A Man of the Hoi Polloi

So now the President is to become a populist. This law lecturer, of Punaho, Columbia, Harvard and Chicago. This denizen of Hyde Park. He's going to put down his Pinot Noir and hoist a boilermaker. He's changing from Armani suits to Ralph Lauren dungarees.

A pity he's spent the last two years mocking truck drivers and as someone else said: "boom stick owners who believe in a sky God".

Tom Bevan says this is his "Cross of Arugula"

Barack Obama: A man of the Hoi Polloi.

Must be an empty shed

The administration, smarting from their drubbing in Massachusetts caused both by fears of Obamacare and the sagging economy has decided to go populist by bashing Wall Street. The market, which had a small Scott Brown rally on optimism that Obamacare would be scrapped promptly went into an FDR-esqe tailspin losing 5.1% in three days. Lets see, the economy is in the tank because you've destroyed investor, owner and consumer confidence with grandiose policy proposals. The markets bounce on news that one of them might not happen. What to do? What to do?

OOH! OOH! I know! I know! Come up with a completely new set of grandiose and punitive proposals to punish banks and the investment community - that'll put a spring in investors' steps!

During the primaries they said that Barack Obama was the sharpest tool in the Democrat's shed. Must be an empty shed.

Is it just me or is Jon Stewart getting funnier?

Mr. Stewart reflects on Keith Olberman (not safe for Keith Olberman's Mom).

Who would have predicted....

...that Barack Obama would have achieved essentially nothing in his first year? Charles Krauthammer has the con:

One has to think that when the cameras finally depart the White House (they do leave sometime, right?) and there’s no one left to beguile, Obama will look over his first year in office and understand that he’s accomplished virtually nothing (other than sacrificing some congressional allies, losing two gubernatorial races, taking over a couple of car companies, appointing a mediocre Supreme Court justice, running up the debt, and racking up a foreign-policy record rivaled only by Jimmy Carter) with the largest congressional majority in decades. He must see his influence diminishing daily and wonder if this is really it – the last chance to do something, anything.

There's Hope for Change.

Insider Trading and the Battle of the Sexes

There are two types of insider trading, both illegal, but only one is (or can be) punished. If you get inside information and trade on it, you've committed a crime (whether or not that should be a crime is a topic for another day). If you get inside information and refrain from making a trade that you would have made absent the information, you've also technically committed a crime. But no one can see that crime. Two crimes, very different outcomes. Only the crime of Commission gets punished. The crime of Omission is ignored.

This applies equally to the battle of the sexes. Men notoriously commit lots of sexual sins of commission - philandering, pornography, prostitution, you name it. By contrast, their wives very seldom commit these sins. Instead they commit sexual sins of omission: attraction, deception, indifference, rejection.

Both categories are sins, but only one gets highlighted. And then we have the example of John Edwards finally admitting the paternity of his daughter by a campaign aide. Frequent readers of this blog know that I hold no brief for Mr. Edwards or his many sins, however, it is reasonable to point out that we don't know the character and nature of Sen. Edwards' relationship with his wife and what her role was in the collapse of their marriage.

It's a tough dilemma for Pastors because the core of almost all Churches are its matrons. And they are not mocked.

Stay away! Stay away!

Obama is 0 for 7 in campaign rallies for Democrat candidates since he won the Presidency.

There is Hope for Change.

Creating criminals and then becoming criminals to catch them

Gee, the state puts massive taxes on cigarettes, provoking a roaring black market trade. Then the government jumps in with huge law enforcement resources to stop the trade. They do so by selling a quarter billion cigarettes on the black market.

So let me get this straight: our "fearless leaders" in their lust for money make the criminals, build a huge instrument of oppression to suppress the crime they have created and then become criminals to catch the other criminals who only became criminals because of our "fearless leaders'" lust for money and power.

What a swell group of guys and gals we have at the top. Kinda makes you proud.

SCOTUS Strikes Down Key Provisions of Campaign Finance Law

We actually have a Constitutional right to free speech! Who would've thunk it?

How do you know what you know 4

Not only has the IPCC admitted that they got a key climate projection wildly wrong (after all science is iterative and new findings displace old) but in fact the climate projection in question (Himalayan Glaciers gone by 2030) was based on zero scientific data. Nada, none, zilch.

See here.

So how do YOU know what you know?

Holy Tourism

I just saw a flier from my (thriving) Church offering almost ten "Missions" Trips to various exotic locales. Having grown up in poor countries and with many missionary friends, I've always wondered how much value the trips added for the missions as opposed to the trippers. They seem to be more Holy Tourism than Missional.

That being said, my biggest reaction to my Church's efforts (and I presume most others) is its seemingly random scattering of activities. We've got mission relationships everywhere - From Nairobi to New Zealand. Given limited resources that's a bad approach - we're spreading ourselves over too many locales to have serious impact.

Are we doing this for the tourism? After all people like to go to different places - so is that why we have so many missions?

Why don't churches join together to do this? Each large church support two international mission sites, smaller ones support one and have a common pool of Holy Tours run by professionals that can take them to any of these sites? By buying centrally, the Holy Tour group can probably get better rates, allowing the Missions to earn a margin off of the Tourists.

That margin could be the greatest value that the Holy Tourists could provide.

Hubris? Or direction?

One legitimate, non-partisan question that can be asked about the Democrat's predicament is the Party's fall from grace a function of the arrogance of too much power - having such large majorities that they didn't think they had to play by the rules? Or is their failure a function of behaving too much like Leftists and letting that behavior shine out in public?

I suspect it's a bit of both. Hubris is a natural sin condition of those in power, it's not surprising that a party with as much latent political power as the Democrats in 2009 would be tempted into it. But there are special factors that make it more of a Democrat problem: BHO was not a normal candidate and was not treated normally by the MSM - he was lauded as "the one" and no negative news - about his inexperience, his leftism, his unsavory sponsors ever was allowed to get enough traction to be honestly discussed. It's unimaginable that a hard right Obama would get the same pass.

And the direction that the left has been trying to take the country is clearly wrong-headed: Jamming health and climate legislation that make no sense economically or environmentally just to prove to one's base that you are committed is a mistake that the more (small, 'c' as in cautious) Republicans are unlikely to make.

So hubris on tactics hurt the Democrats grieviously. But so did a racialist culture and strategic wrong-headedness.

No longer economically that free

The Heritage Foundation's Economic Freedom Rankings just came out and surprise, surprise the US's ranking plummeted faster than any other country in the world. The US now has the second freest economy - In North America. Boy, risk investors just love stuff like this.

The United States is losing ground to its major competitors in the global marketplace, according to the 2010 Index of Economic Freedom released today by the Heritage Foundation and The Wall Street Journal. This year, of the world's 20 largest economies, the U.S. suffered the largest drop in overall economic freedom. Its score declined to 78 from 80.7 on the 0 to 100 Index scale.

Hope! Change!

Humility

Does Barack Obama have the humility and self awareness to recognize the hole he has dug forhimself and change? Does he have the experience with failure to understand what it takes to turn around. Does he have sufficient experience managing and leading people to determine which ones need to go and who to add?

Clinton turned his Presidency around and governed from the consensus center. But he had two decades of executive experience in Arkansas to draw from.

Where is President Obama's reservoir of experience? What inner strengths can he draw from?

Mortimer Zuckerman - "He's Done Everything Wrong"

The Publisher of US News is shocked! shocked! that a former law lecturer, state senator and freshman US Senator is such an ineffective President.

After all, he ran such a good campaign.

Sigh.

Brown the Republican Front Runner for President?

After all he's a State Senator who will have two years experience in the US Senate. What more could you need?

Why Scott Brown Won - The Real Story

It turns out that the reason that there was a special election was because the MA legislature changed the law back in 2004. Kerry was running for President and a Republican was governor and the Dems were concerned that Kerry would win and a Republican would be appointed Senator. So they changed the law. When Kennedy got sick, they tried to change it back. This sort of chicanery disgusted the MA voters.

Without the manipulation, there would have been no election and Obama would still have his 60 seat majority. Poetic justice, no?

John Steele Gordon has more here.

Hitler Finds Out Scott Brown Won

I think Keith Olberman is doing this today. Maybe George Soros as well.

As good a time as any for a Churchill quote

Spoken after El Alamein and Midway:

Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Sir Winston Churchill, November 1942

A Fool and his filibuster-proof majority are soon parted

With apologies to B. Franklin.

'nuff said.

Pray for the Haitians

Never have a people been so afflicted by others, themselves and nature.

Christians AWOL?

Social Security and Medicare are famously going bankrupt. Essentially what has happened is that the older generations, the ones in power in 1935, 1965 and 2002 voted themselves massive amounts of money that they did not earn. They are receiving these bloated payments and passing on to their children and grandchildren the IOUs that they signed but expect their descendants to pay. It must be noted that the people who did this were not the poor, huddled masses of the world, but at each point in time, the richest electorate in the world's history.

Typically if someone says they love their children and grandchildren and then turn around and take money from them without their agreement (or even with their agreement, they're children) and then use it for their own purposes, we consider that to be not only theft or hypocritical theft but among the most vile things a parent or grandparent can do. Yet when the state does it on their behalf it is legal.

But not moral.

But my question is where are the Christians? Where are the thundering Jeremiad's from the pulpit? This is a great injustice perpetrated by the richest and most powerful electorates in the history of the world against the voiceless, weak and powerless. Their children. Let me say that again: their children. Their grand children.

What an incredible moral catastrophe. One that implicates millions of Christians, righteous stalwarts of the faith.

Where are the pastors? The theologians? The great lions of the Church? If we won't speak out against the looting, who will?

All I want is to be home

I truly enjoy life. I love ideas and (most) people. Some who know me would probably point out that my enthusiasm is more clinical than justified based on my actual circumstances, but until someone comes up with a pill for unjustified joy, I humbly remain me. But I must confess that with each passing year my longing to be truly Home grows stronger. Not Mom 'n Dad's house or 307 Park Road but Home. My faith tells me that there is a place prepared for me and it is natural and right to long to be there. The lyrics from a song by the Foo Fighters (Don't blame me, I didn't pick their name) is one that says best that which I feel.

Home

Wish I were with you, I couldn't stay.

Every direction leads me away.

Pray for tomorrow but for today,

All I want is to be Home.

Stand in the mirror, we all look the same.

Just looking for shelter from the cold and the pain.

Someone to cover, safe from the rain.

All I want is to be home.

Echoes and silence, patience and Grace,

And all of these moments I'll never replace.

Fear of my heart: Absence of faith.

All I want is to be home.

People I've loved, I have no regrets.

Some I remember, some I forget.

Some of them living, some of them dead.

All I want is to be home.

Foo Fighters is an odd name for someone you would quote on heaven. Sort of like if The Messiah was written by Freddy "Handy Dan" Handel.

How do you know what you know? - 3

What if you held a global warming debate (at the Detroit Auto show?) and the alarmists didn't show? Money grafs:

Just as Al Gore has notoriously declined debate, elected Democratic officials seem determined to reinforce the fiction of “climate consensus” by refusing to acknowledge dissident voices.

Republican Fred Upton — a Michigan congressman on the House energy committee — eagerly accepted our invitation (Michigan Republican Mike Rogers would have also come; Sen. James Inhofe was interested, had his schedule permitted his attendance. ). But his Democratic committee opposite, Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak, passed. As did Rep. Sandy Levin. And Sen. Debbie Stabenow. And Rep. Gary Peters. And Gov. Jennifer Granholm. And so on.

We tried to fill the seat with environmental activists and they also declined. One prominent green responded to our phone call with ad hominem attacks on climatologist Patrick Michaels as a ”liar” and CEI’s Myron Ebell as a fraud. Shut up, he argued. Eventually, Skip Pruss — Granholm’s chief energy officer — jumped at the chance to debate. My hat is off to Skip.

"Shut up, he argued" I like that.

Cliff Claven (of Cheers) on the Woodstock Generation

Too good to ignore.

This isn't the Democratic party of our fathers and grandfathers. This is the party of Woodstock hippies. I was at Woodstock — I built the stage. And when everything fell apart, and people were fighting for peanut-butter sandwiches, it was the National Guard who came in and saved the same people who were protesting them. So when Hillary Clinton a few years ago wanted to build a Woodstock memorial, I said it should be a statue of a National Guardsman feeding a crying hippie.

The Roots of Obama Worship.

James Caesar writes an insightful essay on how an old concept: Secular Humanism or as he puts it: The Religion of Humanity connects with Barack Obama, the election and the world. Good read.

How Regulation Really Works

In the media's fantasy land of candy cane forests and soda pop oceans regulations are rationally implemented by dispassionate, far seeing public servants. The truth is they are usually implemented at the behest of market leading companies seeking to suppress smaller, more creative competitors. A good example here.

Mark Ernst, in December 2007, was chief executive officer of H&R Block, the nation's largest tax-preparation company. Thirteen months later, once President Obama took office, Ernst was named a deputy commissioner at the Internal Revenue Service, where he would spend his first year drafting new regulations for tax preparers--regulations that H&R Block welcomes and market analysts say will benefit the company.

With Ernst in mind, recall Barack Obama's campaign pledge: "No political appointees in an Obama administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years."

One out of five working age men is out of work

And the Our Leaders' priority? Insurance reform.

And they wonder why they're losing elections.

The New Tragedy of the Commons

Everyone who's taken elementary economics (or environmental science) knows about the 'tragedy of the commons'. When a resource is not owned by anyone but can be used by everyone, it tends to be depleted amidst great waste. The slaughter of the plains Buffalo was a good example. Many Buffalo were shot for fun and left to rot.

There's a tragedy of the commons that hasn't been recognized as such: The commons is this nation's future wealth and prosperity. The tragedy is the enormous on and off book liabilities that we are incurring on behalf of future generations. Normally, when debt is undertaken, there is a debtor and a lender. For the transaction to happen, both sides need to believe that they will benefit from the exchange and must explicitly consent to it. This is why children aren't allowed to enter into financial contracts. Pretty standard stuff.

However the Federal budget doesn't follow this pattern. The liabilities that the Feds are incurring are being incurred without the consent of those who must make them good. Thus today's Americans can shoot as many 'fiscal' Buffaloes as we want secure in the knowledge that "Somebody Else" in the future (aka: our children) will pay.

And as my Great Grandmother Nellie Savage knew instinctively: when you get things that somebody you don't know is paying for, you waste more and pay more. After all, the bill is 'somebody else's problem'.

This helps explain why education and healthcare inflation have been so virulent in the post war period. But more about that later.

Obama Personally Joins Massachusetts Quake Relief

A great humanitarian.

How do you know what you know 2

Duke researchers find that orphanages do just as good a job as relatives raising orphans. Do better than strangers (aka foster parents). Man bites dog, ticks get fleas, eyes go cross, etc. etc. See Here.

So how DO you know what you know?

Pat Robertson: Evangelist, Author, TV Mogul, Senile

It is truly tragic to see what has happened to Pat Robertson. He used to be a strong if controversial advocate for evangelical Christianity. Today he's the punchline to a joke. Any joke. Won't somebody step up and help him make the right decision to leave public life?

Well this has been obvious for a long time

The real question isn't why Head Start doesn't work, it is whether there is a single federal or state funded program that DOES work?

New slogan: " Education: It's how we waste money when we're not sick."

Disqualifying Tweets

Micky Kaus: Twitter has dramatically lowered the barriers that once prevented respected figures from publishing what Malcolm Gladwell calls "Disqualifying Statements".

You have been warned!

Terror Double Standards

Why is this a surprise? Foil Islamic terror: you're a hero. Foil Leftist terror: you're a snitch. Money graf:

Darby has learned that if you disrupt a terrorist attack on Americans by Islamic fundamentalists as Dutch tourist Jasper Schuringa did on Christmas Day, you’re a hero, but disrupt a terrorist attack on Americans by left-wing fundamentalists and you might as well be a terrorist yourself.

Selective Enforcement of the Laws

How club wielding Black Panthers kept non-Obama voters from the polls and how the Obama administration rejected their guilty plea, setting them free. Long but important post. In particularl, read the career Justice attorney's farewell comments (he has been exiled to SC for pushing the wrong kind of civil rights cases).

Hope 'n Change!

The apocalypse

The Seventh Seal has been broken, the vampire with a soul is playing a role in the apocalypse, the one-armed man has been caught, Kwai Chang Caine has snatched the stone from Master Po's hand, Cthulhu has awakened, Alec Baldwin has become talented,American Freedom is made in China, and — gird thy loins — a Republican is poised to take Ted Kennedy's seat. From Jonah Goldberg.

I love this youtube: David "Dean of Establishment Cliches" Gergen asks about winning "The Kennedy Seat" - Scott Brown says "with all due respect this isn't the Kennedy's seat or the Democrat's seat, it's the people's seat". Gergen exits stage left to remove egg foo yung confit from face.

More fun than a barrel of monkeys.

Mickey Kaus on the Archaic Fee for Taco Model

“I went to my local Mexican diner and offered to give them a bundled payment to cure my hunger, but they insisted I pay for every dish I ordered under the archaic ‘fee for taco’ model.”

The rest here.

From Game Change: How Obama blew his first decision

Choosing Biden was an obviously bad choice, as BHO knew within days. How come it took him so much longer to perceive the obvious than it took everyone else?

Jennifer Rubin has the call.

Fatcats Party While Nation Slips into Depression

From instapundit:

UH OH: America slides deeper into depression as Wall Street revels. They told me that if I voted for John McCain the interests of ordinary Americans would suffer while financial fatcats raked it in. And they were right!

Perry's Law of Economics

True and relevant for a statist world:

It's a basic law of economics (Perry's Law) that "market competition breeds competence" (and lower-priced, higher-quality products), and government restrictions on competition and market forces breed incompetence (and higher-priced, lower-quality products), so the more the competition, and the more cutthroat the competition is, the better the outcome for consumers. It's also the case that the "smell of profits" attracts competition, and Amazon, Google and Apple all have stock returns double the 30% market return over the last six months measured by the S&P500, so that redolent attractive odor of profits might be churning up some potentially significant competition right now.

See the rest here.

US has more Natural Gas than Saudis have Oil

How can this be?

"Green" Govt. Destroys Wood Byproducsts Industry

Fascinating example of the ignorance of political lawyers. Woodmill byproducts have historically gone into particle board and inexpensive furniture. The 'hacks didn't know this and so passed big time subsidies for 'waste product fuels'. Only there isn't any waste, so the 'hacks are using our money to pay sawmills to put furniture manufacturers out of business so the working class and poor will no longer be able to afford decent furniture.

But I'm sure we'll get a lot of 'energy' at 3x the going rate and some 'political entrepenuers' will make a ton a bucks off of us rubes.

Hope, change!

Now this is real environmentalism

Brokering empty space in trucking - probably more net positive environmental impact than the entire subsidized wind industry, and certainly more than the environmentally devastating ethanol industry.

And not a single party hack in sight.

We Have At Least 100 Years of Oil Left

No Kiddin' Karl - imagine that - businesses use technology to find and get access to more and more oil over time. Who could conceive of such a novel notion: and with no 'green' subsidies and tax disincentives.

How can things happen without the leadership of statist political lawyers? It's impossible, isn't it? Well isn't it?

Thoughts 'n Questions

Environmentalism: Big Government on Crack

Why do we tax money inheritance but not talent inheritance?

Why is our most "progressive" institution (higher education) also our most hierarchical and status conscious?

Why are there virtually no liberal Christians?

Why do lectures and chalkboards and overhead projectors cost 5 times more than they a generation ago?

The CIA, TSA, IRS, Post Office: best practices for managing our health care.

Why are people fleeing dark blue states in droves?

What happens to your behavior when you are given free access to a service that you don't have to pay for?

What happens when this happens to an entire nation?

Just wondering.

The Exodus Emails

Shocking truth behind Pharoah's biggest blunder.

"One of the warmest winters in history"

A peek into how meteorologists at the British National Meteorology Agency determine how warm a winter it is (after two straight weeks of record cold and snow):

In fact, the Met still asserts we are in the midst of an unusually warm winter — as one of its staffers sniffily protested in an internet posting to a newspaper last week: “This will be the warmest winter in living memory, the data has already been recorded. For your information, we take the highest 15 readings between November and March and then produce an average. As November was a very seasonally warm month, then all the data will come from those readings.”

I'm glad they're paid twice as much

The TSA Fiasco at Newark after a guy ran through a security checkpoint to give his girl a good bye kiss.

Shutting down the airport, wasting thousands of people's time by pointlessly rescreening them, treating them as animals in pens without food or drink or bathroom breaks for hours on end, causing them to miss their flights and screwing up their lives... none of that is Mr Jiang's fault but that of the money-no-object TSA that imposes stupid petty rules on everybody else but doesn't even follow its own. And that's why Senator Lautenberg's anger is misdirected: It's not Mr Jiang's fault that Newark's "security" is a laughingstock.

But the Good news is: these double-paid union-jacks will soon be managing our healthcare system. How progressive.

The limits of Politics

Joel Kotkin points out that seldom in modern history has one political party been as dominant in government as the Democrats are today. Yet despite all of their efforts to push money and power towards their homes, the dark blue states continue to hemorrhage jobs and residents to the reddest states. He argues that the Left needs to dramatically change its priorities lest it destroy its own political bases.

Kotkin is a very rare thing: a principled moderate. He went Obami in the last election. He's over that now.

Best Short Articulation of Climate Skepticism

Neil Frank does a good job of stating the skeptics position.

The First Line of Defence

One of the worst aspects of our brave new statist world is the assumption that "the authorities" are there to "protect" us from terror attacks. We live with crime every day, we don't expect the police to "protect" us, we expect them to show up after the crime and hunt the evildoer down. We protect ourselves from crime by locking our houses and cars, packing heat, keeping alert to strange people and avoiding high crime areas.

This gentleman describes the Fed's plan to deal with an Anthrax attack. He points out that the best defense is your own. I don't believe an Anthrax attack is particularly likely but it does illustrate the point that the Feds can't protect us against terror. They can only screw up the response.

Caveat populi.

Poetry in the Time of Obama

Bob Dylan, from his Christian phase: Is he a Prophet?

Man's ego is inflated, his laws are outdated, they don't apply no more,
You can't rely no more to be standin' around waitin'.
In the home of the brave, Jefferson turnin' over in his grave,
Fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan.
And there's a slow, slow train comin' up around the bend.
-- Bob Dylan, Slow Train

I can hear the wail of that train's whistle in the distance, can you?

Poetry in Time of War

Herman Melville wrote this after Lincoln's Assassination. It is particularly apt after terror attacks. But will we need to wait 3 years for the iron hand?

There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand;
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.
-- Herman Melville's poem: The Martyr

Happiest States Veer Red

The first serious multivariate analysis of happiness by state - one that controls for individual characteristics like education and income finds (shock of shocks) that the less taxed and less "blue" one's state is, the happier people are. It also shows that people would prefer to be warm than cold (although nanny state CA scores a dismal 46th out of 51).

Now those who have read me in the past know that I am skeptical about league tables - they are notoriously sensitive to ex ante model specification problems (in other words, they are easily rigged for the outcome one wants). That being said, this is the first serious, refereed journal article on the topic that I've seen and it seems to be very credible.

It also supports my preconceived opinions, which doesn't hurt.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

Bret Stephens of the WSJ reminded me of Rudyard Kiplings famous poem. Seems like a good time to haul 'er out.

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

Shelby Steele on BHO

Mr. Steele has always been one of the most insightful commentators on race and identity in America. Here he talks about our President and how he differs from Ronald Reagan.

Maureen Dowd's Best Column. Ever.

Brother Dowd sits in for the Crimson Shrieker.

Why would any country voluntarily become semi-muslim?

Mark Steyn uses his experience as a Francophone Canadian to ask the obvious question on NRO.

As I said, if you happen to find yourself in a bilingual society (which, as in Canada, is really two unilingual societies), you make the best of it. But I cannot see why any society would choose to become bilingual. Likewise, if you're in Nigeria or southern Thailand or Kashmir, you make the best of it. But I can't understand why any society would lightly volunteer to become semi-Muslim - which is what in effect Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany et al have done. And, once you've done so, like Derb says, what's the answer?

I've lived large parts of my life in muslim majority societies and have never experienced a problem there. But it is quite apparent that when muslims come into contact with western civilization and particularly our leftist multi-culti nihilism, it transforms a small subset of them into haters and in some cases into killers.

Multiculturalism increasingly seems to be the ideology of culture war and western suicide.

Chris Hitchens Hits the Nail on its Head

Chris Hitchens explains the essence of our "anti-terror" efforts:

Why do we fail to detect or defeat the guilty, and why do we do so well at collective punishment of the innocent? The answer to the first question is: Because we can't—or won't. The answer to the second question is: Because we can.

With 'public servants' as feckless as these, why do we need enemies? And we pay these guys on average twice as much as private employees? They're not worth even half as much as a non-tax-eater.

When Even Nannie Bloomberg Can't Stand the Outcome

Even Michael Bloomberg, a liberal and longtime supporter of 'healthcare' reform thinks Obamacare is a disaster - from the WSJ:

Many who have long touted health care reform are turning up their noses at the final product. Michael Bloomberg, New York's independent mayor, told "Meet the Press" over the weekend: "I have asked congressperson after congressperson. Not one can explain to me what's in the bill, even in the House version. Certainly not in the other version. And so for them to vote on a bill that they don't understand whatsoever, really, you've got to question how -- what kind of government we have."

Mr. Bloomberg added that his own reading of the Senate bill led him to conclude that it would blow a hole in the New York State budget and force closure of perhaps 100 health clinics.

No wonder they hold their votes in the middle of the night. If I had come up with this dreck, I'd hide it too.

Once Again: Using the "legal" system to overturn the people's will

Prepare yourself for the "Carbon Tort" - an attempt to overturn the law of the people through the activities of lawyers. Money graf from the WSJ:

What unites these cases is the creativity of their legal chain of causation and their naked attempts at political intimidation. "My hope is that the court case will provide a powerful incentive for polluters to be reasonable and come to the table and seek affordable and reasonable reductions," Mr. Blumenthal told the trade publication Carbon Control News. "We're trying to compel measures that will stem global warming regardless of what happens in the legislature."

These 'cats are seeking to use the courts to win what they are manifestly losing in the court of public opinion. Like with Roe and Dred Scott, a "victory" here will just ensure endless hatred and strife.

What a "Progressive" policy. Power to the lawyers!

The Economics of Harry Potter

The Economist has a wonderful piece about how JK Rowling and Harry Potter have taken film making back to the future. Definitely worth the read.

We’ve got three years of a four year inoculation against looney leftism left. Enjoy the sore arm and flu like symptoms, because he ain’t going away.

I like to think of this period of 'leadership' as proof against future such silliness. Oh Lord I hope that's true, because I'm not even sure I can handle the final three years of the treatment.

The Fannification of the Financial System

As predicted, the 9 banks that were deemed 'too big to fail' are falling into the familiar Fannie-Freddie relationship with the government. Watch for massive profits and rapid market share growth among these 9 at the expense of the rest of the financial system. Read the details here.

Our "progressive" leaders are so predictable.

As Instapundit always says: our country is in the BEST of hands.

Why do People Flee Democrat Governance?

Michael Barone points out the shift in House seats this census season. For the first time CA will not add a single house seat. TX will add four. Don't these morons know that progressive governance is good for them? Why do they persist time and again in fleeing their wise, Phd led leadership? Why oh why do people run away from Democrats? When the Democrats ran the solid south people ran away like lemmings. Now that they run the solid north, they run away like neo-lemmings. Why oh why do people flee the Obama slavation? I mean salvation?

Polidata Inc. projects from the 2009 estimates that the reapportionment following the 2010 Census will produce four new House seats for Texas, one for Florida, Arizona, Utah and Nevada, and none for California for the first time since 1850. Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Illinois are projected to lose one each and Ohio two. Americans have been moving, even in recession, away from Democratic strongholds and toward Republican turf.

Captain Underpants: A criminal, not an enemy.

The greatest travesty of this terror attack will be how our "leaders" will treat it as a criminal prosecution. We won't learn much about the masterminds, we won't catch, much less kill the ringleaders, we'll just have a pathetic 'trial'. Andy McCarthy has the details at NRO.

If we don't fight the war, we can never win.

Missing the Point [Andy McCarthy]

Though I share their outrage, I think outraged readers are missing the point. The people now in charge of our government believe Clinton-era counterterrorism was a successful model. They start from the premise that terrorism is a crime problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Overdone "war on drugs" rhetoric aside, we don't try to "win" against (as in "defeat") law-enforcement challenges. We expect them to happen from time to time and to contain, but never completely prevent, the damage.

Here, no thanks to the government, the plane was not destoyed, and we won't get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there's no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this "case" tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success ... just like the Clinton folks did after the '93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.

It is a dangerously absurd viewpoint, but it was clear during the campaign that it was Obama's viewpoint. The American people — only seven years after 9/11 — elected him anyway. As we learn more painfully everyday, elections matter.

Scam upon Scam upon Scam upon Scam

If you read through this entire piece by Chris Booker of the Daily Telegraph, you will get a precis of the corruption inherent in the "Global Warmist" movement. It's about the Chairman of the IPCC - on Dr. Pauchari's extremely profitable dealings around the world and much more.

All that it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to believe them.

TSA - Quite Possibly the Stupidest People in Our Time

The answer to the underpants bomber: Punish the passengers who saved their bacon! From Rand Simberg. Our government: beyond parody.

2. Once again, airline passengers 1, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) 0.

And the response of the TSA?

To further punish the passengers, of course. I see that now no one will be allowed to leave their seats one hour prior to landing or have items in their laps, including laptops and pillows. And of course, as usual, the new measures, hastily put into place because something happened, will be measures that would likely have had no effect on what happened. But since they already had measures in place, and something happened anyway, they have to do something new to keep the curtains open in the theater. What next? In addition to deshoeing ourselves, will we have to drop trou in security? It’s ironic that on the day commemorating the birth of a lone man who was supposed to die for all of our sins, a little over two millennia later, we are now going to all have to suffer for the sin of another lone man.

Obama Don't get no Respect

Of course one might ask: what has he done to deserve it? Via Instapundit:

SLATE: WHY WORLD LEADERS FIND IT EASY TO say no to Obama. “It isn’t just that that no one has cut Obama any slack. World leaders seem to be taking pleasure in rebuffing him, disappointing him, even, in some cases, mocking him. . . . Praising and admiring Obama are still common, but raising doubts about him, even scoffing at him, is now becoming fashionable. Although he is still popular among Europeans and more popular with Muslims than his despised predecessor, Obama is being tagged with the unflattering label John Quincy Adams earned before he lost the 1828 election: ‘Adams can write, Jackson can fight.’ . . . In fact, no world leader has paid a price for disappointing Obama. With Obama so nice and so conciliatory, risking retaliation by the White House doesn’t seem all that dangerous.”

In 1980 Detroit Had the Highest Per Capita Income In America

Today: Not so much. I blame Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney. Steve Crowder begs to differ.

Notable Quotes

"Despite the Democrats best efforts, 57 percent of Americans judge the War in Iraq a success". Jim Hoft, Gateway Pundit.

"94 percent of 3Q GDP growth was due to federal spending" - Stephen Green, Vodkapundit.

"Ben Nelson's staff called to say that he couldn't come on TV: he was having trouble making the adjustment from Blue Dog to Lame Duck" - Stephen Green

Then: Earmarks. Now: Bribes

Who cares about earmarks, now that we have open bribery as the Federal M.O?

Obamacare: Worse than Eurocare?

Mark Steyn on Obamacare:

Looking at the millions of Americans it leaves uninsured, and the millions it leaves with worse treatment and reduced access, and the millions it makes pay significantly more for their current health care, one can only marvel at Harry Reid’s genius: government health care turns out to be all government and no health care. Adding up the zillions of new taxes and bureaucracies and regulations it imposes on the citizenry, one might almost think that was the only point of the exercise.

That’s why I believe America’s belated embrace of government health care is going to be far more expensive and disastrous than the Euro-Canadian models. Whatever one’s philosophical objection to the Canadian health system, it is, broadly, fair: Unless you’re a cabinet minister or a bigtime hockey player, you’ll enjoy the same equality of crappiness and universal lack of access that everybody else does. But, even before it’s up-and-running, Pelosi-Reid-Obamacare is an impenetrable thicket of contradictory boondoggles, shameless payoffs, and arbitrary shakedowns

Read the rest here.

Potato Salad - Ouch

Johnny Mac sends this trio of talented temptresses our way. After 50 seconds.

The Cornhusker Kickback

To vote for Obamacare, Ben Nelson got the "Cornhusker Kickback". Mary landrieu got the "New Louisiana Purchase", the Florida Nelson got retention of Medicare Advantage when every other state's seniors will be cut off. Vermont got $500 Million and MA got $300 Million in extra Medicaid payments. Michigan and Nebraska BCBS are exempt from new premium taxes. The Longshoreman don't have to pay the "Cadillac Plan" Tax. And people living near a Montana Superfund site get free healthcare for life.

Hundreds more deals will emerge before this is all over.

Hope! Change! Obama!

Where your college tuition dollar goes.

College tuitions have increased over 400 percent in real terms since 1970. Where does all the increased college tuition money go? I ran across this gem at Carpe Deum – Truly the best econ blog:

This staffing behavior is characteristic of Oligopolistic industrial organization.

The Democrats are All In, Even if it Kills Them

Byron York interviews Dem Strategists who explain why the Dems continue to pursue healthcare reform in the face of 61% public disapproval.

Puts a new face on the definition of Democracy.

Well This Stinks

From Instapundit. If the children of immigrants from south of the border stop thinking of themselves as Americans, then we have a huge problem, don't we? The antics of the "progressives" are making the nativist's points for them.

MICKEY KAUS: “Only 33% of *U.S. born* (second-generation) Latino immigrant kids identify themselves first by the term ‘American.’ Most prefer either their country of origin (41%) or the term ‘Latino’ or ‘Hispanic.’ This is supposed to prove Lou Dobbs wrong?”

In previous waves of immigration, we got assimilation because teachers, politicians, media, etc. believed in it, and thought America as it was an indisputably good thing, and thus acted accordingly. This time, they feel differently, and act differently, and so we get different results

It just keeps getting better and better

Scott Harrington at the WSJ tells us that hidden within Obamacare is another fiscal love bomb straight from the Dead Kennedy.

Looking in Obama bills is sort of like a full Christmas stocking. You never know what gems you're going to find!

Fa la la la la, la la la la.

So How Do We Know What is True?

JOURNALISM: A.P. Assigns 11 “Fact-Checkers” to Palin’s Book, Only 5 To ClimateGate Emails.

Not particularly earth shattering in itself, but rather telling: When the media targets a public figure for 'debunking', how do you know that you are seeing a clear picture of her? How many 'fact checkers' do you think Obama's portentous books got? One? None?

And when a huge and incredibly complex cache of emails about the central debate of our time is leaked what happens: the NYT says: "they were stolen, we won't report on them" - they of the Pentagon Papers Pulitzers. And AP puts fewer than half the fact checkers that they assign to an unemployed politician's biography.

So the question is this: we make our evaluations of policy and politics based upon the news. But when the news is dishonest or biased or has a monomania on a single issue, how do you figure out reality?

How do you know what is true?

Tricky, very tricky.

Google Can't Find Climate Gate

From Rand Simberg's Site:

Hiding The Decline At Google?

I got this email (I’ll keep the emailer anonymous unless (s)he notifies me otherwise):

It’s very disturbing how Google is behaving with regard to Climategate/Climaquiddick. I put both of those in my custom news page. For a while, it steadfastly refused to update Climaquiddick, and then it began to update Climategate only with stories attacking climate change skeptics. I could find many more stories on Yahoo, most of which were alarmed at the fraud which seems to be occurring.

Then when I logged in today, Google News had deleted those two categories from my custom section. When I reestablished them, they brought up only a few of the old, outdated original stories plus a few newer attack stories.

Web searches on Climaquiddick yielded only 72,600 hits on Google and 84,300 on Bing, but 565,000 on Yahoo. None of them will autocomplete the word “Climaquiddick.” They won’t autocomplete “Climategate” either, but Yahoo alone will suggest “climate gate.”

Does everyone in Silicon Valley think that pretending information doesn’t exist will make it so? If so, how much can we trust the technology they produce?

I think that there are going to be huge reverberations of untrust throughout many areas of authority resulting from this. As was pointed out early on, it’s not just a scientific scandal, it’s a journalistic one.

In Honor of Al Gore and Carts for Clunkers: A Poem

Earnie "Tiger" Lazarus poem: Enscribed on the Statue of Nicklaus at the Bay Harbor Golf and Country Club

Not like the brazen driver of Greek fame,

With conquering wedge shots astride from green to green;

Here at our sea-washed, sunset links shall stand

A mighty golfer with a mashie, whose swing

Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name Mother of Putters.

From her over-hand grip

Glows world-wide TV rights; her mild eyes command

The curved grass that twin bunkers frame.

"Keep, ancient game, your storied links!" cries she

With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,

Your huddled masses yearning to ride in golf carts,

The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the cartless, tempest-tost to me,

I lift my charging station beside the golden door!"

Prediction: BHO won't even win the vote for reelection in his home state.

Barring a last minute glitch, the Obama White House has settled on an Illinois prison to house detainees now at the Guantanamo Bay military prison in Cuba, sources close to the decision told the Chicago Sun-Times. An announcement is expected shortly from the Obama administration to start the process to acquire the nearly vacant Thomson Correctional Center in northwestern Illinois.A leaked memo prepared by administration officials prompted speculation that the decision was finalized. An administration official said that memo was a draft and not to read anything into its existence because paperwork is readied just in case.

CO2 Promoting Plant Growth Worldwide

A commentator on Canada's National Post points out that increased CO2 levels are highly correlated with massive increases in plant growth worldwide.

Shocking Racism

Cablinasians are being discriminated against. Their unique cultural contributions denigrated.

Our New Federal Overlords

I'm told that my tone towards the government is too harsh. But it's hard to be civil when I find that our Federal overlords are giving themselves fat raises on top salaries that are 75% above average Americans in the midst of the Great Recession.

STIMULUS! Average Federal Government Worker Pay $71, 206. “The number of federal workers earning six-figure salaries has exploded during the recession, according to a USA TODAY analysis of federal salary data. Federal employees making salaries of $100,000 or more jumped from 14% to 19% of civil servants during the recession’s first 18 months — and that’s before overtime pay and bonuses are counted.”

It is really, really hard, guys.

Newsweek Dying?

Ed Driscoll has the story. Evidently NW is losing money hand over fist and is projected to halve its circulation in one year. Ad revenue is down -30 percent year over year. Boy all the BHO hagiography has really paid off.

Wonder when the Dems will pass a press bailout to keep their cheerleaders in printer's ink?

The Physics of Belief or Truth is What the Party Says it Is.

A Professor of Mathematical Physics at Tulane has an interesting perspective.

Why Insult Great Britain

John Gordon Steel wonders why the Obama Administration has gone out of its way to insult our most staunch ally, the United Kingdom and it's leader. The British press is certainly noticing. It seems part and parcel of the arrogance that permeates everything that BHO does. But tearing at a truly "special relationship" just because it seems cool is quite rash at a time when we need all the help we can get around the world.

Arrogance and naivete are certainly an explosive mix.

Tiger Woods and Fallen Dieties

Lisa Schiffren has an absolutely fascinating perspective on the Tiger blow up. Even more significantly, she points out the rather obvious implications for another American deity. Definitely worth a read.

"Ultimately, Woods is an exceptional golfer with a character problem. Barack Obama, by contrast, is not an exceptional, or even particularly competent, leader. But because so many politicians, interest groups and factions have an interest in his continued presence, no one is ready to reveal the man behind the curtain just yet.

But many voters from both the center and the far left who believed in the Obama magic are increasingly dismayed by watching the human god fall to earth. This is a major problem because, as Shafer notes, the impulse of the betrayed is to tear their fallen deities to shreds."

Greece: Hellenic Canary in the Euro Coal Mine?

Megan McCardle has a thoughtful post about the likelihood of a Greek collapse and the implications for the Euro.

Demographically dying and fiscally incontinent, Greece is just the first in a line of dominoes to fall with Spain, Ireland, Italy not far behind and the good 'ol USA bringing up the rear.

The Pushme Pullyou Economy

Tigerhawk observes that right on the heels of the "jobs summit" the Administration announced a raft of new labor regulations that will depress employment. The money graf:

Regulatory risk from the federal government is now -- by a longshot -- the biggest barrier to increasing private sector employment. Neither looser money nor string-pushing "stimulus" can overcome that in the long run.

Federal Unaccountability or the Collapse of Consent

Our philosophy of government is derived from British experience. Parliament developed a doctrine called 'supply' which meant that the only national funds the King and his executive could have to spend were those voted by the sovereign representatives of the people sitting in Parliament. The King could dismiss Parliament, but then he couldn't have any money. This system is predicated on parliament (or in our case Congress) being accountable to the people. But what if this no longer holds?

We the people have made it plain to Congress the level of taxation that we will abide. Normally it is the duty of the legislature and the executive to figure out how to allocate those funds to maximize the public good or to persuade the people that the amount needs to be adjusted. This is how we the people have traditionally limited the ambitions of our political class: In the English phrase: we have limited "supply".

But our Federal government has a magic money machine through which they can issue debt and print money that obligate us just as sure as if we had put it on our credit card. The result: the Feds are not limited by "supply". Indeed I think it is fair to say that without a limitation on the amount of money they can spend and a limitation on the future liabilities that they can undertake, that our Federal government is effectively unaccountable. And since they have not limited their activities to the people's level of 'supply' they are acting without our consent.

And government without the consent of the governed, as the founders put it, is Tyranny.

Winner for most Creative Knowledge Problem Analogy

From Instapundit:

VIRGINIA POSTREL ON GIFT-GIVING AND THE KNOWLEDGE PROBLEM: “The problem of buying good presents for other people, even people you supposedly know well, illustrates that old familiar Hayekian concept, the knowledge problem. If you can’t even give your loved ones the right presents, how likely is it that a central authority could make the right decisions for everyone?”

Group Seeks to Rescind Al Gore's Oscar

Why would they do that? They just need to change the category from Documentary: To Fantasy.

Obama Seeks Ideas on Jobs - How about stop?

President Obama is stumped. Gee, all we're doing is proposing to double the price of energy, increase income taxes, take death taxes from 0 to 45% (plus state duties) impose surcharges and fees on 30 million Americans unless they buy more health insurance and run 10 trillion in deficits in the next 8 years. Oh, and massively reregulate the financial sector while tearing up millions of financial contracts. And play protectionist Chicken with China.

He just can't imagine why businesses won't hire more. What could it be? What could it be?

I'll give you a hint: it's initials are BHO.

The Democrats are going to be swept from power due the impenetrable ignorance of their leaders. At least Bill Clinton had some native intelligence. This is the flower of a City that has been in steady decline for 40 plus years. And it's stupid.

They're experts at declining gracelessly.

On the Other Hand: This Will Not End Well

George Will, a notoriously moderately toned conservative disagrees and says that the President's new Afghanistan policy "Will not end well"

We and Obama will certainly know in three years, won't we?

Shocker: Govts get away with polluting that private companies can't.

Instapundit has the story:

SHOCKER: Government-operated sewage plants get away with a whole lot of polluting. “Modest proposal: privatize sewage treatment plants so that governments won’t hold back on going after polluters. It is politically much more acceptable to go after profit-making private sector polluters. Look at the USSR. The state let itself pollute on a massive scale. When the government doesn’t own the capital assets it has a much easier time imposing costs on the asset operators to make them clean up.”

This goes for lots of other services the government provides as well. For example: Schools.

Credit where Due to Obama

Credit where credit is due: Andrew Ferguson comments on the President's speech:

Obama is the first Democratic president in forty years to call for a significant deployment of American troops in the national security interest of his country. This is very big news. His predecessor, President Clinton, could give a stirring address dispatching bombers over Bosnia and be confident of the support of his fellow Democrats, because the show of power was purely humanitarian and had nothing to do with keeping us safe from our enemies. With great courage, Obama is trying something that hasn’t been tried within the living memory of most of the members of his party.