NoCo Surrounds Them - We Will Not Fall

Twitter's End

2012-01-27T22:02:00.000-08:00

News from The Associated Press: "NEW YORK (AP) -- Twitter, a tool of choice for dissidents and activists around the world, found itself the target of global outrage Friday after unveiling plans to allow country-specific censorship of tweets that might break local laws.

It was a stunning role reversal for a youthful company that prides itself in promoting unfettered expression, 140 characters at a time. Twitter insisted its commitment to free speech remains firm, and sought to explain the nuances of its policy, while critics - in a barrage of tweets - proposed a Twitter boycott and demanded that the censorship initiative be scrapped.

"This is very bad news," tweeted Egyptian activist Mahmoud Salem, who operates under the name Sandmonkey. Later, he wrote, "Is it safe to say that (hash)Twitter is selling us out?""

Yes, that would be safe to say.

Did I forget to mention that O Duce's "Arab Spring" is rapidly becoming the bonfire of the Jews and Christians?

O, who could have seen it coming?

A Drowning Allegory

2012-01-27T21:10:00.000-08:00

Saving Private Fido: "At this point, I took out my cell phone and called 911. Dog rescue not being its line of work, the dispatcher referred me to Animal Control. Animal Control, I soon learned, only controlled animals from Monday to Friday. This was a Saturday. I explained that, without AC’s intervention, this dog would surely drown. I was told that the pup had better keep swimming until Monday.

If I ever needed reminding that the words “compassion” and “government” should never appear in the same sentence, this was it. Although individual employees may have good instincts, actual compassion is a job requirement in no government office I know of. If an employee’s good heart survives union restraints and bureaucratic imperatives, it is a miracle worth celebrating. There were to be no miracles that Saturday at Animal Control."

Fair Play My *ss

2012-01-27T20:49:00.000-08:00

BHO’s idea of ‘fair play’: "As Osnos relates, Crown Publishing offered Obama a seven-figure deal for subsequent books. Knowing that his loyal, hardworking agent, Jane Dystel, would get 15 percent of that, Obama promptly dumped her and hired a by-the-hour attorney.

To avoid congressional disclosure and reporting requirements Obama inked the deal after his election but before being sworn in as senator.

To his credit, despite being an un-closeted liberal, Osnos publicly scolded Obama for his “ruthlessness” and “his questionable judgment about using public service as a personal payday.”

Dystel’s 15 percent would have netted her at least another $500,000 in royalties had Obama not forsaken her. Dystel did not return my emails or my subsequent phone call.

I would like to know how she feels about the Obama’s plan for a country, “where everyone gets a fair shot, and everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.”"

Gawd, what a slime ball O Duce is.

NewsBusted: A Tale O Five Wars

2012-01-27T20:20:00.000-08:00

NewsBusted 1/10/12 - YouTube: "NewsBusted 1/10/12"

The first one is perfect.

Moron Joe's Bankrupt Future O "Enron 1"

2012-01-27T17:30:00.000-08:00

Belmont Club » “Enron 1″: "Although Audi of America chief says ‘that anybody who buys the car is an idiot’ because ‘no one will be willing to pay the expected $40,000 base price of the Volt when the cars it’s competing with are $15,000 less’, he is definitely wrong because “General Motors will buy a Chevrolet Volt back from any owner who is afraid the plug-in extended-range electric car will catch fire, the company’s CEO told the Associated Press today.”

Here’s Vice President Joe Biden at another speech mispronouncing Enr1 as Enron 1."

God what a dipstick this man is. You know the world has become an irredeemable cesspool when I would have no choice but to defend O Duce with my life if only to keep this moron from ending up President.

And what more evidence can you possibly need that O Duce has the judgment of a turnip?

Hell. O. Earth.

Debt Limit

2012-01-27T17:11:00.000-08:00

DEBT LIMIT - A GUIDE TO AMERICAN FEDERAL DEBT MADE EASY. - YouTube: "A satirical short film taking a look at the national debt and how it applies to just one family."

Perfect.

Barbarians at the Gates O Envy

2012-01-27T13:02:00.000-08:00

The Anticapitalists: Barbarians at the Gate | Larry Sechrest - YouTube: "The Anticapitalists: Barbarians at the Gate | Larry Sechrest"

A wonderful perspective on the some of the key insights of Ludwig von Mises including on socialism, envy and ignorance -- which brought to mind another must read about the envious primitive liberal mind:

Any human emotion can become destructive by degree. Economist Young Back Choi thinks that envy is particularly destructive because it “is man's desire to eliminate others' relative gains even if he would become absolutely worse off in the process.” We see this in the original Ultimatum game. And we see it in the brutal consequences of Stalin and Mao. "Because a certain degree of selfless behavior is essential to the smooth performance of any human group,” writes Natalie Angier in The New York Times, “selflessness run amok can crop up in political contexts. It fosters the exhilarating sensation of righteous indignation, the belief in the purity of your team and your cause and the perfidiousness of all competing teams and causes."

Understood this way, envy, despite its evolutionary rationale, does not seem very sane. Perhaps we should hope that any given person is likely to be a little better off over time, even if some are a lot better off (even if this goes against the emotional grain). Alas, a positive-sum orientation is neither a feature of the egalitarian ethos, nor any politics of envy. And this is just one aspect of the trouble with the Stone Age Trinity as it gets institutionalized. “Envy is appeased only at equality, regardless of the absolute level of consumption,” adds Choi. “’Only those societies that have been able to develop sufficient means to mitigate the destructive forces of envy have been able to build civilizations and prosper. Anthropologists have documented that two of the most distinguishing features of poor societies are the relative free expression of envy and the universal fear of envy on the part of those who come to have above-average gains.”

Envy can creep into both our politics and our personal lives. So also can envy’s sister emotions, guilt and indignation. All three are facets of a brain that was sculpted by millennia in a mostly zero-sum environment. But now we can live in a positive-sum world.

RTWT.

Go Jan! (and Eric)

2012-01-27T11:04:00.000-08:00

Brewer releases copy of letter she handed to Obama: "She repeatedly skewers the president in the book, painting a different picture of her June 2010 Oval Office meeting with Obama than she did in media interviews after the event, when she told media it "was a successful meeting, and I'm encouraged by that."

In the book, however, the governor criticizes Obama for publicly mocking the state and SB 1070. She said Obama was condescending towards her during their 2010 meeting and lectured her about his efforts for comprehensive immigration reform.

"It wasn't long before I realized I was hearing the president's stump speech," the book said. "Only I was supposed to listen without talking. He was patronizing."

And after Wednesday's encounter, she called Obama disrespectful because he walked away from her in mid-sentence.

"Well, I would never have walked away from anybody having a conversation," she said. "And, of course, that is what it is. It is disrespectful for me.""

You can vote for this crypto-Marxist nutjob all you want. Frankly, if you don't stop being just another emotional wreck of a child you'll deserve to end up freezing in the dark which is exactly where you'll be in O Duce's new Police and Poverty States of America.
I know, I know. This video was fabricated by us fascist, racist libertarians, huh? Did I forget to mention that liberal atheists are actually the worst kind of irrational religious nuts? Why else would they support the "twelvers" rights to nukes after all?

Eric Blair had you nailed 70 years ago and nothing has changed:

The idea that you can somehow remain aloof from and superior to the struggle, while living on food which British sailors have to risk their lives to bring you, is a bourgeois illusion bred of money and security.

Oh let me guess, you're now sneering at me because I'm quoting some unknown moron named Eric Blair.

Next I'll be asking when the last time was that you read "The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism". Hah! What a simpleton I am. O Duce's a centrist! What a stupid conspiracy theory moron thing to ask! How superior you in your mirth.

Who's the moron again?

On The Other Side

2012-01-26T19:45:00.000-08:00

PJ Media » Obama: Iran Has Nuclear Rights; I Did Not Want to Sanction Its Bank: "Ebarhimi also disclosed another important point that the Swiss diplomat delivered: Obama said that “I didn’t want to impose sanctions on your central bank, but I had no options but to approve it since a Congress majority had approved the decision.”

Last month, the Obama administration pressed key Democrats on the defense bill conference committee to get their colleagues to water down the strong sanctions language against Iran, which passed the Senate by a 100-0 vote as part of the fiscal 2012 defense authorization bill. The administration, threatening a veto, managed to delay the implementation of sanctions and penalties from 60 to 180 days in the final draft, also allowing the president to waive those penalties for national security reasons or if it would harm the global economy."

Don't get me wrong -- I take second place to no man in my contempt and disgust at the evil Iranian thugocracy and am hardly inclined to believe anything they say except believe them when they say they want to kill me. But if this is actually true, Obama should not just be impeached but in solitary confinement. And that's being generous.

Only Misunderstandings

2012-01-26T17:48:00.000-08:00

Rubin Reports » Obama’s State of the Union Speech: My Response Discovers Some Curious Insights and Strange Formulations: "There’s something else I find fascinating and generally ignored about this speech. All presidents, of course, want to put the accent on the positive. But with Obama I don’t see any real consideration of threats and problems. Yes, he mentions al-Qaida and the Taliban (no longer a problem, he says) and Iran (under control and they will be pressed into making a deal), and democratic transitions (we don’t know what will happen but…).

Nevertheless, America faces no real threats or enemies. revolutionary Islamism doesn’t exist as an issue; Russia poses no problem; Chavez and Castro and various other dictators are vanished; even underdevelopment or instability aren’t mentioned. There is a Pollyanna aspect to Obama arising from his belief that everything would be okay as long as America behaves properly and he is president. In his world there are no real conflicts; few true enemies but only misunderstandings. With Obama the problem is not merely his politics and views but also his total lack of true understanding about international affairs, security issues, and strategy."

What to do?

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"

You're whistling past the graveyard if you think this ends well for the country.

More Egyptian Rivers

2012-01-25T12:52:00.000-08:00

A State of Denial - By Yuval Levin - The Corner - National Review Online: "These projections, especially compared to our fiscal circumstances in past years, also make a mockery of the now familiar nostalgia with which the president opened his speech—harkening back to the meteoric growth of the immediate postwar era in America. Even if his wistful reminiscences of that bright yesterday were better grounded in reality, the fact is that we simply cannot recreate the economic circumstances of those years, when America’s global competitors had just burned each other’s economies to the ground while ours stood ready gallop ahead. It is true that the unique explosive growth of those years also allowed for major expansions of government spending, and persisted despite fairly heavy tax and regulatory burdens. But that does not mean that it was caused by that spending or those burdens. It obviously wasn’t. And under very different circumstances, in which we must effectively compete and innovate in order to grow, we cannot afford such spending or such burdens. We must find other paths to broadly shared prosperity.

But the president does not seem interested in finding those paths. Instead, he prefers to shadowbox the familiar bogeymen held up by progressives for a century and more. Indeed, his striking appeals to replace our raucous republican politics with the model of military discipline at the beginning and the end of the speech offered conspicuous echoes of the progressive longing to overcome politics."

Come to think of it, my reference to "denial is not a river in Egypt" is quite apt. He's also got his head in the sand that the new Islamist government in Egypt is about to make a mockery of his "Arab Spring". Or was that his purpose? And is he a good Alinskyite in misdirecting the Snooky watchers while he craters the economy?

You dismiss Obama's idol Alinsky's dedication of "Rules for Radicals" to Lucifer at your own risk...

Leave It To Us Goaltenders

2012-01-23T19:50:00.000-08:00

Thomas statement on White House absence - NHL.com - News: "Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas released the following statement Monday evening regarding his absence from the Bruins' visit to the White House this afternoon:

"I believe the Federal government has grown out of control, threatening the Rights, Liberties, and Property of the People.

This is being done at the Executive, Legislative, and Judicial level. This is in direct opposition to the Constitution and the Founding Fathers vision for the Federal government.

Because I believe this, today I exercised my right as a Free Citizen, and did not visit the White House. This was not about politics or party, as in my opinion both parties are responsible for the situation we are in as a country. This was about a choice I had to make as an INDIVIDUAL.

This is the only public statement I will be making on this topic. TT""

Once upon a time at a very young age I was a goaltender too. And not entirely bad at it either. Today Thomas' makes me glad to be part of an unexpectedly proud fraternity.

COTD: They Can't Be Any Worse

2012-01-23T07:42:00.000-08:00

EIA estimates California Monterey to have four times the technically recoverable oil of the North Dakota Bakken oil field: "So there are several billions of dollars worth of oil, and the only thing standing in the way is the current government of California? After the cartels take over Mexico they can move north. I'm strangely comfortable with it, they can't be any worse than the Democrats."

Which reminds me of this nice little ditty on libs that just popped up in American Thinker. Here's a sample:

That you can grow the entitlement class beyond the taxpayer class and never hit critical mass where there is no money left.

That using the military to oust a murderous thug dictator in 2003 was criminal, and using the military to oust a murderous thug dictator in 2011 was noble.

That the best way to grow the wealth of the private sector is to take all the money out of it.

That the best way to make us energy independent is to block any effort to produce more petrocarbons in this country.

That the best way to create jobs is to increase taxes and regulations on the job creators.

That the best way to stop arms from this country from getting into the hands of the drug cartels in Mexico is to provide arms to the drug cartels in Mexico.

That all the ills of the economy are due to the fat cat banks and other corporations, and the best way to deal with that is to provide billions in bailouts to the fat cat banks and other corporations.

Check it out. I did something similar a few years back that may remind you of some history long since flushed down the memory hole...

Speaking O Watermelon Religion

2012-01-22T19:17:00.000-08:00

Armed and Dangerous » Blog Archive » The Varieties of Anti-Intellectualism: "There are hidden contradictions in the minds of people who “love Nature” while deploring the ‘artificialities’ with which “Man has spoiled ‘Nature’.” The obvious contradiction lies in their choice of words, which imply that Man and his artifacts are not part of ‘Nature’ – but beavers and their dams are. But the contradictions go deeper than this prima-facie absurdity. In declaring his love for a beaver dam (erected by beavers for beavers’ purposes) and his hatred for dams erected by men (for the purposes of men) the ‘Naturist’ reveals his hatred for his own race – i.e., his own self-hatred.

In the case of ‘Naturists’ such self-hatred is understandable; they are such a sorry lot. But hatred is too strong an emotion to feel toward them; pity and comtempt are the most they rate.

As for me, willy-nilly I am a man, not a beaver, and H. sapiens is the only race I have or can have. Fortunately for me, I like being part of a race made up of men and women – it strikes me as a fine arrangement and perfectly ‘natural.’

Believe it or not, there were ‘Naturists’ who opposed the first flight to old Earth’s Moon as being ‘unnatural’ and a ‘despoiling of Nature.’
—Lazarus Long"

Which I just got over ranting about here. And pointed out how corrupt it is here.

Bibles As Weapons

2012-01-22T17:54:00.000-08:00

The PJ Tatler » Occupy protesters use Bibles as weapons — literally: "You couldn’t ask for a more quintessentially emblematic moment to sum up the ethos behind the Occupy movement.

Friday night in San Francisco, Occupy protesters broke into an abandoned hotel, took the Bibles still remaining in the vacant rooms, climbed on the roof and attacked the police with the Bibles, along with bricks and other projectiles"

And how else could this one have been ended but thus:

Bibles as weapons.

Really, there’s nothing more that needs to be said about the Occupy movement.

But luckily, Liberal Atheism isn't a religion or anything. They're in fact paragons of rational genius.

That's why they all have jobs in advanced research labs no doubt.

That their "history" and various "social science" degrees make them eminently qualified for.

But, But There Are Plenty O History Majors (Or Whatever) Like Our Dear Reader!

2012-01-22T12:07:00.000-08:00

Apple, America and a Squeezed Middle Class - NYTimes.com: "Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple’s executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company’s analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States.

In China, it took 15 days.

Companies like Apple “say the challenge in setting up U.S. plants is finding a technical work force,” said Martin Schmidt, associate provost at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In particular, companies say they need engineers with more than high school, but not necessarily a bachelor’s degree. Americans at that skill level are hard to find, executives contend. “They’re good jobs, but the country doesn’t have enough to feed the demand,” Mr. Schmidt said."

And again:

“We shouldn’t be criticized for using Chinese workers,” a current Apple executive said. “The U.S. has stopped producing people with the skills we need.”

RTWT. At least you could argue that a history major who actually knew history was worth something somewhere. But the neo-Marxist bullcr*p that's taught in the U.S. now is worse than useless. It makes you quite literally retarded.

Oh, and it's not cool to be smart in the U.S. If you don't believe me I suggest you follow my teenagers around for a few minutes.

For the latest related perspective from ESR on how we got into this nightmare check this out and then follow the links to "Gramscian Damage" and "Suicidalism". If they don't wake you up you're irredeemable. (Please note that ESR is an atheist. I also recommend reading ESR's comments since they're a paragon of the way things should be compared to the sludge, hatred and ignorance that infect most sites.)

Oh, I know it's more important to be part of the tribe's religion. Yes, Liberal Atheism is a religion no matter how much you doth protest. (The Dominionist's are coming to end the world!)

And the Watermelon religion -- which the Times dare not mention as one of the other huge factors driving Apple overseas.

And the U.S. tax code's effect on corporations somehow went down the memory hole as a factor too. Nary a peep from the NYeT of course.

Sorry to interrupt Dancing with the Stars. I know that's an important distraction that helps you drown out your conscience.

If you still have one.

China's Boom

2012-01-22T11:03:00.000-08:00

How China's Boom Caused the Financial Crisis - By Heleen Mees | Foreign Policy: "The immediate cause of the housing bubbles in the United States and the eurozone periphery was not regulatory oversight failure, but the precipitous drop in interest rates in the early 2000s. And the country that bears partial responsibility for depressing interest rates is a traditional punching bag in the American political arena, one that has somehow avoided most of the blame in this round: China. The ascendance of the world's most populous country in the global economy not only changed the terms of trade, but it also had a considerable impact on the world's capital markets."

This article has a lot of shortcomings and can often be somewhat self-contradictory on what really happened with mortgages in the U.S., but it's worth a read -- especially for the "mask slip" that the lib's Luddite-watermelon policies have effectively been a tremendous foreign aid program for China...

Truly A Danger

2012-01-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

Newt Victory Speech – No More Bowing to Saudi King (Video) | The Gateway Pundit: "“An American president who can create a Chinese-Canadian partnership is truly a danger to this country.”"

He's certainly got that right.

More Criminal Fraud From Our Bought And Paid For Government

2012-01-21T14:30:00.000-08:00

This time from Holder and the bankster's lawyers:

So why haven’t the fraudsters running these chop shops been prosecuted by Attorney General Eric Holder, and the head of the DOJ’s criminal division Lanny Breuer?

Reuters helps explain why today:

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and Lanny Breuer, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division [watch this to get a sense of Breuer], were partners for years at a Washington law firm that represented a Who’s Who of big banks and other companies at the center of alleged foreclosure fraud, a Reuters inquiry shows.

The firm, Covington & Burling, is one of Washington’s biggest white shoe law firms. Law professors and other federal ethics experts said that federal conflict of interest rules required Holder and Breuer to recuse themselves from any Justice Department decisions relating to law firm clients they personally had done work for.

Both the Justice Department and Covington declined to say if either official had personally worked on matters for the big mortgage industry clients. Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler said Holder and Breuer had complied fully with conflict of interest regulations, but she declined to say if they had recused themselves from any matters related to the former clients.

Reuters reported in December that under Holder and Breuer, the Justice Department hasn’t brought any criminal cases against big banks or other companies involved in mortgage servicing, even though copious evidence has surfaced of apparent criminal violations in foreclosure cases.

The evidence, including records from federal and state courts and local clerks’ offices around the country, shows widespread forgery, perjury, obstruction of justice, and illegal foreclosures on the homes of thousands of active-duty military personnel.

***

While Holder and Breuer were partners at Covington, the firm’s clients included the four largest U.S. banks – Bank of America, Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo & Co – as well as at least one other bank that is among the 10 largest mortgage servicers.

If we're lucky we won't descend below the level banana republicdom. But I'm not counting on it...

I can never repeat too often that John Adams had it right:

1 Useless man is a Shame

2 Is a Law Firm

3 Or More Is a Congress

Whether you agreed with what Adams did as President or not he had that much absolutely nailed.

O Crimes And Looming Memory hOles

2012-01-21T14:02:00.000-08:00

Not Just A Democrat Dirty Trick, But A Crime | Power Line: "Edwards is a former Obama staffer who directed “new media operations” for Obama in five states during the 2008 primaries. Thereafter, he was Obama’s Director of New Media for the State of Iowa. In the Democratic Party’s lexicon, “new media” apparently includes identity theft.

Edwards now works for LINK Strategies, a Democratic consulting firm with extraordinarily close ties to Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin. Its principal, Jeff Link, has served as Harkin’s campaign manager and chief of staff. Link, too, is a former Obama staffer. The LINK Strategies web site says that Jeff Link “served as a media consultant to the Obama for President Campaign, coordinating branding, all paid media and polling in 25 states, including seven battleground states (VA, NC, FL, CO, NM, NV, MT)….”

That Edwards allegedly tried to steal the Secretary of State’s identity in order to frame Schultz for “unethical behavior in office” is no coincidence. Iowa Democrats, as Kevin Hall of the Iowa Republican points out, have mounted a campaign of false accusations against Schultz"

Needless to say, if Nixon was president and Edward's was a Republican, this would be the only thing you would be hearing or reading about from the fifth column. As it is, my bet is you will never hear about it again and anyone who brings it up will get the same treatment that Edward's just happened to be caught at this time. So unfortunately Hinderaker is wrong when he closes the post this way:

Much like Watergate, which began with a seemingly simple (if puzzling) burglary and ultimately unraveled the Nixon administration, it is impossible to say how far the trail of criminality will go if the Edwards case is pursued aggressively. Will that happen? I don’t know; stay tuned.

But I wish we lived in a world where he was right.

You thought my recent post was over the top? Au contraire. And unfortunately this recent one will be buried also.

RTWT.

Unhinged

2012-01-21T12:41:00.000-08:00

Shit Liberals Say: "Pretty good."
Perfect.

The Criminal Controlling The Criminal In The White House

2012-01-21T12:20:00.000-08:00

Instapundit » Blog Archive » MORE OF THIS ADMINISTRATION’S LOUSY ENERGY POLICY: North Dakota Stuck Using More-Costly Railroads t…: "MORE OF THIS ADMINISTRATION’S LOUSY ENERGY POLICY: North Dakota Stuck Using More-Costly Railroads to Move Oil. “Right now, about 25% of North Dakota’s oil travels by rail. According to the CBS News report that ‘will increase exponentially with increased oil production and the shortage of pipelines.’”

UPDATE: Reader Jack Lillywhite emails:
And who has a big stake in Burlington Northern? A guy in Omaha named Buffett.

And by having TransCanada tie its Keystone XI to the border crossing approval you can’t get a segmented line from Montana to Port Arthur, TX that the Bakken field could tie into. That is the concept. A collector system named the BakkenLink runs down to Montana from ND and ties into Keystone XI (known as MarketLink). A twofer you might say.

So, in a way it is a Win-Win for Obama – He wins his Green base and his Crony Capitalism base. Pretty clever, eh?
They win, we lose. As usual.

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:00 am"

Feeling hosed yet? You're insensate if you aren't.

The Jobs Humans Won't Do

2012-01-21T11:54:00.000-08:00

Re: The More the Merrier? - By Mark Steyn - The Corner - National Review Online: "You have a point to this extent. Sooner or later, some or other nation will figure a way to buck demography. I would reckon the Japanese will be first, if only because they have no immigrants, don’t want any, and are sufficiently unsqueamish about these things already to be racing ahead with robot waitresses and humanoid nurses for the old folks’ home. It’s not hard to imagine Sony, Yamaha et al cheerfully applying their ingenuity to developing post-humans for “the jobs humans won’t do”.

But the rest of the west? Old and broke seems the way to bet, still frantically kicking the can down the road, even as the leg becomes too wizened, clotted and arthritic to nudge it more than another inch or two."

RTWT, it's short.

RED ALERT: Leverage

2012-01-20T22:50:00.000-08:00

Karl Denninger, Leverage How Cheap Money Will Destroy the World | Karl Denninger | FINANCIAL SENSE: "Leverage is an essential part of the financial system, and when used properly it allows businesses to borrow funds to invest in growth and expansion, offers opportunities for reasonably priced housing, and much more. But current imbalances in the ways in which leverage is being used by the rich and powerful in the United States and abroad have led to an alarming situation that threatens to shake the global economy to its core."

If the lefties weren't brainwashed emotional mental midgets they'd join us in taking on both Washington and Wall Street. Click on this link to listen for one of the best spent half hours of political economics you will ever invest.

See what I mean?

And then make sure all your friends do too...

Prime Time At Last?

2012-01-20T22:37:00.000-08:00

DoJ figure taking the 5th in Fast & Furious probe « Hot Air: "While Cunningham has the right to take the Fifth under questioning, Congress also has a duty to oversee operations within the Department of Justice, and the DoJ has a duty to answer to Congress. A refusal to do so should mean the end of Cunningham’s employment at the DoJ; if he cannot testify before Congress about his official actions, then he should not be employed in that position any longer.

The tactic leaves Issa with another option, too. He could offer Cunningham immunity from prosecution, which would then force him to testify before Congress about what he knew of OF&F — and perhaps more importantly, what his superiors knew about it, too. A refusal to testify at that point would amount to contempt of Congress, for which Cunningham could find himself facing significant jail time. That depends on how critical Issa views Cunningham to the OF&F scandal, and whether Cunningham himself was a big fish in the operation or just one of the middle men.

One point is pretty clear, though. Officials at the DoJ involved in this operation are fearing criminal prosecution, which means that this scandal just went prime time."

If the so called media wasn't a fifth column O the regime, these nutjobs would be rotting in jail with roommates named "Tiny" top to bottom. And I do mean bottom.

Can you tell how disgusted I am to live in a banana republic?

COTD: ChicagO

2012-01-19T21:05:00.000-08:00

Belmont Club » A Comment About The Wrath of Iran: "RWE
2012-01-19 19:21:10
“He would get that impression in Chicago, wouldn’t he? And it would go a long way to explaining his obsession with making a deal.”

In Chicago the Mob, disguised as businessmen, very nearly took over, but were defeated. Then the New Mob took over, disguised as politicans, and remain in power to this day. Obama has learned that a Mob is always gonna take over eventually, so you either join them or beat them and become them. Or cut a deal and give them a piece of the action. That viewpoint would explain quite a lot."

0.0081 Percent

2012-01-17T22:01:00.000-08:00

The President’s Big Boost to Corporate Welfare - By Veronique de Rugy - The Corner - National Review Online: "Contrary to what the New York Times was reporting on Friday, President Obama’s plan to consolidate six agencies into one isn’t “an aggressive campaign to shrink the size of the federal government.” After all, we are talking about $300 million over ten years, which is 0.0081 percent of the government’s 2012 budget of $3,700,000,000,000.

In fact, I did wonder on Friday how the president could get so much news coverage considering how ridiculously small the announced savings were. Identically, I am not sure how much credit one should get for proposing to get rid of duplicative programs. It seems like the least a president should do. On the other hand, the fact that it never ends up happening is a pretty sad statement of what Washington is all about."

Is he innumerate or gobsmackingly cynical. It's not impossible he's both, is it? RTWT for more on the cynical angle...

Intermission: iPad Rumor Mill

2012-01-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

Report: iPad 3 in March - Technology Review: "And did Bloomberg's three sources spill the beans on any specs? They did, in fact, though they were at times vague. We can expect to see a "high-definition" screen, one with more pixels than many HD TVs, and one in which "the pixels are small enough to make the images look like printed material." A quad-core chip will enable fast toggling among applications, and extra graphics processing should mean that videos play "almost instantly."

The most intriguing detail? The iPad 3 will be compatible with LTE. Interestingly, LTE will be coming to Apple's tablet before its phone; reportedly this is because the tablet, with its larger battery, is able to run LTE without draining its juice embarrassingly quickly."

DemocRATS At Work

2012-01-17T18:26:00.000-08:00

VA AG Fears DC Law May Relocate Rat 'Families' to Virginia | CNSnews.com: "Cuccinelli said D.C.'s new rat law--the Wildlife Protection Act of 2010 (Wildlife Protection Act of 2010.pdf) --is “crazier than fiction” because it requires that rats and other vermin not be killed but captured, preferably in families; no glue or snap traps can be utilized; the rodents must be relocated from where they are captured; and some of these animals may need to be transferred to a “wildlife rehabilitator” as part of their relocation process.

The law does not allow pest control professionals “to kill the dang rats,” Cuccinelli told CNSNews.com. “They have to capture them--then capture them in families. [Not sure] how you’re going to figure that out with rats. And then you have to relocate them. That brings us to Virginia. Now, if you don’t relocate them about 25 miles away, according to experts, rodents will find their way back. Well, an easy way to solve that problem is to cross a river, and what’s on the other side of the river? Virginia.”"

DemocRAT reality is indeed crazier than fiction. Repubican reality is just plain stupid. (No, that's not a misspelling.)

OK, let me clarify. DemocRATS are reliably wrong on both economics and national defense. Repubicans spend much of their time trying to be like DemocRATS, only maybe a little less so.

And most inexcusable of all, Libertarians spend their time having economic freedom -- and freedom in general -- pretty much nailed but as complete babes in the woods assuming that if we're nice everyone will like us ... apparently even if they're fruit loops insane. But I despair.

I know, I know. It's really me that's the crazy one. After all, there is no such verse as the "shores of Tripoli" in the Marine hymn, huh? We were world conquering tyrants back then also, eh? (By the way, at some point around 1800 approximately 17% of our young nation's budget went into paying protection money to Islamic nut jobs ... What? That got deleted by Antonio Gramsci from your "history" textbook?)

Good Lord.

Kick The Can (Part 89,493)

2012-01-16T14:57:00.000-08:00

Belmont Club » Bugs vs Man or Man vs Man?: "Dr. David Shlaes, MD who blogs on the subject, recently wrote an open letter to Secretary of HHS Kathleen Sibelius. In it he concluded:
I am at a loss to explain the FDA’s lurch into Neverland as far as antibiotics are concerned. I can only assume that it is partly a response to political pressure to further distance themselves from industry and to increase their standards for both efficacy and safety. But I consider that a lack of new antibiotics is also a serious safety issue – a fact that the FDA and their congressional critics appear to be ignoring.
What Dr. Shlaes neglected to note is that a major infectious crisis caused by the lack of antibiotics has not yet broken out in the First World. So far the only people who have been condemned by a lack of treatment are poor people in the Third World. Given a choice between preparing for a future crisis and succumbing to present-day political pressure, politicians will kick the can down the road every time."

RTWT. Dead Indians? And soon to be dead Americans? Who cares when there's a re-election to be tended to? Maybe they'll mostly turn out to be stupid Republicans after all...

Privileged

2012-01-15T20:20:00.000-08:00

A word from William Shawcross | Power Line: "I agree with Obama that Nuremberg was a success and should not be dismissed as “victors’ justice.” But what he failed to acknowledge was that the defendants at Nuremberg had far fewer rights than those at Guantanamo under the Military Commissions created by President Bush. Indeed, were a Nazi transported by time machine from Nuremberg to Guantanamo he would be astonished by the privileges and safeguards which were suddenly available to him.

The most fundamental is this: at Nuremberg there was no right of appeal against the judgement of the Military Tribunal. By contrast anyone convicted at Guantanamo can appeal all the way to the Supreme Court. In other words he will have all the safeguards of anyone convicted in an Article III court. That is worth remembering in the months ahead as reformed military tribunals come under sustained attack from the left and from powerful human rights organisations."

Our Tinpot Dictator

2012-01-15T20:11:00.000-08:00

Barone: Obama's 1-man rule thumbs nose at Founders | Campaign 2012 | Washington Examiner: "Of course President Obama is not concentrating on campaigning, White House press spokesmen assured us -- as the president headed off to Chicago for three fundraisers and a drop-in at his campaign headquarters, two days after a high-roller fundraising choked off traffic five blocks from the White House, with the assistance of a score of D.C. police cars.

No one, or at least no one who is paying attention, is fooled. It's standard presidential procedure to say you're not absorbed in campaigning even as you go out to raise money every other day. Bill Clinton, in my view, spent an undue amount of time fundraising, George W. Bush spent more, and Barack Obama makes them both look like pikers.

So Obama's scorn for the truth in this regard is only a minor matter. His scorn for the Constitution is something else.

That scorn has been expressed most recently in his "recess" appointments of members of the National Labor Relations Board and the chairmanship of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The quotation marks are appropriate because when he made the appointments the Senate was not in recess as the Constitution requires.

Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution says that presidential appointments must be confirmed by the Senate unless Congress provides otherwise. But anticipating that the government may need officials when the Senate is available, the section further provides that "The President shall have power to fill up all vacancies that may happen during the recess of the Senate, by granting commissions which shall expire at the end of the next session."

What constitutes a recess? Article I, Section 5 provides "Neither house, during the session of Congress, shall, without the consent of the other, adjourn for more than three days."

The House did not consent to the adjournment of the Senate this year, so there is no recess, and hence no constitutional authority to make recess appointments."

RTWT. You voted for an imperious jack*ss, didn't you? No? How else did he get elected if not by a herd of sheep?

Velociraptors

2012-01-15T00:51:00.000-08:00

Instapundit » Blog Archive » WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Detroit just looking worse and worse. “Rampant incompetence, administrative c…: "WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: Detroit just looking worse and worse. “Rampant incompetence, administrative chaos and clueless mismanagement have so disrupted the ruined city’s faltering attempts to maintain some kind of early childhood education program that the Obama administration is threatening to close down all federal funding for early education in the once-bustling metropolis. The city is too incompetent to spend money. . . . It is hard to see how a city recovers when things have fallen this far. Detroit’s voters do not seem interested in good governance, either unwilling or unable to penalize incompetence at the polls; the political class spouts blue liberal slogans but appears to have the compassion and generosity of a pack of velociraptors; the city’s core institutions have been so corroded and degraded after decades of decline that there is little hope for improvement anytime soon. The status quo cannot stand.”

UPDATE: Reader Lloyd Daub writes: “Detroit is North Korea … with the Unions holding the same pride of place as the North Korean Army—keep them happy and they keep the kleptocracy in power. No matter who else starves.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 9:22 pm"

The velociraptor pols in Detroit need some roommates ... named "Tiny" ... in the new cells they should be forcibly removed from their cushy offices to live in...

Belmont Club » Eleven Bullets Left in the Solyndra

2012-01-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

Belmont Club » Eleven Bullets Left in the Solyndra: "Steven Mufson, writing in the Washington Post, noted that long before the Solyndra debacle, Washington had been in the habit of playing venture capitalist in the energy industry. It had failed in nearly every case. He cites the Clinch River Breeder reactor, synthetic fuel corporations, the hydrogen-powered car and clean coal — projects spanning both Republican and Democratic administrations. “Not a single one of these much-ballyhooed initiatives is producing or saving a drop or a watt or a whiff of energy, but they have managed to burn through far more more taxpayer money than the ill-fated Solyndra.”"

The physicists have nothing on leviathan in the black hole department, eh? And just so you don/t miss the grand finale:

Perhaps even the President sees it coming, hopes the crash won’t affect him politically. It was reported that administration knew in advance that Solyndra was doomed but exerted pressure on the company to keep going until the 2010 elections had passed, the better not to shake the faith of the true believers. In the end it was all about ‘optics’ and not at all about sunlight.

But you need to read everything in between. And after that, your interest will be piqued to read Folsom's "The Myth Of The Robber Barons". There was a transcontinental railroad that was successful ... James J. Hill's privately built Great Northern line!

Bill Maher Stopped Clock Watch

2012-01-14T12:06:00.000-08:00

Instapundit » Blog Archive » ME NEITHER: Bill Maher ‘not that upset’ if people urinate on Taliban fighters, ‘dead or alive…: "ME NEITHER: Bill Maher ‘not that upset’ if people urinate on Taliban fighters, ‘dead or alive.’ “If they were people who burn down girls’ schools you know, and do honor rapes, threw acid in people’s faces, I’m not that upset about pissing on them, dead or alive.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 2:00 pm"

Hell On The Hudson

2012-01-14T10:31:00.000-08:00

Bloomberg’s Law - By Mark Steyn - The Corner - National Review Online: "One of the most disturbing features of the US justice system is its ever more grotesque loss of proportion, at the federal level and in far too many states and municipalities. On his radio show this week, Derb discusses the case of Meredith Graves, the Tennessee nurse who, upon visiting the 9/11 memorial in New York and seeing the signs forbidding firearms, asked the staff if she could check her pistol (lawful and licensed in her home state). She was handcuffed, arrested, and now faces three and a half years in jail for firearms possession – for the crime of being unaware that the Second Amendment does not apply in New York City."

RTWT, it's short. And afterwards you'll understand why you'll never be voting for Bloomberg for president should he ever run.

The Wide, Wide World ... O Envy (And Sports?)

2012-01-13T21:11:00.000-08:00

Belmont Club » Heat Death: "One approach is fix the problem by making things “fair” — to reduce everything to a common economic temperature so that we all get more or less the same thing — from our net wages if we work or from the government if we don’t. From private jobs, which everybody knows are created by government incentives, or government jobs, which everybody knows are funded by taxing the private jobs.

The other approach is to allow a differential so that market forces are driven by forces that are trying to equalize, but never quite succeed. The first approach promises a kind of social tranquility at the cost of heat death. The second opens the path to creative destruction; to a world of striving, envy and ambition. Each approach has its own problems. The problem in the first case will be how to put the food on the table. The problem in the second case will widespread discontent because many people have nowhere near as nice a wide screen TV as their neighbors.

Which view you adopt partly answers the question of why have more than a million workers stopped looking for jobs. It describes the signals being sent out to the workforce and who from. What do you say to those people out in the dark? Is there a future for you? Or is there nothing for it but to look back in wonder?"

I'm wondering too...

Non-entities

2012-01-12T23:58:00.000-08:00

Instapundit » Blog Archive » SONS? President Obama: “I want my daughters treated the same way as my sons.”…: "SONS? President Obama: “I want my daughters treated the same way as my sons.”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 11:38 pm"

Apparently that would be like non-entities? Maybe there is something to this Muslim rumor after all. Heh.

And he never makes any gaffes. He's perfect and you're a liar if you say otherwise...

Wandering In The Green Desert

2012-01-12T23:54:00.000-08:00

Instapundit » Blog Archive » #GREENFAIL: Green Tech Plus Red Tape Yields No Hope. “According to the article, the solar panels i…: "#GREENFAIL: Green Tech Plus Red Tape Yields No Hope. “According to the article, the solar panels in Death Valley have been unplugged for at least two-and-a-half years due to the various agencies tripping over one another . . . . And in the meantime, one has to wonder: if the wrangling, process crazed bureaucrats wrestling with the conflicting, nonsensical regulations and requirements issued by various state, local and federal bureaucracies can’t work out reasonable solutions to the relatively simple question involved in a no-brain solar installation in the desert, what chance is there that these same bureaucracies will redesign the American energy grid and take us to the low carbon utopia that always seems just out of reach?”

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:48 am"

Not much.

Prager On Fire

2012-01-10T23:34:00.000-08:00

I had somehow managed to miss this:

small dead animals: Dennis Prager vs. Unhinged Leftists: "Finally, for those who have never seen it, here's the most inspiring Dennis Prager video of all:"

Just Wow.

Suing Corzine (Not Quite Completely Guess That Party Edition) ... But Let Them Eat Cake Of Course

2012-01-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

Farmers Sue Jon Corzine Over Missing Millions - ABC News: "Montana farmers have filed a class action suit against former New Jersey governor Jon Corzine, charging that the failed financial firm run by Corzine stole millions from their accounts to pay off its spiraling debts, and that Corzine's "single-minded obsession" with making MF Global a big player on Wall Street led to the firm's collapse.

MF Global's clients included 38,000 wheat farmers, cattle ranchers and others who "hedged" their crop prices by placing millions in MF Global accounts. Those accounts were supposed to be "segregated and secure," according to the federal suit, meaning MF Global could not draw on those funds.

The lawsuit, filed on behalf of all 38,000 customers, alleges that when MF Global made a series of bad investments -- notably in European debt -- it began "siphoning funds withdrawn from segregated client accounts" to cover its debts.

"This is a suit by the real victims of MF Global," said plaintiff's attorney Mark Baker of the law firm Anderson, Baker & Swanson. "The missing funds were not investments in MF Global, or loans to MF Global, but rather the customer's own money as collateral to guaranty their contracts. They were not to be used by others – let alone their own broker – to speculate on risky and exotic securities."

Shockingly, this is being reported by none other than one of the palace guard (ABC News) and shockingly the "Name That Party" game in the following paragraph is actually rectified by the word "Democrat" appearing at the end of the article!

The Montana complaint takes square aim at Corzine, alleging that the former governor longed to make MF Global a Wall Street powerhouse through a series of risky investments. The lawsuit says Corzine, a former CEO of Goldman Sachs, had a "single-minded obsession" when he took over in early 2010.

But Corzine was reckless in his zeal, according to plaintiffs' attorneys, instead trading in the risky debt of European countries. MF Global grew not through sound business, alleges the complaint, but "through Corzine's political lobbying and the commingling and looting of customers' segregated accounts."

"Once over $1.2 billion in customer accounts was unaccounted for, the Defendants were quick to bury their heads deep in the sand," the lawsuit claims.

According to the February issue of Vanity Fair, Corzine, who reportedly made over $16 million between 2010 and 2011, was shopping for a chateau in France with his wife two weeks before MF Global filed for bankruptcy.

Let them eat cake of course.

Somehow this seems appropriate, mais oui?:

Good God. Throw them all in jail. O Duce included of course.

OK. You can go back to Jersey Shore now...

Filled In

2012-01-10T00:06:00.000-08:00

Daley and any pretense of moderation are out at the White House - Right Turn - The Washington Post: "In the wake of the president’s extra-constitutional power grab on recess appointments and his demonization of the Republican Party, it would seem the president’s leftist instincts and advisors are fully in command. There is no pretense of trying to reach deals with the Republicans on entitlement or tax reform. The Defense Department’s budget, if the president has his way, will be cut. The base extols in the showing of no-holds-barred leftism. But now that everything is subsumed to the goal of re-election, how exactly does the undisguised lurch to the left help Obama?

Obama’s blank slate, on which moderate voters projected their aspirations, is now filled in. The resulting portrait is of a president unwilling to talk turkey to his own base, unwilling to address our debt and convinced that vilification and name calling is the key to success. Comity, the constitution or governance? Forget it. In both Obama and Newt Gingrich you now see the crystallization of lowest-common denominator politics. The politics of personal destruction? They are a matched pair, perfect practitioners of that game. Alas, the country is not better off. But boy do they feel good showing who is a force to be reckoned with."

Of course, some of us had the slate filled in correctly from the start.

The Legend

2012-01-04T16:02:00.000-08:00

The Claremont Institute - The Legend of the Social Liberal-Fiscal Conservative: "As a proxy measure of social conservatism, one could use the National Right to Life Committee index that rates members of Congress from 0 to 100, with 100 being a perfect pro-life score. As a proxy measure of fiscal conservatism, one could employ the National Tax Payers Union system, which grades office holders on fiscal policy, granting school-style grades that range from A to F. Senators who receive As and Bs are taxpayers' friends while those receiving Cs, Ds, and Fs are big spenders.

If the myth of the social liberal/fiscal conservative were true, we would expect to find plenty of senators who receive low marks from Right to Life, but high marks from the taxpayers group. Analysis of these scores, however, reveals that social liberals tend to be fiscal liberals and social conservatives tend to be fiscal conservatives. Of those who received a score of 60 or less from Right to Life, there is not a single senator with a taxpayer-friendly grade better than a C+. "

RTWT. Ahnuld didn't refute this, did he?

Good God

2012-01-03T22:21:00.000-08:00

Obama Has Learned Nothing From The Mortgage Meltdown Mess | Fox News: "Just days before Christmas, the Obama administration gave Bank of America a big lump of coal, levying a hefty $335 million dollar fine on the company for discriminating against minorities in its lending practices.

Supposedly Countrywide, a mortgage company bought by Bank of America in 2008, had not given out enough low interest rate loans to minorities from 2004 to 2008.

What the large fine reveals is that President Obama hasn’t learned anything from the recent financial crisis.

What the president sees as discrimination in awarding a mortgage, lenders saw as wise business decisions.

If a borrower can’t afford a down payment, Obama appears to view charging a higher interest rate as discrimination. Lenders also think that they shouldn’t treat borrowers whose sole source of income is welfare or unemployment insurance, the same as those applicants who have a job. But Obama, again, appears to view this as discrimination.

There is obviously a problem with no down payments: if the price of the house falls so that it is worth less than the loan, people will default and walk away. Similarly, when unemployment insurance or welfare runs out, borrowers might find they can’t keep paying their mortgage.

The Equal Credit Opportunity Act the Obama administration used to impose this fine was exactly what helped cause the mortgage crisis by forcing lenders to make risky loans that they didn’t want to make.

Yet, just last month, Obama put the blame for these risky loans going bad on banks for their “breathtaking greed” that “plunged our economy and the world into a crisis.”

It’s hard to believe that Countrywide, a leading lender of subprime mortgages, wasn’t already doing too much to make these risky loans. Indeed, it was the poster child for doing what the government wanted."

Mental midget? Or devil incarnate? I have to pick the latter because even I don't believe he's that stupid.

Although his "poetry" does give me second thoughts... Did I forget to say good God?

hOpe a dOped

2012-01-02T11:51:00.000-08:00

Instapundit » Blog Archive » WELL, THE RESERVATIONS COULDN’T HAVE BEEN THAT BAD: With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Det…: "WELL, THE RESERVATIONS COULDN’T HAVE BEEN THAT BAD: With Reservations, Obama Signs Act to Allow Detention of Citizens.

I saw this commentary from Occupy Canada on Facebook:

Posted by Glenn Reynolds at 10:48 am"

Glenn has this nailed so just making sure you don't miss it...

And Another...

2011-12-31T12:53:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-31T12:03:00.000-08:00

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?

Reforming Kinetic Islam's Non-Hostile Erections

2011-12-30T22:04:00.000-08:00

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?

You've Been Repo'ed

2011-12-28T22:11:00.000-08:00

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.

Stopped Clock Watch: David Brooks Bad Combination Edition

2011-12-27T22:01:00.000-08:00

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.

From Behind (Just One More Cheery Christmas Post)

2011-12-26T13:34:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-26T11:26:00.000-08:00

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...

Have Yourself A Shovel Ready Christmas

2011-12-25T13:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-25T11:57:00.000-08:00

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"

2011-12-25T11:08:00.000-08:00

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.

Silent Night For The Dimwitted Saps

2011-12-24T23:28:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-24T10:17:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-24T10:10:00.000-08:00

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.

Smash The State Update: Lying Jack*ss Christmas Edition

2011-12-23T12:34:00.000-08:00

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...

Pretending To Pretend Nothing

2011-12-21T21:14:00.000-08:00

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?

2011-12-21T20:46:00.000-08:00

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.

One Good Reason

2011-12-19T20:58:00.000-08:00

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.

A Side Of Rice?

2011-12-18T20:48:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-12-18T09:38:00.000-08:00

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.

Let Me Be Blunt In Saying ...

2011-12-17T22:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-17T13:48:00.000-08:00

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.

Bill's Voter's Guide

2011-12-16T19:43:00.000-08:00

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.

Did I Forget To Mention That Steyn Rocks?

2011-12-15T22:20:00.000-08:00

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)

2011-12-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

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:

A Few Hundred?!

2011-12-14T21:28:00.000-08:00

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.

The Great Escape, Eh

2011-12-12T19:27:00.000-08:00

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.

Fasci(fi)sts

2011-12-11T16:34:00.000-08:00

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.

Accentuating Insolvency

2011-12-10T21:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-10T20:28:00.000-08:00

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.”"

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

2011-12-09T21:20:00.000-08:00

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!

2011-12-09T16:17:00.000-08:00

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:"

COTD: Delivered To Hell, Part 2

2011-12-08T21:50:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-08T21:41:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-08T08:05:00.000-08:00

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...

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

2011-12-07T21:42:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-07T21:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-07T21:11:00.000-08:00

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?

Top 3

2011-12-04T22:15:00.000-08:00

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

Tribes

2011-12-04T11:20:00.000-08:00

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."

A Tale O Haavaad (Part 388,000)

2011-12-01T19:40:00.000-08:00

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

2011-12-01T16:59:00.000-08:00

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...

Newt Going There?

2011-11-30T23:20:00.000-08:00

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.

Busted

2011-11-29T21:23:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-29T21:20:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-29T21:01:00.000-08:00

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.

Collapse

2011-11-27T21:35:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-27T21:32:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-27T10:48:00.000-08:00

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"

Not Part O The Union Apparently

2011-11-26T23:21:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-26T23:15:00.000-08:00

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)

2011-11-26T12:16:00.000-08:00

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.

The Bitter Truth

2011-11-25T23:10:00.000-08:00

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):

A Fruit, Not A Vegetable

2011-11-24T17:48:00.000-08:00

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

2011-11-24T11:39:00.000-08:00

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.