But wait, these guys went to HARVARD

If I didn't know better, I'd say these boys don't know what the hell they are doing.

HAYEK VINDICATED AGAIN

Way back on the Federal Page of today’s Washington Post is an article that ought to be on the front page above the fold, and its deep placement on the boutique page of the bureaucracy shows how the Post, like most everyone else, doesn’t understand what a big story it is.  And it is clinical study of Hayek’s “knowledge problem”—the impossibility of centralizing fundamentally dispersed knowledge in a timely and accurate way—that we’ve discussed at various times here over the past few months.

The headline is “Concern growing over deadlines for health care exchanges,” and it discusses the difficulties of one of the main pillars of Obamacare—the mandate that the states set up insurance “exchanges” where people and businesses can do one-stop shopping for their mandated health insurance policies.  But this is no simple exchange; because of the mix of federal programs such as Medicaid and Medicare, and the various regulations pertaining to eligibility, guaranteed issue, and other features of Obamacare, the states are having a hard time figuring out how they are going to do it.  And time is running out.  As the Post explains, “the exchanges will need to incorporate state and federal data on income, employment and residency. Enrollment through the state and federal exchanges is scheduled to begin in the fall of 2013.”

Obamacare has a fallback position: if states can’t (or won’t) make the deadline, the federal government will step in and run the exchange out of Washington.  I’ve heard rumors for months now that the Dept. of Health and Human Services is terrified of having to do this, and doubts it can be done by the deadline.  The Post story would seem to lend some credence to these rumors:

It’s hard to know how far along the federal government is because the Obama administration has “been very reluctant to provide any updates on progress,” said Dan Schuyler, a director at the consulting firm Leavitt Partners in Salt Lake City, which is advising states on the exchanges.

The Department of Health and Human Services did not respond to requests for comment.  Those designing a federal exchange face enormous technical, political and financial challenges.

Technically, data from a host of federal agencies need to be collected into one system, which then must be linked with computer systems in 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of State Medicaid Directors, said computer systems in some states are old and may need substantial upgrading. There is some doubt, he said, about whether there is enough “physical capacity in the IT systems world” to get it all done in time.

Another Obama high-speed train wreck to nowhere.

So what are YOU guilty of?

One of the milestones on the way to the Fascist state is the saturation of society by law and law enforcement.  Hundreds of thousands of pages of laws, rules and regulations enforced by dozens of different and overlapping police forces.  With this complexity there is no way that an active individual can avoid committing technical crimes.  The only thing that saves them from ruin is the government's enforcement discretion.

But become unpopular or advocate policies that the State dislikes and you will find that all of a sudden, you have lots of 'problems'.  Because when everything is against the law, we're all criminals.

You're Guilty Of Something
From the WSJ, now lots of agencies have enforcement arms, and boy have they been busy. Louise Radnofsky, Gary Fields and John R. Emshwiller write:

For years, the public face of federal law enforcement has been the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Today, for many people, the knock on the door is increasingly likely to come from a dizzying array of other police forces tucked away inside lesser-known crime-fighting agencies.They could be from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Labor or Education departments, the National Park Service, the Bureau of Land Management or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the agency known for its weather forecasts.
Agents from NOAA, in fact, along with the Fish and Wildlife Service, raided the Miami business of Morgan Mok in 2008, seeking evidence she had broken the Endangered Species Act trading in coral.
The agents had assault rifles with them, and the case documents indicated her house and business records had been under surveillance over a six-month period, says Ms. Mok. Under the 1973 law, the departments of Interior and Commerce (home to NOAA) must write regulations to define what is endangered and how it must be protected. One of those regulations specifies coral.
"I felt like I was being busted for drugs, instead of coral," Ms. Mok says. "It was crazy."
Ms. Mok says she showed that her coral had been properly obtained. She paid a $500 fine and served one year of probation for failing to complete paperwork for an otherwise legal transaction.

Think about all the taxpayer dollars this cost us.

And guess what: You're guilty of something. We all are. Because there are too many laws, too many enforcement agencies.

More from the piece:

An August raid on Gibson Guitar Corp. has drawn heavy criticism from both sides of the political aisle. In that raid, Fish and Wildlife Service agents swarmed the Nashville company to seize rosewood and ebony the agency suspected had been illegally imported from India. The company says its wood was obtained legally and that no charges have been filed."Why is it we're treating what is essentially a violation of rules and regulations in a criminal manner?" says Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, a conservative watchdog group.

The flag of the Anglosphere

Well I certainly like the color scheme.  (or is that colour scheme?)  From an article by Daniel Hannan.

I think this is a bad sign

Mad Magazine Cover

All animals are created equal, but some animals are more equal than others 2

Definition of "Outrage": something that reduces the Statist's power

Michael Walsh makes the obvious point.  The less obvious point is that the only way to evaluate a policy that the state machine advocates is to determine what it does to the power dynamic:  if it diffuses power out among the states and the people, they are against it, if it helps concentrate power among the statist classes, they are for it.  Thus they are for big city voter fraud which gives them more votes and therefore consider any policy that reduces it an outrage.  Fascist is as fascist does.

If you want to buy over-the-counter cold medicine at your local drugstore, chances are you have to show a photo ID to do it. Same if you want to get on a plane, rent a car or open a bank account. So why not to vote?

But to Attorney General Eric Holder, the idea is an outrage. In the name of "civil rights," he's declared war on a nationwide movement to ensure the integrity of the electoral process.

Just this year, eight states have passed new photo-ID laws; more than half now have some form of ID requirement for voting. But Holder has already sicced Justice's Civil Rights Division on new voter-ID laws in South Carolina and Texas to see if there's any "disproportionate impact" on minorities. He's also objecting to reforms in "early voting" in places like Florida, which recently tightened its electoral window.

And he went to Austin, Texas, on Tuesday to give a speech denouncing what his ally Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) calls "a deliberate and systematic attempt to prevent millions of elderly voters, young voters, students, minority and low-income voters from exercising their constitutional right to engage in the democratic process."

Progressivism and the "Expert" problem

Perhaps the central conceit of the Progressive movement is that people can be manipulated to behave better (aka incentivized) and that experts know how to do this.  Much of what has passed for 'Liberal' legislation and education over the past century has been based upon this central assumption.

Here, from Andrew Ferguson is the latest example of why Progressivism simply does not work using the 'Behavioral Economics' of Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein as the example.  Disclosure:  Dick Thaler was a prof of mine at Chicago.  Money Grafs:

Behavioral economics is très chic. All the coolest economists are into it. It partakes of the obsession with social science that has lately gripped the country’s smart people, who exhibit a grinding need to quantify human behavior so that it will become more predictable, describable, and controllable. To meet demand, a steady flow of “studies” in human behavior passes through the sluice gates of university departments of accounting, psychology, marketing, sociology, business, and of course economics. From these the behavioral economists build vast edifices of theory and now, thanks to President Obama, public policy too.

The most salient of these policies was the Making Work Pay tax credit of 2009 and 2010. It was an essential element of the president’s famous $250 billion “middle-class tax cut,” which was slapped like a defibrillator onto the limp and supine figure of the American economy a couple years ago. The MWP was carefully designed according to the principles of behavioral economics, and now it seems not to have worked the way it was supposed to.

Deutschland, Deutschland Uber Alles

Europe was conquered by the Germans and liberated by the Anglo Saxons - half in '45, half in '90.  Now it looks like Germany and it's Germanic allies are conquering the continent again via Brussels.  With money.  Once again, the Anglo Saxons sit outside, aloof and free.  The sheer bloody irony of it all is amazing.

Open Europe quotes this from an article she has written for De Standaard:

David Cameron says no to a new European treaty, while listening to his English voters, and is accused of being someone who “blackmails” Europe. Twenty six other government leaders and heads of state don’t give their parliaments but European bureaucrats control over their budgets…this kind of top down integration carries the risk that democratic support for the Union shrinks. Europe and democracy: for now they don’t seem together. Unless you consider it democracy that elected leaders in Brussels agree upon common measures which they can’t or don’t dare to push through in their own countries.”

Quite (and check out some of the other commentary quoted on the Open Europe site).

Because crimes against the majesty of the state must be punished severely

CHRISTOPHER HORNER: Obama’s Justice Department joins Britain’s ‘Climategate’ leaker manhunt.
Hey, whoever it was made important people look stupid. That’s unforgivable.

The case for Newt

Indeed.

"The case for Newt is that he's nothing like that guy who used to be governor of Massachusetts. The case for Romney is very similar."

~Current issue of National Review (page 6)

A government that didn't have a 'green energy policy' wouldn't get into this type of trouble

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Jet Fuel-Gate Is Obama’s New Solyndra. “SolyndraGate was no isolated case of corrupt government misspending. The U.S. Navy was just forced to buy 450,000 gallons of biofuels from an Obama-connected firm at an outrageous $16 per gallon.”

Lies, damned lies and the EPA

Remember:  They're not on your side, they're on their side.

ENERGY POLITICS: Tainted EPA Report on Fracking Blasted by Gas Co. “Here’s the story: the EPA says tests it conducted in Pavillion, Wyoming “indicate that ground water in the aquifer contains compounds likely associated with gas production practices, including hydraulic fracturing.” However, it turns out that the EPA drilled two monitoring wells to some 900 feet – much deeper than water wells which are usually at about 300 feet – and indeed found hydrocarbons. In short, they drilled into the natural gas reservoir that has long attracted industry producers. It may the single most productive moment in EPA history.”

On line Piracy bill would criminalize the internet

Thereby creating vast new opportunities for rent seeking.  Why mess with kid's cereal when you can manipulate their minds?  Fascist is as fascist does.

PROTESTS: Wikipedia Mulls Total Blackout to Oppose SOPA. “Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales wants to blank out all pages of the online encyclopedia to oppose the pending SOPA anti-piracy bill in the US. Wales, who has asked the Wikipedia community for input on the idea, fears the bill could seriously hurt the Internet and thinks that blanking out Wikipedia will send a strong message to lawmakers.”

It’s a terrible bill. Simply by introducing it, the sponsors — including Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) have violated their oaths of office. In a moral society, they would immediately resign and commit honorable suicide. Since this isn’t such, we must hound them and humiliate them as best we can. They’ll probably try to make that illegal next.

Related: Google chairman says online piracy bill would ‘criminalize’ the Internet. Why not criminalize efforts to restrict free speech?

Every incremental dollar of future property taxes drives down home values

Never thought of it this way.  Very interesting.

"When you buy a house, you’re not just committing to a mortgage. You are also promising to pay the future property taxes on that house. What drives those local property taxes are the future costs of paying state and local workers and retirees, particularly retirees’ pensions and health care. These costs are going in one direction: up.  

Unless state and local governments take steps now to reduce future costs, or unless they plan on suddenly repudiating their promises to their public-sector work forces one day, every dollar in unfunded pension and health-care costs is up to a dollar less in the future value of a house."

~Nicole Gelinas, NRO article "How Taxes Drive Down Home Values"

Airport security as Farce

INSIDER: $56 BILLION LATER, AIRPORT SECURITY IS JUNK. “According to Ben Brandt, a former adviser to Delta, the airlines and the feds should be less concerned with what gels your aunt puts in her carry-on, and more concerned about lax screening for terrorist sympathizers among the airlines’ own work force. They should be worried about terrorists shipping their bombs in air cargo. And they should be worried about terrorists shooting or bombing airports without ever crossing the security gates.”

Yikes

WHAT COULD GO WRONG: The Pentagon Is Offering Free Military Hardware To Every Police Department In The US.

Kotkin: Obama is governing the US like Illinois is governed

Which given how poorly and corruptly Illinois is governed is a huge problem.  More here.

The Heart of the Problem

Obama during the 2008 Campaign:

I think that I’m a better speechwriter than my speechwriters. I know more about policies on any particular issue than my policy directors. And I’ll tell you right now that I’m gonna think I’m a better political director than my political director.

Only someone lacking in experience and self awareness could possibly have said something like that.  Leaders have a lot of confidence but they also recognize that they have weaknesses and need other people - not just as gofers but as contributors.  But President Obama, floating ever higher on a gaseous cloud of affirmative action and leftist rhetoric was never forced to confront is own limitations.  The result:  inevitable failure as a man unprepared for the office hits his reality all at once.  No wonder he's taking 17 days off without a meeting.  Failure must be quite a shock to him.

Next time let's hire a qualified candidate to be President.  And the first test of their qualification?  They don't say things like this.  Even if they believe them.

Fancy Economy Fall Down go "boom"

Nassim Taleb of Black Swan Fame explaining why our economy is in the toilet.  We spend decades trying to paper over the pain and volatility that is natural in the economy.  All we ended up doing was saving up all of the pain for one (we hope) really big boom.

Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility tend to become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks. In fact, they tend to be too calm and exhibit minimal variability as silent risks accumulate beneath the surface. Although the stated intention of political leaders and economic policymakers is to stabilize the system by inhibiting fluctuations, the result tends to be the opposite.

The bright side of the housing bust

It has always mystified me why it is a good thing for housing and food prices to be high.  But that has been the goal of our sainted Federal Government for the better part of a century.  It's all so progressive.

Fascist is as fascist does 3

SWAT raids in the us have exploded from a few thousand in the '80s to over 50,000 a year now.  Mostly due to our barbaric 'war on drugs'.  Radley Balko explains.  If you value liberty you need to read this.

Our government is not on our side.  They're on their side.

More casualties from the front in our barbaric "War on Drugs"

Some police officers, border patrol agents, and probation officers who support reforming America's drug laws are among the latest casualties of America's War on Drugs War on Peaceful Americans Who Voluntarily Use Intoxicants Not Currently Approved of by the U.S. Government, Who Will Put Them in Cages if Caught (thanks to Don Boudreaux and Glenn Greenwald for inspiring this description), reports the New York Times.  For daring to publicly express their opinion that we should consider relaxing America's draconian and barbaric drug laws, some members of law enforcement are being punished, and some are being terminated. 

Meanwhile, more than 20,000 Mexicans will give their lives this year to the War on Drugs, at a rate of 61 drug-related deaths per day, an increase over last year's rate of "only" 37 narco-related killings per day. 

TSA: a libertarian's best friend

I actually disagree with Mark Steyn's conclusions below:  That every day millions of people experience pointless harassment at the hands of our fascist Federal state is the surest guarantee of its demise.  Every day in every way the Federals (and their massively subsidized state and local minions) are teaching us to hate and fear them.  Which is healthy and long overdue.  It's a great time to be libertarian.

I wrote below that “sometimes societies become too stupid to survive“. Yesterday, we learned that the crack operatives of the TSA had prevented a teenage girl from boarding her flight to Jacksonville because her handbag has a gun design on the front of it. But don’t worry, after she’d been put through the wringer, SouthWest were able to get her on a later flight to Orlando, a mere 300-mile round-trip detour for her distraught mother and, in the scheme of things, a relatively modest transfer of man-hours from the productive class to the great sucking statist behemoth.

Today brings the news that, fresh from that triumph, TSA agents decided to strip-search an 85-year old, 4′11″, 110-pound grandmother in a wheelchair:

As she tried to lift a lightweight walker off her lap, she says, the metal bars banged against her leg and blood trickled from a gash.
“My sock was soaked with blood,” she said. “I was bleeding like a pig.”
She says the TSA agents showed no sympathy, instead pulling down her pants and asking her to raise her arms.
“Why are you doing this?” she said she asked the agents, who did not respond.

As Andrew wrote below: “Because they can.“

One reason we’re the Brokest Nation In History is because the great moronic security bureaucracy of the United States devotes untold resources to criminalizing the law-abiding – as I often have cause to reflect when being finger-printed and eyeball-scanned every time I fly back to the US from abroad. In my case, that’s because I’m a legal immigrant and making you feel like a punk who’s held up the liquor store is part of the price the bozo bureaucracy exacts for a Green Card. But why US citizens born and bred put up with this nonsense is another matter.

US airport “security” serves no serious purpose except to accustom free-born peoples to behaving like a compliant bovine herd. America is now a land where 85-year old grannies are strip-searched without probable cause. You’re extremely naive if you think that, once government acquires a taste for that, it will remain confined to the airport.

So who are the greedy consumerist bastards now?

The U.S. government is already borrowing every three days what all of America spent on Black Friday  They are spending about the the same amount every day that all of America's shoppers spent on the busiest shopping day of the year.  Our out of control, unaccountable fascist federal state is a nightmare from which we can't wake up.

Legalize Marijuana reduce traffic fatalities

This study confirms what every Frat social chairman in the 80s knew:  if the boys had a bunch of weed, the weekend was going to be peaceful, if all they had was booz:  katie bar the door.

Our 'progressive culture' is good at banning things and viciously punishing those who commit 'crimes against the state' which is essentially what drug offences are.

Here's an interesting study titled "Medical Marijuana Laws, Traffic Fatalities, and Alcohol Consumption," by economists D. Mark Anderson and Daniel Rees.  This is the abstract:

"To date, 16 states have passed medical marijuana laws, yet very little is known about their effects. Using state-level data, we examine the relationship between medical marijuana laws and a variety of outcomes. Legalization of medical marijuana is associated with increased use of marijuana among adults, but not among minors. In addition, legalization is associated with a nearly 9 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely due to its impact on alcohol consumption. Our estimates provide strong evidence that marijuana and alcohol are substitutes."

From the conclusion:

"Why does legalizing medical marijuana reduce traffic fatalities? Alcohol consumption appears to play a key role. The legalization of medical marijuana is associated with a 6.4 percent decrease in fatal crashes that did not involve alcohol, but this estimate is not statistically significant at conventional levels. In comparison, the legalization of medical marijuana is associated with an almost 12 percent decrease in any-BAC fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers, and an almost 14 percent decrease in high-BAC fatal crashes per 100,000 licensed drivers. 

The negative relationship between legalization of medical marijuana and traffic fatalities involving alcohol is consistent with the hypothesis that marijuana and alcohol are substitutes. In order to explore this hypothesis further, we examine the relationship between medical marijuana laws and alcohol consumption using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and The Brewer’s Almanac. We find that the legalization of medical marijuana is associated with decreased alcohol consumption, especially by 20- through 29-year-olds. In addition, we find that legalization is associated with decreased beer sales, the most popular alcoholic beverage among young adults (Jones 2008)." 

Amphibian out-polling Chameleon

It’s within the the poll’s three point error of margin, but still … a Rasmussen Reports poll of likely voters finds that in a general election match-up, Newt Gingrich would get 45 percent to President Obama’s 43 percent. 

Tina Brown: "Obama isn't a leader"

You mean a 20 year untenured, unpublished law lecturer isn't qualified to lead?   You mean droning on in front of law students and then voting 'present' in a state legislature don't build leadership skills?  My Gosh, who would have thought such a thing?  I thought he was the ONE.  Perhaps the One simply refers to his Singular incapacity to perform the duties of the job that he has?

TINA BROWN: Obama Isn’t A Leader. “I think knowing how to exercise power is absolutely crucial. He doesn’t understand how to underpin his ideas with the political gritty, granular business of getting it done. And that kind of gap has just widened and widened and widened. And so that every time there is a moment, a window where he can jump in, like something like a Simpson-Bowles as well, he just doesn’t do it. He hangs back at crucial moments when you have to dive through that window.” Video at the link.

Perhaps it is the hand of God?

Or perhaps God's chosen people?

A second Iranian nuclear facility has exploded, as diplomatic tensions rise between the West and Tehran

The images clearly showed billowing smoke and destruction, negating Iranian claims yesterday that no such explosion had taken place. Israeli intelligence officials told The Times that there was "no doubt" that the blast struck the nuclear facilities at Isfahan and that it was "no accident".

Iran claimed that the Tehran explosion occurred during testing on a new weapons system designed to strike at Israel. But several Israeli officials have confirmed that the blast was intentional and part of an effort to target Iran's nuclear weapons program.

A former Israeli intelligence official cited at least two other explosions that have "successfully neutralised" Iranian bases associated with the Shahab-3, the medium-range missile that could be adapted to carry a nuclear warhead. "This is something everyone in the West wanted to see happen," he added.

"Boom"

Attaboy, Barry.

Obama's approval ratings now worse than Jimmy Carter's.  Which isn't surprising:  he came to the job far less qualified and is doing a much worse job.

He may set 'liberalism' back a generation.

Hey!  Now that you put it that way:  heckuva job, Barry!

Why most published research findings are false

Alex Tabbarrok makes an important point.  Here.  So how do you know what you know?

A relevant chart that shows how in healthcare research the larger the n, the smaller the finding:

Jobs

It must be getting late

"The last official act of any government is to loot the treasury."

 - George Washington

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2011/11/federal_reserve_shennanigans.html#ixzz1f0r3IN2q

Fascist is as fascist does 2

The Euro elites were always fascists.  It's just that the gloves are coming off now.

Writing in the Guardian, a hugely over-excited Simon Jenkins returns to the fray, wondering whether we are all “doomed” (here too,incidentally, before we all get smug, but then Derb has already explained that), before getting to this:

Emergency regimes have taken power in Greece and Italy, while Germany could not sell a third of its bonds. Salvation, according to Europe’s desperate “leader”, José Manuel Barroso, can only lie in “stronger governance in the euro area, both in discipline and in convergence”. He wants nation states to submit draft budgets of their taxing and spending to him for oversight, to be subject to Brussels’ “enhanced surveillance”.

This is more than alarming. Today’s European crisis was brought about by widespread popular revolt against the straitjacket of an unrealistic European monetary union. Barroso’s solution is apparently an even tighter straitjacket, and no nonsense about popular elections or national referendums. He wants Europe ruled by Aristotle’s aristocrats, by people like him.

Indeed that former Maoist does.

But then there’s this:

The present eulogising of technocracy, of the power of economic technique unsullied by the mob, has always been the harbinger of dictatorship. We should remember how many Britons admired the efficiency of 1930s Germany and lauded Mussolini’s trains running on time.

And let’s not forget the British intellectuals who slobbered over Stalin’s “new civilization”, another technocracy, complete with Five Year Plans.

But back to Jenkins:

Greece is now talking of a “German protectorate”. The technocrat Italian prime minister, Mario Monti, warns his people that “the management of the crisis has suffered from a deficiency of government, and must be overcome with action at a European level”. We need not reproduce the Greek magazine’s cover of a swastika on the Acropolis to shudder at the phrases “deficiency of government” and “action at a European level”. We heard those phrases before. 

Consider the euphemisms. Barroso stamps on a possible Greek referendum as “a breach of trust”. In whom? The new German hegemony (which many Germans are commendably resisting) is called “enhanced co-operation”. Even a Guardian headline takes as axiomatic that a two-speed Europe is to be “feared”. Fast is synonymous with euro membership, German discipline, technocracy and progress; slow with a “peripheral”, populist democracy.

The irony here is that today’s technocrats are the dunderheads or Machiavellians (take your pick) responsible for creating the funny money that was always going to lead to a crisis much like this.  Installing the oleaginous Monti, one of those responsible for steering Italy into a currency for which it was never going to be suited, is a huge bet for hope over experience.

Then again, don’t idealize the voters either: the decision to join the euro was something that most Italians supported.

What was it that someone once wrote about popular delusions and the madness of crowds?

The fundamental unity of porn?

Female and male porn are equally exploitative, but only one of the two kinds is socially acceptable. It's even acceptable in Church.  Is this true?  If so, why is it tolerated?  Even praised?

WALTER HUDSON: The Twilight saga is just porn for women. “Pornography imagines that women exist for the sole purpose of satisfying men. The women in porn are not only willing, but eager. They are depicted as if satisfying a man is the means by which their own life is sustained. This is without the slightest pretense, explanation, or justification. The unconditional nature of the attraction is essential to the fantasy. So it is in Twilight, only with the roles reversed. Edward Cullen and Jacob Black adore Bella, not due to any apparent merit, but simply because she is there.”

Of course Pot Smokers usually have lots of money to loot...

...and that's what our government does.
RADLEY BALKO: Driven By Drug War Incentives, Cops Target Pot Smokers, Brush Off Victims Of Violent Crime.

The Criminalization of everything.....

...gives infinite discretion and therefore power to the state.  Therefore it will continue to destroy our society.  When everything is against the law, everyone is a criminal.   Break it up, break it all up.

SINCE HORSEWHIPPING HAS GONE OUT OF STYLE, I SUPPOSE A LAWSUIT IS BEST: Parents Sue D.A. for Charging Their 6-Year-Old Son With a Felony After He Played Doctor With a 5-Year-Old Girl. But no one should be shielded by their office from consequences for this kind of jackassery. And there certainly seem to be a lot of rotten officials in Wisconsin.

McCaskill: is this rat leaving the sinking ship?

Given that McKaskill Pere made his hundreds of millions off of dodgy Federal real estate deals it certainly isn't a moral objection to corruption that Claire Bear is exhibiting.  It's hard to hang on to the mooring cable all the way down to the dock, though.

We're going to hear a lot of Dem rats going plop into the harbor....

MORE SCANDALS: McCaskill calls for probe into smallpox-vaccine boondoggle.

Almost two weeks ago, the Los Angeles Times reported on the peculiar case of Siga Technologies, which got a no-bid contract to supply the Pentagon with an experimental vaccine for smallpox, a dead disease, when we have a plentiful supply of traditional vaccine to handle an outbreak. Siga Technologies has close ties to the Democratic Party with its primary investor, party donor Ronald Perelman, and relatively new board member Andy Stern, the former head of the SEIU and a frequent visitor to the Obama White House. The deal amounts to almost a half-billion dollars for Perelman and Stern, and the White House appears to have intervened to relax contract requirements and eliminate any hint of competition for the project.
Under those circumstances, it should come as no surprise that a member of Congress wants this deal investigated. Should it surprise us that the demand comes from a Senate Democrat?

Not anymore.

The economy is slowly winding down

The capital strike continues apace as a wary, depressed business class creates fewer and fewer businesses.  On the jobs side private industry has continued increasing productivity, squeezing more and more output out of fewer hours but a process that without new businesses, eventually winds down.  The only way the country grows is if new businesses, products and services get created.  And I'm afraid that a lot of that risk taking is on hold in our nation until we get leadership in both parties that recognizes that only the private economy creates wealth.

GE Paid no taxes on $14 Billion in Net

And for this 'achievement' President Obama recently appointed Jeff Immelt as his 'Jobs Czar'.  So which Obama is real? The one that decries 'executive jets' and lauds Occupy Wall Street against the 1%?  Or the one that pals around with Jeff Immelt and Jon Corzine?

This was how Indonesia was governed under Suharto.  Like me, Barry Soetero lived there at the time.  He was clearly paying attention.

This administration does the 'crony' better than any in history.  

Actually it's 100 Billion and 135,000 starved to death

The real cost of our rigged farm system isn't just the 10 billion in subsidies or the sky high prices for food, it's the fact that artificially high demand for food (biofuels, natch) drives up global commodity prices meaning the poorest of the poor can't afford to feed their family.  And experts estimate that last year this caused the death of 135,000.  Farmers:  stone cold killers.  No, make that rich stone cold killers.

More from Carpe Diem.

Paterno, Penn State and Rape

John Scalzi with a scathing post.  Here's what I see as the most important points:

At least one sports columnist has made the point that Joe Paterno, the 40+ year coach of Penn State, who was fired last night (along with the university’s president) by the university’s board of trustees, should be remembered for all the good things he has stood for, and for his generosity and principles, even as this scandal, which brought his downfall, is now inevitably part of his legacy as well. And, well. I suspect that in time, even this horrible event will fade, and Paterno’s legacy, to football and to Penn State, will rise above the tarnishment, especially because it can and will be argued that Paterno did all that was legally required of him, expressed regret and horror, and was not the man who was, after all, performing the acts.

Here’s what I think about that, right now. I’m a science fiction writer, and one of the great stories of science fiction is “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” which was written by Ursula K. LeGuin. The story posits a fantastic utopian city, where everything is beautiful, with one catch: In order for all this comfort and beauty to exist, one child must be kept in filth and misery. Every citizen of Omelas, when they come of age, is told about that one blameless child being put through hell. And they have a choice: Accept that is the price for their perfect lives in Omelas, or walk away from that paradise, into uncertainty and possibly chaos.

At Pennsylvania State University, a grown man found a blameless child being put through hell. Other grown men learned of it. Each of them had to make their choice, and decide, fundamentally, whether the continuation of their utopia — or at very least the illusion of their utopia — was worth the pain and suffering of that one child. Through their actions, and their inactions, we know the choice they made

"A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri"

Arguably the only threat to Google is a change in the User Interface.

“A million blue links from Google is worth far less than one correct answer from Siri,” he adds. These are very early days for Siri, but already he hears that “Siri’s usage has been 10x more than what Apple anticipated.” The big potential, of course, is if Apple opens up Siri to outside developers, which could create a new wave of voice-enabled apps and give Apple an edge over Android and other mobile platforms. (Morgenthaler also gets into the challenges Apple must overcome before it can open up Siri).

If people start using Siri to bypass search, that is a huge threat to Google. But how would Siri make money? It wouldn’t be from advertising. In Morgenthaler’s mind, the biggest opportunity is getting in the middle of transaction. “Corporations will be happy to skip advertising altogether, if they can go straight to transactions,” he says.

TSA Abuse #1222978

I know that I should be agitating for this type of arrogant, obscene behavior to stop, but it's such an object lesson to millions of people of how our government abuses its power every day in almost every way.

Told She Has To Lift Her Skirt Up For TSA To Board A Plane
Disgusting abuse of power by little people -- little security guards who are not "officers" but are called that -- who have been handed power for probably the first time in their lives.

Tabitha Hale blogs at RedState:

I had on black tights under my dress, which I'm certain is not uncommon. She asked me to lift my dress so she could check the waistband of my tights.I felt my stomach drop. I said "I'm not lifting my dress for you. No way." She was obviously irritated with me now and said that she would take me to the private screening area if I would like.
I said "No, absolutely not. If you can't do this in front of everyone, you should not be doing this to me."
She then called a manager over. The manager approached me and explained what they were going to do and that if I failed to comply, they would escort me from the airport. I told her I saw no reason that they should have to lift my dress to clear me to get on a plane. I would have, however, allowed them to escort me out of the airport before they got me to lift my skirt and stick their hands down my tights. I was bracing myself to spend another night in Texas.
She sensed the rebellion in me, and it was almost like they were punishing me for not just lifting my dress and making their lives easier. She checked every inch of my neckline, sticking her fingers between my breasts because she needed to "clear" the (very slight) ruffle.
They cleared the waistband of my tights through my dress, then made me put one leg forward at a time so they could get better "definition of my thigh." She then proceded to pat down every inch of me, all the way up to my crotch. And yes, she used that word. Twice.
It reminded me of the time in Columbus, Ohio last November that one of the agents told me to think of the pat down as a "free massage from TSA." I reminded her at the time that you needed to post a license for that.
The pat down in Houston yesterday was so vigorous I had to readjust my clothes when she was finished. Even my bra straps had been pulled down my shoulders in the process. I felt completely violated, immediately called a friend to recap, and took to Twitter to draw as much attention to the incident as I could.
Here's the thing. If anyone else had done this to me, I would have decked them and likely filed charges. The fact that the person has on a TSA uniform is supposed to make it okay? It isn't. Why should any person be subjected to this to get on an airplane? We're supposed to subject ourselves to inappropriate touch for teh sake of "safety"?

The Obami's fingerprints seem to be all over the Cain Allegations

I'm not a big fan of Ann Coulter but the Senatorial events that she details below are true and if the circumstancial case that she puts forward below is even half right, then...wow.  I reprint her column in its entirety.

DAVID AXELROD'S PATTERN OF SEXUAL MISBEHAVIOR

November 9, 2011

Herman Cain has spent his life living and working all over the country -- Indiana, Georgia, Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, Washington, D.C. -- but never in Chicago. 

So it's curious that all the sexual harassment allegations against Cain emanate from Chicago: home of the Daley machine and Obama consigliere David Axelrod. 

Suspicions had already fallen on Sheila O'Grady, who is close with David Axelrod and went straight from being former Chicago mayor Richard M. Daley's chief of staff to president of the Illinois Restaurant Association (IRA), as being the person who dug up Herman Cain's personnel records from the National Restaurant Association (NRA). 

The Daley-controlled IRA works hand-in-glove with the NRA. And strangely enough, Cain's short, three-year tenure at the NRA is evidently the only period in his decades-long career during which he's alleged to have been a sexual predator. 

After O'Grady's name surfaced in connection with the miraculous appearance of Cain's personnel files from the NRA, she issued a Clintonesque denial of any involvement in producing them -- by vigorously denying that she knew Cain when he was at the NRA. (Duh.) 

And now, after a week of conservative eye-rolling over unspecified, anonymous accusations against Cain, we've suddenly got very specific sexual assault allegations from an all-new accuser out of ... Chicago. 

Herman Cain has never lived in Chicago. But you know who has? David Axelrod! And guess who lived in Axelrod's very building? Right again: Cain's latest accuser, Sharon Bialek. 

Bialek's accusations were certainly specific. But they also demonstrated why anonymous accusations are worthless. 

Within 24 hours of Bialek's press conference, friends and acquaintances of hers stepped forward to say that she's a "gold-digger," that she was constantly in financial trouble -- having filed for personal bankruptcy twice -- and, of course, that she had lived in Axelrod's apartment building at 505 North Lake Shore Drive, where, she admits, she knew the man The New York Times calls Obama's "hired muscle." 

Throw in some federal tax evasion, and she's Obama's next Cabinet pick. 

The reason all this is relevant is that both Axelrod and Daley have a history of smearing political opponents by digging up claims of sexual misconduct against them. 

John Brooks, Chicago's former fire commissioner, filed a lawsuit against Daley six months ago claiming Daley threatened to smear him with sexual harassment accusations if Brooks didn't resign. He resigned -- and the sexual harassment allegations were later found to be completely false. 

Meanwhile, as extensively detailed in my book "Guilty: Liberal 'Victims' and Their Assault on America," the only reason Obama became a U.S. senator -- allowing him to run for president -- is that David Axelrod pulled sealed divorce records out of a hat, first, against Obama's Democratic primary opponent, and then against Obama's Republican opponent. 

One month before the 2004 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate, Obama was way down in the polls, about to lose to Blair Hull, a multimillionaire securities trader. 

But then The Chicago Tribune -- where Axelrod used to work -- began publishing claims that Hull's second ex-wife, Brenda Sexton, had sought an order of protection against him during their 1998 divorce proceedings. 

From then until Election Day, Hull was embroiled in fighting the allegation that he was a "wife beater." He and his ex-wife eventually agreed to release their sealed divorce records. His first ex-wife, daughters and nanny defended him at a press conference, swearing he was never violent. During a Democratic debate, Hull was forced to explain that his wife kicked him and he had merely kicked her back. 

Hull's substantial lead just a month before the primary collapsed with the nonstop media attention to his divorce records. Obama sailed to the front of the pack and won the primary. Hull finished third with 10 percent of the vote. 

Luckily for Axelrod, Obama's opponent in the general election had also been divorced. 

The Republican nominee was Jack Ryan, a graduate of Dartmouth and Harvard law and business schools, who had left his lucrative partnership at Goldman Sachs to teach at an inner-city school on the South Side of Chicago. 

But in a child custody dispute some years earlier, Ryan's ex-wife, Hollywood sex kitten Jeri Lynn Ryan, had alleged that, while the couple was married, Jack had taken her to swingers clubs in Paris and New York. 

Jack Ryan adamantly denied the allegations. In the interest of protecting their son, he also requested that the records be put permanently under seal. 

Axelrod's courthouse moles obtained the "sealed" records and, in no time, they were in the hands of every political operative in Chicago. Knowing perfectly well what was in the records, Chicago Tribune attorneys flew to California and requested that the court officially "unseal" them -- over the objections of both Jack and Jeri Ryan. 

Your honor, who knows what could be in these records! 

A California judge ordered them unsealed, which allowed newspapers to publish the salacious allegations, and four days later, Ryan dropped out of the race under pressure from idiot Republicans (who should be tracked down and shot). 

With a last-minute replacement of Alan Keyes as Obama's Republican opponent, Obama was able to set an all-time record in an Illinois Senate election, winning with a 43 percent margin. 

And that's how Obama became a senator four years after losing a congressional race to Bobby Rush. (In a disastrous turn of events, Rush was not divorced.) 

Axelrod destroyed the only two men who stood between Obama and the Senate with illicitly obtained, lurid allegations from their pasts. 

In 2007, long after Obama was safely ensconced in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times reported: "The Tribune reporter who wrote the original piece (on Hull's sealed divorce records) later acknowledged in print that the Obama camp had 'worked aggressively behind the scenes' to push the story." 

Some had suggested, the Times article continued, that Axelrod had "an even more significant role -- that he leaked the initial story." 

This time, Obama's little helpers have not only thrown a bomb into the Republican primary, but are hoping to destroy the man who deprives the Democrats of their only argument in 2012: If you oppose Obama, you must be a racist. 

What? You mean that 'progressive' governance can't just change a country's culture?

Like make people not use alcohol or other mind altering drugs?  Or make Greeks behave like Germans?  Who knew?

WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: European Wheels Spin Faster, Still No Traction. “Unfortunately, Club Med’s biggest problems can’t be solved by a change of prime ministers or even government coalitions. There are deep cultural and historical reasons why these countries’ economies and political systems work the way they do. Italy can’t become Denmark by an act of will or by passing a new legal code; Greece cannot become Germany and Spain can’t become Sweden.”

Wally Mead Explains why Blue America is falling apart

He particularly focuses on the role of Wall Street in the statist coalition.  Here.

Subsidized companies argue for protection from other companies because they say that they are....subsidized

Kafka would have a field day.  But as Marx might say, the inherent contradictions of the left-fascist state are causing it to collapse from within.  Faster please.

TIM CAVANAUGH: Pot calls kettle green in solar dumping petition. “It’s hard to spot all the absurdities in the death spiral of the U.S. government’s green energy policy. But here’s a big one: A group of solar equipment makers is trying to lock inexpensive products out of the United States, and the argument of these subsidized companies is that subsidies create an unfair market.”

Gallup says unemployment is dropping

I trust Gallup more than I trust the Feds:  they have to make sure their information is useful while the Feds get paid (double paid) regardless.  And their news is actually better.  Why don't we add to the unemployment rate by privatizing the BLS?

Harvard Undergrads protest Economics Class

Next up:  Protests against Gravity, Winter and the use of the Participle.  Here.

Earlier this week, a group of Harvard undergraduates aligned with Occupy Wall Street protesters made a statement yesterday by staging a “walkout” of an introductory economics course taught by conservative professor Greg Mankiw. Mankiw, who chaired the Council of Economic Advisers for President George W. Bush, says in a phone interview that about 5 to 10 percent of the 700-person lecture class (Harvard’s largest) walked out “very politely” just after noon on Wednesday.

The case for Federalism

The case for Federalism lies in creating a continent wide market for good governance.  No monopolist ever 'did the right thing' without pressure.  The key to getting our government to treat us with decency and respect is to have the easy option to shift our homes and businesses to another state that does a better job.  This is why the Federal monopoly is so destructive.  As Milton Friedman said many years ago:

“I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or if they try, they will shortly be out of office.”

The difference between $1 Trillion and $100 Trillion

What $1 Trillion buys:

What $100 Trillion buys:

Eurofail

Wally Mead points out the obvious:

The Comprehensive Eurofail

Having spent months warning readers about the incompetence of Europe’s political leadership and the incoherence of its institutional structures, I thought I had seen the worst.  But for even this hardened and cynical observer who has had years of watching European ineptitude the last 24 hours have been a revelation: the Europeans are totally at sea.

The Greek government has fallen apart; nobody in the cabinet or out knows what is happening or what should be done.

Silvio Berlusconi’s authority has collapsed in Italy, but while Berlusconi can’t govern anymore, nobody else can take the reins.  At a moment of grave financial crisis, the Italian ship is drifting rudderless in a stormy sea.

Europe’s institutions cannot cope.  Decades of building intricate rules and complicated institutions have failed to create an institutional architecture than can resolve basic disputes.

Not all of Europe’s leaders are empty suits.  Angela Merkel, David Cameron, Olli Rehn and a surprisingly large number of others are people of real substance and conviction.  George Papandreou is a serious man. But the absence of an effective organizational structure plus the failure (perhaps because it was impossible) to build a European political culture means that in Europe the whole is much less than the sum of the parts.

We can still hope that sheer desperation will force the Europeans into some kind of coherent action. The house is on fire, the boat is headed for Niagara Falls, the cow flops are hitting the fan, the dam has broken and the volcano is erupting: perhaps somebody somewhere will act.

But right now the world’s largest economic bloc is running around like a chicken with its head cut off.  This is not a drill.

So how do you know what you know - Pseudoscience and the Establishment

Noted science writer Matt Ridley gives a speech on pseudoscience, with particular attention paid to Global Warming.  His key point:  You can trust experts to analyze and explain the past but they have no special ability to predict the future.  Here.

The all animals are equal but some are more equal than others department

Why doesn't this surprise anyone.

HMM: Obama-Friendly GE Building Aircraft Factory in Right-to-Work Alabama; Curiously, Unlike Boeing, NLRB Utterly Silent.

Ineptocracy

Yep, that just about sums it up.

A WORD TO DESCRIBE OUR CURRENT SYSTEM: Ineptocracy. “A system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers*

Pop goes the weasel.

Or should I say wEUsel?

With the announcement of a Greek referendum today the serial attempts by the Eurocracy to square the Euro circle, drink the Strasbourg ocean, roll the boulder up the Brussel's hill (insert your own pointless task here) is rapidly coming to a close.  In a few weeks the Greeks (however irrationally) will go phhhbbbt to the Great and Good of New Europe, precipitating their exit from the currency and a likely a rolling crisis that will see a number of other southern European economies tip into the default toilet.

And the necessary task now is not to try to fish the turds out of their watery grave and call them dinner.

No, the task is to flush.

Thus endeth the oh so 'progressive' fantasy of "Europe".

But the real tragedy is that all advanced 'social democratic' states are effectively turds waiting for their turn in the global 'loo.  And when America, the biggest of them all tips in, it will blow the global plumbing all to hell.

So why don't we ban hotels?

Thomas Sowell on the obtuse 'Payday Loan' rhetoric.

"The mindset of the left was recently displayed in a big, front-page story in the October 30th issue of the San Mateo County Times. It was an investigative reporter's expose of the "payday loan" business and its lobbyists. According to the reporter: "In California lenders charge up to $45 in fees on a maximum $300 loan. This amounts to an interest rate of 460 percent, trapping some borrowers into a never-ending cycle of debt."

The 460 percent figure comes from imagining that the borrower is not just going to borrow the money for a couple of weeks, but is going to keep on borrowing every couple of weeks all year long. Using this kind of reasoning -- or lack of reasoning -- you could quote the price of salmon as $15,000 a ton or say a hotel room rents for $36,000 a year, when no consumer buys a ton of salmon and few people stay in a hotel room all year. It is clever propaganda, but do people buy newspapers to be propagandized?"

~Thomas Sowell

And we don't know the payday loan 'victim's' circumstances.  Perhaps not getting the payday loan will cause them to miss a card payment or bounce a check, costing more than the loan?  The left assumes that everyone but them is irrational.  They believe that despite no knowledge of an individual they understand what's 'good' for them more than they do.  This is the evil concept of 'nudge' that has become the latest rallying cry of 'progressives' everywhere.

But it does give centralizing new class statists a lot more power, doesn't it?  Isn't it funny how every progressive 'reform' does that?

Why are we investing in the most expensive forms of energy?

And ones with enormously negative environmental footprints (even ignoring 'biofuels').  It's simple, Wind and Solar are projects of the state coalition if only because they depend upon it for their survival.  Natural Gas, Oil and Coal?  Not so much.  Follow the power - leaders do nothing that reduces their power.

Facts on the cost of generating electricity (per kilowatt hour):

Natural gas: 3.5-4.5 cents

Coal: 4-5 cents
Hydro: 4 cents
Nuclear: 8 cents
Wind: 7-9 cents
Solar: 15-50 cents

Question: Why as a country are we investing billions of dollars in the most expensive option (solar) and ignoring the cheapest (natural gas), especially when the U.S. is the "Saudi Arabia of natural gas"? 

HT: Warren Smith

The Feds under Clinton and Bush forced the subprime fraud

IBD has the smoking gun.  This was so predictable.  And only an all powerful Federal Government could have created this disaster.  Financial regulation is a rigged game for the benefit of the people who run the country.  In a word, Fraud.