Archive for March, 2009

Use Your Children to Annoy Liberals

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Intellectual Conservative:

This father had given his sons some truly cool-looking toy guns from his youth, and one day he and his family ventured down to the community pool bearing these arms. When all the liberals’ non-sex stereotyped, wearing-a-feminine-straightjacket sons saw these symbols of authentic boyhood, their eyes got wide; exclamations such as “wow” could be heard. This also has the very positive effect of confirming in deprived liberal children’s minds that their parents really are dorks. Oh, and you don’t have to worry about further alienating them from their (probably divorced, perhaps same-sex) parents/guardians. Unless liberal children can be reformed, they will push the old folks into a nursing home first chance they get no matter what you do.

I also should mention that you needn’t fear liberals’ self-righteous, didactic proclamations. Should they choose to say something to you, it only provides you the opportunity to put the icing on the cake. If, for instance, they say, “I’m really surprised you give your son toy guns to play with” just respond, “Well, let’s be realistic. He’s still a bit too young to have a real one.” This upsets liberals intensely.

International Community Not Feeling the Hopey Changey Goodness

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Someone is starting to become unpopular

Only nine months ago, when he addressed an estimated 200,000 people in Germany, Barack Obama was heralded as “president of the world.”

But now that he’s president of the United States, the world doesn’t appear to be following up on its endorsement.

From France to Poland, from the Czech Republic to China, many nations are rebuffing the president and offering little wiggle room for him to negotiate economic and security policies.

Obama faces his first major international test next week when the world’s largest economies meet at the G20 summit in London.

“I think as the president heads to Europe, he faces a huge public relations disaster,” said Nile Gardiner, director of the conservative Heritage Foundation’s Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom.

“Europe is increasingly turning against his massive spending plans, which most European leaders see as a destructive way to move forward for the global economy and will only add to a massive American debt burden,” Gardiner told FOXNews.com.

“At the same time, there is a growing impression across Europe that the Obama administration is inept and inefficient and increasingly poorly managed.”

A top European Union politician on Wednesday slammed Obama’s plans for the U.S. to spend its way out of recession as “a way to hell.”

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, who lost a confidence vote in his own parliament this week and whose country currently holds the EU presidency, told the European Parliament that Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

That followed concerns by Poland that the U.S., as a way to appease Russia, plans to bail out of a missile defense shield the Bush administration negotiated with Poland and the Czech Republic.

“Russian generals, and even the Russian president, still continues to threaten us with the deployment of medium-range missiles in our immediate vicinity,” Polish Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski told Rep. Ellen Tauscher, D-Calif., in Brussels on Sunday. “So we signed with the previous administration. We patiently wait for the decision of the new administration and we hope we don’t regret our trust in the United States.”

Most European leaders favor tighter financial regulation, while the U.S. has been pushing for larger economic stimulus plans.

“We consider that in Europe we have already invested a lot for the recovery, and that the problem is not about spending more, but putting in place a system of regulation so that the economic and financial catastrophe that the world is seeing does not reproduce itself,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a news conference in Berlin last week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, rebuffing U.S. calls to spend more.

“I think it’s fair to say on these economic issues, there seems to be a critical divide between the U.S. and some of our friends in Europe that is going to make it more difficult for the G20 to be successful,” said Isabel Sawhill, a senior fellow in economic studies at Brookings Institution.
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But Europe isn’t the only international ally that could turn on Obama. Australia’s leadership, whose longtime enthusiastic support for America had buttressed the Bush administration, is reluctant to send more troops to Afghanistan.
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China, meanwhile, is expressing serious reservations about owning U.S. debt. And in the latest sign of Beijing’s growing assertiveness on the international stage, China’s central bank has called for the creation of a new global currency as an alternative to the dollar, .

China has more than $1 trillion in U.S. Treasuries and other government securities. As the U.S. government ramps up spending to stimulate the economy and assist the battered financial sector, Chinese officials have said they are worried that inflation will result, which would erode the value of their dollar holdings.

Hire competence, and there’s a fifty-fifty chance you just might get it.

Hire popularity instead of competence…most of the time, after awhile, you don’t even get what you were buying. Whoever & whatever is popular this year, wasn’t popular last year, and won’t be popular next year.

This isn’t a Republican/democrat thing. It’s a fashion thing. Investing in fashion is like investing in this year’s computer hard drive.

So next presidential election…let’s all just try to do a better job talking about issues. M’kay?

What Have Unions Done to California?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

IBDEditorials

Jobs are fleeing the Golden State, where unemployment has spiked well above 10%. Taxes are soaring, and a new budget shortfall of $8 billion, following the $42 billion gap that was patched up earlier this year, could hike them even more.
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According to the latest salary survey by the American Federation of Teachers, California teachers are the highest paid in the nation.

California also has America’s highest-paid prison guards. A state agency’s study last year found that the maximum pay of California’s guards was 40% higher than that of the highest-paid guards in 10 other states and the federal government.

Meanwhile, California’s public schools have middling results at best. Its prison system is chronically overcrowded, with a hospital system so inadequate that a federal judge has ruled it in violation of constitutional rights.

Private-sector workers and business owners in California get the worst of all deals. They pay some of the highest taxes in the country and get no more than mediocre public services.

It’s not just the unions that have pulled the state into the ditch. Voters share the blame for ill-advised decisions at the ballot box, such as approving too much debt and imposing budget rules that keep tax revenues from going where they are needed most. But public-union muscle has undeniably led the way in tilting the balance of power toward a self-serving, unaccountable governing class.

Is Fedex Shrugging?

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Cancel that order.

FedEx Corp. is threatening to cancel the purchase of billions of dollars worth of new Boeing Co. cargo planes if Congress passes a law that would make it easier for unions to organize at the package-delivery company.

A company spokesman said Tuesday that FedEx may cancel plans to buy as many as 30 new Boeing planes should Congress pass a bill that would remove truck drivers, couriers and other employees at FedEx’s Express unit from the jurisdiction of the federal Railway Labor Act of 1926, the law which today also governs labor organizing at U.S. airlines.

FedEx’s actions raise the stakes in an increasingly bitter battle involving chief rival, United Parcel Service Inc., and the Teamsters union, which has been trying for years to organize FedEx. Ken Hall, international vice president and director of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters package division, accused FedEx of “blackmailing Congress” and “threatening to fire yet another torpedo through an already weak American economy.”

Yeah, blame the company. Labor unions are headed the way of the Dodo Bird — because they keep getting themselves backed into this corner. Their next argument always boils down to “so-and-so is just an awful terrible company/person, unless & until he finds some money under a couch cushion somewhere.”

Hat tip: Dr. Helen.

“Cool Paints”

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

You can’t write this stuff.

If California regulators get their way, auto makers may soon be forced to rewrite a cliché from the Ford Model T era and start telling customers they can have any color they want as long as it isn’t black.

Some darker hues will be available in place of black, but right now they are indentified internally at paint suppliers with names such as “mud-puddle brown” and are truly ugly substitutes for today’s rich ebony hues.
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The measure is aimed at reducing carbon-dioxide emissions and improving fuel economy by keeping vehicles cooler on sunny days and decreasing the amount of time drivers use their air conditioners.

The rationale goes like this: Vehicle AC units sap engine power and hurt fuel economy. If vehicle paint and glass reflect more heat, car interiors will be cooler. That means drivers will use their AC units less, the compressors won’t have to work as hard and auto makers will be able to use smaller AC units in the future.

Reflective coatings and glazing (glass) already have proven to save energy when used on buildings, and this legislation is based on architectural standards.

On the surface, it’s not a bad idea, but fundamental issues reveal profoundly flawed legislation: Buildings and vehicles are manufactured and recycled differently, and no one buys a building based on its color.

Another troublesome fact: Heat-reflecting paints for black and other dark colors on vehicles have not been invented yet.

Paint suppliers also say heat-reflecting pigments that could be used in automotive applications contain toxic heavy metals that cause environmental damage and create health and safety issues during manufacturing and recycling.

Mike Rowe Wonders If It’s Really About The Bonuses

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

That’s your Dirty Jobs guy, there. This is one of my favorite shows. And his words are wise; you know this, for they echo my own.

Because these “bonuses” are not guaranteed, they are a reflection of an individual’s willingness to assume a certain level of risk that most salaried workers would go out of their way to avoid. Likewise, “bonuses” are the only way for highly competitive corporations to attract and compensate “top talent.” Arguing over whether the money in question is gross or exorbitant is beside the point and after the fact, in my opinion. So too, is the exact manner in which it’s earned. That’s between the employer and the employee, and governed by the terms of the deal. What really matters, is the workers conscious willingness to forgo a big guarantee, in favor of a potentially larger payout based on his or her performance. It’s an entirely different form of risk, that is the opposite of a weekly or monthly paycheck.
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This “bonus rage” would not be happening in a world that respected consequences, because in that world, those companies who can not afford to pay their bills would simply fail, the way they’re supposed to. Likewise, all citizens would live the lifestyle they can afford, the way they’re supposed to. Of course, that is not the world we live in. In fact, companies like AIG have prospered exactly because so many people now live beyond their means. The hard truth is, those big bonuses were earned because AIG got rich saying “yes” to millions of people who should have been told “no.” And because we’re all connected, we all get hurt.

Isn’t this a profound irony? What we now, today, call “liberal” — in terms of ideas, I mean — is supposed to spring forward from a conviction that we are all connected. And yet, what we now, today, call “liberal” either a) presumes we’re not all sharing, at least to some extent, the same fate; b) is seemingly determined to make sure that where our interests may be united or simply overlapping, they are violently separated along class lines; or c) shows a childish, peevish hostility to anyone or anything suggesting maybe, just maybe, we are indeed all in this together. What helps whites has to hurt blacks, what’s good for management has to be bad for labor, and there’s no way you can do anything that’s good for both homosexuals and heteros.

Everything liberalism suggests ought to be done, seems to have to do with identifying some DRCJ (dirty rotten creepy jerk) and showing him what-for. Today it’s the AIG bonus execs. Tomorrow, who knows. But it’ll be someone. The target changes; the meme stays the same.

Hat tip to Gerard, via Anchoress, via Rick.

Now for the AIG exec’s viewpoint. If you can stand to read it…which, if you’re a pinhead liberal, you probably can’t…get ready for one hell of a paradigm shift. In fact I’ll not even excerpt it, but quote it in full. It’s that good.

You will see Mr. Rowe has an admirably healthy and enviable attachment to reality.

The following is a letter sent on Tuesday by Jake DeSantis, an executive vice president of the American International Group’s financial products unit, to Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G.

DEAR Mr. Liddy,

It is with deep regret that I submit my notice of resignation from A.I.G. Financial Products. I hope you take the time to read this entire letter. Before describing the details of my decision, I want to offer some context:

I am proud of everything I have done for the commodity and equity divisions of A.I.G.-F.P. I was in no way involved in — or responsible for — the credit default swap transactions that have hamstrung A.I.G. Nor were more than a handful of the 400 current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. Most of those responsible have left the company and have conspicuously escaped the public outrage.

After 12 months of hard work dismantling the company — during which A.I.G. reassured us many times we would be rewarded in March 2009 — we in the financial products unit have been betrayed by A.I.G. and are being unfairly persecuted by elected officials. In response to this, I will now leave the company and donate my entire post-tax retention payment to those suffering from the global economic downturn. My intent is to keep none of the money myself.

I take this action after 11 years of dedicated, honorable service to A.I.G. I can no longer effectively perform my duties in this dysfunctional environment, nor am I being paid to do so. Like you, I was asked to work for an annual salary of $1, and I agreed out of a sense of duty to the company and to the public officials who have come to its aid. Having now been let down by both, I can no longer justify spending 10, 12, 14 hours a day away from my family for the benefit of those who have let me down.

You and I have never met or spoken to each other, so I’d like to tell you about myself. I was raised by schoolteachers working multiple jobs in a world of closing steel mills. My hard work earned me acceptance to M.I.T., and the institute’s generous financial aid enabled me to attend. I had fulfilled my American dream.

I started at this company in 1998 as an equity trader, became the head of equity and commodity trading and, a couple of years before A.I.G.’s meltdown last September, was named the head of business development for commodities. Over this period the equity and commodity units were consistently profitable — in most years generating net profits of well over $100 million. Most recently, during the dismantling of A.I.G.-F.P., I was an integral player in the pending sale of its well-regarded commodity index business to UBS. As you know, business unit sales like this are crucial to A.I.G.’s effort to repay the American taxpayer.

The profitability of the businesses with which I was associated clearly supported my compensation. I never received any pay resulting from the credit default swaps that are now losing so much money. I did, however, like many others here, lose a significant portion of my life savings in the form of deferred compensation invested in the capital of A.I.G.-F.P. because of those losses. In this way I have personally suffered from this controversial activity — directly as well as indirectly with the rest of the taxpayers.

I have the utmost respect for the civic duty that you are now performing at A.I.G. You are as blameless for these credit default swap losses as I am. You answered your country’s call and you are taking a tremendous beating for it.

But you also are aware that most of the employees of your financial products unit had nothing to do with the large losses. And I am disappointed and frustrated over your lack of support for us. I and many others in the unit feel betrayed that you failed to stand up for us in the face of untrue and unfair accusations from certain members of Congress last Wednesday and from the press over our retention payments, and that you didn’t defend us against the baseless and reckless comments made by the attorneys general of New York and Connecticut.

My guess is that in October, when you learned of these retention contracts, you realized that the employees of the financial products unit needed some incentive to stay and that the contracts, being both ethical and useful, should be left to stand. That’s probably why A.I.G. management assured us on three occasions during that month that the company would “live up to its commitment” to honor the contract guarantees.

That may be why you decided to accelerate by three months more than a quarter of the amounts due under the contracts. That action signified to us your support, and was hardly something that one would do if he truly found the contracts “distasteful.”

That may also be why you authorized the balance of the payments on March 13.

At no time during the past six months that you have been leading A.I.G. did you ask us to revise, renegotiate or break these contracts — until several hours before your appearance last week before Congress.

I think your initial decision to honor the contracts was both ethical and financially astute, but it seems to have been politically unwise. It’s now apparent that you either misunderstood the agreements that you had made — tacit or otherwise — with the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, various members of Congress and Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of New York, or were not strong enough to withstand the shifting political winds.

You’ve now asked the current employees of A.I.G.-F.P. to repay these earnings. As you can imagine, there has been a tremendous amount of serious thought and heated discussion about how we should respond to this breach of trust.

As most of us have done nothing wrong, guilt is not a motivation to surrender our earnings. We have worked 12 long months under these contracts and now deserve to be paid as promised. None of us should be cheated of our payments any more than a plumber should be cheated after he has fixed the pipes but a careless electrician causes a fire that burns down the house.

Many of the employees have, in the past six months, turned down job offers from more stable employers, based on A.I.G.’s assurances that the contracts would be honored. They are now angry about having been misled by A.I.G.’s promises and are not inclined to return the money as a favor to you.

The only real motivation that anyone at A.I.G.-F.P. now has is fear. Mr. Cuomo has threatened to “name and shame,” and his counterpart in Connecticut, Richard Blumenthal, has made similar threats — even though attorneys general are supposed to stand for due process, to conduct trials in courts and not the press.

So what am I to do? There’s no easy answer. I know that because of hard work I have benefited more than most during the economic boom and have saved enough that my family is unlikely to suffer devastating losses during the current bust. Some might argue that members of my profession have been overpaid, and I wouldn’t disagree.

That is why I have decided to donate 100 percent of the effective after-tax proceeds of my retention payment directly to organizations that are helping people who are suffering from the global downturn. This is not a tax-deduction gimmick; I simply believe that I at least deserve to dictate how my earnings are spent, and do not want to see them disappear back into the obscurity of A.I.G.’s or the federal government’s budget. Our earnings have caused such a distraction for so many from the more pressing issues our country faces, and I would like to see my share of it benefit those truly in need.

On March 16 I received a payment from A.I.G. amounting to $742,006.40, after taxes. In light of the uncertainty over the ultimate taxation and legal status of this payment, the actual amount I donate may be less — in fact, it may end up being far less if the recent House bill raising the tax on the retention payments to 90 percent stands. Once all the money is donated, you will immediately receive a list of all recipients.

This choice is right for me. I wish others at A.I.G.-F.P. luck finding peace with their difficult decision, and only hope their judgment is not clouded by fear.

Mr. Liddy, I wish you success in your commitment to return the money extended by the American government, and luck with the continued unwinding of the company’s diverse businesses — especially those remaining credit default swaps. I’ll continue over the short term to help make sure no balls are dropped, but after what’s happened this past week I can’t remain much longer — there is too much bad blood. I’m not sure how you will greet my resignation, but at least Attorney General Blumenthal should be relieved that I’ll leave under my own power and will not need to be “shoved out the door.”

Sincerely,

Jake DeSantis

That’d be your AIG exec “who was responsible for this whole mess.” Now that you’re giving it another think-er-three, it’s been awhile since anyone presented you with some firm, or even mildly persuasive, evidence of that…right?

Hannan

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

I’m late to the party on this one; it’s become another “Everyone Else Is Blogging It, I Might As Well Do It Too” thing.

But this is exactly what I’ve been talking about. This is why I will (or should) win a steak dinner and $100 come 2012. Pretend you’re a British taxpayer, listen to what this guy’s saying, and tell me with a straight face that even the laziest cortex in your noggin has a single synapse to spare for: How he dresses, how much hair he’s missing, whether the other guy has hopey-changey charisma, whether some cute sluts have fainted at his speeches, whether their wives are wearing acceptable fashion, whether they give you tingle in your legs, arugula, waffles, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You catch wind of some asshole spending all your money and all your kids’ money, that all goes flying out the window.

Update: To all those who question whether the prey is a good match for the hunting gear, there is this:

President Barack Obama took many on-point questions at his press conference this week. But for our money, the most important came from Chip Reid of CBS News.

“At both of your town hall meetings in California last week, you said, quote, ‘I didn’t run for president to pass on our problems to the next generation.’ But under your budget, the debt will increase $7 trillion over the next 10 years. The Congressional Budget Office says $9.3 trillion. And today on Capitol Hill, some Republicans called your budget, with all the spending on health care, education and environment, the most irresponsible budget in American history.

“Isn’t that kind of debt exactly what you were talking about when you said ‘passing on our problems to the next generation’?” Reid asked.

This is a profoundly important issue. Even without the hugely costly stimulus and bailout measures believed necessary to deal with the economic crisis, even without the highly costly Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the United States faces staggering annual deficits in coming years as 78 million baby boomers retire and the tab for Social Security and Medicare explodes. In 20 years, the average age of the nation will be what it now is in retirement haven Florida. A decade after that, the ratio of workers paying taxes to retirees receiving federal checks will drop to 2-to-1.

Something needs to be done to prepare for this coming entitlement tidal wave – a point Obama made repeatedly on the campaign trail, to his credit.

Now, to his discredit, Obama is simply ignoring these grim fiscal realities. The president argues that to put America on track for a better future, he has no choice but to pursue enormously costly expansions of government health coverage and government regulation of energy use and production. But he must acknowledge that his ambitions have a jaw-dropping price tag. This is what Chip Reid’s question was meant to do.

He is exactly what Daniel Hannan was talking about; He says one thing, now & then, here & there…and does something else. To be fair about it, Republicans have been guilty of the same thing.

But my intuition tells me that at the beginning of ’11, there will be more than a few new faces there. Asking for, and worthy of, a chance to demonstrate that their deeds match their fiscal-conservatism rhetoric.

The Obama Calendar

Thursday, March 26th, 2009

Perhaps the next four years are going to be just a little less painful, if we come up with a new calendar to mark them off. There would be a practical purpose to this, I think, if the months or seasons of this new calendar were named after the word-of-the-moment. And by “word-of-the-moment” I mean the word that, once somehow jettisoned from your vocabulary, would render it impossible to say anything positive about Him.

Like you walk up to an Obamafan and challenge him, “tell me why He’s so wonderful, but without using the word ____” and…he just might be there, mentally squirming, all day. Intellectually, this movement has always been about as deep as a rain puddle. There has always been some word. One at a time.

Throughout the campaign last year, and as it ran into the home stretch, it was “Charismatic.”

In January it was “Hope.”

Now and for the immediate foreseeable future…it’s “Inherited.”

Men in Flashy Cars

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Rediff News:

While a recent study concluded that men prefer dating beautiful bimbos, new research has confirmed what many males and advertisers long believed: driving a flashy car really does make a person more attractive to women.

Psychologists at the University of Wales presented women with separate images of the same man sitting in a silver Bentley Continental, then a red Ford Fiesta. The study involved 120 participants, reports The Scotsman.

After seeing the male, the volunteers viewed him as ‘more attractive’ in the prestige car. However, when men were shown images of a woman of comparable attractiveness sitting in the same cars, she was judged to be equally alluring.

Dr Michael Dunn, who led the research, which has been published in British Journal of Psychology, said: “In the past, women were very restricted economically and tied to men for financial security but in recent years, through female emancipation, they have become independently wealthy with access to their own financial security.”

“But what you find is that there is still a preference for wealthy males, which suggests that these preferences are evolutionary, rather than social factors.” According to him, men were hard-wired to view women in terms of purely reproductive attractiveness, regardless of the outer signs of their wealth or status.

Donna Dawson, a psychologist specialising in personality, behaviour and relationships, said: “This doesn’t surprise me at all. It’s hard to fight against our genetic inheritance. I think women have always looked to men for some sort of financial security and the car is proof of that.”

I hope nobody paid too much money for this research.

You know what you could start studying, is the true difference between “cocky” and “confident”…as in, women like the latter but despise the former. I’m not too curious about where the line is drawn, since I’m off the market and not lookin’. Nor am I too curious about the conceptual difference. Even when I was single, I think I had a pretty good handle on what women really wanted — they wanted a man who knew what he wanted, kinda-sorta, but only to such an extent that they could control his daily efforts. They wanted to tame a wild beast, wild enough to be powerful, but tame enough to eventually submit to her wishes.

I’d like to know about the disparity, among women from a variety of different walks of life…how much they’ll agree on the Goldilocks thing, that this guy’s too cocky, that guy’s not confident enough, this one over here is juuuuuuust right.

Do guys get more latitude in this whole thing if they drive something with a higher sticker price? Like if you’re driving a ten-year-old Datsun, are you just too cocky, best o’luck to ya pal, throw ya back in the ocean and keep looking…but could a bigger dickhead be perfectly alright if he showed up in a Dodge Viper?

That last one isn’t too much of a mystery to me. But I’d love to see it written up in a scientific paper.

Lastly, I’d like to know if there’s an evolutionary trait involved in what women tend to do over time. And you know what I mean. They pick you out of a line-up because you’re the “alpha” male, the one with the strongest will, and then couple-up with you…yes, believe it or not, I have from time to time emerged at the top of the heap in this perverse contest, once or twice, back in the day. And then once you’re half of a real couple, systematically kill off every little thing they once found attractive. It’s “mental abuse” if you decide things for yourself, in any manner other than the way a nine-year-old boy would do it.

In my late twenties, I made an informal resolution to never date liberal women ever again. And for the most part, that solved that little problem for good. And that’s my advice for the next generation of dudes. Women who get pissy and resentful if you decide things for yourself…women who get pissy and resentful if you voice an unexpected opinion…women who get pissy and resentful if you find soap operas boring and unrealistic, and have the nerve to say so out loud…women who get pissy and resentful if you grow hair on your body, in places where women can’t do the same thing. Just pass ’em all up, boys, and for the most part, a happy life is guaranteed to be yours.

Even if your trusty steed is, say, an eighteen-year-old Toyota Corolla with 341,000 miles on it. So I’m told.

Women Spend Time Doing Chores

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

Kinda interesting…the headline blares away about women spending twice as much time doing household chores as the men, in the land down under. But inside the guts of the story you see the issue has more to do with an informal gender-identity with regard to the chores, with her doing the inside ones and him doing the outside ones.

The time she spends on the inside-ones is carefully computed, relative to the time he spends helping her out…whereas the manly lawncare is just…done.

Australian Bureau of Statistics social trends report finds women doing double the housework

WOMEN are still doing almost twice the amount of household work as men but at least the males are pulling their weight outside, a report on social trends says.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has released its quarterly snapshot of Australain society and it shows households have allocated “his and her” chores.

Between 1992 and 2006, the average time men spent on household work rose by an hour and 25 minutes to 18 hours and 20 minutes a week.

Despite woman spending more hours in the workplace, they are doing about the same amount of time on household work in 2006 – an average of 33 hours and 45 minutes a week – as they did in 1992, the ABS reported.

Household work is defined as caring for children, as well as cleaning and cooking.

Women did most of the indoor tasks while men spent time outdoors mowing the lawn and home maintenance, the polling shows.

“Spent time outdoors.”

I suspect if the headline was more in keeping with the contents of the story — that men and women have, and act-upon, pre-conceived notions of what task is better suited to their personal characteristics, including their gender — it wouldn’t have been nearly as incendiary as this unsupported and unstated implication that the lads are failing to pull their weight. And therefore wouldn’t have piqued nearly as much interest.

We sure do have a lot of people running around, who don’t really want men and women to get along any better. Y’know?

You gals looking around for stories like this, and tales of “I wish my man could be like him!” just to see how jealous you can be — my woman works at her job twice as many hours as I do at mine, then comes home and cooks, vacuums on her days off, and even brought home four boxes of my favorite beer last weekend. So you work hard at making others happy, others will work hard at making you happy…and you don’t even need some ledger-scribbling bean-counting nanny government agency to make that happen. What a concept, huh? That goes for some of you fellas, too. But this kind of falls into the “if ya gotta be told you ain’t never gonna learn” file.

Memo For File LXXXIV

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

I noticed last night that President Obama received high marks from democrats all around during His press conference last night, particularly when He accused His opponents of failing to come up with any alternatives when criticizing the President’s budget. My memory suggests that Bob Shrum, appearing on Bill O’Reilly’s show, called it Obama’s finest moment; it certainly is emerging as a consensus viewpoint.

And there’s an interesting reason why some of these critics haven’t put out their own budget. I mean, we haven’t seen an alternative budget out of them.

And the reason is because they know that, in fact, the biggest driver of long-term deficits are the huge health care costs that we’ve got out here that we’re going to have to tackle and we — that if we don’t deal with some of the structural problems in our deficit, ones that were here long before I got here, then we’re going to continue to see some of the problems in those out-years.

It has, I notice, lately been defined as a favorited defense, from a party that is becoming increasingly defensive. Where’s your idea, Mister Big Shot?

I hope this continues. This impresses me as an argument that has the potential to persuade lots of people at first, but wear thin rather quickly. Hey, don’t throw gasoline on a burning house; it won’t extinguish the flames it’ll just make them burn faster. Well you don’t have any better ideas do ya?

It’s one thing to use the “got any better ideas?” argument when questions have been raised as to whether you’re helping. It’s an entirely different situation when someone has pointed out you may be doing harm. And I suspect the democrats understand that is starting to apply here. They’re arguing that the government should bear more and more of the responsibility, and therefore the cost, of America’s healthcare system, and here’s President Obama saying “the biggest driver of long-term deficits are the huge health care costs.”

How much longer before the Main Street voter looks around at our largest American cities, the ones that have been laboring along under democrat management for generations, and notices: Hey, that’s all they ever do over there. Bellyache about costs. And their costs for everything — parking, apartment rents, jars of mayonnaise, calling in a city electrician to change a light bulb over my desk that I’m not allowed to change — are vastly exorbitant compared to an equivalent expense somewhere else…and that seems to be because democrats have been running things. This is the future of the whole country now?

With that realization, “Where’s Your Idea?” starts to wear out its welcome. My idea? Go through things line by line, and compare each item to the equivalent cost in a locality that hasn’t been run by democrats. How’s that for an idea?

Aside from being so much more effectively applied to a sprint than to a marathon, the “I don’t see any better ideas outta you guys” argument, here, is blatantly hypocritical. The democrat party had seven whole years to come up with a more effective, alternative method for extracting information from detainees at Guantanamo, for example. Now, did you hear anything from them about this? I didn’t. Throughout the entire time it was the exact opposite of offering an alternative idea; it was “stop it,” and “because of this, we’re no better than they are,” and “it does no good to defend the country if this is what it takes,” et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Evidently it would have been far better to surrender; after all, that way nobody would be hurt!

There are a lot of other problems with relying overly much on this argument. But the only other one I think demands mention here is the legal one: Submitting a budget to the Congress is the President’s job. As the democrats like to tell us, often, they won the election and nobody else’s opinion should count on anything. Logically, you can’t hammer away on that one, and then swivel around and start in with the “Where’s Your Idea?” argument. You either got the job or you didn’t.

People can criticize the way you do it, without stepping up and offering to do it for you. That’s one of the many things that make it tough, I guess.

I wonder if Obama, or any other democrat, is really up for it?

Just a Huge Bucket…

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

…of eggs and meat. Just the toxic asset to stimulate your economy.

Diminished Expectations was chagrined to learn this wasn’t real. As were we.

The Toxic Assets We Elected

Wednesday, March 25th, 2009

George Will sees something amiss:

With the braying of 328 yahoos — members of the House of Representatives who voted for retroactive and punitive use of the tax code to confiscate the legal earnings of a small, unpopular group — still reverberating, the Obama administration yesterday invited private-sector investors to become business partners with the capricious and increasingly anti-constitutional government. This latest plan to unfreeze the financial system came almost half a year after Congress shoveled $700 billion into the Troubled Assets Relief Program, $325 billion of which has been spent without purchasing any toxic assets.

Hat tip to The View From 1776, which (as I’ve already indicated) speaks for me on this whole phony bonus flap:

Whatever you may think about the propriety of large bonuses paid to AIG employees, whether you like it or not, the bonuses were paid in accordance with legal contracts executed before AIG received bailout money. Those individuals had a legal right to the money. If the company or the Federal government wished to abrogate the contracts, the spirit infusing the Bill of Rights required them to adjudicate the matter in the courts of law.

This is, I would argue, where the center of gravity swings out over the side of the cliff. Mob rule says you’ve got money you don’t deserve to have and you have to give it back. Yes I’m using the word “you” to describe those AIG execs. It applies. The differential is simply a matter of time, nothing more.

You’re just not that wonderful a person. Not if the distinction depends on a total stranger seeing you that way. The rights of the AIG executive, are the rights of all his countrymen. It’s just a fact.

And it sounds like the shredding of the Constitution, because that’s precisely what it is.

Palin Petraeus!

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Breitbart wants to draft the General. Blogger friend Rick is on board.

I see the General as a decent supplement…not a staple. I’m unshaken in my conviction that the Barracuda belongs in the top slot. Admittedly, this is mostly a protest against the mistaken notion that there’s some reason for her not to be there. But that protest is crucial. It has to be part of 2012’s ticket. The only alternative, is to broadcast the message that conservative values are easily defeated, all you have to do is call the right person stupid, and they’ll be dropped like a hot potato.

The Governor of Alaska is an excellent litmus test against the RINOs who pretend to champion conservative values, but will reliably engage in the “Sarah is stupid” meme so they can score that coveted invitation to the next strawberries-and-champagne brunch in Manhattan. She’s a reminder that it’s rude and ill-advised to form opinions about the intellect of people you’ve not yet met. She has to be on the ticket, to demonstrate that Republicans are committed to doing the right thing whether it’s popular or not…which, although nobody phrases it this way, is the primary question in peoples’ minds.

To raise that middle finger at the people who need it. That may seem childish, but it’s heart-attack-serious important here. That’s how the left has been controlling what their enemies think & say; Palin is the only “general” around who can drop a MOAB on it.

You could put the General at the top of the ticket, but then the tired old idea-bubble comes floating up…oh look girls, it’s a white guy who looks like your dad, and he’s going to boss you around and stop you from having abortions. Puh-leeze. Let’s not go through it again.

Besides, as Veep, Sarah’s number one job is to appear in front of cameras and give speeches in front of a pain-in-the-ass reporter trying to make her look dumb. She’s learned a lot about this, but this is going to continue to be her weakness. She is a competent, proven executive, whereas Petraeus, bursting-at-the-seams as he is with all kinds of other useful decision-making talents, is not. Petraeus doing what Cheney used to do? Except…this time there is a political cost involved in calling him Darth-Vader-evil? Now you’re talking.

But we have to see where he’s at with the other issues. Border? English as the official language? Affirmative Action? War on Drugs? Reading-writing-rithmetic, as opposed to sensitivity training? The Kerry doctrine of stick your head in the sand, hope the bad guys go away? Just because he’s a soldier who carried the orders out, doesn’t mean I know his position on those orders.

I guess General Powell has made me cynical about this. To those of us who were old enough to pay close attention way back in Persian Gulf War I, Powell’s decline has been from a great height, syrupy slow, gradual, steady…and certain.

Senate to be Undecided About Whether Money is Evil

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

The last several posts have been about The Holy One at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. It looks like I have an obsession, until you stop to ponder all the driftwood I’ve been allowing to float on by…and there’s been a lot. Can’t pronounce Orion. Thinks Chiraq is still President of France. That’s today’s bumper crop, there was another one yesterday, another one the day before…

To the other end of the boulevard. The Senate is delaying action on this magical wonderful House bill, the one that taxes away those evil awful bonuses…

Jarred by a cool reception from the White House and fears of unintended consequences across the financial world, Senate leaders are likely to delay until late next month legislation to punitively tax bonuses at banks and investment firms that receive federal aid.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) announced last week that the Senate would move ahead with the legislation as soon as possible, and he attempted to bring the bill to the floor Thursday night. But he revised that timetable yesterday, saying that the chamber will spend this week debating a national-service bill before turning to a long-scheduled showdown over the budget for fiscal 2010. With just two weeks to go until Congress departs for a spring recess, action on the tax measure would be unlikely before late April.

For those who still think this is the right way to go…let’s just cut out all the delays and other crap, okay? Let’s see what message we have left.

The economy’s in the dumper because of FaPoBuAd (Failed Policies of the Bush Administration!)…and we’ve elected this hopey-changey-guy with a friendly Congress to fix it for us. We all desperately hope He succeeds at this, except for Rush Limbaugh who’s just a big fat stinker.

The economy is stopped and we all want it to go.

If anyone makes money doing that, we’re going to take it away from them because that’s just wrong. Oh sure, today it’s about AIG execs and AIG is receiving bailout money, so we’re just acting today as guardians of the taxpayer’s purse. B-u-u-t…that’s today. In fact, we’re already getting some plans together to do the same thing to non-bailout-subsidized corporations. Add to that the fact that, in AIG’s case, the bonuses amount to less than a tenth of a percent of this bailout money…so the idea that we’re trying to recoup “our” taxpayer money from those greedy executives looks a little silly.

So no. We’re not looking out for the taxpayer. We’re trying to make sure nobody makes a personal profit from this noble, noble effort of getting an economy revived.

We want the economy revived.

Nobody’s supposed to make any money. No quantity of it that “everyone” is going to find obscene, anyway…and that can only mean…nobody can make any more than anybody else. Just ordinary amounts. Nobody’s supposed to work to improve their personal livelihood too much.

What in the (expletive deleted) do you think an economy is, exactly?

Seriously.

The Senate is right to delay. It needs time for the rest of us to get our thoughts together on this one.

While we’re trying to figure out what we’re all about, may I submit a humble suggestion of what’s going on here? We want to get together and make this thing work. Each of us wants our personal standard of living to improve as much as possible. Our individual standard of living.

The other guy isn’t allowed to improve his.

Folks…my world is different from yours. You pretend to have a definition for “greed” but, as I’ve pointed out before, you don’t really have one. Planet Morgan has a definition of greed; and that is it right there. You are allowed to realize the benefits of a free market, and the guy to the left of you, and to the right of you, and all around you, are not. They’re just supposed to clock in, clock out, grab a paycheck and spend it, saving nothing, achieving nothing long-term. He buys a house you can’t buy, you’ve got a beef with it. So yeah, “greed caused all our problems,” but not quite in the way people think they mean when they toss this phrase around.

Global Warming Gone, but We’ll be Taxed Anyway

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

Al Ritter, Baltimore Conservative Examiner:

Global Warming just isn’t happening anymore. The warming trend stopped in 2000, but that hasn’t stopped Al Gore and the 52 Scientists from the IPCC (United Nations) to continue to alarm the public. In 2009 we heard Al Gore reverse his claim of global warming to a message of “climate change.”

There has been a history of his type of terrorism, on the very first “Earth Day,” April 22, 1970; Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin claimed that the world was cooling. After a period of time it was found that we were actually warming, now that the trend has reversed the global warming alarmists argument no longer holds water.
:
This wouldn’t be a problem if it was merely a talking point, but it is not. This alarming terrorist plot has grown legs as yet another tax disguised as an issue. The cap and trade is just another tax to corporations to pass along to end users.

We need to let our representatives know how we feel, more taxes are not what we need now in our time of economic need. Especially on hair-brained, half baked, half wrong theories.

If the data coming in continue to show unkindness to the global warming movement, and things shape up in such a way that I win that money and steak dinner because Obama’s a one-termer…then, I think, in ’12 you’re going to start to see it all come out. Tax on breathing, tax on conserving energy, tax on flatulence, anything else they can cook up. Tax on cooking.

Just as soon as there’s this sense of “get it on the books now, or nevermore.”

I remember a Dilbert cartoon in which the boss tells Dilbert, “once we realized we could get you working in cubicles half the size of a prison cell, we realized anything was possible.”

Once they realized they could get people out on the streets, protesting, chanting, picketing, clamoring for their taxes to be raised just for existing — they realized anything was possible.

The 49% Theory is About to be Tested

Tuesday, March 24th, 2009

On St. Patrick’s Day — gosh, this stuff is just coming at us at hurricane speeds, isn’t it? — I wrote:

I don’t think Obama can have an approval rating of 49%. I think His approval numbers will slide down to 50%, and after that He’ll keep it there for a time, just long enough for His followers to figure what’s going on. And then once the reality sinks in He’ll be down in the twenties, or teens, or low teens. He’ll be just like any last-year’s fashion statement. The point is, there will be a sudden, unrecoverable, drop.

The typical Obama fan doesn’t have what it takes to say “oh sure, only 45% of us are on His side now, but I know a good idea when I see it so I’m sticking to my guns.” This takes courage that they don’t have. Obama’s in fashion, or else Obama’s out of fashion; so once that 50% hash-mark comes & goes, it’s fall-away time.

It’s about to be put to the test.

The honeymoon is over, a national poll will signal today as President Obama’s job approval stumbles to about 50 percent over the lack of improvement with the crippled economy.

The sobering numbers come as the president backpedals from two prime-time gaffes – one comparing his bowling score to a Special Olympian and another awkwardly laughing about the economy, which prompted Steve Kroft of “60 Minutes” to ask “are you punch-drunk?”

Pollster John Zogby said his poll out today will show Americans split on the president’s performance. He said the score factors out to “about 50-50.”

Colleague at work: “He’s trying his best.”
Me: “His best? I’d hate to see his worst.”

This stuff never changes. The charlatan comes to town and says, “Forget about policies, forget about positions, forget about philosophies and principles, forget about history. Just listen to the soothing sound of my dulcet voice. Look how I command a crowd. You might as well follow me, it’s the thing to do.”

In politics, in business, in life. Each and every time, everyone ends up pretending to build things or fix things without really building or fixing anything.

How Do Stimulus Plans Work, in History?

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

Stimulating Ourselves To Death.

Hint: History and hope aren’t seeing eye-to-eye on this one.

Money for the Needy, Not for the Greedy

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

So, we’re to allow the pitchfork-and-torch-bearing mob to make decisions we’d never allow our legislators, judges and executives to make? Like how much money each man, woman and child is supposed to have in the bank?

No no, that’s not it; silly me. We just want to have some “common sense” going on with these “bonuses.” Well tell me please, where’s the line drawn? AIG execs can’t just earn money, or receive money pursuant to a contract signed a whole year ago…which means they earned it. Can’t have that. We have to see if the hoi polloi smiles upon the contractually obligated payment, and if they don’t, it’s gotta be yanked back. While that’s going on — the mob takes to the streets.

This is different from the obscene bonuses I’ve earned…how?

A busload of activists representing working- and middle-class families paid visits Saturday to the lavish homes of American International Group executives to protest the tens of millions of dollars in bonuses awarded by the struggling insurance company after it received a massive federal bailout.

About 40 protesters sought to urge AIG executives who received a portion of the $165 million in bonuses to do more to help families.

“We think $165 million could be used in a more appropriate way to keep people in their homes, create more jobs and health care,” said Emeline Bravo-Blackport, a gardener.

She marveled at AIG executive James Haas’ colonial house, which has stunning views of a golf course and the Long Island Sound. The Fairfield house is “another part of the world” from her life in nearby Bridgeport, which flirted with bankruptcy in the 1990s and still struggles with foreclosures and unemployment.”

“Lord, I wonder what it’s like to live in a house that size,” she said.

Another protester, Claire Jeffery, of Bloomfield, said she’s on the verge of foreclosure. She works as a housekeeper; her husband, a truck driver, can’t find work.

“I love my home,” she said. “I really want people to help us.”

I love a Bugatti Veyron, Ms. Jeffery. Help me get one. And if you can’t, or won’t, spare the time or trouble to help me in that effort, then screw you. I mean it. I have things she doesn’t have, you say? Well, she has things I don’t have…like a home. And I’m not bothering anybody about it. I’m just a humble blogger. You don’t see me arriving in a bus as part of bug-eyed mob spoiling for a fight, gazing wistfully at her things and mumbling a bunch of stuff & nonsense to the effect that it oughta be mine. That’s because I understand when you point a finger at something, three other fingers curl around and point back at you. I can figure this out, why can’t she?

Greedy (adj.):
An undefined word. If it does have a meaning at all, the closest one we’ve been able to extrapolate from the pattern of the word’s actual usage, is: Someone who manifests a desire to keep his property when someone else comes along wanting to take it away. A wealthy person who wants to stay that way.

Commandment X: (Exodus 20:17)
You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his manservant or maidservant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.

Quick and Clever but Intellectually Narrow

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

David Warren, writing in Real Clear Politics:

All his life, from childhood through university through “community organizing” and Chicago wardheel politics, through Sunday mornings listening to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, to the left side of Democrat caucuses in Springfield and Washington, he has been surrounded almost exclusively by extremely liberal people, and moreover, by people who are quick and clever but intellectually narrow.

He is a free soul, but he is also the product of environments in which even moderately conservative ideas are never considered; but where people on the further reaches of the left are automatically welcomed as “avant-garde.” His whole idea of where the middle might be, is well to the left of where the average American might think it is. To a man like Obama, as he has let slip on too many occasions when away from his teleprompter, “Middle America” is not something to be compromised with, but rather, something that must be manipulated, because it is stupid. And the proof that it can be manipulated, is that he is the president today.

Hat tip: Karol.

The Media Should Resign

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

…over Barack Obama’s failure.

You never vetted, never examined him in any depth at all, even though the candidate had hardly any experience other than running for office. (Oh, yes, he was a “community organizer.” So was I, in a sense. You want to elect me?)

So now we are going to hear that Timothy Geithner or Press Secretary Gibbs or whoever should be thrown under the bus. No, sorry, it is the MSM that should be going under that now overused vehicle, committing hari-kari before the public does what it should – disenfranchise them completely. The election of Barack Obama was orchestrated by our mainstream media. They anointed him. They should suffer the consequences.

Hat tip to Instapundit.

Punch Drunk?

Monday, March 23rd, 2009

I’m so sick of talking about this guy. But this clip just cuts right to the heart of who He really is, what He really stands for, how He operates, and what kind of future we have ahead of us.

Never let a good crisis go to waste.

People who belong to His political party, as wonderful a job as they’ve done convincing the weaker-minded what incredibly wonderful people they are, have this disturbing tendency to describe our current problems as dire, dire, dire, oh my gosh, things are so bleak, we just might not come out of this intact…and then show teeth. Smile, grin, laugh, chuckle, guffaw.

I remember seeing, and commenting on, Al Gore doing exactly the same thing…here, and here. It’s unnatural. If you believe the speaker in question believes what the speaker in question is saying…it’s even more unnatural.

The fault lies with us for tolerating it and not questioning it. After all, how would you feel if you saw President Bush talking about body bags coming home from Iraq, families whose lives have been changed forever because of this ultimate sacrifice their son or daughter made over there…and then just moments later engage in that Will Farrel shoulder-shaking chuckle over some dumb joke?

Didn’t Michael Moore have some kind of “now watch this drive!” clip in that propaganda movie of his? Didn’t he get just tons and tons of mileage out of it?

Things are different when you’re a democrat, I notice. Our national consciousness must have had something planted into it at some point, somewhere…maybe it has to do with all those millions George Soros spent. But when you belong to the party of the ass, you can talk up a good game about how hopeless the country’s situation is, here at home, as well as overseas…and then giggle like a child right before Christmas about it…we let it slide. If someone doesn’t point it out explicitly, most of us don’t even notice.

JohnJ had something to say about this lately:

Even here in Alabama, many people believe that the Democrat party is the party of good intentions and the Republican party is the party of evil intentions (granted, most of those many are at the law school). But even when I talk to people in other places, I often hear much of the same meme. For example, people think it’s ridiculous that Obama would ban guns or impose socialism, because Americans wouldn’t stand for something like that. But Republicans are on the verge of completely banning abortion, homosexuality, and criminalizing being black. I’m constantly amazed at the sheer number of people who believe exactly that.

From last year’s election, I’m inferring the democrat party has a complete lock on this “we are good people” tagline. If it’s a contest to see who can be thought of as good people, the democrats will win every single time. And so, in these discussions about what Republicans need to do to unseat them, or what any other faction would have to do to unseat them, I have steadfastly insisted this tactic should be abandoned. It doesn’t work. Last year offered it the very best of circumstances under which to operate, since I perceive there is bipartisan recognition that your kids are much better off spending a weekend with John McCain and Sarah Palin than with Barack Obama and Joe Biden. Nevertheless, the subject turned to who has better character, and the early-propaganda-money, and the Obama-as-modern-Messiah, won out.

And so I have also steadfastly insisted the next contest must be about “we are better people”…versus…“our policies work.” Reagan didn’t convince anyone he was a better person than Jimmy Carter. The palpable and effervescent consensus in 1980 was that Carter was a decent man, with noble intentions, who was simply in the wrong line of work (since then, demonstrated to be at least 33% correct).

Newt Gingrich never put too much effort into convincing people he was a more decent person than the democrats in the House leadership. I doubt like the dickens Richard Nixon ever convinced anyone he was a more decent person than LBJ, RFK or HH.

When people have problems they need to have solved, this just isn’t on their minds. They talk about it a lot because it makes them feel good…and if you listen to them too closely, it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking this is what they’re after. But they’ll borrow money from a mobster, in a heartbeat, if they think that’s what they need to do. They’ll sleep with vampires, they’ll sell their souls to the devil. Their instincts to eradicate some source of insecurity, or danger, win out most of the time, over their instincts to be on the side of what they know is right.

The Republican message…the Libertarian message…the anti-democrat message…needs to be — you aren’t even getting out of this deal what you’re supposed to be getting out of it. Partly because it’ll work; and partly, because it’s true. Obama was supposed to connect with people, resonate with people, earn us “respect around the world,” fill us with hope, encourage us to do more good works, bring smiles to our faces. That was the Faustian exchange by which we collectively agreed not to ask Him any tough questions, to forget about Jeremiah Wright within a space of mere hours, and to never, ever insist He should take a firm policy stand on anything. That was the bargain. And everything our country was supposed to have gotten out of it, seems to have evaporated. There’s no hope, there’s no real change, and in the nation’s highest office it seems we have some empty suit who can’t even speak clearly, communicate messages clearly, offer us encouragement or even deliver to us a positive outlook on life.

We abandoned logic and reason, to pander to our own emotions; in so doing we gave up some things in order to acquire other things, and we ended up without those other things.

All of life, I maintain, is like that.

Now, I hope my advice is taken. To me, it seems like a no-brainer. If it isn’t, JohnJ will be right, these people will stay in power indefinitely, talking up our problems, making them more severe in magnitude, insurmountable, and depressing…laughing and smiling with their “gallows humor” all the way.

Plus, I’ll have to buy JohnJ a nice steak dinner. I think he, and I, would be much happier about that if he was the one paying the bill on that one, and so would you.

Car Darts

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Playing darts, with cars, of course. And it’s our jolly friends across the pond at Top Gear, of course.

I should add a note that if you can watch all five minutes of this with a straight face, then congratulations. You have a verginer. Maybe two of ’em.

Embedding for this YouTube clip is disabled. I can’t explain why. We live in a universe in which all things are not required to make sense. Bloody sorry about that.

The Thought That Counts

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Doug Ross at Director Blue:

The modern Democrat Party, controlled by George Soros, is infected with a sickness.

And they don’t — that’s right, I said it — they don’t support the troops. In fact, Democrats hate the troops.

And Barack Obama proved it with his outrageous proposal to charge veterans for their own health care while preparing to offer citizenship and free health care for illegal immigrants. And I don’t care if he retracted his demands. It’s the thought that counts.

It seems like a thought every civilized mind must prepare to reject, even before gathering the information needed to substantiate it or place it into doubt, just as a matter of social protocol.

But it is the thought that counts.

With a decent command of recent history, a capable conciousness must anticipate that questions could bubble up to the surface regarding…how to synchronize traffic lights at an intersection…how to schedule recycling or garbage pickup…should we cook something from scratch tonight, or microwave a pizza…rocky road or plain vanilla…the next move to make in a game of checkers…

…and Soros’ democrat-party would instantly leap to the pro-chaos, anti-order, pro-bad-guy, anti-justice, pro-terrorist, anti-American position.

I mean, why would you think it’d work out any other way? Seriously?

More Obama Poor-Man’s Photoshop Bumper Stickers

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

This one is for Gerard

…and this one is for me, based on a thought I got in my li’l ol’ head when I read a comment from Larry:

Background on that one, for those who desire or require it, here.

Obama to Provide More Oversight on Executive Compensation

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

New York Times:

The Obama administration will call for increased oversight of executive pay at all banks, Wall Street firms and possibly other companies as part of a sweeping plan to overhaul financial regulation, government officials said.

The outlines of the plan are expected to be unveiled this week in preparation for President Obama’s first foreign summit meeting in early April.

Increasing oversight of executive pay has been under consideration for some time, but the decision was made in recent days as public fury over bonuses has spilled into the regulatory effort.

The officials said that the administration was still debating the details of its plan, including how broadly it should be applied and how far it could range beyond simple reporting requirements. Depending on the outcome of the discussions, the administration could seek to put the changes into effect through regulations rather than through legislation.

We are victims of that ancient Chinese curse about living in interesting times. We are living in whiplash times.

Remember, just last week? Just a tiny handful of days ago? What was the defense to accusations that the administration was attacking capitalism by removing the profit motive? What was it? How did it go? “Oh, you need to remember, these are taxpayer dollars…AIG has received bailout money…this is only about firms that received bailout money…”

Here we are in the middle of a weekend. The very next weekend. Woopsie, it’s no longer about firms that received bailout money.

These people are on crack. Their solution to the government being out of money, is that it should spend a whole lot more of it, and their solution to the economy’s anemic state, is to remove the incentive some of us might have to possibly earn a profit.

They seem to live out their entire lives, personally and professionally, in defiance of Will Rogers’ famous advice that when you find yourself in a hole the thing to do is stop digging.

Their personal fortunes are rather disconnected from the consequences of such a worldview, so for them, it certainly seems to be working out okay. And it will continue to.

Remorse II

Sunday, March 22nd, 2009

Question of the Moment and more than a little bit likely to become the question of the year:

RemorseDo you know of anyone whose opinion of Obama is higher now than when he was elected or inaugurated? Is there anyone on Planet Earth who is saying, “Gee, I voted against Obama, but he’s sure doing a much better job than I thought [h]e would”? Are there any moderates or Republicans slapping themselves on the head saying, “Boy, do I regret voting against Barack Obama”? They may be out there, but they are few and far between.

I certainly recall a lot of people having that notion toward Bill Clinton. Some even toward George W. Bush; just one or two, maybe, and a whole lot more on & after 9/11/01. I myself was wishing like crazy I’d re-elected Bush’s Dad, although a vote cast in California didn’t have much practical application toward something like that.

With Reagan, there were lots of people who voted against him and then saw the error of their ways.

Carter…not so much.

Hat tip goes to Gerard on this one.

What is remarkable about this question, the way it is asked, and the way Mssrs. Van der Leun, Wehner, and myself anticipate it will have to be answered? There is irony, and it is rich irony: Obama was chosen specifically because He was a virtual savior. We were to be assured there would be no regrets on this one.

And that is because the man can sell refrigerators to polar bears. (A more precise, and tragic, metaphor is that he can sell hair dryers to snowmen…the nation being the snowman.) On the democrat side of the aisle, things have always been this way. The democrats put their support behind the quintessential salesman. Obama is John Kerry v2.0; Kerry, who “could not get his message across,” and all that. It’s as if democrats understand, without anyone else pointing it out, that their plans already make precious little sense but at least the appearance will be there that their plans make sense, if everyone everywhere can be conned into executing them.

Rather like the fish that decide to swamp the fisherman’s boat by leaping into it. Woe be unto you if you’re the only fish that goes in on the plan. So all of life is a “Together We Can Do This” thing. The plan has never worked before, ever, but maybe that’s because not enough people were doing it.

Republicans, on the other hand, vote for whoever they’d trust to watch their kids.

That’s where the real split is. Republicans and democrats know Obama and Biden are better salesmen than McCain and Palin.

Republicans and democrats acknowledge it’s better to allow Sarah Palin to take your child, and his entire school class, on a sleepover-field-trip for two solid weeks…than to allow Barack Obama to talk to them for thirty seconds. For the democrats, this can’t be admitted out loud because it would cause damage to one’s social standing within a collective — which is, of course, the entire point. But deep down, everyone with something pulsating constructively north of the brain stem, understands it’s true.

Update 3/23/08: Great roundup (although there will be others) by Instapundit.

On the Special Olympics Comment

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Everyone, it seems, wants to know what everyone else thinks. The question may come my way sometime soon, or not, or ever. But just for the record, I think He has a pass coming on this one.

I understand the temptation to make something of it. President Bush didn’t say anything like this; and President Bush wouldn’t have. I think those two men see the world around them differently, I think they see the office of the President differently, and when George W. Bush occupied it I think he saw himself as representing all Americans and not just some Americans. He was also liberated from the burden of staying hip and cool, so the benefits of telling such a joke wouldn’t have impressed him much.

These are meaningful differences. It might seem desirable, even noble, to make something of ’em. But in the end, it is political correctness run amok. And, granted, something else — it’s beneath the office of the President to ridicule an entire class within his constituency, just as it’s beneath the office of the President to notice Jessica Simpson has been putting on a little weight. But these are things about Barack Obama we already knew. This latest slip reveals about as much about Him, as yet-another-word-mangling would have revealed about His predecessor: Not very much.

Besides of which, as a blogger in his underwear sitting on a couch at five in the morning, I want to keep making fun of people. And, while the President of the United States might be held to standards I am not (or at least, was, back in the old days), if I wanted to join in on the calls for virtual tarring-and-feathering, I’d have to stop making fun of people myself. Then I’d have to join up with, and start sympathizing with, the compulsive, routine knuckle-rappers…starting with the ones that want to close down every Hooters restaurant in existence because they “objectify” women.

And I don’t wanna do that. I don’t want to live in a world where the societal taboos are so thick, that you have to pretend, all the time, even in the privacy of your own home, that everyone is exactly the same…to such an extent that the threat of social ostracism persuades even the capable minds to avoid reality like a thief avoiding a constable. I went to public school in the 1970’s — I know where that trail leads.

Instead, let’s notice things about Obama’s true constituency, the way He notices things about some special-olympiads. He doesn’t represent all of us, and obviously He doesn’t think He does. He represents the purple-tie-Manhattan-creampuff crowd, the Daily Show and Saturday Night Live audience, the land of snark. That special place in which every piece of humor — each and every single one — revolves around a caricature. That realm of humor in which someone is always made to look bad, or dopey, or buffoonish, or is diminished in some way.

It’s a lack, not so much of class, as of character. An old man indulging in an ethnic or sexist one-liner might have what they are missing, if, at the next opportunity he has the depth and the worldview to add in some variety. Things he learned about life from his wife before she died; an interesting story behind something he saw in Europe twenty years ago; a self-deprecating story about going into the kitchen the other day and forgetting what he was supposed to be doing in there.

There’s the pity. Obama was trying to be self-deprecating Himself, He was trying to make fun of His own bowling game. But He’s part of that young-hip-urban crowd that just doesn’t know how to get it done. They don’t have variety. Every joke has to have a clearly defined target, and in their universe the group identification has become critically important because there are some things that are supposed to be targets and other things that are not. According to that set of social codes, if Obama can be a target, than so can we all. And that’s just too frightening to them. Sounds a little bit too much like the way we knuckle-dragging conservatives live…with that horrible, awful thing called individuality. An end to that carefully constructed don’t-make-fun-of-X hierarchy. True egalitarianism, which they shunned eons ago.

There’s nothing ugly that can be said against President Obama here, other than that people have negligible value to Him if He can’t see a way they can help Him become more powerful. If they can’t Help Him in this way, with or without their direct knowledge. Anyone who can’t do this, doesn’t really matter to Him. And we knew that already. That, and His ability to speak-off-the-cuff, to create an inclusive society, to appeal to the hearts and minds of strangers in a positive way — these talents of His have been vastly exaggerated. We knew that already too. Let it go.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

Taking Responsibility, Obama-Style

Saturday, March 21st, 2009

Neo-neocon, always perceptive and always astute, here borders on genius.

Some little boys denied taking the cookie; others, caught with their hands in the jar, insisted they were actually putting it back in. And got away with it. When the man from Hope, Arkansas showed us how that was done, we were impressed. The one who sits in our White House right now, though can change the subject around mouthfuls of cookie. You just stand there and think “damn, I can’t remember what I wanted to talk to him about, but what he’s talking about sure sounds important…wish I hadn’t bothered him while he was in the middle of eating something.”

Note that nowhere does he admit any wrongdoing or culpability. The clues are in the little details of language; do not think for a moment that they are accidental. Obama’s ability to craft his balancing act is so precise that it has me in awe. Almost every word he utters is there for a careful strategic reason, to induce a particular psychological effect in the listener.

What happens when a fine surgical instrument is taken to one of Obama’s evasions? When the post-mortem is conducted with such care, such attention to detail, with every single layer peeled back, every single organ and gland meticulously removed, catalogued, photographed, inspected and slipped back in place? Click and find out.

Cross-posted at Right Wing News.

What Does Article II Say About Appearing on Leno?

Friday, March 20th, 2009

Now that 43 Americans have taken the oath of office for United States President — or is it 44? I’m confused — we have an occasion for some thinking today, since the current officeholder has broken form with his predecessors and appeared on a late-night comedy show.

I’m hoping we have a few years left before the sitting President is hosting a late-night comedy show. Or filling in for Art Bell.

The thinking has to do with how to report such an unprecedented phenomenon. But you don’t have to do too much thinking, to think, hey, maybe this is unprecedented for a reason.

Mary Kate Cary, opinion section, US News and World Report:

The morning shows were abuzz with reviews of President Obama’s performance last night on Jay Leno’s show. I still say he shouldn’t have done it. Here are the reasons this was a bad idea from the start:

The risky nature of unscripted, be-funny-right-now late-night television played against him. Overall, the president was his usual charming self. But sure enough, in an effort to be funny, the president slipped. Everyone cringed when he made a self-deprecating joke at the expense of the kids in the Special Olympics. Before the show even aired, he found himself apologizing to the head of the Special Olympics from Air Force One, and the White House put out a printed apology shortly afterward. Completely avoidable, and now it’s getting played over and over on cable.

Leno also asked the president about his confidence in Secretary Geithner, and his off-the-cuff response is being replayed endlessly as a “heck of a job, Brownie” non-endorsement. It’s adding fuel to the fire at Geithner’s feet, which is probably not what the White House wanted going in to the weekend talk shows. Again, completely avoidable.

The fact that the president didn’t control the questions, Jay Leno did. Although the White House intended that the interview would allow the president to explain to the American people his proposals for getting the economy moving again, he spent roughly half of his time answering Leno’s questions about the AIG bonuses instead. In fact, Leno asked a great question to which the president didn’t seem to have an answer: In reference to the bill that passed the House imposing a 90 percent tax on AIG executives who kept their bonuses, Leno said, “It’s frightening to me as an American that Congress could decide that ‘I don’t like that group—let’s pass a law and tax them at 90 percent’ … It seems a little scary to me as a taxpayer that they can just decide that.”

Great question, one that no one seems to have asked so far. What is preventing Congress from imposing a 90 percent tax the rest of us, if they so chose? Apparently it’s not going to be President Obama. He responded with a vague answer that started with something about not letting the horse out of the barn and ended with calling for tax hikes on the rich.

The appearance diminished the office of the president. First the president had to cool his heels backstage while Jay Leno went through his usual comedy monologue. When Leno ended it with his usual “Stay with us, _____ is up next,” it was not “Britney Spears” or “Ryan Seacrest” up next, but “The President of the United States.” When the show returned, we all waited through an extended bit on silly items found at the Dollar Store. As my sixth grader would say, awkward.

The president was introduced like any starlet or movie producer. There was nothing different from any other guest, except that Kevin Eubanks and his band played a rock-and-roll version of “Hail to the Chief” when the President came onstage.

Even if the president had it the ball out of the park, his appearance on Leno did nothing in terms of building respect for the office of the presidency. And now that’s he’s done it, what’s next … Letterman? The Daily Show? It’ll be hard to say no to everyone else, now that the precedent has been set.

It was a win for Leno, but not for the president. So much for making television history.

McClatchy News Service, on the same subject…I hope you’re sitting down. Get ready for a major tone shift. I mean major. Measured with the Richter scale.

President Barack Obama, offering salve for economic uncertainty, reached out Thursday to an unusual assortment of Californians: Talk-show host Jay Leno, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and an 8-year-old asking him to save teachers’ jobs.

In a town hall gathering and in private meetings with the governor and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Obama promised help — and money — to rebuild California’s infrastructure and revitalize its economy.

He also offered public words of support for California’s sacrifice as voters prepare to decide a package of fiscal reform measures that the Legislature put on the May ballot to help close a $40 billion budget deficit.

And Obama had a poignant conversation with Los Angeles third-grader Ethan Lopez.

The boy, in a crisp white shirt and necktie, provided the emotive moment at the town hall Obama hosted with Schwarzenegger in the gymnasium of the Miguel Contreras Learning Complex in downtown Los Angeles.

“Hi, my name is Ethan,” he told the president when called on for the last question of the forum. “President Obama, our school is in big trouble. Because (of) our budget cuts, 25 of our teachers already have been fired.”

Offering the president a card from his classmates, the boy asked for help in stopping pink slips resulting from budget cuts in the Los Angeles public school system.

“Ethan, we’re going to do everything we can to protect our teachers,” said Obama, who said federal money is headed to California to modernize schools, fight overcrowding and save jobs. He added: “We are going to make sure that we invest in that as well, because I want you to get a first-class education.”

In his appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” later Thursday, Obama mixed light-hearted banter with serious discussion about his goals for America’s economic recovery.

“The important thing over the next several months is making sure that we don’t lurch from thing to thing, but we try to make steady progress, build a foundation for long-term economic growth,” he said.

At the town hall meeting, Obama promised that state communities will be receiving $145 million to address the mortgage meltdown and begin “transforming abandoned streets lined with empty houses back into thriving neighborhoods.”

Obama’s appearance with Schwarzenegger came a day after the Republican governor appeared in the Central Valley to tout 57 projects he said are in line to receive $625 million in funding under Obama’s stimulus plan.

On Thursday, Schwarzenegger said California alone stands to receive as much as $50 billion under the $787 billion national economic stimulus package. In introducing the president, Schwarzenegger said the pair “are partners in the fight to put people back to work.”

Obama called the governor “somebody who has turned out to be just an outstanding partner.”

It was far different rhetoric than during the presidential campaign, when Schwarzenegger, a supporter of Republican John McCain, joked about Obama’s “scrawny little arms.” On Thursday, the body-builder-turned-governor was delighted to share the stage with the new president.

It goes on from there. And no, not a single word about the Special Olympics thing. You figured that out already, right?

I think I’m putting more stock in that good-lookin’ brunette. It’s not because I’m down on PresBO — although I am. Geez, I never dreamed my fatigue would be setting in this fast.

Her piece is just plain more sincere, more honest, more responsible. More thoughtful. That’s obvious, right? Even to you hopey-changey people? No? Still wanna argue that point? Yeah, go ahead…put off that really hard work until another day. Hard to be humble when you spent all last year fainting and crying.

Of course, the McClatchy piece, it could be said, was more saturated with good old-fashioned hard data. Depending on what you consider to be hard data. A weepy human-interest story about a little boy named Ethan, who the smart money is going to say was just another plant…well, it did happen, so that’s hard data. And there are all these facts and figures about the money Obama is getting ready to provide. Whoops, though, no, Obama wouldn’t be providing it. He’d be making it available after taking it away from other people who provided it. Many of whom live in this troubled state of California. I guess I’m veering off here into what could be called inconvenient hard data.

But one thing impresses me about these stories more than anything else…the righteously jaundiced ones like the top one, as well as the borderline-pornographic pro-Obama biased ones, like the second one from McClatchy.

No matter which way they lean, I can’t resist the impulse to read ’em a second time, taking special care to substitute “President Palin” every time I see in print the name “President Obama.”

Try it with me…

President Sarah Palin, offering salve for economic uncertainty, reached out Thursday to an unusual assortment of Californians: Talk-show host Jay Leno, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and an 8-year-old asking him to save teachers’ jobs.

In a town hall gathering and in private meetings with the governor and Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Palin promised help — and tax cuts — to rebuild California’s infrastructure and revitalize its economy.

She also offered public words of support for California’s sacrifice as voters prepare to decide a package of fiscal reform measures that the Legislature put on the May ballot to help close a $40 billion budget deficit.

And Palin had a poignant conversation with Los Angeles third-grader Ethan Lopez.
:
“Ethan, we’re going to do everything we can to protect your education,” said Palin, who said massive tax cuts are headed to California to modernize schools, fight overcrowding and save jobs. She added: “We are going to make it easier for concerned parents to provide high-quality home schooling, and make sure that we get the federal government out of the way, because I want you to get a first-class education.”

In her appearance on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” later Thursday, Palin mixed light-hearted banter with serious discussion about her goals for America’s economic recovery.

“The important thing over the next several months is making sure that we stop the bleeding, stop the reckless spending, and stand up for fiscal responsibility, to build a foundation for long-term economic growth,” she said.

At the town hall meeting, Palin promised that the federal government would be reducing overall spending by $145 million to address the mortgage meltdown and begin “transforming abandoned streets lined with empty houses back into thriving neighborhoods.”

You get the point. I had to modify the policies somewhat…had to…because whenever Obama says something that sounds good, it has to do with spending money that isn’t really his, which isn’t what Palin is all about. And when I say “whenever” I mean it in the absolutist, inflexible sense…as in, he hasn’t got anything else good to say about his own policies. He forced someone else to get them paid-fer. Right? Is that an exaggeration? Would Obamafans sign on to that one? I don’t think they’d enjoy doing it, but they’d pretty much have to. Or not. As noted previously, they do have that tender-ego thing going on.

But leaving that aside — how would McClatchy write that one up? Heh heh. Oh, my, Mary Kate Cary of U.S. News World and Report…you think you can huff and puff away about diminishing the office of the President of the United States by appearing on late night comedy. I’m pretty sure McClatchy, Associated Press, MSNBC, CNN, and a whole parade of dead-tree-newspublishing cabals could give you a run for your money if President Palin made the same appearance. There would, of course, be an obligatory line or two about how desperate the President was to use this appearance to deflect criticism, and distract from criticism, that she is quite plain and simply in over her head. There would be another snippet about how miserably she failed in this effort. And then the gloves would come off. They’d be howling for impeachment papers to be drawn up after Madame President let loose with the very first “You Betcha.” Unstatesmanlike and unbecoming! Diminishing our stature to our allies around the world! Making us look like a nation of gun toting middle-school-educated rednecks! Grrr!

They sure as snot wouldn’t be saying anything about President Palin offering a salve for the nation’s economy. I’ll bet you a Wagyu steak on that one.