Funny Business

Isn't it funny that, after a tradition of promoting from within and just a few months after the Bureau of Labor Statistics has had an outside Obama political operative appointed to lead this agency (see: AllGov Announcement), 12-month employment numbers have suddenly been revised upwards by 453,000 workers (see: Washington Post Story).  If the current administration is stooping to this level to cook the books (my studied surmise), what other mischief are they up to?

To Eeyore

Oh, Eeyore!

You’re such a bore.

Or what is more,

And to your core ...

You’re an ass!

Squibs

Squibs are tiny explosive devices often used by Hollywood to simulate bullet hits to inanimate or animate objects in a movie. The following are a few teeny mind-poppers that I have found interesting in my morning romp through the dew-strewn Internet:

- Best reason to vote for Romney – Madonna has threatened to bare it all if Obama wins his quest for another four years of self-indulgence … see: TheHill Story.

- Iran is accusing the International Atomic Energy Agency (an arm of the U.N.) of passing on secrets of its nuclear-enrichment program to Israel … see: Reuters Story. The obvious question is … if Iran is just processing this uranium for electricity-generation and medical applications ... as it professes, why would it have any state secrets for which it felt a need to protect?

- A drug-testing technician here in Massachusetts has been found to have had bogus credentials. This has thrown thousands of drug convictions that relied on her testimony into question … see: ENews Story. I can understand the chagrin of the state’s judicial process over this disclosure … with the threat of many drug convictions being overturned … including many who have already pleaded guilty. Many who have already pleaded guilty?? … are we nuts???

- Brazil now recognized three-person hook-ups a legal civil unions … see: Breitbart Story. I can see the legal entanglements arising out of this silly precedent as growing exponentially. But then I foresaw this same outcome for same-sex marriage. What do I know?

- On The View this past week President Obama referred to himself as “eye candy” ... see: Reuters Story . What kind of candy Barry? Nonpareils? Red Hots? Can our President get even more vacuous in his attempt to reach that uninformed voter group that Jay Leno interviews in his Jaywalking segments?

Poll Vaulting

Unbiased Pole Vaulter

The latest New York Times/Quinnipiac/CBS poll came out this morning and it basically tells the Romney campaign to hang up its sneakers … because they are behind in the Boston Marathon by twenty minutes. According to this poll, President Obama is leading Romney in three key battleground states by the following margins: Ohio (+10), Florida (+9), and Pennsylvania (+12). And it is generally conceded that, if Romney loses Ohio and/or Florida, he has no chance of ousting the current resident of the White House. To see these results go to: Politico Story and also note therein that Washington Post polling seems somewhat to confirm these results.

Skeptic that I am, I then went to the Rasmussen Reports site to verify these results (see: Rasmussen Reports ... since Rasmussen is generally conceded to do the most accurate and unbiased polling.)  Here, not willing to subscribe to the detail state-by state results, I do see that: “In the 11 swing states, the president earns 46% of the vote, and Mitt Romney is supported by 45%. Four percent (4%) are not sure, and five percent (5%) are undecided.” Or, to say it another way, the latest New York Times/Quinnipiac/CBS poll is just so much smoke designed to discourage the Right and hype the Left.

If you want to see how some media outlets try to massage the American voter’s psyche, may I suggest that you read one or more of the following analyses on how such polling is conducted and reported: Breitbart Big-Journalism, Breitbart Big-Government, and PJMedia Story. I wish that I had invented this term, but the New York Times/Quinnipiac/CBS type of sampling-skewed polling and poll reporting surely needs to be labeled “journalistic malpractice.”

Sitting Bull

I had always been curious why the Democrats in Washington never backed Elizabeth Warren to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.  She was, after all, the face behind this consumer-reform push coming out of the Dodd-Frank Financial Reform Law.  My wife and I were even somewhat sympathetic to her cause back then (my wife more than I).

I think we have since discovered this hesitancy on the left ... Elizabeth Warren is one gigantic fraud:

- First it was discovered that she has claimed Native-American heritage ... for which there is no documented proof ... and as a result of which it is quite likely that she has received juicy jobs in academia.  She refuses to authorize release of employment records that would clear up this issue.

- Second it was noted that all the recipes (three, I think) that she submitted to the book, Pow Wow Chow, under the attribution that she was a Cherokee, had been cribbed virtually word for word from other sources ... ironically the New York Times in two instances..

- Now, it is revealed that Ms. Warren has apparently been practicing law in Massachusetts without the proper licensure.  Since I am not conversant with the ins and outs of this issue, I refer you to the lawyer, John Hinderaker, to explain things fully in his blog post at Powerline.

- Lastly, in frequent debates and discussions on local radio here in Massachusetts, Ms. Warren, when asked embarrassing questions, has been evasive to the point of listener-cringing.  Just the other day she was queried as to why the current poobahs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau were making high six-figure salaries.  She responded with a litany of the good things this agency was doing but, conveniently and obviously, never answered the question.

Her campaign in this state against Senator Scott Brown has basically devolved into one talking point -- her election here will help keep the Republicans from taking over the Senate.  In other words, "hold your nose and vote for me."

Serf's Up

Surfer Boy

Let's investigate further Mitt Romney's remarks in Boca Raton about how the 47% of Americans who don't pay any taxes would probably not be his voters.  Indeed, this was perhaps "inelegantly expressed" ... but that should not remove Mitt's concern.  I have recently heard that, if one excludes retired seniors, the percentage of voters not paying taxes is closer to 42%.  Let's be generous and also eliminate the legitimately disabled and thus conclude that those crowding into the wagon to be pulled by the rest of us (to use a Dick Armey metaphor) are closer to 40%.  These would then be the automatic "gimme" voter percentages ... or to use a medieval term ... America's serfs ,,, with The Barry as their plutocratic liege.  This still reinforces the fact that we are perilously close to that tipping point wherein the takers control the political agenda ... and those pulling the wagon effectively become disenfranchised voters.

But to better focus Romney's concern, we must understand that there are also a considerable number of pragmatic 1%-ers (limousine liberals) who would rather subjugate our underclass by paying them off (generally with other people's money) rather than have them create mischief and civil unrest ... such as the Occupiers.  (I still remember, years ago, a liberal Wall-Street friend confessing this motivation to me ... to my shock and chagrin.)  And now, unfortunately many government workers appear to be also riding in the wagon.  This bounces the percentage of those on the left back up closer to 50% ... justifying why we have ... and will continue to have ... a divided electorate.  I honestly believe, like many others, that this nation has one last chance to start to remedy this situation before the tsunami of socialism drowns us all. 

I'm "hanging ten" ... how about you?

Panda Baby

I am constantly floored by the upside down nature of human nature.  Human beings, including many innocent children, are being butchered on an epic scale in the Middle East and Africa to the yawns of the world ... yet let one cuddly panda cub die shortly after birth in the National Zoo in Washington and these same people don sackcloth and ashes whilst gnashing their teeth (see: AP Story).

I don't understand and I suppose I never will.

Threesomes

Supposedly, Monica Lewinsky is writing a "tell-all" book which is said will reveal the intimate details of her affair with former President Bill Clinton ... including the shocker that Bubba liked threesomes with her ... see: NY Post Story.  For this soul-bearing Monica is being given an advance of $12 million ... not bad for getting a few Oval Office rug-crumbs on your back?

Now our former Lothario-President  is claiming that the American public is naive to the point of being easily confused (see: Breitbart Video).  I imagine in the recesses of Bill Clinton's mind ... in this disrespecting of those who (twice) elected him ... is his previous brilliant deflection-answer when asked about his affair with Monica, "I did not have sex with that women, Miss Lewinsky ... not a single time."  (Non-naive translation: "I, in fact, did have sex with Monica and asked people to lie about it ... but this happened multiple times.").

And this is one of our most popular ex-Presidents ... and the one who is carrying the water for our current Oval Office bumbler.  I think I need to take a hot, soapy shower.

Facebook Friends

 

This AM on Morning Joe there was a discussion between two Senators of different parties (names unimportant) about the upcoming UN session and Obama's unwillingness to meet then face-to-face with Israel's Prime Minister, Bibi Netanyahu (see my previous blog post: Shame).  Aired during this back and forth were Romney's and Obama's comments on this issue in their 60 Minutes interviews yesterday.  Basically, Romney said (and I agree) that this dissing of Israel by Obama sends the wrong message to Iran during these tempestuous times.  Obama's excuse was that he is in "constant" contact with Netanyahu by phone and therefore such a meeting isn't necessary (I think we know of one half-hour call a week or so ago).

My immediate thought was perhaps The Barry could make Bibi his Facebook friend ... which would then clearly show the world (and Iran) the degree of the United States's solidarity with Israel?

Balderdash!

In the local Scott Brown/Elizabeth Warren debate last night (Massachusetts Senate race), Scott said that he thought that global warming was real, but that he wasn't sure to what degree that mankind was responsible.  Can this be?  Yes, I suppose that Scott's justifiably timid premise might be based upon the recent shrinking of the Arctic polar ice cap ... see: AP Story). However, what is less frequently mentioned by the cult of greenies is that the ice cap in Antarctica is growing. In fact it recently reach its largest size in 33 years! (See: Forbes Story).

Now I am sure that the Northern Hemisphere produces more carbon dioxide than the Southern Hemisphere (particularly since China is building about one coal-powered power plant per week), but I am also sure that the Southern Hemisphere produces more carbon dioxide than in past years.  Yet, its ice cap is growing!  Ergo, this means that the dynamics of global warming and global cooling is far more complicated than our covey of animated climate scientists are willing to admit.

I have previously stated in this blog and my Junkier Science blog that our earth's climate is clearly affected by numerous things, minute changes in the Earth's tilt, alterations in solar radiation levels, the dynamics of ocean current shifts, increased/decreased levels of atmospheric particulates from things like volcanoes, atmosphere chemistry changes (including CO2), and maybe even our Solar System's shifting position in the Milky Way.  Of all these independent variables, the only one that man might have any control over is CO2 levels.  To me, this seems to be too convenient a solution to our angst over what may (or may not) be happening to our climate.  One time a surgeon told me that, since he was good a wielding a hammer, every health problem looked to him like a nail.

I sincerely think that far too many scientists see CO2 as a climate-change "nail" because it is the only dial that mankind might twist to fix things.  Therefore, data is fudged and simulation models are "adjusted" so as to prove this singular point.  If these simulation models were multivariate instead of single variant, I might be more easily convinced.  But they are not, and, until they are ... BALDERDASH!

Enlightenment

Guru

King Kong died for our sins -- Old American Proverb

You can't play ping pong in a kangaroo's pouch -- Old Australian Adage

The hills are alive with the sound of Musak -- Old Austrian Saying

The sun never sets on a British umpire -- Old British Proverb

Icing the puck is preferable to pucking the ice -- Old Canadian Adage

It is better to sleep standing up than have a cricket crawl in your ear -- Old Chinese Proverb

The road to Hellas is paved -- Old Greek Proverb

Kissing the Blarney Stone won't make you any taller -- Old Irish Proverb

Walk softly and carry a big schtick -- Old Jewish Adage

The way to a man's heart is through his sternum -- Old Muslim Proverb

Never eat a kielbasa at a Warsaw bordello -- Old Polish Adage

I would rather that you spill my blood than my vodka -- Old Russian Adage

Blond jokes don't apply to Swedes -- Old Swedish Adage

Capt. Hook

Capt. Hook, "If we could just get that $678 million Energy Department grant, Smee says we could run the 'Jolly Roger' on batteries."
President Obama, "No problemo."

The Drip Strategy

President Obama is bound and determined to keep the American public distracted throughout the run-up to the November elections with his drip strategy. These "drips" are a series of media-hyped Romney "gaffs" that keep them (us) from focusing on all the policy disasters that his administration has wrought ... the Middle East imploding; high unemployment rates; Iran's impending nuclear weapons; trillion-dollar federal budget deficits; a series of the administration's extra-legal moves to circumvent Congress (on immigration, on welfare requirements, etc.); operation Fast and Furious; high gasoline prices; the Fed's quantitative easings; a litany of crony-capitalism losses; etc.; etc. ... I (unfortunately) could go on much further.

I strongly suspect that there is a queue of these mostly-meaningless Romney slips that await the naive American media consumers and will be dripped out by the White House in an attempt to dominate the news cycles for the next six weeks. They probably will also be splashed into the upcoming debates to fill the conversation (likely with the complicity of the moderators) to keep these debates from focusing on the plethora of real issues.

Now that you know this Obama strategy, you can check off these "kerplops" as they come forth ... probably at a rate of two or three per week. They will be but distracting drops when placed next to the ocean-full of our current administration's manifest bunglings.

Afterward:  Apparently, the most recent of these drips is missing a key portion of Romney's remarks in Boca Raton about the 47% who pay no taxes ... shades of Rosemary Woods.  Read the whole story and you fill in the blanks: Mother Jones Fesses Up.

Thurston Howell III

David Brooks of the New York Times lifted his hind leg on Mitt Romney this morning calling him Thurston Howell Romney for his comments in Boca Raton, Florida this past May (see: Brooks Opinion Piece). Then and there Romney rightly pointed out that 47% of Americans pay no income taxes and therefore are likely automatic voters for that man who promises to keep writing their government checks. To set the op-ed stage Brooks said, "Even after adjusting for inflation, entitlement transfers to individuals have grown by more than 700 percent over the last 50 years." And yet he implied that Mitt Romney is a 1% elitist with no sympathy for our downtrodden. Somehow, I just can't square this circle (particularly after the testaments to Romney's charitable heart that were shown at the recent Republican convention.) We are a country with starving children and "food deserts," yet we also suffer from out of control obesity. I can't circle this square either ...

Yes, there a great many middle-class WASPs (like me) who receive government transfers. But I still will vote for Romney if he will reduce this fire-hose largess across the board. It's called shared sacrifice. Perhaps he should have said it that way? If we don't do this, we clearly can't survive as a nation.

Maybe David Brooks can find an equally dismissive pejorative for that 1%-er (with the great crease in his trousers) curently living in the White House?

Rahm-per Room

I have a negotiation suggestion for Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel (aka, the Godfather) so that he might solve his city's teachers' strike in fairly short order (scroll down):

Hand Puppets

I still vividly remember our then Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright standing in front of the White House testifying for her boss, President Bill Clinton, in his avowal of “not having sexual relations with that woman, Monica Lewinsky, not a single time.” And then there was another of our Secretaries of State, Colin Powell, at the U.N. making the case for George W. Bush’s rationale for war with Iraq … that of its amassing of weapons of mass destruction. At least our current Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, had the good sense to send her underling, our U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, to do her dirty work by assuring the American public that the Libyans’s killing of our Ambassador there was spontaneous  ... see ABC News Story. (As John McCain has rightly pointed out, people don’t bring RPGs with them to a “demonstration.”)

So, over and over again, lower-level administrators of both parties have become hand puppets to their bosses and asked to attest to things of which they have little or no personal knowledge. Most often the result is their diminishment. (I even think this abasement has caused Colin Powell to switch political horses.) So, may I suggest, as soon as those of you in government see your bosses pull on those long, greased rubber gloves ... run, don’t walk, away for your lives and honor.

Irony

Isn't it ironic that our national print media cannot constrain themselves about showing sophomoric pictures from Abu Ghraib ... or the French and Italian newspapers splash out embarrassing topless pictures of Kate Middleton ... or the New York Times special-editions the latest Wikileaks disclosure ... or, even, the White House leaks the most intimate details of Osama bin Laden's come-uppance ... but, if some rinky-dink producer in Los Angeles dares to show the Prophet Mohammed in some compromising position, this calls out for our national apologies and a visit from the federal autorities (see: Breitbart Story)?

You tell me who is winning in the world's war on terrorism ...

Juxtaposition XXXVII




Radical Muslim Riot

 

Iwo Jima

Sugar High

Mitt Romney recently spoke to the Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke, to ask him not to initiate the Fed's latest round of quantitative easing (QE3).  This request fell on deaf ears ... for the Fed is now pumping $40 billion a month into the U.S. housing market by printing money to buy mortgages ,,, and, unlike previous quantitative easings, there is no indication of when it will stop its monitary printing presses.  This, of course has inflated the stock market and deflated the dollar.

America is experiencing another financial "sugar high" ... with no Michael Bloomberg or Michelle Obama to nanny-state us down.  The Fed has now expanded its normal mandate to effect "full-employment" ... the diametric opposite of its primary mandate of "controlling inflation." (This is because our current administration has no clue on how our economy can otherwise reduce unemployment rates.)  Everyone who has a brain knows that this fire-hose monetary expansion (QE3) combined with the Fed's previous QE1 and QE2, will be inflationary ... eventually  The question is, "When?" 

Perhaps I can propose an answer to this query?  Bernanke and Co. have calmed some investor worries by claiming that they have "a plan" to [eventually] deleverage the Fed's balance sheet.  I will here and now guess what this plan might be -- at some point the Fed will open the flood gates and allow inflation to come charging back.  If the Fed has been, by then, able to substantially extend the maturities of the debt it now holds (which it has been doing with a vengeance under "Operation Twist"), then the price of this government debt will plummet and the Fed can either write it down on its balance sheet or buy it back with dimes on the dollar.  Of course, the fact that other investors of this debt (pension funds and many IRA retirement funds of our seniors ... among others) will be financially hosed seems not to be a concern of the Fed ... as it has bigger fish to fry (getting Obama re-elected).

The reasons that the United States is not experiencing run-away inflation at the moment are three-fold:
- First, the Fed is keeping interest rates artificially low (short term rates are essentially zero) with its open-market operations,
- Secondly, because of our rotten economy and high unemployment, there is virtually no wage inflation (Chicago teachers being a visible exception),
- And lastly, because one of the major drivers of inflation is housing costs (home selling prices are converted to equivalent rental rates), this area has been profoundly deflationary ... offsetting raging inflation in medical and education costs. (One can also argue that food and fuel prices have been obviously inflationary, but, since they are excluded from core inflation calculations, they don't have the impact that they otherwise might.)

Now, let me extend this Fed analysis ... the fact that QE3 is specifically directed toward the housing market through packaged mortgages purchasing leads me to suspect that the Fed's plan to deleverage its balance sheet may, in fact, already be underway.  What the Fed is doing is bound to reduce the cost of mortgages ... therefore increasing the cost of homes.  And, if that one deflationary drag (housing) is eliminated with QE3, might not that usher in real robust inflation?  So instead of suffering from diabetes from all this sugar, the U.S. economy will return to a hypoglycemic state (read out-of-control inflation).

Q.E.D.

100%

Back on this July 26th in this blog, I asked the question, "What are the chances?" (referring to the probability that Ben Bernanke would help Obama get re-elected by instituting additional quantitative easing ... see: Blog Entry).  As it turns out, the answer is 100% (see: CNBC Story).  Is this so surprising?  If you were Ben Bernanke, wouldn't you want to keep your lucrative job for four more years ... particularly in this piss-poor economy?  (Screw your grandchildren!)

Eating Their Young

Earlier this year, in order to distract the American public from President Obama's dismal job performance, the Democrat attack machine castigated Romney over his leadership at Bain Capital,  But when Cory Booker, Democrat Mayor of Newark, NJ, defended Romney's performance at Bain Capital, he was forced by the Democrat consiglieries to walk back these comments within twenty-four hours.  Ditto for the Democrat governor of Massachusetts, Deval Patrick ... and even ... gasp ... Bill Clinton ... all with similar u-turns.

But, when Mitt Romney, criticized the State Department's previous day's embarrassing apology in dealing with the mob attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo, he has once again came under the rabid harassment of the left-wing media.  And when he suffered a brief spat of stuttering when responding to the coordinated media strikes by reporters in his later-in-the-day press conference, his trashing was intensified.  (Of course, Obama has never has never had a spat of stuttering.)  Even more disturbing, instead of rallying around their candidate, a number of Republicans found it convenient to ding Romney ... in particular John Sununu (see: American Thinker Comments).  Ditto Republicans, Peter King and Peggy Noonan.

As opposed to supporting their party and their candidate, erudite Republicans (such as George Will) often try to earn their stripes and the favor of the Washington elite by eating their young.  I suppose that they often do this because, unlike the Democrat party, Republicans slake no vengeance on those who fall out of line.  Perhaps they should learn to do so?

Do No Harm

I have been of the opinion that Condoleezza Rice was a fairly ineffectual Secretary of State ... certainly when compared to the likes of Jim Baker under George Bush, 41  Although I admire this woman greatly ... for no other reason than her profound revelation that "slavery was America's birth defect" ... I thought her tenure under George Bush, 43 was marked by little real progress in international affairs.  That is, until I see what a real bull-in-a-china-shop Secretary of State like Hillary Clinton can do.  She has clearly set back the United States's position in the world ... something on the magnitude of what our National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, did under President Carter.  Admittedly, Hillary has not done this on her own.  She has had a willing co-conspirator in her boss, The Barry.  But nevertheless, Ms. Clinton has made such a dog's breakfast of our foreign policy that I have been forced to rethink my evaluation of Ms. Rice in this role.

I have concluded that Secretaries of State should behave a lot like doctors and, at the very least, "do no harm."  And I believe that Condoleezza Rice left her post at Foggy Bottom without degrading our position in the world one iota ... no mean feat.  So, my belated hazzahs to Condi.

Shame

There is no other word for it … shame. For the United States to abandon our ally, Israel, in its time of crisis is a humiliation beyond ignominy. President Obama has refused to meet with Bibi Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, when he visits the United States at the end of September (see: Bloomberg Story). Whatever the feeble excuse, this is a clarion signal to Iran to have its way with its blood-sworn enemy. Israel is left swinging in the wind of our calculated indifference (see: CBS Story).

And this happens on the same significant day, September 11th, that the U.S. embassy in Cairo is attacked and the American flag replaced with the black flag of Islam (see: USAToday Story) … and our consulate in Libya is set on fire with one staffer being killed (see: Ahram Story). The symbolism of these three events cannot be ignored. The United States, under the crisp leadership of Obama and his aide-de-camp, Hillary Clinton, have tilted so far toward the Arab world that it is returning the favor with vengeance instead of gratitude. The “Arab Spring” has become “America’s Winter.”

And I cannot read anything else into these events other than a hidden pleasure-taking on the part of our smirking foreign-policy leadership. We are losing badly in the Middle East (and elsewhere) and Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama seem indisposed and perhaps even secretly thrilled. Is this darling duo not supposed to project a U.S. foreign policy of hegemony instead of lily-liveredness? How can we take pleasure in our humiliation? Perhaps that was the plan all along … shame and degradation as recompense for our past sins, imagined and real?

Update: The U.S. Ambassador and three other staffers were killed in the aforementioned Libyan attack (see: Reuters Story).  President Obaba has condemned this radical Islamic action.

Bittersweet

Joe Biden, to commemorate the horror of 9/11, called it a "bittersweet" moment (see: Politico Story ).  Please Joe, I understand the "bitter" aspect of what happened at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and Shanksville, PA, but could you describe the "sweet" part?  (As I was finishing up writing this, Rush Limbaugh made exactly this same point ... but I've decided to post it anyway ... since I doubt that many of you listen to the E.I.B. Network.)

Medical Fads

When was the last time a child you know had his/her tonsils out? How about an adenoidectomy? A study in New York City in the 1930s had over 90% of its children with tonsillitis resulting in surgery or a recommendation of same. Today the equivalent statistic is below 1% (see: The Pediatric Journal).  Of late, I even can’t recall anyone I know getting his/her appendix removed. Yes, I know, the use of antibiotics may have a lot to do with the dramatic reduction in these medical procedures, but it can’t be the total reason. May I suggest that medical fads exist and that this may be one reason for our spiraling health-care costs … particularly when someone else pays for things?

What are the latest oft-expensive medical procedures that deserve to be evaluated for such faddish “crowding in?” Maybe botox injections, cellulite reductions, other vanity plastic-surgeries (Nancy Pelosi per esempio), C-sections, and maybe even some joint replacement procedures (see: Cracked Article). Yes, I know of those people where a knee replacement was a medical necessity, but I still see or hear of others where it may have been palliative or even faddish. (I, myself had been recommended for such an operation.) And, how about those ads on TV that push those fancy self-propelled wheelchairs?

Too often in the news we see of some medical quackery that operate clinics that will perform some expensive Medicare- or Medicaid-paid procedure or surgery over and over again on anyone who is willing to submit to this charlatanism. Why do these patients offer themselves up for such suffering? Often, I think, for bragging rights, borderline masochism, vanity, or even Munchausen’s syndrome.  Estimates of the “waste, fraud and abuse” in our medical system run into the tens of billion dollars per year (see: HHS Testimony), but somehow we can never seem to reduce this number significantly.

May I offer that some targeted and repeated public-service announcements, pointing out these medical fads and their consequences, might be an interesting path to follow? Escalating medical co-pays based upon the degree of faddishness involved might also be tried? These approaches do seem to be working for reducing cigarette smoking.

Afterthought:  I don't know why I didn't first suggest this solution to fix waste, fraud and abuse in the medical system ... reintroduce market forces into medical payments (Ryan's approach).

Give Us Our Daily Bread !!!

Chicago Teachers on Strike

Perhaps cake ???

Government Motors

President Obama has attacked Mitt Romney for his saying that General Motors (GM) should have gone through the normal bankruptcy process and, if this were to have happened Obama claims, this country would have lost hundreds of thousand jobs. I've got a news update for The Barry ... GM did go bankrupt (see: GM Chapter 11 Reorganization) and tens of thousand jobs were indeed lost both at the company itself and at the hundreds of GM dealerships that were disenfranchised. The difference is that this bankruptcy was not arbitrated by the courts who best know how bankruptcies work. It was the autocratic Obama administration that decided most of the terms of this bankruptcy while, at the same time, throwing 50 billion dollars into this once great (but geriatric) company. Here are the details of the bankruptcy filings from Wikipedia:

The purchase was supported by $50 billion in U.S. Treasury loans, giving the U.S. government a 60.8% stake. The Queen of Canada, in right of both Canada and Ontario, holds 11.7% and the United Auto Workers, through its health-care trust (VEBA), holds a further 17.5%. The remaining 10% is held by unsecured creditors. On July 10, 2009, GM reported 88,000 U.S. employees, and announced plans to reduce its U.S. workforce to 68,000 by the end of 2009 after filing for bankruptcy.

Now this is just part of this sad story … a great American company becoming a piglet sucking on the government’s teat. To see more of these sordid details go to: Michelle Malkin Article and Subprime Auto Loans. The totality of the General Motors reorganization is extremely complex, but suffice it to say that the shedding of something like $90 billion of liabilities from its balance sheet is bound to make its financial health look much better than in times past. Yet still, the new General Motors stock is down 30% from it offering price of $33. Clearly sophisticated investors are not taken in by the Democrat political hype. Since I am of the opinion that any company that is majority owned by the government (U.S. and Canada) and its employees (the UAW) cannot survive for an extended period, I suggest that you think twice before you buy a Government Motors auto with a long warrantee.

Unfortunately, the Democrat demagoguery that the auto bailout offers Obama probably works for him over the short term. While Romney’s critique of this reorganization process, although likely correct, does not buy him many votes in Ohio and Michigan.

A Drop

Just so you know ... the recent unemployment data dump by the Bureau of Labor Statistics which pegged the unemployment rate at 8.1%, a drop from the previous 8.3%, neglects to highlight a few key statistics, viz, the actual number of persons employed, in fact, dropped by 120,000 and the workforce dropped a suspiciously staggering 580,000.  It is the interplay of these two numbers that creates the convenient fiction that the unemployment rate is dropping.  See: CPS Tables and click on the HTML version of the A-1 table under Monthly Household Data.

Four More Years

The Economist magazine published this week an issue asking the 64 trillion dollar question, "Mr. President ... just what would you do with another four years?"  In response, Obama gave his "Paucity of Hope" acceptance speech last night to close the Democrat convention (where one wag found multiple instances of delegates who believe that corporate profits should be abolished ... see: Human Events.)  Even Politico, that apologist for the left, called Obama's lecture "Downsizing the Dream" (see: Politico Story.)

Fortunately I have a mole inside the White House who smuggled out a piece of note paper on which The Barry had been doodling.  It gives the secret desires of that man who wants to live there four more years:

- Play golf another 120 times
- Bow to 4 more heads of state
- Appoint 3 more Supreme Court justices
- Enjoy 12 more opulent vacations
- Give the finger to as many opponents as practical
- Give away billion$ more to green-energy cronies
- Appoint 18 more czars
- Nationalize the oil companies
- Give an unconditional pardon to Tony Rezko
- Accidentally release 10 years of Romney's tax returns
- Order all remaining waygu beef for the White House kitchen
- Take a crash course in macro-economics

God and Country

I'm not a religious person, but to see at least half of those delegates at the Democrat National Convention boo and jeer at the thought of putting the word "God" back into this party's Presidential platform cannot be good for Obama's re-election chances.  Ditto for their collective derision at recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.  See: Real Clear Politics.  Will this be the equivalent of Michael Dukakis in the tank turret ... or George H.W. Bush looking at his watch during the debate with Clinton ... or John Kerry riding his sailboard?  Only time will tell ... but I can hope.

A Platform Too Far

The Republican Presidential Platform was criticized for endorsing a "radical" no-exception stand on right to life (which Mitt Romney doesn't support).  However, the Democrat Platform was approved yesterday in Charlotte and it contains lots of radical (is there a stronger word?) planks that cut across the grain of American traditionalism.  It no longer mentions God.  It endorses taxpayer-funded late-term abortions.  It no longer avers that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel.  It unequivocally supports gay marriage.  It endorses the Dream Act on immigration.  See: Incomplete AP Story.  Only this time I suspect Obama enthusiastically stands behind all the planks of this belly-rubbing Democrat Platform.

Top this with the speaker lineup in Charlotte -- former President Jimmy Carter, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, La Raza champion Julian Castro, turncoat Charlie Crist, "give me my birth control" Sandra Fluke and that American Indian, Elizabeth Warren.  Is it any wonder that many "moderate" Democrats are distancing themselves from this convention.  Where is Hillary?  Where is Andrew Cuomo?  Where is Erskin Bowles?  Even Rahm Emanuel has flown the coop.  And, what was supposed to be the crescendo of this convention -- Obama's acceptance speech in front of 74,000 hysterical fans -- appears to be being diminished, see: Breitbart Story.

Barney's Lead

The Internet question of the day is, "Why was Barney Frank wearing a leather collar and leash when he checked-in to his hotel in Charlotte today for the convention?"  Perhaps he had heard the Democratic dog whistle?

Why I Won’t Vote for Romney

- He didn’t pay any income taxes for ten years

- He drove hundreds of miles with his dog on the roof of his car

- He thinks the trees in Michigan are just the right size

- He has some offshore bank accounts/investments

- His great grandfather was a polygamist

- His wife rides an expensive horse

- He wears magic underwear

- He likes to fire people

- His church does not permit non-members to enter their temple

- He was worried about the preparations for the London Olympics

- He thinks that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel

- His garage in Santa Barbara has a car elevator

- His sons didn’t serve in the military

- He is a member of the 1%