Saturday, February 28, 2009

You are not permitted to call him out....

The Six-Trillion-Dollar Man:
"Back in September, we were told to put our faith in Bailoutman. Then in January, Bailoutman went to his tailor, had the long underwear redesigned, and relaunched himself as Mister Stimulus. A few weeks later the Obama crowd noticed that “stimulus,” like “bailout,” had become a cheap punch line, and decided the approved term was “recovery.” So Captain Recovery swung into action."

But it doesn’t matter. Because Big Government is the ultimate hero, and the private sector is merely a supporting role. Last week, the president redefined the relationship between the citizen and the state, in ways that make America closer to Europe. If you’ve still got the Webster’s to hand, “closer to Europe” is a sociopolitical colloquialism meaning “much worse.”

Is the new all-powerful Statezilla vulnerable to anything? Unfortunately, yes. He loses all his superpowers when he comes into contact with something called Reality. But happily, Reality is nowhere in sight. There are believed to be some small surviving shards somewhere on the planet — maybe on an uninhabited atoll somewhere in the Pacific — but that’s just a rumor, and Barack Obama isn’t planning on running into Reality any time soon.



Friday, February 27, 2009

And I've got a bridge for ya'....

How To Kill The Music Industry:
"During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isn’t to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?"

You wouldn't know it, would you?

Rasmussen Reports

In a corollary to Reagan’s assessment of government, most voters believe that no matter how bad things are, Congress could always make them worse.

Other recent polls show that most voters continue to believe that tax cuts are good for the economy and 48% hold the view that increased government spending hurts the economy.

Thursday, February 26, 2009

They are all full of baloney, aren't they?

Megan McArdle:
"Indeed, though Obama is getting a lot of credit for projecting out ten years, I'm not sure I see the point from an economic, rather than a political, perspective. These models consist of the modellers assuming that most things will continue to be largely as they are, unless the economy is in a recession, in which case everything will return to 3% trend growth 18 months after the recession started. They don't track reality all that much better than you would by throwing darts at a board with a bounded range of GDP growth around a mean of 3%. Given that we are in most unual times, they are particularly suspect now."

Oy!

Megan McArdle:
"I'll take Tim Geithner over Maxine Waters any day of the week, and twice on Sunday."

This is the same class warfare that FDR used.....

To Pay for Health Care, Obama Looks to Taxes on Affluent:
"The combined effect of the two revenue-raising proposals, on top of Mr. Obama’s existing plan to roll back the Bush-era income tax reductions on households with income exceeding $250,000 a year, would be a pronounced move to redistribute wealth by reimposing a larger share of the tax burden on corporations and the most affluent taxpayers."

Don't be fooled about what this is just the beginning of......

Read it all...

Christopher Hitchens and the Battle of Beirut:
"One must take a stand. One simply must."

What to say?

Pajamas Media:
"So the battle is on. Are we to redefine the relationship between our citizens and government? Will we permanently alter our health care, education, and free market systems? The story has yet to be written, but now we know the plot and the characters in this very real drama. At last, we have uncovered who the president is and what he intends to do. Now we will find out if he will have his way."

A bunch of Schumers?

Barbara Hollingsworth:
"“The Democrats are asking taxpayers to pay for over 100 accounts in the omnibus bill that are also in the stimulus bill,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Tuesday."

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

It ain't that easy, Mr. President...

Megan McArdle:
"To put it in terms of economic models, the notion is that if Friedman wasn't right about everything, that must mean that Keynes was right about everything. But of course, the universe is not obligated to follow a neat political bifurcation. They could just as easily both be wrong."

Because it was a campaign speech, Silly....

The Insular President: "Granted, when you are busy dismantling private enterprise there isn’t much time left in the day for other things, but this is no joke. We have troops on two battlefields, we face two despotic regimes with ambitions for nuclear weapons, and we have unratified and outstanding trade agreements. And all we get is a few campaign throwaway lines about ending the war in Iraq and closing Guantanamo."

The fate of the self-righteous...

NewsBusters.org:
"'...my beef with Moyers isn't what he did in the mid-1960s but his refusal to acknowledge in a straightforward manner what he did.'"

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

A must read....

Virginia Postrel:
"If I lived in New Zealand, I’d be dead."

Putney Swope says......

Megan McArdle:
"Foreclosures are not the cause of price declines; they are a symptom of them. The underlying event is too many houses, and too little demand for them. Propping up existing mortgages does absolutely nothing about the mismatch between supply and demand."
Either way, the retort is "No Shit!". Read the whole thing.....

Interesting take on the subject....

Bob Krumm
“It’s not about fixing the economy; it’s about proving Reagan wrong.” It’s about proving that an enlightened government is superior to a country led by tens of millions of individual sovereign decision makers.

I’ve lived through the Carter years once before. As a nation, we’ll survive this again. Sadly every quarter century or so America has to relearn its lesson.

All I ask is, please, don’t add insult to injury by bringing back disco.

The Anchoress

Yep, I miss Bush

And if that annoys anyone, that’s too bad.

Seems increasingly like all the “Fascist Bush” caterwauling was the usual fake, dishonest theater meant as a means to an end - the end being to destroy the hated “election stealer” and his legacy, and not much more.

But you know, for someone who “did everything wrong,” his policies suddenly seem wise and right to some surprising people.

It’s easy to campaign and criticize. It’s much more difficult to govern, especially knowing that if you don’t keep the country safe, you don’t get re-elected.

And if you don’t get re-elected, good heavens! How can you continue and complete the coup?

A good read...

Monday, February 23, 2009

Read it all...

Megan McArdle:
I confess, I'm impressed that the Obama administration seems willing to seriously contemplate putting the American auto industry into bankruptcy. The auto industry is the symbol of the 1950's-style highly unionized technocratic economy that has soared back into prominence as the public dream of the Democratic party (oh where, oh where have the environmentalists gone?) Bankruptcy will rip the last bastion of Galbraith's New Industrial State thoroughly asunder, shattering union contracts, closing plants, sending Detroit's legacy marks to the scrapyard.

The administration does not want to be the one giving a bottomless pool of money to the automakers. It also does not want to be the one dealing a near death-blow to the UAW. What happens to prosperous unions in bankruptcy is really not pretty--just ask an airline pilot. Contracts are tossed out, slipping pension funds get gutted (though the Big Three funds are in good shape for struggling companies), jobs are slashed. I suspect that the retirees can kiss those expensive, and yet unfunded, health care benefits good bye. The administration seems to be hoping it can avoid doing both of these things, but this doesn't seem possible--either it will prop the companies up, or it will force a radical restructuring on the companies and creditors.

Decent quote of the day...

Chris Orr:
"That sound you hear is Middle America making other plans for Oscar night next year."

Once again, Megan has something intelligent to offer on her home town...

Post-finance New York:
"Likewise, it's hard to overstate just how far left and economically illiterate most of New York City's council members and state representatives are. The politically powerful head of the transit union was, the last time I checked, an actual communist. The financial industry was the closest thing that New York now has to a vibrant business community, and with its power ebbing, so is the only remaining natural check on the left's worst instincts. That's why there's a very good chance that the State Legislature is going to halt stabilization decontrol and renege on the phase-out deals it made with developers in exchange for building stabilized housing--and thus even more thoroughly ensure that no one in the City of New York builds any multifamily housing except luxury flats that no one will be tempted to control. Though they won't be building anything at all, for a while--the credit crisis is shutting down a lot of projects in the area."

Thank you for stating the very obvious...

Stop whining about the damn Monkey Cartoon:

This is what they want...

AS THE REST OF THE COUNTRY DOES WORSE, Washington thrives.

"Right" on the money...

BREITBART:
"The timing of the yearly Conservative Political Action Conference could not be better suited for evaluating the strategies of the standard bearers of free markets and limited government as free-spending and nanny statist Obamaism runs amok with nary a media check or a legislative balance.

Attendees of the wonky three-day forum should pay close attention to what their ideological counterparts had to say earlier in the week at their annual get-together in liberalism´s capital, Hollywood.

On Sunday night at the Kodak Theater, where Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama debated each other in front of the same prideful crowd a year earlier, the political left convened to celebrate its progressive political agenda. The Oscars communicate post-modern, post-American liberal values more effectively than elected Democratic officials themselves. The liberal establishment understands this and uses the glamorous Hollywood elite and its incessant stream of left-leaning product and promotional vehicles as its proxy messenger."

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Patterico...

WaPo on Gitmo Detainee Who Returned to Jihad: Was It Gitmo’s Fault?:
"Once you’re done explaining that, explain to me why we let this guy go."

It's getting beyond funny....

Obama To Appoint "The Vacuum Cleaner" To Plum Ambassadorship:
"Barack Obama has been embroiled in a cronyism row after reports that he intends to make Louis Susman, one of his biggest fundraisers, the new US ambassador in London.

The selection of Mr Susman, a lawyer and banker from the president's hometown of Chicago, rather than an experienced diplomat, raises new questions about Mr Obama's commitment to the special relationship with Britain."

We're not here to deal with market forces....

"I Don't Care":
"'All those people who have been saving their money, waiting on the sidelines, are being penalized,' Henderson said. 'The government is taking away this opportunity.'"

Instapundit: How long can a system that punishes virtue and rewards greed and profligacy flourish?

Let's be more like them....

Europe's Politicians Don't Pay Their Taxes, Either:
"I've always thought that corruption among American politicians is much less common than is popularly believed. It does seem, though, that the world's political class, including ours, is becoming increasingly contemptuous of the rule of law."

Only the beginning of the new political class...

The Obama White House Calls in the Cavalry

Hard to remember whom you voted for, isn't it?

Hillary Throws Human Rights Under the Bus
Imagine if this had been said by a Bush administration official: Activists ‘shocked’ at Clinton stance on China rights.

Curious, ain't it?

Obama Upholds Detainee Policy in Afghanistan:
"The Obama administration has told a federal judge that military detainees in Afghanistan have no legal right to challenge their imprisonment there, embracing a key argument of former President Bush’s legal team."

Dog bites man...

Iseman to POLITICO: The Times lied

Via Instapundit...

THE MEDIA REVOLVING DOOR: “At least 16 reporters and newsroom staffers at The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J., most of whom left the paper in the past year’s massive buyout, are now working for public officials or state agencies the paper covers. In several cases, writers who covered a specific beat are now working for individuals or agencies upon which they once reported.” If this were any other industry, the press would be calling this corrupt . . . .

But it's OK to be a pontificating anti-semite on PBS....

Bill Moyers's Name Is Linked to J. Edgar Hoover's Abuse of Office :
"This isn't the first time Mr. Moyers's name has come up in connection with Hoover's abuse of office. When Laurence Silberman, now a federal appeals judge, was acting Attorney General in 1975, he was obliged to read Hoover's secret files in their entirety in preparation for testimony before Congress -- and as far as we know remains one of the only living officials to have done so. 'It was the single worst experience of my long governmental service,' he wrote in these pages in 2005."

Gay Patriot weighs in...

Or the UK, Cuba, Germany, etc.... even if your meds are free...

Pajamas Media:
"Europe’s sclerotic economies should serve as a warning for American policy makers. If government continues to grow, it will be just a matter of time before the United States also is plagued by low growth, higher unemployment, and stagnant living standards. Government spending is not the only policy that matters (see here for additional information), but making America more like France is a big step in the wrong direction."