CALIFORNIA UPDATE:
Billions in red ink drowning California’s cities, schools and counties, too. I heard my state’s Finance Commissioner on George Korda’s talk radio show, and it’s clear that he regards California’s situation as a cautionary tale. I hope that other states are taking the same lesson.
UPDATE: Related thoughts from Don Surber: “I blame incrementalism. Some sob sister story creates a new program for only pennies a day that quickly becomes an expensive bureaucracy. And well, here we are.”
Sensible “Cyber War” Preparation, Or Just More Government Snooping?...Re-read that sentence. He’s talking about changing the internet to make everything anyone does on the net traceable and geo-located so the National Security Agency can pinpoint users and their computers for retaliation if the U.S. government doesn’t like what’s written in an e-mail, what search terms were used, what movies were downloaded...
HOW TO BEAT THE LONDON COPS on a terrorism stop. But the real fun is in the comments. There's a nice quick-reference bust card (designed for photographers) here: http://photographernotaterrorist.org/bust-card/
THE END OF REASON? Thoughts inspired by rereading The Road To Serfdom.
"There is no truth."
Let's examine this statement logically, shall we?
Assume that it's false. In which case, the opposite is true, and therefore there is truth.
Assume that it's true. In which case, the statement stands, and therefore there is no truth.
But if there is no truth, then no statement can be true, including the statement "There is no truth." Thus, the statement contradicts itself and must be false. Ergo, there is truth. QED.
This is elementary logic. Relativisim is the bastard child of an empty mind.11:02 AM, March 06, 2010
ASSOCIATED PRESS: Congressional Estimates Show Grim Deficit Picture. “The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicts that Obama’s budget plans would generate deficits over the upcoming decade that would total $9.8 trillion. That’s $1.2 trillion more than predicted by the administration.”
Ann Althouse comments: “The number is utterly incomprehensible. If you think it is not, I’m going to assume it is because your brain has less, not more, capacity than mine. Please don’t stumble embarrassingly over yourself trying to prove otherwise.”
And, from the comments: “I think the number will be higher. There will be ‘emergencies’ and ‘unforeseen circumstances’. Plus, there’s the dead-weight loss from the new energy taxes he’s proposing and the forced spending on health insurance, that are bound to dramatically shrink the economy.”
Cheer Up!
There's a way out of their mess...
Suppose we didn't want the publicly held debt to rise more than 2 trillion over the next 10 years. Here's some numbers. Starting with Treasury Direct's Debt to the Penny, we discover that on December 31st, 2009, publicly held debt was 7.8 trillion. As of March 4th, 2010, it was 8.06 trillion. Thus we are going add about 1.16 Trillion a year to publicly held debt.
The estimate for 2010 (see the Monthly Treasury Statement for Dec 2009) is that all individual income taxes will total 1.03 trillion for this fiscal year (Oct 09.Sept 2010). Because our interest rates will rise when the economy recovers, our debt servicing costs are going to rise quite a bit.
In any case, to fend off further increases in the publicly held debt (and higher interest payments), we would need to pretty much double each taxpayer's individual income tax bill. So whatever you are paying in taxes this year, multiply by 2. That's what it requires.
That's just the teaser.
I love this: Annual Growth of Federal Revenues and Gross Domestic Product, 1970 to 2020.
Meanwhile, "cash-strapped states such as North Carolina, Alabama and Hawaii have been forced to slow down issuing income tax refunds to individuals and businesses because of a lack of funds in their budget".
But not to worry, in the minds of the "Obama Recovery Watch High Alert" media: 36,000 workers laid off in February = "positive jobs report".
With our national economy so dependent on trade with the elephant to the south, you'd think those numbers would be scaring the bejesus out of each and every one of us - beginning with our finance ministers. But by all indications, you'd think wrong.
Obama's war on prosperity will either succeed in collapsing the Republic into a basket case welfare state or he will have inspired the second American revolution which will see the productive sectors collapse the parasitic and regulatory political ruling class. Forget the "Party of No", the saviors of the Republic must become, if a democratic solution is possible, the "Party of Creative Destruction".
All federal entitlements should be phased out and virtually all federal agencies eliminated. The IRS should be replaced with an initial 15% flat tax on all personal income gradually reduced to 5% after elimination of the federal debt. Corporate taxes should be eliminated. The federal government should be reduced to core functions of National security, Judicial and Military. The states could then compete without the federal mandates and bribes.
Anything less would be a bubble gum weld on a rusty ship.
That was simple.....Next?
FROM POPULAR MECHANICS: How To Handle Sudden Unintended Acceleration.
ACLU Ad Compares Obama to Bush 43
—Gabriel Malor
In today's NYTimes, the aging civil rights organization complains that Obama is just Bush all over again. Click the pic to go to the full ad (PDF):
This is the pushback I expected after White House staffers started leaking that Obama would flip flop on the New York 9/11 trials and throw Holder under the bus.
Will the whimpering of the ACLU change Obama's mind? Does it matter? Congress isn't going to let the President bring terrorists here for trial anyways. This was money down the toilet. I approve this message.
Posted by Gabriel Malor at
12:17 PM New Comments Thingy
49smoke and mirrors. cover for odeathcare. cloward/piven. alinsky.
That's one of the two most likely explanations.
I think he's afraid to change anything. The things he has tried to change, like trying terrorists in civilian court or closing Gitmo have been disasters for him. He doesn't know what he's doing, so rather than trying to change something and watch it blow up in his face again, he's leaving it alone.
That's the other most likely explanation.
If you want to really "grok" Barack Hussein Obama, then you have to read Cashill's work on the authorship question.
When you see the pieces that we know Barry wrote, without any help from William Ayers or Jon Favreau or David Axelrod, then it immediately becomes abundantly clear that Barry doesn't have an IQ much higher than 110 or 115.
The poor guy [to the extent that you can force yourself to feel any sympathy for him] is in way, way, way over his head - by a standard deviation or two - and he really doesn't have any clue what he's doing as regards the day-to-day minutae of making the trains run on time.
Which I guess we should all be thankful for - a Barry Soetoro with an IQ of 140+ would have been a very formidable opponent.
PS: And don't discount the possibility of substance abuse problems - if the Kenyan really is his biological father, then Barry could have inherited a terrible addiction gene from him, and might be drinking himself to sleep in the White House every night.
PPS: Along those lines, did you guys see the pictures of Jay-Z and Beyonce in the top-secret "Situation Room"?
This stuff is making the Obama White House look like an episode of "Soul Train" or "Sanford and Son".
Sunday, March 7, 2010, 3:07 PM
Jim Hoft
The AP published a lengthly article today on the sudden parade of predjudice witnessed on campuses across California.
But, the writer forgot to mention that a minority student admitted to hanging the noose at the UCSD campus. It’s a slight detail.
From propagandist Christina Hoag at the Associated Press:
LOS ANGELES – Swastikas, nooses, a KKK hood, graffiti, epithets and jeers.
An ugly spate of bias incidents has crossed several University of California campuses over the past month, causing consternation, outcry and fear that bigotry is alive among the young and educated.
Students have protested and administrators have condemned, but the question remains of what lies behind the sudden parade of prejudice — a growing climate of insensitivity on campuses or a bunch of immature kids yearning for peer acceptance and attention.
“My guess is some of all of those things,” said interim UC Provost Lawrence H. Pitts. “I’d like to believe it’s really an extreme minority. It does suggest there’s some underlying feeling of intolerance in our community.”
The incidents have roiled several campuses in the 175,000-student state university system, which is one of the nation’s most respected and diverse.
At UC San Diego, black students were offended by an off-campus “Compton Cookout” party that mocked ghetto stereotypes, a noose and KKK-style hood found on campus and a student making racially derogatory remarks on a student-run TV station.
At UC Davis, swastikas cropped up and the gay and lesbian center was vandalized with graffiti. At UC Santa Cruz, a picture of a noose was scrawled. On the Irvine campus, the Israeli ambassador was heckled to the extent that he was forced to end a speech early.
The acts were particularly shocking because they occurred on university campuses — usually considered centers of intellectual enlightenment above acts commonly associated with ignorance.
But experts note that universities are microcosms of society at large, and that includes hatemongers. Upticks in hate crimes are often seen in times of economic malaise as people seek scapegoats, noted Jack Levin, a Northeastern University sociologist who has studied hate.
Still, surveys show that prejudice among today’s young people is at a low and interracial and interethnic marriages are at an all-time high, said Tom Smith, director of the general social survey at the National Opinion Research Center. Studies have also long found that education increases tolerance of different groups, he added.
“College students, as a group, are quite liberal on this issue,” Smith said.
Minority students said that’s why they’re galled that fellow students today would even think that something like hanging a noose in a library is funny or acceptable. The school paper later published a letter of apology from a female student who wrote that she had only been playing with a rope, accidentally left in the library and did not mean to offend.
“Part of the problem is that people don’t realize it’s insensitive,” said Joelle Gamble, a student at the University of California, Los Angeles. “They see it as free speech.”
Unreal.
Hillary Clinton’s 1969 Wellesley Thesis
Sarah Palin: Obama Is Wrong, Stand Up For SEALs Standing Up For Us
LA County Issues New Disaster Survival Guide
Click the pic to go to the Gun Facts v5.0 download page!
-The FIVE-MINUTE HANDBOOK (RKBA)-06-28-03-
CRIME RATES FALL In the First Half of 2009 (More guns, less crime)
FBI.gov ^ | 12/21/09
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2407796/posts
Marta crime rate falls in wake of gun law(GA)
Atlanta Gun Rights examiner ^ | 14 December, 2009
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2407377/posts
Why Switzerland Has The Lowest Crime Rate In The World
YouTube ^ | 12-13-09
Total Resistance
Glenn Beck Special Exposes Indoctrination of Your Children by Teachers in Public Schools
Obama must decide degree to which U.S. swears off nuclear weapons
What gives any president the right to make a unilateral decision of this magnitude?
Seriously.
Obama doesn’t own these weapons.
WE, the people, own them.
U.S. to cut nukes, reduce their role in national security: Obama
Big Business Is, Simply, Vampiric
California unemployment rises to 12.5 percent despite gain of 32,500 jobs (how does *that* work???)
Real Estate Price Forecast: City by City [underemployment remains high but home values climb?]
Yep.
I had to drive a circuitous route yesterday, all around my county instead of the usual shopping trip... newly built strip centers?
Emptying out. Signs, "first month free!" "Ask about our new lower prices!"
Homes for sale, all over.
Real estate offices? Nary a car, not even staff.
The temporary employment firm? Closed tight.
The county's first billion-dollar "condo conversion?" Being pursued for back taxes and "breach of promise." ( They kept taking money, and didn't build any of the promised stuff. )
If it weren't so awful, it would be comedic- like a parody or satire of ghastly news.
"'Tis but a scratch!"
America's top ten poorest cities
E-mails from National Academy of Sciences plot attacks on AGW skeptics
Warmists overwhelmed by fear, panic and deranged hatred as their 'science' collapses