Fire Hydrant of Freedom

Rachel wrote:  "GM-- This is the third or fourth time you have posted a poorly sourced smear regarding  Obama and Israel . "

From my observations so far, even quoting Barack Obama from the campaign, the debates or positions posted on his campaign website would also not be reliable sources for predicting what Obama would do as President.

Why would he meet freely with the leaders of Iran but not have 'low level contacts' with Hamas.

I went to post India's evidence against Pakistan and saw that GM already got to it 2 days ago.  Again:  http://www.hindu.com/nic/dossier.htm

Here are a few excerpts from intercepted telephone conversations between the terrorists and their handlers in Pakistan that gives a good feel for the outside coordination of the terrorists - from powerlineblog.com.  Highly recommended reading if you want a glimpse inside their warped minds.
-----------------------------

    Caller [to the terrorists in the Taj Majal Hotel]: Greetings! There are three Ministers and one Secretary of the Cabinet in your hotel. We don't know in which room.

    Receiver: Oh! That is good news! It is the icing on the cake.

    Caller: Find those 3-4 persons and then get whatever you want from India.

    Receiver: Pray that we find them.

    Caller: Do one thing. Throw one or two grenades on the Navy and police teams, which are outside.

This one is between a Pakistani controller and one of the terrorists who attacked Chabad House:

    Caller: Greetings. What did the Major General say?

    Receiver: Greetings. The Major General directed us to do what we like. We should not worry. The operation has to be concluded tomorrow morning. Pray to God. Keep two magazines and three grenades aside, and expend the rest of your ammunition.

This one is between a terrorist at the Oberoi Hotel and a Pakistani handler:

    Caller: Brother Abdul. The media is comparing your action to 9/11. One senior police officer has been killed.

    Abdul Rehman: We are on the 10th/11th floor. We have five hostages.

    Caller 2 (Kafa): Everything is being recorded by the media. Inflict the maximum damage. Keep fighting. Don't be taken alive.

    Caller: Kill all hostages, except the two Muslims. Keep your phone switched on so that we can hear the gunfire.

    Fahadullah: We have three foreigners including women. From Singapore and China.

    Caller: Kill them.

    (Voices of Fahadullah and Abdul Rehman directing hostages to stand in a line, and telling two Muslims to stand aside. Sound of gunfire. Cheering voices heard in background.)

From the Taj Mahal Hotel:

    Caller: How many hostages do you have?

    Receiver: We have one from Belgium. We have killed him. There was one chap from Bangalore. He could be controlled only with a lot of effort.

    Caller: I hope there is no Muslim amongst them?

    Receiver: No, none.

Finally, this conversation between a terrorist at Chabad House and his superior in Pakistan:

    Wassi: Keep in mind that the hostages are of use only as long as you do not come under fire because of their safety. If you are still threatened, then don't saddle yourself with the burden of the hostages, immediately kill them.

    Receiver: Yes, we shall do accordingly, God willing.

    Wassi: The Army claims to have done the work without any hostage being harmed. Another thing; Israel has made a request through diplomatic channels to save the hostages. If the hostages are killed, it will spoil relations between India and Israel.

    Receiver: So be it, God willing.

------
I'm sure there must be some good reason why the evil incarnate that was revealed in the Mumbai attack, and the information that has emerged subsequently about Pakistan's role in it, did not give rise to world-wide protests and demonstrations. Offhand, though, I can't think what it might be.  - John Hinderacker, Powerline

The behavior of Russia is very strange.  This is certainly a reminder that no one should rely on enemies or even unreliable friends for things that are life-sustaining or in this case sovereignty-sustaining.

I've long had a theory that Saudi will not cut off oil supply because that also necessarily means closing their cash register, and China will not destroy our currency because they the are heavily invested.  Yet at a time when Russia's asset values and cash flows have imploded, they cut off their own arm in what is obviously some form of warfare that goes beyond economic.  As in the case of strange behavior before the Georgia invasion, I assume that something dramatic from Russia follows this, I think regardless of whether their demands are met.

They said the Georgia aggression was timed with the distraction of the Olympics and this perhaps timed maybe to the transition distraction in the U.S. but mostly to winter and unrest at home in Russia.

I don't see how an act of war draws now-sovereign nations to want to re-join them.  Living in a cold climate, we have survived price spikes with heating gas and very short outages with electricity but I can't remember a natural gas interruption in my lifetime.  The pipeline has constant pressure.

Too bad that we are in no position to help those countries with energy... or security.  I suppose it is too far to ship coal and our leftist electorate won't let us produce more energy anyway.  Still I wonder what a U.S. or world response should be.  At the very least this rogue nation should be removed immediately from the security council and wishfully from the UN.  If the charter does not allow removal of a 'permanent' member then it is a good time IMO to form a new group - and be a little more selective this time.

Crafty wrote: "Marginal tax rates IMHO are a matter of the deepest import."

 - Absolutely true and people like Bush, McCain, even Palin forget or don't understand the other key words besides tax - 'marginal' and 'rate'.  It isn't (just) taxes - the money - they take, it's the incentive to produce that gets badly eroded.

I wrote that the coming revolt should be based on limits on spending and limits on government based on my view of where the electorate might be.  The bailouts and slush funds going into the trillions aren't wearing well on the people IMO.  I still agree that marginal tax rates are extremely important.  But marginal rates today are not where Reagan found them so the opportunity to cut further and the political opportunity to get a groundswell of support for that is smaller.  OTOH, opposing increases in marginal tax rates is hugely important.  I believe that just Obama's INTENT to raise investment taxes was one big factor in the asset selloff that collapsed values of everything from real estate to stocks, to bonds, to commodities, to money.

Cheney once said something like 'deficits don't matter'...

 - I take that to be a partial sentence or partial thought, like getting Osama bin Laden is not important, meaning that it is not the only thing, the main thing or the first thing.  It is still important!

Cheney was alleged to say in a policy argument that "Reagan proved that deficits don't matter".  That was a quote comes from the writer who took it from an interview from the recollection of the person who was arguing tax cut proposals with Cheney, who also admitted they were interrupting each other, Paul O'Neill the former Treasury Secretary and a book about his service by Ron Suskind.  The quote is also suspiciously provocative, as if to sell books, even if it might be exact or close to what was actually said.  In fact, revenues again surged at double digit rates when the marginal tax rates were cut, surpassing CBO projections by hundreds of billions of dollars, and again th deficits were caused by excess spending.  There is no indication that growth ended before the first phase-out of the 'temporary' cuts started Jan. 1 2008.  Also growth did not end until investors and producers could see that the likelihood of tax cuts expiring was imminent and inevitable.

What Cheney should have said and I believe has said on explanation was that deficits in the 1980s did NOT have ANY of the effects on the economy that were predicted.  In fact, interest rates and inflation both fell during that time.  It did not crowd out private borrowing because we had a simultaneous explosion of growth.  The cutting of marginal tax rates did NOT cause the deficits.  Across the board tax cuts in the early 1980s resulted in revenues to the Treasury DOUBLING in the 1980s.  The deficits were caused by excess spending in the form of a) compromises that Reagan had to make with a Democratic congress on domestic spending and caused by b) increased defense spending that was needed to bring down the Soviet empire, a worthwhile endeavor.

Deficits do matter.  As CCP correctly points out they put a burden on the budget for interest costs and a burden on taxpayers of future years that carry the debt forward.  

But deficits aren't the first thing in economic importance.  As Crafty correctly points out, public spending takes resources away from the private sector and creates a burden whether you tax to pay for it or you borrow or you print the money.  Bloated public sector spending is a burden holding back growth whether you tax, borrow or inflate.  What people like Cheney or Gilder might point out is that a public sector taking half the resources of the economy using pay as you go and a zero deficit is a much larger burden on the economy than having the public sector take 20% of the resources but running a deficit at 1% of GDP.  Gilder has made that point saying you could have a zero tax rate, but that IMO is for illustration and absurd in practice.  I think all sides at least say we want to minimize borrowing and avoid runaway inflation.

'Debt is Good'.  It means that you can do more and go further if you are not totally restrained by the timing of income and outflows of funds.  That doesn't mean more debt is better or that what you invest in doesn't matter.  Most families take on debt to live in a home while they pay for it.  Alternatively, they could wait until accumulating 200k for a median home and then buy it.  By then most families won't need the yard or the swingset because the kids will be turning 50.  Same goes for a bridge over the Mississippi River and all the other public sector infrastructure projects that we need.  We could tax now, put away the money and build the bridges later when we have all the money.  Meanwhile, no one can reasonably commute across the river.  Goods don't move and goods don't get sold across the river, etc.  If we waited to pay for defense spending we might be speaking a Soviet language by now.  Debt, properly used and structured, can be good.

Corruption and cronyism in Chicago probably deserves its own topic but I'll just throw this in rants.

http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/1365268,CST-NWS-inspect07.article

 Chicago Public Schools' cappuccino bill: $67,000
'A WASTE OF MONEY' | Report says staffers skirted rules to buy 30 coffeemakers, changed athletes' grades, falsified addresses

January 7, 2009

BY ART GOLAB Staff Reporter agolab@suntimes.com

Chicago public school bureaucrats skirted competitive bidding rules to buy 30 cappuccino/espresso machines for $67,000, with most of the machines going unused because the schools they were ordered for had not asked for them, according to a report by the CPS Office of Inspector General.

That was just one example of questionable CPS actions detailed in the inspector general's 2008 annual report. Others included high school staffers changing grades to pump up transcripts of student athletes and workers at a restricted-enrollment grade school falsifying addresses to get relatives admitted.

In the case of the cappuccino machines, central office administrators split the order among 21 vocational schools to avoid competitive bidding required for purchases over $10,000. As a result CPS paid about $12,000 too much, according to Inspector General James Sullivan. "We were able to find the same machines cheaper online," he said.

"We also look at it as a waste of money because the schools didn't even know they were getting the equipment, schools didn't know how to use the machines and weren't prepared to implement them into the curriculum," Sullivan said.

CPS spokesman Michael Vaughn said CPS plans to change its purchasing policy so that competitive bidding kicks in when a vendor accumulates $10,000 worth of orders, no matter how many schools are involved. One person was fired and disciplinary action is pending against three others, he said.

The grade-changing took place at an unidentified high school, where student athletes grades were boosted, then, after transcripts were issued for college admission offices, the grades were changed back. The culprits could not be identified because passwords allowing entry to the grading system were shared by a number of people, Sullivan said. A new record system has tighter security, he said.

At Carson Elementary, an overcrowded school in Gage Park where even neighborhood kids were restricted from enrolling, five lower- level employees got six relatives into the school by falsifying addresses. Sixty-nine students from outside the attendance area got in, but they didn't even bother to lie about their addresses. CPS had to spend as much as $252,000 to bus kids who live in the neighborhood to other schools, Sullivan said.

Vaughn said the employees involved have resigned, been fired or will be fired.

While we wait for Al Gore's apology and while my email fills with cold weather warnings for my daughter's ski race this weekend- must take note that the dog sled races are canceled due to too much snow, lol. Not just that it's too much snow, but it has been so cold that the snow is too cold, too light, and too fluffy to pack on the trails.  I don't remember that prediction in the movie...

http://www.bemidjipioneer.com/articles/index.cfm?id=20594&section=News
How's this for odd? Minnesota sled dog race canceled because of too much snow
Patrick Springer, Forum Communications, Bemidji Pioneer
Published Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Here’s another entry for the annals of noteworthy winter weather: The dogsled race near Frazee, Minn., has been canceled because there’s too much snow.

Too much fluffy snow that keeps drifting and therefore made it impossible to maintain a groomed trail.

That poses a safety risk to the dogs, supercharged canines whose mushers need a groomed trail to drop a hook to stop when necessary.

“We can’t pack it,” race organizer Eddy Streeper said Monday. “We just can’t get it packed. We had to speak up on behalf of the dogs.”

The Third Crossing Sled Dog Rendezvous, slated for Jan. 23-24, would have been the ninth annual running of the sprint races, which twice were canceled for lack of snow.

This winter, as anyone with a driveway knows, has been a season of prodigious snows.

The Frazee area has received about 3 feet of snow, but winds keep creating drifts of 4 feet or more over the course, which was to host races of four to 14 miles.

“The drifting aspect is just unbelievable,” said Streeper, a native of Canada who has been involved with dogsled racing for 25 years. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

The National Weather Service doesn’t tally snow accumulations and moisture content for Frazee. But snowfalls in Fargo, 54 miles to the northwest, have totaled 39.3 inches since October, with 2.37 liquid inches.  That translates into a moisture content of 6 percent – snow is considered wet at around 30 percent to 35 percent. That dry, fluffy snow is just too deep.

Cancellation of the dog races is a blow to Frazee, population 1,374. Last year’s two-day event drew 2,000 to 3,000 spectators, and contestants come from as far as Alaska, five Canadian provinces and five or six states.  “This is the NASCAR of sled-dogging, the sprint ones,” said Gale Kaas, Frazee Sled Dog Club secretary.

Done appointing moderates? Yasser Arafat was a "peace partner"
---------------------------------------
Dennis Ross and diplomacy-derangement syndrome

January 7, 2009  Paul Mirengoff http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2009/01/022493.php

Marc Ambinder reports that Barack Obama will make Dennis Ross his "chief emissary" to Iran. This strikes me as bad, though hardly surprising, news.

Ross' presents himself as reasonable and moderate in his writings and television appearances. But in social settings, when the cameras are off, he can come across quite differently. In such a setting, I heard him say of Hurricane Katrina that people already think we don't care about the rest of the world and now it turns out that we don't care about our own people either. This kind of vicious, stupid remark is the stuff of left-wing bloggers, not U.S. "emissaries."

But my main objection to Ross isn't Bush-derangement syndrome, but rather diplomacy-derangement syndrome. By this I mean boundless faith in diplomacy which, when possessed by a diplomat, probably reflects boundless faith in himself.

For roughly a decade, Ross persisted against all the evidence in believing that Yasser Arafat was a "peace partner" with whom Israel and the U.S. should negotiate and to whom Israel should make concessions. If Ross could believe this, the odds aren't terribly long that he believes, or will come to believe, that negotiations with, and concessions to, Ahmadinejad (as evil as Arafat and even more dangerous) and the Iranian regime are just what the doctor ordered.

At that point, for diplomats with diplomacy-derangement syndrome, "getting to yes" can easily become an imperative, without serious regard to the cost of getting there or what (if any) the actual benefits of "yes" may be. The resulting mischief is likely to be great, as was the case for Israel the last time Ross was an "emissary."

Quoting CCP: "It's too bad they won't have another election with the two front runners and without the third party candidate to decide a contested election like this."

I don't favor automatic runoff proposals where the minor party voters can name a second choice for a second count, but in this situation you are right.  The recount panel should have declared with certainty that the errors in this process are greater than the ever-changing lead.

Still I don't agree with leaving out the 3rd guy on a re-vote.  I think his vote percentage and chance of winning only go up as Minnesotans grow tired of both of these New Yorkers.  As I see it, the Coleman vote is mostly an anti-Franken vote and the Franken vote is mostly an anti-Republican vote.  Barkley's message was to blame both parties for the tone of campaigns and the mess that we are in - a message that couldn't be better aimed or timed.  Dean Barkley served as senator in this seat for about a minute - 6 years ago, appointed by Jesse Ventura after Paul Wellstone died, Walter Mondale lost and Norm Coleman waited to be sworn in.

"Franken [kept] demanding recounts after recounts until they can come up with a total that puts him ahead and then suddenly the process is over and the Democratic machine [declared] him the winner."

Like Florida, they always look harder for votes in the areas known to be liberal.  They found ballots in trunks of cars and they 'recounted duplicates' where no originals exist.  If they needed more they were ready to look in Sandy Berger's briefs.  All but one update I think had Franken gaining.  Amazingly with all ballots opened, found or read with a crystal ball, there were no additions to the other totals such as third party candidate who had an impressive 15% to begin with, and no corrections or updates on any other race.

Perhaps this race was lost when the voters removed a perfectly good, fair, competent and scandal-free Secretary of State, Mary Kiffmeyer, and put in the move-on-dot-org replacement in an expensive, energetic and needlessly vicious battle on an off-year.  The new Secretary of State made himself the tie-breaking vote on the balanced recount panel.  Go figure.

Now they have the total vote margin just higher than each of the shenanigans that led to the shift in the lead so that any one court ruling will not change the result.
---

My proposal is extreme, but effective.  Since elections are a form of counting heads, in the spirit of sharia law I propose that we behead those guilty of election fraud.  Then when we count again or vote again we won't mistakenly include them.

Thanks BBG.  Each study and each story that questions the myth that humans have played the central role in climate change seems like it should be categorized a media issue more than a scientific breakthrough, always begging the question: why won't NY Times etc. cover this? Now the Huffington Post actually prints it and my reaction again is to wonder about the site - are they in search of honesty and balance or did this slide through on a weekend by accident?

The reaction of course should be that this is further evidence of great news.  The planet is alive and well.  There is no warming where I live and no warming on Antarctica.  Everytime we find alarming temperature data we also find that someone with an agenda has tweaked the data.

As the author indicates, when propogandists alarm at ice melting in one place, they neglect to mention record ice masses at another.  It's refreshing to read a straight story.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/3982101/2008-was-the-year-man-made-global-warming-was-disproved.html

2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved

By Christopher Booker
Last Updated: 10:59AM GMT 28 Dec 2008

Looking back over my columns of the past 12 months, one of their major themes was neatly encapsulated by two recent items from The Daily Telegraph.

The first, on May 21, headed "Climate change threat to Alpine ski resorts" , reported that the entire Alpine "winter sports industry" could soon "grind to a halt for lack of snow". The second, on December 19, headed "The Alps have best snow conditions in a generation" , reported that this winter's Alpine snowfalls "look set to beat all records by New Year's Day".

Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects.

First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare. Last winter, as temperatures plummeted, many parts of the world had snowfalls on a scale not seen for decades. This winter, with the whole of Canada and half the US under snow, looks likely to be even worse. After several years flatlining, global temperatures have dropped sharply enough to cancel out much of their net rise in the 20th century.

Ever shriller and more frantic has become the insistence of the warmists, cheered on by their army of media groupies such as the BBC, that the last 10 years have been the "hottest in history" and that the North Pole would soon be ice-free – as the poles remain defiantly icebound and those polar bears fail to drown. All those hysterical predictions that we are seeing more droughts and hurricanes than ever before have infuriatingly failed to materialise.

Even the more cautious scientific acolytes of the official orthodoxy now admit that, thanks to "natural factors" such as ocean currents, temperatures have failed to rise as predicted (although they plaintively assure us that this cooling effect is merely "masking the underlying warming trend", and that the temperature rise will resume worse than ever by the middle of the next decade).

Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.

Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.

Suddenly it has become rather less appealing that we should divert trillions of dollars, pounds and euros into the fantasy that we could reduce emissions of carbon dioxide by 80 per cent. All those grandiose projects for "emissions trading", "carbon capture", building tens of thousands more useless wind turbines, switching vast areas of farmland from producing food to "biofuels", are being exposed as no more than enormously damaging and futile gestures, costing astronomic sums we no longer possess.

As 2009 dawns, it is time we in Britain faced up to the genuine crisis now fast approaching from the fact that – unless we get on very soon with building enough proper power stations to fill our looming "energy gap" - within a few years our lights will go out and what remains of our economy will judder to a halt. After years of infantile displacement activity, it is high time our politicians – along with those of the EU and President Obama's US – were brought back with a mighty jolt into contact with the real world.
   

Hard to compare a Kennedy with Sarah Palin. Besides the Alaska energy commission and the nation's largest state, what had she ever run...  Palin never inspired a Neil Diamond song.  Kind of creepy though, in 1969 Neil Diamond was pushing 30 and Caroline was going on 12.

"Who'd believe you'd come along -
Hands, touching hands, reaching out
Touching me, touching you
Oh, sweet Caroline"

Start this by noting Crafty's reference to Jude Wanniski's book and Guiness' Nov. post regarding 5 myths of the great depression.  I heard a television commentator, I think it was an Obama adviser, saying that the reason the great depression won't be repeated is because we don't suffer from the same economic ignorance of the 1920s-1930s...  I beg to differ.

This piece, "A tale of two pundits: Sowell v. Huffington" by Roger Kimball
http://www.pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/12/23/a-tale-of-two-pundits-sowell-v-huffington/?print=1
takes a look at 2 sides of an important argument.  He links and quotes Ariana Huffington who perpetuates the myth that the great depression was the result of the failure of free market capitalism.  Then he contrasts that with a counter-view from Thomas Sowell that the economy could have survived the financial crash if not for the blundering of the government policies that followed, perpetuating, worsening and deepening the economic damage.

So here we are again, trying in every way possible to block the market forces that strive to correct the prices of assets and allow the flow of resources to their most productive use.
-------------------------
December 23, 2008
Another Great Depression?
By Thomas Sowell

With both Barack Obama's supporters and the media looking forward to the new administration's policies being similar to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's policies during the 1930s depression, it may be useful to look at just what those policies were and-- more important-- what their consequences were.

The prevailing view in many quarters is that the stock market crash of 1929 was a failure of the free market that led to massive unemployment in the 1930s-- and that it was intervention of Roosevelt's New Deal policies that rescued the economy.

It is such a good story that it seems a pity to spoil it with facts. Yet there is something to be said for not repeating the catastrophes of the past.

Let's start at square one, with the stock market crash in October 1929. Was this what led to massive unemployment?

Official government statistics suggest otherwise. So do new statistics on unemployment by two current scholars, Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway, in their book "Out of Work."

The Vedder and Gallaway statistics allow us to follow unemployment month by month. They put the unemployment rate at 5 percent in November 1929, a month after the stock market crash. It hit 9 percent in December-- but then began a generally downward trend, subsiding to 6.3 percent in June 1930.

That was when the Smoot-Hawley tariffs were passed, against the advice of economists across the country, who warned of dire consequences.

Five months after the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, the unemployment rate hit double digits for the first time in the 1930s.

This was more than a year after the stock market crash. Moreover, the unemployment rate rose to even higher levels under both Presidents Herbert Hoover and Franklin D. Roosevelt, both of whom intervened in the economy on an unprecedented scale.

Before the Great Depression, it was not considered to be the business of the federal government to try to get the economy out of a depression. But the Smoot-Hawley tariff-- designed to save American jobs by restricting imports-- was one of Hoover's interventions, followed by even bigger interventions by FDR.

The rise in unemployment after the stock market crash of 1929 was a blip on the screen compared to the soaring unemployment rates reached later, after a series of government interventions.

For nearly three consecutive years, beginning in February 1932, the unemployment rate never fell below 20 percent for any month before January 1935, when it fell to 19.3 percent, according to the Vedder and Gallaway statistics.

In other words, the evidence suggests that it was not the "problem" of the financial crisis in 1929 that caused massive unemployment but politicians' attempted "solutions." Is that the history that we seem to be ready to repeat?

The stock market crash, which has been blamed for the widespread suffering during the Great Depression of the 1930s, created no unemployment rate that was even half of what was created in the wake of the government interventions of Hoover and FDR.

Politically, however, Franklin D. Roosevelt could not have been more successful. After all, he was the only President of the United States elected four times in a row. He was a master of political rhetoric.

If Barack Obama wants political success, following in the footsteps of FDR looks like the way to go. But people who are concerned about the economy need to take a closer look at history. We deserve something better than repeating the 1930s disasters.

There is yet another factor that provides a parallel to what happened during the Great Depression. No matter how much worse things got after government intervention under Roosevelt's New Deal policies, the party line was that he had to "do something" to get us out of the disaster created by the failure of the unregulated market and Hoover's "do nothing" policies.

Today, increasing numbers of scholars recognize that FDR's own policies were a further extension of interventions begun under Hoover. Moreover, the temporary rise in unemployment after the stock market crash was nowhere near the massive and long-lasting unemployment after government interventions.

Barack Obama already has his Herbert Hoover to blame for any and all disasters that his policies create: George W. Bush.

This could have gone under media matters or topics on the new administration, but I'll put it under humor because it is fiction/prediction.

Following link is a good spoof of the NY Times from NEXT July 4 reporting on the Obama world that we live in.

http://www.nytimes-se.com/

A few of the stories:

Iraq War Ends
    *
      World »
          o Last to Die in Battle Remembered, American and Iraqi
          o United Nations Unanimously Passes Weapons Ban
          o Court Indicts Bush on High Treason Charge
    *
      U.S. »
          o Education Department Plans National Tax Base for Schools
          o Crumbling Infrastructure Brings Opportunities
          o National Health Insurance Act Passes
         
    *
      Business »
          o Maximum Wage Law Passes Congress
          o Harvard Will Shut Business School Doors
          o Senate Gets Tough On “Limited Liability” to Rein in, Humanize Corporations
          o Biofuels Ban Act Signed Into Law, Seeks to Ease Food Shortage
         
         *
      Opinion »
          o Fog of Peace
          o Public Health Opportunities in Cuba
         
      Health »
          o National Health Insurance Act Passes
          o Pharmaceutical Law Revised to End Corruption
    *
      Education »
          o Education Department Plans National Tax Base for Schools
          o All Public Universities To Be Free
         

The story is about unrest, but it also brings to the forefront the contest between free trade versus 'protectionism'  that applies everywhere.  A story at the link tells of a consumer who won't be able to buy his dream (Japanese) car and concludes with: "Many Russians say they have a right to buy what they want on the free market and do not want to pay to support the Russian auto industry."

The protests in Vladivstok highlight the fact that jobs are tied to the trade business as well, as we see another case of government picking winners and losers. 

If you can't secure a competitive contract with your own workers, if you can't build a product that consumers want at competitive prices or if your business is not strong enough and flexible enough to survive a downturn, then go to the government and have them put a tax on your competitors or demand operating capital from the government - from the taxes paid by the workers of successful businesses - to put into the losing enterprise.  This could never happen in America... Oops.

I recommend the 50 page pdf at the link for a fact-filled rebuttal to the latest IPCC over-hype of man's role in climate change.  http://www.heartland.org/custom/semod_policybot/pdf/22835.pdf

I notice that I am about the only one that believes it was Obama that blew the whistle on the corrupt Gov, setting himself up to be the ethical hero of the century as he takes the oath.

It really is a no-brainer to me since he should be impeached if the facts turn out otherwise.

First, look at the interest in the MN recount here. It matters who becomes Senator, for every seat.

Who has the biggest interest in the Obama seat for continuity purposes? Obama.

Who has to work with the senators of his own party to get things done? The future Pres.

Who submitted a list of 'approved' candidates for the position??? Barack Obama.

Just having a list of approved applicants indicates that Obama believed he had a rightful and high place in the appointment decision process.

If all contact was done through his staff, it wasn't done randomly through his staff, like through the chef, housekeeper or valet car parker. It was through his Chief of Staff who was in CONSTANT contact with his boss and with the corrupt Gov.

If the corrupt Gov. Blag had demands, then who knew first? The person who had the greatest stake in the outcome, Barack Obama.

Everyone in power knows how to trade political favors and understands power brokering, but those who play the game smartest, hardest and best are most aware of the line that cannot be crossed. Obama fits the bill all the way, brokering deals with bill Richardson, Hillary, Daschle and who knows who else along the way. Really everyone he came in contact with in some way shape or form was offered something for what he wanted back, their support, their withdrawal, their money, etc. etc.

So Obama was keenly aware of exactly what was going on in the corrupt Gov's office and on his phone line, he is acutely aware of the limits of blatancy in horse trading and mutual back scratching, he was cut out of the process for not playing the game, and he is not exactly the type to give up easily and leave with his tail between his legs.

So Obama blew the whistle.

The result is that the appointment of a non-Obama-approved candidate was stopped in its tracks, the politician even and especially from his own party who wouldn't surrender his power had it taken from him along with his freedom, and the new kind of politics can ride into inauguration on a white horse, or mixed color horse as the case may be, as the hero of a new generation, and everyone in and around his new administration sees who is in charge as they contemplate their next four years of serving, leaking, backstabbing, selling, trading and self promoting.
   

A blathering politician with a flash at fame or a great President, Barack Obama faced his first test early.  If Obama's corrupt Gov. knew that Obama's team would not put out for the appointment for sale, then most likely or most certainly Obama, at least through his henchmen, knew his US Senate seat was for sale and knew it first.  The FBI got the wiretaps approved in late October.  If Obama was the one who blew the whistle, that will send a most powerful signal to all potential incoming administration members that none of this BS, like appointments, Lincoln bedrooms and pardon for sale, will be tolerated in his administration.

We will see.

The document is in perfect order because one person, the director of the Hawaii Dept. of Health has seen and verified it and so that's that.  I think JDN has it right that the will of the people has already been expressed, also that no real evidence otherwise exists and so the mortals of the court aren't going to go anywhere near this.

That said, I would find it to be a wonderful irony if this man who had his first opponent removed from a ballot for not having her documents in order found his own name removed from reelection in 2012 for the same reason, with real evidence and prior to the will of the people being expressed.

BBG - That was an excellent video.  I looked at his website and saw that he has a martial arts background.  Here is another video of his, Alfonso Rachel vs. a pretend Obama,  political debate mixed with fight scenes:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbW64215HA8

Rachel, I am amazed by your words and their implication, that it's not a life, not a minute before birth.  Sorry I don't see an analogy between willful killing (choice) and the quirk of God's creation that identical twins have identical genetic code and I don't understand comparing any other tragedy whether it is traffic accidents, earthquakes or miscarriages with willfully slaughtering your young.

"You are really arguing about souls not genes."   - Agree.  "Religiously we disagree." -   I don't think our core beliefs are much different; I think you aren't listening to yours.

"The born infant actually does not need a mother to survive" - My point related to a specific woman, and I attached the link.  She gave birth in private and you are wrong in this case -  THAT infant needed THAT mom to want her to live... just like all fetuses headed for abortion. 

I take from your writing that a 6th month or 24th week 'little one' who is killed on a contract from her mother to be an equal moral event to a sperm discarded without the opportunity to become a new life.  Like I said, I am amazed.  Would you ever acknowledge that a fetus partially developed is an amazing new life and deserves at least some benefit of a doubt of a chance with at least a little protection during gestation a day or two before the 3rd trimester?

Quoting Rachel: "Inside the mothers womb is a different issue altogether the baby can't survive without using great resources from the mother.  The unborn life can not be separated from the mothers life. A born infant  life can be separated from the mother."

 - Denial logic illustrated IMO. For as hard as people try to control the words that define this issue, that was quite a slip-up.  Stephen Breyer made that same error, accidentally referring to the woman carrying the unwanted cellular tissue in her womb a "mother".  Maybe she already had kids and that's why he referred to her as a mother, but how did he know that?  The woman is a mother of WHAT???  In your case you have referred to the fetus as  "the baby" AND the woman as "the mother".  Don't we all know that there is a life involved?

I don't think I'm smarter or more moral than you. I think you know at some level that it is a life and jump all around from rape and incest to 3rd trimesters, viability and identical twins to avoid facing that reality.

I remember hearing from a mother who took her daughter to a peaceful demonstration at an abortion clinic.  She was careful to explain to her daughter that although we believe the fetus is a life and deserving of protection, please don't disrespect the doctors at the clinic.  In their mind it is not the taking of a human life because they don't recognize the unborn as a live, human being.  To that, the daughter responded the obvious: " what else would it be?"  - Doug

"Barack Obama's choice of Hillary Clinton to be his Secretary of State is either a political master stroke, or a classic illustration of the signature self-confidence that will come back to haunt him. We're inclined toward the latter view, but then Mr. Obama is the one who has to live with her -- and her husband."

I think it was VDH who wrote before the election that the only people you see with this much confidence are Ivy League Sophomores, certainly not someone who has ever run a business.

I noticed in his Hillary intro that he took the opportunity to trivialize the sincerity of anything either may have uttered in the context of a contested campaign.  Don't confuse marketing with governing.  Saying what needed to be said to win votes doesn't mean he meant any of it.  Shame on the voters who thought otherwise.

JDN,  Thanks for replying.  I am alleging that the woman would not be prosecuted.  I don't know of any serious or winning politician that would prosecute the woman.  I gave the example of Sarah Palin who was asked that point blank in her ALaska Gubernatorial debate. She said no.  We restrict where you can put your car too, but we don't jail you.  I work in a licensed profession and I disagree with many of the regulations.  If I act badly or fail to act in certain situations, there is a process where I ultimately lose my license.  A doctor performing a prohibited procedure obviously could lose his license.  That is a heavy and costly consequence and one he is choosing in that situation.  That is NOT criminalization and it is NOT lockup.  Criminalize is not a vague term. I stand by my statement that criminalization is intentionally inflammatory.

JDN, is your state further red than South Dakota that recently voted down the abortion ban.  If not, you won't have to go anywhere to have an abortion if the highest court strikes down a wrongly reasoned decision and leaves the issue rightfully for the states and the people to decide.

Third trimester? Obama's point is in contradiction to his failure to support treatment for living abortion survivors.  Please quote, link or list any pro-abortion advocacy group that favor the restriction you quote from Obama: "he is against abortion during the third trimester unless the mother was in danger."  I know of none.

SB Mig: Interesting range of liberties.  Obviously a libertarian opposes government involvement in the matter - right up until the point where they recognize that the unborn involves a life.  I had that question about Libertarians and was pointed to the view of Ron Paul who I believe is pro-life.

Quoting the ending:"Murray Rothbard's position that "no being has a right to live, unbidden, as a parasite within or upon some person's body" and that therefore the woman has a right to eject the fetus."

As a landlord I find myself ejecting parasites from time to time, but they are entitled to their day in court and even if they lose in court I am not allowed to kill them on the way out.

A 3rd Bush term is what  Obama called a McCain Presidency.  But if Obama wants to delay all tax cuts and delay all tax increases, isn't he saying that the current Bush tax rates are JUST RIGHT!  Let's see what his new team says...  - Doug
-----

Obama’s Pro-Growth Economic Team?
A liberal-conservative consensus?

By Larry Kudlow

When President-elect Obama had a chance to squash the tax-hike threat once and for all at his news conference Monday, he took a pass and let the question linger for another day. But his new economic cabinet appointments strongly suggest there will be no tax hikes next year.

Stocks, for one, like what they’re seeing from Obama’s latest cabinet selections. On Friday, Obama announced Tim Geithner will be his Treasury man, and on Monday he made Larry Summers his White House economics tsar and named Christine Romer to the top spot in the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA). Stocks rallied 900 points across this stretch. That’s not the end of the stock story. Markets also like the new super-TARP government plan to bailout Citigroup, which effectively guarantees the banking system with a massive insurance-like policy. But markets may also sense a little pro-growth good news in the Obama policy mix.

When asked about tax hikes on Monday, Obama said the debate is between repeal and not-renewal. In other words, repeal the Bush tax cuts in 2009, thereby raising tax rates on capital gains and successful earners, or wait until the Bush tax cuts expire at the end of 2010. Investors want to hear the latter, and Mr. Obama said his team will make a recommendation.

Here’s my thought on his team. Summers, Geithner, and Romer will all recommend no tax hikes in a recession. Maybe for Keynesian reasons; maybe a nod to supply-siders. Obama talked about a liberal-conservative consensus. But what’s especially encouraging is the appointment of Ms. Romer, who easily could serve as CEA head in a Republican administration (just like Geithner could have been McCain’s Treasury man).

About a year and half ago economist Don Luskin sent me a long article about taxes by Christine and her husband David Romer, who were writing for the National Bureau of Economic Research. From the introduction: “The resulting estimates indicate that tax increases are highly contractionary. . . . The large effect stems in considerable part form a powerful negative effect of tax increases on investment.”

Later in the article, the Romers write: “In short, tax increases appear to have a very large, sustained, and highly significant negative impact on output.”

That’s what makes the Romer appointment so interesting. In fact, there is no question that Obama’s economic team is right of center. All three are market-oriented. They’re also pro-free-trade. Hopefully Summers and Geithner maintain the Robert Rubin King Dollar policy of the Clinton years. And if Ms. Romer can stop tax hikes, that will help the greenback even more.

At a minimum, both Romer and Geithner could have served under Gerald Ford or George H. W. Bush. But they may be more pro-growth than that. Romer’s study of the damage of tax hikes on the economy and her emphasis on investment are right on target. In a New York Times story, a former Treasury colleague of Geithner’s says, “he’s no liberal.” As for Summers, while he has been mau-maued by Democratic feminists and some of the unions, he is a tough, clear-headed thinker who has for years tried to merge Keynesian and supply-side policies. No mean feat.

Now here’s the rub: all this talk about a $700 billion stimulus package. I hate to be the one to pull the plug, but government cannot spend our way into prosperity. The wish list of Democratic spending initiatives includes short-term tax rebates, massive new transportation bills, even more education money, exotic green-technology spending, a big-government embrace of health care, and heaps of cash for UAW-Detroit carmakers. None of that will stimulate economic growth.

Economist Paul Hoffmeister has it right: We need to invigorate incentives to produce and invest. Let me take it even further. We need to revive the dormant animal spirits, which have been beaten down by a brutal bear market in stocks, the ongoing housing slump, and all the myriad blockages to credit availability. A bunch of new spending won’t do the trick. Lower tax rates will.

Government policy must make it clear that new successes will be handsomely rewarded. This will be Obama’s greatest challenge. While he may not raise taxes in 2009 — a good thing — he hasn’t yet come up with a new bolt of electricity that will hardwire the serious risk-taking that lies at the heart of free-market capitalism. Right now, the missing electric bolt is lower tax rates and greater rewards for new risk investment by investors, successful earners, and business.

On the plus side, however, Mr. Obama talks optimistically. That’s good. He says he’s hopeful about our future. And he says he is confident that American spirits will be resilient in this difficult time. That’s Reagansesque, Kennedyesque, and FDResque. But while FDR’s big-spending and regulating prevented economic recovery, Kennedy and Reagan opted for across-the-board supply-side tax-rate reductions to get America moving again.

Speaking of pirates, Horn of Africa, Sharia Law, Islam in America and which thread to put things in, I think I'll put this one straight into voter fraud...  Somalis form the largest bloc of African immigrants to the United States and the Twin Cities is home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the United States. Links in the original to this story report widespread false family tie immigration in the Somali community.  Rather than call in the feds, our congressman Kieth Ellison calls in the real Somali leaders(aka al qaida?) to campaign for Al Franken and get out the vote for the filibuster proof majority for an Obama and Pelosi friendly senate.  One in 5 who voted in Minneapolis registered same day and it is illegal to ask for ID???

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2008/11/022145.php

 From Mogadishu to Minneapolis
Share Post   Print
November 24, 2008 Posted by Scott at 5:57 AM

The Twin Cities is home to the largest population of Somali immigrants in the United States. In her latest Washington Times column, Diana West reports the discovery of immigration fraud involving the P-3 family designation in the current United States Refugee Admissions Program:

    Within the last week...the State Department confirmed that massive immigration fraud has been perpetrated overwhelmingly by Africans claimed as close kin (parent, spouse, minor child) by legal residents in the United States. (According to a report in the City Pages in Minneapolis, this scam has been netting some unknowns along the food chain up to $10,000 per head.) Given that Somalis form the largest bloc of African immigrants to the United States, this becomes another story with Somalis playing a starring role.

West's column cites this City Pages article and this State Department fact sheet on the fraud. West concludes her column with a look at the ramifications on Minnesota politics:

    Rep. Keith Ellison, Minnesota Democrat, who famously swore his 2007 oath of office on the Koran as the first Muslim elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, routinely declares that his 7,000-vote margin of victory came from Somali Muslims. Last month, Mr. Ellison was campaigning for that same Somali Muslim vote on behalf of Mr. Franken.

    And what's newsworthy about that? In this case, the point is not that Mr. Ellison was campaigning for the Somali vote, but rather with whom he was campaigning. According to AsianTribune.com, after Mr. Ellison made a standard, if Somalii-oriented campaign pitch on behalf of Mr. Franken before a gathering of Minnesota Somalis, another speaker appeared before the crowd.

    Described in the report as a "highly regarded prominent Somali traditional leader" -- i.e., a Somali leader from Somalia, not Minnesota -- Abdullahi Ugas Farah spoke on behalf of the Ellison-Franken cause. "In order for Keith to be helpful to the situation in Somalia, you must also elect Al Franken to the Senate," he said.

    Now, there's something new on the American hustings: a "Somali traditional" leader. Curious, I Googled Mr. Farah and came up with one news story, a 2003 brief from the Asia Africa Intelligence Wire headlined, "New Islamic court opens in Mogadishu." The story reported that Mr. Farah was one of two speakers who presided over the opening ceremony for a new Sharia court in Mogadishu's Shirkole area. From Sharia courts in Mogadishu to an Al Franken rally in Minnesota.

    Only in ... America?

West notes that the State Department is punting the question of what to do with fradulently admitted Somalis over to the Department of Homeland Security. And what is DHS doing with it? My guess is that the fraudulently admitted Somalis have about as much to fear from DHS as does President-elect Obama's deportable auntie Zeutuni. Help is on the way!