Good Shot by Kraut

Doctrine?

My favorite bit:

Other presidents have taken anti-Americanism as a given, rather than evidence of American malignancy, believing — as do most Americans — in the rightness of our cause and the nobility of our intentions. Obama thinks anti-Americanism is a verdict on America’s fitness for leadership. I would suggest that “leading from behind” is a verdict on Obama’s fitness for leadership. 

Leading from behind is not leading. It is abdicating. It is also an oxymoron. Yet a sympathetic journalist, channeling an Obama adviser, elevates it to a doctrine. The president is no doubt flattered. The rest of us are merely stunned.

Border

JNo tells us that the borders are "as secure as they've ever been".  Which isn't precisely a ringing endorsement.

What about the human heads?

Important Stuff

Another birth certificate article.

Frankly, I'm not all that interested, except as a matter of logic and puzzle-solving, in the Obama Birth Certificate issue -- it's not really the big problem we're facing.  However, I love this paragraph from the article, which does illustrate a symptom of the bigger problem:

Yesterday, President Obama released a long form birth certificate.  In doing so, he lectured Americans about what was truly important in America.  "We do not have time for this kind of silliness," he intoned.  "We've got better stuff to do.  I've got better stuff to do.  We've got big problems to solve, and I'm confident we can solve them, but we're going to have to focus on them, not on this."  He then promptly boarded Air Force One to solve one of those vital problems -- by flying to Chicago for another appearance on Oprah's show.

Purge

Why we need to get our "primary" process under control: empty the bilge.

Speculators

Here's the thing about speculators: If they could arbitrarily, without loss or limit, do whatever it is they're presumed to do to increase commodity prices, why do they restrict themselves to oil, and why isn't the price of everything infinite?  Something must limit their power to affect prices, and here's a hint: it's not the government.  A speculator places a bet on a future outcome (in this case, the price of oil).  What happens if the price of oil doesn't reach the level on which they speculated?  They lose the bet (and the money they wagered).  What happens if it does?  More oil goes on the market, because it's more profitable, and demand drops, placing downward pressure on oil prices.  Exercise: What do  "elasticity of supply" and "elasticity of demand" mean?

Exactly.

Chuck calls it right.

Best quote:

Multiculturalism culturally divides.  Affirmative action positions "underrepresented minorities" for failure in roles for which they are under-prepared.  Relentless "diversity" efforts decay into emphasis on assembling the races toward one end: the assembling of the races.  Diverse thought is diversity's main fatality.  Lopsided taxation moves income from "winners" to "losers" and teaches losers to give up the idea of winning.  Crime-reducing incarceration gets painted as an abomination, while feeble "rehabilitation" schemes are repackaged as successes.  Sermons on "building" self-esteem dismiss the importance of earning self-esteem through achievement.  Casualties of hideous political correctness occur daily, as "choice" ends the lives of tiny humans.  Dressing ugly reality in diversionary language erases no ugliness.  And now the gargantuan federal debt run up through drunken deficit spending is poised to end all of the games, ending America in the process.

Fascism

This is how they did it.

Waste, Fraud & Abuse

Great post here on waste, fraud and abuse in gas prices.

The money quote:

In other words, we do have a problem with waste, abuse, and fraud.  We have wasted years in developing our own rich resources, an effort that not only would insulate us from the political shocks from political turmoil in oil-producing regimes but would also employ hundreds of thousands of Americans in high-paying jobs.  This administration in particular has abused its power, even to the extent of defying a court order, to keep American production from getting more domestic oil to the country and lowering prices through the hardly-mysterious mechanism of supply and demand.  And the fraud involved is the idea that we elected a brilliant President — instead of one who apparently needs an entire task force to understand the most basic concepts of free markets and pricing.

To this shall nothing be added or taken away.

Where Does it All Go?

This graphic from the Heritage Foundation explains it:



Via: Heritage Foundation

The Government Giveth, and the Government Taketh Away

What happens when government cash handouts exceed revenues?  Why, we borrow to consume.  Nothing wrong with that, right?

I've said for years  (decades, actually), that allowing politicians to buy us with our own money is a horrible idea, and knew that it would, eventually, be carried to this absurd extreme.  Naively believing that we can elect incorruptible souls to a beneficent government that has the power to take, by force, arbitrary amounts of our money and use it to general, rather self-seeking, benefit is hopelessly misguided and completely ignores the reality that we have not yet achieved that level of social and moral advancement.  It's also very foolish to use, via our votes, the government as a tool to exact petty revenge upon those whom we envy for having more than we have, because once out of its cage, the government knows no master.

Unfortunately for us, it's pretty much too late.  We can try to take the money away now, but the sad fact of the matter is that we have condemned future generations to pay for our foolishness.

While on that topic, let's look at what has now catastrophically morphed into immutable truth: that those who contributed to Medicare and Social Security must be paid out according to their expectations.

Why is this so?  The very obvious fact of the matter is that the current generation's "social security" lock-box was turned into a Ponzi Scheme by the representatives who were elected by this very generation.  Election after election, contributors to Social Security voted for those who would continue to raid the lock-box and use the money for "social programs" that never had any chance of generating a return on investment sufficient to replace the stolen funds.  It's hard for me to understand why (modulo the tendency of the immature to want to have their cake and eat it too), they think they are now entitled to be paid from Social Security at face value.  They could have elected people who could be trusted with the money.  They didn't.  Too bad.

Storage

ca. 60 million vacant apartments, ca. 300 million Americans ~ 5 people per apartment.

I think they've got it mapped out where they're going to put us when they seize our country for non-payment of debt.

Rich Pay

Why let facts spoil a good debate?

The "make the rich pay" trope is starting to get a bit worn-out.  They rich are paying.  I think we just might need to stop spending.

OK Video on Environmental Disasters That Never Happened

If You Think CFLs Are a Good Idea

Then you haven't read this.

Worst-Case Scenario

A gloomy outlook but probably fairly close to the truth.

Penny Pinching Idea

Let's save the money we waste on these clowns.

Human rights to "Mother Earth"?  A planet is a human? That's one big-ass human.  Maybe a diet is in order.  A diet with a lot less money in it.

While on the Topic of Medicare

We hard ad nauseum that the Feds were going to save a bundle on Medicare by "rooting out waste, fraud and abuse".  How's that going?  Certainly in the two years we've been hearing it was a problem, we should already be making substantial savings on that, right?

More Budget Speech Problems

Now, we believe the reforms we’ve proposed to strengthen Medicare and Medicaid will enable us to keep these commitments to our citizens while saving us $500 billion by 2023, and an additional $1 trillion in the decade after that. But if we’re wrong, and Medicare costs rise faster than we expect, then this approach will give the independent commission the authority to make additional savings by further improving Medicare.

So why not just improve it all the way right now?  Oh, wait, could it be because those "improvements" might be unpopular?  Might they not be "improvements" at all?

The Budget Speech Translated

Steyn nails it:


My fellow Americans, do we want an America where our most lethargic and mediocre youth are denied a leisurely half-decade acquiring a fraudulent six-figure credential in some worthless pseudo-discipline simply because we can’t afford it?

Reality

Wall Street Journal:


 According to Internal Revenue Service data, the entire taxable income of everyone earning over $100,000 in 2008 was about $1.582 trillion. Even if all these Americans—most of whom are far from wealthy—were taxed at 100%, it wouldn't cover Mr. Obama's deficit for this year.

New Zeal: Canada Next?

New Zeal: Canada Next?

More union displays of barbarism.

New Zeal: Communists Understand They Are in a War for America - So Should You!

New Zeal: Communists Understand They Are in a War for America - So Should You!

You need to read this post.

Find Out What's In It

Failure.

So it's about lowering costs, or is it about providing insurance to the "47 million" (largely illegal immigrants) "uninsured", or what, exactly?

What are we gaining from this again?

2012 is Coming Soon!