Maggie's Farm

I hope you had a merry holiday. I finally saw Borat - Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Hilariously un-PC and insensitive, and therefore highly recommended. Now, back to work.

Christmas in Baghdad. Photo from the piece at Gateway

Harvard's endowment likely lost much more than they are saying. University greed is the problem.

What's with the double-counting? I don't get it.

Handel's Messiah: I thought I saw the face of God.

The alarmists are becoming increasingly shrill. Maybe they are worried that we quit listening, and have begun to mock and satirize them. Dang it, we want warmening - for the children.

Coyote on the wind power scam and the green jobs myth.

A year of scary, trumped-up myths about smoking and obesity. Spiked. Sounds like people don't like to feel pushed around by the government they pay for.

AVI on Special Education. From everything I've read about education, "special" or otherwise, neither $, nor computers, nor fancy buildings make any difference at all.

"More Science in journalism school, please." Surber. My impression is that journalists understand science about as well as they understand economics.

Speaking of science, Politicizing Science at Powerline.

Steyn on Subprime Education,

... in America, so-called "expanding opportunities for college" is an obvious crock to absolve high schools of  their failure to educate.

with a h/t to Viking who also quoted Professor X thus:

There seems, as is often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces-social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students-that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.

Rape or love? Sounds like love to me.

What's the latest on Sen. Dodd? And why do Libs always get a free pass on their sleaziness?

Jonah critiques the New Republic's critique of Liberal Fascism

Well put, by Rick Moran:

Our economic situation is dire – and being made more so by mortgaging our future so that politicians can be seen to be “doing something about the problem.”

Let's begin with Scrooge.

Tierney at the NYT doesn't think much of O's science advisor. Sounds like a phony resume. More on Holdren here. (h/t, Insty)

Reisman rips another O appointee - Larry Summers

Huffington satirizes herself. (h/t, Jonah)

The stimulus plan: $1 billion for Las Vegas roads. Since when is that a Federal issue?

Talk about entitlement: Caroline not only refuses questions, she refuses to open her books. The arrogance and condescension aren't going over too well. But Uncle Teddy wants it.

Teasing vs. bullying

Expanding executive power? Who's complaining? Powerline. I am complaining.

"We don't predict, we project." Ignore the weather: it's Apocalypse Later. The Apocalypse is always later.

Related, at Flopping (this is amazing):

“Each of us has to decide what the right balance is between being effective, and being honest.” –Stephen Schneider Lead Author of reports for Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

And that, my friends, is exactly why we file our climate posts in the Politics category instead of our Natural History category.

Photo: The Renaissance Christmas tree at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC

Do the Hokey Pokey and go to jail in Scotland. Well, it is a dangerous song.

Sex in the Middle School stairwell? Dang, I grew up too early.

There is no hangover cure.

Teen morality today.

Chavez: Stop buying what you want

The death of Deep Throat and the crisis of journalism. Stratfor. The case that Woodward and Bernstein were Felt's tools.

I didn't know Bison had beef cattle genes. If they interbreed, does that mean they're races of the same species? (h/t, Jungle Trader)

My Republican Party was the town party girl. Am Thinker

From News You Can Lose in The New Yorker:

Newspaper readership has been slowly dropping for decades—as a percentage of the population, newspapers have about half as many subscribers as they did four decades ago—but the Internet helped turn that slow puncture into a blowout. Papers now seem to be the equivalent of the railroads at the start of the twentieth century—a once-great business eclipsed by a new technology. In a famous 1960 article called “Marketing Myopia,” Theodore Levitt held up the railroads as a quintessential example of companies’ inability to adapt to changing circumstances. Levitt argued that a focus on products rather than on customers led the companies to misunderstand their core business. Had the bosses realized that they were in the transportation business, rather than the railroad business, they could have moved into trucking and air transport, rather than letting other companies dominate. By extension, many argue that if newspapers had understood they were in the information business, rather than the print business, they would have adapted more quickly and more successfully to the Net.

The above was linked at a Buzzmachine piece about the decline of newspapers, Downbeat.

Nyquist, with a parade of stupidities. One quote:

The president indirectly proposes that the government knows better than the market. He is saying that the government knows how to save the market, namely, by violating the market. By way of analogy, this amounts to advocating promiscuity as a means for preserving virginity. It would be laughable if it weren’t so serious. “We’re in a huge recession,” said Bush, “but I don’t want to make it even worse.”

But President Bush has made it worse by throwing good money after bad, by redistributing the market’s losses, pronouncing in favor of moral hazard, and by making massive decisions for the market. What comes next is hyperinflation. According to a senior economist at Decision Economics, quoted in an AFP news story titled “Fed cuts rate to virtually zero, will expand stimulus moves,” the government is “pulling every lever and pulling them hard. They are going to print money until they get a reaction from the economy.” Well, the reaction has begun. The good faith and credit of the United States is over. Who is going to loan money to a government determined to inflate?

Consider the parade of stupidities we’ve seen since the crisis began in September: the bailout of Wall Street, the bailout of the banking system, and now the bailout of Detroit. This is what the president means when he says, “I’ve abandoned free market principles to save the free market system.” So the solution is to spend trillions to save trillions. But nothing is saved!

White House rightly slams the NYT for attempting to blame Bush for the housing bubble. Related: Quoted at Belmont:

...in an attempt to increase home ownership, particularly by minorities and the less affluent, virtually every branch of the government undertook an attack on underwriting standards starting in the early 1990s. Regulators, academic specialists, GSEs, and housing activists universally praised the decline in mortgage-underwriting standards as an “innovation” in mortgage lending. This weakening of underwriting standards succeeded in increasing home ownership and also the price of housing, helping to lead to a housing price bubble. The price bubble, along with relaxed lending standards, allowed speculators to purchase homes without putting their own money at risk.

Sowell reminds us once again about the facts on the Great Depression. People love the comforting myth that government helped.

Myth or scam? Green jobs, at Coyote

LaShawn wants this book: The Politically Incorrect Guide to Women, Sex and Feminism 

Photo via Theo, who knows how to celebrate Christmas

Wizbang:

The unspoken truth is that if Charlie Rangel was a white, conservative Republican his Democrat colleagues and the usual suspects in the media would not be satisfied with his resignation from Ways and Means, nor his apology. They would demand his prosecution for alleged felonies.

Britain has lost the stomach for a fight.

The emotion of "elevation"

Walter Dellinger: The juicy bits of the Constitution (h/t Joe Carter)

Obama's pair of Lysenkos

100% of top world terrorists are Presbyterians

The ongoing battle for Minnesota. WSJ

Dr. Bob on assisted suicide

The housing bubble, from Cafe Hayek:

There are four factors that helped drive up the price of real estate in the United States and create the housing bubble: The GSEs (Fannie and Freddie), the Community Reinvestment Act, expansionary monetary policy starting in 2001, and the 1997 Taxpayer Relief Act that for the first time let people avoid capital gains on home price appreciation without having to rollover the gains into a bigger house.

On addiction, via Dr X:

The problem is that the very concept of addiction is controversial and philosophically problematic, touching on great questions of free will, emotion, and even spirituality. Most of this is beyond the scope of this post (and, it must be said, beyond the scope of this amateur philosopher), but it seems safe to say that addictions are never entirely chosen nor entirely determined. They always hover somewhere in between, and it's hard to get one's mind around that (sort of like the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics on a psychological level, perhaps...

Image is this year's Christmas Card from our friend, artist Elissa Gore

Christmas shopping: All I bought yesterday was some wine. Nothing expensive, but I hate to show up at places with nothing in my hand. And it's snowing hard again this morning. Snow in the city is a lovely thing, and all gals look good in long black wool coats and furry hats.

Winter Solstice at Newgrange.

Christmastime is mating season? No. Every day is mating time.

Not my forefathers' Cape Cod. Who let these people over my bridge?

Mugabe holds his annual 124 cow feast.

Pre-industrial CO2 levels were same as now. How come nobody says so?

The war against Rush begins. He's too popular, too smart, and too amusing.

Kristof:

We liberals are personally stingy. Liberals show tremendous compassion in pushing for generous government spending to help the neediest people at home and abroad. Yet when it comes to individual contributions to charitable causes, liberals are cheapskates

Hilarious. Steyn on Bailoutistan

Hilarious. Terrapass at Powerline. A greenie scam if there ever was one.

Government TARP funds used to pay bonuses? I have a problem with that.

Wierd medical story du jour

China after 30 years of reform. Forbes

The NYT loves the soda tax. How about a chai latte tax for them? Maybe a kiche tax too.

Ace prediction: No complaints about Obama deficits

This is like many of our towns in the USA too: Recycling stuff goes to landfills. No market for garbage. If there were, they'd pay us for it.

The '97 tax break on home capital gains, and the housing bubble.

Good point at Conspiracy re card check. I wonder this: If 51% wanted to get rid of a union, could they?

I know the law is the law, but should you go to jail for dirty pictures? How different is that from going to jail for having dirty thoughts?

What governments do - NYS:

“Taxing the wealthy is probably going to be part of the solution if the deficit gets any worse, and all indications are that it probably will,” Mr. Paterson said during a wide-ranging conversation late last week. “If the deficit starts to grow again, then we’re out of moves. I’ve cut as much as I could.”

The governor said that increasing taxes on the rich should be “the last place you want to go, because it automatically kicks in less job creation and leads to people leaving the state, but that risk could become a reality if we have further deficit problems.”

With the state’s financial outlook growing bleaker, a sense that a tax increase for the wealthy is inevitable seems to be taking hold among lawmakers in Albany, where many Democrats have expressed support for such a step.

"I cut as much as I could." BS. "Don't tax you. Don't tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree." That is how states commit suicide - by punishing the earners. NYS is one giant political boondoggle. NYC is a good place to visit, but working here is like serfdom to the city and state unless you are so rich that you don't care.

Image via Theo

Humans caused global warming 8000 years ago.

Bulls and Beavers: Outdoor Personals

Ford refuses gummint aid. Chrysler (owned by a hedge fund) and GM accept the cash.

Related: Excellent summary of how Detroit went wrong by Megan

Caroline Kennedy often doesn't bother to vote (h/t, Anchoress) Related, from Capt. Capitalism:

A perpetuity of incompetent, spoiled brats who view public service as a cute little hobby and a means by avoiding work at all costs, and the economic mess we've gotten ourselves into.

Never do a good deed: CA OKs suing good samaritans

Home ownership. A quote from Boudreaux:

Ever-increasing home ownership is not the American dream. It's the dream of the National Association of Home Builders.

Quoted at Villainous:

"I was in my own little world,"' the young corporal said. '"I wasn't even aware of a lot of the rounds impacting near my position, because I was concentrating so hard on making sure my rounds were on target."'

Mama Government treats citizens like small children. Hawkins

Hitchins on Rick Warren. Ridiculous

Remembering Wallace Nutting, antiquarian (Photo is a Nutting chest of drawers)

Remembering Paul Weyrich. Many posts at NRO

1897: Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus

Getting stoned with Barry O

Czechs won't fly the EU flag

Dems are the new ethics story. WSJ

Eau de Meat, for Men

Slightly disappointed in Kathleen Parker

Viable by March? Who's kidding who? I pay for this because I didn't buy their cars?

Once again, posting early because busy in the AM. Outside of the finance biz, lots of work in NYC this year.

Just a photo suggestion for the fellas: If you have any $ left, and she is kind and gentle, worries about your contentment, speaks soothingly to you after a tough day, and takes good care of you, why not give her some diamonds?

Fairfield, CT: What sort of dumb town would put 14% of their pension assets into a single hedge fund? And to read about that Orthopedic group is pathetic. Even docs should know better than that. Are these guys going to do hips and knees into their 90s?

The return of the Old Left. Oh man, not again. How many times can they crawl out of their grave?

When the economy is good, taxes go up because supposedly people can afford them. When the economy is poor, taxes go up to cover govt deficits. See NYS for example. But people can't raise their incomes to cover them, can they? Where's the $ supposed to come from?

For shame! Illegally cutting down trees in a nature preserve. Are they legally culpable?

Secular decline of the semiconductor biz, plus the Kondratieff Wave Theory

Iowahawk: My Five-Year Plan Failed

Rangel Watch: Yet another Rangel scam. Will it ever end? No doubt there wil be more to come. It's the Rangel Circus.

Obama talks good, doesn't he? Let's watch the grammar, O, or we'll set a bad example.

Only for those without Econ 101. Coyote

Watching TV ruins womens' love lives. Want perfection? Try a different planet.

Nude models on strike in Paris. Some strikes are good.

Via Insty, this is both smart and wise (a rare combo):

MATTHEW KAMINSKI: Don’t expect global Obamania to last. “One hates to spoil a good party, but here’s a bet that’s far safer these days than a U.S. Treasury bill: Even with Obama at the White House, they won’t really like us any more than before. It’s not because America’s not a special country, a City upon a Hill, from the Pilgrims to Obama, the Blagojevich couple and other American horrors notwithstanding. It’s because it is. And as ever, our earnest assertion of our superior ontological uniqueness–not to mention its reality in and of itself–is exactly what always grated on the unfriendlies grouped together under the banner of anti-Americanism. . . . The departure of George Bush will change the mood music in America’s relations with the world, but–here’s the heartbreaker for our romantics–it won’t change how most people see America. Because, for ‘anti’ masses, it’s not really about us; it’s about them.”

Do you view college as an investment? If so, see how they stack up in returns on capital.

Would you buy a new car from this company?

Why government spending doesn't help in recessions. Betsy. (It's because the money has to come from somewhere.)

The Ten Dopiest Leaders of 2008. h/t, Insty

Caroline Kennedy? What's she ever done? I guess Teddy wants it done.

Major study finds no relation between school spending and achievement

Christmas Books: Thomas Sowell

Fed rates to zero. That is dramatic, but how about -1%? Kudlow says only tax cuts can help.

Pin-up from Theo

A third of hedge funds will go down.

Grim tidings for the news biz. McArdle

It's about morality: Thatcher's defense of free markets

Politics as fashion statement: Gitmo lawyers and the new Radical Chic. Good grief.

Our enemies are collapsing. Dick Morris

Neoneo observes, as we have been doing for years, the growing numbers of vocal climate skeptics. She links Sen. Inhofe's most recent press blog. One quote from that:

“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

Related: Who's in denial? Am Thinker

Quoted in the WSJ today:

When folks like Mr. Madoff create a Ponzi scheme, it's called fraud; when the Federal government creates a Ponzi scheme, it's called Social Security.”— Bud Hammons, responding to "Madoff