A few random thoughts

• How pathetic are we with regard to the Qur'an burnings / ground zero mosque. People were actually begging that pastor to stop for fear of the muslim world retaliating with terror attacks.  And if we had the courage of our convictions, it would be the Imam in NYC who would be too afraid to build a triumphant conquering symbol in the World Trade Center.  Christianity is all but dead, not just here, but in the West in general.  Indeed, the West is well on its way to death, for we have replace ideals with pragmatism as the ultimate ideal.  Islam is nothing if not pragmatic, and we should fully expect world-wide caliphate within three generations.
• I'm done with conservatism.  Liberty is has become my personal number one priority and only libertarians understand and empathize with this sentiment.  I'm done with the drug war.  I'm done with the huge military budgets.  I'm done with protecting the socialist nations of Europe.  I'm done with the CIA and the FBI and am WAY done with the Dept. of Homeland Security.  I'm done with the FDA, the department of education, the USDA, and pretty much any other agency you can think of.  I'm done with Social Security.  
• Obama deserves some praise for his handling of NASA.  The Ares rocket is a sad joke and he's actually turned to the private sector for assistance with salvaging parts of the shuttle program.  
• I hope more people will read and listen to Ron Paul.  
• Liberty is scary to most people and frankly I too am scared of what the real-life consequences would be if we were much closer to freedom.  
• Humans have almost never lived in freedom.  We seem to crave oppression and tyranny for the sake of expedience, to leverage power against others, to protect us from ourselves, and to align

Alien Rule

So describes Robert Weissberg's feelings about the Obama administration; the fifth column as I've stated before, then retracted, and am again standing by.

Over the past several months I've had a hard time articulating my suspicions regarding Obama. Initially, I had envisioned a Shakespearean-esque plot of foreign or domestic grooming to take the presidency and destroy the country by inviting a war and running it so badly as to lose it. OR, maybe, I thought, he would cripple the economy, enabling a successful assault by a foreign power on our home soil. Nah... that was too conspiratorial and it's not me, it's not my style, and its now how I think. But I knew something was very wrong with him. Call it instinct. I wasn't alone, of course. Many felt like I did and they too couldn't put their finger on it. So for a long time the Left has attempted to put our fingers "on it" for us: it was because we are racists. How stupid. How mentally weak. Really, Left, put a little effort into it. Of course, they were serious, that's really what they thought. Actually, think, is more appropriate.

But like a parent who is trying to solve a difficult problem and the child who keeps pointing out the "obvious" solution (which is completely wrong) the Right tried to explain why the child's solution wasn't right. And like the exasperated parent we've simply tuned the child out; we have a problem to solve and little Billy's endless harping on a point lost on him isn't going to distract us.

Enter Weissberg. He figured it out. Obama is not a fifth column. But he feels like it. And he acts like it. But he's not; at least not in the strict sense. No, Weissberg was able to pull in every abstract notion and feeling and distill into a two-word description of our collective consternation. We feel like we are under "Alien Rule", as he has put it.

Brilliant.

So without further adieu:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/04/a_stranger_in_our_midst.html

I agree with Bob Barr on this one

Bob Barr (R) blasts Republican criticism of Obama over the underwear bomber:

http://blogs.ajc.com/bob-barr-blog/2010/01/07/time-to-give-obama-a-break/

Rightly so, too. This is absurd. I seem to recall a certain shoe bomber and I don't remember everyone impugning Bush's efforts on terror because of it. We laid the blame at Al-Qaeda's feet, where it belonged (no pun intended, btw).

And what's with the sudden rush to profile based on physical characteristics, Republicans? First of all, how would that have helped in this case? The guy was African - Yemenise, NOT Arab! And we start looking for only arabs and persians, we'll completely miss the boat here. In fact, there's a chance we did miss this guy for that very reason ... that he was Black and not Arab.

Anyhow, I had to throw this out there. I'm tired of listening to the people on my side of the aisle salivating over this singular instance when we had nearly the exact same thing happen under Bush and we didn't get this kind of response.

What a strange way to look at the world

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/2009-the-year-wall-street_b_404889.html

I can't relate to this guy's way of thinking. It seems so detached from reality. Reich believes the problem with our economy is that the guys at the top are not sharing enough down below. Sure, I think the $25 million bonuses are undeserved too, but what would Reich have us do about it? Whatever his solution it would surely be government-driven, not market based.

But back to my original point: how odd is it to look at the current economy and blame a few million dollars being ill spent as the primary cause of our economic troubles? Hundreds of billions are misspent every year by the government that we don't even have - we just write IOU's to the Chinese. We have two unfunded wars being waged. Our borders are sivs for cheap labor to harvest our subsidized crops to make our fast food as cheap as it is which makes us as fat as we are which in turn drives up our health care costs that government insists on lowering for us... even though they are indirectly the cause of it. And all of this so that multi-billion dollar companies like GE and ADM can pay their executives $25 million bonuses ...

Does anyone else see the pattern of the government fixing a problem which then creates another and then they fix that one, which in turn creates more unintended consequences? Can they not see that whenever they insert themselves into an area the very nature of that area changes - the rules change, expectations change, and behavior of the populace follows in accordance. Sometimes this is a good thing - sometimes not so much. The NTSB is a good example. As is the USDA.

I just realized: conservatives don't always get this either. They are always harping on regulation as a great evil, when I would argue it's actually very helpful - usually. SOX is a great example of poor regulation. But it's notable because it is the exception that proves the rule: most regulation simply defines the terms of the game and the landscape of the playing field. And truth be told, that's all SOX does too. The real problem with SOX though is in its details - not in its existence. It just needs to be scaled back a bit. Some of the burdensome portions really don't need to be there, or could at least be made less burdensome.

Anyhow, the point I was making is simply that Reich is delusional. That he views executive compensation as the primary cause of our woes is just absurd. And I'm going to go out on a limb here too: I am willing to bet that one of the reasons the compensation is as high as it is due, in some small or not-so-small way to the government's invisible hand. I can't prove that and I may very well be wrong - but with so much evidence of government-inspired problems elsewhere, can one blame me for thinking it possible?

Why would I bother?

On HuffPo today, the day after Thanksgiving I find the following:

1) The lead story is about Dubai's request for a standstill, and fretting another financial "panic". Panic implies a degree of irrationality. I would say that a lack of fear on Wall Street would be the only irationallity. With deficits blossoming, healthcare (snicker) "reform" coming our way, the insolvency of the dollar, why should Wall St. be scared?

2) Arrianna Huffington's opinion piece is entitled "Sharing the Privilege of Abundance". One would assume she is refering to herself: a wealthy heiress. One would be wrong. She is, of course, talking about "sharing" other peoples' money:

The food, fuel, and financial crises have pushed the numbers of those enduring chronic hunger past one billion people for the first time in history. So as we enter the season of colossal Wall Street bonuses and a frenzy of holiday spending, it's time for us to share the privilege of plenty.

By "us" she means Wall St. bonuses (which pale to her inheritences) and yours and my holiday spending. Naturally.

With $3.2 billion a year -- or $1.5 billion less than Americans spend on Halloween annually, and a fraction of America's $300 billion a year in private giving -- we can feed the 66 million children worldwide who go to school hungry. This alone won't end hunger, but it would be a huge step forward.

There are many comparisons should could made. Comparisons that don't involve Americans, or at least not exclusively Americans. But consider; she accidentally gives credit to Americans by stating that 3.2b could be had as a fraction of our private givings of 300b. So what are our private givings going to if not to feed 1/6 the population of the world? Other things, to be sure: medical research, war relief, famine relief ... which I imagine is a part of the global hunger problem.
Two things pop out at me about this: 1) Arianna doesn't question the 1b number at all. 2) She calls American's charitable contributions "private givings". What is the alternative to private givings? Public "givings"? IE, taxes? That's hardly "giving". That's something that is taken by threat of private property confiscation and personal incarseration. Or perhaps we should call it "private" incarceration.
Arriana is not confused though, she chose her words well so as to frame her argument for higher taxes toward the effort of global hunger relief as something altruistic ... e.g. "public giving".

3) And from Marian Wright Edelman:

What kind of nation, blessed to be the wealthiest in the world, lets one in five children be poor? I offer a Thanksgiving prayer for us to commit to end poverty in our time -- beginning with children.

Only an evil greedy selfish nation, of course. We should create a massive program to end poverty and we'll call it something like "The Great Society" and it will be a complete success, just like LBJ's. Does history not matter to these people? If doing X to solve problem Y doesn't work and you KNOW X does nothing, why would you insist on continuing to do X? For one thing, you hurt Y because you redirect resources into X that are supposed to address Y but you know already are wasted. I can only conclude that the author is either an idiot or actually wants Y to continue on forever, while keeping X in place to achieve some other, unknown goal.

4) On Sarah Palin, Keli Goff writes:

Because you just never know what Palin and her clan are going to say or do, those of us constantly looking for stuff to write about owe Palin a humble thank you.

I can't disagree with her, but shouldn't she be more worried about the 1,000,000,000 starving people in the world rather than the strawman and ego massager of the Left, that is Sarah Palin?

5) Another:

Rewriting History To Blame Tim Geithner: An Incomplete Story Of The AIG Bailout

IE, it's not all Obama's fault. No shit dude. This is still more Bush's mess than Obama's. But let me point out that this is a wonderful mess for Obama, one that he relishes. There is no better time than a financial crisis to further increment the implementation of socialism and Pelosi, Obama, et al. have taken full advantage of this fine window of opportunity.

6) Some BS about Lieberman. Who cares.

7) An opninion piece that looks like it might not either try to make you feel bad for being American or try to reach into your wallet. I don't care to find out.

8) Film reviews. Doesn't this guy know he supposed to tell us what our ticket money could better go to? Bad liberal! Bad!

9) RJ Eskow exclaims "Phantom America, Thanks for nothing!".

10) and more blah blah blah. There's a lesson here - one that I've tried to impress upon my liberal friends and one which I would do well to remember myself. I ought not dissect the easily dissectable. Picking on Arianna and her intellectual ilk is too damn easy. They are the strawmen of the Right, as Palin and Bush are for the Left. I need to seek out intelligent and challenging arguments from the Left. I suppose. It's not like it will change anything. We'll still have Palin and we'll still have Huffington.

Hopefully it's ok for me to post this verbatim. Just want to note too that I am aware that the Gitmo terrorist detainees are not receiving the H1N1 vaccine, contrary to earlier reporting.

Anyhow, this is from http://www.semissourian.com/story/1586060.html

Mr. Obama: I'm calling you out

Wednesday, November 11, 2009
By William Piercey Sr.

The new era of government control over our lives and freedoms has begun. This week, it got personal, and I felt helpless.

The doctor overseeing my health care advised me to get an H1N1 flu shot. I've been under a six-year treatment program for a chronic infection, plus I have heart and lung problems. Therefore, I am considered a high risk. Fortunately, my doctor had three shots available, but I would have to get approval from my county health department. Much to my surprise, the woman at the health department apologized and told me that even though I was a senior citizen at high risk, the health department had been instructed to approve shots only for children and pregnant mothers. I asked when a shot for my situation might be available. "We really don't know. Check back with us sometime in December."

What? The terrorist detainees in Gitmo are getting shots this month. Why not a high-risk senior citizen?

Mr. Obama, this is what we call health care rationing, which you claim won't happen under a government-run health care program.

If George W. Bush was considered the Barney Fife of executive power, then welcome to the Chicago-style politics of the new Vito Corleone family. The president himself, like a strong-armed enforcer, said in a nationally televised speech, "If you misrepresent anything in this plan, I will call you out." This administration has turned the once dignified and esteemed Oval Office into a war room for its liberal propaganda.

On his first day in office, the president signed the Ethics Commitments by Executive Branch Personnel executive order. During the campaign he vowed to keep lobbyists out of the administration. But in Section 3 of this order is a waiver clause. The director of the Office of Management and Budget "may grant" a written waiver of any restrictions. Former lobbyists were given waivers and now hold key positions in government. Mr. Obama, you lied.

At the same time lobbyists were coming in the front door, dozens of new unvetted, hand-picked ideologues were being shuttled in the back door. Many of these people were placed in key policymaking positions. U.S. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine was worried about 18 of these unvetted czars, 10 of whom worked in the White House. An amendment to force these appointees to testify in oversight hearings was shot down by the Democratic leadership. Collins was especially concerned about Carol Browner, who negotiated fuel-economy standards with the auto industry. She even sent a letter to Obama, and one of his counsels replied that no one would be made available. This administration fears no one, especially a senator who dares to enforce something as minor as checks and balances. Obama promised transparency. He lied.

On the topic of transparency, the $787 billion stimulus bill was a progressive Trojan horse. It's loaded with political favors and programs that set up the infrastructure for education, health care and climate change. It was passed and signed in a matter of weeks. This was not a bill to put Americans back to work. Obama said it would produce 3.5 million jobs in two years. Over the past year the administration has changed its story daily but finally settled on the "create or save" propaganda. Obama also said the bill would keep unemployment under 8 percent. The rate has climbed to over 10 percent. Either his economic advisers are incompetent and need to be fired, or, once again, Mr. President, you lied.

Mr. President, you said you didn't want to run our car companies and banks, but you do. With the $350 billion in TARP funds left by President Bush, Obama's people continued the surge of bailouts. Americans might be shocked to know the recipients of bailout money now total 727 institutions. This government control in the private sector is unprecedented.

Government-run health care, card check, cap-and-trade, net neutrality, control of radio stations and possible newspaper bailouts are just part of this administration's agenda.

It's time for Americans to get in this government's face and call it out. This coup d'etat can be defeated. We have the numbers, the votes and the will power to turn back this assault on our individual freedoms.

With 15 million unemployed Americans, I'm sure we can find a few willing patriots to fill all those upcoming vacant seats in Washington, especially with an annual salary of $170,000, office, staff, insurance, expense account and, best of all, a three-day workweek. The only requirements for this job are honesty, integrity and a love of country.

William Piercey Sr. is a Cape Girardeau resident.

I'm not the only one ...

... who thinks Obama is willfully destroying the country.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/celebritynews/6241196/Andy-Williams-accuses-Barack-Obama-of-following-Marxist-theory.html

Andy Williams - Republican but close friend to the Kennedy's - has stated as much as well.

This hypothesis of mine is shared by many and an increasing number of people. This isn't a conspiracy theory. This isn't Glenn Beck. It's just common sense. Obama has surrounded himself all his life with Marxists, Communists, and others cut of far-left cloth. His actions betray his words.

So I'll say it again: he is purposely destroying the country. Not to see it become a smoking pile of rubble, but so as to remake it into a Socialist nation. I don't see what's so crazy about this assertion. Isn't it pretty obvious?

Muslim-to-Christian convert update

It looks like I was wrong on this one. She's full of Shiite. Haha. Clever. Sunni enough she'll get what's coming. OK, OK, I'm sorry - I'll stop.

If you've never read Eyes for Lies, do yourself a favor and get acquainted with the site. It's well worth your time. Then read what she has to say on the girl who I thought would be the next Elion.

http://eyesforlies.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-thoughts-rifqa-bary.html

Reagan on socialized medicine

I guess Reagan gave this little speech in the 60's. Funny how relevant it is today:

REAGAN: Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

There are many ways in which our government has invaded the precincts of private citizens, the method of earning a living. But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this trip is with us and at the moment is more imminent.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.

Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand said, if we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, they can we can expand the program after that. Well, let's see what the socialists themselves had to say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is passed, this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Well, we can't say we haven't been warned.

James Madison in 1788, speaking to the Virginia Convention said: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

Now in our country under our free enterprise system, we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side, at the freedom the doctor loses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being.

In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in world’s history. The only true revolution. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man’s relation to man, a little group of the men, the founding fathers for the first time – established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God given right and ability to determine our own destiny.

This freedom was built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today. And strangely we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rule is all that is needed. Well, majority rule is a fine aspect of democracy, provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minorities.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms and that you demand the continuation of our traditional free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen, even if we believe that he's on our side to begin with, write to strengthen his hand. Write those letters now. Call your friends and tell them to write. If you don't, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country... until one day as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.

Of course, this only matters to you if you don't want socialism to begin with.

New job start date: 6/16

Can you tell?

I wanted to rant a little about my favorite religion, Islam. Read this lovely little bit of evasiveness and tell me if you can read the "we're going to kill her if she doesn't recant" that's barely concealed:

"It is not Islam for the father to bring harm upon his blood daughter or any other human being because of anger," he said. "Our position is to exhaust all measures that would bring peace and harmony back to the family," Hamidullah said. "Being angry and threatening the life of someone is not one of those methods."

That was Imam Imgonnakillyah's response when pressed as to whether or not the father of a seventeen year old muslim-to-Christianity convert would harm the girl. Well, fuck it - I'm convinced! I mean, it's not like there's anything in Islam that states one must die if one converts away from Islam, is there? Noooo... that's crazy talk. It says right here that it's actually possible to not die when converting to Christianity from Islam! So I should just stop H8ing. Isn't that clever? The H8 thing? Yeah, I know you think it means "Hate" but it actually means "If you don't agree with every little thing I say then you're filled hate." So - you were close; the word "hate" does appear in there!

Spoiler Alert!!

This is going to be another Elian Gonzalez case. She'll be thrown under the Greyhound she took to Orlando by the U.S. Attorney General.

It's almost like markets work ...

How can that be though? The news has been telling us all our lives that free markets result in horrible consequences due to greed.

Someone forgot to tell NYC that markets don't work. They don't correct themselves. Only huge govt. intervention can save you!! Repent, repent!! Oh, sorry. Got a little carried away in messianic revere.

http://newledger.com/2009/06/is-the-housing-bust-about-to-take-manhattan/

So who's being greedy now? The renters, I suppose, asking for lowered rents. Weird. It's like, no matter what we do greed just keeps lingering. Why can't we all just agree not to be greedy? Are we asking too much, America? Is it really so much to ask to cast aside your own self-interests and do what's right for everyone?

A sad, sad point of view

This article, written by Joseph Stiglitz really bums me out if true. Not his "points" about capitalism, but that are so many in the world who delude themselves into believing his essential premise: that so called American "style" capitalism has become a proven failure to much of the third world.

The fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, marked the end of Communism as a viable idea. Yes, the problems with Communism had been manifest for decades. But after 1989 it was hard for anyone to say a word in its defense. For a while, it seemed that the defeat of Communism meant the sure victory of capitalism, particularly in its American form. Francis Fukuyama went as far as to proclaim “the end of history,” defining democratic market capitalism as the final stage of social development, and declaring that all humanity was now heading in this direction. In truth, historians will mark the 20 years since 1989 as the short period of American triumphalism. With the collapse of great banks and financial houses, and the ensuing economic turmoil and chaotic attempts at rescue, that period is over. So, too, is the debate over “market fundamentalism,” the notion that unfettered markets, all by themselves, can ensure economic prosperity and growth. Today only the deluded would argue that markets are self-correcting or that we can rely on the self-interested behavior of market participants to guarantee that everything works honestly and properly.

Wow. How can a seemingly intelligent person make so many mistakes? An aside: we need to, as a civilization, learn how the "other side" thinks. Because this guy's thinking, in my estimation, is fundamentally flawed.

First, Communism is anything but dead. Second, there will never be an "end of history" as described by Hegel, Marx, et al. Societies will always experiment with differing forms of government, trade, monetary policy, etc. Third, our markets were anything but "unfettered". Freddie and Fannie were specifically instructed to buy up billions in subprime loans. Also, I would dispute the notion that American-style capitalism is about "unfettered" markets. That can mean different things to different people. A zero-regulated economy is not capitalism, it is anarchy.

Stiglitz throws out the baby with the bathwater in this article. Or rather, he suggests everyone but the deluded have done so. Count me among the deluded then. American capitalism continues to evolve. We're going through a financial crisis now that we can learn and grow from. But we can't do it by lying to each other and ourselves about the who, what, and how of this mess.

My response to Theresa's "Forced Tarp" comment

I agree with you - the govt. created the same crisis they are now pretending to be the saviors of. The Community Redevelopment Act (I know that's not what it's called) passed in the 90's lowered (some would say forcibly) the standards of lending. Of course, it seemed like a good idea for a long time. It was almost a decade in the making. And to be sure, that while Clinton may have passed the original legislation to make the lending rules looser, NO ONE ever expected the govt. to bail out Bear Sterns. There was never a reason to. "Too big to fail" is obscene and absurd. Whatever happened to Monopoly busting?

Now, from what I understand of the situation, this was far less a bank bail-out than a Wall Street bail out. The securities market doesn't reside in the banks - they're traded on the floor of the stock exchange. And the securities are what brought the house of cards down. Despite being hedged with many prime mortgages, the actual value of homes - whether the loan was prime or not - were simply not in line with their price.

That being said, I have to wonder if this whole thing is even a tenth as complex as they make it out be. Had they let the free market do what it would, things would have corrected themselves by 2010. So says leading economist John Sullivan ;-) Really though, this isn't rocket science: housing prices should roughly follow inflation. It's very easy to graph out inflation and home values side by side and I've seen websites do it. So all you have to extrapolate the two lines starting from 1981 (our last recession). What we would have seen is that housing prices would have dipped BELOW the inflation line. These would have been all of the foreclosed homes and their resulting impact on other home prices. After the foreclosure dust settled, we would have seen a normalization in home prices.

I mean, really - we have THOUSANDS of first time home buyers flooding the market, driving up prices. People take advantage and speculate. AND they make money hand-over-fist. This is the "greed" that everyone complained about. It wasn't greed, people, it was smart. You don't pass up opportunities like that because you think it will create a systemic failure. The idea would have been laughed at in 2005 and should still have been laughed at in 2008.

See, I'm not the only one who's crazy

Kevin Hassett from Bloomberg also believes Obama is out to create a quasi-socialist state.

June 8 (Bloomberg) -- I’ve finally figured out the Obama economic strategy. President Barack Obama and his team have been having so much fun wielding dictatorial power while rescuing “failed” firms, that they have developed a scheme to gain the same power over every business. The plan is to enact policies that are so anticompetitive that every firm needs a bailout.

I'm glad I'm not the only crazy out there.

Two articles for you to ignore

First up - Obama's numbers are made up. Literally. Well, let me be more specific: his "150,000 jobs saved" is an abstraction from macro economic data. In other words, it's made up. The Wall Street Journal says so anyway. Of course, aren't they cause of this whole mess - Wall Street? With their greed? Too bad we don't have a system in place that could place checks on greed. NO!! I have an even better idea!! Let's use greed to fight greed! Haha!! We'll call it "free market capitalism" and people will pursue their own self interests and that'll keep everyone's greed in check.

The second is about Canadian public health "insurance". It tells us things we've heard so many times before: rationing, waiting, giving up and paying for it yourself. This article from the disreputable Wall Street Journal is surely just the beginning of the deluge of hysterical hit-pieces on single-payer systems.

Should you choose to subject yourself to the first right-wing, corporate-sponsored rag-of-an-op-ed piece about healthcare, here are some of the more absurd paragraphs:

Born and raised in Canada, I once believed that government health care is compassionate and equitable. It is neither.

First of all, the author is Canadian, which I think disqualifies him to speak intelligently on the subject.

My views changed in medical school.

As in you were walking down a hallway delivering pizza in a medical school dorm?

Dr. Gratzer, a physician, is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

Well, la-tee-da.

Yes, everyone in Canada is covered by a "single payer" -- the government. But Canadians wait for practically any procedure or diagnostic test or specialist consultation in the public system.

Um ... yeah, so do we. We have to sit in waiting rooms for hours ... more scare tactics from the radical right, people.

The problems were brought home when a relative had difficulty walking. He was in chronic pain. His doctor suggested a referral to a neurologist; an MRI would need to be done, then possibly a referral to another specialist. The wait would have stretched to roughly a year. If surgery was needed, the wait would be months more. Not wanting to stay confined to his house, he had the surgery done in the U.S., at the Mayo Clinic, and paid for it himself.

Oh sure - a "relative". CanadaCode for "pet moose". Hey, he's a rich dude - was able to go to the fancy-schmancy Mayo Clinic in NY. How does this guy count? So he would have been a little inconvenienced having to wait his turn in the Canadian system. So what? At least he has coverage. Besides, he's just a dumb moose.

Such stories are common.

Yeah - stories. Let's look at cold hard facts, dude. Your drool-in-a-cup Wall Street Journal readers might be entertained by these isolated examples, but this is the real world, where anecdotal evidence is easily refuted with yet more anecdotal evidence.

Indeed, Canada's provincial governments themselves rely on American medicine. Between 2006 and 2008, Ontario sent more than 160 patients to New York and Michigan for emergency neurosurgery -- described by the Globe and Mail newspaper as "broken necks, burst aneurysms and other types of bleeding in or around the brain."

So Canada is dumping their brain-damaged on us. Nice. Thanks, Canada.

Only half of ER patients are treated in a timely manner by national and international standards, according to a government study. The physician shortage is so severe that some towns hold lotteries, with the winners gaining access to the local doc.

And how does the U.S. fair in this regard? He doesn't say.

Overall, according to a study published in Lancet Oncology last year, five-year cancer survival rates are higher in the U.S. than those in Canada. Based on data from the Joint Canada/U.S. Survey of Health (done by Statistics Canada and the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics), Americans have greater access to preventive screening tests and have higher treatment rates for chronic illnesses. No wonder: To limit the growth in health spending, governments restrict the supply of health care by rationing it through waiting.

So we're going to allow 45 million Americans (as defined as people currently living inside our borders - by Americans we mean Norte Americano) go without health insurance just because we're impatient? Look, Canadians w/ Cancer - what else is there to do but wait? Are you going somewhere? Just sit tight and wait the cancer out. Carcinomas are like dinosaurs - if you stay really still they can't see you and walk away.

Ironically, as the U.S. is on the verge of rushing toward government health care, Canada is reforming its system in the opposite direction.

Canada can't make up its mind - what does this have to do with us? This is America and we do things our own way, like the folks from Texas.

Americans need to ask a basic question: Why are they rushing into a system of government-dominated health care when the very countries that have experienced it for so long are backing away?

Duh - because we're AMERICA, you DB. Just because socialized whatever hasn't worked in backwards countries like Canada and England, doesn't mean we can't make it work here in the U.S.

Forced TARP

Many of the banks that received TARP money have been wanting to get out from underneath the governments restrictions on compensation and dividends by repaying the government the bail out money. Hurray! We're getting our bail out money back :-) Oh no... wait, this doesn't fit into Dear Leader's long term goals. The administration isn't allowing this "yet", for their own good, of course. It's so nice how our government is always looking out for the little guy.

Here's a story from the Wall Street Journal that very politely summarizes the benevolent restrictions placed on the TARPed banks ... for their own safety and long term profitability, of course.

An anology

So the press isn't biased? Let me ask you: if a weather-person told you that the cat 3 hurricane barreling toward you wasn't going to be so bad after all because the wind-speed is increasing at a slower rate than it had been an hour ago, would you go to the beach? If you were bleeding to death but the doctor told you not to worry, the rate at which your blood loss is increasing has decreased since the last pint, would his assertion give you cause to relax?

And as ridiculous as these examples are, it is exactly what the press tells us to believe about the economy. And I say "tell us" because when the press says something, they are supposedly reporting the facts.

Laughable (if you can afford to laugh, that is)

Great economic news, folks!!! The economy is coming back! Woo hoo!! Layoffs have slowed - isn't that just peachy? Why, only 350,000 Americans were laid off this month! Phew - Obama (pboh) brought us back from the brink, people. That was a close one!! Damn, I almost thought we were going to have a depression there for a minute.

Now, I know some of you might think I'm being disingenuous, but I offer as proof of my sincerity the fact that the author of the AP article wrote the following:

The much smaller-than-expected reduction in payroll jobs, reported by the Labor Department on Friday, adds to evidence that the recession is loosening its hold on the country. It marked the fourth straight month that the pace of layoffs slowed.

"This tide is turning," said Richard Yamarone, economist at Argus. "We expect this trend of slower job loss to continue throughout the year."

Oh RAPTURE, layoffs will continue to slow for the rest of the year!! See, I told you I was being serious: an economist says the tide is turning. Who am I to argue proof of this magnitude. See, it's not just Obama (pboh) who is assuring us that things are getting better; naturally he would since he has a vested interest in doing so; but both an impartial journalist and a learned scholar have stated so as well :-) You can't argue with evidence of this magnitude?

And you know, I just want to give a special "shout out" (ala Sarah Palin) to Bush for making all this possible. Would Kerry or Gore have been brave enough to get the train rolling with TARP, Bear Sterns, CitiCorp, Fannie May, Freddie Mac, etc, etc? I doubt it!!! They would have assumed the people of this country were too smart for that sort of rapid socialization of the American financial system. HA!! Looks like you two were out-thunked by the master thinker G.W. Bush.

Do I really think Obama is that bad?

I often posit ideas and theories only as a rhetorical and logical exercise. So to clarify to myself and my vast four-person audience, I don't really think Obama is trying to destroy the country, but I wouldn't be 100% surprised to find out that he is. If I were to give odds on "Obama the elected fifth column" VS "Obama the ultra-lefty looking to make the US more like the EU", I would give odds of about 1 in 20 that he is the former.

The point is that I am not certifiably insane. But the other point is this: we really do need to keep a close watch on the guy, just as we do all elected officials. And not because he might be that wolf in sheep's clothing, but because the guy clearly doesn't understand the real world. He's like a college professor turned president. The notion of a philosopher king only works within philosophy itself - not the real world.

Accident my a**

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090603/D98J6BAG0.html

Sure it was. Like I said, Manchurian candidate. I'd love to see him impeached and brought up on treason for this. But we don't charge anyone with treason anymore. LOL, if we did, we'd have to indite ourselves for having elected this guy in the first place.