COTD: Ugly

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com Therefore, the diplomat's estimate Saturday that the Iranians will not risk confrontation with the West or chance an Israeli attack is completely unfounded, as are the theories that the Iranian leadership is in too shaky a position at home to go forward with a nuclear test. As soon as the test site is ready, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will not be deterred from taking the nuclear plunge by the unrest at home, any more than grave illness has stopped Kim Jong-II flouting international prohibitions. Still, the US and Europe will not fall out of their chairs because they have given the ayatollahs all the time they needed to attain a nuclear weapon." I wonder if those protesting in Iran would understand a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. Does the political situation on the ground actually give the Mullahs some breathing room on chasing the bomb? Or must we do everything we can now to "meddle" before Ahmadinejad gives the green light?

Which of course raises the question of why the protesters are going all out now. Certainly Mousavi and Rafsanjani have the inside scoop on how close the scientist's are to a nuke. There are certainly plenty of reasons to question Rafsanjani's sanity regarding nukes but perhaps Mousavi is a different animal on this topic.

Mousavi's wife seems very interesting -- she might hold a sway of sanity over him about the disaster that could ensue from Israeli jitters. And could knowledge of this situation be emboldening the courage of the Iranian people to revolt?

Death To Russia!

clipped from www.michaeltotten.com Iranians like to shout "death" at countries and governments they oppose. "Death to America" and "death to Israel" have been staples of the bombast belted out by hard-line ruling authorities for three decades. "Death to the dictator" is a recent addition to Iran's political discourse. Even more recently, enemies and opponents of Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and Ali Khamenei began chanting "death to Russia" and "death to China" to counter the regime's incessant bleatings of "death to America," and to highlight the Islamic Republic's alliance with Beijing and Moscow. Iran's internal divisions look more like a microcosm of world politics than they have for some time. Each side is declared a proxy of powerful foreigners. Natrually, each side's "patrons" oppose each other geopolitically. Whether the White House likes it or not, and whether it's a good thing or not, the reformist and revolutionary side in that fight will continue to be associated with the United States and the West.

Obambi would be completely out of places to hide if it weren't for the state-run media, wouldn't he?

OAcorn Is Taking Notes

clipped from babalublog.com A Spanish Catalan newspaper is reporting that Honduran authorities have seized computers found in the Presidential Palace belonging to deposed president Mel Zelaya. Taking a page right out of the leftist dictator's handbook, these computers, according to the news report, contained the official and certified results of the illegal constitutional referendum Zelaya wanted to conduct that never took place. The results of this fraudulent vote was tilted heavily in Zelaya's favor, ensuring he could go ahead and illegally change the constitution so he could remain in power for as long as he wanted to. ACORN, I'm sure, is taking notes.

And Zelaya was taking notes from Khameini...

Yes, Virginia, We Did Land On The Moon

clipped from www.nasa.gov NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO, has returned its first imagery of the Apollo moon landing sites. The pictures show the Apollo missions' lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon's surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules' locations evident.

Orwell Down His Own Memory Hole Once Again

clipped from www.engadget.com If you're into keeping tabs on irony, check this out. Amazon apparently sent out its robotic droogs last night, deleting copies of the George Orwell novels Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four from Kindles without explanation, then refunding the purchase price. As you can imagine, a lot of people caught in the thick of Winston and Julia's love story aren't very happy -- and rightfully so -- the idea that we "own" the things we buy is pretty fundamental to... ownership. We're not sure exactly what happened, but it seems that the publisher of said novels, MobileReference, has changed its mind about selling content on the Kindle, and poof! Amazon remotely deleted all previously purchased copies. It's all a bit Orwellian, is it not? Good thing we "permanently borrowed" hard copies of both from our middle school library, huh? Let Hate Week commence.

In case you wonder about my reference to "once again", I give you "Pacifism and the War". The Orwell essay that does not exist to modern lunatic Liberals.

And yes, we can get into debates about enforcement of property rights but the fact that this "just happened" in the Kindle system without careful thought pretty much proves the point of how Orwellian our overlords have become.

When they're not being Huxleyan of course.

Incompetent Boob's Plan Failing (Part 79,239)

clipped from www.politico.com The Obama administration’s $50 billion program to curb foreclosures isn’t working, and the White House knows it. Administration officials blame the mortgage servicers charged with carrying out the mortgage modifications and refinancing under the federal program. Many of their Democratic allies on Capitol Hill back them up, but others are criticizing the White House for fumbling the execution. Whatever the reason, the program hasn’t stopped the rising tide of foreclosures: Experts predict that at least another 2 million homes will be lost this year, and the administration’s plan has so far reached only about 160,000 of the 3 million to 4 million homes it was supposed to protect over the next three years. That’s bad news for the economy — and bad news for the Democrats. The Democrats’ political and policy fortunes rest on their ability to persuade voters that they’re fixing the economy.

But The Lefty Moroons Don't Support People Who Actually ARE Tortured

clipped from azarmehr.blogspot.com Look at the courage of these protesters in Iran. They are marching past the interior ministry building and they are chanting against Sadegh Mahsouli, Ahmadinejad's millionaire friend and trustee and the man who organised the vote rigging. You can see scores of riot guards on motorbikes inside the building who could mount a vicious attack on protesters any minute: In this building there is a macabre floor known as the -4th floor. Here there is no natural light, no toilets, no washing facility, you are given food in your hands to eat and just the stench of the place overwhelms you. Several hundred injured protesters from the university dormitory raid were captured and huddled into vans. Metal boxes were put over their heads and they were repeatedly hit while on their way to the -4th floor death chambers. They were given no food or water for 12 hours, until a warden with a jug of water came and started pouring the water onto the floor.

RTWT

Behind The Buffoon Biden

clipped from www.qando.net The national debt incurs interest that is paid with taxes. The interest rate on US debt is projected be about 6% annually in the long run, according to the Social Security Administration’s actuaries and other such governmental budget projectors. Six percent of one trillion dollars is $60 billion. There are 80 million payers of income tax in the US. (If that seems low for a population of 300 million remember that 47% of all “tax units”, 70 million potential taxpayers, pay no income tax or receive refundable tax credits from the government.) Now $60 billion divided by 80 million taxpayers equals $750 per taxpayer — so each trillion dollars of the national debt costs the average taxpayer $750 per year, every year that the debt is carried, forever. As of the end of last year the government’s outstanding explicit and implicit debt was $64 trillion. Which creates an explicit and implict annual interest liability to just carry the debt of more than $49,000 per taxpayer.

A Violation Of Trust

clipped from www.scrappleface.com (2009-07-15) — With Democrats in Congress already alarmed at revelations that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) had a covert scheme to kill terrorist leaders like Usama Bin Laden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is reportedly set to announce a probe into allegations that the CIA may have also “conspired to conduct espionage operations against America’s enemies.” Although the “vague” plans to dispatch small CIA teams to hit senior al Qaeda leaders never materialized due to legal, logistical and diplomatic obstacles, current CIA Director Leon E. Panetta cancelled the program in June, and sold several planning documents to the producers of Fox Network’s ‘24′. According to a Pelosi staffer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity due to the top-secret nature of the information he revealed, the CIA has “surreptitiously conducted what amounts to international spy operations without proper notification of its espionage targets, or of the United Nations.”

Long Past Trouble

clipped from prudentbear.com "If we lose confidence in the ability and the willingness of the Fed to deal with inflationary pressures and sustain confidence in the dollar, we'll be in trouble."  Paul Volcker, May 15, 2008

Not A Typical Component

clipped from www.qando.net But efficiency is to government programs what barbecue sauce is to an ice-cream sundae: not a typical component.

COTD: The Clinton Children

clipped from hotair.com Years ago, Hillary Clinton was asked whether she might run for President. Of course she said no. The reason she gave was that it was too hard working within all the constraints of the Constitution, having to deal with Congress, state governments, etc. She said she’d have no problem doing the job if she could just implement all her programs without all those “distractions.” In other words: being President is hard, but being God would be a cake walk. To a conservative of course, that view sounds childlike, even asinine. But think about it: If you had no sense of responsibility, it would make absolutely perfect sense to you. logis on July 17, 2009 at 9:31 AM

Stupid, Submissive, Noisy Parrots

clipped from www.weeklystandard.com "The feminist establishment wanted people to be like stupid, submissive, noisy parrots", she's written, which includes hewing to a straight political line on issues. "I spent the whole of my activist career compromising myself, my individuality, and my sense of right and wrong in order to belong." The desire to stamp out individualism and dissent among feminist groups makes for a very small ideological tent. Bruce was pressured to resign as president of the Los Angeles chapter of NOW when she made public statements critical of the overwhelming focus on race in the O.J. Simpson trial, to the exclusion of the issue of violence against women. It seemed a reasonable position for a women's organization to take, but NOW national president Patricia Ireland believed it "blotted NOW's otherwise impressive record of committed activism in the fight for racial justice and equality" and was insensitive to "people of color". All this from an organization focused on the right for women to be "heard".

The Stupid People Win

clipped from girlinshortshorts.blogspot.com This blog chugged along for two and a half years without any problems, but with the Dawn of the Age of Obama—nothing but trouble. The blog has never changed, and it certainly has not changed since May—the last time this happened, and Google, after an avalanche of complaints from my readers, decided that I am not really a purveyor of smut and removed the content warning splash page. There is no doubt this is an attempt to marginalize me. Readership will dramatically decrease. In forty eight hours I will no longer appear in the search engines under the topics I discuss--it will just be described as offensive content. Besides, I am quite sure many folks, understandably, don't continue past the "objectionable content" warning. And those readers who are actually looking for porn will be pretty disappointed--and will never come back--which is actually fine with me..

Norwegian Wheat

clipped from www.kfyrtv.com With a summer like this, you can`t tell my Dad there`s global warming. "I think Al Gore and his group should be out here and tell us about this global warming stuff. I think he might have a change of mind. We`ve had a cool July,” says Orlan Dreyer, Willow City Farmer July mornings aren`t supposed to be 50 degrees, but once again today, we`re seeing temperatures well below normal. With two inches of rain on my wheat crop in the last two weeks, we have plenty of moisture to carry us for awhile. "This is a little extreme. You have to push the crop a little too to get it to mature. We`re running late and we could run into problems, I`ve seen frost in August. It hurt bad,” explains Dreyer. Along with an early frost, disease is a concern out here as we enter the heading stage. Dad has his own theory on that. "We might end up with Norwegian wheat, big heads and nothing in them,” says Dreyer. (laughing) This is one Norwegian hoping that his heads aren`t empty.

The Bus Ride To Insanity

clipped from www.cnsnews.com “And folks look, AARP knows and the people with me here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it now. It can’t do it financially.”   “We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.   “Now, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about, Joe? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, that's what I’m telling you.” (Listen to Audio)   The event, sponsored by the AARP – which supports the Obama administration’s plan – was attended by mostly AARP members who were bussed in for the meeting.

Not The Way You Hope

clipped from www.reason.com Some statements are inherently unbelievable. Such as: "I am an official of the government of Nigeria, and I would like to deposit $60 million in your bank account." Or: "I'm Barry Bonds, and I thought it was flaxseed oil." And this new one: "I'm Barack Obama, and I favor more competition in health insurance." That, however, is the claim behind his support of a government-run health insurance plan to give consumers one more choice. The president says a "public option" would improve the functioning of the market because it would "force the insurance companies to compete and keep them honest." He has indicated that while he is willing to discuss a variety of remedies as part of health insurance reform, this one is non-negotiable. Will introducing a government-run insurance program work? After all, that Nigerian financial scam works. Just not necessarily the way you hope.

Busted

clipped from online.wsj.com Just about every policy move to right the U.S. economy after the subprime sinking of the banking system has been a bust. We saved Bear Stearns. We let Lehman Brothers go. We forced Merrill Lynch, Wachovia and Washington Mutual into the hands of others. We took control of Fannie and Freddie and AIG and even own a few car companies, pumping them with high-test transfusions. None of this really helped. We have a zero interest-rate policy. We guaranteed bank debt. We set up the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) to buy toxic mortgage assets off bank balance sheets. But when banks refused to sell at fire sale prices, we just gave them the money instead. Dumb move. So we set up the Public-Private Investment Program to get private investors to buy these same toxic assets with government leverage, and still there are few sellers. Meanwhile, the $1 trillion federal deficit is crowding out private investment and the porky $787 billion stimulus hasn't translated into growth.

The Next Phase

clipped from blogs.moneycentral.msn.com Although Wall Street's focus has turned to other matters, the housing crisis continues to smolder and burn like an abandoned campfire ready to reignite. Heck, the banks are even restarting the mortgage repackaging business -- once again turning questionable loans into "investment grade" securities. But just as we look the other way, the next phase of the housing crisis is about to begin according to new analysis by hedge fund owner and value-investing guru Whitney Tilson. In a recent update to his housing overview from last December, Tilson says the next phase will be driven by prime and Alt-A borrowers who owe more than their house is now worth. The catalyst will be ongoing job loss, falling wages, and rising interest rates. Add to this a huge wave of Alt-A loan resets over the next five years. The result: Home prices will fall another 10%, possibly more. As for the hope that first-time buyers will swoop in and save the day, just look at the chart above.

War

clipped from www.davidwarrenonline.com We have one group that lives under the highly artificial and intensely regulated conditions of post-modern urban life. (Even if they go to a cottage, it will be equipped with the electronic paraphernalia to create a bubble of urbanity.) And, we have another group who remain in contact with the eternal verities of life on this planet. (Who, for instance, associate electric power with doing work, as opposed to "making consumer choices.") Perhaps better terms for the two sides, to replace left and right, might be "martians" and "earthlings." It is to the earthlings in this scenario that Ms. Palin is speaking. And when she writes lines like this intentional jaw-dropper in the Washington Post -- "We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil" -- she is quite intentionally signalling that she is ready for war.

Inside Unemployment

clipped from www.usnews.com job losses for June is 467,000. That increases by 7.2 million the number of unemployed since the start of the recession. The cumulative job losses over the past six months have been greater than for any other half-year period since World War II, including demobilization. What's more, the job losses are now equal to the net job gains over the previous nine years That's bad enough. But here are nine reasons we are in even more trouble than the 9.5 percent unemployment rate indicates. One. June's total included 185,000 people who were assumed to be at work, many of whom probably were not. The government could not identify them; it made an assumption about trends. Five. The inside numbers are just as bad. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory private-sector employees, around 80 percent of the workforce, dropped to 33 hours.

Stimulating The Same Mistakes

clipped from www.ft.com Third, debt has a nasty property: it is highly treacherous. A loan hides volatility as it does not vary outside of default, while an equity investment has volatility but its risks are visible. Yet both have similar risks. Thus debt is the province of both the overconfident borrower who underestimates large deviations, and of the investor who wants to be deluded by hiding risks. Then there are products such as complex derivatives, which in the name of “modern finance” make the system even more fragile. Against this background, we have two options. The first is to deflate debt, the other is to inflate assets (or counter their deflation with a collection of stimulus packages.) We believe that stimulus packages, in all their forms, make the same mistakes that got us here. These errors will be larger in the future, so central bank money creation will lead not to inflation but to hyper-inflation, as the system is set for bigger deviations than ever before.

Give It To Him

clipped from www.latimes.com For months, the White House and Obama's economic team have laid the economic crisis at the feet of President George W. Bush. But there comes a point in a presidency when inheritance becomes ownership. Obama made that pivot this week in Michigan, the state suffering the worst unemployment in the U.S. "I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, 'Well, this is Obama's economy,'" the president said, pointedly deviating from his prepared text. "That's fine. Give it to me!" It was a defiant moment, reminiscent of Bush's own "Bring 'em on!" taunt in 2003 to militants in Iraq. Like Bush's brash challenge, Obama's could haunt him, too. It's a calculated risk that confronts his critics head-on and casts him as an activist, on-the-job president. Obama has laid claim to the full measure of the job. When it comes to the economy, no one — certainly not his Republican critics — is going to keep him from taking it.

Gutted

clipped from www.dickmorris.com Obama’s health care proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access. Indeed, the principal impact of the Obama health care program will be to reduce sharply the medical services the elderly can use. No longer will their every medical need be met, their every medication prescribed, their every need to improve their quality of life answered. It is so ironic that the elderly - who were so vigilant when Bush proposed to change Social Security - are so relaxed about the Obama health care proposals. Bush’s Social Security plan, which did not cut their benefits at all, aroused the strongest opposition among the elderly. But Obama’s plan, which will totally gut Medicare and replace it with government-managed care and rationing, has elicited little more than a yawn from most senior citizens.

$1T

clipped from www.qando.net Have you ever wondered how much a trillion dollars really is? Well here’s a handy measure.  If you were in the aircraft carrier buying business you could buy 222 Nimitz class carriers. Or you could just give every man, woman and child in the US $325.50 each year for 10 years.

O... M... G...

clipped from www.bizzyblog.com Receipts, which I had estimated would be $230 billion in June, came in at $215.4 billion. O…M…G.

Regime Uncertainty Update (Part 6,794,398)

clipped from wizbangblog.com Who really gets overwhelmed by these tax increases? Not the Warren Buffets, or Ted Turners, or Sumner Redstones. The people who really get hammered by these huge tax increases are the people who came from middle class backgrounds, went to college and then graduate school and mastered a highly-specialized vocation (or became a successful entertainer or athlete, but not a superstar), or who have started their own businesses, and then worked very hard to earn a comfortable middle-six-figure income. If one were to add all that up (forget rises in sales taxes, inheritance taxes, luxury taxes, etc.), then one can get to 70% of one's income. And that means rippling throughout this key sector of the economy -- even before these taxes have been enacted -- are hesitation, stasis, and ultimately constriction -- at first for psychological reasons, soon confirmed by the actual facts of less money Obama brilliantly conflated the Wall Street class with the upper-tier of Main Street in Animal Farm fashion

D'oh

clipped from www.lucianne.com

Ironic Beauty

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com In addition to immediately increasing unemployment in the energy sector, even more American jobs will be threatened by the rising cost of doing business under the cap-and-tax plan. For example, the cost of farming will certainly increase, driving down farm incomes while driving up grocery prices. The costs of manufacturing, warehousing and transportation will also increase. The ironic beauty in this plan? Soon, even the most ardent liberal will understand supply-side economics. The Americans hit hardest will be those already struggling to make ends meet. As the president eloquently puts it, their electricity bills will "necessarily skyrocket." So much for not raising taxes on anyone making less than $250,000 a year. Even Warren Buffett, an ardent Obama supporter, admitted that under the cap-and-tax scheme, "poor people are going to pay a lot more for electricity."

Political Corruption Of The First Order

clipped from pajamasmedia.com JEFF JACOBY: Lawmakers, read the bills before you vote. Hoyer conceded that if lawmakers had to carefully study the bill ahead of time, they would never vote for it. “If every member pledged to not vote for it if they hadn’t read it in its entirety, I think we would have very few votes,’’ he said. The majority leader was declaring, in other words, that it is more important for Congress to pass the bill than to understand it. “Transparency’’ is a popular buzzword in good-government circles, and politicians are forever promising to transact the people’s business in the sunshine. But as Hoyer’s mirth suggests, when it comes to lawmaking, transparency is a joke. If companies that are “too big to fail” are too big to exist, then bills that are “too long to read” are too long to pass. This sort of behavior — passing bills that no one has read — or, that in the case of the healthcare “bill” haven’t even actually been written — represents political corruption of the first order.

Time To Investigate

clipped from pajamasmedia.com TIGERHAWK: Obama’s popularity declines, and the investigations begin. “Call me a cynic, but I am not in the least surprised that a couple of weeks after Barack Obama’s strong approval/disapproval ratings took a turn to the unfavorable and Obamacare is looking less like a lead pipe cinch it is suddenly time to investigate the Bush administration.”

I'm Sure That NOW Will Be All Over This Just Any Minute

clipped from hotair.com Wajeha al-Huwaider had her passport in order and wanted to take a 45-minute cab ride for a summer vacation on the Bahraini coast, a popular destination in eastern Saudi Arabia.  Despite having her papers ready for inspection, a border guard refused to allow al-Huwaider to join her fellow Saudis into Bahrain, as a male guardian was not present to give his permission. “Either you treat us like mature citizens or let us leave the country (permanently),” she told CNN. She’s urging all Saudi women who are tired of “being oppressed” to go “to any border and try to cross it without permission from their male relative.” Saudi Arabia has one of the most repressive legal systems in the world when it comes to the rights of women.  Literally, women can do nothing for themselves without the permission of their closest male relative, usually a husband, father, or brother, but in some cases a son.

Not.

Redux: Suicide Faster

clipped from hotair.com As Reason magazine recently reported, the Obama administration’s “stimulus” approach is almost an exact duplicate of the policies that led to Japan’s “Lost Decade”: The Japanese government’s easing of credit rates, instead of spurring real demand, created artificial demand. Federal loans and stimulus spending were not economically productive, and they vastly increased the nation’s debt and prolonged the economic malaise. Worse, businesses spent critical time on the sidelines, waiting for government bailouts and other centralized actions, instead of speedily consolidating their losses, clearing their balance sheets of bad investments, and reorganizing. So Baker’s spat with the Washington Post over the need for a second “stimulus” is a pathetic sideshow. The first “stimulus” is, in fact, damaging the prospects for recovery and the debate over a second dose of the same poison is basically about whether we should commit economic suicide faster.

Harpies

clipped from hotair.com I keep repeating, “It Won’t Work,” and here’s why: The government can print money or borrow money or raise taxes to increase government spending in the name of pump-priming “stimulus” — that is to say, demand-side intervention intended to boost consumer spending. (Whether or not the $789 trillion “stimulus” bill passed in February effectively achieves this intent is another question.) However, any of these three methods of funding Keynesian intervention has negative economic consequences that hinder recovery. This third point — the negative economic consequences of deficit spending — is where the hypocrisy of Democrats is so apparent. All during the Bush years, Democrats harped about deficits, but now that they’re in charge, their pretenses to fiscal conservatism have evaporated. It’s sad, because the fiscal and monetary policies of the Bush years (especially the inflationary policies of the Fed) deserve serious criticism, not the kind of political opportunism that Democrats practice.

Did He Forget To Mention The Hypocrisy?

clipped from www.washingtonexaminer.com My family benefited from innovative treatments that probably wouldn't be around if the United States had adopted socialized medicine when that was first proposed over half a century ago. In 20 years from now, a lot more treatments -- and, probably, dramatically better treatments -- won't be around if we adopt a national healthcare program now. It's ironic that the same Democrats who were pushing the medical prospects for stem-cell research during the last election are now pushing a program that will make such progress far less likely.

Death Of Innovation

clipped from www.washingtonexaminer.com The normal critique of socialized medicine is to point out that people have to wait a long time for these kinds of treatments in places like Britain. And that's certainly a valid critique. I'm sure my mom and daughter would still be waiting for their treatments, while my father and wife would probably be dead. The key point, though, is that these treatments didn't just come out out of the blue. They were developed by drug companies and device makers who thought they had a good market for things that would make people feel better. But under a national healthcare plan, the "market" will consist of whatever the bureaucrats are willing to buy. That means treatment for politically stylish diseases will get some money, but otherwise the main concern will be cost-control. More treatments, to bureaucrats, mean more costs.

Opting Out

clipped from pajamasmedia.com We opted out of Medicare because the service won’t pay for phone consultations, won’t pay for email consultations, barely pays for an office visit, and does not pay nearly enough to cover a house call. All of these services are critical to our medical practice. Medicare would require us to hire too many staff, as well as require us to do too much paper work and administration. I cannot afford to invest in either and still manage to operate in the black. Medicare has too many regulations and rules; we can’t understand a lot of them, and frankly, Medicare doesn’t seem to understand them most of the time either. And yet if you make a mistake, you face possible criminal prosecution.