Tuesday, January 19. 2010
 A book. That was quick.
- h/t to a piece at Classical Values about the book.
Fun with Martha Coakley attack ads from Iowahawk via Doug Ross. I agree that the satire is marginally distinguishable from reality, but that's how reality can sometimes defeat the power of satire. A brief sample:
Narrator: "Did Scott Brown really murder his first wife in a fit of rage?"
PAN TO KNIFE LAYING IN A POOL OF BLOOD ON A KITCHEN FLOOR
Narrator: "Could you cast a vote for an accused murderer, child sex addict and batterer of the elderly?"
PAN TO SMILING COAKLEY IN COLOR
Narrator: "Say no to alleged criminal behavior: it's time for Martha Coakley."
Quite related: The Globe attacks Brown today: apparently Brown condones violence. Pathetic.
Re Brooks' The Pragmatic Leviathan today, I very much disagree with his view that the O admin is pragmatic and non-ideological, but I do think he is right about this:
The American people are not always right, but their basic sense of equilibrium is worthy of the profoundest respect. President Obama has shown himself to be a fine administrator, but he erred in trying to make himself the irreplaceable man in nearly ever sphere of public life. He erred in not sensing that even a pragmatic government could seem imperious and alarming.
If I were President Obama, I would spend the next year showing how government can serve a humble, helpful and supportive role to the central institutions of American life. Even in blue states like Massachusetts, voters want a government that is energetic but limited — a servant, not a leviathan.
From Insty on that topic:
We’ve controlled Haiti before, didn’t like it, and gave it back. Haiti’s best defense against invasion is that if you seize Haiti . . . then you have Haiti. I mean, if this were St. Bart’s or Bonaire you’d have something, maybe, but . . .
Related, The Englishman appropriately quotes from Kipling's 1899 The White Man's Burden - a poem variously viewed as ironic or sarcastic or literal - or an ambiguous mixture of all (which I suspect). One verse:
Take up the White Man's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the mouth of Famine,
And bid the sickness cease;
And when your goal is nearest
(The end for others sought)
Watch sloth and heathen folly
Bring all your hope to nought.
Related: Extreme moral preening at SDA. An EMS guy I know left for Haiti on Monday. He is a Godly guy who has the skills to do something that matters.
I still think the Dem could win this election in a squeaker. The machine is powerful and fully engaged, and will be driving thousands of Dems from nursing homes to the polls - and I know that all of my beloved but misguided MA relatives will be voting D (and would be even if the candidate were a child molester or a mass murderer. It's just a habit which makes them feel virtuous).
So, as if our MA readers needed a reminder, take a few minutes and vote today. This is one of those elections where every vote matters. In my view, the mere fact that Brown has a real chance is astonishing.
Bear in mind that Coakley Believes Democrat's GOTV Efforts Will Ensure Win.
Monday, January 18. 2010
A government fee is imposed on those who directly benefit from the government service, such as a fishing fee to support restocking, a fee for using a toll-road, or an extra fire insurance fee to support the local fire-fighting service in higher-risk areas near forests. A government tax is imposed on everyone, or most, though the government service does not directly benefit the taxpayer.
Eminently sensible Robert Samuelson opines that President Obama’s tax on the financial industry benefits all taxpayers, who have had thrust on them the costs of bailing out excess risk-takers who themselves benefit in higher pay for taking higher risks. However, Samuelson misses the fact that the tax would land on the well-run firms, acting to reduce their “reward” for acting responsibly.
More sensible, and targeted, would be a high, even confiscatory fee imposed on those in specific firms receiving a taxpayer-bailout who in the current or previous year received salary and bonuses above, say, $1 million. That would make them think twice about reckless gambling and insufficient due diligence. It may not raise enough to offset billions of taxpayer funds spent to stabilize markets, but it won’t stifle markets or penalize the responsible firms, and will encourage more responsibility by targeting rather than blunderbussing.
From Steyn, to whom we linked yesterday in our post on the MA Senate race:
As Michael Barone observed, "the educated class" was dazzled by style, the knuckledragging morons are talking about substance. They grasp that another year of 2,000-page, trillion-dollar government-growing bills offers America only the certainty of decline. Just before the Senate's health care vote, Obama, the silver-tongued orator, declared that we were "on the precipice" of historic reform. Indeed. On Tuesday, we'll find out whether even Massachusetts is willing to follow him off the cliff.
Sunday, January 17. 2010
Our employees in DC indeed seem disconnected from the majority of the folks they represent. From Noonan's Slug the Obama Story 'Disconnect':
In a time when the people of Massachusetts have real concerns about their ability to make a living, stuff like the Schumer letter is just more evidence of a party's disconnect.
Politics is about policy. It's not about who's emotional and who cries or makes you cry. It's not about big political parties and the victories they need in order to rule. It's not about going on some ideological toot, which is what the health-care bill is, hoping the people will someday see and appreciate your higher wisdom.
In a way, Mr. Obama's disconnection is a sign of the times... If the president wants to lead toward something better, he should try listening. If you can't connect through the words you speak, at least you can do it through your ability to hear.
Why the liberal Cape Cod Times endorses Scott Brown, at Powerline, and why a small newspaper's opinion matters. (Nothing to do with Coakley's inconceivable flub that Curt Schilling is a Yankee fan.)
I think the O's frantic last-minute visit to MA today will help Brown, but we understand that the purpose is not to persuade, but to get out the unenthusiastic Dem vote.
Related: America needs one brave Dem
Related: Coakley counting on union muscle to win. No doubt. Did you ever hear of "union brains" applied to an election?
Related: Hundreds turn out to greet Brown in Kennedy territory - Hyannis.
Related from Auster, who refuses to get his hopes up (me neither, but I lie to myself all the time):
The special Massachusetts election will be over on the night of January 19. Meaning that, if Brown wins, the signature measure of Obama's stunningly radical presidency will have been effectively killed exactly one year after Obama's inauguration. But, nope, I'm not investing any hopes in the prospect of Brown's winning. No sirree Bob.
Related from Steyn (the whole thing is hilarious):
America's preparing to celebrate the first anniversary of Good King Barack the Hopeychanger's reign by electing a Republican?
In Massachusetts?
In what the tin-eared plonkers of the Democrat machine still insist on calling "Ted Kennedy's seat"?
Saturday, January 16. 2010
 Scott Brown for Senator! Wasn't the O in CT a month ago to raise money for Dodd? Worked out well. Obama to Massachusetts to deliver the coup the grace?
Related: Martha Coakley says Devout Catholics 'Probably shouldn't work in the emergency room'. What a moron. How about Moslems?
Eureka! I am a Conservative (and I never realized it). Don't feel badly - it happened to many of us over the years.
Climate change! More China provinces plan power rationing -report
Heather: Chicago’s Real Crime Story - Why decades of community organizing haven’t stemmed the city’s youth violence
Friday, January 15. 2010
The people of Haiti are difficult to help now, but they have always been difficult to help.
If you want to do something now, we recommend World Vision.
Toon above via Theo
Anchoress: “Haiti is the broken bloody body of Christ”
Related, from Why is Haiti So Poor? (h/t, Marginal Rev):
Haiti, once called The Jewel of the Antilles, was the richest colony in the entire world. Economists estimate that in the 1750s Haiti provided as much as 50% of the Gross National Product of France. The French imported sugar, coffee, cocoa, tobacco, cotton, the dye indigo and other exotic products. In France they were refined, packaged and sold all over Europe. Incredible fortunes were made from this tiny colony on the island of Hispaniola.
How could Haiti have once been the source of such wealth and today be the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere? How could this land that was once so productive today be semi-barren? How did "The Jewel of the Antilles" become the Caribbean's hell-hole?
A Massachusetts Miracle looks possible. Not likely, but plenty possible. Related: Coakley does not have a good record as prosecutor.
Related: Dems Sucker Punch Mass Union Members
Fear Factor - The ideologues in Washington are scaring Americans.
Every group effort or organization has its obvious jerk. But maybe it's not so simple.
Climategate: How they hid the effect of the sun. Hid the sun? Related from Driscoll: It Was Only A Matter Of Time
Hey, Mr. Taliban: We aren't looking for a fair fight.
Thursday, January 14. 2010
I haven’t been enthusiastic about prior conservative free-market approaches as a solution to healthcare spending's pressure on the economy or individuals. Conservative proposals are, rather, a mitigator of overuse leading to overspending. Through “more skin in the game,” conservative proposals cause users to think twice about how much is really necessary.
The liberal approaches, by contrast, after the application of their best minds, are now proven to go in the opposite direction from cost reduction or improved healthcare. They lead to higher costs and just benefit a fraction of the uninsured, while vastly increasing the power of the government to impose its rationing generalizations upon individual needs – which vary -- while further insulating users from sensible involvement.
With HT to Instapundit, “The High Cost of No Price” from the American Enterprise Institute.
Economists have shown that if a good’s price is zero or decreasing, then the demand for this good will likely increase. In 2008, consumers were only directly responsible for 11.9 percent of total national healthcare expenditures, down from 43 percent in 1965, according to new data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This means that someone other than consumers pays roughly 88 percent of all healthcare costs, giving consumers little incentive to mind costs and much incentive to over-consume.
Like that word. Re the Met, at Classical:
I suppose if Christians want parity in respect, we should be recruiting our own brigades of ax-swingers and splodeydopes, but I did a little reading and apparently our founder's view on disrespecting our creed was some p***y-a** nonsense about "turning the other cheek" (like that's going to strike fear into the hearts of infidels). And as far as I can tell, none of our sects have any proviso for a bevy of pliant virgins on higher planes in the event of pious detonation. So Jihad For Jesus is going to be an uphill climb, to say the least. Meanwhile, I guess we'll have to settle for the smug moral superiority of suffering figurative slings and arrows in both cheeks.
Our friend Roger gets it. Related: Red has already won in Massachusettes Massachsittes MA. Related: Seating Mass. Senate winner could be delayed. Of course.
You want some Moslem cartoons? Here's one.
Full Body Scans to Double as Annual Checkups
Pethokoukis: 9 reasons why the Dec. jobs report is bad news for Dems. Their policies are job-killers.
Google is getting fed up with China. China does not trust its people.
Who predicted this? Obama Wants $33 Billion More for War. Guy is a cowboy warmonger.
Game-Changer: Why Did Reporters Keep Silent About Edwards? And Bill Clinton too. They're in the tank. Duh.
Wednesday, January 13. 2010
Old Haiti has needed our prayers for many years, but they sure need them now. Their doctors are praying too, and sometimes that's all one can do. Or the most one can do.
Is the MSM beginning to get it? From Jack Cafferty via Watts:
As the debate continues about global warming, the month of December was the 14th coldest in 115 years in the United States… and some scientists insist the earth is entering a cooling trend.
- Wind chills brought temperatures in the Dakotas to 50 degrees below zero, while record cold in parts of Florida is damaging some of the orange crops, and South Carolina called an early end to shrimping season.
- Parts of Canada have seen actual temperatures of 30 below zero… And freezing temperatures and record snowfalls are pounding parts of Asia and Europe too.
- Britain has experienced the worst snowfalls in half a century.
- In India – it’s estimated at least 100 people have died due to the cold temperatures… with dozens more killed in Bangladesh.
- In China and South Korea, heavy snow and unusually cold weather have brought chaos to travelers – blocking roads and trains, canceling flights. After one recent blizzard in Beijing – officials had more than 300-thousand people clearing the streets.
Meanwhile some of the world’s top climate scientists suggest this winter is only the start of a worldwide trend toward cooler weather, which could last for 20 to 30 years. They base their predictions on changes in water temperatures in the oceans
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