants the answer to be.
That’s the kind of accounting the Obama administration is practicing. It’s not a joke.
 Chart on right via Am. Digest
Via Lucianne:
President Obama's newly named Economic Recovery Advisory Board, the real-world Americans being asked to help solve the nation's financial crisis, includes a union executive who took the Fifth in a federal probe, a billionaire whose failed bank pioneered the subprime mortgage market, and deep-pocket donors who gave or gathered nearly $1.2 million for the president's campaign. In all, 11 of the 16 board members donated or raised money for Democrats in the last election.
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