Articles in Folder “News Reactions”:
2558.\\ In Your FACE!
I wonder how shocked Barry was when Ingrid Martin told him to shove his health plan up his squeaker? Joe the Plumber redux.
TAGGED AS: Health Care, Health Care Reform, Obama, ObamaCare
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PERMANENT LINK2557.\\ Some Reasons for Optimism
Amid the doom and gloom of America's fiscal destruction and abolition of liberty at the hands of Obama and the Democrats, there is some glimmer of hope for the Republic.
USA Today illustrates the future demographics of the major nations of the world with its usual colorful graphics.
It isn't a panacea, but it sure does look good compared to, say, the debt and military power projections for the same time period.
TAGGED AS: America, Decline, Demographics, Economy, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2556.\\ Obama's Health Care Illusions
If you think anything contained in Obamacare will reduce the cost of health care, you're delusional.
Blanket statements aside, there are a series of facts available to disprove anything Barry says about the monster socialist bill he's trying to ram down the throat of America. Robert Samuelson does the work the rest of the press ought to have been doing since last summer by neatly destroying any notion of Obama saving you money on health. The reality is that socialized medicine costs more, produces less and makes everyone unhappy.
Don't believe it? Think this reporter is a right-wing nutjob? Inclined to believe in ancient astronauts and 9/11 conspiracy theories instead? Well, read the piece and then argue the facts. And this article comes from the guy who hasn't voted in 30 years cause he thinks it interferes with journalistic integrity.
Best bit:
You probably think that insuring the uninsured will dramatically improve the nation's health. The uninsured don't get care or don't get it soon enough. With insurance, they won't be shortchanged; they'll be healthier. Simple.Think again. I've written before that expanding health insurance would result, at best, in modest health gains. Studies of insurance's effects on health are hard to perform. Some find benefits; others don't. Medicare's introduction in 1966 produced no reduction in mortality; some studies of extensions of Medicaid for children didn't find gains. In the Atlantic recently, economics writer Megan McArdle examined the literature and emerged skeptical. Claims that the uninsured suffer tens of thousands of premature deaths are "open to question." Conceivably, the "lack of health insurance has no more impact on your health than lack of flood insurance," she writes.
How could this be? No one knows, but possible explanations include: (a) many uninsured are fairly healthy -- about two-fifths are age 18 to 34; (b) some are too sick to be helped or have problems rooted in personal behaviors -- smoking, diet, drinking or drug abuse; and (c) the uninsured already receive 50 to 70 percent of the care of the insured from hospitals, clinics and doctors, estimates the Congressional Budget Office.
Though it seems compelling, covering the uninsured is not the health-care system's major problem. The big problem is uncontrolled spending, which prices people out of the market and burdens government budgets. Obama claims his proposal checks spending. Just the opposite. When people get insurance, they use more health services. Spending rises. By the government's latest forecast, health spending goes from 17 percent of the economy in 2009 to 19 percent in 2019. Health "reform" would probably increase that.
If you buy the Obama snake oil on health care reform, then you'd better pony up and get yourself some nice flood insurance too.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Failure, Fraud, Health Care Reform, ObamaCare, Obamanomics, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2555.\\ Sino-American Showdown
I don't have time to write much about this since I'm dealing with an irritable little girl who just got her ear tubes this morning.
Suffice it to say, this article in the Telegraph today paints the picture of the clash many have been predicting for years (hand raised).
What's interesting is that the showdown is likely to be triggered by economics instead of traditional great-power politics, as Ambrose Evans-Pritchard points out.
Best bit:
As America's creditor - owner of some $1.4 trillion of US Treasuries, agency bonds, and US instruments - China can exert leverage. But this is not what it seems. If the Politburo deploys its illusiory power, Washington can pull the plug on China's export economy instantly by shutting markets. Who holds whom to ransom?Any attempt to retaliate by triggering a US bond crisis would rebound against China, and could be stopped - in extremis - by capital controls. Roosevelt changed the rules in 1933. Such things happen. The China-US relationship is no doubt symbiotic, but a clash would not be "mutual assured destruction", as often claimed. Washington would win.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Economy, Military, Politics, The Telegraph
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PERMANENT LINK2554.\\ History's Verdict Coming Fast(er)
A number of interesting events this week that have totally slid under the collective radar. Frankly it is amazing given the level of discord on the subject of Iraq and George Bush just a few years ago.
Remarkable Newsweek cover for March 8.
And then there's this from the New York Times of all places:
At the same time, Bush profited from the fact that he kept a low profile and didn't snipe at his successor, a task left to his vice president, who therefore took upon himself the enmity and scorn previously directed at his former boss. Dick Cheney was, in effect, a lightning rod, and he was joined in that function by Sarah Palin, who slid neatly into the slot Bush had occupied in the mind of all good liberals for eight long years. Hatred and contempt of Palin is now the favorite pastime of those who have abandoned the cowboy from Texas and transferred their obsessive animus to the belle of Alaska (who, I say again, is more formidable than many in both parties believe.)Meanwhile, Bush's policies came to seem less obviously reprehensible as the Obama administration drifted into embracing watered-down versions of many of them. Guantanamo hasn't been closed. No Child Left Behind is being revised and perhaps improved, but not repealed. The banks are still engaging in their bad practices. Partisanship is worse than ever. Obama seems about to back away from the decision to try 9/11 defendants in civilian courts, a prospect that led the ACLU to run an ad in Sunday's Times with the subheading "Change or more of the same?" Above that question is a series of photographs that shows Obama morphing into guess who -- yes, that's right, George W. Bush.
And now, right on schedule, Bush has resurfaced (just as I imagined him doing a year ago last September ) to join Bill Clinton in a humanitarian relief effort. He is officially a member in good standing of the ex-presidents club, and the longer he lives the more his reputation will be burnished.
And then we hear about Bush being asked by Obama to help out in Northern Ireland. This in the UK's marxist Guardian:
Amid alarm in the US at the prospect of a UUP no vote, Bush telephoned Cameron last Friday to ask him to plead with the UUP leader, Sir Reg Empey, to endorse the deal. While the UUP does not have enough votes to scupper the deal, political leaders in the US fear a no vote from the UUP could undermine support for the settlement within the DUP and among the wider unionist community.The Guardian understands that the White House is so concerned that the US economic envoy to Northern Ireland, Declan Kelly, persuaded Bush to intervene. The former president, who took a close interest in the peace process during his years in the White House, telephoned Cameron to ask him to use his influence to persuade Empey to vote for the deal.
"There was a feeling that a conservative to conservative conversation was the right way to go about this," said one source familiar with the transatlantic negotiations. "This conversation was borne out of the concern that Empey is holding out." Another source familiar with the contact said: "This is the most active thing George W Bush has done in his post-presidency period. He has been incredibly restrained and diplomatic since leaving the White House. He has maintained radio silence."
One source familiar with thinking on Northern Ireland on both sides of the Atlantic added: "The fact that George W Bush has decided to intervene is really significant. He was interested in the peace process as president and appointed an envoy. It is a general sign of how concerned people are in the US about what David Cameron is up to."
Could it be that with everyone's hatred focused elsewhere and with a few years of history that people are looking back and thinking, "You know, he wasn't Satan after all. Hell, he may just have been right about that Iraq thing."
And here is what he said 7 years ago:
Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country.
In this battle, we have fought for the cause of liberty, and for the peace of the world. Our nation and our coalition are proud of this accomplishment -- yet it is you, the members of the United States military, who achieved it. Your courage -- your willingness to face danger for your country and for each other -- made this day possible. Because of you, our nation is more secure. Because of you, the tyrant has fallen, and Iraq is free.
Operation Iraqi Freedom was carried out with a combination of precision, and speed, and boldness the enemy did not expect, and the world had not seen before. From distant bases or ships at sea, we sent planes and missiles that could destroy an enemy division, or strike a single bunker. Marines and soldiers charged to Baghdad across 350 miles of hostile ground, in one of the swiftest advances of heavy arms in history. You have shown the world the skill and the might of the American Armed Forces.
This nation thanks all of the members of our coalition who joined in a noble cause. We thank the Armed Forces of the United Kingdom, Australia, and Poland, who shared in the hardships of war. We thank all of the citizens of Iraq who welcomed our troops and joined in the liberation of their own country. And tonight, I have a special word for Secretary (Donald) Rumsfeld, for General (Tommy) Franks, and for all the men and women who wear the uniform of the United States: America is grateful for a job well done.
The character of our military through history -- the daring of Normandy, the fierce courage of Iwo Jima, the decency and idealism that turned enemies into allies -- is fully present in this generation. When Iraqi civilians looked into the faces of our servicemen and women, they saw strength, and kindness, and good will. When I look at the members of the United States military, I see the best of our country, and I am honored to be your commander in chief.
In the images of fallen statues, we have witnessed the arrival of a new era. For a hundred years of war, culminating in the nuclear age, military technology was designed and deployed to inflict casualties on an ever-growing scale. In defeating Nazi Germany and imperial Japan, Allied Forces destroyed entire cities, while enemy leaders who started the conflict were safe until the final days. Military power was used to end a regime by breaking a nation. Today, we have the greater power to free a nation by breaking a dangerous and aggressive regime. With new tactics and precision weapons, we can achieve military objectives without directing violence against civilians. No device of man can remove the tragedy from war. Yet it is a great advance when the guilty have far more to fear from war than the innocent.
In the images of celebrating Iraqis, we have also seen the ageless appeal of human freedom. Decades of lies and intimidation could not make the Iraqi people love their oppressors or desire their own enslavement. Men and women in every culture need liberty like they need food, and water, and air. Everywhere that freedom arrives, humanity rejoices. And everywhere that freedom stirs, let tyrants fear.
We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We are bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We are pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes. We have begun the search for hidden chemical and biological weapons, and already know of hundreds of sites that will be investigated. We are helping to rebuild Iraq, where the dictator built palaces for himself, instead of hospitals and schools. And we will stand with the new leaders of Iraq as they establish a government of, by, and for the Iraqi people. The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. And then we will leave -- and we will leave behind a free Iraq.
The Battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001, and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. They imagined, in the words of one terrorist, that September the 11th would be the "beginning of the end of America." By seeking to turn our cities into killing fields, terrorists and their allies believed that they could destroy this nation's resolve, and force our retreat from the world. They have failed.
In the Battle of Afghanistan, we destroyed the Taliban, many terrorists, and the camps where they trained. We continue to help the Afghan people lay roads, restore hospitals, and educate all of their children. Yet we also have dangerous work to complete. As I speak, a special operations task force, led by the 82nd Airborne, is on the trail of the terrorists, and those who seek to undermine the free government of Afghanistan. America and our coalition will finish what we have begun.
From Pakistan to the Philippines to the Horn of Africa, we are hunting down al-Qaida killers. Nineteen months ago, I pledged that the terrorists would not escape the patient justice of the United States. And as of tonight, nearly one-half of al-Qaida's senior operatives have been captured or killed.
The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We have removed an ally of al-Qaida, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more.
In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused, and deliberate, and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.
Our war against terror is proceeding according to principles that I have made clear to all:
Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country, and a target of American justice.
Any person, organization, or government that supports, protects, or harbors terrorists is complicit in the murder of the innocent, and equally guilty of terrorist crimes.
Any outlaw regime that has ties to terrorist groups, and seeks or possesses weapons of mass destruction, is a grave danger to the civilized world, and will be confronted.
And anyone in the world, including the Arab world, who works and sacrifices for freedom has a loyal friend in the United States of America.
Our commitment to liberty is America's tradition -- declared at our founding, affirmed in Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms, asserted in the Truman Doctrine, and in Ronald Reagan's challenge to an evil empire. We are committed to freedom in Afghanistan, in Iraq, and in a peaceful Palestine. The advance of freedom is the surest strategy to undermine the appeal of terror in the world. Where freedom takes hold, hatred gives way to hope. When freedom takes hold, men and women turn to the peaceful pursuit of a better life. American values, and American interests, lead in the same direction: We stand for human liberty.
The United States upholds these principles of security and freedom in many ways -- with all the tools of diplomacy, law enforcement, intelligence, and finance. We are working with a broad coalition of nations that understand the threat, and our shared responsibility to meet it. The use of force has been, and remains, our last resort. Yet all can know, friend and foe alike, that our nation has a mission: We will answer threats to our security, and we will defend the peace.
Our mission continues. Al-Qaida is wounded, not destroyed. The scattered cells of the terrorist network still operate in many nations, and we know from daily intelligence that they continue to plot against free people. The proliferation of deadly weapons remains a serious danger. The enemies of freedom are not idle, and neither are we. Our government has taken unprecedented measures to defend the homeland -- and we will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike.
The war on terror is not over, yet it is not endless. We do not know the day of final victory, but we have seen the turning of the tide. No act of the terrorists will change our purpose, or weaken our resolve, or alter their fate. Their cause is lost. Free nations will press on to victory.
Other nations in history have fought in foreign lands and remained to occupy and exploit. Americans, following a battle, want nothing more than to return home. And that is your direction tonight. After service in the Afghan and Iraqi theaters of war -- after 100,000 miles, on the longest carrier deployment in recent history -- you are homeward bound. Some of you will see new family members for the first time -- 150 babies were born while their fathers were on the Lincoln. Your families are proud of you, and your nation will welcome you.
We are mindful as well that some good men and women are not making the journey home. One of those who fell, Corporal Jason Mileo, spoke to his parents five days before his death. Jason's father said, "He called us from the center of Baghdad, not to brag, but to tell us he loved us. Our son was a soldier." Every name, every life, is a loss to our military, to our nation, and to the loved ones who grieve. There is no homecoming for these families. Yet we pray, in God's time, their reunion will come.
Those we lost were last seen on duty. Their final act on this earth was to fight a great evil, and bring liberty to others. All of you -- all in this generation of our military -- have taken up the highest calling of history. You are defending your country, and protecting the innocent from harm. And wherever you go, you carry a message of hope -- a message that is ancient, and ever new. In the words of the prophet Isaiah: "To the captives, 'Come out!' and to those in darkness, 'Be free!"'
Thank you for serving our country and our cause. May God bless you all, and may God continue to bless America.
You know, it just doesn't seem that controversial in hindsight.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, George W Bush, Iraq, Mission Accomplished, President
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PERMANENT LINK2553.\\ Access to Information is Not a Fundamental Right
In times such as these, where more people believe in alien abduction than have faith in the fidelity of the Federal Government, it is often with distress and alarm that I encounter news reports of such utter nonsense that it literally causes heart palpitations.
I shouldn't be surprised, I suppose, that the great intellectual powerhouse that is common wisdom believes the things it believes. My 4 year old believes that Lost should be on every day, for instance. My 13 year old believes that any logical argument can be countered with 'whatever'. I'll lay odds that if you polled the world on who best represents the best hope for mankind they might just pick a fictional character. I would choose Jack Bauer, but that is beside the point.
To paraphrase Marcus Aurelius, it is pretty ridiculous to be surprised at anything which happens in this life. So it comes as no great shock, although with a meaningful level of distaste, that 4 out of 5 people polled around the world believe that the Internet, and access to it, is a fundamental human right.
I'll wait just a moment to permit Locke to finish turning in his grave. Excellent. Thank you John. And now allow me to disabuse 80% of the masses of their silly notions of 'rights'.
I think that in 2010 we must allow for the premise that rights devolve into two general categories: Natural and Civil (or Legal). Natural rights exist existentially. Humans are born with natural rights derived from God or Nature or the Cosmos or Nothing or whatever you believe in. These rights exist as a result of our existence. They are universal, are not granted by anyone or any group, cannot be revoked, cannot be given up voluntarily, cannot be modified or added to. They simply are and they are inalienable. The right to exist would be the classic one in this category. By virtue of being human and coming into this world, we have the right to live.
The Romans gave us an early sense of the right to our own imagination, conscience or soul: "the body indeed is subjected and in the power of a master, but the mind is independent, and indeed is so free and wild, that it cannot be restrained even by ... the body." And while Seneca was probably not the first to ever conceive of the notion, he may have been the first in the West to apply natural rights to the issue of slavery in order to argue against it. He pointed out that slavery was something imposed on the body from outside. It wasn't something you could do to yourself because at the heart of it, the freedom of the soul is an inalienable right. Slavery, therefore, could not exist as an extension of nature but only as an artificial socio-political construct imposed upon people. Seems obvious now, but it made him pretty unpopular since it basically argued that no man ought to be enslaved.
Inalienable rights were also described in early Sharia Law. The Islamic formulation sounds rather familiar and prevented "the right to take away from his subjects certain rights which inhere in his or her person as a human being." Fascinating that it predates John Locke by 1000 years.
Speaking of the Enlightenment, this is where we get some of our greatest thinkers on the subject of natural rights. But I'd go back a bit further and quote Martin Luther on the subject. Luther enhances the notion of the freedom of conscience and applies it to religion: "Since, then, belief or unbelief is a matter of every one's conscience, and since this is no lessening of the secular power, the latter should be content and attend to its own affairs and permit men to believe one thing or another, as they are able and willing, and constrain no one by force." Boom. Separation of Church and State and the liberty of conscience.
Thomas Hobbes took a slightly different view. He argued that the single natural right was that of self-interest. Or as he puts it in Leviathan: "to use his own power, as he will himself, for the preservation of his own Nature; that is to say, of his own Life; and consequently, of doing any thing, which in his own judgement, and Reason, he shall conceive to be the aptest means thereunto." The right to life and conscience naturally flows from the innate right of liberty that we are born with. By having the latter you guarantee the former two.
John Locke gives us three inalienable rights. We have the right to life in which everyone is entitled to live once they are created. We also have the right to liberty in which everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right (i.e. you don't have the right to kill someone and violate their right to life). Lastly we have the right to estate or property whereby everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights. I think Locke would pour cold water on the notion that music or software on the Internet is and ought to be owned by everybody who can download it. It is owned by the person who created it by natural right. Nothing you can do will ever change that.
The Scottish Enlightenment thinker Francis Hutcheson worded it slightly differently: "Thus no man can really change his sentiments, judgments, and inward affections, at the pleasure of another; nor can it tend to any good to make him profess what is contrary to his heart. The right of private judgment is therefore unalienable." You quite simply cannot by any will or force give up your right to liberty. It is therefore inalienable. Since you can't voluntarily give it up, it is there whether anyone agrees or not.
Thomas Paine added to the notion that natural rights cannot be granted by fiat or ruling or charter since this would imply that they could be revoked by the same instrument that granted them (i.e. a Constitution). As he says: "It is a perversion of terms to say that a charter gives rights. It operates by a contrary effect -- that of taking rights away. Rights are inherently in all the inhabitants; but charters, by annulling those rights, in the majority, leave the right, by exclusion, in the hands of a few. ... They...consequently are instruments of injustice."
Which leads us to the second category of rights: those that are not natural but constructed and agreed to by compact between men, groups, tribes or between the ruled and the rulers.
I'll call them civil rights. These are derived from legal constructs and are based on customs, laws or actions by legislatures. The classic example is the right to vote. You're not born with this as part of your innate human nature, it is granted by a state. It is only applicable in a state. If the state went away, so would the right. They are relative. They depend on a context established by culture and politics. The right to vote would have no meaning in a society where there was no voting.
Civil rights are artificial. They exist only as a result of the social compact between people. There is no right to go to school if the school doesn't exist because we are stone age homo sapiens in small nomadic tribes in the savannah. In that context, the right to school would only exist by permit of some law or other element of the social compact as it is in our society today. My test for what constitutes a civil right versus a natural right is simply to ask would that right exist in the absence of modern civilization? What rights do Jack Shephard and the other surviors of Oceanic 815 have while they're on the island? Certainly not the right to Medicare. They have natural rights only. As the series progresses, they form various types of social compacts to establish other rudimentary forms of civil rights such as voting on where to go and what to do. But as a whole, the characters have only their natural rights. If the right is temporary or based on some grant in the form of a law, charter or act of legislature, if it exists only within a certain socio-political context, then it is a civil or legal right, not a natural or fundamental right.
The early Sharia Law granted various civil rights. In the Constitution of Medina written in the mid-600s, the rights were specifically enumerated. In fact, that document describes rights for various groups and classes of people. It provides various civil rights to non-Muslims, for example: "The security (dhimma) of God is equal for all groups; non-Muslim members have equal political and cultural rights as Muslims. They will have autonomy and freedom of religion; non-Muslims will take up arms against the enemy of the Ummah and share the cost of war. There is to be no treachery between the two; non-Muslims will not be obliged to take part in religious wars of the Muslims." Pretty straight forward and rather progressive. One wonders what the world be like today if they had adhered to that formulation.
At any rate, the Islamic example highlights another aspect of civil rights. They have various subdivisions and subclasses that differ between contexts. There is, for example, a distinction between positive rights and negative rights. A positive right grants permission to do something or receive something. Receiving welfare would be a positive right. Negative rights grant permission to do nothing or receive nothing. This the right to be left alone, an entitlement to non-interference. The right against robbery is a negative right. However, because civil rights are contextual, some rights are both positive and negative depending on the political context. In the United States voting is a negative right, that is, you have the right to vote but you don't have to vote. In other countries voting is a positive right. You have the right to vote and you do not have the right to not vote. You must vote or face a penalty.
There are other classes of civil rights. There are individual rights, group rights, liberty rights and claim rights. There are even other formulations entirely of civil rights. The most popular one divides them into a hierarchical set of three 'generations' of rights, each dependent upon the previous generation. The point is that all of these are established only via social compact between peoples. They don't exist without that government or charter or law.
Yes, various historians and philosophers have argued that natural rights don't exist at all or they do exist but only when civil rights are first established. Thomas Aquinas sliced and diced the meanings of natural and positive civil rights. Edmund Burke, Rousseau and Jeremy Bentham are among those who think natural rights are rubbish and any right to life can only exist when laws permit it. There are others who quibble about the natural right of a man do something versus the natural ability of him to do it. I would say that it is a complicated matter. But what cannot be denied is the basic principle of the right to liberty of one's own conscience. No law granted by any authority can violate this right to thought. It exists in nature, it exists without government, without law and without agreement. It is involuntary and inalienable. Given that this 'natural' right exists regardless of context, I cannot but endorse the notion that there are at least two categories of rights. Even if there is only a single natural right, there is still at least two categories.
Which brings me to why I felt compelled to write this history of philosophy lecture. There is no natural right to the Internet or the information on it. Let me repeat, humans do not have a fundamental right to the Internet. The Internet only exists because it was invented by man. Access to it only exists because governments have permitted that access. The information on it is only consumable because the owners of that information permit its use. Whether any of this is desirable or progressive or needed is irrelevant. The fact remains that access to information on the Internet (or off it for that matter) is permitted and that permission can be revoked at will. It is most certainly not a fundamental right.
You may even argue that it isn't a right at all. If it is any kind of right, it is a civil right. And within that category it may still not even be a right. If it is at all, it is not a First Generation or even Second Generation right. It may be covered under the Third Generation right to communicate but even that seems a stretch since you can communicate without the Internet. In any event, none of the Second or Third Generation rights are even universally recognized or granted. Even the First Generation rights are applicable to only a fraction of the human race. It is entirely dependent on law, politics, policy and societal context.
There is no right to own a dog. You may own a dog, it isn't illegal, but you do not have a right to it that is enshrined in and protected by founding documents. The act of owning a dog is enabled or prevented by local laws. I would argue that the same principle applies to the Internet. It is a medium. You have no more 'right' to a medium than you do to a dog. Secondly, there is nothing that the Internet provides that cannot be obtained some other way. You don't have a 'right' to watch Hulu or chat with perverts on Chatroulette. You can get medical advice without WebMD. You can learn history and philosophy without ChrisCam. Sure the Internet makes it easier to get information or communicate. But in the same way a car makes it easier for me to get to New York, I have no entitlement to a car. I can walk to New York.
Perhaps there are societies out there (looking at you Scandinavia) where the social compact includes an entitlement or civil right to a car (or free access to the Internet). This is likely to also be the society where the civil rights are so vast and so enumerated in such detail so as to adversely impact the natural right to liberty. You can already see some of this in our own society. Recently passed hate crime legislation makes it worse to commit a crime when thinking something that is disagreeable to the majority of the society. It may intend well, but it treads on the natural right to liberty of conscience and liberty of thought upon which the entire social edifice is built. Such a society cannot, therefore, endure. It will eventually contravene natural rights to such a degree that it will collapse by decay or armed insurrection. Our Founders understood that. That is why they constructed our social compact to protect natural rights as the bedrock of the system. Violate those rights and the rest is meaningless.
The Internet and/or access to it is not a fundamental right. Neither is it a civil right. The act of attempting to make it so will by its very rationale trample on the natural rights which underpin the civil ones.
TAGGED AS: Aquinas, Civil Rights, Edmund Burke, Hegel, Hutcheson, John Locke, Liberty, Lost, Luther, Natural Rights, Paine, Rights, Rousseau
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PERMANENT LINK2551.\\ The Economist on What's Wrong With America
Great article today in The Economist. The basic premise of much punditry lately is that American Constitutional Democracy is broken and dead and we really need some Chinese style dictatorship to make things work.
The Economist disagrees. And so do I.
Best Bit:
America's political structure was designed to make legislation at the federal level difficult, not easy. Its founders believed that a country the size of America is best governed locally, not nationally. True to this picture, several states have pushed forward with health-care reform. The Senate, much ridiculed for antique practices like the filibuster and the cloture vote, was expressly designed as a "cooling" chamber, where bills might indeed die unless they commanded broad support.
I couldn't agree more.
TAGGED AS: Constitution, Democracy, Federal Government, Federalism, Government, Obama, Senate, The Economist
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PERMANENT LINK2550.\\ Don't Mess With Rhode Island
Failing schools, poor community and students at risk. Bleak picture to be sure. In one Rhode Island town the school superintendent saw an opportunity to increase the role of education in solving the social ills of the community.
She asked the teachers (who make 3 times the median income of the town) to help tutor the kids a bit and give them an extra 25 minutes per day. The unions revolted. So the superintendent fired them. All of them. Every last person at the school.
One suspects the replacements will be more than happy to help the kids out a bit.
Best bits:
"However, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that the teachers and administration at this school are a big part of the problem. Asking teachers making three times the average of the town's median income to contribute an extra 25 minutes a day to rescue students in obvious failure does not seem like an outrageous request. The two-week summer training period may have infringed on their vacation plans, but their school faced an existential crisis, and their students were being doomed to a lifetime of competitive handicaps. One may have thought that teachers and administrators would have a sense of mission, rather than a sense of entitlement, especially considering the failure to which they had all contributed at least in part."
Another good example of why the government shouldn't be in the business of educating our children. It is the role of parents and local communities. To paraphrase Hillary Clinton.
TAGGED AS: Education, Public Sector, Rhode Island, Ronald Reagan, Schools, Unions
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PERMANENT LINK2548.\\ Krauthammer: Closing the New Frontier
NASA is on the chopping block and the US is abdicating space. This is sad and depressing. Not to mention dangerous to our national security.
I happen to think that space travel should be driven by the private sector. But the market isn't there yet. It'll take a few more decades for private industry to get the right mix of cost, performance and safety. Until then the government is the only mechanism for incubating the needed industries and technologies and ongoing research.
And we're totally giving that up. Defeat and retreat. We're leaving control of space to China and Russia because we can't scrounge up $3B extra per year to fund the space program. How much are we spending on porkulus and porkulus II ? Oh that's right, trillions.
Nice work Mr. Obama. You, sir, are no Jack Kennedy.
TAGGED AS: China, Finance, Krauthammer, NASA, Obama, Politics, Porkulus, Space
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PERMANENT LINK2547.\\ I Don't Usually Post A Self-Fulfilling News Story, But...
I did so earlier today it seems. Apparently Berlin has refused, in no uncertain terms, to bail out the Hellenic Republic. That isn't good news for Greek national solvency, terrible news for the rest of the PIGS, and ultimately a complete embarrassment for the European common currency.
What it portends for what remains of Western Civilization is still in the future. The only question is how far in the future that definition can be pushed. My money is on a total meltdown before 2012.
2546.\\ My "Conversation" With Rick Klein
So I did my normal Tweetdeck activity this morning. And I got a mention by The Note's Rick Klein. He challenged me to do some critical thinking about something I said in response to something he said. As if that's possible in 140 characters.
Anyway, here's the back and forth:
thenote: Palin's Pop: Reality Check for Sarah Palin and Her Supporters. Thursday's Note: http://bit.ly/bzzj9x
ctiberius: Why MSM so worked up about her? > RT @thenote: Palin's Pop: Reality Check for Sarah Palin and Her Supporters. http://bit.ly/bzzj9x #tcot
thenote: RT @ctiberius Why MSM so worked up about her? // very good question, and maybe more polls like this change perceptions/coverage
thenote: realize this ? may break Twitter. but Top Line ? of the day: is @SarahPalinUSA qualified to be president? will discuss w/ @jmartpolitico
ctiberius: Is Obama? >RT @thenote: realize this ? may break Twitter. but Top Line ? of the day: is @SarahPalinUSA qualified to be pres? #tcot #palin
thenote: @ctiberius @MayBeeTweet asking for ur judgment on Palin's qualifications. Obama is currently president, so people made that judgment.
thenote: counter-views on Palin from David Broder ("Take Sarah Palin seriously") and Joe Klein ("Sarah Palin favorite to win Republican nomination")
thenote: Top Line question of the day: Is Palin qualified to be president? will discuss w/ @jmartpolitico, Top Line noon ET ABCNews.com
thenote: RT @ThePlumLineGS: Contra Klein/Broder, Palin's current success tells us nothing about her viability as Prez candidate: http://bit.ly/cEOlRC
ctiberius: Huffpo: Palin brilliant. What's with the MSM obsession w/her? http://bit.ly/a4NsP4 #tcot #palin #huffpo #msm
ctiberius: Yes, which is ultimately the only qualification necessary >RT @thenote: Obama is currently president, so people made that judgment. #tcot
ctiberius: @thenote > In the sense that she understands ppl, what motivates them and how to respond legislatively, she's qualified. She's a leader.
ctiberius: @thenote > In the sense of being an intellectual or a policy wonk or an MBA, she's unqualified.
ctiberius: @thenote > So the real question isn't whether she's "qualified" or not. The question is what are the qualifications for the presidency?
thenote: @ctiberius qualifications for presidency are stated in Constitution. I'm asking for people's judgment on that question vis a vis Palin.
ctiberius: @thenote > The question of what qualifies a person to lead a republic of 300M goes beyond the particulars of Section 1 and deserves debate
ctiberius: @thenote > Which is why I said it depends on your definition of qualified as to whether she's qualified or not.
ctiberius: @thenote > My concern is that the media seems to require intellectual curiosity on par with a university professor as a strict requirement.
ctiberius: @thenote > And under that requirement, she's most certainly not qualified. Nor are many, many Americans who might in fact be good leaders
And there it is. Frankly I think he was being snarky. But I follow his work and I'll chalk up the snarkiness to the brevity and curtness imposed by Tweets.
Rick, I'm waiting for a follow up.
TAGGED AS: ABC News, Constitution, Obama, Palin, Rick Klein, The Note, Twitter
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PERMANENT LINK2540.\\ The Obama Contradiction
One of my favorites slices and dices the State of the Union address. Peggy always has a way of going beyond what other pundits have to say and putting the subject within a broader, more meaningful context.
Best bit:
"The central fact of the speech was the contradiction at its heart. It repeatedly asserted that Washington is the answer to everything. At the same time it painted a picture of Washington as a sick and broken place. It was a speech that argued against itself: You need us to heal you. Don't trust us, we think of no one but ourselves."
Exactly.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Peggy Noonan, State of the Union
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PERMANENT LINK2537.\\ China Due for Crash
Gordon Chang knows more about what's going on in China than most other western reporters. If he's joining the growing chorus regarding China's bubble, then I'd start moving my money. In fact, I'm doing just that now on another Firefox tab.
It is Dubai times a thousand.
TAGGED AS: China, Finance, Gordon Chang
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PERMANENT LINK2536.\\ Fair and Balanced
I have to say that I've noticed a marked increase in the number of left-wingers on FNC these past few months. I mean, Hannity had Willie Brown as a panelist the other day. I think the universe may be imploding.
At any rate, they continue to absolutely crush the competition in ratings. I guess all those bitter people out there have turned to news and commentary in addition to guns and god.
And my word, what in the hell is going on over at MSNBC? It is an absolute meltdown.
TAGGED AS: FoxNews, Insanity, Keith Olbermann, MSNBC
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PERMANENT LINK2531.\\ Krugman Gives Up On Barry O
I have to say that this shocked me.
Channeling his inner ancient Hebrew Priest, Krugman declares that Obama is NOT the messiah leftist progressives have been waiting for.
Not all that surprising maybe, giving his persistent criticism of Barry O from the left. But even in his most critical pieces, Krugman is always the apologist.
Not anymore. As he says in the best bit:
"I have to say, I'm pretty close to giving up on Mr. Obama, who seems determined to confirm every doubt I and others ever had"
Ouch.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Leftist, Paul Krugman
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PERMANENT LINK2530.\\ NY Times in Absolute Denial
Not that this is a shocking or entirely unheard of thing, but the New York Times seems hell bent on protecting the soothing bubble that encloses them in their fictional world. To wit, today's editorial is a verbal dose of head burying.
My favorite bit:
"Mr. Obama has done many important things on the environment, and in foreign affairs, and in preventing the nation's banking system from collapsing in the face of a financial crisis he inherited."
Really? I mean, REALLY NYT??
What are the many important things he's done on the environment? Participate in foisting the ongoing fiction of the climate models on the American people? Threaten to destroy the nation's economy by running industry out of business via taxes and caps? Failing utterly to add anything meaningful to the dialogue at Copenhagen? What exactly has he done except issue diktats of dubious legality via the EPA? Diktats that will undoubtedly be wrapped in Constitutional legal issues for years, I might add. I'm still waiting for the seas to stop rising and the planet to start healing...
Where are all of these foreign policy achievements Mr. Obama is allegedly responsible for? Surely you don't mean the Nobel Peace Prize, that universal joke laughed at by everyone on the planet outside of Scandinavia. Perhaps Iran? Iran where we have made no progress and indeed have regressed over Mr. Obama's tenure? Perhaps you mean North Korea...um, no. Cuba? Or how about our disapproval of Honduran democratic elections and support for the thug dictator the Hondurans threw out? Or how about Mr. Obama's total failure to produce anything positive with China? Seriously, what are these wonderful foreign policy miracles he hath wrought?
But the cake has to be your assertion, NYT, that OBAMA saved the financial system. Aside from historical fiction, it is ideologically incongruous for a liberal paper claiming a leftist President properly saved the banks. A simple Googling of the topic (which seems utterly beyond your editorial research efforts when it doesn't align with your agenda), reveals that the crisis was borne of government interference in the market (specifically the housing market) and the solutions for it were devised and executed in 2008 under George W. Bush. The final piece of the response to the crisis, the 'porkulus' bill of spring 2009, is indeed attributed to Mr. Obama. And this package of spending has been widely ridiculed as a pork-laden equivalent of throwing money into the air and hoping it lands someplace helpful. It didn't create jobs, it didn't help people stay in their homes, it didn't increase business spending, it didn't produce any significant positive benefit of any sort. It failed. In fact, Mr. Obama's only response to the financial crisis has been to nationalize the automotive industry, meddle with private business practices such as how much they pay their employees, nationalize and endlessly back Fannie and Freddie and in the process take over ultimate responsibility for most mortgages in the US, attempt to nationalize the banking industry by forcing solvent banks to take government loans and government diktats, attempt to force employees in the private sector to join labor unions, attempt to nationalize the health insurance industry, attempt to nationalize the student loan industry and yet continue to push the very subprimes types of mortgages that were the primary cause of the meltdown. In effect, Mr. Obama's response to the financial crisis has been to prevent another crisis by eliminating the market altogether and simply creating a socialist system by executive fiat.
There. Now that that's all out, I'll simply close by saying the NYT is out of touch, in an echo-chamber bubble, in denial and has ideological myopia of a colossal degree.
TAGGED AS: Economy, George W Bush, New York Times, Obama
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PERMANENT LINK2526.\\ It's not about style; it's about substance
Brilliant article today from the prolific Charles Krauthammer.
He does an excellent job nailing down the exact reasons for why Obama's at where he's at (in the shit, in case you weren't paying attention).
Best part in my opinion, and the part that succinctly explains my opposition to the health 'reform' plans in general:
"Then, the keystone: a health care revolution in which the federal government will regulate in crushing detail one-sixth of the U.S. economy. By essentially abolishing medical underwriting (actuarially based risk assessment) and replacing it with government fiat, Obamacare turns the health insurance companies into utilities, their every significant move dictated by government regulators. The public option was a sideshow. As many on the right have long been arguing, and as the more astute on the left (such as The New Yorker's James Surowiecki) understand, Obamacare is government health care by proxy, single-payer through a facade of nominally "private" insurers."
TAGGED AS: Charles Krauthammer, Health Care, Obama, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2524.\\ WSJ: Google Gets On the Right Side of History
Great article today in WSJ on Google's recent throwing down of the gauntlet in China.
What I find most refreshing about the piece is that it concisely lays out the ideological bankruptcy of the regime and elites that seek to profit from the oppression and murder of the Chinese people. Anyone doing business in China, anyone who bows to the wishes of the autocrats, has blood on their hands. Until Tuesday, that included Google.
Of course, China being autocratic and involved in epic levels of industrial espionage is nothing new. But finally, finally, the Google Incident has pushed this more into the limelight. More coverage here, here, here, and some less thought of implications are discussed here (will Google stand firm with censorship in France and Italy too?)
More on the staggering size and scope of Chinese espionage here, here, here, here, here, here, and this site here run by an excellent blogger who focuses on this topic.
And I've reserved the scariest spying reports for last: here, here, here, here, and finally the chiller here.
They won't have to beat our military. It'll be like the Cylon war. All of our systems will suddenly stop working and we'll be blind and dark. Be afraid.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Cyberwar, Google, Hacking, National Security, Spying
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PERMANENT LINK2522.\\ China on the March as West Continues Collapse
The bad news keeps rolling in here, here and here.
The question is, will we get our groove back and climb out of this ditch? Or is western liberal democracy destined to be permanently overcome by oriental autocracy?
****UPDATE:
Even more... read this and this and this and this
TAGGED AS: America, China, Decline and Fall, Democracy, Oligarchy
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PERMANENT LINK2512.\\ a-HA!
So it turns out that Anthropogenic Global Warming Theory is in fact a total farce. And a hacker recently furnished us with the evidence to prove it. A very inconvenient truth.
Of course, this won't stop the leftists from trying to extort money from everyone to pay for their social engineering schemes.
TAGGED AS: Climate Change, Lies
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PERMANENT LINK2506.\\ Easy Fix For Economic Collapse
It is simple. More Obamanomics. More Government. More socialism. More spreading the wealth around a bit. All you have to do, silly Mayors, is raise taxes to cover the budget deficit.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Finance, Socialism, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2501.\\ Total Shit and Getting Worse
The Obama Economy at work. The only solution, is of course, total socialism, astronomic taxes, unending entitlements and nationalization of every industry. Replace the Individual with Unionized collectivization and all will function as it should in the enlightened thinker's model of economics.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Socialism, Unemployment
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PERMANENT LINK2499.\\ Even China Doesn't Believe It
When the world's finest purveyors of lies, propaganda, misdirection and outright fraud don't believe the snake oil you're peddling will work, then you've got a major, major problem.
What is more frustrating and depressing is that we're not even having the discussion of whether we SHOULD be doing this kind of health care reform at all. We're simply arguing over minute details about how MUCH we should mortgage, piss away, dump in the toilet. The debate in America isn't about our decline, but how fast we want it to happen.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, China, Debt, Deficit, Health Care
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PERMANENT LINK2498.\\ The Coming Collapse of China
I've long held the belief, based on my studies at college, that China would one day collapse of its own weight. The forces at work in that part of the world for the past 3000 years aren't likely to change overnight, nor have they changed since the Communists took power 60 years ago. Even more unchanging is human nature. This collapse, brought on by loosening central power, is no different in its dynamics than any other time in China's history when similarly authoritarian control was loosened just enough for the entire thing to come unwound. Add to this loosening of CCP power an immense uptick in the materialism and driven self-interest of the various regions of China and you have the ingredients for a massive splintering of the nation into a modern version of Warring States.
A recent article by Gordon Chang in Forbes detailed how the Chinese Miracle may in fact be totally fraudulent (you should read Gordon if you are remotely interested in the future of Asia). An article in the Politico today backs that up. As does the movements of various hedge fund managers and investors including the one who correctly identified the phoniness of Enron. Now granted, figuring out a company is cooking the books is different than figuring out a secretive nation is cooking the books. But the point is that not all is as it appears to be in the Middle Kingdom.
Which brings me back to my own, long held, prediction. If China collapses or begins to, the leaders will try anything to remain in power. This includes whipping up nationalism by manufacturing a war with America over Taiwan or the South China Sea or imported chicken.
In any event, if China collapses they will stop financing our debt. This will hurt us. If China collapses and tries to take it out on America, this will hurt us. Either way we should prepare for a rough go of it where China is concerned.
Of course, our only concern as a nation at the moment is whether someone is going to give us health care for free, not the imminent collapse of the international order.
TAGGED AS: America, Asia, Capitalism, CCP, China, Communism, Economy, Finance, Forbes, Gordon Chang, Politico, Totalitarianism, War
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PERMANENT LINK2496.\\ Making the Constitution Support a Power Grab
There hasn't been too much talk of whether or not the Congress has any power at all to require individuals to purchase goods or services. I mean, I know I've talked about it but nobody else seems to care.
Except a few Senators like Orrin Hatch. Now sometimes he's a bit flaky, sometimes way to right wing, sometimes not. On this topic, I totally agree with his view on the limits of Federal power.
Unfortunately nobody will care about this issue until someone brings a lawsuit to the Supreme Court about the topic.
Best bit:
"If buying fuel-efficient cars is so important for the economy, Congress could just require people to buy them. Why does Congress need complicated bailouts when it could simply order people to deposit their paychecks in certain banks, invest in certain companies or purchase certain products?"
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Health Care, Orrin Hatch, Senate, Supreme Court
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PERMANENT LINK2495.\\ Why Isn't The American President in Berlin Today?
Modern Germany exists because of the United States. Yet the one world leader that won't be present to celebrate the 20th Anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is the American President. He's 'too busy' to attend, he claims. I'd use that excuse too if it took me an entire year to dither on strategy in just a single world hot spot.
Not too busy, I'm sure, to play basketball or make grandiose speeches as indoctrinated children chant his name in the background. Ich bin ein Kenyan.
JFK and Reagan are likely astonished, wherever they are. Barack Obama's absence is shameful.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Berlin, Berlin Wall, Europe, Germany, JFK, Ronald Reagan
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PERMANENT LINK2494.\\ For All Our Sakes
Let's hope the pronouncements of the Greatest Deliberative Body in the World are reflective of the general mood of the Senate.
If any final legislation resembled the House bill, it would mean the end of western liberal democracy, the end of American supremacy and the end of the greatest economic engine the world has ever seen.
I don't typically invoke God to help deal with the legislative process, but... God help us.
TAGGED AS: Democracy, Health Care, Liberty, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2493.\\ Losing Turkey
This should send shudders down the spine of anyone remotely concerned about islamic extremism and theocracies run amok.
TAGGED AS: America, Islamism, NATO, Turkey
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PERMANENT LINK2491.\\ Three Reasons to Reject Obamacare
As a rule, I don't believe insurance is the right model to pay for health care. I don't use auto insurance to pay for my gas each week, why should I expect to have health insurance pay for drugs I decide to take? Insurance implies a financial hedge against catastrophic events for which the expense is so high that I cannot pay it and therefore I need to spread that expense amongst other policy holders. It isn't a thing I use for routine events.
That being said, I don't believe in the direction the entire health care debate is taking. It should be about reducing the cost of procedures and making those costs transparent to me, the consumer, so that I can decide where to allocate my funds. I'm purchasing a good and/or a service. I deserve to know why it costs $25k for my wife to have a baby. Instead the true cost is hidden in premiums and deductibles and bureaucracy and regulation. If consumers knew the costs to them of various services provided by doctors, competition and Adam Smith's invisible hand would come to the fore and the system would self-regulate.
There's a shitload more to say on that topic and more explanation as to why treating the entire industry the same as any other goods/services industry makes sense. But I digress. While I may have dozens of reasons for rejecting Obamacare, the National Review gives you just three. Frankly they are the only three you need. What are the reasons? The reason you should reject Obamacare is that it doesn't meet any of Obama's own stated requirements. Pretty simple.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2490.\\ Jobless rate tops 10 pct. for first time since '83 - Yahoo! Finance
Oh yeah. The porkulus...er...stimulus really seems to be working well. I mean, why would anyone believe the AP or the Labor Department over the White House? That just downright un-American. I'll have to report you if you believe that unemployment is at 10.2% and/or that it has anything to do with Obama. This is clearly still Bush's fault.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Finance, Propaganda, Socialism, Taxes, Unemployment
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PERMANENT LINK2488.\\ SC man gets 3 years in prison for sex with horse
Made the front page of Drudge again!
I'm not sure which is funnier, that it took place in Horry County or that the first time he got caught he had to register as a sex offender.
Stay classy South Carolina. Stay classy.
2487.\\ Holy Christ This Man Loves Himself
And no I'm not talking about Rush Limbaugh (or myself for that matter).
No, I'm reacting to a growing story over at Big Hollywood. Remember the brainwashed children mindlessly singing the praises of dear leader? Well the march of the cult of Obama continues to build. I originally said Goebbels would be proud. At this point I think he'd just outright resign from the Nazi Party and join up with the people who obviously do propaganda so much better, the Obama White House. Mao would be only a step behind him.
Check out all the scary, scary details over here.
Along the same line, we find out today that Barry wasn't watching election returns last night, no. He was, in fact, WATCHING THE HBO SPECIAL ABOUT HOW GREAT HE IS. He is post-racial, post-partisan, post-achievement and now post-humility. Hopefully 2012 adds one more giant "post" to his long list of titles.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Creepy, Cult, Ego, Goebbels, Mao, Narcissism, Propaganda
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PERMANENT LINK2486.\\ As If There Were Any Doubt...
David Harsanyi deconstructs the 2000 page omnibus health bill in an article from the Denver Post last week.
I just don't understand how something with a $1.2 Trillion price tag will reduce our deficit. I also fail to see how half a million words outlining new regulations, taxes, fees, mandates, penalties and bureaucracy could possibly make health care faster, cheaper and better (hell I'd settle for any one of those three).
Best bit:
As you flip through the pages of the House bill, you will notice the word "regulation" appears 181 times. "Tax" is there 214 times. "Fees," 103 times. As we all know, nothing says "affordability" like higher taxes and fees. The word "shall" - as in "must" or "required to" - appears over 3,000 times.
God help us. Although I suppose in the near future I'll be required to say "Government help us".
TAGGED AS: David Harsanyi, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi, Orwellian, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2483.\\ Even Orwell Would Be Horrified
The march to a gaggle of unelected bureaucrats in Brussels micromanaging the daily lives of citizens in Britain took another step forward this week. Unfortunately for the people of the various European states, their freedom and liberty has been exchanged for a Pan European superstate ruled by an oligarchic elite of unelected intellectuals who use doubletalk and newspeak to put the people under the thumb of social engineering.
It is the end of France, the end of Germany, the end of Britain. The nations that took their inheritance from the great Mesopotamian civilizations, the Greeks and then the Romans, have abdicated their responsibility in carrying Western Civilization forward. They've decided that democracy and individual freedoms are not the ultimate expression of human liberty. It has become the State itself that is the Alpha and Omega.
It is truly a depressing day for any lover of history and Western Civilization.
2482.\\ $160,000 Per Stimulus Job?
Well that certainly seems worth it. Who could begrudge low-paying blue collar jobs created for $160k a pop on the taxpayer's dime? Surely there was no better way to generate (or save!) all those jobs. Of course, the one example given in the article suggests you should take the number of new jobs with a grain of salt (or perhaps just divide the 'official' number by 4).
Amazing that state-run ABC would dare to publish such a story in the first place. Their dissent is un-American and I'm afraid I'll have to report them so that the White House can reeducate the reporter.
Taken together with this week's fictitious GDP number, we are surely almost par with full-blown propaganda machines like Pravda or the former Iraqi Information Ministry.
Don't worry, your economy is fine! We create jobs all over! There is no recession!
TAGGED AS: Economy, Finance, GDP, Jobs, Lies, Propaganda, State Run Media
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PERMANENT LINK2480.\\ Gmail and the Fourth Amendment
The argument put forth in this article seems astonishing at first. But carefully read the Judge's argument and especially his conclusion. It quickly becomes obvious (and certainly seems obvious after reading it) that an expectation of privacy cannot possibly extend to the Internet nor any transactions that take place over it, including email.
TAGGED AS: Constitution, Email, Fourth Amendment, Internet, Law, Technology, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2478.\\ Miscalculations on Health Care
There is a thoughtful analysis by Robert Robb of the Arizona Republic on what impact the House Democrats' bill would have on the Health Care industry. I can't say I agree with him. I happen to increasingly believe that the leftists in this country don't give a damn about the people. They are motivated by some utopian dream of manipulating the entire society and remaking it according to intellectual theory dreamed up in a bubble. It is a dangerous ideological crusade they are on and it is little different in its use of philosophy than Jihad, little different in its tactics than Mao's Cultural Revolution and destined to be little different in its results than Lenin's experiments. Theory and practice in the realm of social engineering rarely collide. The inevitable endgame is Orwellian.
Read it for yourself here.
TAGGED AS: America, Democrats, Dictatorship, Health Care, Jihad, Lenin, Mao, Orwellian, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2476.\\ What Kind of Car Would YOU Buy for $24k?
My list starts with the new Camero. Course I'd have to spring for the Autobot upgrade kit. I'd definitely not be buying anything through this program. Looks like that went totally as planned. Or not, as the case may be. Next time, just give every person with an automobile the $24,000 in cash.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Failure, Government, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2475.\\ Pelosi Denies Public Access to Public Space for Public Plan Announcement
Only those who don't dissent are permitted to enjoy an America rationed out by those who know best. You're not on that list.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Elitist, Fascism, Health Care, Nancy Pelosi
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PERMANENT LINK2472.\\ The Smartest Man in America
Every time I read Thomas Sowell I have an increasing admiration and appreciation for his intellect. He's a philosopher in an era of sophists. He's an excellent writer and his knowledge of how the economy really works makes Friedman look like Herbert Hoover.
His latest column, entitled Magic Numbers in Politics, is a devastating critique of the current vogue of political theory that markets are evil and the root cause of the financial crisis was insufficient Statism.
Aside from being a Capitalism 101 lesson that every politician should read, it is a repudiation of the notion that the market caused the financial crisis and that the solution is Barny Frank running your life.
The best bit:
If everything is connected to everything else in a market economy, then it makes no sense to have laws and policies that declare some given goal to be a "good thing," without regard to the repercussions, which spread out in all directions, like waves that spread across a pond when you drop a rock in the water.
Amen. Now, how do we fix it?
TAGGED AS: Capitalism, Communism, Economy, Philosophy, Thomas Friedman, Thomas Sowell
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PERMANENT LINK2471.\\ One Author, Totally Deluded
I am slowly shaking off the rage that has prevented me from writing anything about this story so far this morning. I don't even know where to begin. First go read this morning's op-ed in the Boston Globe.
Where to start. First off, the entire premise of the article is that Americans are ignorant. Every single one of us is stupid and deluded with the exception of the few enlightened ones who know so much more than we do that they deserve to rule in a paternalistic style, taking care of us from womb to grave. They just don't want us to worry our pretty little heads about things we couldn't possibly understand (like the health care bill, for example, which Congress won't let us read before they ram it through the legislature). In reality they're much more cynical. They just don't want our petty natures and preferences for things like self-determination and liberty to get in the way of their well-thought out grand intellectual exercises in social re-engineering. You know, sort of like fascists believed.
From the beginning of this article I had my hackles up. I don't like people taking the piss out of this country. But I agree with the first paragraph of the text. There is pandering by politicians to the public about how great everything is all the time. But the part that turned me totally hostile and made me flew into a rage was the sentence "The fact of the matter is that whenever anything really significant has been accomplished by our government, it is precisely because it was better than the American people."
There is nothing about any government or any State that makes it better than the people by whose consent it governs and in whose interest it serves. Government is not a thing that grants nobility of action, purity of character or goodness of intention. It is a temporary social contract that exists to provide impartial equity in human interactions. It is a framework within which a society of people functions. It is not an end unto itself, it is simply an means to an end. It cannot be "better" than the public because it is made up of the public. It cannot be noble because it is nothing more than a framework of rules. It cannot be pure or good or evil for that matter because it is not a person or a sentient entity, it s a legal construct that can evaporate as soon as the will that brought it into being dissipates.
Government is not a person or a philosophy or a social experiment. It doesn't exist to advance any agenda other than that which the people have deigned to adopt. In short, therefore, it is not, has not and will never be better than the people who allow it to continue.
Offered up as some sort of proof to the contrary is FDR's goading America into WWII and wasn't the government so much more enlightened and noble than the moronic mob who opposed US entry into war.
This, of course, is ridiculous. Taking Roosevelt's leadership, principles and strategic thinking and transmuting it into some sort of beneficent action of an enlightened "Government" is nonsense. FDR was elected because people believed in his ability to lead. They trusted him when he laid the groundwork for support of the Allies. It wasn't an American Government, so much better than Americans, that got us into war. We entered the war because we were attacked by Japan and because we trusted our chosen leader to guide us in that war. The same goes for LBJ and his Great Society and for Obama's Nationalized Health Care. People elected these leaders because they believed in their principles, their agenda and their ability to lead (although in Obama's case it may simply have been Oprah's endorsement, who can say).
Now I may completely disagree with FDR, LBJ and Obama. That doesn't make them 'better' than me or somehow more enlightened than me because they have one vision and I have another. It simply means their vision is the one that counts because they were elected. Of course, their vision could be totally wrong. In that case, they are no more stupid than I nor more ignorant and I am no more better. I'm simply right and they are wrong. And since history is written or at least kindest to the victors, in 50 years I have no doubt that whatever happens over the course of Obama's (hopefully short) tenure will be viewed as 'right' and 'better' than whatever else would have happened but didn't.
In short, it is stupid to ascribe supernatural 'better' powers to events which happened over those which didn't. If Washington had been captured and hung and we were all British, we'd have a short lesson in our grade schools about the aborted rebellion that thank God was put down by the King. And this boob writing in the Boston Globe would be gushing at how much better the King was than the population which wanted to separate from Britain. Imagine if the King didn't have the courage to stand up to those who wanted a revolution! This is the same argument as the author seems to believe is a proper guiding principle.
I'm all for humility when dealing with people that cannot possibly compare in any metric of national greatness or who are our friends. But when it comes to despots, thugs, criminal and rogue regimes and belligerent potential enemies, then it is Go America time and we should be as pro-USA as possible. It is incumbent upon everyone in this nation to be as proud as possible and to lord it over any potential enemy. We know our faults, but just like a family we don't have to air dirty laundry and weaknesses for our enemies to pick apart and potentially exploit. We should be as boastful as possible. And so should our leaders. Because if neither we nor they believe that this is the greatest place on earth, the grandest experiment in history, the literal shining city on the hill, then we are totally at the mercy of our enemies' psychological manipulations. Just ask the USSR how things went when they actually began to believe they were the Evil Empire.
The author asks, by what standard is one nation greater than any other nation? He then proceeds to detail failings of our system in comparison to others. He's right. There isn't any one standard. It is a comprehensive standard that takes into account financial power, knowledge, scientific contribution, military capability, cultural impact, geography, morality, guiding principles of government, the legal system, technical prowess, businesses, literature, ecology, social mobility, national flexibility and capacity for change, material resources, historical impact, international esteem, immigration numbers, inventions and overall quality of life. By THAT standard there is no doubt who is number one. But if you still have a lingering question as to who is the best or by which standard we should judge such a superlative, then simply ask anyone in the world today: "What country is the most important in the world?" Nobody is going to say Sweden just because they have higher home ownership and greater wealth distribution. I defy you to find a person on the planet since Teddy Roosevelt sent the Fleet round the world who would claim the United States of America is something other than the most important single nation on the planet.
The author holds up healthcare as a reason why we are not the greatest country on earth. He claims we are the only industrialized nation without a national health care system. He clearly doesn't know his own government. Medicare and Medicaid are both national health care plans available to any and all Americans who need them.
But that point aside, the next argument is that immigration patterns demonstrate that every country in the world is just as good the next one. Yes Mexicans come to the US but Turks go to Germany and Indians go to Great Britain and Arabs go to France. So there you have it, every nation has people who want to go to it and therefore the USA cannot claim it is better because people are immigrating. Balls. Everyone from every nation comes to the United States. The Japanese don't immigrate to Germany. The Chinese don't immigrate to Italy. Tajiks don't flock in huge numbers to Brazil. The fact is that everybody in the world comes the United States. This is an immigrant nation and that regenerative power is the source of our great strength. We get the best, the most industrious, those with the greatest hunger and thirst for opportunity. They come to our shores in droves, by the shipload. They attend our schools and take that BETTER KNOWLEDGE back to whatever shithole they came from in an effort to improve their nations. And at the end of the day, anyone can become an American. A guy from Senegal can't move to Tokyo and become Japanese. A single mother from Mexico can't sneak across the border into Germany and become German. Anyone can come into this country and become part of it. They add their distinctive ability, experience and knowledge to the whole and THAT makes us the greatest nation on earth thank you very much.
The author continues his everyone-wins-a-prize train of thought. And I have to quote it here because it is just such rubbish:
"The point of all this isn't that America doesn't have a lot to be proud of. It does. The point is that just about every country has a lot to be proud of, and America has no more right to assume it is the greatest nation in the world than does France, Switzerland, China, or Russia."
Really? The United States isn't greater than Switzerland? That is ridiculous and ultimately beside the point. Any nation can say whatever it wants about its own national greatness. The proof is in the historical record and will be written by the greatest nation no matter what the others say or do. I'm claiming that this greatest nation is the US. If the Swiss want to believe they're the greatest then fine, let them do so. I would apply my comprehensive metric described above to blast that nonsense out of the water, but whatever. I would ask my future generations when they read the history of the 20th and 21st Centuries, which was the greatest of the great powers? They won't say Switzerland.
I had thought the most ludicrous argument was past at this point. But no. The author has more for me to tear to pieces. He claims:
"None of this would make much difference if the self-congratulation was just harmless bragging. But there are consequences. A country that believes it is the greatest in the world is also less likely to be constrained by that world. One could argue that the Iraq war was a direct result of a sense of national infallibility. So was our willingness to torture, our reluctance to admit our mistakes in Afghanistan, our culpability in the global recession, and our foot-dragging on global warming. Such a nation is also less likely to introspect or to strive for true greatness because it believes its greatness has already arrived."
Egad! It isn't harmless bragging for starters, it is legitimate belief. And a great nation has no obligation to be 'constrained by the world'. Can you imagine? We're suddenly in the business of constraining nations and subjecting them to the diktats of a bureaucracy someplace in Geneva. No nation should be constrained by the world. Nations constrain other nations. Nations coerce and force and lead and encourage other nations. Nations are the primary actors in global affairs. "The World" doesn't exist and even if it did, no entity has authority to constrain the United States. The United States is governed by one document that supersedes any and all laws. It is illegitimate the US Government that seeks to submit the United States to be constrained by the world. That is a US Government that has abrogated its duty, exceeded its authority and must be dismantled and replaced by one that adheres to the Constitution.
The Iraq war was a direct result of the strategic need to dispose of Saddam Hussein and ensure the Iraqi oil supply by creating the conditions for the long term stability and prosperity offered by a free form of government chosen by the people of that nation. That stability and prosperity will reduce the threat of Iraq becoming a reactionary power that disrupts an already unstable part of the world. And yes, our belief that we had the power to create that stable situation was a direct result of our belief in our national greatness and in our nation as a force for good. The author would imply that if we had only been smarter and more humble, we could have lived with total chaos in the middle east in perpetuity. He has a right to believe that, of course, until such chaos leads to the murder of anyone he loves. Then he might wonder why we didn't try to do something, given our great capabilities.
The final thoughts of the author require some analysis. He says that America can't take criticism and that Americans constantly need to be flattered and have their pride attended to. I completely disagree. One major part of our national greatness is our ability to change. Change isn't something that comes from the State or is organized by Presidents. Change is an unseen shift in attitude and beliefs that take place over time in the people that constitute the nation. Nobody forced Americans to recycle (as of yet). And who in the 1940s would have cared much for it? I'm not an environmentalist yet I recycle because I believe it is the right thing to do. Had someone tried to legislate that morality it would certainly have backfired in a person like myself. Lincoln freed the slaves in States not controlled by the Union, yes. But his actions, his enlightened wisdom, didn't create change in attitudes. That change had been brewing for decades and continued to brew for decades to follow. Change flowed UPWARD, not DOWNWARD from the enlightened ones.
Americans don't need flattery. We know our weaknesses and it is a sign of our greatness the degree to which we self-flagellate and wring our hands and agonize over flaws in our national character that a people such as, say, the French, would be aghast at. The Chinese don't sit around talking about how morally corrupt they are. The Russians don't agonize about being a nation of nationalists. The Germans don't sit around and wonder how on earth they got to be so racist. The Cubans don't have thousands of call-in talk radio shows where they debate the pros and cons of teaching evolution in schools. This is a nation in constant flux. Change is constantly flowing in various directions. It isn't all in a uniform march to a better society as progressives and end-of-historites would have you believe. There isn't a logical conclusion to the change ever flowing in a constant direction. But it is more ongoing and churning change than any people anywhere in time or place have ever seen. And that churn wasn't created by Barack Obama's executive order. Change is a feature, a characteristic of America and Americans.
In one final jibe at Americans, he despairs that American Government may be just as good as American people and therefore the end of times is near. I would argue that America's elected officials have always been, and are by design, the same or worse than the people they represent. It is precisely because the politician is a cynic or is a pretentious, self-righteous pretender, that they are elected in the first place. It is their ability to appear that they know what they're doing that encourages us to vote for them. The Constitution recognized this and the founders acknowledged the base morals of humanity and built into the system the ability for self-correction.
We should truly despair when the State becomes the ultimate achievement of mankind. The ultimate expression of our intellect. The basis for reorganizing society along the lines of those who are the 'best'. We should truly despair when the 'best' rule us. Their capabilities coupled with human nature and unchecked ego give rise to dictators and emperors.
TAGGED AS: America, Arrogant, Barack Obama, Boston Globe, Congress, Constitution, Democracy, Hubris, Leftist, Liberals, Liberty, Nation, Principle, State
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PERMANENT LINK2470.\\ Margaret Carlson, You Are SOOO Right
I increasingly like you, Margaret Carlson. With your mousy looks and sarcastic jibes you make me hot for mostly politically honest copy from the center left.
Your latest call to dump Dominican Chucky Rangel is intellectually honest, accurate and necessary for the Democrats to even pretend they're not raging hypocrites on the ethics topic.
I gladly link to your column on the topic and give it two hurrahs. One for being true to your journalistic integrity and one cause I like women in glasses.
TAGGED AS: Charlie Rangel, Congress, Ethics, Hypocrites, Margaret Carlson, Nancy Pelosi
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PERMANENT LINK2469.\\ The Universe is Laughing
I've spent the day swinging between incredulity and disbelief, outright uproarious guffawing and barely contained rage (albeit the rage was only after listening to Rush on my way to lunch and back).
I have nothing about the award to Mr. Obama, Peace Be Upon Him, that hasn't already been said a zillion times on Twitter and the other parts of the interwebs. And frankly I'm still angry and upset and tired after watching the Red Sox suck ass against the Angels last night.
So. I've read it all, absorbed it all, realized that I have nothing original to add and instead will let Benjamin Kertsein's gorgeously written article do all the speaking for me.
Aside from the fantastic use of the term "rhetorical flatulence" to describe the Nobel Prize Committee's announcement, the best and most salient bit is as follows:
"When powerful people make fools of themselves, it behooves us to remember that when the fools are powerful, there is a strong chance that we are all in serious trouble. Obama and Obamamania are a joke that, in the end, is also on us."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Prize, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2468.\\ Baucus Bill Bull
Read this article and then defend the plan.
My favorite bit:
"Only in government accounting could an additional 29 million people receive new health coverage with a savings of $81 billion. By this congressional logic, America could insure all 6 billion people in the world at a savings of trillions of dollars."
UPDATE:
There's also this analysis which demonstrates the government socially engineering a dependent society where it makes more sense to do nothing than it does to actually work.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Health Care, Liar, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2467.\\ How's That Economic Philosophy Working Out For You?
I guess taxing the shit out of the rich and small businesses and redistributing it all to the poor isn't working out all that well. Obamanomics in action. Coming soon to a State near you.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Obamanomics, Socialism, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2464.\\ Slagging Off Americans
It is one thing if you call your own countrymen a bunch of rednecks and/or racists and denigrate various states based on your own regional sympathy. However, it is another thing entirely when foreigners do it, ESPECIALLY the English/French/Other Former Power.
Most offensive bit:
"I didn't want to wake up tied to a tree, being invited to squeal like a little piggy for the entertainment of a 20-year-old psychopath in giant dunÂgaÂrees, with three teeth in his head and a bitter hatred of anyone who wasn't also a 30-stone homophobic racist who shot at things he didn't understand."
I find it ironic that a minor British television personality would mock the dental work of foreigners. Especially when he's making zero effort to understand the people he feels perfectly in the right to mock and insult.
My favorite comment: "Oh, come on, let the Brits have their little laugh. After all, a sense of humor is really all they have left."
LOL.
TAGGED AS: Alabama, Arrogant, Britain, Former Power, Haughty, Rednecks, Teeth
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PERMANENT LINK2463.\\ Bomb Iran. Now.
Fresh today with this article on quiet Pentagon preparations for massive ground penetrators, there is absurdly obvious evidence of Iran's ongoing march to the atom bomb.
TAGGED AS: Iran, Military, Nuclear Weapons, United Nations
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PERMANENT LINK2461.\\ Finance Committee Democrat: Health Bill is gibberish
Well hell. If one of the guys who WROTE the damn thing won't even bother to support it, why should anyone?
More evidence that this blunderbuss is a solution in search of a problem.
TAGGED AS: Health Care, Nonsense, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2460.\\ Internet Danger
I think that the recent decision to let lapse the ICANN governing agreement is quite possibly the most dangerous thing our nation could possibly do. This is like the British giving up the Royal Navy in the 1920s. The fact is that the Internet is a product of American ingenuity and is our nation's intellectual capital. It is a strategic asset of the Republic. We've given it up to the thugs and dictators (including our future enemy China) and they will not hesitate to use it against us in every conceivable way. They will attack our industries, our infrastructure, our technologies, our universities and use the Internet, as only authoritarian states can, to undermine the existence of the Republic itself.
The world is falling apart, we're encouraging it to do so and remain more interested in Dancing With the Stars and the 2016 Olympics than the 20% effective unemployment and the dramatic fall in the relative power of our nation, our culture and our civilization.
The Visigoths are at the gate and we've just given them the key.
TAGGED AS: America, China, Decline and Fall, Disaster, ICANN, Internet, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2459.\\ China Warning
I've harped on this for years. Ever since studying China in college, I've harbored the notion that there will be war with them. Read this article and think deep about it. It isn't the rambling of an idiot or a warmonger or a neocon. This is hard evidence and solid analysis that we are indeed revisiting history. I would argue it is 1932 all over again.
My children will have to fight the Chinese because of 20 years of weakness and inept leadership when it comes to the China question.
2458.\\ The Canadians Seem to Have Got It Right
Check out how awesome the Conservatives are doing in Canada. Under Stephen Harper's leadership, they are on the verge of a majority government. Stunning for a country normally labeled as hopelessly socialist. The reality of course is that they've been quietly leaning right over the past 5 years or so. At this point, it would not be a stretch to argue that Canada is a more conservative country than America. Imagine that. Canada to the RIGHT of America! Truly the apocalypse has arrived.
The GOP would be wise to watch and learn how to rule conservatively from the center and do it effectively.
TAGGED AS: Canada, Centrist, Conservatives, GOP, Politics, Stephen Harper
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PERMANENT LINK2457.\\ Well Everything's Going Fine...
Unemployment at nearly 10%, the highest in 26 years. Looks like Obamanomics is going swimmingly. Just like Stalin's, Mao's and Castro's state control of the means of production, our leftist economic policies are doomed to failure (as the French, Germans and British have begun to realize).
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Leftist, Obamanomics, Socialism, Unemployment
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PERMANENT LINK2455.\\ Helen Thomas, You Old Bag
Normally I can't stand her. But I have got to give recognition to the sheer size of her dangling donkey balls. She's covered every President since Kennedy and at 89 years old doesn't have time for crap. I love it.
That being said, Robert Gibbs is a greasy fat slimebag. Perfect as a press secretary if the goal is to communicate as little as possible.
TAGGED AS: Helen Thomas, Media, Robert Gibbs
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PERMANENT LINK2452.\\ Harry Reid, Evil-Doer
The massive, swaggering, greasy hypocrisy of Harry Reid knows no bounds. His ego is matched only by his corruption. For his latest shenanigans, which includes exempting Nevada from the costly parts of ObamaCare and shifting that burden elsewhere, this article on Politico.
TAGGED AS: Democrats, Harry Reid, Medicaid, Nevada, ObamaCare
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PERMANENT LINK2449.\\ While America Burns to the Ground
I've agreed with Margaret Carlson before. And this time she has it exactly right. In an article for Bloomberg, she points out how frivolous Barry's jetsetting off to Denmark is while everything is burning to the ground here at home.
Most damning is her revelation that she agrees with Republican Senator Kit Bond. His main point is that while Obama doesn't have a spare minute to meet with his own Generals to work out the situation in Afghanistan, he has plenty of spare time to be on every tv program, do spots for George Lopez's new show, fly around the world apologizing for America existing and hob nobbing with the G20.
As Bond put it:
"it's baffling that the president has time to travel to Copenhagen, to be on 'Letterman' and every channel except the Food Network, and, yet, he doesn't have time to talk with and listen to his top general."
So here's to Margaret for putting journalistic integrity first and calling a spade a spade.
On another note, I don't give a damn if the Olympics never happen again and I care much less about whether or not Chicago gets the games. I DO care, however, if we are defeated in the middle east since that will have impact decades beyond the memory of any games anywhere.
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, Margaret Carlson, Media, Olympics, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2448.\\ Where's the Help Barry?
Why haven't we responded yet to the tsunami in the Samoas? The level of death and destruction in an American territory would seem to warrant overnight reaction. Where are the C130s and C-17s and C-5s full of relief? Where is the Navy?
Why are we moving so slow (if at all) while Washington promises an 'aggressive response'. As of this afternoon, we've only offered 'sympathy' to the American citizens that have lost everything.
Why has no one in the media asked this question?
TAGGED AS: American Samoa, Barack Obama, Disaster, Tsunami
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PERMANENT LINK2447.\\ Success No Matter What
John Stossel can be a bit of a prick sometimes. But he's got it bang on with this bit today on RCP.
Best part is his reference to an earlier, quite prescient article he wrote:
Given time, the economy, unless totally crippled by government intervention, will regenerate itself. That's because an economy is not a machine that needs jumpstarting. It is people who have objectives they want to achieve. They will not sit on their hands forever waiting for government to 'fix' things. Instead, they work to overcome obstacles to get what they want. Some banks are struggling, but there are still people who want to lend money and people who want to borrow it. They will find each other without government help
Hear hear. The only thing missing are some hard numbers on the colossal waste of Cash for Clunkers, the various bailouts, the nationalization of GM, etc.
Additionally, I would extend his argument by suggesting that this isn't just the standard WH spin on the economy we always see. No this is worse. This is an actual liberal elitist philosophy, a cynical world view, that says if we lie enough to the morons out there on topics they don't understand, we'll eventually convince them of our words. Provided the lie is big enough and the charisma is strong enough. It extends beyond the economy and into the realm of health care, Iran, international trade, the Unions, taxes, and on and on. It is Obama's governing philosophy and he uses it with everything. Tell them enough times and with the right intonation that everything is great because I'm good looking and charismatic and smarter than you are and you will eventually believe me.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Finance, Jobs, John Stossel
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PERMANENT LINK2446.\\ California Coming Around to Common Sense?
This article in Forbes paints a bleak picture of California's experiment with radically liberal politics. Unemployment in some areas over 20% and a host of other problems have led some to stop and think that perhaps LOWER taxes and LESS government spending might just be the ticket after all.
What is interesting is that the state has often served as a bellweather for economic and social philosophy for much of the rest of the country. If they pull it back from the brink and turn it around using a pro-business, conservative approach, I wonder if the nation will follow?
TAGGED AS: California, Economy, Environazis, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2442.\\ Eisenfrau Merkel
The world has a new Iron Lady. I've always found it interesting how Europe, America and Canada seem to be politically out of step with each other since the 1980s. When we've got a center-right government they have center-left and vice versa.
The Canadians, British, Germans and French are all leaning away from their socialist parties. We just elected ours.
I wonder who's ahead of whom on the curve?
Best bit:
"If the trend continues, we may even get a pro-American president in Washington."
TAGGED AS: Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Germany, Politics, US
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PERMANENT LINK2441.\\ Promise-Breaker-in-Chief
What the fuck is going on in Washington? Aside from human nature, unrestrained greed, rampant corruption and outright fraud, that is.
Funding that no one has asked for, for projects that the Pentagon does not want. And a President so weak he can't even live up to his own words by lifting a pen to strike down horrific wasteful spending at a time of unprecedented fiscal peril.
What a bunch of crooks we have running the place. Where's Patrick Henry when you need him?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, Finance, Liar, Military, Pentagon, Revolution, Spending
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PERMANENT LINK2440.\\ Vivre Sarkozy!
Sarkozy takes it to Barry. When the President of France is tougher than you are, you might be a bit of a wuss.
Seriously though. In the dark days of the early 2000's, the French were weak and sniveling annoyances. Now they're leading the freaking charge while we read teleprompters and dream of futures where Americans are controlled from the District of Columbia to live and breathe and think in a manner consistent with the ideology of the ivory tower theorists.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, France, Iran, Nicolas Sarkozy, United Nations, US
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PERMANENT LINK2438.\\ Stimula-tastic!
Nice. So let me understand this, 4 million have LOST their jobs since March but the Federal government has GROWN by 25,000?. And you want them to choose and administer your health care? Fuck me.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Government, USA Today
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PERMANENT LINK2437.\\ America is Post-WW1 Britain
Shiver. "Australia is already linking its fortunes to China through commodity ties."
TAGGED AS: China, Dollar, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2436.\\ Speak Softly and Tip Toe Around Your Enemies
What bothers me the most about this article is that it makes plain our weakness and a deliberate choice to remain weak. The proposal to shrink the Navy's carrier force in the face of current and emerging competitors who may resort to asymmetrical warfare may make sense in light of budget constraints. However, our current force projection doctrine centered as it is around carrier strike groups, must be REPLACED with something else. You don't simply pick up the ball and say, well I guess I can't compete anymore so I'm going home. The doctrine could change to smaller, stealthier, carriers, better defended carriers, space-based carriers, rock-solid missile defense systems, or a move away from carrier doctrine entirely.
Canceling the F22, canceling the Army's future combat systems program, canceling the space program, canceling missile defense; these make us look weak and vulnerable. The surest way to invite a rising competitor to do battle is give them every indication that you're old and tired and weak. This was a central theme in Germany's bid to compete with Britain in the late 1800's and early 1900s. That ended in disaster for both.
TAGGED AS: Aircraft Carriers, China, F22, Military, Missile Defense, Weakness
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PERMANENT LINK2435.\\ Why the World Loves Barry
The British have a bead on the man.
I just don't quite understand why he's so virulently anti-Israeli.
Best bit:
"The president scores highly at the UN for refusing to project American values and military might on the world stage, with rare exceptions like the war against the Taliban. His appeasement of Iran, his bullying of Israel, his surrender to Moscow, his call for a nuclear free world, his siding with Marxists in Honduras, his talk of a climate change deal, have all won him plaudits in the large number of UN member states where US foreign policy has traditionally been viewed with contempt. "
TAGGED AS: America, Appeasement, Barack Obama, Daily Telegraph, United Nations, War on Terror
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PERMANENT LINK2433.\\ Disarming the Responsible
In a Wall Street Journal Opinion piece, Bret Stephens lays out why America is doomed. Not just America but all western peace loving nations.
I would differ in my long term predictions, however. Appeasement and weakness in the West historically invites war and turmoil. And so it will again. A nation or group of nations will attempt to exploit our perceived or actual weakness. The war will be long and brutal and ultimately we will prevail. We'll undergo decades of self-flagellation for ever having been so gullible and naive. I'm a historian. Mark my words that it will happen.
The best bit:
"In 1943, Walter Lippmann observed that the disarmament movement had been 'tragically successful in disarming the nations that believed in disarmament.' That ought to have been the final word on the subject."
TAGGED AS: America, Appeasement, Barack Obama, Economy, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2430.\\ Throughout this campaign...er...effort
I love this exchange. Since most people probably didn't see it (cause no one watches George's show), I invite you now. My favorite part is where Obama forgets he's President and thinks he's still on the campaign trail.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar
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PERMANENT LINK2429.\\ Andrew Breitbart is my new best friend
...and he's a superhero to boot.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Liberals, NEA
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PERMANENT LINK2428.\\ ACORN on the Offense
Thank you Publius.
Read the CEO's bio at Politico after watching this video.
TAGGED AS: ACORN, Democrats
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PERMANENT LINK2424.\\ Pelosi Spouts Off (Again)
Apparently, opposing the left-wing agenda in this nation is now tantamount to assassination! According to Nancy Pelosi, if you dare speak out, that is the same thing as killing people.
I wonder if the Parliament had a similar view in 1775? Certainly the acts of opposition at that time were more severe than Joe Wilson verbally pointing out the obvious. I mean, they tarred and feathered government agents, boiling them in tar until they died.
Although she is totally ignorant of it, she is the modern day Lord North to many, many people in this country. There are parts of this country literally on the verge of armed rebellion and invoking Harvey Milk is like a three day waiting period for a serial killer. Totally irrelevant, misses the point and only further enrages.
TAGGED AS: Nancy Pelosi, Revolution
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PERMANENT LINK2423.\\ 72% of Nation's Doctors Are Racists
Because, you know, they oppose the President's policies and since he's black then that means they hate black people.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar
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PERMANENT LINK2422.\\ I Told You So...
Facts are stubborn things. So is historical, empirical data.
Take that Paul "Poobah" Krugman!
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2421.\\ Homeland Schmomeland
I'm increasingly of the opinion that these jokers don't have a fucking clue what they're doing.
Am I wrong?
TAGGED AS: Congress, Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano
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PERMANENT LINK2420.\\ She Said it Best
Apparently, Nancy Pelosi is not at all focused on corruption in her own wing of the political spectrum while in the meantime she's demanding investigations into the previous Administration's alleged corruption.
HYPOCRITE.
But she said it best: I'm Clueless
TAGGED AS: Congress, Corruption, Nancy Pelosi
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PERMANENT LINK2417.\\ China on the March
The news is full of stories today on how the Chinese are eating our lunch while we sit around and fiddle with out entitlement programs.
Don't expect the current bunch of neophytes and weaklings to do a damn thing about it so long as they believe health care, wealth redistribution and government guarantees are all inherent human rights.
This is alarming and has been warned of for at least 15 years.
2415.\\ Geroge Will and the Brilliant Distill
This guy has a knack for his ability to boil a complex, thorny circumstance down to its basic elements. He's done so again in Newsweek. This time he devestatingly lays out the fundamental contradictions in Barry's proposals and explains why Americans don't believe anything he says.
My favorite part:
"On the 233rd day of his presidency, Barack Obama grabbed the country's lapels for the 263rd time--that was, as of last Wednesday, the count of his speeches, press conferences, town halls, interviews, and other public remarks. His speech to Congress was the 122nd time he had publicly discussed health care. Just 14 hours would pass before the 123rd, on Thursday morning. His incessant talking cannot combat what it has caused: An increasing number of Americans do not believe that he believes what he says."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, George Will, Health Care, Liar, Mitch McConnell, Newsweek
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PERMANENT LINK2414.\\ Seems Like It's Going Well...
If you needed further proof that the current class of clowns has no idea what it is doing, read this story.
Obama's economic philosophy, borne of ivory tower theories and with a heavy dose of idealistic communal flower power, will end up God-Damning America just as his supporters desire.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, The Telegraph
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PERMANENT LINK2413.\\ Old News
I got most of these in my real time twittering during the speech. Nice to know I wasn't the only one.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2412.\\ Most Important Read of The Week (And it's only Monday)
Read this and argue with it. You can't! You can't!
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Health Care, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2411.\\ Three Cheers For The Three Amigos!
I have always liked all three of them. My own Senator the least if I'm honest. But this article is a seminal piece.
The bit that seals the deal for me? "The U.S. walked away from Afghanistan once before, following the Soviet collapse. The result was 9/11. We must not make that mistake again."
Hear hear.
TAGGED AS: Afghanistan, Barack Obama, George W Bush, Joe Lieberman, John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Taliban, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2410.\\ So Basically He Did Lie
Facts are terrible things when they contradict the illusion you are trying to construct.
To wit, the President's assertions in his health care speech last week were false.
I believe that makes him a non-truth teller. Or, as some may say, a LIAR.
Best part (talking about Barry's claims that Alabama was an egregious example of how the evil insurance companies are killing Americans):
"In fact, the Birmingham News reported immediately following the speech that the state's largest health insurer, the nonprofit Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama, has about a 75% market share. A representative of the company indicated that its "profit" averaged only 0.6% of premiums the past decade, and that its administrative expense ratio is 7% of premiums, the fourth lowest among 39 Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans nationwide.
Similarly, a Dec. 31, 2007, report by the Alabama Department of Insurance indicates that the insurer's ratio of medical-claim costs to premiums for the year was 92%, with an administrative expense ratio (including claims settlement expenses) of 7.5%. Its net income, including investment income, was equivalent to 2% of premiums in that year.
In addition to these consumer friendly numbers, a survey in Consumer Reports this month reported that Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Alabama ranked second nationally in customer satisfaction among 41 preferred provider organization health plans. The insurer's apparent efficiency may explain its dominance, as opposed to a lack of competition--especially since there are no obvious barriers to entry or expansion in Alabama faced by large national health insurers such as United Healthcare and Aetna. "
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Health Care, Liar, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2409.\\ Poor Canada
And indirectly, poor America. Since our national educational, economic and technological cultures are so closely linked, this spells major trouble.
Even without overt militarism, a nation can defend itself in at least SOME aspect. Not in Canada where they're basically giving it all away for free.
TAGGED AS: Canada, China, Espionage, US
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PERMANENT LINK2408.\\ Another Reason I Love Michael Barone
...he agrees with me (albeit a week later).
Best bit:
"In a democracy, citizens don't always take the advice of their betters, even that of Friedman and the three experts he quotes -- a climateprogress.org blogger, a former Clinton budget official and a 'global trade consultant who teaches at Baruch College.'
TAGGED AS: China, Michael Barone, New York Times, Thomas Friedman
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PERMANENT LINK2407.\\ Where Are You James Monroe?
He never would have let this happen.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Hugo Chavez, Monroe Doctrine, Russia, Venezuala
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PERMANENT LINK2406.\\ Peter Ferrara: The Keynesians Were Wrong Again - WSJ.com
A ha! In a giant fuck you to the enlightened thought leaders (including Poobah Krugman himself) The Wall Street Journal presents a view opposite to that of the Keynesians and the other Ivory Tower elitists.
Good read.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Keynes
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PERMANENT LINK2405.\\ Breitbart.tv » 'Go Home!': DC Crowd Drowns Out CNN Reporter During Live Report
They Don't Like CNN, I Would Guess.
My favorite part is when they start chanting "Glenn Beck! Glenn Beck!" LOL
TAGGED AS: CNN, Glenn Beck, Joe Wilson, Protest, Rally, Washington
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PERMANENT LINK2401.\\
In a piece penned from Bizarro America, Thomas 'the world is flat' Friedman waxes poetic over the totalitarian state of China and wishes could please have some more wasteful spending in Congress if it means that we can finally impose all that is good and enlightened on the dumb rubes here in America.
Fuck freedom and liberty if it means the electorate (mob) can overrule those intellectuals who are fit to govern them. The unwashed masses shouldn't have a say in their own lives if it means that lifestyle conflicts with the philosophy of the ivory tower.
An American Liberal Democrat advocating totalitarian dictatorship of the enlightened elite. I never thought I'd ever live to see the day.
TAGGED AS: China, Dictatorship, Economy, Leninism, Politics, Thomas Friedman
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PERMANENT LINK2400.\\ Barone Gets it Right (Again)
With his usual direct style, Michael Barone points out the increasing absurdity of the plan(s) to change how health care works in this country.
My favorite part:
"There is an element of convenient fantasy as well in Obama's health care statements to date. We are going to save money by spending money. We are going to solve our fiscal problems with a program that will increase the national debt by $1,000,000,000,000 over a decade. We are going to guarantee you can keep your current insurance with a bill that encourages your employer to stop offering it.
The list goes on. We are going to improve health care for seniors by cutting $500,000,000,000 from Medicare. We aren't going to insure illegal aliens, except that we won't have any verification provisions to see that they can't apply and get benefits."
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Economy, Health Care, Michael Barone, Washington Examiner
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PERMANENT LINK2398.\\ When Bush spoke to students, Democrats investigated, held hearings | Washington Examiner
Well, this was to be expected.
Hypocrites, amuse thy selves.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Bias, George HW Bush, Media, Washington Examiner, Washington Post
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PERMANENT LINK2397.\\ The Public Option
Seems to be going well in the UK as well as in France.
Yeah. I can't imagine why we don't want our system to emulate theirs.
Let me reiterate. Anything run by the Federal Government is wasteful, inefficient and costly. Oh and typically results in a piss poor product.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."
Sorry, I'm missing the part that says "Congress shall have the power to create, administer, fund and control Health Care" and I'm also missing the part of the Bill of Rights that lists health care as one of the enumerated rights...
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, France, Health Care, Socialism, UK
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PERMANENT LINK2396.\\ Make Me World of Warcraft Czar
Oh great. We have a new, extra-constitutional government appointee this morning. Apparently Barry saw fit to put a union man in as manufacturing czar. Well. No one better than a union guy to oversee State control of the means of production in this dictatorship of the proletariat.
Marx would be proud.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Communism, Dictatorship, Marxism, Unions
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PERMANENT LINK2395.\\ The Curious Case of the Missing Van Jones
In today's Washington Examiner, Byron York asks what I assume to be a rhetorical question. Why did the media, in particular the New York Times, totally ignore the Van Jones scandal. And what's more, why does the New York Times only print news that is favorable to Barack Obama? And why have they consistently not printed any news, ever, that was not favorable to him?
Again, I assume it is rhetorical and that Byron knows how corrupted, elitist and ideological the 'news' room is at the New York Times. That they don't report news at all. They are the modern day Hearsts who see their role as educating the dumb folk out there who can't see the truth. Their truth. That kind of ego maniacal, systematic lying is nothing short of yellow journalism without any positive side effects.
My favorite bit from the article:
"Times readers didn't know it, but the causes for Jones' departure included the fact that he signed a 2004 petition supporting the so-called '9/11 truther' movement; that he was a self-professed communist during much of the 1990s; that he supported the cop-killer Mumia abu-Jamal; that in 2008 he accused 'white polluters' of 'steering poison into the people of color communities'; and that earlier this year, speaking to a friendly crowd in Berkeley, Calif., he called Republicans 'a--holes.'"
So he's not only a first class dick, he's also a communist, a racist and prone to conspiracy theories. Bet you won't find any of that in the New York Times.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Byron York, Elitist, Leftist, New York Times, Van Jones, Washington Examiner
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PERMANENT LINK2394.\\ Paul Krugman and the Advance of Madness
Yes it is old. But I didn't do any web surfing on Friday to spot it. So here it is.
In a quick blog post to (his blog? the NY Times Editorial Page? some random website he maintains? I can't figure it out), the Great American Poobah professes disbelief and surprise at the hate mail his political rants have generated.
On the one hand he calmly expresses a desire to not have people react so vehemently, so filled with blind rage, at writings that they may not have even read. And he cleverly weaves into this thread a charge that anyone who disagrees with Obama and the Liberal agenda in general must be retarded.
So we pair a legitimate observation on the temperature of the political discourse in this country with school yard insults from the 6th grade. Nice. Worthy of a Nobel laureate with his prominence.
I commented. But in case my comment is 'moderated' out of existence as routinely happens at the NYTimes.com website (regardless of how polite I am in disagreeing), I've asked some rhetorical questions (and statements) below that I'd love to ask Paul if I ever met him:
Dear Paul,
Why is it "bizarre" to think that the Obama administration is full of socialists, ideologues, angry leftists and others with a penchant for militant elitism? The news is replete with examples on a weekly, if not daily basis. Need I point them out to you?
Why does the intensity of the discourse strike you as amazing and "bizarre"? It is pretty clear that the nation has been divided for quite some time. Or did you think that when Obama was elected that everyone would see the light, swoon, smoke the bong and go into a haze of total agreement?
You were not "questioning Bush's bona fides" during the previous administration, Mr. Krugman. You have called him a liar, a war profiteer, an idiot, an elitist, an ideologue. a fundamentalist, denigrated his religious bent, suggested he inherited the White House and myriad other distateful things
Your articles on innocuous subjects like health care, economics and macro modeling provoke such 'incoherent rage' because they are political and you mean them to be political. And when you invoke your Nobel Prize to make points about politics you appear, and indeed are, elitist. And when those points are decidedly leftist in nature, paint everything on the right as a product of mental deficiency, and fawn over anything on the left, then you will provoke the kind of rage you see in your inbox. Seems pretty straight forward to me and I imagine in reality you truly understand it. Which leads me to my next point
Why are you so mock sincere with your statements? Feigning ignorance on subjects you should clearly have mastery over is the lowest form of intellectual discourse.
Need I point out that if Obama had come in proposing an agenda identical to the last administration, then you would not be supporting him and indeed be writing articles mocking his intelligence? It is totally irrelevant to point out something with is impossible. Why the false, straw man argument? It is beneath you.
Why do you invoke mental acuity to explain why the right doesn't see the absolute, perfect correctness beaming forth from the light of knowledge you've hoisted high?
In fact, involvement in politics is beneath you. Put your brain to work and solve our problems. Stay off the editorial and opinion pages where you simply diminish yourself, your ideas and liberalism in general.
Here's what my comment said:
"Why must there be something 'wrong' with people's mental faculties out there Paul? Is it possible, just possible, that the unwashed masses are right and you are wrong? Why this disdain for the mob when it rejects the light of liberal enlightenment you've bestowed on it?
You're a smart guy. Drop the emotion. Reassess. Quit calling people retarded because they think you're full of crap."
Lastly, does a minor blog post from a week ago warrant this rant? In and of itself, no. But I get pretty worked up at these elitists spewing about how dumb everyone else is and not getting challenged.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Elitist, Leftist, New York Times, Nonsense, Paul Krugman, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2393.\\ LA Times and Editorializing the Absurd
If you can get through today's editorial in the LA Times without laughing then you've bested me. The naivete of the entire position is stunning and even more so from an alleged news organization.
The notion that any regime in Iran just wants to sit down and talk with us is absurd. The Iranian interest is not in making things smoother with the United States. If they do that and thaw the relations, the regime will topple under a groundswell of public pressure. The only way they cling to power is to paint the 'other' as an evil, interfering hegemon bent on the destruction of the Iranian people, culture and Islamic religion. If relations were to thaw, the nuclear program would come under international scrutiny which is not in the mullahs' interest.
Heeding Iran's call for talks at this juncture is no different than acquiescing to HItler's request for conference in 1938 in Munich. That went so well that surely we should give it another go. After all, talking to thugs and dictators has always worked out.
TAGGED AS: Iran, LA Times, Nonsense, Nuclear Weapons
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PERMANENT LINK2391.\\ Joe Biden, Super Pseudo President
I love the sardonic tone of this summary of Joe Biden's activities over the past couple weeks while Barry is MIA.
Be sure to read the second page for the best bit:
"Declaring that 95 percent of all 'working families' have received tax relief (check your mailbox), the vice president also noted that more than 54 million seniors and veterans 'received a one-time check of $250.' Mr. Biden also asserted that the program 'saved or created 150,000 jobs in the first 100 days,' and reiterated the administration's pledge to save or create another 600,000 in the second hundred days."
I'm a veteran and I didn't get a check. I have a working family of 5 and didn't receive a dime from Barry. I do, however, fondly recall the 3 separate times I got checks from the Treasury during the Bush Administration...
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2390.\\ Things Could Be Worse...
You could be one of these people.
Yeah I'm sure going 100 grand into debt for a college degree is totally worth it. Or not.
Shouldn't a degree be free for everyone? Paid for by the rich? Guaranteed even to terrorists in Gitmo?
Or should it be something that you earn and value and leverage and pay for with your own sweat?
Frankly I think a degree and 4 years of college was a complete waste of time and money for me. But hey. I'm not Noble Prize winning economist. Sorry, wrong post.
2389.\\ Rebuttal of Krugman
Turns out, I don't have to write one. Cause it's already been practiced in reality in the State of Michigan where it has failed dramatically.
Bravo Keynes! Hurrah Krugman!
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Michigan, Paul Krugman
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PERMANENT LINK2388.\\ How Did Krugman Get It So Wrong?
In a must read article of the day, Paul Krugman, self-anointed Economic Grand Pubah of the Republic, exhaustively analyzes the current fiscal crisis and what happened at a macro level of economic theory and philosophy to get us here.
It is a great article that lays out the opposing camps of economic theorists and their general belief systems. He then proceeds to draw the total opposite conclusion from his data than I did. Now granted, I'm not a 2008 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Science, but it seems to me that a simple return to pure Keynesian theory would simply lead us down the path of rehashing the past 60 years of US economic development. My argument is that the 21st Century is a different time and place with totally different challenges than the 20th Century. Keynesian economics failed during the latter half of the 20th, so why on Earth should it work at all in the 21st? It would make sense in a manufacturing economy based on exports with Unions and farmers and goods being exchanged. It seems hopelessly antiquated when dealing with a service based economy where knowledge is bought and sold.
But hey, what do I know. Read the article anyway, cause it is very very interesting.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Keynes, Paul Krugman, Politics, Taxes
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PERMANENT LINK2387.\\ Candidate in Chief
Excellent analysis. My favorite bit:
"President Obama seemingly has no clue about what he is doing, and, increasingly, it shows. What will happen when things start to go sour in Afghanistan? Our Commander-in-Chief simply will not be able to blame President Bush. After Obama has effectively destroyed the CIA, what will he do when terrorists strike? War is a nasty business in which lawyers should have little role. Has Obama noticed that Islamic terrorists are now threatening him? Does he understand that these vicious men are still threatening America?"
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, George Bush, Politics, US
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PERMANENT LINK2386.\\ Sentenced to death on the NHS - Telegraph
Yeah. I wonder how this is working out for the Brits? Clearly we need the same thing here. You know, to ensure 'competition' (as if State control somehow miraculously provides MORE competition than the free market containing hundreds of competing companies).
TAGGED AS: Daily Telegraph, Health Care, NHS, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2385.\\ Holder Versus American Patriots
Ralph Peters does his usual job of verbally stripping his opponents of any philosophical legitimacy.
I like that he's framed the attack on American security not as a policy decision but as an ideological purge of the third world type. It is an interesting, but very subtle twist on this argument that resonates with me because I firmly believe that he's absolutely correct.
Dangerous times, my friends. Stay thirsty.
**** UPDATE:
Reading some of the comments. Didn't realize Eric Holder worked for Janet Reno and was involved in Ruby Ridge and Waco. Makes total sense that he'd seek to undermine our Liberty.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, George Bush, New York Post, Ralph Peters, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2384.\\ Bending Over (Backwards)
Go ahead and read this, now. Completely agree with the article. In fact, I suggest we launch an investigation into World War II abuses committed by American GIs against Nazis. Might make sense in the bizarro world we live in today.
Point to remember for the rest of the day:
"So many 'rights' have been conjured up out of thin air that many people seem unaware that rights and obligations derive from explicit laws, not from politically correct pieties. If you don't meet the terms of the Geneva Convention, then the Geneva Convention doesn't protect you. If you are not an American citizen, then the rights guaranteed to American citizens do not apply to you."
Amen brother.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Britain, CIA, National Security, Scotland, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2383.\\ Brown and Quadafi and Sex and Oil
Okay, no sex. But in the NY Daily News today, an Editorial basically lays out the absolute criminality of what's gone on with the release of the Lockerbie terrorist in exchange for Libyan oil.
Phrase of the day:
"Theirs has been a discreet relationship, conducted in private and lubricated by oil, an affair of convenience between a madman with blood on his hands, and a craven hypocrite with a price tag."
A craven hypocrite. God I love the English language.
TAGGED AS: Craven Hypocrite, Gordon Brown, Lockerbie, Moamar Quadafi, Oil, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2382.\\ David Brooks and the Silent Majority
In an Opinion piece, (usually) conservative columnist David Brooks surveys the political situation we're in and does his best to say nothing of interest on the matter.
With a discernible sourness, for reasons I can't quite fathom, he rambles on about how much of a mistake Obama's left tilt has been (shocker) and the disaster of health care reform for the Democrats (another shocker).
Despite writing an obvious filler piece (probably Sunday afternoon or something), he can't avoid some gems such as this:
"Amazingly, some liberals are now lashing out at Obama because the entire country doesn't agree with The Huffington Post. Some now argue that the administration should just ignore the ignorant masses and ram health care through..."
Love it.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Congress, David Brooks, Deficit, Economy, Harry Reid, Health Care, New York Times
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PERMANENT LINK2381.\\ Canada Whores Itself Out to China
Forbes is reporting on a deal that gives PetroChina a majority controlling interest in one of Canada's largest oil companies that happens to be sitting on 5 billion barrels of oil in the tar sands of Alberta.
Aside from the fact that China now has national security interests in North America and will defend those interests with typical Chinese nationalistic fury, the Chinese environmental record promises to transform western Canada into a massive cesspool.
Way to go Canada! You've sold the goods for a pittance and in return doomed your ecology and chained your foreign policy to the whims of the world's largest, cruelest dictatorship bent on global domination.
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out who in Ottawa thought this was in Canadian national interest. Look for increasing, creeping, Chinese involvement not only in the Canadian economy but in local and national politics to secure and insure their investment in raping Alberta. Canadian politicians will increasingly seek to placate and suck up to their bosses in Beijing and further distance themselves from the United States.
When the showdown inevitably comes, which side will Canada choose?
TAGGED AS: Canada, China, Economy, Foreign Policy, Oil
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PERMANENT LINK2380.\\ Poor Panetta
After reading this article, I'm more convinced than ever that Barry & Co have no clue what they're doing.
I should temper that somewhat. I prefer to say instead that I am wavering between believing they're totally clueless and believing that they're utterly un-American and have a deliberate plan to destroy this country for some bizarre reason. For me, only either extreme can sufficiently explain the ongoing assault on the defense and intelligence capabilities of this nation.
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, CIA, Eric Holder, Intelligence, Leon Panetta
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PERMANENT LINK2379.\\ And in Another Victory For Socialism...
Apparently we're going to declare that the due process of the Honduran Supreme Court is null and void. America is demanding a return of the socialist thug to power or else we'll suspend aid. That's right. We're suspending aid to a fellow democracy where the people rose up and threw out their leader. The military enacted it, the courts deemed it legal, but we don't care.
TAGGED AS: Honduras, Leftist, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2378.\\ Holy Friggin Crap.
Drudge is screaming this headline.
Obama wants to control the Internet now and decide which machines should and should not be connected. Furthermore, it allows the President, not a Congressional panel or a group within NSA or some other agency, but the President to direct the seizure of private networks (corporate or otherwise) at will. Perfect way to squash dissent. Just ask the Chinese and the Iranians.
This should raise the hackles of every single person in the country. I don't care what political stripes you have. This is censorship pure and simple using the need for "cybersecurity" as a cover to eliminate opposition to state takeover of our personal lives.
I've said it before. This is what produces revolutions.
TAGGED AS: Censorship, Congress, Freedom, Internet, Liberty, Obama, Privacy, Revolution
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PERMANENT LINK2377.\\ Dear Eugene Robinson: WTF?
What constitutes 'moral clarity' for Mr. Robinson? Seems like to him morality is embodied by murdering a young woman, lifelong alcoholism, misogyny and ruthless self-absorption.
Well to me, that is the definition of immorality. So I suggest the article be renamed "Ted Kennedy: An Eternal Prince of Darkness"
Glad we have such objective journalists hard at work in our nation.
TAGGED AS: Eugene Robinson, Leftist, Ted Kennedy
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PERMANENT LINK2376.\\ How is this Right in Any Way?
TAGGED AS: Bias, FoxNews, Guns, Health Care, Leftist, MSNBC, Obama, Racist
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PERMANENT LINK2375.\\ ABC Joins NBC As Official White House News Organ
As if having the head of General Electric/NBC appointed to the board of the Federal Reserve wasn't sufficient conflict of interest, now ABC is declaring officially that it is in the tank for Barry.
ABC has refused to air any ads critical of Obama's effort to nationalize healthcare. This is the channel that broadcast its 'news' from within the White House. As Dick Morris puts it:
"It's the ultimate act of chutzpah because ABC is the network that turned itself over completely to Obama for a daylong propaganda fest about health care reform. For them to be pious and say they will not accept advertising on health care shuts their viewers out from any possible understanding of both sides of this issue."
Read the full story here.
Sad. But totally believable. And it explains why shows like Lou Dobbs and O'Reilly are increasing their viewership so dramatically. In fact, O'Reilly has beat CBS broadcast news several times. That's gotta be a record to have a non-emergency cable news hour beat out the same hour of news on a national broadcast channel. The message seems to be loud and clear to me (apparently not to ABC, NBC or CBS): people aren't buying the distorted leftist bullshit you're serving. They see you as groveling sycophants willing to dispense with principles, morals and integrity in order to service the Liberal Messiah you believe is the second coming of JFK.
Fewer pay attention to you with each passing day....
TAGGED AS: ABC, CBS, Health Care, Media, NBC, White House
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PERMANENT LINK2374.\\ How's That Boycott Going?
Looks like everything's going as planned!
Or not, as the case may be. Is it possible, just possible, that people LIKE his show and AGREE with some or all of his commentary? Is it possible, just possible, that competitors like Olbermann, Deutsch & Co are fatuous liars for whom nobody gives a rat's ass? Is it possible that, shudder, jealousy and not self-righteous indignation is driving their boycott drive?
I wonder what Olbermann would do with 3 million viewers. Actually, are there 3 million people who know who Keith Olbermann is? I bet Deutsch would be happy to have 3 people know who he is.
And just for fun, and to expel the Olbermann demons, check THIS out. God bless you, Glenn Beck.
TAGGED AS: Cable Ratings, Donny Deutsch, FoxNews, Glenn Beck, Keith Olbermann, Leftist, Liberals, Media, MSNBC, Nonsense
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PERMANENT LINK2373.\\ Calling Jack Bauer
Marc Thiessen's piece in the Journal is right on in my opinion. There's got to be a more balanced dialogue about this topic. And the dialogue should be entirely out of the public (hence bitterly political) domain. Jack Bauer wouldn't have to put up with this shit.
TAGGED AS: CIA, Marc Thiessen, Torture, Wall Street Journal
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PERMANENT LINK2370.\\ Watch Out Mr. Terrorist!
As if ignoring the release of a convicted Libyan mass murderer wasn't enough, now this absurdity.
That's right, we might, just might, do something to you that the State of California has identified to be potentially dangerous to pregnant mothers and contains chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer in monkeys.
Now, tell us who masterminded the Cole bombing or you might get cancer in a few years!
TAGGED AS: CIA, Obama, Terrorists
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PERMANENT LINK2368.\\ Arrogant Egalitarians
Have always felt that those in power who decided that they were smarter than everyone else sought to impose their view of the world on those of us who were too dumb to take care of ourselves. And, as Thomas Sowell points out, there is significant egalitarian arrogance in power today.
My favorite part:
(Obama) may think of (limiting our freedom) in terms of promoting "social justice" or making better decisions than ordinary people are capable of making for themselves, whether about medical care or housing or many other things. Throughout history, egalitarians have been among the most arrogant people.
And imagine there was a time when Liberals promoted Liberty.
TAGGED AS: Arrogant, Barack Obama, Elitist, Liberals, Liberty, Media
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PERMANENT LINK2365.\\ Rule Britannia...
I've never thought that our healthcare system is perfect here, or even particularly stellar. But by God anything produced by the private sector in terms of healthcare has got to be better than letting Joe Bureaucrat run things. The people that bring you the IRS want to dictate your medical treatment? No thanks.
Pundits frequently make hash of the fact that socialized medicine in countries with national health systems is crap. I'd hasten to point out that we have a national health system in the United States and it is called Medicare/Medicaid. I know people who use Medicare. My entire family works in the health sector. Nobody who uses Medicare would prefer Medicare over a comprehensive plan like many of us enjoy. In fact, I can't think of many services that the Federal Government manages and offers to its citizens that is superior to an equivalent private sector offering. Not even NASA seems to work that well anymore when compared to private companies like Bigelow, SpaceX or Rotary. Hell even the CIA has to bring in Blackwater in order to get some quality work done.
If you were ever a believer in the ability of the Federal Government to manage itself wisely, a few Google searches on the deficit and pork-stuffed appropriations bills ought to cure you of that. But in the event that you believe a Federal Government, which cannot even manage EXISTING national health programs well and provide quality care, ought to be granted executive authority over your well being, then allow me to disabuse you of that notion by providing this excellent overview of the effectiveness of the NHS in the motherland. Where I come from we call it crimes against humanity and while not on the order of Hitler's 20 million, Stalin's 60 million or Mao's 70 million, providing "cruel" healthcare for 1/60th of your citizens in an enlightened Liberal Democracy is criminal in my book. I wonder if the International Criminal Court should bring charges? Nah they're probably too busy trying to prosecute US government officials for doing their jobs.
TAGGED AS: Big Government, Bureaucracy, Crimes Against Humanity, Government, Health Care, Telegraph, UK, US
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PERMANENT LINK2362.\\ Step 1: Read Your Constitution
I laughed and laughed. I'm glad she doesn't represent me.
Congresswoman Shea-Porter is an Idiot
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution
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PERMANENT LINK2361.\\ On Death Panels
For any that missed my meme on Facebook that apparently led to a number of 'friends' deleting me.
"The chronically ill and those toward the end of their lives are accounting for potentially 80 percent of the total health care bill out there. It is very difficult to imagine the country making those decisions just through the normal political channels. That is why you have to have some independent group that can give you guidance." - Barack Obama, April 14, 2009.
No thanks. I don't want a bureau giving me guidance on making decisions about death and dying. I don't care if they are super educated doctors and government advisers acting in the best interest of the rest of society. No. The only "independent group" I need in order to make those kinds of decisions are in my family.
Political channels, panels and "the country" have no right to make medical decisions on my behalf. Nor should they advise, propose, guide or even have any knowledge whatsoever of my medical conditions, treatments, complaints or visits. They do not need to know what meds I'm taking or what my diet consists of or how much I weigh or if my ass itches. My information does not need to go into a gigantic database with cool analytics that allows a group of politicos to decide that I'm in the 80% Obama mentioned above and categorize me or anyone I care about as an end-of-lifer.
He can take his independent groups, his death panels, and go to hell. This is the material from which revolutions spring.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Death Panels, Health Care, Liberals
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PERMANENT LINK2359.\\ Reaganism is Dead... Says The Great Poobah
He also refers to himself as the great "unabashed defender of the welfare state". I don't even know how to comment on that. Krugman The Great speaks
I will say that in no way can the economic success of the 1980s and 1990s be delinked from Reaganomics and I happen to believe that an unregulated market was not the primary reason for our current problems. But whatever. I don't have a Nobel prize in economics.
TAGGED AS: Economy, Liberals, New York Times, Paul Krugman, Reagan
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PERMANENT LINK2355.\\ Calling Leni Riefenstahl
Are you freaking kidding me? I feel like the lone Wiemar Democrat in January 1933 screaming "WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE THINKING!?!" Where is the media criticism? Where are the intellectuals on this blatant group-think mindlessness?
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2353.\\ To My Congressman
Since your online comment submission application is generating error 500's and has an obvious database failure (perhaps it is full of angry comments?), I'm sending my comments to you via my blog.
Dear Mr. Inglis,
I am so enraged by your first vote on the bailout, Congressman, that you've managed to flip me from a supporter to someone who will actively speak out AGAINST you in the next election to prevent you from screwing me and my fellow constituents even further.
You've voted to destroy this country and every one of its founding principles. You've put your political self-interest ahead of the need of the people. You've managed to allow liberalism, dare I say socialism, to substitute its odious philosophy for market capitalism.
You should be ashamed.
You should be alarmed at the pork that this new bill is full of. You should be scrambling to prevent the outright embarrassment you will incur if you vote for this earmarked boondoggle that we cannot afford. It will saddle my children with debt to the Chinese for the rest of their lives and I won't ever let you or my fellow constituents forget it.
And tell the House to get new IT staff to fix that piece of shit website you have.
TAGGED AS: Bob Inglis, Congress, Economy, GOP, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2352.\\ Maxine Waters is a Liar
She's on America's Newsroom right this minute claiming that people were 'tricked' into signing mortgages. She's also asserting that nobody understands what is in a contract such as a mortgage and so you can't blame people for the housing crisis. Somehow it is because of deregulation, she claims, not Barney Frank and ACORN pushing subprime loans and encouraging people to put zero down that we've had a housing bubble. Deregulation caused a bubble? I think she means that manipulating the housing markets from a Congressional committee caused the bubble. The principle of the market has been working just fine for several hundred years, thank you very much.
She's a liar, a fraud and she has terrible hair. She clearly fits in with her district. But more importantly, this is just one more piece of evidence that she's off her rocker. See this gem from over the summer.
TAGGED AS: Capitalism, Congress, Economy, Liar, Liberals, Maxine Waters, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2351.\\ All in all you're just another brick in the wall
Hey, teacher, leave those kids alone!
http://news.ionlinephilippines.com/2008/10/singing-obama-kids-video/
TAGGED AS: Barack Obama, Children, Communism, Creepy, Liberals, Politics, Self-Righteousness, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2350.\\ John McCain, Hypocrite
I'm seething with rage this morning. The guy I was hoping would come to town and throw out the spenders and ax the special interests has gone down without a fight, and he's not even in office yet!
How can a man spend his entire career fighting lobbyists, special interest groups and pork barrel spending and vote for this bailout bill? How can he rail against earmarks and express such passion about cutting wasteful spending only to go ahead and accept this Christmas tree festooned with waste, earmarks and special interest goodies to the tune of over a trillion dollars?
How can he accept this? How? I was thrilled last week when he suspended his campaign. I thought here is the man of action I'd like to see running the show. He flew to Washington and instead of standing up for what was right, he stood up and was counted for what was easiest. After he flew into town and got the read on the situation, he should have come out in front of the public and denounced this horrific attempt to manipulate the markets and extend bureaucratic control over capitalism as the pile of socialist shit it is. Furthermore, he should have said, there is nothing that could make me vote for this bill in its current form. No goodies, no trinkets, no added features, no extra earmarks, no nothing that would make me, John McCain, vote for something that is so at odds with my political philosophy, my record and my core beliefs.
What would Mr. Reagan think of you now John? You've become a big government stooge supporting a bill that gives away the future of my children and entrusts it to Chinese financiers and Islamic oil producers.
In the end, you've surrendered your principles when the time came to stand up for them. You've sold us down the river John. And what saddens me the most about it is that, while 73 of your colleagues (and it looks now like a majority of the House) also sold us down the river, you were the one guy that I thought could turn us around. So this black mark counts doubly, triply against you. You've ceded the moral high ground and condemned this country to 8 years of liberalism run amok. You've hastened the end of the American era by allowing the Democrats to ride their way to power in all branches of government. Their insidious policies will bring about the final death knell of this once great country.
This is on you, John. You and every other alleged fiscal conservative in the GOP. You and your buddy Lindsay have brought on catastrophe.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Conservative, Constitution, Economy, GOP, John McCain, Liberals, Lindsay Graham, Politics
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PERMANENT LINK2349.\\ Karl Marx: 1, Adam Smith: 0
The Senate has passed Bailout v2.0 (aka Crap Sandwich 2.0) by a vote of 74 to 25.
Are there really only 25 market believers in the US Senate? God help us all if this is true. I'd almost rather believe that the 74 voted Yay in order to devour the billions worth of pork crapola that they've stuffed in this donkey.
I'm sorry to say that my own state apparently has only 1 Senator who places his faith in Adam Smith and not in the greedy, grubby, grabby hand of the United States Government. Well, you say, it must be Mr. McCain's good friend and fellow pork buster Lindsay Graham. Well, says I, you'd be dead wrong. Senator Graham has voted in favor of this steaming pile of shit. It was the junior Senator of the great State of South Carolina, Jim DeMint, who courageously stood up and threw down the bullshit card. I know Jim DeMint. I don't think the man voted against this because his office was inundated with outraged constituents. I honestly think he voted his principles. What a strange, absent concept in today's Congress!
So as this vote represents a victory for Marx, so too it reveals those in our nation's government who firmly believe in the foundational principles of this country as laid down by the founders and will stand up to prove it. Crises have a funny way of bringing forth those principled few and sending the unscrupulous masses scurrying for cover. It's like turning a light on in a grimy kitchen and watching the bugs run.
Weasled out. Beware, Mr. McCain
Stood up and was counted
Nod to Michele for the craptastic references.
TAGGED AS: Congress, Constitution, Economy, Jim DeMint, Lindsay Graham, Politics, Senate
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PERMANENT LINK2348.\\ W.W.A.H.D. ?
The notion that bureaucrats should be involved in manipulating the free market is noxious. That being said, the prospect of economic panic, credit drying up, a domino effect of failing institutions and the rest of the world gloating at our problems compels me to support an effort to extend financial protection at taxpayer expense.
We've done this type of thing before, of course: the Savings & Loan collapse of the late 80s, the collapse of Chrysler in the late 70s, the Home Owner's Loan Corp of the 30s and 40s, the JP Morgan rescue of the 1907, the panics in the 1870s, 1841, 1819 and 1809. Of course, the granddaddy of all rescues was the original one in 1792 engineered by arguably my favorite founder, Mr. Hamilton. You can go read about it if you like.
But would Mr. Hamilton be happy by the current approach? Having studied the man in some detail, I suspect not. Hamilton supported public debt and strong central government in the furtherance of American economic power. He wanted to supplement and complement the principles of Adam Smith, not restrain them or legislate them. He would not have recognized the concept of restrained, third-way market capitalism that seems to be creeping around the globe.
The notion that the Federal government should be involved in the economy was a given to him, as it is to us today. But that involvement was not to function as an economic entity somehow superior to the invisible hand, regulating, restricting, governing it. The role of the Federal government, he would say, is to enable the American worker to start a business, sell his wares, sell his services, produce his product. To the extent that a bailout enables positive economic activities and doesn't restrict the economy through microscopic regulatory control, then it is a good thing. If the Fed presumes to know better how to govern the economy than Capitalism itself, then a bailout is a bad thing.
So where do we sit? To be honest, I don't know. Injecting liquidity into the system in order to prop up otherwise failing institutions seems to be a bad use of taxpayer money. It substitutes the judgment of bureaucrats and legislators (campaigning for re-election) for the judgment of the market. That should scare anyone who has ever seen government judgment in action (i.e. the DMV, FEMA, the IRS). Should we trust the people with a 10% approval rating to legislate a $14 trillion economy? I suspect not. Alexander Hamilton, I can assure you, would be aghast.
At the end of the day, what would Hamilton do? I believe he would look at companies that are failing because of the risk they incurred and suggest that they be allowed to fail and not nationalized or otherwise artificially propped up. He would view Government Sponsored Entities such as Fannie and Freddie with disdain and recoil at the notion that trillions of dollars worth of housing was being exposed to high risk because everyone was overconfident in the unlimited support and blank check guarantee from the Federal Government (aka the American Taxpayer). The government should not be loaning money to credit risks and acting as a mortgage lender and backer, he would say. The government should act as an enabler to allow people to own houses they can afford and not guarantee mortgages to those who cannot.
The very concept of risk-reward, the foundation of capitalism, is threatened with the bill currently being tossed about on Capitol Hill. Restricting market capitalism at this juncture would not be something Mr. Hamilton would favor. It didn't work in 1932 and it won't work now. The solution is to unleash the market forces, not further legislate them.
TAGGED AS: Alexander Hamilton, Capitalism, Congress, Economy, Politics, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2346.\\ Outrageous!
From the AP:
"The Senate plan would rush rebates - $600 for individuals, $1,200 for couples - to most taxpayers and cut business taxes in hopes of reviving the economy. Individuals making up to $75,000 a year and couples earning up to $150,000 would get rebates."
The fucking audacity of Senate Democrats to decide that I don't need a rebate! It is unacceptable and infuriating. The sheer arrogance of the players and the inherent unfairness of the stimulus package reveals it to be the politically opportunistic scam that it is.
Who the hell are they to arbitrarily decide that I make enough money that I don't need any relief? I pay taxes just like everyone else. Oh wait, no I don't. I pay more taxes than most people. The Federal government appropriates 35% of my income and gives it away to other people who faceless bureaucrats feel 'deserve' it more than I do. I work hard for my money. To see this kind of marxist wealth redistribution on a normal day really burns my ass. To compound this with the knowledge that people who contribute nothing to the gross domestic product (or indeed to American society) are going to get rebate checks when my family will not simply ENRAGES me.
Who the fuck do they think they are? They have no sovereignty over my liberty. They have dubious Constitutional authority to forcibly take away my family's livelihood and GIVE IT AWAY to other people. I can only imagine Locke, Henry, and a pantheon of founders are turning in their graves as this Republic lurches to euro-style state socialism.
TAGGED AS: Constitution, Democrats, Liberty, Senate, Socialism, Taxes, The Founders
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PERMANENT LINK2343.\\ Social Engineering Redux
I heard this on BBC World this morning and nearly shat myself: Put carbon tax on babies: academic says.
Does this smack of failed social engineering projects of the last century or what? It is very thinly veiled attempt to force human civilization into a box of robotic obedience to crackpot theories. It is a truly dystopian future that looms ahead if we are going to seriously put ecological well being ahead of human existence.
It is the latest in a string of theoretical nonsense that seeks to manage the relationship between population and consumption of resources. It is also frequently the realm of science fiction.
"The seeds of the Little War were planted in a restless summer during the mid-1960s, with sit-ins and student demonstrations as youth tested its strength. By the early 1970s over 75 percent of the people living on Earth were under 21 years of age. The population continued to climb -- and with it the youth percentage.
In the 1980s the figure was 79.7 percent.
In the 1990s, 82.4 percent.
In the year 2000 -- critical mass."
It is Last Day!
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, greens, children, crackpot theories, social experiment, dystopian future, Logan's Run
TAGGED AS: 1984, BBC, Children, Environazis, Logan's Run, Socialism
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PERMANENT LINK2342.\\ My Thoughts Exactly
After a disheartening start to the day wherein I sat bewildered in front of The Morning Joe listening to a bizarre argument over waterboarding (replete with Junior High School -esque types of arguments), I was happy to get to work and read Dennis Ross' latest: The Can't-Win Kids
As usual, for me he has captured the essence of this issue. Unfortunately, the next time anyone takes Iran's nuclear program seriously will be as a mushroom cloud rises over Tel Aviv.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, Iran, nuclear weapons, Dennis Ross, The Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Bewilderment, Democrats, Dennis Ross, Disgust, Iran, MSNBC, Nuclear Weapons, The Media, Waterboarding
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PERMANENT LINK2341.\\ The Can-Do Attitude
Nicolas Sarkozy woos America - Telegraph
I've not said anything about the alleged thaw in our relations with france. I don't think I need to, to be honest. The proof of said warming will be if she follows through.
That being said, important note is made of this by The Telegraph. What will Britain's reaction be to the thawing? Historically, America doesn't move closer to both England and France simultaneously. There is an unwritten mutual exclusivity in relations with those countries. If Uncle Sam's policy is to unabashedly allow france to kiss his ass, expect Britannia's reaction to be one of distancing. My opinion. Informed by history.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, France, Britain, Sarkozy, Lafayette, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Axis of Weasels, Britain, France, George Bush, History, Lafayette, Nicolas Sarkozy
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PERMANENT LINK2340.\\ German Insight
West Wing: The Comeback of a War President - International - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News
Never thought about things quite like it is spelled out in this article. I mean, nothing in it is a surprise. But the analysis is something I haven't seen before. I have some quibbles, but overall I think he's got it right. It sorta seems obvious if you stand back and look at it. A generational war. Not a season of 24.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, politics, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Der Spiegel, George Bush, Politics, The Media, War on Terror
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PERMANENT LINK2339.\\ Um, Okay....
The Washington Times, America's Newspaper
So which is more lame; 1) the fact that they can't get a few drunk rednecks in Iowa to come out to celebrate Al Gore; 2) they can't get more than 15k signatures in California to get Gore on the ballot; 3) there is a FOLK SONG about Gore.
Hmm. All equally lame in my book.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, Al Gore, lame, Iowa, Politics
2337.\\ Things Just Keep Getting Worse...
Why are there so few optimists in the world today? I think I'm one. Not a hopeless romantic optimist. But a positive-thinking realist. I guess I just don't go searching for negative news. As a result, I tend to think things in the world are better than does, say, the media.
Chronic Homelessness Down 12%
Productivity Surges by 4.9%
3Q GDP grows at 3.9%
You'll notice that good news about the US economy almost invariably avoids crediting the person who's been the chief executive of the Federal Government for the past 7 years. Not even a minuscule amount of attribution. Not one drop of imputation. Bad things in the world are naturally the result of something George Bush has done. Good things happen mysteriously and without causality.
Technorati: ChrisCam, webcam, Weblog, Blog, economy, productivity, GDP, The+Media, George Bush
TAGGED AS: Economy, George Bush, Optimism, Politics, The Media
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