Surf's Up

Never being one to resist an opportunity to criticize Barack Obama I note that he has just decreed that many previously classified government documents shall be open to public scrutiny ... even over any objection by our intelligence community. See: Classless Declassifying

Our ever alert administration in its war on "overseas contingency operations" (as exemplified by its surf's-up response to Al-Qaeda's recent attempt to take down a Detroit-bound airliner) has once again softened our country's defense posture (need I list here all their linguine-spined, knuckle-headed moves?). The question I have is (actually its a question my wife had this AM when we heard this news on "Morning Joe") -- Does this declassification by Obama also apply to the thousands of pages of text of our new health-care legislation?

Ye Olde ...

My 50th college reunion is coming up and one of the ideas to entertain us crotchety old men is to publish a list of things that weren't around when we were pea-green freshmen -- personal computers, GPS systems, etc. I, on the other hand, believe that an equally entertaining compendium would be those things that were there then but now are missing. So, I have attempted to recall a number of them in hopes readers will follow suit. Basically, the game is to list things that were commonplace in the 1950's but are now not to be (or at least rare).

Here goes: dial phones, Blatz beer, crinolines, white-wall tires, canasta, Uncle Miltie, Ipana toothpaste, women's girdles, the Rhinegold girl, rabbit-ear antennas, statesmen politicians, the "Hit Parade", real silver U.S. coins, seamed stockings, portable typewriters, S&H green stamps, necker knobs on steering wheels, motor scooters, belt-in-the-back chinos, DUZ ("does everything"), 45/78 vinyl records, white-buck shoes, radio soap operas ("Portia Faces Life"), "Gunsmoke", Vitalis hair tonic

What do you reminisce about?

Merry Christmas ...

or the Holiday of your choice.

(Painting by Grandma Moses)

Snow-Bound

"Within our beds awhile we heard
The wind that round the gables roared,
With now and then a ruder shock,
Which made our very bedsteads rock.
We heard the loosened clapboards tost,
The board-nails snapping in the frost;
And on us through the unplastered wall,
Felt the light sifted snowflakes fall.
But sleep stole on, as sleep will do
When hearts are light and life is new;
Faint and more faint the murmurs grew,
Till in the summer-land of dreams
They softened to the sound of streams,
Low stir of leaves and dip of oars,
And lapsing waves on quiet shores."

John Greenleaf Whittier

Pity Citi

Citigroup has just been granted a $18 billion tax break by the IRS (Treasury Dept.) in order that it might repay its TARP loan with a massively reduced tax liability. See Citi Tax Break. Now the fact that Tim Geithner is the Secretary of the Treasury (and an admitted personal tax cheat) and is a long-time protege of Robert Rubin who is attached at the waist with Citigroup (a former Chairman of the Board) and picked Geithner for his job has nothing to do with this Treasury travesty. Basically it appears to this blogger that our government is effectively giving Citigroup money so that it then can turn around and give it back while at the same time eliminating much of its TARP liability. This is absolute BS with a capital "B.S." When are we, as those wimps electing these political poltroons, going to rise up and say "NO"? Geithner should not only not enjoy his august status in Washington, but he should be the first prisoner in that high-security prison that our other corrupt Washington pols are buying in Illinois (co-incidence) to house the Gitmo prisoners.

What is even more gratingly hilarious is that the current Chairman of Citigroup, Richard Parsons, just stiffed Barack Obama (along with the heads of Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley) when they were supposed to meet with Obama in the Oval Office to discuss increasing loans to small businesses. And Geithner's allowing Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to become "banks" as opposed to investment banks is another of his mortal sins. As a result, both Morgan and Goldman can now borrow money from the New York Federal Reserve (which Geithner previously ran) at effectively no cost ... and then turn around and speculate in the Credit Default Swap and Interest Rate Swap markets with this ill-gotten pelf (as opposed to giving loans to businesses). I want to throw up.

Gate-Crashing-Gate

All the TV networks, cable shows, and the print media are currently obsessed with the White House gate crashing of the Salahis into Obama's first state dinner ... these "15-minute-of-famers" were on the Today Show this morning spinning their self-serving scenario. Other than the apparent lapse in Secret Service security surrounding the President, I find this another preposterous non-story story. Why does our country relish such cotton-candy events with such fascination when there are so many other under-reported and under-analyzed earth-changing events taking place? -- Iran's nuclear ambitions, Climate-gate, the Afghanistan surge, 10%+ unemployment, huge federal deficits, the growing mortgage crisis, Eric Holder's boners (terrorist's NYC trial, continued funding of ACORN, etc.), Charlie Rangel's malfeasance, and so on.

We Americans need very much to get our heads screw on properly and re-prioritize our need-to-know news interests.

CRU Cut

"CRU" stands for Climate Research Unit at East Anglia University in England which has been the wellspring of much of the "research" done on global warming. Recently, its computers were hacked by party or parties unknown and 156 megabytes if embarrassing information (e-mails and computer programs among others) were posted on a Russian server. At first, there was much focus on the e-mails (see: UK Telegraph) which displayed a decidedly non-scientific approach to this subject ... exhibiting hubris, obfuscation, mendacity, and cold-heartedness. But soon thereafter, more damaging information came to light as people started sifting through the programmer's code comments (see: Climategate).

Now, having been painted into a corner, the CRU critters have decided to make public the data that was used to arrive at their world-wrenching conclusions about man-made global warming. They should also come clean on any and all of the processes they used to arrive at their results along with the statistical details of their regression models (goodness of fit measures, etc.). We should then see if their results are reproducible by acolytes and skeptics alike. I personally think that there are a lot more things that make the world's temperature go up and down ... many, I believe, much more consequential than CO2. The fact that "man-made" CO2 has become the political focus of the "climate-change" worrywarts is, I believe, another "Madness of Crowds" canard. Man, as it turns out, has a very small effect on CO2 levels ... see this rather old but revealing reference: Man's Effect)

These revelations have hopefully brought about a hiatus ... one that should cause us all to step away from the groupthink that now prevails and which has carried the world's political lemmings to dangerous economic conclusions ... until such time as we know better scientific truths (if in our lifetimes).

O-bow-ma

I'm oh so very sorry about Hiroshima ...

Deficit Hawk

What is $400 billion between friends? Recently, in this blog, I reported that the federal deficit for fiscal 2009 was $1.4 trillion. Well, I was wrong. Bernie Madoff has nothing on the U.S. Treasury Department when it comes to financial shenanigans. It turns out that our country's real deficit is closer to $1.8 trillion ... see The Real Deal. This was because our Government is treating bail-out funds as though they are not money down a rat hole ... kinda like the way Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, et alii dealt with all their "investments" in Credit Default Swaps. This is not just irresponsible, I think it may well be criminal. If Geithner can't figure out his personal income taxes, how can we expect him to keep our federal finances straight? I predict that Obama, on his up-coming visit to China, might have to bob and weave through this deficit legerdemain over his King Pao chicken.

O-bomb-a

- Unemployment at 10.2%
- 2009 deficit at $1.88 trillion
- $820+ billion of stimulus down a rat hole
- Dithering on Afghanistan military policy
- Profligate government spending
- Ultra-liberal White House inner circle (czars)
- Increasing domestic terrorism
- Multitude of proposed higher taxes
- Deteriorating Iraqi situation
- Russia/Iran nuclear kiss-up ... producing nada
- Guantanamo terrorist prisoner fiasco
- Independent uncovering of ACORN's festering corruption
- Inept response to vast Midwest flooding and power outages
- Trillions of dollars of pork to financial institutions
- Screwing Poland and the Czech Republic on missile defense
- World speaking tours to poor-mouth the U.S.
- Tepid support of Iranian election protesters
- Attempted government takeover of healthcare
- Nationalization of 2/3rds of the U.S. auto industry
- Total lack of promised administrative transparency
- Amateurish delays in delivering H1/N1 flu vaccine
- Support of a constitutionally-deposed Honduran despot
- White House usurping control of the 2010 census
- Attacks on the non-liberal media (Fox News, Rush Limbaugh)
- Cambridge police "acted stupidly" comment

All in just ten months. Did I miss any?

Hobson's Choice

He's alive (and not talking)! Now to find out what's what (accomplices, foreign contacts, future plans, etc.), should it be water-boarding or a polite and giggly interview on David Letterman?

Red Roof Inn

In the nine months since Barack Obama has been our President there have obviously been quite a number of visitors to the White House. Recently, the list of said guests has been released and it contains some interesting tidbits. The Drudge Report mentioned George Clooney, George Soros and Oprah. See: Visitor Records.

I however found a few even more interesting names (number of visits is in parens after the name.) They are Angela Davis (2), Bill Ayers (2), Jesse Jackson (6), Michael Moore (8), Al Sharpton (2), George Soros (4), and Jeremiah Wright (1). (The actor, Will Smith, was there an astounding 33 times. Is there a movie in the offing?) Nor does this list contain many other names ... excluded because of security or first-family privacy purposes. And it is not clear (perhaps purposely so) what all these visits involved or whom was met. However, in every case the leaving time was 11:59 PM which suggests to me that these were overnight stays. I'm sure more on this will come out over the ensuing days in the NY Times and Boston Globe.

Perhaps we should change the name of the White House to the Red Roof Inn?

Flu Fleecers

Walgreens and CVS are selling seasonal flu shots for around $30 a pop ... and this program has proved so popular that both store chains are running out of flu vaccine (and their stock prices are moving up). See: Flu Vaccine Shortage. The purpose of my comments here is to chastise Walgreens and CVS for their sleight-of-hand in offering this program during the public panic about the H1N1 flu outbreak. These drugstores do not make it abundantly clear that these flu shots do not protect recipients against the "swine flu". I conjecture that the vast majority of the public sheep who are getting these seasonal flu shots do not realize that they are not protected against the H1N1 virus and that the vaccine against this strain of the flu virus will not be available to the general public for at least one month.

Also many of these ovines could get this very same seasonal flu shot at their workplaces, HMOs, local community clinics. or fraternal organizations for free. I welcome readers to watch these drug store's ads on TV or read their road signs and find an explicit caveat emptor that these flu shots do not protect against the swine flu. These stores may reveal this fact to those Babbitts in line to be vaccinated ... but, by then, it may to be too late. The Walgreen and CVS Judas goats have already lead these sheep into spending their $30 for something that they think they are getting ... but are not.

Nobly Nobel

In the proud tradition of Jimmy Carter, Mohamed El-Baradei, Al Gore, Kofi Annan, and Yasser Arafat. For more names and irrationales see: Powerline's Take

Horns of a Dilemma

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just scored the latest Baucus Senate health-care bill and said that it would be revenue neutral -- producing a $81 billion return to the Treasury over a ten year period. This has been a requirement that Obama has imposed on any health-care reform plan ... otherwise he would not sign the bill. However, the CBO also included in its calculations a $404 billion cut to Medicare benefits over this same period (see: Medicare Cuts) -- something else that Obama has vowed to oppose in a well-publicized AARP meeting (see: Obama Vows No Cuts).

So Obama is now on the horns of a dilemma. Does he, with the help of the main stream media, ignore these draconian Medicare cuts hoping that AARP and the U.S. public will not focus on this fiscal slight-of-hand (in my Google search I could find only one news article that even mentioned these Medicare cuts -- the Wall Street Journal)? Or does he refuse to sign the Baucus bill and keep his promise to America's seniors? And, even more interestingly, does AARP campaign against the Baucus bill, pointing out how its membership will bear much of the burden of health-insuring an additional 21 million non-elderly Americans? I think I know how this story will progress ... how about you?

Rush to Judgment

I am frequently derided for listening to Rush Limbaugh ... often by my blog readers. Even my wife makes me switch stations on the car radio if Rush is on. However, looking past Rush's ego and bombast, almost every day I get a novel insight from his talk-show commentary. For instance today he opened his show by pointing out how the government (including Obama) is now saying that Al-Qaeda has been substantially weakened even to the point where they are no longer a factor in Afghanistan ... see: Obama disses Al-Qaeda.

Rush, in an ah-ha moment, perceptively pointed out that, as little as nine months ago, the main-stream-media, Congressional Democrats, Eleanor Clift, and Obama were continuously and vociferously pointing out that the U.S. invasion of Iraq, our Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (aka, torture) and our Guantanamo prison were the best recruiting tools that Al-Qaeda has ever had ... thousands upon thousands of Islamic youth were flocking to sign up for their amorous date with those seventy-two virgins. Excuse me, you can't have it both ways my little-furry-friends-who-follow-each-other-into-the-North-sea. Either the Bush administration was right in fighting Islamic terrorism the way it did ... or Obama is talking up his sleeve when he says Al-Qaeda is on life support (perhaps to grease the way for his capitulation in Afghanistan?)

President Pantywaist

President Obama is acquiring a new nickname (as indicated) and, to me, this is not inappropriate. This morning he, with his typical cool, measured terms, spoke in Pittsburgh at the G20 meeting indicating that Iran has been building a secret second nuclear enrichment facility in direct violation on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Agreement. His requested action item was that Iran needs to allow the UN's IAEA to inspect this facility in the near future. However he did not threaten additional near-term sanctions against Iran ... as did France's Sarkozy in more bellicose comments that followed Obama's. The informative moment in this revelation is that the U.S. has known for almost two years about the construction of this facility and, I'm sure Obama has also been informed of this for at least nine months.

Wow! Even with knowledge of this duplicity, Obama has still cozied up to Iran by his willingness to meet with them without preconditions ... and to wait days before he condemned, in the mildest terms, Iran's national election farce and its subsequent brutal crushing of the Iranian public demonstrations over the results. And he has canceled our stationing of anti-missile defenses in Eastern Europe much to Iran's glee. Obama's clearly new Downey-soft approach to international relations has, so far, produced little national benefit ... other than blown kisses to Obama from a raft of European appeasers. To me, Obama needs to cowboy up and start pursuing with more vigor the U.S.'s national interests ... even if this risks his rock-star image abroad.

Swinging Gates

I have held Robert Gates to be one of President Obama's better Secretarial appointments. He was a Bush holdover who had done yeoman service under our previous President. He had overseen the successful Surge Strategy in Iraq and he seemed to be a straight shooter when it came to his congressional testimony over the Defense Department's budget appropriations. He often suggested the scrapping of wasteful defense systems that were nothing more than Congressional pork. But over the last week my approbation for Gates is rapidly turning to aversion.

Firstly, Gates shaded the facts surrounding Obama's decision to cut the legs out from under Poland and the Czech Republic over our commitment to install a missile defense shield on their territory. Gates's biggest fib was that Iran did not have a credible long-range missile capability. He conveniently overlooked the fact that Iran sent a satellite into space this past winter ... see Iran Space Shot. If Iran can boost a satellite into space, it can surely send an equivalent payload anywhere in the world.

Secondly, Gates is now rationalizing Obama's decision not to decide on whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. If General McChrystal says he needs 40,000 more troops, Obama should either supply them or shut down the Afghan mission altogether. Obama's excuse for shushing McChrystal is that he wants to re-think his Afghan strategy (which he claimed he had decided last March). Obama's vacillating on this strategy in Afghanistan, after nine months in office, is, to me, unforgivable. We have service people losing their lives in this country with the potential that these sacrifices might well be in vain.

Step up Mr. Gates ... and encourage your boss to do his job one.

Maxi Shield

NOT!

The U.S. has once again dissed our friends to cuddle up to our antagonists. See: no missile defense. Eastern Europe (in particular Poland and the Czech Republic) have been left hanging out to dry by President Obama so he can appear to "change" the dynamics of the re-emerging cool war. He is canceling what was our former guarantee of an antimissile shield for these oft-trodden-upon countries ... so much for the word of an erstwhile great nation.

"New Europe," as Chaney dubbed them, is once again being kicked to the curb and is even more at the mercy of Putin's Russia and its retaliatory squeezing of natural gas and oil supplies. The old Warsaw Pact bloc has put its head on the block for us only to have it chopped off. They surely will be diminished even more now that they have been cut loose by our great appeaser in the "hope" of some will-o-the-wisp future help from the Big Bad Bear in taming Iran. This is head-hanging shameful on our part and, I predict, will not bring any of the expected benefit. But then again the American public did vote last year for "hope" and "change."

Bad Sports

Being that we now seem to be moving toward remaking the foundations of our society, I have another radical idea -- let's eliminate all professional sports. One has to admit that, in the United States, professional sports waste a lot of our spare time, use up much of our discretionary finances and sap our emotional reserves. These sports promote too many muscle-bound doofuses into positions of idolatry, encourage stupid superstitions and corrosive gambling, and fill the airways with meaningless sophistry and statistics from ex-jocks and jock sniffers. Plus, what were our erstwhile worthwhile amateur sports are rapidly transmogrifying themselves into big-money businesses. College coaches are now making multi-millions and more athletes are moving directly from high school into the professional ranks.

Therefore, I can see no real social benefit from our obsessions with these meaningless distractions ... perhaps other than they are oodles of fun and give men a reason to shirk their weekend chores.