Courtesy John Stossel, writing in Reason Magazine:

First, knowledge about supply, demand, individual preferences and resource availability is scattered—much of it never articulated—throughout society. It is not concentrated in a database where a group of planners can access it.
Second, this "data" is dynamic: It changes without notice.

This is why it is utter madness to try to run the entire medical sector of the economy from Washington D.C., which is what the Democrat leadership is hell-bent on doing.

They don't understand freedom. Freedom isn't just about choice. It's about choice in a world of imperfect knowledge and imperfect communication, a world where it's impossible for any one person or entity to know with precision all of the details necessary to "appropriately" allocate resources.

The only mechanism that humanity has discovered that is effective in doing that resource allocation is the price mechanism, which only works in a free economy, with the least possible intervention by non-economic factors (such as Congress.)

The Democrats want to turn the clock back to the Middle Ages, and rule as divinely inspired technocrats--modern-day lords and ladies who simply think that they know better than everyone else how you and I should live.

They are wrong, but they are also completely blind to their error--so, they are not only wrong, they are tragically wrong, and will wind up harming the very people they purport to help.

As command economies always do.

Oh, brother.

Paula Moore-Kirby, 42 years old, had less trouble with the Web site, but couldn’t work out how to answer the question about how many jobs her father had created or saved. She couldn’t leave it blank, either, she said. After several calls to a helpline for recipients she came away with the impression that she would hear back if there was a problem with her response, and have a chance to correct it. So with 15 minutes to go before the reporting deadline, she sent in her answer: nine jobs, because her father helped nine members of the Corps to work.

Well--any thinking, rational person understood from the beginning that the Obama "jobs created or saved" nonsense was exactly that: nonsense. It was a con. A "lie," if you will.

But the formula is now set:

Eighteen boots equals nine jobs, in the Obama Economy. One job is precisely equal to two pieces of footwear, in Obama's America.

How's that "hope and change" working out for you?

Cue "Can't Afford No Shoes" by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention . . .

It's official--In the U.K., anyway:

In a landmark ruling, Mr Justice Michael Burton said that "a belief in man-made climate change ... is capable, if genuinely held, of being a philosophical belief for the purpose of the 2003 Religion and Belief Regulations".

In other words, "climate change" isn't about science, it's about dogma.

The science may not be settled, but the "consensus" remains solidly fixed in the sacred texts of the IPCC and in the intolerant, true-believer minds of the High Priests of Climate Panic. And my God can beat up your Gaia, or maybe it's the other way around. Religious wars at dawn! Burn the unbelievers! Convert or die! Death to all those who would profane the great Mother Earth God and Her Prophet, Algore!

"And yet, it moves!"

Well, at least I don't think so. I went to Hobo Day. I'll post pictures, later. And, possibly, a story or at least some explanatory comments, too. Got a lot of things to do though, so be patient.

Meanwhile, be contemplative with the Thoughts For The Day. That's what they're for.

Notice on the chart below the "infection point" -- the point at which the red line indicating the "current recession" goes from a shallow slope to a nose dive.

Want to guess when that happened?

I'm going to guess it was just after the government passed the TARP bank bailouts in late 2007..

No end in sight?

Since then, we've seen the Democrats in Washington busying themselves with passing the Obama Stimulus, the Obamacare Health Care CHANGE!!! and the Obama Cap-and-Tax job-killer bills.

Permanent depression. Is that really what the Democrats want? Because that's what they're working very, very hard on achieving.

Hat tips all around:
Big Government
The Scariest Jobs Chart Ever
Another Involuntary Landlord and Summary

Update: Re-re-edited after confirming that the inflection point is in fact around the time of the TARP plan which was supposed to save us all from what eventually happened anyway.

Offered for the edification of libertarians and most conservatives, this handy guide on how to successfully lie. Leftist/collectivists, in and out of the Old Media, seem to know these things instinctively.

From the always-insightful Richard Fernandez at Belmont Club, apropos of the unmasking of Shepard Fairey's ripping off of the Associated Press' picture of Obama for his much-hyped "Hope" poster:

1. The first and most important thing is for the impostor to claim the motivation of revolutionary impulses. That way even those who know he is lying will think he is lying in a “good” cause. If the last refuge of scoundrels is the flag, the ultimate protective banner is the Red Flag. Hannah Arendt once wrote “Lies are often much more plausible, more appealing to reason, than reality, since the liar has the great advantage of knowing beforehand what the audience wishes or expects to hear.” Find the hole in your audience’s brain and drive your truck of manure through it.


2. The second rule is to put forward the most extravagant claims. Don’t be half-assed about lying. The more extravagant the fib the better. A sufficiently resourceful fraud clears his path of unbelievers by sheer audacity alone. Tell a big enough lie and no one would believe you could be so bold. As the fictional Rudolf Rassendyl proved in the Prisoner of Zenda that it is better to pass yourself off as King of Ruritania rather than a minor noble. A minor noble may be questioned, but the King will not be. It is all or nothing. And given that no one wants to tug at the Royal Robe to see if it is real ermine, the fraudster often gets it “all”.


3. The third rule is that when questioned, destroy the questioner. When impersonating the King be determined to have everyone who doubts your identity thrown in the tower for treason. Once you succeed in beheading the first challenger there will be no second challenges.


4. The fourth rule is the most important. Avoid trying to bluff those who are too big to be faced down. What undid both Fairey and Ward Churchill was that they didn’t know when to stop their imposture. They finally took it too far. Fairey, who had been successful up to that point tried to bluff his way past a major news organization and failed. Ward Churchill was already a professor when he made his “little Eichmanns” speech after 9/11 unleashed a tide of outrage he couldn’t outface. If Fairey had not launched his poster and Churchill had not made his “little Eichmanns” speech, they might still be intellectuals in good standing.

Wherein Sarah Palin demonstrates a better understanding of human nature than the Senate Finance Committee:

The bill prohibits insurance companies from refusing coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and from charging sick people higher premiums. [1] It attempts to offset the costs this will impose on insurance companies by requiring everyone to purchase coverage, which in theory would expand the pool of paying policy holders.

However, the maximum fine for those who refuse to purchase health insurance is $750. [2] Even factoring in government subsidies, the cost of purchasing a plan is much more than $750. The result: many people, especially the young and healthy, will simply not buy coverage, choosing to pay the fine instead. They’ll wait until they’re sick to buy health insurance, confident in the knowledge that insurance companies can’t deny them coverage. Such a scenario is a perfect storm for increasing the cost of health care and creating an unsustainable mandate program.

Emphasis mine.

Explain to me again how Palin is such a stupid, backwoods rube and our august Senators are the font of wisdom on this Earth?

Everyone in the country should hear this:

My racial views? You mean, my belief in a colorblind society where every individual is treated as a precious human being without regard to his race? Where football players should earn as much as they can and keep as much as they can, regardless of race? Those controversial racial views?

I am shocked, shocked that any person would utter these hateful words here in 2009. I think that people everywhere should rise up and condemn this blatant display of hatred and bigotry. Heat up the tar. Get the sack of feathers. Organize the lynch mob. This sort of thinking must be suppressed by any means necessary.

"Colorblind society." How naive. How racist. Disgusting, isn't it?

Decisions have consequences.

The intolerant position of Roger Goodell and others associated with the National Football League, including and most especially the sports "journalism" community, towards Rush Limbaugh can not go unanswered.

So, henceforth, I will not watch or listen to any NFL game, will not purchase or wear any team merchandise, I will discard (not re-sell, mind you, discard) the NFL merchandise I currently own, and will actively avoid any "official product of the NFL" item I might otherwise purchase.

The new McCarthyism of the left must stop. Until it does, I see no need to continue funding or supporting in any way an organization which so cravenly caves in to the new lynch mobs of the left.

Has the ongoing, slanderous attack on Rush Limbaugh (and all others who dare to oppose the reign of Obama and the Democrats) risen to the level of a "hate crime?"

And not just an isolated "hate crime," but a vast, loosely organized conspiracy of like-minded people colluding with one another to deprive Limbaugh of his Constitutional right to free speech, let alone his right to the fruits of his labors. A virtual lynch mob, actually--whipped up into a righteous frenzy by agitators and provocateurs, many of whom hold prominent positions at this country's Old Media outlets.

These vicious critics of Limbaugh (and people like me, actually) continue to play a very, very, very, very dangerous game.

When enough people conclude that their input into public political discourse--their advocacy of particular political ideas will not only no longer be tolerated but they will be actively hunted down and "purged" from the national psyche, then the people advocating those banned ideas may be forced at the last resort to turn to "politics by other means."

A very, very dangerous game indeed.

Does "freedom of speech" really mean so little to the partisans of the left?

There is still time to halt this mad rush towards the cliff of rabid intolerance by the left. Not much time, maybe, but still time for anybody on the left who still believes in the freedoms for which America was founded to speak out against this seemingly out-of-control witch hunt.