Unlike Some People Caroline Baum Still Believes in American Exceptionalism

And she notices its Anglo-Saxon character, too, here:

What about other indicators that challenge the notion the US is going the way of empires past? Students from across the globe flock to the US for college and post-graduate education. Six of the top 10 universities in the world are located in the US, according to US News & World Report. The other four are in the UK, that other emblem of Empire Passe.

US students may score poorly in math and science, but somehow they manage to overcome that handicap to become world-class researchers. The US can claim more Nobel Prizes than any country: 320 versus 116 for runner-up UK. In areas such as physics, chemistry and medicine, the US has two to three times as many Nobels as its closest competitor, which is either the UK or Germany. ...

The number of patents issued to US residents in 2009 (93,727) was about the same as those issued to residents of all other countries combined (96,395), according to the US Patent and Trademark Office.

Let's ask Great Britain to send that statue of Churchill Obama didn't want in the Oval Office to Caroline.

She's marvelous, and she's right.

National Popular Vote Virus Spreads to Vermont

The whole point of writing the constitution to allocate two senators each to the States was to reassure the smaller ones by population that the larger ones would not be able to exert unfair advantage over them in the nation's Legislative branch, and to get them thereby to join the union.

Another way of stating this principle is that population was meant to be reflected in the composition of the US House, but deflected in the Senate. The latter was originally designed to be a creature of the States, not of the people. That is why State Legislatures elected US Senators until the passage of the 17th Amendment in 1913, the same year that gave us the Federal Reserve and the income tax. Bad things always seem to happen in threes.

Today it is reported here that the senate of the only State of the union which has a Socialist for a US Senator, Vermont, has decided to advance the NPV measure, which should not be confused with the acronym for the Human Papilloma Virus. The National Popular Vote initiative, already passed in 6 States and DC, seeks to deny the will of the voters in a State by allocating its electoral votes to the national popular vote winner, not necessarily to the winner of that State.

In the same way that the 17th Amendment sought to weaken the power of the State governments, the National Popular Vote initiative would make it even more irrelevant. What is more, the scheme really represents a rival electoral college which seeks to make the president, like US Senators, a creature directly of the people, in this case of the whole people, and a simple majority of the whole people at that.

If you thought the States have not mattered much in recent years, under the NPV they will mean even less than they already do. Large urban population centers, Democrat bastions, will increasingly replace States not just as campaign stops, but as constituencies. And it is they to whom presidents will become increasingly responsive, at the expense of State capitals.

The States are not dead yet, as people who live in the 26 which have successfully challenged Obamacare in court will tell you. But it is a sign of their weakened sense of themselves that so many are staking everything on their appeals in the courts instead of passing counter legislation and forcing the Federals to sue them. Arizona is a striking exception in this regard in the immigration area, and should be imitated more widely and more often, which prospect the recent and deep Republican resurgence in the States may portend.

When pestilences like the National Popular Vote initiative stop getting traction in the Legislatures, we'll have more reason to be sanguine about the future of the Republic. 

    

Sympathy for the Muslims: We Never Imagined It Either

"Now, ruling America is a black man from our continent, an African from Arab descent, from Muslim descent, and this is something we never imagined – that from Reagan we would get to Barakeh Obama."

"He is someone I consider a friend. He knows he is a son of Africa. Regardless of his African belonging, he is of Arab Sudanese descent, or of Muslim descent. He is a man whose policy should be supported, and he should be assisted in implementing it in any way possible, since he is now leaning towards peace."

"I urge all peoples to give him this chance and to support this policy, because America is a country that, when its policy is bad – harms the world, and when it is good – it helps the world."

[I hope that] "the dream that Obama has for a world free of nuclear weapons will come true. This is something that no previous American president has proposed. Obama is a man who opposes wars that previous American presidents were entangled in; he has declared that he will withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq – something which has never been proposed before."

"The Arabs hate America, there is no doubt. There is not an Arab that loves America, and even the leaders who the United States considers allies or friends – hate it. The external love is merely hypocrisy or pragmatism. The reason for this is clear – Palestine."

"The Palestinians today are like the Jews of the past – dispersed in exile and persecuted. Now the Palestinians are at a point where they deserve to have the United States on their side and not on the side of the Israelis."

-- Colonel Gaddafi, quoted here, in better days

Democrat Congressman Urges Union Members "To Get Out On The Streets And Get A Little Bloody"

Speaking of intimidation and militancy. There's your party of crackers, and then there's your party of head-crackers.

Couldn't he at least wait til Giffords gets out of the hospital?

As reported here:

Sometimes it's necessary to get out on the streets and "get a little bloody," a Massachusetts Democrat said Tuesday in reference to labor battles in Wisconsin.

Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) fired up a group of union members in Boston with a speech urging them to work down in the trenches to fend off limits to workers' rights like those proposed in Wisconsin.

"I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going," Capuano said, according to the Statehouse News. "Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary."

Cost of Obama's Stimulus Revised (Again), Up $34 Billion to $821 Billion

As reported here.

What if the Declaration of Independence Said . . .

. . . The history of the present president of the united States is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. A president whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people?

Crowd Based Confuting

What we are really witnessing in Wisconsin and Indiana and Ohio is the reaction of the duly elected representatives of Americans who are finally fed up with the intimidation and militancy of unions first legalized under FDR with the Wagner Act, says Richard Salsman in "Ochlocracy and the Menace of Government Unions" for Forbes here.

Rule by the mob, or the crowd (the "ochlos" in Greek), used to mean you paid way too much for a big American car with tail fins that broke down too often (F.O.R.D. = fix or repair daily). Now it means your property taxes go up and up to pay the salary of a fat Physical Education teacher who routinely gets a substitute to teach his classes while he sits behind a keyboard or schmoozes with the staff as your kid still struggles to tell analog time in the fourth grade:

Government teachers ensure that students (future voters) are illiterate and innumerate, while populist “leaders” appeal not to voters’ reason but to their passions. Sacrificed in an ochlocracy is respect for individual rights, constitutionalism, and the rule of law. Peaceful assembly, petition and persuasion are displaced by the scream, the curse, and the threat.

Don't miss the rest at the link.

Teachers Averaged $272,000 in Salary Under Obama's Stimulus Bill

Stimulus funds preserved 367,524 teacher jobs in 2009-2010, and the amount spent on saving these education-related jobs in the nation's public schools was nearly $100 billion, according to a story in The Baltimore Sun which relies on data from the US Department of Education.

That's about $272,000 for each teacher. Wow. Those must be some kind of wonderful teachers.

That also means taxpayers all across America ended up on the hook for the salaries of about 7,350 teachers per state.

Formerly these teachers were paid directly from local property tax revenues, not borrowed funds, but these revenues have been in dramatic decline due to the crash in the housing market and due to skyrocketing unemployment and home foreclosures.

It is highly unlikely that more stimulus funds are on the way, and it is highly unlikely that property tax revenues will be raised easily in this economy, so isn't it time for the teachers in Wisconsin to pack it in already and quit the illegal strike?

They should be thankful just to have a job.

Wisconsin Teachers Haven't Earned Their Very Generous Pay and Benefits

As the regime itself admits:

In 1998, according to the U.S. Department of Education, Wisconsin public school eighth graders scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. In 2009, Wisconsin public school eighth graders once again scored an average of 266 out of 500 on the NAEP reading test. Meanwhile, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil expenditures from $4,956 per pupil in 1998 to 10,791 per pupil in 2008. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics inflation calculator the $4,956 Wisconsin spent per pupil in 1998 dollars equaled $6,546 in 2008 dollars. That means that from 1998 to 2008, Wisconsin public schools increased their per pupil spending by $4,245 in real terms yet did not add a single point to the reading scores of their eighth graders and still could lift only one-third of their eighth graders to at least a “proficient” level in reading. ...


Nationwide, only 30 percent of public school eighth graders earned a rating of “proficient” or better in reading, and the average reading score on the NAEP test was 262 out of 500.

More here.

Democrats in Wisconsin and Now Indiana Agree

The story is here.

HOPE: THE LAST REFUGE OF THE MISERABLE

The miserable have no other medicine,

But only Hope:

I've hope to live, and am prepar'd to die.

     -- Claudio, William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, Act III, Scene I

This is the Way Banks Go 'Round the QE Mulberry Bush

James Hamilton for Fortune here provides an excellent explanation and illustration of how the Federal Reserve "printed" money with which to buy assets from troubled banks, who in turn have kept the "cash" on deposit with the Fed, earning interest, in an effort to re-structure their balance sheets.

Here is an excerpt:

But if the Fed didn't print any money as part of QE2 and earlier asset purchases, how did it pay for the stuff it bought? The answer is that the Fed simply credited the accounts that banks that are members of the Federal Reserve System hold with the Fed. These electronic credits, or reserve balances, are what has exploded since 2008. The blue area in the graph below is the total currency in circulation, whose growth we have just seen has been pretty modest. The maroon area represents reserves.

Despite all the rhetoric to the contrary from the Fed, this operation is not designed to stimulate job growth or boost stock prices. It is designed to do one thing and one thing only: rescue the banks.

And don't even think about maintaining a strong dollar.

When that maroon area returns to an imperceptible sliver, if it ever does, you'll know things are back to "normal." Unlike George Bailey who had two dollars left from his two thousand dollar honeymoon stash at the end of that day when there was a run on his bank, the Federal Reserve can theoretically keep on  running this shell game indefinitely. But the consequences for the value of the dollar will be, and are, grave indeed, which makes Mr. Bernanke's warnings to Congress to get its spending under control almost amusing.


Come, sir; come, sir; come, sir; foh, sir! Why, you 
bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must 
you? Show your knave's visage, with a pox to you! 
show your sheep-biting face, and be hanged an hour! 
Will't not off?


-- Lucio, in William Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, V, 1

What Do These American Presidents Have in Common?

U.S. Grant

W.H. Taft

T. Roosevelt

D.D. Eisenhower

J.F. Kennedy

R.M. Nixon

R.W. Reagan

G.H.W. Bush

NRA members all. 

Just a little reminder that America specializes in marksmen, not Marxmen.

Undercover Agent Repeatedly Gets a Handgun Through Scanners

And the screeners missed it on the images.

So all that money for the machines and the personel, and all the inconvenience and humiliation for the public simply boils down to security theater after all?

The story is here.

Michelle Obama Milks It: Jets to Vail with the Girls for some Skiing

Keith Koffler has the story here:

Mrs. Obama has decided to jet out to Vail – instead of visiting slopes closer to Washington DC in Virginia or Pennsylvania – despite already incurring criticism for taking opulent excursions, particularly a trip last summer to Spain. There, she stayed at the country’s swankest [sic] hotel and, like this weekend, was traveling without her husband.

Rooms at her hotel start at $605 a night, and top out in excess of $2,000 a night.

The Marks of a Tyranny According to Aristotle

1.   The object of government in a tyranny is the good of one man only.
2.   The guards of a tyrant are foreigners.
3.   Tyrants arise from the want of a middle class.
4.   Tyrants gain the confidence of the people through hatred of the rich.
5.   Tyrants deprive the people of the use of arms.
6.   Women and slaves do not conspire against tyrants but instead abet them.
7.   The haughtiness of women has been the ruin of many tyrants.
8.   Tyrannies keep the warriors busy with wars.
9.   Tyrannies guard against the rise of high spirits and mutual confidence.
10. Tyrannies quarrel with the nobles.
11. Tyrannies affect to appear to protect the people.
12. Tyrannies extend poverty through public works.
13. Tyrannies oppress the people through poverty.
14. Tyrannies desire to know everything the people say and do.
15. Tyrannies multiply taxes.

You Know, Johnny, It's Not How You Feel, It's How You Rook, and You Rook . . .

Um . . .

Pat McIlheran Reminds Us Wisconsin's Governor Walker is Actually to the Left of FDR, and the Last Socialist Mayor of Milwaukee

From one of America's best columnists writing today:

Frank Zeidler, Milwaukee's mayor in the 1950s and the last card-carrying Socialist to head a major U.S. city, supported labor. But in 1969, the progressive icon wrote that rise of unions in government work put a competing power in charge of public business next to elected officials. Government unions "can mean considerable loss of control over the budget, and hence over tax rates," he warned.

There was "a revolutionary principle rather quietly at work in American government," he wrote.

The principle was working at about 100 decibels in Wisconsin's Capitol last week, once the union drum-beaters got going. What worked them up was the money they'd concede, they said, but even more that Walker would make their unions surrender the control they'd gained over every government budget.

There is much more at this link.

Madison Protests by Unions and Democrats are a Disgrace

So says Larry Kudlow:

The government-union protesters in Madison are anti-democracy; they are trying to prevent a vote in the legislature. In fact, Democratic legislators themselves are fleeing the state so as not to vote on Gov. Scott Walker's budget cuts.

That's not democracy.

The teachers' union is going on strike in Milwaukee and elsewhere. They ought to be fired. Think Ronald Reagan PATCO in 1981. Think Calvin Coolidge police strike in 1919.

The teachers' union on strike? Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers' union.

Read the rest here, at Real Clear Markets. 

Hello Wisconsin!

Wisconsin's Governor Walker Tells Obama To Balance His Own Damn Budget

Quoted here:

"We are focused on balancing our budget. It would be wise for the government and others in Washington to focus on balancing their budgets, which they are a long way off from doing."

Obama couldn't write a balanced budget to save his own life.

Wisconsin Democrats and Unions Try to Shut Down Democracy

The 14 Democrat state senators in Wisconsin have fled the state to prevent a vote on a bill limiting collective bargaining, a bill which has the support of a Republican majority which was recently elected to power last November. For the Democrats' dereliction of duty, they should be impeached and thrown out of office.

Public sector union members meanwhile have conducted what amounts to an illegal strike with 40 percent of teachers in Madison calling in sick. The authorities should scan all the video to identify the sick teachers marching in the streets, and fire them immediately.

The taxpayers of Wisconsin, like taxpayers all across America, are sick and tired of a government monopoly extorting exorbitant wages and benefits which private sector workers can only dream about in this difficult economy.

The Wall Street Journal has an excellent opinion piece which lays out many interesting facts which puts this episode into the broader historical context, including this:

The larger reality is that collective bargaining for government workers is not a God-given or constitutional right. It is the result of the growing union dominance inside the Democratic Party during the middle of the last century. John Kennedy only granted it to federal workers in 1962 and Jerry Brown to California workers in 1978. Other states, including Indiana and Missouri, have taken away collective bargaining rights for public employees in recent years, and some 24 states have either limited it or banned it outright.

The times they are a changin', but some people in Wisconsin still haven't gotten the memo.

You may read the entire opinion at this link.

Union Tactics in Wisconsin: Illegal Strikes and Physical Intimidation

The inimitable Pat McIlheran for The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel tells it like it is:

The [Wisconsin] public-sector union tantrums, meant to make lawmakers wobble, have an inadvertent message for the rest of us: Voters can vote all they want. We can elect a cheapskate governor and a Legislature to match. But come the moment, unions will have the last, loudest word.

They'll have it if takes marches. They'll have it if it takes what amounts to an illegal strike, with so many Madison teachers calling in sick Wednesday that the district closed schools. If it takes showing up for a we-know-where-your-family-is protest on Walker's Wauwatosa lawn while he was at work, the unions are sure they can outshout any election result.

This is exactly why Walker is right to limit the unions' power over government spending.

The governor should fire their sorry asses.

Read the rest here.

The Answer: For The Same Reason Government Isn't in Jail

The Question: "Why isn't Wall Street in Jail?", asked here by Matt Taibbi, one more time.

It's hard to make Americans hate DC, lower Manhattan and the banksters as much as the terrorists do, but he keeps trying.

Gaddafi Called for Palestinian Uprising Last Week, Gets One at Home Instead

From the Department of Poetic Justice:

Hundreds of Libyans calling for the government's ouster clashed with security forces early Wednesday in the country's second-largest city as Egypt-inspired unrest spread to the country long ruled by Moammar Gadhafi.

See here and here for more.

I guess that, and the protests in Tehran in recent days, puts to rest the theory that only Middle East regimes friendly to the US are experiencing revolts.

Then Why are 16,000 IRS Agents Being Hired to Enforce Obamacare?

For the same reason Lincoln invaded the South.

Reported here yesterday:

"You can't maintain power through coercion. At some level in any society, there has to be consent."

-- President Obama

Patriot Act Votes Show Rep. Bachmann's Tea Party Caucus is Full of TINOs

Tea-Partyers in Name Only.

Everyone's getting this wrong, from Adam Serwer here at The Washington Post to Rush Limbaugh here, on partisan grounds. The Post wants to paint the Tea Party Caucus as a bunch of hypocrites, and Rush wants people to believe the Tea Party actually supports even the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act.

Rush chalked up the Feb. 8 revolt of 26 Republicans to rookies being poorly advised by the Republican leadership:

Now, the Republicans lost 26 of their own members, adding to the 122 Democrats who voted against it," and some of the Republicans say that they 'felt completely uniformed [sic] by their leadership' on this. Some of the rookies, some of the freshmen say they were not really advised about all this in time -- and the leader of the opposition was Dennis Kucinich.  Now, something tells me here that Republicans do not intend to vote with Dennis Kucinich, 'cause he's aligned with the ACLU opposing extending the whole thing, the whole Patriot Act.  So if Kucinich is for it, "all rational people" ought to be against it.  

The only trouble is, the exact same bunch of Republicans all voted against the controversial provisions again yesterday. They've had six days to get brought up to speed by the leadership, but not a single one has changed his vote. And Rep. Hanna joined them to make it 27 and the third from the membership of the more liberal Republican Main Street Partnership.

I guess Rush must think these 27 Republicans are quite irrational after all, voting with Kucinich and the left. Rush was silent about this today, hoping we've forgotten what he said.

The facts are these. The Tea Party in the US House is much smaller than people think, and it isn't co-terminous with Bachmann's caucus. The latter is a bunch of me-too Republicans who find it expedient to identify with the Tea Party politically, just like Michael Steele did, and even Sarah Palin, who took an eternity to speak out against the bailouts. Just 8 self-identified Tea Party Caucus members voted both times against the controversial provisions of the Patriot Act. And only 7 others who joined them were elected in the Tea Party wave last autumn, but they still do not self-identify that way.

When you consider that the vast majority of the Tea Party Caucus voted to extend the Patriot Act provisions, you can understand why 19 Republicans who voted the other way might have a reason not to associate themselves with such pretenders.

Bachmann's list hasn't been updated since last summer, despite the gargantuan Republican sweep in November. Where is all the new blood, huh?

It's staying away for a reason, if it's really there at all.

Half of CPAC This Year is Libertarian, Heckles and Walks Out on Dick Cheney

The Libertarians hate the Department of Defense and the US military more than they hate the much larger, arguably unconstitutional, social welfare state erected by FDR.

Bunch of queers.

Story and video here.

Treasure Trove of British Archives Undermines "Lincoln Freed the Slaves" Myth

The Washington Times has the details:

Newly released documents show that to a greater degree than historians had previously known, President Lincoln laid the groundwork to ship freed slaves overseas to help prevent racial strife in the US.

Just after he issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, Lincoln authorized plans to pursue a freedmen’s settlement in present-day Belize and another in Guyana, both colonial possessions of Great Britain at the time, said Phillip W. Magness, one of the researchers who uncovered the new documents.

Historians have debated how seriously Lincoln took colonization efforts, but Mr. Magness said the story he uncovered, to be published next week in a book, “Colonization After Emancipation: Lincoln and the Movement for Black Resettlement,” shows the president didn’t just flirt with the idea, as historians had previously known, but that he personally pursued it for some time. ...

"What we know now is he did continue the effort for at least a year after the proclamation was signed.”

The newly discovered evidence will give greater credence to the argument that Lincoln crucified the country in the Civil War over his crusade for an extra-constitutional Sovereign Union of states, in the middle of which, when things were going badly in 1863, Lincoln the demagogue hit upon slavery as a new way to salvage support for the war of Northern aggression.

Read the whole story here.

Obama The Despicable Betrayed Britain to Russia in START Treaty

What a scoundrel Obama is, and every Senator who voted to ratify START:

While William Hague, the foreign secretary, last year disclosed that “up to 160” warheads were operational, he took care not to confirm what the actual number was, nor the number of missiles to which the warheads attached.

Now, in his desire for a disarmament treaty that will boost Obama’s image as a peace-monger, the president has blurted out that number to the Russians. Any Briton caught doing such a thing would be immediately arrested under the 1911 Official Secrets Act, tried, and imprisoned for up to 60 years. When Obama does exactly the same thing, however, for short-term political gain, it’s called statesmanship. Small wonder that there has been an outcry in Britain.

The full story of our president's treachery may be read here.

US Oil Production Up 2 Years in a Row, Despite Gulf of Mexico Moratorium

New techniques used to extract natural gas from shale deposits are now helping drillers extract oil once thought locked in the ground:

[A] surge in production last year from the Bakken helped US oil production grow for the second year in a row, after 23 years of decline. This during a year when drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, the nation's biggest oil-producing region, was halted after the BP oil spill.

US oil production climbed steadily through most of the last century and reached a peak of 9.6 million barrels per day in 1970. The decline since was slowed by new production in Alaska in the 1980s and in the Gulf of Mexico more recently. But by 2008, production had fallen to 5 million barrels per day.

Within five years, analysts and executives predict, the newly unlocked fields are expected to produce 1 million to 2 million barrels of oil per day, enough to boost US production 20 percent to 40 percent. The US Energy Information Administration estimates production will grow a more modest 500,000 barrels per day.

By 2020, oil imports could be slashed by as much as 60 percent, according to Credit Suisse's Morse, who is counting on Gulf oil production to rise and on US gasoline demand to fall.

Add oil to the reasons to be bullish on the future.

The complete story is here.

Two Feet of Snow

h/t Scott

'Conservatives' Compromising with the Devil

Not that I make it my business to follow this sort of thing very closely, but, well, there it is in USA Today:

Andrew Breitbart, a conservative blogger, says in a headline on his website that Palin "throws support behind GOProud." He has posted a clip from Palin's interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network in which Palin wonders whether conservatives should reach out to those with opposite views and "allow for healthy debate" on issues. Breitbart is on GOProud's advisory board.

More here, and here.

Sarah Palin knows what side of the bread the butter's on. She isn't going to alienate a big part of her base. Half of the Tea Party is libertarian, which means half of the Tea Party is ok with gay.

As is Roman Catholicism. That's why a Tammy Bruce can fill in for Laura Ingraham, no problemo. That's why Andrew Breitbart and Ann Coulter can be chums.

That's why repeal of DADT was off the radio radar screens on Bill Bennett's show, Ingraham's, Hannity's, etc.

Good Catholics all.

And that's why Elton John was treated so graciously by Rush Limbaugh at his (fourth) wedding.

The Protestantism that gave us that work ethic thingy that Pat Buchanan remembers made America so great?

It's in the rear view mirror and getting smaller every day. Mainline Protestants like the Episcopalians, the Methodists and the Lutherans have all loosened their sphincters for gay and lesbian preachers in their pulpits. Traditionalists have fled in droves to non-denominational churches, or to lonely isolation.

The left doesn't need to trouble itself with dividing the opposition on the right. Its minions masquerading as conservatives are doing the job all by themselves.  

An In Depth Look at How Federal Workers are Overpaid

From The Weekly Standard, here:

The question of whether federal workers are overpaid is often portrayed in the media as unanswerable, with each side of the debate citing its own numbers. In fact, the academic evidence is much more one-sided: Generally speaking, federal workers do receive higher salaries than similar private employees; individuals changing jobs receive bigger pay increases when their new job is with the federal government; federal employees quit less than private workers; and private workers line up to get federal jobs.

The Most Important Investing Advice You Can Read, Maybe Ever

Il Duce

From "Why Politics and Investing Don't Mix" by Barry Ritholtz in The Washington Post, this time without a single typo:

Liquidity is a major factor in how the economy and stock markets perform. Trillions of dollars in fresh cash was very likely to goose equities higher [in 2003]. (Sound familiar?)

And maybe the best thing he's ever written, too.

Read it all, here.

P.S. Martin Walker said as much on May 8, 2009 on The McLaughlin Group, as we pointed out here. Nerves of steel those guys have, and guts of iron.

Why Would You Want a Mexican Car?

Top Gear asks the question:

"Why would you want a Mexican car?” demands co-presenter Richard Hammond. “Cars reflect national characteristics don’t they, so German cars are very well built and ruthlessly efficient, Italian cars are a bit flamboyant and quick. A Mexican car’s just going to be a lazy, feckless, flatulent [they've mixed the laughter very loud over this bit so it's uncertain, but it sounds like he says "overdose tw*t"]… leaning against a fence asleep, looking at a cactus with a blanket with a hole in the middle of it as a coat.”

Akira The Don has The Compleat Wreck here.

A declaration of war by Mexico against Britain is expected.




h/t Mark Steyn

RC Whalen Wants Us To Declare FDR's 'Emergency' Over Already

Some excerpts:

President Herbert Hoover said of the New Deal that it was an attempt to crossbreed Socialism, Fascism and Free Enterprise, part of a collectivist revolution led by FDR and carried within the Trojan horse of economic emergency. ...

The second half of volume three of President Hoover’ s memoir, The Great Depression, contains a scathing critique of his successor -- and also an admission of personal responsibility for the catastrophe. It features several times the word “ fascism ” to describe many Roosevelt-era prescriptions for fighting the Depression, a blunt reminder that much of what FDR did during these dark years was borrowed from the strong men of Europe — Mussolini in Italy, Hitler in Germany, and Stalin in Russia.

Don't miss the rest, here.

Temps in the Single Digits F in Ciudad Juarez Since Tuesday

For more on this global warming related cold snap, see here.

That Critic of the Innumerate, Barry Ritholtz, is (Still) Illiterate

"Why do am I critical . . .?"

". . . you cans get a pretty good estimate . . .."

References passim, but notably here.

British Teenager Emails Obama, Calls Him a Pussy, Gets Banned From US For Life

Luke Angel is his name, according to the story reported at this link last September.

He is a keen judge of character, I'd say, like someone else we know.

A Department of Homeland Security goon is quoted as saying there are about 60 things on their list which will get you banned from visiting the US.

Funny how if you're a citizen and live here already and say such things they don't (yet) resort to banishment. I guess that whole freedom of speech thing isn't for export while every stupid precedent of international law is supposed to be eligible for import.  

Percentage of People Working Lowest Since the Early 1980s

So says CalculatedRiskBlog here:

[T]he participation rate declined to 64.2% - a new cycle low, and the lowest level since the early '80s. Note: This is the percentage of the working age population in the labor force . . .. The participation rate has now fallen 2 percentage points during the recession - a huge decline.

US District Judge Rules Obama Regime in Contempt of Court

“Each step the government took following the court’s imposition of a preliminary injunction showcases its defiance."

“Such dismissive conduct, viewed in tandem with the re-imposition of a second blanket and substantively identical moratorium, and in light of the national importance of this case, provide this court with clear and convincing evidence of the government’s contempt."

-- Judge Martin Feldman of New Orleans (quoted here)

Global Warming in Mexico: 8.6 Degrees F in Ciudad Juarez Lowest in 50 Years

According to this story:

Ciudad Juarez mayor Hector Murgia said the temperatures of around minus 13 degrees centigrade (8.6 Fahrenheit) were the lowest recorded in almost 50 years.

Suez Canal Moves 2.5 Percent of Global Oil Production

So says an article at Bloomberg.com here:

About 2.5 percent of global oil production moves through Egypt via the Suez Canal and the adjacent Suez-Mediterranean Pipeline, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. The waterway carries more than 2.2 million barrels of oil a day.


The US Department of Energy puts the figure closer to 1.8 million barrels per day in 2009, here, in the canal itself. The Suez Canal is unable to accommodate the newer tankers in the Very Large Crude Carrier and Ultra Large Crude Carrier classes. 

Democrat Controlled Senate Changes its Mind, Rescinds Onerous ObamaCare 1099 Law

But 17 extremist Democrats still couldn't bring themselves to vote to part with the $17 billion in tax revenues the imposition of the massive reporting requirements would have generated:

Senate Democrats Unite to Keep ObamaCare 51-47, Defeating House Repeal Effort

George Bush: Mushy-Headed Liberal

George W. Bush has been beating his little isolationism, protectionism and nativism drum for years now, but it seems like conservatives such as Laura Ingraham are finally looking at it in the right way. She's even suggesting that if we knew in 2000 what we know today about George and his family (people should be free to marry anyone they love), maybe conservatives wouldn't have supported W back in the day.

I know I didn't. I admit it. I was one of the few, the proud, the (top!) 500,000 Americans who voted for Pat Buchanan in 2000. And I've still got the lawn sign to prove it! In 2004 I had to be drawn kicking and screaming to vote for Bush. The alternative was too horrible to contemplate (a man who won't stop for stop signs while behind the wheel of his Jeep is a dangerous man, willing to break any law), as it was also too horrible to contemplate in 2008, as events prove everyday.

Bush's continuing antagonism against, for example, advocates of border security doesn't surprise me, and Laura is right to perceive that his sort of Republican poses a threat to the policy initiatives championed by Tea Partyers and conservatives. Her show this morning is devoting considerable time to Bush's remarks at Southern Methodist University on January 24th.

But Bush was making similar remarks already in November 2010 in Britain as part of his book tour, and Pat Buchanan eviscerated him way back in March 2008 for the very same kind of loose and silly talk:

In smearing as nativists, protectionists and isolationists those who wish to stop the invasion, halt the export of factories and jobs to Asia, and stop the unnecessary wars, Bush is attacking the last true conservatives in his party.

Which is understandable. For after the judges and tax cuts, what is there about Bush that is conservative? His foreign policy is Wilsonian. His trade policy is pure FDR. His spending is LBJ all the way. His amnesty for illegals is Teddy Kennedy's policy.

The truth is George Bush hasn't changed, and has never been a conservative. Ever true to his self-described role as The Decider, he once boasted that he would be the one who decided what is Republican and what isn't:

"That conservative movement stuff is over. I've redefined the Republican party."

Even liberals have recognized Bush as one of their own. So Richard Cohen in The Washington Post in 2007, after cataloguing Bush's liberal intentions in No Child Left Behind, in affirmative action hires in his administration, and even in the Iraq war, he adds:

You only have to listen to Bush talk about the virtues of immigration -- another liberal sentiment -- or his frequent mention of the "soft bigotry of low expectations" to appreciate that the president is a sentimental softie, what was once dismissively called a "mushy-headed liberal."

Cohen leaves out Bush's greatest liberal achievement: Drugs for Seniors, the single largest expansion of federal government to that time since Lyndon Johnson. He leaves it out because that's what really drives liberals crazy, how George Bush out-liberaled the liberals, and co-opted them for eight years.

That's why they really hated him.

Obamacare Declared Void in its Entirety by US District Judge in Florida

"Because the individual mandate [requiring Americans to buy health insurance on pain of fine] is unconstitutional and not severable, the entire act must be declared void."

-- US District Judge Roger Vinson (reported here)

The judge sided with the 26 (!) states which brought suit. His ruling will be appealed by the Obama regime.

President Pothead Meant Iraq, not Afghanistan

“As I said, we will be out of Afghanistan by the end of this year,” Obama said, a fairly significant misstatement of his administration’s Afghanistan policy, which doesn’t call for a troop withdrawal until 2014.

Politico.com did not attribute the mental lapse to damage caused by prolonged exposure to THC.

Preliminary Report of GDP for Q4 2010 at 3.2 Percent

Up from 2.6 percent in Q3.

This according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis here, which issued the customary caution:

The Bureau emphasized that the fourth-quarter advance estimate released today is based on source data that are incomplete or subject to further revision by the source agency . . .. The "second" estimate for the fourth quarter, based on more complete data, will be released on February 25, 2011.

When you consider that for all of 2010 GDP is estimated in some quarters at about only 2.9 percent overall, the economy is barely treading water seeing that GDP was negative 2.6 percent in the previous year, 2009. And to get it there it's been thrown a life preserver in the form of extreme government spending, loans and guarantees worth trillions upon trillions of dollars. We're not working on our third consecutive trillion-dollar-plus deficit for nothing. 

Applying these paddles and shots to the heart of the American economy has the patient out of intensive care, but its condition is still serious.

It's still a sham GDP for a sham economy. 

WhiteHouseDossier.com Says Obama Parties While Cairo Burns

The key point being the American journalism profession a bunch of hacks had nothing better to do than fete the president's political adviser while a real crisis, unlike the kind they usually spend their time manufacturing, was staring them in the face.

When oil hits $200 a barrel will anyone remember the Energy Secretary was there instead of planning how to contain the damage?

Feckless bastards one and all, but especially one Barack Hussein Obama.

Here's the link to the post at the left.

To the Left, Enforcing the Law is Right Wing Extremism

As in this from Conor Williams for The Washington Post:

Yet [the ex-governor's] views are hardly moderate at all: [Tim] Pawlenty has advocated fining or jailing business owners who employ undocumented immigrants. He's even suggested amending the Constitution to repeal birthright citizenship.

This approach to immigration policy could be disastrous for a region already suffering from economic hardship. The Midwest needs more immigrants - not fewer.

What the Midwest needs is fewer coastal pricks telling fly-over country what's what, and a vigorous emigration policy for liberals, from wherever they hail, including the Michigan governor's residence.

TSA's Pistole Pulls Plug on Private Screener Program

"It's unimaginable that TSA would suspend the most successfully performing passenger screening program we've had over the last decade," [Rep. John] Mica [R-FL] said Friday night.


"The agency should concentrate on cutting some of the more than 3,700 administrative personnel in Washington who concocted this decision, and reduce the army of TSA employees that has ballooned to more than 62,000."


More here.

AP News Frash: Rush Rimbaugh Must Aporogize, Right Now!

"Threats to minority lawmakers are not new," according to Judy Lin here.

Yeah, especially if you're a Republican lawmaker.


Is there a Caucasian American Journalists Association? 

Rush Imitates Hu Jintao

Ching Chong! Ching Chong Cha!

Stories here and here.

Proof That Education Improves Neither Character Nor Intelligence

As reported here in The San Francisco Chronicle:

A California university professor has been charged with peeing on a colleague's campus office door. ... Investigators say a dispute between Petrov and another math professor was the motive.

He did it twice. They caught him on tape on the second go, so to speak.

Sarah Palin Jumps Down in the Gutter with the Rest of Them

What a disappointment, in a string of disappointments:

His theme last night in the State of the Union was the "WTF," you know, "Winning the Future." And I thought, "OK, that acronym, spot on." There were a lot of "WTF" moments throughout that speech, namely, when he made the statement, Greta, that he believed that we can't allow ourselves to, I guess, eventually become buried under a mountain of debt. ...

That was another one of those WTF moments, when he so often repeated this Sputnik moment that he would aspire [sic] Americans to celebrate. ...

-- Sarah Palin, January 26, 2011, quoted here

Leadership seeks to elevate the discourse, to model the good that people may follow it. And this isn't it.

Obamacare Waivers Explode to 729 from 222 Since December 2010

Can we still say "explode"?

We've gone from 1.5 million to 2.2 million Americans on waivers in under two months.

The new health care law applies to fewer and fewer Americans because specially privileged groups seek and get waivers from the requirements. Which is to say that healthcare inequality under Obamacare is a growing problem.

How much you wanna bet under Obamacare the specially privileged never reach 85%, the proportion of Americans who had private health insurance before the law was passed and wanted to keep it? Which is to say that more Americans will lack "desirable" coverage because of Obamacare than will have lacked it before it (15%).

View the burgeoning list here.

Hu Jintao Embraces Lang Lang for White House Propaganda Coup

From Nicholas Eberstadt for The American, here:

But what, exactly, is this “gorgeous” and “beautiful” (Hu’s words) tune that so entranced China’s visiting leadership?

“My Motherland” is not a “Chinese song” in any ordinary meaning of the term. Instead, it is a Mao-era propaganda classic: the theme from "Triangle Hill" (Shangganling), a film in which heroic Chinese forces fight, kill, and eventually beat Americans in pitched battle during the Korean War.

“My Motherland” epitomizes the “Resist America, Aid [North] Korea” campaign that Beijing embraced during and after the Korean War. It celebrates Sino-American enmity.

Wikipedia Lang Lang Article Softened 'Jackal' to 'Wolves' for Political Reasons

Here's a screen shot of the Wikipedia discussion of the Lang Lang article between Arilang and Jim101 late on the night of January 23.

Arilang initiates the discussion saying he thinks the article will contribute to a "political storm" for Obama.

He immediately focuses on the word translated "jackal" from the song Lang Lang played at the White House state dinner for Hu. He seems to accept it as the natural translation (as do most unbiased observers), but he notices the new change of the translation in various places to "wolves" and asks Jim101 about it, obviously because he thinks Jim101 is responsible.

Jim101 admits he uses sources for posting which conform to translations which are guided by "the Chinese perception" of the US:  

Jim101 appears to have foreign loyalties, and a political axe to grind as heavy as the one he thinks Glenn Beck carries.

Lang Lang and "Jackals": Famous 1951 North Korean Novella by Han Sorya Vilifying USA, Celebrates Unpredictable Spontaneous Outbursts and Fits of Rage

According to BR Myers for The New York Times in May 2003, reproduced here:

In North Korea, the people's spontaneity is seen as one of the country's greatest strengths.

North Korean novels and movies often show the hero casting off the restraints of his book learning in a fit of wild, sometimes suicidal rage against the Japanese or American enemy. This political culture induces officials to tolerate a high level of violence in daily life; North Korean refugees attest that fistfights are the accepted way for men and women to settle even minor differences. While communism was always an internationalist movement, juche (literally, self-reliance) sees the world in ethnic terms. North Korean propaganda makes no distinction between American capitalists and American workers; the entire "Yankee" race is presented as inherently evil, degenerate and ugly. Dictionaries and textbooks suggest that Americans be described with bestial attributes ("snout" for nose, for example).

The central villain of Han Sorya's novella "Jackals" (1951), the country's most enduring work of fiction, tells of an American child who beats a Korean boy so brutally that he ends up in a hospital -- where he is murdered by the American's missionary parents. Since the South Korean government began pursuing its policy of rapprochement, the North's ethnocentric world view has become even more stark; the United States is now presented as being exclusively responsible for all tensions on the peninsula.

This propaganda appears to be effective even among North Koreans opposed to the rule of Kim Jong Il. When I visited a resettlement center for refugees near Seoul last year, many of those to whom I was introduced as an American recoiled in terror or glared at me in hatred.

Yeah, that song that Lang Lang played for Obama, with the lyrics about the jackal, that's just a complete coincidence! And totally innocuous and lacking in any cultural specificity whatsoever!

Han Sorya's 1951 'Jackals' is about an American missionary who deliberately kills a Korean boy by injecting him with germs.

(image source here)

Super Bowl "Unmanned Helicopters" is Code for DHS Spy Drones

The NBC DFW affiliate reports here:

Arlington Police have acquired some new equipment with homeland security grants including unmanned helicopters to watch over the stadium site [for the Super Bowl].

That's code for DraganFlyers, provided by DraganFly Innovations, Inc., teeny tiny little spy drones which look like little remote control toy helicopters but have sophisticated camera capabilities, as described here:

These Colors Don't Run: Reload!

The "America is a Jackal/Wolf" Metaphor is a Popular North Korean Trope

(source here)

Lang Lang Strikes a Chord: "Do Not Forget the American Jackals!"

North Korean War Propaganda

Lang Lang's choice of music at the White House state dinner for Chinese Paramount Leader Hu Jintao included an extremely popular Chinese patriotic song with these lyrics, in which "jackal" refers to America, which would be recognized by most every Chinese:

Great mountains, great rivers and an amazing place

Every road is flat and wide

When friends are here, there is fine wine

But if the jackal comes

What greets it is the hunting rifle

(source for poster above)

Lang Lang's Double Insult: Double Because We Didn't Know It

From The Epoch Times, here:

At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.” ... “In the eyes of all Chinese, this will not be seen as anything other than a big insult to the US,” says Yang Jingduan, a Chinese psychiatrist now living in Philadelphia who had in China been a doctor in the Chinese military. “It’s like insulting you in your face and you don’t know it, it’s humiliating.”

Here's a screenshot of the Wikipedia entry, before someone changes it:

Let's send Lang Lang back back to China where he belongs. The president can go with him.

Police in Colorado Use Draganflyer Spy Drone

According to The Washington Post, here:

"Not since the Taser has a technology promised so much for law enforcement," said Ben Miller of the Mesa County Sheriff's Office, which has used its drone, called a Draganflyer, to search for missing persons after receiving emergency authorization from the FAA.

From the company website here:

Carried in a backpack, ready for flight in minutes.

"At hover the Draganflyer X6 produces less than (approx.) 65dB of sound at one meter (3 feet), and less than (approx.) 60dB at three meters (9 feet)."

Used under very cold conditions at accident scene.

This unit was made ready for deployment under very cold conditions in the front seat of a police car.

Police in Austin, Texas, Deploy WASP to Reconnoiter Suspect's House

Story here in The Washington Post:

So the Texas agents did what no state or local law enforcement agency had done before in a high-risk operation: They launched a drone. A bird-size device called a Wasp floated hundreds of feet into the sky and instantly beamed live video to agents on the ground. The SWAT team stormed the house and arrested the suspect. ... Among state and local agencies, the Texas Department of Public Safety has been the most active user of drones for high-risk operations. Since the search outside Austin [in 2009] ... the agency has run six operations with drones, all near the southern border, where officers conducted surveillance of drug and human traffickers. ... In a 1986 Supreme Court case, justices were asked whether a police department violated constitutional protections against illegal search and seizure after it flew a small plane above the back yard of a man suspected of growing marijuana. The court ruled that "the Fourth Amendment simply does not require the police traveling in the public airways at this altitude to obtain a warrant in order to observe what is visible to the naked eye."

WASPs are made by AeroVironment, Inc.

You will have nowhere to hide from the tyranny, unless you stop it now.