Contributed by: filbert Saturday, May 29 2010 @ 12:50 PM CST
Ye Olde Shell Game [*1]
The desire to remake America along the lines of a European-style welfare state is running into the hardest of all possible obstacles: the lack of money. Obama’s new national security stance sends the message that all available resources are going to be shifted to saving his domestic agenda or at least keeping the domestic economic troubles from spinning out of control. That will be problematic because cutting costs must run counter to the concept that government is a solution to ‘problems’. Cap and trade, immigration reform, a vast expansion of health entitlements by definition now become national security issues. At the very least they become political job security issues. Any sufficiently effective effort to create a prosperous economy will require Obama to liquidate his ’solution’s. But they are the point of his presidency, the goal of his legion of spoils-seekers. The President is in the impossible position of standing in his own way.
Or, shorter: We Are Out Of Money. We can’t afford all of the big shiny new government ideas and projects that Obama wants in order to remake America into a European-style social-democracy worker’s paradise. Hell, Europe can’t afford it. The only reason they’ve staggered along as long as they have is that they’ve hidden behind the shield of the American military from the various barbarians at the gates, from the Russians to the radical Islamists. The Europeans have partied hearty while we paid the bills in blood and treasure to try to keep the world somewhat civilized. But now, we look with naked envy at all the fun and frivolity the Europeans are having, and via Obama and the Democrats seem bound and determined to get a drink or two of what they’re having.
This will not end well. More Obama: Let me get back to you on our possibly felonious job offer to Joe Sestak [*2] — Dear Mr. Obama: When someone refers to you as a “piece of work” they are not being complementary. And you, Sir, are definitely a Piece of Work.
Obama on My Metro Pass [*3] — Dear Leader: a Piece of Work.
Obama: If You Think I Screwed Up On the BP Disaster, You’re Just Ignorant [*4] — So sayeth the Piece of Work . . . actually, no, I’ve reconsidered. Obama is not a Piece of Work. He’s Wile E. Coyote, Genius.
Bad news: Chris Matthews’s tingle finally ends [*5] — Hmm . . . “idiotic cerebral meritocracy” . . . has a certain ring to it . . . “letting the people who do things take over” sounds even better, however. Let’s review again the utter lack of executive or business experience Wile E. Obama brought to his current position, the one he’s so disastrously failing at . . .
Joe McGinniss’s Latest Rationale: The Palins’ Neighbor Made Me Do It. [*6] — Another apparent Piece of Work, and I’m not talking about the former Alaska Governor . . .
Go ask a native of Eastern Europe–the former Soviet Bloc, now experiencing freedom, and you’ll get an earful. If you think Tea Partiers are radical, you haven’t heard anything until you spend some time with people who lived under the Soviets, and now see the same damn thing happening to the West and especially the United States. They’ve seen it before. They’re seeing it again.
DISCLOSE my ass! [*7] — I will not submit.
Royal Society to review climate consensus position [*8]
Never-say-die Jacks win tourney opener [*9]
Not All the ‘Easy’ Oil is Gone Mr. President [*10]
Not all of it. He also could have noted that billions of barrels of “easily accessible” oil have been turned into “impossible to access” oil by federal regulations and moratoria that block any access. There is still a lot of non-deep sea oil available off the cost of California that can be accessed from onshore. And, don’t forget, there are the 10 billion barrels in ANWR. All of this oil has been placed completely off limits by federal regulations.
And so, it is logical then to affix at least a portion of the responsibility for the current disaster in the Gulf to the environmentalists, the “greens,” the “progressives,” the “renewable energy” zealots, and the Democrats who have blocked exploitation of easier-to-reach oil resources in the United States.
They did this to us–at least in part. They made BP go to mile-deep Gulf water to get the oil that we and the rest of the world still needs.
We need to work on new sources of energy–primarily fusion, IMHO. We need to build lots of new nuclear fission powerplants–and yes, we need a place to store the spent fuel (and so we recall that Obama cancelled the one best place in the U.S. we found to store the stuff–Yucca Mountain.) We need better batteries or fuel cells–energy storage devices–in order to make a transition from hydrocarbons. Wind and solar power will not be adequate replacements for oil any time soon, and may not ever be a complete replacement.
The left wants to sound serious about getting off of hydrocarbons. But they don’t advocate serious policies that will actually do that.
The ultimate stealth candidate [*11] — A cautionary note on Carly Fiorina . . .
Arizona on the aegean [*12]
Obama Revises History [*13] — It’s all the Road Runner’s fault, says Wile E. Obama . .
Passing The Buck Doesn’t “Plug the D#*! Hole” [*14] — Sarah Palin asks some good questions of Wile E. Obama:
. . . why did it take nine whole days before the administration asked the Department of Defense for help in deploying equipment needed for the extreme depth spill site?
Why was the expert group assembled by Energy Commissioner Steven Chu only set up three weeks after the start of this disaster?
Why was Governor Jindal forced more than a month after the start of the disaster[*15] to go on national television to beg for materials needed to tackle the oil spill and for federal approval to build offshore sand barriers that are imperative to protect his state’s coastline?
Why was no mention of the spill made by our President for days on end while Americans waited to hear if he grasped the import of his leadership on this energy issue?
Why have several countries and competent organizations who offered help or expertise in dealing with the spill not even received a response back from the Unified Area Command to this day[*16] ?
Links are in Palin’s original.
Frontier, Midwest Confusion (Trip Report) [*17]
Death Threat: “Liberal Tolerance” On Full Display [*18] — Sometimes people wonder why I cling to the thin veneer of anonymity on this blog . . . this kind of thing is why. But I may still “come out of the closet” as a Public Libertarian/Conservative one of these fine days. I’m still thinking about it, although I am not sure Snookums would appreciate a bunch of SEIU goons on our front lawn.
So You Think You Want to Commit Novel: the idea [*19]
On plotting and optimism [*20]
Pace–It’s not a race [*21]
Lost the plot: has the television serial run out of creative lebensraum? [*22] — Stargate Universe, in particular, is atrociously bad . . . and yet I keep watching . . .
SF and religion (If thy right hand…) [*23]
Don’t leave it to Cleaver: Last call [*24]
We believe that the congressmen’s story was a fabrication intended to defame the Tea Party movement and distract attention from the resistance to Obamacare. Not a single video corroborates it, despite Andrew Breitbart’s offer of a $100,000 reward to anyone producing such a video. And no independent journalist or other eyewitness has stepped forward to vouch for the congressmen’s story.
Given the involvement of Rep. Clyburn in promoting the story, the fabrication extends to the Democratic congressional leadership. It is a scandal that warrants the attention of the mainstream media, yet the story has languished and died.
In the past several installments of this series, a total of 17 in number, we posted correspondence — both our own and that of our readers — with McClatchy News investigative editor James Asher. (All previous installments can easily be accessed via the search engine in the right border.)
Many readers — persistent, articulate, informed and observant — forwarded their correspondence with Asher to us. This correspondence powerfully points out the deficiencies of the messages we posted from Asher. The common theme of his response to us and to our readers is Asher’s demand that a witness be produced to contradict McClatchy’s story. Asher simply ignores the several videos that belie McClatchy’s story far more effectively than any witness ever could. Asher obviously has no interest in examining the merits of the story.
The great 2007 ice crunch – it wasn’t just melt [*25]
Rumor: Justice Ginsburg to Retire [*26]
Polling the oil spill [*27]
Moody’s downgrades Northwest Missouri State University bond rating [*28] — Just a random blip in the news . . .
The Alleged Absence of Depressions under Totalitarianism [*29] — Perhaps because economies under totalitarian, socialist, or even “progressive” governments are permanently depressed . . . as Mises says:
Where there is no business at all, business can be neither good nor bad. There may be starvation, and famine, but no depression in the sense in which this term is used in dealing with the problems of a market economy. Where the individuals are not free to choose, they cannot protest against the methods applied by those directing the course of production activities.
Detailed metabolic profile gives “chemical snapshot” of the effects of exercise [*31]
Exercise-associated changes were seen in more than 20 metabolites, reflecting processing of sugars, fats and amino acids as fuels as well as the body’s utilization of ATP, the primary source of cellular energy. Several changes involved metabolic pathways not previously associated with exercise, including increases in niacinamide, a vitamin derivative known to enhance insulin release.