NoCo Surrounds Them - We Will Not Fall: 2011

Saturday, December 31, 2011

And Another...

Vera Brittain Quotations Compiled by GIGA (Page 1): "Politics are usually the executive expression of human immaturity. - Rebel Passion [Politics] "

QOTD: The Education of Henry Adams

The Education of Henry Adams - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: "Politics, as a practice, whatever its professions, has always been the systematic organization of hatreds."

Any questions?

Friday, December 30, 2011

Reforming Kinetic Islam's Non-Hostile Erections

The American Spectator : 2011: The Year the Wheels Fell Off: "MARCH: In January, Obama had proclaimed France our best and strongest ally. Because the French never forgive a favor, Sarkozy dragged Obama into his war for glory in Libya. Barry called it a "kinetic military action" and cute little Sarah called it a "squirmish." My blazingly brilliant pal, Andy McCarthy, said that henceforth we should call acts of terrorism "kinetic Islam." Barry told Congress to stuff its War Powers Resolution because bombing Libya wasn't a hostile act. Meanwhile, Hillary called Syria's Bashar Assad a "reformer."

Obama's hostility was reserved for Israel, and only increased when Israeli PM Netanyahu schooled him in front of the television cameras. Despite comments from both governments, it was clear that Obama's anger, in this instance, emanated only from the fact that Bibi pulled it off without a teleprompter."

And wait for it...

Meanwhile, New York Cong. Anthony Weiner (D-of course. Why did you even ask?) became the first known "Twitticide" when he sent a picture of his aroused equipment out via the social networking site. As a NY Post headline said, "Erections have Consequences."

And now you know you need to RTWT, don't you?

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

You've Been Repo'ed

Repo Men - Kevin D. Williamson - National Review Online: "“At the risk of oversimplifying it,” one Wall Street insider explains, “imagine a bank went bankrupt. Then the regulators came in and cracked open all the customers’ safe-deposit boxes, even though they knew for certain that none of the contents belonged to the bank. Then they tossed those assets into the pile for the creditors to pick through and told the box holders to get in line as well. That’s what folks are saying is happening here. And in a situation like that, who wants a safe-deposit box?

So there you have it: hedge-fund titans, i-bankers, congressional nabobs, committee chairmen, senators, swindlers, run-of-the-mill politicos, and a few outright thieves (these categories are not necessarily exclusive) all feeding at the same trough, and most of them betting that Mitt Romney won’t do anything more to stop it than Barack Obama did. If anything, the fact that Romney is having the least luck with the firm that knows him best speaks better of him than does the enthusiasm he apparently inspires in Goldman Sachs et al.

Either way, the last thing Wall Street wants is for the Corzine scandal to launch a new round of frenzied outrage out there on the fruited plains where dwell people who don’t know an IPO from a CDS, and who might suspect that something here is not entirely on the up-and-up. They’re hoping that conservatives can be buffaloed with a bit of cheap free-market rhetoric into not noticing that something is excruciatingly amiss here. They are the repo men, headpiece filled with subprime-mortgage derivatives, and they are looking to repossess the Republican party they abandoned in 2008 (see “Losing Gordon Gekko,” National Review, March 9, 2009). Free-market, limited-government conservatives should be none too eager to welcome them back, nor should we let our natural sympathy with the profit motive blind us to the fact that a great many of them do not belong in the conservative movement, and that more than a few of them belong in prison."

I have given you the grand finale but you need to click through all 6 web pages starting here. It includes some good stuff from "Throw Them All Out" as well ... which you also need to read if your blood pressure can take it.

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Stopped Clock Watch: David Brooks Bad Combination Edition

Midlife Crisis Economics - NYTimes.com: "Second, the governmental challenge is very different today than it was in the progressive era. Back then, government was small and there were few worker safety regulations. The problem was a lack of institutions. Today, government is large, and there is a thicket of regulations, torts and legal encumbrances. The problem is not a lack of institutions; it’s a lack of institutional effectiveness.

The United States spends far more on education than any other nation, with paltry results. It spends far more on health care, again, with paltry results. It spends so much on poverty programs that if we just took that money and handed poor people checks, we would virtually eliminate poverty overnight. In the progressive era, the task was to build programs; today the task is to reform existing ones.

Third, the moral culture of the nation is very different."

And wait for it:

One hundred years ago, we had libertarian economics but conservative values. Today we have oligarchic economics and libertarian moral values — a bad combination.

Well, they were relatively libertarian. But no kidding about the bad combination part.

Monday, December 26, 2011

From Behind (Just One More Cheery Christmas Post)

Belmont Club » No Worse Friend, No Better Enemy: "And that is a shame. For there are many nonviolent and peaceful ways in which the evil which killed people across Nigeria on Christmas Day may be fought. One of them is using words to name it. The other is sending material relief to its victims. Still another is to open the doors to those it persecutes. None of these partake of war. None of these harm a hair on the head of al-Qaeda or Boko Haram.

How likely is it that any of these will be done by those who profess to be Christianity’s friends? Very little likelihood because in the end, the Left would finish up naming itself. But the remaining Christians probably would not mind an open declaration of hostility. If the Left is going to do the deed, they might have the decency to do it face to face rather than from behind."

Fitting The Template

Statement from fmr. Ron Paul staffer on Newsletters, Anti-Semitism | Right Wing News: "If you take anything from this lengthy statement, I would hope that it is this final story about the Afghanistan vote, that the liberal media chooses to completely ignore, because it doesn’t fit their template, is what you will report.

If Ron Paul should be slammed for anything, it’s not some silly remarks he’s made in the past in his Newsletters. It’s over his simply outrageously horrendous views on foreign policy, Israel, and national security for the United States. His near No vote on Afghanistan. That is the big scandal. And that is what should be given 100 times more attention from the liberal media, than this Newsletter deal."

It's a bit lengthy but I think it deserves the RTWT stamp...

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Have Yourself A Shovel Ready Christmas

The 50 Best Political Quotes For 2011 (Third Annual) | Right Wing News: "20) Within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible. — Sarah Palin

19) If the tea party is so racist, how come when they have straw polls the black guy keeps winning? — Herman Cain

18) My next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this administration. — Gary Johnson"

Heh.

A Mark Steyn Fact-Based Christmas

Elisabeth’s Barrenness and Ours - Mark Steyn - National Review Online: "Our lesson today comes from the Gospel according to Luke. No, no, not the manger, the shepherds, the wise men, any of that stuff, but the other birth: “But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John.”

That bit of the Christmas story doesn’t get a lot of attention, but it’s in there — Luke 1:13, part of what he’d have called the backstory, if he’d been a Hollywood screenwriter rather than a physician. Of the four gospels, only two bother with the tale of Christ’s birth, and only Luke begins with the tale of two pregnancies. Zacharias is surprised by his impending paternity — “for I am an old man and my wife well stricken in years.” Nonetheless, an aged, barren woman conceives and, in the sixth month of Elisabeth’s pregnancy, the angel visits her cousin Mary and tells her that she, too, will conceive. If you read Luke, the virgin birth seems a logical extension of the earlier miracle — the pregnancy of an elderly lady. The physician-author had no difficulty accepting both. For Matthew, Jesus’s birth is the miracle; Luke leaves you with the impression that all birth — all life — is to a degree miraculous and God-given.

We now live in Elisabeth’s world — not just because technology has caught up with the Deity and enabled women in their 50s and 60s to become mothers, but in a more basic sense. The problem with the advanced West is not that it’s broke but that it’s old and barren. Which explains why it’s broke. Take Greece, which has now become the most convenient shorthand for sovereign insolvency — “America’s heading for the same fate as Greece if we don’t change course,” etc. So Greece has a spending problem, a revenue problem, something along those lines, right? At a superficial level, yes. But the underlying issue is more primal: It has one of the lowest fertility rates on the planet. In Greece, 100 grandparents have 42 grandchildren — i.e., the family tree is upside down. In a social-democratic state where workers in “hazardous” professions (such as, er, hairdressing) retire at 50, there aren’t enough young people around to pay for your three-decade retirement. And there are unlikely ever to be again.

Look at it another way: Banks are a mechanism by which old people with capital lend to young people with energy and ideas. The Western world has now inverted the concept. If 100 geezers run up a bazillion dollars’ worth of debt, is it likely that 42 youngsters will ever be able to pay it off?"

Not very likely, is it? And then there's this for the whipped cream on top:

If the problem with socialism is, as Mrs. Thatcher says, that eventually you run out of other people’s money, much of the West has advanced to the next stage: It’s run out of other people, period.

RTWT. But not to worry, our Democrat/Socialist/Communist "betters" aren't math challenged or anything. Or have any compunctions about cutting you up why you're still alive.

Did I forget to say Merry Christmas? You can perhaps see why now...

The Xinjiang Procedure: Merry Christmas From Tom Friedman's "Superior Chinese Model"

The Xinjiang Procedure: "Enver worked fast, not bothering with clamps, cutting with his right hand, moving muscle and soft tissue aside with his left, slowing down only to make sure he excised the kidneys and liver cleanly. Even as Enver stitched the man back up—not internally, there was no point to that anymore, just so the body might look presentable—he sensed the man was still alive. I am a killer, Enver screamed inwardly. He did not dare to look at the face again, just as he imagined a killer would avoid looking at his victim.

The team drove back to Urumqi in silence.

On Thursday, the chief surgeon confronted Enver: “So. Yesterday. Did anything happen? Yesterday was a usual, normal day. Yes?”

Enver said yes, and it took years for him to understand that live organs had lower rejection rates in the new host, or that the bullet to the chest had—other than that first sickening lurch—acted like some sort of magical anaesthesia. He had done what he could; he had stitched the body back neatly for the family. And 15 years would elapse before Enver revealed what had happened that Wednesday."

I hope you're enjoying your Christmas. Christians and Muslims in China not so much.

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Silent Night For The Dimwitted Saps

Instapundit » Blog Archive » MARK STEYN: Silent Night. “On this Christmas Eve, one of the great unreported stories throughout w…: "MARK STEYN: Silent Night. “On this Christmas Eve, one of the great unreported stories throughout what we used to call Christendom is the persecution of Christians around the world. In Egypt, the ‘Arab Spring’ is going so swimmingly that Copts are already fleeing Egypt and, for those Christians that remain, Midnight Mass has to be held in the daylight for security reasons. In Iraq, midnight services have been canceled entirely for fear of bloodshed, part of the remorseless de-Christianizing that has been going on, quite shamefully, under an American imperium. Not merely the media but Christian leaders in the west seem to be embarrassed by behavior that doesn’t conform to their dimwitted sappiness about ‘Facebook Revolutions’.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:55 pm"

Oh, and Merry Christmas...

The Corruption of America

The Corruption of America: "America has many problems... but these neighborhoods represent more than a society in decline. Life in these places reflects a complete collapse of Western civilization. What's happening in these communities? A breakdown of the family and the resulting collapse of the school system. What you have left is crime – violent and political.

In Detroit, only 27% of the black male students in the school system graduate from high school. This is not a racial problem: Only 19% of the white male students graduate from those same schools. What's causing this problem? A complete breakdown of society. When communities can no longer teach their children the most basic academic skills, such as reading, math, history, literature, and economics... what future can we expect? And what kind of society do you expect after several generations of total ignorance?"

To say this one is a RTWT is a vast understatement. As Benjamin Franklin told the inquiring lady, they gave us a republic if we can keep it.

We have lost it.

Another morsel:

As my friend Doug Casey likes to say about the War on Poverty, "The poor lost."

... at the hands of the Socialist Democrats that now also run our churches. There, I said it. How's that for speaking truth to power?

Merry Christmas Eve...

Looted On Christmas Eve

Thought for the Day | Power Line: "“The individualist is being looted by his own country as if it were an enemy.”"

Powerline strikes again. The spy behind enemy lines indeed.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Smash The State Update: Lying Jack*ss Christmas Edition

Hayward points out today that a normally lefty site has uncovered how the Democraps gamed the recent "nonpartisan" California re-districting process:

Why “Reform” Makes Problems Worse: A Case Study | Power Line: "The citizens’ commission had pledged to create districts based on testimony from the communities themselves, not from parties or statewide political players. To get around that, Democrats surreptitiously enlisted local voters, elected officials, labor unions and community groups to testify in support of configurations that coincided with the party’s interests.

When they appeared before the commission, those groups identified themselves as ordinary Californians and did not disclose their ties to the party. One woman who purported to represent the Asian community of the San Gabriel Valley was actually a lobbyist who grew up in rural Idaho, and lives in Sacramento.

In one instance, party operatives invented a local group to advocate for the Democrats’ map."

What a shocker, huh? After which Hayward comments:

One of my favorite books that bears on this question is Alan Ehrenhalt’s The United States of Ambition, published more than 20 years ago. While the book is about political ambition generally, Ehrenhalt spends a lot of time exploring the question of why Democrats often dominate politics even in suburban districts and areas where Republicans ought to dominate it by virtue of their larger numbers or general culture. (The classic case of this was Irvine, California, in the early 1990s, where a deep red Republican town elected the socialist Larry Agran as its mayor.) He concludes simply that Democrats work harder at it, and goes part of the way to my explanation about the substantive differences between Democrats—the party of government—and Republicans—the party of the private sector.

This is one reason why I was never very enthusiastic about term limits, even though I usually voted for them simply for the splendid insult they deliver to the political class. Democrats have an endless bench of smart and ambitious people ready to move up the ranks. Republicans, not so much.

I don’t have a good solution for this, except for getting a bigger typeface on my bumper sticker that reads “SMASH THE STATE.”

Of course, the Repubs are actually the stupid party, not the party of the private sector. And they feed at the trough more and more. But some semblance of the point remains...

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Pretending To Pretend Nothing

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ACTUALLY, THE WORST THING ABOUT THE SHOCKING DOWNWARD REVISION IN HOUSING SALES isn’t this: “it may…: "When I read the post about how we can’t trust anyone’s numbers, I recalled this quote from Vaclav Havel, first seen at smalldeadanimals. He was writing about Communist regimes, but why do I feel he’s writing about us when I read it? (emphasis mine)

The post-totalitarian system touches people at every step, but it does so with its ideological gloves on. This is why life in the system is so thoroughly permeated with hypocrisy and lies: government by bureaucracy is called popular government; the working class is enslaved in the name of the working class; the complete degradation of the individual is presented as his ultimate liberation; depriving people of information is called making it available; the use of power to manipulate is called the public control of power, and the arbitrary abuse of power is called observing the legal code; the repression of culture is called its development; the expansion of imperial influence is presented as support for the oppressed; the lack of free expression becomes the highest form of freedom; farcical elections become the highest form of democracy; banning independent thought becomes the most scientific of world views; military occupation becomes fraternal assistance. Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing."

That would be because he IS writing about us.

Unless you would like to pretend otherwise.

Say, When Is Jersey Shore On?

Egypt’s Kristallnacht | Power Line: "The plight of Christians in Egypt and across the Muslim Middle East has become critical, but, for reasons I cannot understand, almost all American Christians seem indifferent to the fate of their fellow Christians overseas."

I can understand. It's all about envy and nothing about toil and compassion.

The bulk of Christendom have been brainwashed into being parasite neo-Marxists.

Good luck with that.

I can never repeat enough that they live in a "bourgeois illusion bred of money and security".

Until Stein's law reasserts itself.

Monday, December 19, 2011

One Good Reason

MF Global: How Could It Happen? | Power Line: "During the Age of Obama, the scandals come so thick and fast that you can hardly remember them all, let alone keep track of their details. One of the most recent is MF Global, which not only went under–with former Democratic Senator and Governor of New Jersey Jon Corzine at the helm–but misplaced $1.2 billion in client funds along the way. How do you lose track of a billion dollars? Most of us panic if we lose twenty. Michael Ramirez has the definitive answer:"

Perfect.

Sunday, December 18, 2011

A Side Of Rice?

CURL: One president, please, with a side of Rice - Washington Times: "Republican diners haven’t yet picked their entree, but they’ve narrowed it down to the steak or the fish. Still, just as interesting as their main course will be their side selection: Will they go for a drab salad, or something more exciting? Maybe a spicy Rice dish?

Yes, that Rice: Condi. She’s rested and ready - and buff.

America’s first black female secretary of state is quietly positioning herself to be the top choice of the eventual Republican presidential nominee, ready to deliver bona fide foreign-policy credentials lacking among the candidates. The 56-year-old has recently raised her profile, releasing her memoir in November and embarking on a monthlong book tour.

After 2 1/2 years as a professor at Stanford, Miss Rice is reportedly getting “antsy” to get back into the political game. “She’s ready to go,” said one top source."

Hmmm...

COTD: We're All Going To Die!

Frank Lansner on Foster and Rahmstorf 2011 | Watts Up With That?: "davidmhoffer says:
December 17, 2011 at 7:24 pm
Natural variation and climate cycles explained:

1971
Alarmists: There’s an ice age coming!
Skeptic: Looks like natural variation, not a long term trend….
Alarmists: Blasphemer! Ice Age! We’re all going to die!

1991
Alarmists: The world is heating up at an unprecedented rate!
Skeptic: But you just said….
Alarmists: CO2! CO2 is causing unprecedented warming!
Skeptic: OK, forget the ice age then, it STILL looks like natural variation, not a long term trend…
Alarmists: Blasphemer! Tipping point! We’re all going to die!

2011
Skeptic: You know, looking at the last 10 to 15 years, it doesn’t seem like there’s been anymore warming….
Alarmists: Natural variation! Itz hiding the warming!
Skeptic: Hiding the warming? Where?
Alarmists: Blasphemer! The warming is hiding in the bottom of the ocean where we can’t measure it, and/or being masked by aerosols, and/or being hidden by natural variation! We’re all going to die!

2031
Alarmist: There’s an ice age coming!
Skeptic: Looks like…never mind, I know where this is going. We’re all going to die. I for one, because a) I/m old and b) I’m sick to death of listening to alarmism."

Perfect.

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Let Me Be Blunt In Saying ...

Iraq political crisis erupts as last U.S. troops leave - The Washington Post: "Gen. Khaled al-Dulaimi, who helped U.S. forces establish the Anbar Police Academy in 2007, was stripped of his post last month as U.S. troops were pulling out of the western province. He predicted that many other officers will be sidelined now that U.S. troops have gone. The U.S. military built the Anbar security forces almost from scratch after the Sunni Awakening movement in 2007 succeeded in defeating the al-Qaeda in Iraq insurgency.

And those who collaborated with the Americans are also at risk of being targeted by the remnants of the Sunni al-Qaeda fighters, who have been systematically pursuing those who turned against them. Now that he has been stripped of the security that came with his position, Dulaimi said, “I might be assassinated by terrorists at any time.” He added, “Who is going to protect me?”"

... that Barry is indifferent to -- if not cheering for -- your death Khaled. I wish I could do more than apologize for what my country has become.

Flim Flam Man O Man

Barack Obama, Poet - By John J. Miller - The Corner - National Review Online: "Behold: the poetry of Barack Obama, preserved on the interwebs by the Library of Congress.

A sample:
What to do with me, a green young man

Who fails to consider the

Flim and flam of the world, since

Things have been easy for me"

Apparently, he has told the truth before.

Friday, December 16, 2011

Bill's Voter's Guide

Bill Whittle's Voters Guide to Republicans [dri]: "Bill Whittle has a new video out that once again shows his mastery of distilling complex themes and arguments down to their brutal essence. His latest feature is a Voter's Guide to Republicans which explores some of the often repeated falsehoods that the Left attributes to the GOP. Apparently, the claims that Republicans are Fascist, racist, Nazis are untrue. H/T Prof. Reynolds"

An instant classic.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Did I Forget To Mention That Steyn Rocks?

Instapundit » Blog Archive » TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Mark Steyn on double standards: “These two stories usefully clarify …: "TEN YEARS AGO ON INSTAPUNDIT: Mark Steyn on double standards: “These two stories usefully clarify the peculiar pathology of the antiwar left. On the one hand, we need international investigations if Americans are insufficiently decorous in their questioning. On the other, it’s perfectly justifiable for disaffected Muslims to target Western civilians purely on the basis of their ethnic identity.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:35 pm"

Because he does.

The Ongoing Obamagate (Part 78,947)

KUHNER: Obama's Watergate - Washington Times: "A year ago this week, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry was murdered. He died protecting his country from brutal Mexican gangsters. Two AK-47 assault rifles were found at his death site. We now know the horrifying truth: Agent Terry was killed by weapons that were part of an illegal Obama administration operation to smuggle arms to the dangerous drug cartels. He was a victim of his own government. This is not only a major scandal; it is a high crime that potentially reaches all the way to the White House, implicating senior officials. It is President Obama’s Watergate.

Operation Fast and Furious was run by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) and overseen by the Justice Department. It started under the leadership of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. Fast and Furious enabled straw gun purchases from licensed dealers in Arizona, in which more than 2,000 weapons were smuggled to Mexican drug kingpins. ATF claims it was seeking to track the weapons as part of a larger crackdown on the growing violence in the Southwest. Instead, ATF effectively has armed murderous gangs. About 300 Mexicans have been killed by Fast and Furious weapons. More than 1,400 guns remain lost. Agent Terry likely will not be the last U.S. casualty.

Mr. Holder insists he was unaware of what took place until after media reports of the scandal appeared in early 2011. This is false."

Gangsta Gubmint. What a disaster. Meanwhile the sheep all fall in line. Bad Tea Party. Bad, Bad Tea Party.

Read this from Palin so you can understand how far removed we are from a non-kleptocracy and what needs to be done. And finally will when people's children are starving in the dark like North Koreans ... but by then everyone will be too weak to do anything. Just like O'Duce wants.

Throw them all out:

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

A Few Hundred?!

Tom Friedman Goes Mearsheimer and Walt | Power Line: "Friedman’s thinking on this entire subject is hopelessly confused, as shown by his casual smear of Newt Gingrich:
That thought came to mind last week when Newt Gingrich took the Republican competition to grovel for Jewish votes — by outloving Israel — to a new low by suggesting that the Palestinians are an “invented” people and not a real nation entitled to a state.
Stop to consider that for a moment. Gingrich and other Republicans are “grovel[ing] for Jewish votes” by supporting Israel? How much does Friedman know about the demographics of America west of the Hudson? As of 2010, there were 6,190 Jews in Iowa out of a population of more than three million–0.2% of Iowa’s population. How many of those do you suppose are Republican caucus-goers? A few hundred?"

But the world is flat you know ... or is that Friedman's brain that's flat? Good God.

Monday, December 12, 2011

The Great Escape, Eh

Kyoto – in the past for Canada | Watts Up With That?: "The cost of meeting Canada’s obligations under Kyoto would be $13.6 billion, Kent said.

“That’s $1,600 from every Canadian family — that’s the Kyoto cost to Canadians, that was the legacy of an incompetent liberal government,” the Conservative minister said."

Numeracy. What a concept.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Fasci(fi)sts

Instapundit » Blog Archive » #OCCUPYFAIL: Our movement became fascist, says an Occupier. Rand Simberg comments: “You don’t s…: "#OCCUPYFAIL: Our movement became fascist, says an Occupier. Rand Simberg comments: “You don’t say. Actually, if you understood fascism, you’d realize it started that way.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 2:44 pm"

The title comes from Eric Blair. I'm betting you don't know who Eric Blair was.

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Accentuating Insolvency

Thumbs Up for the House Bill | Power Line: "But there is something more serious going on as well. If the payroll tax holiday extension passes–and both parties are now on record as favoring it–the dam will have been breached, and Social Security will be massively insolvent, not at some point in the future, but today. Many liberals have argued–I think correctly–that this is a decisive step that will probably doom the program in anything like its present form. Inevitably, with revenues grossly inadequate to pay benefits to all retirees, Social Security will be means tested. In other words, it will become a welfare program that provides a safety net to the indigent elderly. Will today’s young workers be willing to pay for forty years into a program from which they anticipate that they will get no benefit when they retire–unless, of course, they are planning on being indigent? No way. The consensus that has sustained Social Security will be broken, and the program will be just as popular as other welfare programs; which is to say, not very popular at all. It will be the beginning of the end of the welfare state as we now know it. (That trend, by the way, is prefigured in another feature of the House Republican bill, which would begin the means testing of Medicare.)

Is that prediction overstated? Perhaps. But no one doubts that the entitlement crisis is coming, and I don’t see how the contemplated holiday extension can do anything but accelerate the process. Moreover, it puts the federal government on a path toward accentuating insolvency, not–as in the past–mitigating it."

I'm fascinated to see how O Duce will spin this one. Mostly just that the so-called journalists won't report what's actually in the bill. It will somehow be all about killing orphans or something completely ridiculous. And the sheep will believe it of course.

TURN. THE. IDIOT. BOX. OFF.

Gone

Satellite Images Suggest Something Happened At Iranian Nuclear Facility -- But Was It An Explosion? | Fox News: "“The pictures we have seen were dramatic insofar as the buildings were there for at least 15 years,” he said. “On Dec. 5, they were gone. Whether or not that is circumstantial is not clear, but it warrants further scrutiny.”

Brannan says much of Iran’s yellowcake has been converted to UF6, but the Iranians still have some stock. Beyond that, however, the nation’s ability to mine and mill yellowcake is limited.

“There is something strange going on,” he said. “It is not clear what it is. There was the recent blast at the missile facility with people killed. There was a report of a blast at Isfahan’s uranium conversion site. A U.S. drone has been downed.

“Something is going on. It’s not clear what it is.”"

Friday, December 9, 2011

Explain To Me Again Why Nikki Haley Isn't Already Our President

Nikki Haley Intends to Govern | RedState: "It didn’t work out that way. Neither the Governor nor the agencies responsible for getting the good old boys’ their backs scratched actually did it. Georgia gets to dredge and South Carolina will get a port expansion in Charleston, but it will still take a while.

The good old boys decided then to haul all of Governor Haley’s top aides into the legislature for examination. They couldn’t find that anyone did any wrong doing. And now Governor Haley has responded. She means to keep changing South Carolina, keep moving the state forward, and keep making it place where business is free to do business without scratching backs or letting government pick winners or losers."

Oh. I forgot. Not enough backscratchin' goin' on. You go girl...

Look!

The Demagoguery of Incompetence | Power Line: "One imagines that there are several causes of demagoguery, multiple circumstances under which it arises or becomes necessary. In Barack Obama’s case, we are seeing a demagoguery born of incompetence. As the failure of Obama’s policies has become ever more stark, as the clock ticks toward his rendezvous with the electorate in November, as the public’s disapproval of his performance hardens, he has reacted in the only way he knows, by becoming ever more shrill and ever more fanciful in his denunciations of those who dare to point out that his record is awful and his policies inept.

Michael Ramirez makes the point humorously:"

Thursday, December 8, 2011

COTD: Delivered To Hell, Part 2

The Egyptian Elections: Analyzing the Runoff Results - By Samuel Tadros - The Corner - National Review Online: "As Jimmah gave us Islamist Iran, so Barry gives us Islamist Egypt. The two largest, most powerful muslim states - handed to (I would say deliberately delivered into the hands of) the Islamists by DEM Presidents.

A friend of Iranian descent sent me a YouTube about life in Iran 19040 - 1980. It was not surprising to me, but maybe some of NRO's younger readers should take a gander (search YouTube for Shah's Iran, etc. - there are many videos). The Shah had made Iran into a very Westernized, modern State. but his state police, the Savak, were not nice enough to the communists & islamists wishing to oust him. So in the name of "human rights" Carter threw our ally, the Shah, to the dogs. The result was not hard to imagine.

Heh! Arab Spring, my patootie! The only uprising that was not Islamist (and thereby worse than the status quo) was the Iranain "green revolution". And which uprising was the ONLY one the US sat on its hand for? The stupidity is mindboggling."

Not the stupidity, the plan...

Out O Touch

Showdown Coming Over Keystone XL? - By Andrew Stiles - The Corner - National Review Online: "To get a sense of how stunningly out of touch the president is when it comes to the Keystone pipeline, consider that he finds himself on the wrong side of an issue on which the AFL-CIO and Republicans both agree. Here’s Mark Ayers, President of the Building and Construction Trades Department at the AFL-CIO, writing in the Huffington Post:
For America’s skilled craft construction professionals, any discussion of the Keystone XL project begins and ends with one word: JOBS. Today, roughly 14% of the American construction workforce is unemployed — which is significantly higher than the overall national unemployment rate of 9%.

Throughout America’s Heartland, the Keystone Pipeline represents the prospect for 20,000 immediate jobs, and as many as 500,000 indirect jobs via a strong economic multiplier effect…"

Half a million new jobs delivering energy would make it more difficult for him to collapse the economy and make our children starve in the dark. So naturally he's against them. Or any jobs for people that don't contribute to his perpetual campaign of graft and corruption for that matter ... as you may have noticed if you're ... sentient.

The War On The Economy

Is Rain Water An Industrial Pollutant? | Power Line: "The new administrative burdens the 9th Circuit decision puts on landowners and federal and state government is staggering. The U.S. Forest Service reports there are about 378,000 road miles in our national forests and that it will need about 400,000 permits. By the most conservative estimate, adding in state and private forests nearly doubles that number. Other estimates place the total well into the millions. Simply obtaining the Forest Service’s permits will take 10 years.
The economic consequences of devastating the logging industry, and other industries that depend on wood products, are incalculable. We are living in an extraordinary time, in which the nation’s political class frequently makes war on our economy. No wonder economic recovery is so difficult! The Supreme Court can solve this particular problem if it grants the motion for certiorari tomorrow and reverses the 9th Circuit’s ruling, but more broadly, we need to drastically reform, and limit the powers of, our political class."

I keep saying they're corrupt mental midgets and you won't believe me. Maybe you'll believe me when you're living in a yurt ... no, wait, they use wood too...

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Surely You've Known This, Right? Please Say Yes...

The Strenuously Hushed-Up Fundamental Flaw In The Tax Code | ZeroHedge: "“Corporate Tax Dodging In The Fifty States,” a report that the CTJ released today, found that the largest corporations paid little or no state income taxes in any state for the years 2008-2010. In a prior report, the CTJ found that some of the most profitable US corporations paid no federal income taxes over the same period. Both reports are an indictment of one of the major problems dogging the US economy: our tax system—and its most fundamental flaw that not even tax reformers dare to mention.

The Internal Revenue Code serves two functions: raise money for the government; and dole out benefits and subsidies to industries, companies, pet projects, individuals, shrimp fisheries, etc. in return for campaign contributions, votes, and fringe benefits such as free plane rides, bundles of cash, sweetheart mortgages, or well-paid jobs for staffers when they move on. It’s the congressional bread and butter. And the economy pays the price."

RTWT even if you're part of the 1% who do...

Hmmmmmm

Ron Paul Tells Newsmax: I Support Israel: "Newsmax: Some object to your policy of cutting foreign aid to Israel.

Ron Paul: I have objected to all foreign aid. I define foreign aid as taking money from poor people in rich countries and giving it to rich people in poor countries. We just can’t keep doing this. We don’t have the money anymore.

Stop and consider America’s policy: We give $3 billion a year to Israel in loans; and we give $12 billion or more in assistance to Israel’s self-declared enemies. Some of these are countries that say they will drive Israel into the sea.

Newsmax: What do you say to evangelical Christians who want that aid to continue?

Ron Paul: I say to them that our aid in the region is out of balance and it is wrong. Foreign aid does not help Israel. It is a net disadvantage. I say to them that “the borrower is servant to the lender” and America should never be the master of Israel and its fate. We should be her friend.

In October, 1981, most of the world and most of the Congress voiced outrage over Israel’s attack on Iraq and their nuclear development. I was one of the few who defended her right to make her own decisions on foreign policy and to act in her own self-interest.

Newsmax: What then, if anything, should we do for Israel?

Ron Paul: We should share intelligence for mutually agreed-upon goals. We should honor our pledge to refuse any arms sales that would undermine Israel’s qualitative military edge in the region.

But we should stop interfering with them. We should not announce bargaining positions even before she begins her negotiations. We should not dictate what she can and cannot do. We should stop trying to buy her allegiance. And Israel should stop sacrificing their sovereignty as an independent state to us or anybody else, no matter how well-intentioned.

Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!"

Hmmm. Well that's certainly not what I thought he'd say. Maybe he's listening to the base after all. I suppose he could be a liar on this but I'm inclined not to believe it. Hmmmm.

Gunning For Gun Control

Was Fast and Furious All About Gun Control? | Power Line: "The Democrats have longed to impose gun control, or confiscation, for decades, but after a series of electoral defeats they finally backed off. The issue has largely receded from view, although gun owners have remained vigilant. For some time, Second Amendment advocates have suspected that the Obama administration’s gun walking program (“Fast and Furious”) was intended to create a pretext for bringing back the gun control issue. There has been a little evidence of that, but not much. Today, however, Sharyl Attkisson of CBS, who has been all over the Fast and Furious scandal and would, in a sane world, get a Pulitzer Prize, broke another scoop:
Documents obtained by CBS News show that the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) discussed using their covert operation “Fast and Furious” to argue for controversial new rules about gun sales."

Shocking, isn't it?

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Top 3

LearnLiberty's Channel - YouTube: "Top 3 Myths About the Great Depression and the New Deal"

Tribes

It All Begins With Football | Via Meadia: "Alumni watching their schools’ games on TV, or celebrating or mourning their schools’ results each week with friends, family and colleagues are renewing their ties with their alma maters affirming that being an “Aggie” or a “Tar Heel” is an identity, not a line on the resume.

This is why most of them give. It is irrational and tribal love. It is intense emotion, not a vague sense of obligation or philanthropy. They want to beat State.

If you want your students to become loyal, giving alumni, you must turn them into members of a tribe. You must make them fall in love with their school, and believe that they and all the other alums are united in a family. Your temple of reason cannot rise to the heavens unless it is grounded in irrational love."

Thursday, December 1, 2011

A Tale O Haavaad (Part 388,000)

The Democrats’ Fuzzy Math | Power Line: "According to the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute/Brookings Institute, approximately 388,000 households have income above $1 million in any given year; the average income of such households is about $2.7 million. The surtax would be levied on the increment above $1 million. So the arithmetic is simple on a static analysis: 388,000 * $1.7 million * 3.25% = $21.437 billion.

So the “millionaires and billionaires” surtax doesn’t come even remotely close to the reduction in payroll tax. It’s a complete fraud–gratuitous class warfare for revenues that, in the overall scheme of things, are trivial."

The dimwits are from Haaavaaad you know...

BINGO: Reynold's Law

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: The Dwindling Power Of A College Degree. “Until the early 1970s, l…: "Of course, one reason why a bachelor’s degree on its own no longer conveys intelligence and capability is that a bachelor’s degree has gotten much easier to get, as part of a conscious strategy of giving everyone the markers of intelligence and capability. Remember Reynolds’ Law:
The government decides to try to increase the middle class by subsidizing things that middle class people have: If middle-class people go to college and own homes, then surely if more people go to college and own homes, we’ll have more middle-class people. But homeownership and college aren’t causes of middle-class status, they’re markers for possessing the kinds of traits — self-discipline, the ability to defer gratification, etc. — that let you enter, and stay, in the middle class. Subsidizing the markers doesn’t produce the traits; if anything, it undermines them."

I had missed or forgotten this one from Glenn but it's somewhere beyond a home run and nearly approaching orbital velocity as far as I can tell. Talk about a perfect encapsulation of our multiple crises...

And not unrelated to the Tinfoil Apocalypse...

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Newt Going There?

Newt Gingrich Accuses Obama of Left-Wing Alinskyite Tactics: "On the campaign trail, Newt Gingrich is trying to make some new inroads on President Obama by reviving an old charge, suggesting that the president’s past as a community organizer ties him to a “radical” tradition.

“Obama believes in a Saul Alinsky radicalism which the press corps was never willing to look at,” Gingrich told a standing room-only crowd at Tommy’s Country Ham House here. “When he said he was a community organizer, it wasn’t Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. It was radicalism taught on the south side of Chicago by Saul Alinsky.”
Why is this smart? I think the media will cover this, and will try the "extremism" card and all that rot with Gingrich.

And what effect will this have? Well, the immediate effect is to electrify the Republican base, isn't it? The media will be essentially running primary campaign ads for Gingrich if the media takes the bait. (And can they resist it?)"

About time somebody does.

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Busted

Breitbart.tv » Busted: Ayers Admits To Obama Fundraiser That Obama Campaign Called ‘Myth’: "In 2008 the Barack Obama for President campaign went into full denial mode accusing the McCain/Palin campaign of lying about a fundraiser held in domestic terrorist Bill Ayers's home for Barack Obama's Illinois State Senate campaign.

Watch this clip from October 15, 2008 where spokesman Robert Gibbs flat-out denies the fundraiser story to an inquiring Chris Matthews. Then watch Bill Ayers, in his own words, admit to the event himself.

Either Mr. Gibbs lied to Mr. Matthews, or Mr. Obama lied to Mr. Gibbs."

Everybody Knows

Instapundit » Blog Archive » JIM GERAGHTY: What Do Democrats Really Stand For Today? “You think the Democratic Party cares abou…: "JIM GERAGHTY: What Do Democrats Really Stand For Today? “You think the Democratic Party cares about wealth? Come on. In their minds, George Soros spending his money to help out his political views is noble, but the Koch Brothers are evil incarnate. Higher taxes are good, but no one will complain if Tim Geithner or Charlie Rangel cut corners on paying them. One might be tempted to argue that the righteousness of unions represent an inviolate principle to Democrats, but in New York, Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo is trimming here and there and living to tell the tale. No, the party really is about identity politics now; us vs. them. And everybody knows which side they’re on.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:48 pm"

COTD Bonus Edition: Keynesians Create Demand For Glass

About Those "Record" Black Friday Sales... | ZeroHedge: "The Keynesians would first have to break the glass, get the glass man out for the repair, then have the war that makes more glass so that they can go around shooting out windows to make that multiplier rise. You take care of everything all at once..."

And then there's reality for the d**mn few of us that still seem to prefer it:If you want to understand how in the double hockey sticks the world has flushed itself so far down the toilet, this video is as good a place as any to start.

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Collapse

Instapundit » Blog Archive » DAN MITCHELL: European Economic Crisis Highlights an Increasingly Important Reason to Oppose Gun Co…: "DAN MITCHELL: European Economic Crisis Highlights an Increasingly Important Reason to Oppose Gun Control.
About a year ago, I spoke at a conference in Europe that attracted a lot of very rich people from all over the continent, as well as a lot of people who manage money for high-net-worth individuals.

What made this conference remarkable was not the presentations, though they were generally quite interesting. The stunning part of the conference was learning – as part of casual conversation during breaks, meals, and other socializing time – how many rich people are planning for the eventual collapse of European society.

Not stagnation. Not gradual decline. Collapse."

A Thimble

Orgasmic spenders flirting with insolvency | debt, government, spending - Opinion - The Orange County Register: "In the course of a typical day I usually receive at least a couple of emails from readers lamenting that America is now the Titanic. This is grossly unfair to the Titanic, a state-of-the-art ship whose problem was that it only had lifeboat space for about half its passengers. By contrast, the SS Spendaholic is a rusting hulk encrusted with barnacles, there are no lifeboats, and the ship's officers are locked in a debate about whether to use a thimble or an eggcup.

A second downgrade is now inevitable. Aw, so what? We had the first back in the summer, and the ceiling didn't fall in, did it? And everyone knows those ratings agencies are a racket, right? And say what you like about our rotten finances, but Greece's are worse. And Italy's. And, er, Zimbabwe's. Probably.

The advantage the United States enjoys is that, unlike Greece, it can print the currency in which its debt is denominated. But, even so, it still needs someone to buy it. The failure of Germany's bond auction on Wednesday suggests that the world is running out of buyers for western sovereign debt at historically low interest rates. And, were interest rates to return to their 1990-2010 average (5.7 percent), debt service alone would consume about 40 percent of federal revenues by mid-decade. That's not paying down the debt, but just staying current on the interest payments."

The Number One Missing Skill

Instapundit » Blog Archive » HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Help Wanted: In Unexpected Twist, Some Skilled Jobs Go Begging. …: "Her challenge is a familiar one to recruiters, especially in industries that require workers with trade skills such as welding. Union Pacific struggles to find enough electricians who have worked with diesel engines. Manufacturers in many places can’t find enough machinists. Oil companies must fight for a limited supply of drilling-rig workers.
Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Custom car-maker David Kirkham emails: “Your WSJ link is (depressingly) more accurate than you may realize. I would hire 5 more guys right now if I could. However, it is virtually impossible to find anyone with skills anymore. The number one skill we are missing as a society is a work ethic. I speak to employers all the time and we all are looking for the same potential employee–someone who is honest, hard working, and who has reasonable intelligence. In other words someone who willing and able to learn new things and admit it when they screw up. Notice education is not on the list.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:29 am"

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Not Part O The Union Apparently

Blog: 157 Air Force Majors terminated without retirement benefits: "The Obama administration seems to be ready to destroy the belief that service will be rewarded as faithfully as duty was performed, one step at a time.

The latest step in that direction is the announcement that 157 Air Force majors will be terminated prior to retirement, without the opportunity to complete the 20 full years of service necessary to qualify for retirement pay."

Wow.

The Ability To Think

RealClearMarkets - We Are All Expendable Now: "The basic pattern is that any job that requires only perceptual-level skills-complex tasks of memory and pattern-recognition-can and will eventually be done by a machine. To justify a claim to higher productivity, we will have to be working on the conceptual level, as creative thinkers and most crucially as entrepreneurs, which is a much more demanding discipline.

This new era is not a curse but an opportunity. The whole reason for automating every kind of human work that can be automated is to increase the productivity of our labor. In previous waves of innovation, mechanization made many traditional jobs obsolete. A few years ago, I noticed a trend of naming children after old-fashioned blue-collar professions, such as "Cooper" and "Hunter" and "Mason," highlighting the fact that for most people, these names no longer stand for a profession or a kind of work. But those who made the transition to the new era in which many of these old jobs no longer existed are better off because the new technology has made everyone is so much more productive. Similarly, many of today's jobs will soon be expendable, but we will all be richer because we each have so many machines working for us, from the robot in an automated assembly line to the smartphone in our pockets.

But benefiting from this new era will require that we make the transition to working on a higher, more productive level. And that will require the ultimate in "skilled labor": the ability to think."

And those truly are the 1% today. By design of our overlords. Maybe even the 0.001%

Nothing To See Here, Move Along Now... (Our Betters Edition)

Instapundit » Blog Archive » IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, MEGAN MCARDLE REVIEWS James Roberts’ Shiny Objects: Why We Spend Money W…: "Consider the matter of status competition. Mr. Roberts, like so many before him, argues that conspicuous consumption is an unhappy zero-sum game. But this is of course true of most forms of competition: Most academics I know can rank-order everyone in the room at a professional conference with the speed and precision of a courtier at Versailles. Any competition, from looks to money to academic credentialing, both consumes a lot of resources and makes many of the participants feel bad about themselves. Why, then, does the literature on status competition always tell us that we should redistribute capital gains or inheritances and never tell us that we should redistribute academic chairs or book contracts?"

Heh.

Friday, November 25, 2011

The Bitter Truth

Sugar: The Bitter Truth - YouTube: "Robert H. Lustig, MD, UCSF Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology, explores the damage caused by sugary foods. He argues that fructose (too much) and fiber (not enough) appear to be cornerstones of the obesity epidemic through their effects on insulin."

Drop everything and watch this.

So what does this have to do with my normal polico-economic fare? Time to look over on the right sidebar again at the runner-up quote of the Holocene. Do you think the politicians -- and consequently the FDA -- have been bought?

Du'O.

And here's an interesting exchange between Lustig and Gary Taubes suggesting they're reasonably aligned (ignore the misleading title):

Thursday, November 24, 2011

A Fruit, Not A Vegetable

Time Wasted - Maggie's Farm: "I'd like to thank my teens for pointing out to me that pizza has been declared a vegetable by Congress.

Years ago, the Reagan administration received abuse for suggesting ketchup was a vegetable. Now we have Congress actually voting on this stuff?

At a point in time where the government could be shut down almost weekly, is nearly bankrupt and the Super Committee can't help forge agreement, we can agree that pizza is a vegetable.

Tomatoes, of course, are a fruit. So pizza should be a fruit, not a vegetable. Since they can't even get that right, it's probably no surprise Congress can't come to a reasonable agreement on the budget."

All the fruits and vegetables are in Congress. And the White House.

It's A Turkey Day Climate "Scientist" Shoot

Click through and RTWT. It's great fun -- unless you're one of the Borg:

Quark Soup by David Appell: Sorting Through the Stolen UEA Emails: "Troublesome:

<5131> Shukla/IGES:
["Future of the IPCC", 2008] It is inconceivable that policymakers will be
willing to make billion-and trillion-dollar decisions for adaptation to the
projected regional climate change based on models that do not even describe and
simulate the processes that are the building blocks of climate variability.

<1939> Thorne/MetO:
Observations do not show rising temperatures throughout the tropical
troposphere unless you accept one single study and approach and discount a
wealth of others. This is just downright dangerous. We need to communicate the
uncertainty and be honest. Phil, hopefully we can find time to discuss these
further if necessary [...]"

<3066> Thorne:
I also think the science is being manipulated to put a political spin on it
which for all our sakes might not be too clever in the long run.

<1611> Carter:
It seems that a few people have a very strong say, and no matter how much
talking goes on beforehand, the big decisions are made at the eleventh hour by a select core group.

And this post has the COTD also:

Peter, while I am absolutely sympathetic to the way some of these remarks are being taken out of context, as a fluid dynamicist, you have unfortunately ensured that you are going to lose this war by representing results produced by immature models as inerrant, demanding trillion-dollar action by governments, and requiring near-complete destruction of the productive apparatus of society as we have known in in order to avoid armageddon.

Never do you or your colleagues present results with the necessary margins of error, caveats, or uncertainties. Rarely do you even wait for your modeling results to be vetted and run straight to the press. And frequently, you have hidden them from those who would like to examine them for flaws, on the grounds that trying to find something wrong with the models and reconstructions is somehow untoward, despite those of us in every other scientific field having to deal with this all the time.

So yes, there are some remarks taken out of their immediate context. However, the rather larger context of your unscientific behavior is not going away. You have lost the PR battle with the public, and you have no one to blame but yourselves. Here is some advice, although I am but a junior scientist--until your code is directly solving all the governing PDEs for your system with sufficient resolution to capture all the nonlinear dynamics and chemical kinetics, lay off the press releases. I know it's not as sexy, and it won't make you as famous, but you won't get egg on your face, either.

Heh.

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Probably

Instapundit » Blog Archive » “ALL OUR MODELS ARE WRONG:” ClimateGate 2.0: A Fresh Trove Of Embarrassing Emails. “There was alw…: "“ALL OUR MODELS ARE WRONG:” ClimateGate 2.0: A Fresh Trove Of Embarrassing Emails. “There was always an element of tragedy in the first ‘Climategate’ emails, as scientists were under pressure to tell a story that the physical evidence couldn’t support – and that the scientists were reluctant to acknowledge in public. The new email archive, already dubbed ‘Climategate 2.0′, is much larger than the first, and provides an abundance of context for those earlier changes. . . . To their credit, some of the climate scientists realised the dangers of the selective approach politicians demanded, which meant cherry-picking evidence to make it suitably dramatic, and quietly hiding caveats.” Others, however, not so much.

Plus this: “So the mewling infant that we call Climate Science – a 40-year-young offshoot of meteorology – has been thrust into a political role long before it’s capable of supporting the claims made on its behalf. From the archives we can see the scientists know that too, and we can read their own reluctance to make those claims, too. ‘What if climate change appears to be just mainly a multidecadal natural fluctuation?’ muses one scientist. ‘They’ll kill us probably.’”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 12:45 pm"

Monday, November 21, 2011

COTD: Exalted Racism

Belmont Club » A Comment About The Human Factor: "In Detroit racism supposedly caused it to fall apart. Okay, so there was less racism in 1949 than there is today? Yes, that is the case, because the govt in its various forms imposes racism in ways and to an overall extent that was unthinkable in 1949. In 1949 we had just defeated a philosophy that calculated the percentage of a given ethnic group’s blood in a person’s veins and treated them on that basis. Today that same philosophy is exalted – and official government policy."

Kind of makes your blood run cold how massive the brainwashing has been, doesn't it?

And don't forget the Curley Effect:

Though some blame Detroit’s population losses on larger economic forces, economists Edward Glaeser and Andrei Shleifer argue in a groundbreaking paper that the city’s problems are mostly self-inflicted. (The paper, called “The Curley Effect,” gets its name from legendary Boston mayor James Curley, who favored Irish residents and pushed other groups out.) After winning election in 1973, Detroit’s first black mayor, Coleman Young, consolidated his power, driving white residents, who had voted against him, out of the city by withdrawing services from their neighborhoods. Eventually, Glaeser and Shleifer write, Detroit became “an overwhelmingly black city mired in poverty and social problems”—and shrinking fast.

Hand in glove.

Foolishness

The Supercommittee: A History Lesson | Power Line: "The budget process began with the submission of the president’s budget plan. Analysis of that plan quickly revealed that the president’s $1.6 trillion tax increase proved totally inadequate to offset the enormous levels of new spending that would occur. Under this plan, over ten years, we would accumulate another $13 trillion in debt, never produce a single deficit less than $748 billion, produce a deficit in the tenth year of $1.2 trillion, and leave entitlement programs like Medicare in grave financial peril.

For this, the president was widely and correctly rebuked.

Next, the newly-elected House Republicans—dispatched by voters to restrain Washington’s big spenders—introduced and passed a budget plan as required by law. It was a detailed, honest, and concrete plan to put our nation on a sound footing.

The Senate Democrat majority then made a decision: Rather than introduce a plan of their own, they chose to ignore the law and craft no budget at all. Majority Leader Reid even said it would be ‘foolish’ to have a budget. After the president’s disastrous budget rollout, Democrat leaders knew their rhetoric would not hold up on paper—that the public would not accept the level of spending, taxing, and borrowing their fiscal vision requires. It was simply easier to avoid accountability."

Fools indeed.

More Cowbell

“OWS Needs More Cowbell” | Power Line: "This one, from Minnesota Majority, is just for fun: OWS Needs More Cowbell. Just seeing part of the classic Blue Oyster Cult sketch is fun enough:"

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Newt On Hygiene

Newt Gingrich : "Go get a job ~ right after you take a bath" - YouTube: "Newt Gingrich : "Go get a job ~ right after you take a bath""

The Thrill Is Gone

Breitbart.tv » Thrill Is Gone? Matthews Turns On Obama; ‘I Hear Stories That You Would Not Believe’: "In an explosive interview on MSNBC, Chris Matthews has harsh criticism for President Obama and his team of advisers."

Don't miss this one. Crissy says he hears stories you would not believe.

Not a problem for me.

The Warm Embrace

Indoctrination: What the Occupiers Believe and Why They Believe It : The Other McCain: "When I deride the Occupiers as “the kind of commie scum who give commie scum a bad name,” this is taken as a jest and why so? Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, even conservative Americans have ceased to think about communist subversion as a serious threat. Yet as shown by the photo of the Workers World Party conference and the quote from CPUSA at the top of the post, there are still avowed Marxists among us. If self-declared Marxist organizations have difficulty attracting members nowadays, it is not necessarily because of the declining popularity of Marxist ideas, but rather because of competition from the Democratic Party, where such ideas are now warmly embraced."

This one is way beyond a RTWT. It's only a bit longish but worth every minute.

Yes, It's Time For Another Chat With That Rich Know-Nothing, Kyle Bass

Kyle Bass Destroys The Ponzi-Prone Debt Sustainability Arguments Of The Status Quo...And Why Germany Can't Save The World | ZeroHedge: "Another noteworthy Kyle Bass moment as he discusses debt sustainability among major global sovereign nations. Simply and proficiently, the hedge fund manager describes how a dwindling current account surplus in Japan, US welfare economics, and the peripheral-to-core European stressors are all Madoff-like and unsustainable. Switching from broad-brush terms to the idiosyncratic complexities of each region, Bass offers his inimitable take - in a mere six minutes - on how the status quo is quivering under its own self-deception. His rightful conclusions remain extremely worrisome and should be required reading/watching for every central banker and politician trying to keep the dream alive."

Umm. Let me retract that "know nothing" part of the title. Heh.

Saturday, November 19, 2011

COTD: Socialism (OWS Edition)

How to Make an OWS Protester Melt Without Teargas - Ricochet.com: "Elena

Here's socialism for you:

My Ukranian grandparents were exiled by Stalin to Siberia, where they struggled to survive in minus-60 degree winters.

My father, an engineer, saved his entire life to buy a pathetic Russian automobile, only to die a year later, at 51, from negligence and indifference in a Soviet hospital.

Every day until I was 20 years old, my mother or myself had to stand on line for hours for a loaf of bread, a tomato or, miracle of miracles, chicken or beef.

All year long, I dreamed of the special season when fruit vendors from Chechnya came to our city and we would, if we could afford it, buy a basket of tangerines.

The wages of doctors, engineers and other educated people were held at much lower levels than those of common workers, because of the Communists' glorification of "labor".

The KGB burst into our apartment one night and dragged my father away, because of an anonymous denouncement.

Think that could only happen in the Soviet Union? Think again: if people like Barack Obama and these "occupiers" have their way, it would happen here.

Edited on Nov 19 at 08:59 pm"

Ever Opened A Soda?

It turns out the world is like that:

What Does CO2 Have To Do With Climate? | Power Line: "Recently a Japanese Research Institute published a satellite map of sources of CO2 emissions. It was virtually ignored by the mainstream media, but that has become an inverse measure of its significance to the climate debate. It showed a pattern that most would not expect because of the misleading information presented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) amplified by most media.

Here it is:

North America is a net consumer of CO2. Dr. Ball explains: “The map is only surprising if you believe that humans are the primary source of CO2.” But he is just getting warmed up:

The oceans are the main control of atmospheric CO2 as one of the atmospheric gases in constant flux between the water and the atmosphere. The ocean’s ability to absorb CO2 is a function of its temperature – cold water absorbs more CO2 than warm water."

Apparently the warmers only drink water. Which they better not make any unreasonable claims about lest they land in prison! Good think our lunatic betters have their priorities straight!

Anyway, this is a RTWT. In which you will learn for instance the proper significance of the number 9 when compared to 140 or larger...

And when CO2 is not CO2 is not CO2. Well OK. Just thinking ahead to what they will try to answer you with ... if you were dumb enough to question stupid corrupt people with no credibility.

Costly Domains

Belmont Club » The AirSea Battle: "Czege’s “operational exclusion zone” requirement had become reworded to what Schwartz called “domain control”. Domain control was a universal requirement. The key to achieving that domain control was knowing (ISR), moving (lift) and striking at any point along the global commons. Schwartz felt that if the Air Force and Navy got their act together and fought differently they might be capable in ways nobody has yet suspected.

It is easy to see from a layman’s point of view what thinking might be developing internally. The correct perspective would be to regard China as a specific problem of the generic requirement of domain control. If you increase the domain control capabilities the China requirement is automatically met.

By increasing the ISR, mobility and strike capabilities of the Air Force and the Navy (especially its stealth platforms) the US can non-threateningly deter China in the same way that Beijing can fortify itself without seeming aggressive. This gets around the ‘timing issues’ raised by Czege. For as long as peace prevails not a cloud will darken the sky. China will build up its bases. America will build up its generic global capability. If the dreaded day ever comes, then that global capability will be focused like a laser beam somewhere to turn the sunlight off when and if an act of aggression or a failure of diplomacy makes this necessary.

But the problem remains: can the Air Force and the Navy continue to do this with the money at hand? Only time will tell."

How else to explain this?

A Kerry Coincidence

Instapundit » Blog Archive » #OCCUPYCONGRESS: The Kerrys’ Curious Stock Trades. “BigGovernment.com has obtained records of Ma…: "#OCCUPYCONGRESS: The Kerrys’ Curious Stock Trades. “BigGovernment.com has obtained records of Massachusetts Democrat Senator John Kerry and his wife Teresa Heinz’s stock portfolios that show almost perfectly timed pharmaceutical stock trades during the Obamacare debate, which fattened their already enormous personal fortune.”

Peter Schweizer is right.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 2:14 pm"

Yup. Just a coincidence. Nothing to see here. Did I mention that Dancing with the Stars is on? Move along now folks...

Hypocrisy, Thy Name Is Warren

Ace of Spades HQ: "NetJets also claimed that the IRS hadn't attempted to assess such taxes on rival fractional-jet businesses, placing the company "at a significant disadvantage."
Now on the face of it it seems Buffett's company is right. Why should people who own the jets pay a "ticket tax"? You don't buy a ticket to ride on something that you own.

But "corporate jet owners"? Aren't they the lowest of the low or something? And Buffett is suing to keep their costs down and protect them for unfair taxation?

Oh and remember when Obama wanted to change how evilllll "corporate jet owners" were taxed? Yeah, Buffett opposed that too.

Buffett and his management team have a fiduciary obligation to fight this on behalf of their clients. But the idea that Buffett then will turn around and say other people (presumably including most of these same clients) should be taxed at higher levels to satisfy his moral vanity is an amazing twist of logic.

Hypocrisy thy name is Liberalism (and always has been)."

Why does anyone believe anything these people say? Because of many decades of massive brainwashing and dumbing down, perhaps?

SHUT. THE. T.V. OFF. NOW.

Lessons From Europe

Video: 5 lessons from the European fiscal crisis « Hot Air: "As Americans watch the latest EU fiscal crisis unfold, what lessons can we learn from it? Dan Mitchell brings us a new video from the Center for Freedom and Prosperity with five key takeaways for US policymakers, as part of their Econ 101 video series. The first two are the most applicable in the short term:"

1. Higher taxes lead to higher spending, not lower deficits. Miss Morandotti looks at the evidence from Europe and shows that politicians almost always claim that higher taxes will be used to reduce red ink, but the inevitable result is bigger government. This is a lesson that gullible Republicans need to learn – especially since some of them want to acquiesce to a tax hike as part of the “Supercommitee” negotiations.

2. A value-added tax would be a disaster. This was music to my ears sinceI have repeatedly warned that the statists won’t be able to impose a European-style welfare state in the United States without first imposing this European-style money machine for big government. ...

But wait! I thought it was Europe that we were supposed to emulate? They've got high taxes and are the example of socialism done right. After all, Westerners aren't stupid thugs like the Russians -- we won't make those same deadly mistakes here ... will we? Ummm... isn't it starting already?

Friday, November 18, 2011

Strangle hOld

Obama’s Job-Destroying Machine Grinds On | Power Line: "I can’t figure out whether it is due to malice or incompetence; all I know is, if you wanted to hurt America’s economy, you would do pretty much everything the Obama administration does. Energy policy is the absolute worst. First Obama delayed (and perhaps killed) the Keystone pipeline. Michael Ramirez sums up that decision, which can be explained only as an economically irrational attempt to shore up the president’s liberal base in advance of next year’s election:"

Failed Government Policies: A Success Story

Just in case you didn't realize the scope and depth of your fleecing. And why it hurts so much.

Making Pitchforks And Rope

Friday Night Irony: According To The Fed, Just Over One More Year Of ZIRP Will Lead To 38.36% Annual Inflation | ZeroHedge: "The laughter really begins when one recreates precisely what the Fed is doing: namely the policy of Zero Interest Rates, now well in its third year, that things take a turn for the surreal. We challenge any reader to play the Fed simulation game, and to do what Bernanke has done: namely lock the Fed Funds rate at the legal minimum: between 0.00% and 0.25%. In our personal experience, we were dismissed as Fed Chairman after annual inflation literally went off the charts and hit 38.36% following 4 years of ZIRP. And according to the Fed, inflation would now, 2.5 years into ZIRP, realistically be running at about 17%. Which incidentally is exactly where it is, at least for those who have not mutated sufficiently to be able to metabolize iPads and fly to and from work using their own pair of wings. Of course, every hyperinflation has a silver lining: US unemployment will be just 1.5%. Granted everyone will be making pitchforks and rope, but they would be employed."

A Feature Or A Bug?

Belmont Club » Plugging Every Loophole: "While this investigation is just beginning and will likely take months to complete, what we already know is troubling enough. The story of regulators fixing the problem after the failure of a financial firm sounds all too familiar. Moreover, it seems that the patchwork of regulations and regulators may have allowed the full extent of these problems to remain undetected.
A thicket of regulations, so comforting to Occupy Wall Street, might be the perfect place for noxious financial instruments to lie in wait. The question is whether the undetectability of MF Global’s problems was a bug or a feature is an interesting one. One of the reasons MF Global got away with its high level of risk was that it was designed to fly under the radar — custombuilt to live in the data shadows. ...

That implies that one answer to preventing more MF Globals is not a forest of new regulations but to resolutely ensure that whoever misjudges his business goes bankrupt; and that whoever is guilty is tossed in jail for a long time. If so, there’s an investment opportunity in jail construction and room to fill a lot of soon to be empty places in Washington and New York."

How many times to I have to refer you over to the upper right sidebar's "RUNNER-UP QUOTE OF THE HOLOCENE"? Read it. Then put Wretchard on your daily reading list.

Don't have time to read every day? Turn off the ***d**m TV then.

Good (Soaking Wet) God

Belmont Club » Hydrophobic: "After an exhaustive three year study involving 21 experts, an agency of the European Union determined that drink manufacturers should be banned from claiming that water can prevent dehydration. “Producers of bottled water are now forbidden by law from making the claim and will face a two-year jail sentence if they defy the edict, which comes into force in the UK next month.” Critics said the decision was a perfect example of bureaucratic waste.
Conservative MEP Roger Helmer said: “This is stupidity writ large.

“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are: highly-paid, highly-pensioned officials worrying about the obvious qualities of water and trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true.

“If ever there were an episode which demonstrates the folly of the great European project then this is it.”"

They're smarter than you and me. Nyet.

Throw the Witch In Jail

Pelosi Leads List Of Conflict Of Interest Dems - Latest Headlines - Investors.com: "After a Pelosi staffer left to lobby on behalf of credit-card giant Visa, Pelosi delayed bringing to the House floor a bill to end lucrative "swipe fees" for Visa and other credit providers.

The bill couldn't have come at a worse time for Visa. It planned to launch an $18 billion public stock offering, so stalling Hill action became a priority. The San Francisco-based company curried favor with Pelosi by pumping cash into her re-election efforts, earning its CEO a rare one-on-one meeting with the speaker.

At the same time, Visa offered her husband a VIP cut of the IPO. Paul Pelosi jumped at the offer, buying 5,000 shares at the $44 initial price. In a couple of days, the shares soared to $64. Pelosi later bought 15,000 more, raising the total value of his investment to about $5 million. In the end, the legislation Visa fought starting in 2007 was forestalled two full years."

Surely I didn't forget to mention that she should be in jail?

Factless Fail

Instapundit » Blog Archive » #OCCUPYFAIL: Facts Are Not My Concern: The sign at her feet read “For a nuclear free, carbon f…: "#OCCUPYFAIL: Facts Are Not My Concern:
The sign at her feet read “For a nuclear free, carbon free future.” The one in her hands an equally predictable “Excessive wealth and consumption are dying paradigms. Renew American with a Green Revolution.”

Before her stood Alex Epstein, energy expert and frequent PJTV guest commentator. Noting the sign on the sidewalk, Epstein asked, “You’re opposed to nuclear power and [carbon dioxide] generating power?”

“Yes,” she answered.

“Do you know what percentage of power in the world those generate right now?”

“That’s not my concern. My concern is the people that are profiting off of power that is unsustainable….”

Calm among the hubbub of Zuccotti Park, Epstein endured a lengthy non-response, then answered the question for her.

“We’re talking about something that’s producing 95% of the power in the world,” he stated flatly. “This is the power that’s keeping people’s lights on. It’s keeping the food going. And you’re saying we ought to dismantle that somehow. And I’m saying, if that happens, the entire world as we know it will collapse.”
It’s nice to see someone stand up to the green know-nothingism.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 6:20 pm"

And brainless too.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Loose Lips Lang

Chinese TV Host Says Regime Nearly Bankrupt | Business & Economy | China | Epoch Times: "China’s economy has a reputation for being strong and prosperous, but according to a well-known Chinese television personality the country’s Gross Domestic Product is going in reverse.

Larry Lang, chair professor of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, said in a lecture that he didn’t think was being recorded that the Chinese regime is in a serious economic crisis—on the brink of bankruptcy. In his memorable formulation: every province in China is Greece.

The restrictions Lang placed on the Oct. 22 speech in Shenyang City, in northern China’s Liaoning Province, included no audio or video recording, and no media. He can be heard saying that people should not post his speech online, or “everyone will look bad,” in the audio that is now on Youtube."

RTWT. Waking up yet?

Suffering The Remedies

This Week’s Applied Hayek: NPR Slip-Up Edition | Power Line: "It has been well said that, while we used to suffer from social evils, we now suffer from the remedies for them. The difference is that, while in former times the social evils were gradually disappearing with the growth of wealth, the remedies we have introduced are beginning to threaten the continuance of that growth of wealth on which all future improvement depends.
These last passages could have been written with the present Euro crisis, and America’s entitlement funding crisis, in mind. The late economist Herbert Stein famously said, something that can’t go on forever, won’t. My AEI colleague Alex Pollock (author of a fine short book on this whole matter, Boom & Bust) offers his own close corollary: Loans that can’t be paid back, won’t. (See: Greece.) To which I offer the Hayward Welfare State Codicil: Entitlement promises that can’t be kept, won’t."

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Some Jack*sses Are More Equal Than Others

» REVEALED: Nancy Pelosi Blocked Credit Card Reform While Investing Millions in Exclusive Visa Stock Offering - Big Government: "The Credit Card Fair Fee Act was exactly the kind of bill one would think then-Speaker Pelosi would have backed. “She had been outspoken about antitrust problems posed by insurance, oil, and pharmaceutical companies,” Schweizer notes, “and she was vocal about the need for controlling interest rates individual banks charged to use their credit cards.”

Initially, the Credit Card Fair Fee Act cleared the Judiciary Committee on a 19-16 vote, and the National Association of Convenience Stores began lobbying for a vote on the floor of the House. “It is imperative to tell your Representatives to request a vote on the House Floor from Nancy Pelosi,” the association urged its members. Still, with at least ten percent of the Pelosi family’s entire stock portfolio invested in a single stock, Nancy Pelosi clearly had a vested interest in ensuring that Visa’s profits were protected. And that is exactly what she accomplished. Despite broad public support for the bill—77% in one study—Pelosi saw to it that the bill never made it to the House floor.

Shortly thereafter, a second bill limiting collusion by the credit card companies on interchange fees was proposed. The Credit Card Interchange Fee Act of 2008, while not as strong as the first bill, would have required greater transparency from credit card companies in informing customers how much they were paying in interchange fees. Yet again, reports Schweizer, “this second bill suffered the same fate as the first, never making it to the House floor.”

By 2009, both bills had garnered even broader bipartisan support and were reintroduced. Under Speaker Pelosi, however, neither bill lived to see a vote on the House floor.

Pelosi eventually supported something called the Credit Card Reform Act. Curiously, the all-important interchange fees went untouched by that legislation. Instead, the bill stated that the interchange fee issue should simply be “studied.” The bill’s other measures would not affect Visa but rather its client banks. In short, the Credit Card Reform Act ensured that Visa and the other credit card companies dodged a potentially costly bullet.

None of that, however, prevented Pelosi from grandstanding. She publicly declared that the Credit Card Reform Act sent a “strong and clear message to credit card companies” that they would be held to account for their “anti-consumer practices.”

In the wake of the bill’s passage, the Pelosis’ shares of Visa stock rose. Indeed, according to Throw Them All Out, “the IPO shares they had purchased soared by 203% from where they began, while the stock market as a whole was down 15% during the same period.”

Nancy Pelosi is hardly the only member of Congress to be given IPOs, but Pelosi has been especially “lucky” at landing them. She and her husband have participated in at least 10 lucrative IPOs throughout her career."

Oh, I'm sorry. She's just "lucky".

Throw the d*mn corrupt donkey in jail. Now. And any corrupt elephants too.

Of course, by rational ethical standards they'd pretty much all be in jail now wouldn't they? It pretty much tells you all you need to know about the "free press" that it's taken them this long to highlight that Congress has made sure that insider trading laws don't apply to themselves...

And ten to one this story sinks without a trace...

Saturday, December 31, 2011

Friday, December 30, 2011

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Monday, December 26, 2011

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Friday, December 23, 2011

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Monday, December 19, 2011

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

Friday, December 16, 2011

Thursday, December 15, 2011

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Monday, December 12, 2011

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Saturday, December 10, 2011

Friday, December 9, 2011

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Wednesday, December 7, 2011

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Thursday, December 1, 2011

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Sunday, November 27, 2011

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Friday, November 25, 2011

Thursday, November 24, 2011

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

Monday, November 21, 2011

Sunday, November 20, 2011

Saturday, November 19, 2011

Friday, November 18, 2011

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Links

Favorite Posts

Subscribe To

Financial Crisis

Blog Archive

Blogs

Bob's Book Recommendations

Labels