Economy Blues

Economy Blues

By now we are all tired of hearing the economic news. New lows for the Dow, new highs for unemployment, more economists predicting further doom and gloom every day. But at least we have our president to buoy our spirits.

Or, we used to. This new president is a singular piece of work. He seemingly cannot get out of campaign mode, still running against the miasma of Bush, promoting the doom to come as the result of the doom who just retired. This president appears to be absolutely clueless, and seems to compensate for it by acting decisive and determined. Yet, when he notes the unemployment figures, he claims that he sees the very size of the dislocations to be "astounding," which means, according to my dictionary, that he admits that he is " filled with bewilderment or wonder."

Even Bush, who has taken a real beating these last few years, would never admit to being bewildered at the reasons for our predicament. Can you imagine Clinton or Reagan admitting being bewildered, ever? Even Carter, who was clearly bewildered, would never admit it. Yet this new guy is so filled with narcissism that he has no compunctions about failing to at least pretend to tell us that he understands the current situation. How can we believe that an astounded man can lead us out of the wilderness?

Now we are faced with the ridiculous scene of Obama going to Columbus, spending at least ten million dollars of our money on the trip. The sheer sanctimony and hypocrisy of the flight is astounding as well. Isn't this the guy who said "If the taxpayers are helping you, then you have certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog," on Feb. 4, 2009 on NBC Nightly News? Now he flies to Columbus to campaign for reelection at a graduation ceremony for 25 police recruits. His stated reason for making the trip was to take credit for supplying their salaries. Read the transcript of what he said in Ohio. He took credit for everything but the sun rise.

that's what I intend to do as president of the United States of America.

(APPLAUSE)

So for those who still doubt the wisdom of our recovery plan, I ask them to talk to the teachers who are still able to teach our children because we passed this plan. I ask them to talk to the nurses who are still able to care for our sick and the firefighters and first responders who are still able to keep our communities safe. I ask them to come to Ohio and meet the 25 men and women who will soon be protecting the streets of Columbus because we passed this plan.

(APPLAUSE)

I look at these young men and women -- I look into their eyes and I see their badges today, and I know that we did the right thing. These jobs and the jobs of so many other police officers and teachers and firefighters all across Ohio will now be saved because of this recovery plan; a plan that will also create jobs in every corner of this state.

Last week, we announced that Ohio would receive $128 million that will put people to work renovating and rebuilding affordable housing.

(APPLAUSE)

On Tuesday -- on Tuesday, I announced that we'd be sending another $935 million to Ohio that will create jobs rebuilding our roads, our bridges, and our highways.

(APPLAUSE)

And yesterday, Vice President Biden announced $180 million for this state that will go towards expanding mass transit and buying fuel-efficient buses; money that will be putting people to work getting people to work.

(APPLAUSE)

OBAMA: All together, this recovery plan will save and create over three and a half million American jobs over the next two years. Because of this plan, those who've lost their jobs in this recession will be able to receive extended unemployment benefits and continued health care coverage.

Because of this plan, 95 percent of working Americans will receive a tax break that you will see in our paychecks starting on April 1st.

(APPLAUSE)

And because of this plan, stories like the one we're celebrating here in Columbus will soon take place all across this nation. Today, I'm pleased to announce that Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice are making available $2 billion in justice assistance grants from the Recovery Act.

To make this announcement, to further glorify himself, he is willing to spend at least ten million dollars. Some may question how he manages to reach that ten million dollar figure, so allow me to try to explain it. Some others have come up with much smaller estimates, but that does not consider the actual costs of the entire retinue. I have not been able to find out details of Obama's security, since 9/11/01 these things have become quite secret. But info on presidents before Bush are more accessible. One of Bill Clinton's C130s crashed in 1996, and the event was covered by the press. His plane, the most expensive executive aircraft in the world, (unless he orders those new helicopters, which will cost even more) is preceded by several planeloads of equipment, limousines, security vehicles, and personnel. Hundreds of military personnel are deployed in addition to his federal secret service protectors. As the link explains,

The C-130 and its crew were a small part of the large military contingent that provides support to the President. Hundreds of military officers perform tasks from feeding the President to handling the ''football,'' the briefcase holding the secret codes for unleashing the nation's nuclear-weapons arsenal.

Among those tasks is hauling the Secret Service's vehicles, which range from family vans to bulletproof limousines, wherever the President needs a motorcade to travel from point to point. That job falls to the Air Force's Air Mobility Command, based at Scott Air Force Base near Belleville, Ill.

They also have to fly a few of his Sea king helicopters wherever he goes. I'd say that ten million would be a real bargain if that's all this trip cost us. Compared to this extravagance, those Wagyu steaks cost a pittance.

Now, everybody likes a party, and some luxury should be allowed a president. But the president has more than one job, and one of them is the "Daddy" function. If daddy is going to tell us that things are absolutely terrible, he has no idea why, and has hope that it might get better, don't you think he should at least pretend to exhibit a little personal austerity?

That brings us to Obama's narcissism. Bob Johnson at American Thinker wrote a probing piece on Obama's narcissism, proving the point and how it is revealed in the man's actions. While this is all fascinating, it is also frightening to contemplate, when we have a man who is so completely absorbed in his own greater glory, instead of that of the rest of us.

Tony Blankley refers to Obama's posturing as the "height of hubris." Jeffrey Kuhner writes that Obama "is a self-absorbed narcissist who portrays himself as a political messiah -- the anointed one." David Limbaugh writes of the "unspeakably presumptuous extravaganzas as those [that] feted Mr. Obama at Berlin and Invesco Field."

In reference to Obama's narcissism, Charles Krauthammer asks, "[H]as there ever been a presidential nominee with a wider gap between his estimation of himself and the sum total of his lifetime achievements?" Sam Vaknin, Ph.D., author of Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited, writes that "Barack Obama appears to be a narcissist," and offers a detailed explanation.

Obama's entire campaign is nothing more than a demand to be recognized as superior without commensurate accomplishments. For individual instances of the undistinguished senator's grandiosity, please see Barack Obama Audacity Watch.

Two other very reliable witnesses to Obama's narcissism are Oprah Winfrey and her guru, Eckhart Tolle, both themselves pathological narcissists. Delusions of grandeur interpersonally connect Obama, Oprah, and her guru. All three believe they can, even that that they must, change the world for the better, and that means garnering for themselves more and more adulation, what the psychologists call "narcissistic supply."

IMHO this is becoming a train wreck presidency in the making. Not since JFK have we had such a narcissist in the White House, but he had a pretty good economic situation to start with, a much smaller government to work with, more experience in everything that makes one either a president or a man, and precious few years in which to destroy things, although he came pretty close at one point. This new guy has breathtaking power, and he is wielding it like a drunken sailor (with my apologies to drunken sailors).

We do not know how this will end. We have no idea what would have happened if we had elected someone else. But the signs are dark, and the future is quite unknown. People are frightened. I certainly am. There is no end in sight.

Geithner Attacks America

Geithner Attacks America

It didn't take long for the tax cheat Treasury Sectretary to attack the very core of our domestic energy industry. Evidently they are very bad for America, since we might have a problem with the climate some day, and it is possible that they may have provided some of the stuff that could possible have caused it. So what do we do? Destroy them. But maybe this is not baby Geithner's fault. After all, his boss is not interested in appointing his staff, since it is so unimportant. This is getting serious.

Comparison Between Respect and Submission

Comparison Between Respect and Submission

There are men who earn the respect of their subordinates, and men who abuse their undeserved authority. Please check out the responses of the Marines to the former, and then their current, Commander in Chief.

Tax Rate Shell Game

Tax Rate Shell Game

These days everybody is talking about how the tax rates used to be 70%, then were dropped to 28%, and now are about to be raised again. But all this talk forgets that we are not comparing apples and oranges. That 70% rate was levied on a much smaller portion of our income.

I am old enough to have paid a rate over 50%. In those days states and cities would never have dared to levy their own income taxes, so federal was the only income tax we had to deal with. The deductions that were available, however, protected just about as much of your income as you wanted. I was audited in 1978 because my net taxable income was only 20% of my gross wages and 1099 income. My accountant asserted the "creature of business" concept, i.e. everything I did was related to my business, so we refiled amended returns and asked for a refund. After a lot of struggle between my accountant and the IRS there was a trivial amount of additional tax to pay, sort of a fig leaf for the tax examiner. I was advised to pay the tax and take it to tax court. The lawyer said I would probably win. I passed and paid a few hundred dollars, and forgot about the whole thing.

So when they say that rates are going up "only on the rich" I always look at deductions that are disappearing. Even though we have very few deductions left, those are being repealed also. This represents an additional tax on all Americans. We are also facing taxes that will be hidden from us, and state and local income and other taxes will be increasing as well. That 95% of Americans who will not see an increase must include Paramecium and bacteria, since even dogs and monkeys will see higher taxes, and they are about to make Chimpanzees illegal altogether.

We need to understand that the new government in this country is attempting to change our society in ways that are, in some respects, broader and more sweeping than anything FDR did, since these new-age democrats seem to have no compunctions about being truthful with the American people. That's not an opinion, it is fact.

Lincoln's Words?

Lincoln's Words?

Another message making the rounds contains some bons mot that are being ascribed to Abraham Lincoln, along with an exhortation to president Obama to take notice of words spoken by his hero. Actually, it seems that these words were actually written by a Presbyterian minister named William J. H. Boetcker in a pamphlet distributed in 1942. No matter, since the words are what they are, and deserve some rumination by their own lights. Truer words have never been spoken, IMHO.

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
3. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10 You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

Divorce Agreement

Divorce Agreement

This letter is making it way around the Web. Just in case you have not seen it, I repost it here:

Divorce agreement:

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since thelate 1950's, but the whole of this latest election process has made merealize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for manyyears for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationshiphas run its course. Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way. Here is a model separation agreement:

Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes. We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them. You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU. Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military. You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell (You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them).

We'll keep the capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street. You can have your beloved homeless, homeboys, hippies and illegal aliens. We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greed y CEO's and rednecks. We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us. You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.. You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U. N., but we will no longer be paying the bill.

We'll keep the SUVs, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Subaru station wagon you can find.

You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors. We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right. We'll keep The Battle Hymn of the Republic and the National Anthem. I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute Imagine, I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing, Kum Ba Ya or We Are the World.

We'll p ractice trickle down economics and you can give trickle up poverty your best shot. Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you ANWAR which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,

John J. Wall Law Student and an American

P. S. Also, please take Barbara Streisand & Jane Fonda with you.

Good Company

Good Company

It has been recommended to me that I buy the stock of a certain company. This is not in and of itself unusual, but this time I think I may invest in it. I never recommend stocks to others, but the very least I can say that I am excited by their product. Inca Designs, IDGI on the Pinksheets.

Obama the Fellated Angel?

Obama the Fellated Angel?

In a striking pose, a photo of a float in a parade in Dusseldorf, Germany, shows our president in a dress, with a halo over his head, and a smaller figure depicting Europe, behind and below him, apparently about to commence an act of fellatio. Personally, I think it is pretty funny.

But. Imagine that this float had some simulacrum of Mohamed, or any other Muslim character. How many people would be killed or maimed in the resulting uproar? How many beheadings would result?

The multi-cultis are in the process of handing Western Civilization over to Islam in the mistaken belief that all cultures are equal. They believe that we lack standing to discern between cultures at all, let alone declare ours superior to theirs. Yet here we have a clear example of the dichotomy between our two cultures - we have the ability to satirize ourselves. The Europeans make fun of themselves by being in the submissive pose in their float. Most Americans find the whole thing a trite joke. Yet who among us believes that we could satirize anything Islamic and not incite hatred and murder?

A few crass cartoons and literally thousands died. A statue of an extra dark Obama about to get blown by Miss Europe and we laugh, or perhaps some of us think of it as an artistic statement. There is clearly a superior culture here, and if we do not change course in our headlong rush to create a multicultural West, we will be living in a Muslim world. For the time being, I cherish my ability to publish these words.

Government Running Amok

Government Running Amok

Is there any limit to the reach of Obama's ambition to change the way we live? His proposals are so broadly cast, even breathtaking, that even reliable lefties are pulling to the side, trying to catch their breath.

The reliably left-of-center David Broder writes that “The size of the gambles that President Obama is taking every day is simply staggering” and adds that the agenda set forth in Obama's speech to congress is, in Broder's view "a dramatic reminder of the unbelievable stakes he has placed on the table in his first month in office, putting at risk the future well-being of the country and the Democratic Party's control of Washington.”

Obama talks the talk of fiscal restraint even as he sets into motion a $787 billion stimulus package, a $410 billion omnibus budget, and a $634 billion health care fund. He inherited, and promised to reduce, a budget deficit pegged at a half trillion dollars, yet what is it now? Even with Washington's legendary obfuscation techniques, it must be well north of two trillion by now. How will he pay for it? His tax increases on "the wealthy" are claimed to raise a mere 318 billion dollars over ten years, by reducing deductions on home interest and charitable deductions. What effect will this have on the levels of cash donated to food banks and other services that serve the poor?

Even power drunk democrats have to know that you can not pay for trillions of dollars of spending with one third of a trillion dollars. Do they think they can fool the electorate? Obama promised to not raise taxes on any American making under a quarter million dollars. What happens when we all feel the tax bite that will settle on us? Remember the rest of Obama's agenda? His "cap and trade" system will cause electric bills to skyrocket. Taxes on corporations will make everything we buy more expensive, and it will not all be invisible. Surcharges will be appearing on telephone and cable bills, taxi and bus rides, airline tickets will go through the roof, and on and on.

Overall, Obama showed a remarkable disdain for the truth in his speech, even for a politician. Not just getting the inventor of the automobile wrong, he larded his speech with lies and distortions throughout. That's not a good sign of what we can expect from him as this recession settles in.

Where will this all lead us? In two years we can guess at the electoral outcome, but I wonder what our nation will look like by then. I will never forget the picture of democrats, absolutely giddy with glee as Obama announced the breadth of his agenda Tuesday night. I wonder if they have gone mad, or is it that they have no shame? Their agenda has been bottled up since 1981 and the Reagan administration. Could it be that they have been anticipating this moment of power so long that they have taken leave of their senses? Only time will tell. As David Broder ends his piece, "When we elected Obama, we didn't know what a gambler we were getting."

Taxes Going Up

Taxes Going Up

Rare honesty from the New York Times. As they conclude:

Americans have made it clear that they want a certain kind of government, one that can field a strong military and also maintain popular programs like Medicare. Yet we are not paying nearly enough taxes to maintain those programs. Even major changes to the health care system — the single most important step for closing the budget gap — will not close it entirely. Taxes must rise, too.

They make a weak excuse:

Think of it this way: A tax increase isn’t so much a barrier to a society becoming richer as it is a result of a society becoming richer.

So there it is. Your taxes will definitely go up because democrats and their leader, Barry Obama, will make it happen, and they blame US for wanting the things they will push upon us. That simple.

Global Warming Advocates Making it Up Again

What with ten years with no warming, and a couple of years of cooling, the current apparent climate is providing nothing to help move the government to increase grants and Universities to expand their departments, so the AGW parasites have started to make things up. First they pretended that a mass of ice in Antarctica was missing, but they were forced to take it back. Now we have this in today's news

Antarctic glaciers are melting faster across a much wider area than previously thought, scientists said Wednesday — a development that could lead to an unprecedented rise in sea levels.

A report by thousands of scientists for the 2007-2008 International Polar Year concluded that the western part of the continent is warming up, not just the Antarctic Peninsula.

Sounds bad, right? But this report does not pass the smell test. their major finding is

The biggest west Antarctic glacier, the Pine Island Glacier, is moving 40 percent faster than it was in the 1970s, discharging water and ice more rapidly into the ocean, Summerhayes said. The Smith Glacier, also in west Antarctica, is moving 83 percent faster than it did in 1992, he said.

But where do they get those "1970s" and "1992" numbers when the GPS technology to measure this has only recently been deployed? But even liars such as these have some respect for the truth, so they say things like

"There's some people who fear that this is the first signs of an incipient collapse of the west Antarctic ice sheet," Summerhayes said.

The "first signs" of "incipient." That's redundant, and therefore meaningless. They admit that temperatures in Antarctica average 50 degrees below zero, so global warming could not be the cause of whatever it is that is happening there. Then they like to say things like this:

Antarctica's average annual temperature has increased by about 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.56 degrees Celsius) since 1957, but is still 50 degrees Fahrenheit (45.6 degrees Celsius) below zero, according to a recent study by Eric Steig of the University of Washington.

and this:

Summerhayes said sea levels will rise faster than predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a group set up by the United Nations.

But he never mentions that global sea levels have risen by exactly zero so far, and the 1990 IPCC report models had sea levels rising by quite a bit by now, and that hasn't happened either.

So they go down to the South Pole every year, spending money doled out to them for previous gloomy scenarios, and they find more doom and gloom to report. The glaciers are moving faster, they say, but they have no idea why. They figure that it must be due to lower snowfall, since temperature is not really down enough to make any difference. We are expected to merely read the headlines, and pray that the geniuses in congress will bail us out of this terrible catastrophe in the making.

In other words, business as usual in the ECO global warming fraud.

Reality on Afghanistan

Reality on Afghanistan

I love Afghanistan and its people, I really do, but I love my own country more. We need to get realistic about what can and what can not be accomplished there. We are currently engaged in a conflict that we can not win, in fact we do not even know what victory might look like if we achieved it. We certainly have been offered no strategic vision of what the end game might be.

The ever reliable Ralph Peters describes the options we have before us in Afghanistan, and his suggestion of which to pursue, in today's USA Today. The options, as Peters sees them:

Ranked from best to worst, here are our four basic options going forward:

• Best. Instead of increasing the U.S. military "footprint," reduce our forces and those of NATO by two-thirds, maintaining a "mother ship" at Bagram Air Base and a few satellite bases from which special operations troops, aircraft and drones, and lean conventional forces would strike terrorists and support Afghan factions with whom we share common enemies. All resupply for our military could be done by air, if necessary.

Stop pretending Afghanistan's a real state. Freeze development efforts. Ignore the opium. Kill the fanatics.

• Good. Leave entirely. Strike terrorist targets from over the horizon and launch punitive raids when necessary. Instead of facing another Vietnam ourselves, let Afghanistan become a Vietnam for Iran and Pakistan. Rebuild our military at home, renewing our strategic capabilities.

• Poor. Continue to muddle through as is, accepting that achieving any meaningful change in Afghanistan is a generational commitment. Surge troops for specific missions, but not permanently.

• Worst. Augment our forces endlessly and increase aid in the absence of a strategy. Lie to ourselves that good things might just happen. Let U.S. troops and Afghans continue to die for empty rhetoric, while Pakistan decays into a vast terrorist refuge.

For the rest, read the whole thing. Note that Peters offers no advice to the president on how to accomplish this strategic realignment. Obama campaigned on ending the war in Iraq and beefing up the effort in Afghanistan. The Iraq occupation is resolving itself, but Afghanistan will offer the president no such easy option. The peace-at-any-cost crowd will be behind any military retrenchment, especially in Afghanistan. The left side of his party is already making noise about how he should pull out, so the republicans will make quite a noise if he appears to accede to their wishes. He would be accused of claiming to buttress our effort in Afghanistan as a campaign ploy that he finds disposable.

Obama is learning that campaign mode, where he could conform his message to his audience, does not work when in office, where any decision is clear for all to see. This is not an easy job, being president, and it will not get easier for him. Difficult choices must be made, but no matter what he does in Afghanistan, he will be wrong in the eyes of a tremendous number of Americans. But even doing nothing is a decision to be made. Whatever he does, it is better done sooner rather than later.

Entrepreneurs Beware

Entrepreneurs Beware

The effect of democrat control of two thirds of our government are becoming more clear, as we can now compare their campaign promises to their actions in office. They clearly want to give "workers" more and "the rich" less. This is the class envy game writ large. Before these were ideas they argued for in their attempt to achieve power during the campaign. But these actions have already taken effect in some areas, thus the result of these policies are predictable. Detroit has already lost half its population. And if you think unions are bad, just wait and see what happens if democrats put through their "living wage" proposal. I am surprised they did not put it into the fraudulus already.

Democrats clearly value entrepreneurship so low since they assume that economic activity is a zero sum game - less for "the rich" will mean more for "the people" as if overall economic activity will remain the same when entrepreneurs are rewarded at a lower rate. They downplay the element of risk, and the willingness top take risk, in the formation of capital and companies.

It is not supply/demand that creates companies, it is risk/reward. If demand is there but entrepreneurial achievement is less likely, then a few giant bureaucrat-friendly companies will do all the business and the rest will go out of business. Many niche demands will not be met, but what the heck, democrats do not look that far into the future anyway. And who needs so many brands of bread or cars anyway?

This is not socialism, it is fascism. The fascist state finds it more convenient to deal with a few huge corporations instead of all these little greedy entrepreneurs. Look at California today - it is a harbinger of the future democrat/fascist Amerika. We the People get less and less even as Nancy gets a bigger jet and The Won keeps his office at eighty degrees - it is happening already.

Rat Board Cometh, Politics Trumps Ethics

Rat Board Cometh, Politics Trumps Ethics

President Obama has revealed himself once again, by forcing inclusion of the "Rat Board," or the "Recovery Accountability and Transparency Board" into his fraudulus bill. The purpose of this new institution is to give Obama control over investigations instituted by Inspectors general. In the words of Byron York the new chief political correspondent of the DC Examiner:

Congress has given the RAT Board the authority to ask “that an inspector general conduct or refrain from conducting an audit or investigation.” If the inspector general doesn’t want to follow the wishes of the RAT Board, he’ll have to write a report explaining his decision to the board, as well as to the head of his agency (from whom he is supposedly independent) and to Congress. In the end, a determined inspector general can probably get his way, but only after jumping through bureaucratic hoops that will inevitably make him hesitate to go forward.

I am especially concerned with that "or refrain from conducting" bit. How in the world would refraining from an investigation enforce transparency? Why would the administration demand the midnight inclusion of such a travesty into his "stimulus?"

Only Nixon would have demanded such power. Obama has no shame. It is up to us to hold his feet to the fire. This board is now the law. We need to make noise until this bald faced power grab is repealed.

Patton Boggs

Patton Boggs

Patton Boggs is an international law firm concentrating in global business and trade since 1962. Their website is here.

Here is the link to their "Patton Boggs Economic Stimulus Analysis". It analyzes the fraudulus bill, in very specific and technical, detailed terms. This is the best explanation of the entire bill I have seen yet (.pdf)

They have committed to keep this analysis and other efforts by the Obama administration to destroy individual liberty current. That's a big job. After all, a trillion dollar bill of a thousand pages represents one billion dollars per page. That takes a lot of analysis!

A Little Bit of Climate Fact

A Little Bit of Climate Fact

In the rush to lock in budgets and restrictions on human activities before the fraud is obvious to all, Greenies meet and discuss their cherry picked "facts" about global climate. In an essay by Dutch journalist Karel Beckman called 'Confessions of a Climate Doubter' that has been published in the 'European Energy Review' the following facts are discussed:

The Prime Minister of the Pacific Island of Tuvalu calls global warming a ‘slow and insidious form of terrorism against us’, but you would not know from going to a COP conference that sea levels at Tuvalu have not risen for at least 35 years. You would not know that according to the Swedish sea level specialist Nils-Axel Mörner, there is no long-term trend in global sea level whatsoever, or that according to generally accepted research, there has been no accelerated rise in sea levels as a result of global warming. You would not know that the number of droughts has decreased rather than increased in the world over the past century. You would not know that coastlines are not shrinking; that Antarctic ice is not melting; that some glaciers are melting but others are advancing; that the number and strength of hurricanes has not increased; that polar bears are not being threatened; that sub- Saharan Africa has been subject to droughts for many centuries and it is hard to find any trends in the occurrence of droughts there; that more people die because of cold winters than of hot summers; that climate is not a factor in the spread of malaria; etcetera, etcetera. Indeed, you would not know that on December 11, 2008, the one but last day of the Poznan conference, the US Senate Environment and Public Works Committee put out a report announcing that ‘more than 650 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims’, including some highly respected scientists from prestigious institutions. Those are the inconvenient truths that the climate change advocates prefer to ignore.

Zero Base thinkers do not ignore inconvenient facts. They consider the evidence as it becomes available, and they change their beliefs when new facts make former "truth" to be incorrect. There are far too few zero base thinkers in the world of climate hysteria.

Gaming the Climate Change Bureaucracy

Gaming the Climate Change Bureaucracy

In an article from Associated Press, no slacker when it comes to fanning climate change hysteria, it is revealed that Chinese authorities are gaming the system set up to transfer funds from European polluters to third world developers. A taste or the article:

Similar stories are repeated across China and elsewhere around the world, as hundreds of hydro projects line up for carbon credits, at a potential cost of billions to Europeans, Japanese and soon perhaps Americans, in a trading system a new U.S. government review concludes has "uncertain effects" on greenhouse-gas emissions.

One American expert is more blunt.

"The CDM" — the 4-year-old, U.N.-managed Clean Development Mechanism — "is an excessive subsidy that represents a massive waste of developed world resources," says Stanford University's Michael Wara.

It seems that projects that have been on the books for years are being represented as new carbon efforts in order to tap into the generous guilt-amelioration program. Clearly things are getting out of hand if even climate alarmists see the flaws in parts of the system. Soon we may see the bloom come off this rose, as the evidence of this massive fraud become too great to sweep under the rug.

A great video from Fred Thompson, who might have made a good president. At the very least he would have given The Won more of a run for his money.

Anyway, watch the video. It is funny in a scary sort of way, and will provide food for thought.

Understanding Americanism

Understanding Americanism

A video that purports to be informative, but ends up being disturbing, describes the system of government we have, and the pitfalls we are facing. Nothing more I can say, other than to recommend that you watch it.

The video quotes Benjamin Franklin at the very end: "we can keep our republic, or we we will inevitably end up with an oligarchy, a tyranny of the elite".

True Cost of the Fraudulus

True Cost of the Fraudulus

Heritage has posted a writeup of the House-Senate compromise on the Fraudulus bill and it is a shocker:

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the impact of permanently extending the 20 most popular provisions of the stimulus bill. What did the CBO find? As you can see from the table below, the true 10 year cost of the stimulus bill $2.527 trillion in spending with another $744 billion cost in debt servicing. Total bill for the Generational Theft Act: $3.27 trillion

I am speechless, not at the fraud of the congress and Obama, but at the media for keeping this hidden. This has passed insane and gone into criminal. I don’t know how to express in words how enraged I am. I’m having a hard time not personally blaming everyone I know who voted for Obama. This is inexcusable. This is disgusting.

And, for those who like to read the label on the rope before the hangman pulls the lever, the text of the conference report on the Generational Theft Act is finally available.

And, just in case you are not depressed enough, here is more from Tom Coburn's website:

Wasteful and Non-Stimulative Spending in the House-Senate Conference Report (Note: Many of these items are typically debated and funded through the regular budget process. Including these items in an emergency “stimulus” spending bill plays an Enron-style shell game with taxpayer dollars. We’re borrowing from the next generation to avoid tough budget choices today.)
• $8 billion for high-speed railway (including an earmark for an Los Angeles to Las Vegas MagLev)
• $1 billion for the “FutureGen” not-ready-for-primetime near zero emission plant in Illinois
• $53.6 billion for the “state stabilization” slush fund
• $1.3 billion for Amtrak
• $24 million for USDA buildings and rent
• $176 million for renovating Agricultural Research Service buildings
• $290 million for flood prevention activities
• $50 million for watershed rehabilitation
• $1.4 billion for wastewater disposal programs
• $295 million for administrative expenses associated with food stamp program
• $1 billion for the 2010 Census
• $200 million for public computer centers at community colleges and libraries
• $650 million for the DTV converter box coupon program
• $360 million for construction of NIST buildings
• $830 million for NOAA research and facilities
• $2 billion for Byrne JAG program
• $10 million to combat Mexican gunrunners
• $125 million for rural communities to combat drug crimes
• $1 billion for the COPS program
• $1 billion for NASA
• $300 million to purchase scientific instruments for colleges and museums
• $400 million for equipment and facilities at the NSF
• $3.7 billion to conduct "green" renovations on military bases
• $375 million for Mississippi River projects
• $10 million for urban canals
• $5 billion for weatherizing buildings
• $2 billion to develop advanced batteries for hybrid cars
• $3.4 billion for fossil energy research (possibly including an earmark for FutureGen)
• $5.1 billion for environmental cleanup around military bases
• $5.5 billion for "green" federal buildings
• $300 million for "green" cars for federal employees
• $20 million for IT upgrades at the Small Business Administration
• $200 million to design and furnish DHS headquarters
• $210 million for State and local fire stations
• $125 million to restore trails and abandoned mines
• $146 million for trail maintenance at National Park Service sites
• $140 million for volcano monitoring systems
• $600 million for the EPA Superfund environmental cleanup program
• $200 million to clean up leaking underground storage tanks
• $500 million for forest health and wildfire prevention
• $25 million for the Smithsonian Institution
• $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts
• $1.2 billion for "youth activities" (for "youth" up to 24 years old)
• $500 million earmark for NIH facilities in Bethesda, MD
• $1 billion for Head Start
• $32 million for home-delivered nutrition services
• $160 million for volunteer programs at the Corporation for National and Community Service
• $500 million earmark for the SSA National Computer Center in MD
• $220 million for the International Boundary and Water Commission, U.S. and Mexico