Free Ticket

"Have we eliminated Social Injustice or Poverty? Or, has the unintended consequence been to create a Welfare State which has become a tool to destroy many American families? Have we not created an opportunity for millions to behave irresponsibly without personal accountability while taxpayers pick up 'the tab'?"

(source)

Growth in 2000s 38 Percent Lower Than 1930s

Louis Woodhill doesn't much like the Paul Ryan plan because of "static analysis," here, but fails to note that Ryan's is an intellectual and political concession to the status quo. This has been the GOP's problem for decades, and why we perceive the party to be "moderate" and a paler reflection of liberalism. Why vote for that when you can get the real thing from Democrats?

Unsurpisingly, support for the Ryan plan is overwhelming in the over-55 set, for whom the plan changes nothing. Those who stand to lose under it, however, and lose votes, understandably don't like it. America's problem has been and remains addiction to socialism. That Ryan is trying to chip away at this is really what drives liberals crazy, but America simply cannot afford to continue spending $30,000 per year subsidizing every retiree in the country.

Woodhill unintentionally provides support for this point in his brief history of economic growth, which should be a wake-up call for conservatives who need to re-assess their past support for Bush era Republicanism. 

Average real annual rates of growth by decade:

1930s: 2.71 percent

1940s: 5.57 percent

1950s: 3.50 percent

1960s: 4.20 percent

1970s: 3.18 percent

1980s: 3.24 percent

1990s: 3.40 percent

2000s: 1.67 percent

"This last number is shocking. Our real growth rate in the 2000s was less than half of the average (3.5 percent) from 1930 to 2000, and it was 38 percent lower than that of the 'Great Depression' decade of the 1930s."

Yes, the 2000s, when George W. Bush out-liberaled the liberals and expanded government more than at any time since the Great Society programs of the 1960s, with his massive "drugs for seniors" program. Why, he even got liberals to vote for two wars at the same time. Talk about guns and butter.

No wonder Democrat liberals hate him. No wonder growth went nowhere.

Rare Sighting of the Equally Rare "Plum Whale"

Obamacare Waivers Now Total 1372

Waivers have increased 332 since early March. The data may be found here.

TheHill.com has a story about it here.

The Daily Caller has another one here, quite delicious: it seems Nancy Pelosi's district has gotten 20 percent of the latest waivers, with lots of them going to up-scale eateries and the like in San Franfreako.

Equality under the law?

Fuhgeddaboutit.

Here's Some Novel Healthcare Accountability For Ya: Pay or Die!

“I think we have to find a way to hold people accountable for paying for their health care."

-- Newt Gingrich, quoted here

No Newts in 2012

Everybody's piling on today. ThinkProgress.org on the left is one, with links to some of the righties joining on the pile, here. George Will notably on Sunday called his an unserious candidacy. Indeed.

Does Newt really expect us to believe that his different version of a healthcare mandate is any less radical than Obama's, or than Rep. Paul Ryan's proposed entitlement reforms for that matter?

Newt evidently also thinks that his long history of flip-flops, detailed by The Weekly Standard, doesn't matter in the new world of Obama's promises with expiration dates.

Need for Cooling Water at Fukushima Reactors Due to Leaks, Not Boil-Off

Leaks in the pressure vessels themselves, where the fuel is. In other words, perhaps three of the reactors are technically in a state of meltdown and breached containment.

This appears to be the conclusion this week, ever since repair of a water gauge has resulted in data showing that the water is disappearing at a faster rate than otherwise expected, and apparently accumulating in the lower levels of the plant, in the turbine buildings. Radiation levels where the water is pooling are said in a Wall Street Journal story to be in the range of 1 to 2 Sieverts per hour. A two hour exposure at such levels would kill you in 30 days.

Scientific American has these details via Reuters:

"There must be a large leak," Junichi Matsumoto, a general manager at the utility [TEPCO] told a news conference.

"The fuel pellets likely melted and fell, and in the process may have damaged...the pressure vessel itself and created a hole," he added.

Since the surface temperature of the pressure vessel has been holding steady between 100 and 120 degrees Celsius, Matsumoto said the effort to cool the melted uranium fuel by pumping in water was working and would continue.

VESSEL HAS A HOLE

Based on the amount of water that is remaining around the partially melted and collapsed fuel, Matsumoto estimated that the pressure vessel had developed a hole of several centimeters in diameter.

Read the full story, here.

Fukushima Reactor 1 Melting Fuel Rods Put Small Holes in Pressure Vessel by 3/12

According to a report at NHK World here, and The Wall Street Journal here.

Without quick action to pour on water and keep it on, it would have been much worse. But as it was, it was and is far worse than some realized.

Newt Thinks Paul Ryan is a Right Wing Radical

Here.

If Jack Kemp were alive to hear that, he'd have died of a heart attack on the spot after the laugh heard round the world. PAUL RYAN REPRESENTS THE MIDDLE.

I suppose declaring independence from Great Britain would have been too radical for Newt, too.

Is this what happens to conservatives when they become Catholics?

Tsunami, Thy Name is Debt

TSA Blog Has a "Delete-O-Meter"!

Feeling you up and spiking your opinion at the same time!

(source)

Bank Failures By Year

2000: 002

2001: 004

2002: 011

2003: 003

2004: 004

2007: 003

2008: 025

2009: 140

2010: 157

Year to Date 2011: 40

The Line of the Day from Real Clear Politics

"I heard the line was too long so Osama gave up."

-- kegan05, comment in response to:

"Osama Bin Laden Wanted To Kill President Obama"

George Bush: The Smug Head Speaks

Just recently, here:

Bush said US foreign policy needs to continue to promote the ideas of democracy and freedom as a way to combat global terrorism.

"The long-term solution is to promote a better ideology, which is freedom. Freedom is universal," Bush said.

The problem is that 1.57 billion people around the world, who value submission as a way of life over freedom, would not agree.

Fighting ideology with ideology is not the solution.

Fukushima Reactor 1: Damage to Pressure and Containment Vessels Now Official

(source)

Radiation in the Environment Around Fukushima Daiichi Nuke Plant

(source)

Manufacturing Jobs Have Tanked to Levels Last Seen in the 1940s

The declines under W and under Obama have been precipitous, after three decades of relative continuity.

The jobs all went to China. I love my fancy stainless steel All-Clad cookware made there. Unfortunately I can't afford the steak I'd like to cook in it.

"And they shall beat their cookware into swords, and their patio furniture into spears, and nation shall lift up the sword against nation, and they shall learn to make warfare evermore."

Allegations Planned Parenthood Complicit in Covering Up Child Rape in Kansas

As reported here:

During 18 months in 2002 and 2003, Planned Parenthood and Tiller performed 166 abortions on girls aged 14 or younger, yet state agencies had only one report of statutory child rape from each. Why weren't they reporting clear cases of child rape, as required by law?

Pompous Senators Rake in 18.4 Cents For Every Gallon of Gas Sold . . .

. . . while states take in 20.6 cents!

And they begrudge Exxon 7 cents a gallon in profits?

Jerks! Government is the biggest gasoline profiteer!

If Healthcare is a Right, a Doctor Becomes a Slave

A point we have made in the past:

"With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It's not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery."

-- Senator Rand Paul, quoted here