Saturday, February 13, 2010

They protest too much...

Megan McArdle:
"What I said is, the studies so far done often cannot exclude the possibility that there is no effect--this is true of one of the two studies that IOM/Urban relied upon, and also of the largest observational study done to date, which found no effect. That is not the same as saying there is no effect. Health data, like economic data, is very noisy. Sometimes effects that we're pretty sure exist just can't be easily teased out of the data . . . like, oh, I dunno, the effectiveness of fiscal stimulus, say.

What I am saying is that we don't know how big the effect is. Refuting me involves, not saying that well, here's another study showing some effect, but rather, taking a stand and saying we do know how big the effect is, or at minimum, that we can prove it's probably at least 20,000 people a year, the figure I was discussing."

Wow!!! Really worth the read....

Conformo-radicalism:
"I’ve been saying for months that the difference between America and Europe is that, when the global economy nosedived, everywhere from Iceland to Bulgaria mobs took to the streets and besieged Parliament demanding to know why government didn’t do more for them. This is the only country in the developed world where a mass movement took to the streets to say we can do just fine if you control-freak statists would just stay the hell out of our lives, and our pockets. You can shove your non-stimulating stimulus, your jobless jobs bill, and your multi-trillion-dollar porkathons. This isn’t karaoke. These guys are singing “I’ll do it my way” for real.

But it’s awfully late in the day. The end is near, we face the final curtain, and it’s an open question whether the spirit of the tea parties can triumph over the soporific, sophomoric, self-flattering conformism of that Audi ad: Groupthink compliance has never felt so right!"

There - that wasn't so hard, was it?

RedState:
"Today I want to reaffirm and make it more definitive. If you think 9/11 was an inside job or you really want to debate whether or not Barack Obama is an American citizen eligible to be President, RedState is not a place for you.

Birfers and Truthers are not welcome here. Period. End of Story."

But, I believe, the word should be pronounced "trufers".....

Friday, February 12, 2010

And, Boy, do they think we are stupid!!!!!

Mudville Gazette:
"There's an odd thing about this administration claiming credit for victory in Iraq - half the country knows Biden and Obama had nothing to do with it, and the other half will never admit there is a victory to claim. However, since they think we're all stupid, I guess the White House wants to give it a shot."

How tired is the whole "It's not fair" discussion?

Thomas Sowell:
"Fairness as equal treatment does not produce fairness as equal outcomes. The confusion between the two meanings of the same word has created enormous mischief, much of it at the expense of lagging groups, who have been distracted from the things that would enable them to catch up. And whole societies have been kept in a turmoil pursing a will o’ the wisp in the name of “fairness.”"

Like 12 year olds on the playground (or their idiot parents) we have taken it way too far. Bottom line: the so called "progressives" like to scream about having evolution taught in the schools; but they just don't think it should be practiced in real life......

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Call Barnet Frank! (as if he would admit it...)

Megan McArdle:
"It's looking increasingly like Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are going to cost the US government much more than AIG. In its latest long-term budget outlook released in late January, the CBO projected that the AIG bailout would ultimately cost the Treasury $9 billion dollars. Indeed, the entire private financial industry bailout is ultimately expected to cost less than $30 billion; of the $99 billion that the CBO expects we will ultimately lose on TARP, half of the loss comes not from helping the 'banksters', but from the Obama administration's decision to bail out the automakers. A further $20 billion will be spent on the Home Affordable Mortgage Program, aka the administration's mortgage modification plan.

By contrast, the nationalization of the Government Sponsored Entities is expected to cost the Federal government $64 billion between 2011 and 2020, on top of the $110 billion we've already spent. Fannie and Freddie have long defended themselves on the grounds that their underwriting standards weren't nearly as bad as those in the private sector. But they've certainly been better at socializing their losses; firms that controlled maybe half of the mortgage market will end up costing the taxpayer four times as much as the other troubled financial institutions."

All of a sudden, he's loose with the religion....

Obama ‘Agnostic’ on Deficit Cuts, Won’t Prejudge Tax Increases

He ran as a moderate - my ass!

Obama Loses the Country:
"Obama ran as a moderate, governed as an ultra-liberal, and lost the majority of the country’s support in the process. (Only 40 percent of independents approve of his job performance.) He thinks the problem is a failure to communicate. The problem, however, appears to be that he has communicated all too well his infatuation with growing the size of government and the nation’s debt. He can change or hope the public does. But maybe he’s content to have just one term"

A great Super Bowl Gig!!!!


FROZEN WASTELAND

Up here on the farm
We chop wood
To stay Warm.
We all could use some
Glo-bal Warm-ing!

We all need to fight
To preserve our rights.
I don't want to be taxed
Just for breathing.

Open your eyes.
Don't believe their lies.
It's just a
Fro-zen Wasteland!

Al Gore is a liar.
His pants are on fire.
Plus he's getting rich
From carbon offsets.

He's loose with the facts.
All he wants is a tax.
Let's get together
Before it gets much colder.

Frozen Wasteland.
Its just a Frozen Wasteland.
Frozen Wasteland.
Frozen Wasteland.

WE'RE ALL FROZEN!!

It's about who is regulating the regulators....

The Trojan Horse Meets the Vampire Squid:
The U.S. simply bailed out its banks when they invested in a lot of bad mortgages, but this is a problem of a different magnitude, because in Europe, many of the banks are bigger than the countries in which they are based. If you recall the sorry case of Iceland — a national economy more or less bankrupted by a couple of big bank failures — you’ll remember that the problem wasn’t so much that the losses were so big in absolute terms, but that Iceland is so small. It simply did not have the resources to address the crisis. Spain is not small; nonetheless, Spain’s Banco Santander’s assets exceed Spain’s GDP, and the bank has borrowed a lot of money against those assets — its leverage amounts to about 30 percent of the country’s GDP. And the same is true for many other large European banks: UBS’s assets are nearly 300 percent of Switzerland’s GDP, Espirito Santo’s more than 250 percent of Portugal’s, Paribas’s 150 percent of France’s; and the debt secured against those assets represents an unmanageable chunk of GDP in each case. (See the startling chart here.)

Bush was an idiot; but Obama is a victim - how consistent!

Rich Lowry:
"The great temper tantrum has begun. It involves as much red-faced foot-stomping, breath-holding, and chair-pounding as you’d expect from a five-year-old who didn’t get a Zhu Zhu for Christmas last year.

Liberal pundits are beginning to grapple with the fact that President Obama’s “transformational” agenda may be dead, and are lashing out at the American public and our institutions of government. That President Obama himself might be at fault for reaching for too much, too fast, apparently never enters their minds."

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

"Someday" has arrived...

A Day No PIGS Would Die:
"You know what aid package would require Greece to get its fiscal house in order at a much lower price? No aid package! Greece has a bloated and rapidly growing public sector. It's taking a space in the EU that Turkey (a true friend of the West) should have. Greeks retire four years earlier than Germans (and Americans) and are furious at suggestions that the retirement age be raised by two years. Every piece of evidence screams against pouring any more money down this hole.

Even if you believed a Greek bailout would succeed, for the first time in the history of Earth, in making the recipient more fiscally responsible, this would still be just the first sucking sound from the PIGS countries (for Portugal, Ireland, Greece and Spain, sometimes spelled PIIGS to include Italy). Europe is full of lazy, super-entitled bums who aren't even a threat anymore now that their penchant for violence is directed into soccer fandom rather than war. Why even suggest bailing them out?"


It seems that Tim has his finger on the pulse of Europe......

I saw this commercial and paled...

Commentary:
Seen the latest ad for Hugo Chavez’s oil company? Lots of happy old people given free oil by the dictator, and then: ”In swoops Joe Kennedy II with Citizens Energy and the kind people of Venezuela to lend a hand (or two?) and heating oil enough for everyone. Kennedy’s all smiles but they forgot the part where Hugo Chavez shuts down the media and arrests his political opponents. I guess that would have made the ad too long.” Good thing he didn’t talk about how great families and babies are.

How silly of me.....

The lassitude of John Brennan:
"Any connection between Islam and Islamist terrorism is purely coincidental."

How plebean....

Jonah Goldberg :
"This week, I don’t want a car that will get past the Green Gestapo. I’m looking for something that can power through the frozen tundra separating me from the supermarket."

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Ah.... College!

UC Irvine’s Free Speech Problem
The University of California Irvine has a severe free speech problem and has had one for a long time. Part of this stems from the school’s history of what is politely called multi-culturalism – actually a euphemism for cultural relativism, a bankrupt pseudo-philosophy that provides a phony intellectual veneer to totalitarian behavior. Another part is good, old-fashioned anti-Semitism, which seems to be cropping up everywhere these days. A third part is even more old-fashioned cowardice, working in tandem with the other two.

Drumroll.....

If the Czar Only Knew:
"Let’s get real. An administration reflects the strengths and weaknesses of the president. He sets the tone and controls policy. If Democrats and the country at large are unhappy with the results, there is only one person responsible. And it’s not Rahm Emanuel."

For a while, I though I was the only one who thought this....

Dennis Prager:
"No well-known columnist better exemplifies the worst aspects of today’s Left. Virtually every piece is filled with anger, filled with ad hominem responses to arguments, filled with insults of opponents, and at the same time devoid of arguments. A Frank Rich column is essentially a weekly tantrum meant to make his readers nod in agreement and reinforce their contempt for those who differ with them."