Saturday, February 27, 2010

Yet another result of the "We have to DO something about this" nonsense...

Bang! Bang! You're... Safe?:
"I'm not a big fan of the 'correlation equals causation' fallacy, but sometimes it holds true. And when there is such a dramatic correlation -- an inverse relationship between the strength of gun control laws and the numbers of gun-related homicides committed -- it's absolutely mind-boggling that anyone could deny the plain reality of the situation:

Anti-gun laws do not prevent gun violence. Anti-gun laws, if they have any effect, ENCOURAGE gun violence."

Funny that The NY Times has nothing to say about this....

Fannie Taps Treasury for $15.3 Billion More After a 10th Loss

How "right on the money" is good ol' Mark?

Mark Steyn:
"While Barack Obama was making his latest pitch for a brand-new, even-more-unsustainable entitlement at the health-care “summit,” thousands of Greeks took to the streets to riot. An enterprising cable network might have shown the two scenes on a continuous split-screen — because they’re part of the same story. It’s just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They’re at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is farther upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter Twenty (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter Seventeen or Eighteen."

Thursday, February 25, 2010

Get ready, America....

Annals of Government Medicine:
"Unimaginable suffering--that pretty much sums up government-controlled medicine. That's our future, though, if the Democrats get their way. They care only about their own power, not about the quality of your medical care."

He has GOT to go...

“The President’s Plan”: All you need to know:
"The Obama administration’s approach to health care betrays a similar top-down, do-as-I-say, it’s-for-your-own-good, nanny-state aroma."

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

What else to say but: "Idiots!"

No Brownies at Bake Sales, but Doritos May Be O.K.:
"Nine months after effectively banning most fund-raising food sales in city schools, a city panel will vote Wednesday on an amended regulation that will allow student groups to sell items like Pop-Tarts and Doritos during the school day, but not brownies, zucchini bread or anything else homemade.

The new regulation is meant as a compromise between the city’s concerns about childhood obesity— which they cite as the reason for the restrictions — and the fund-raising needs of student and parent groups, some of which are struggling amid difficult economic times, especially after losing one of their most lucrative sources of revenue."

Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Read the whole thing...

Walter Russell Mead:
"The Tea Party movement is the latest upsurge of an American populism that has sometimes sided with the left and sometimes with the right, but which over and over again has upended American elites, restructured our society and forced through the deep political, cultural and institutional changes that from time to time the country needs and which the ruling elites cannot or will not deliver."

I've got a great idea: Let's give them a health care system run!!!

NYTimes.com:
"President Obama’s plan to create jobs and rein in energy costs through a steep increase in funds for weatherization of low-income homes has so far borne little fruit, with many of the biggest states meeting less than 2 percent of their goals to date, the Department of Energy’s inspector general said in a report issued Tuesday.

The inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman, called the lack of progress “alarming.” Far into the nation’s winter heating season, the program for the most part has neither saved energy nor put people to work, he wrote."

Quote of the Day....

Commentary:
"The thing about Obama is that there is always less than meets the eye."

Let's let Harry Reid make these calls....

The Cost of Living:
"That's how cancer treatment has mostly advanced--not with a spectacular cure that can be funded by better targeted NIH money, or identified by comparative effectiveness research. It grinds out small improvements one at a time, experimenting with combinations of drugs and radiation and surgery, dosages, and timing. A lot of the improvement in mortality rates comes from better detection--but that means a lot of money wasted on tests, and biopsies for false positives.

Will the drug be 'worth it'? What's the price of giving someone six months instead of one to say good bye to their family, or shrinking their tumors so that they don't die in pain? Technocrats can't answer those questions. We have to."

Let's confiscate those guns!!!!

The story of the armed community organizers:
"In sum, “I am stating categorically that the number of fatalities” was “much smaller” because “organizers and their grassroots groups” were “sensibly armed for self-defense.”"

Heh....

The Story the New York Times Won't Touch:
"This is a scandalous story, involving one of the world's largest banks, a powerful federal judge, and two Mexican telecom giants. Under any other circumstances, the business section of the Times would be expected to cover it, as the Journal and Bloomberg have. Yet as of Saturday midday, I cannot find a single mention of any aspect of this case, anywhere in the physical New York Times, or on its Web site--not even a blog post or a wire story. Perhaps as the lawsuit moves on, the Times will be compelled to cover it. But for the moment, it certainly appears that Carlos Slim's investment has bought the silence of one of the world's most important newspapers."

Heading for an Exit on ObamaCare?

Jennifer Rubin:
James Taranto whimsically notes: “Obama is asking voters to believe that ObamaCare is a good idea and that the reason they think it is a bad idea is that he isn’t good at persuasion. But if he can convince them of that, he can convince them of anything–which means that the claim that he is bad at persuasion is wildly false.” Well, aside from recalling memories of undergraduate philosophy classes, Taranto has a point there: no one is really paying much attention to what Obama says these days.

As much fun as it is to ignore the incessant blathering of BO, we need to be paying serious attention to what our Confiscator-in-Chief has planned for us....

Greece and the welfare state in ruins...

Robert J. Samuelson:
"What's happening in Greece speaks to two larger issues affecting hundreds of millions of people everywhere: the future of the welfare state and the fate of Europe's single currency -- the euro. The meaning of Greece transcends high finance.

Every advanced society, including the United States, has a welfare state. Though details differ, their purposes are similar: to support the unemployed, poor, disabled and aged. All welfare states face similar problems: burgeoning costs as populations age; an over-reliance on debt financing; and pressures to reduce borrowing that create pressures to cut welfare spending. High debt and the welfare state are at odds. It's an open question whether the collision will cause social and economic turmoil."

The inevitable triumph of hope (and change) over experience. "We will fix things for you!", the Obami yell and scream; while all around us the evidence points to exactly the opposite results. The houses of cards that are the European welfare states (throw California in there, too) should serve as shining examples of "Don't let this happen to you!", rather than the "Let me drive you home, little girl." temptation that President BO offers while planning our demise.

When It Comes to Salt, No Rights or Wrongs. Yet...

John Tierney:
That’s the beauty of the salt debate: there’s so little reliable evidence that you can imagine just about any outcome. For all the talk about the growing menace of sodium in packaged foods, experts aren’t even sure that Americans today are eating more salt than they used to.

When you don’t know past trends, predicting the future is a wide-open game.

My personal favorite prediction is E, the further fattening of America, but I’m just guided by a personal rule: Never bet against the expansion of Americans’ waistlines, especially not when public health experts get involved.

The harder the experts try to save Americans, the fatter we get. We followed their admirable advice to quit smoking, and by some estimates we gained 15 pounds apiece afterward. The extra weight was certainly a worthwhile trade-off for longer life and better health, but with success came a new challenge.


But don't worry, some bureaucrat or politician will soon be forcing something down your throat that will fix things - so that a few years later they can find out it was all for naught. But at least they got to control your life just a little bit more - just so you can get used to it.....