random ramblings

"Apologists for the Obama administration argue that some 2009 spending, like that on financial..."

Fri, 27 Nov 2009 12:21:28 -0600

“

Apologists for the Obama administration argue that some 2009 spending, like that on financial bailouts, is nonrecurring. True, but as the Congressional Budget Office has reported, the trajectory of administration spending and revenue is pushing the annual deficit toward $1,000,000,000,000 — that’s $1 trillion — for the next decade.

Congressional Democrats’ health care bills threaten to add to that. The bill currently before the Senate is advertised as costing less than $1 trillion. But significant spending doesn’t kick in till 2014 and over the ensuing 10 years adds up to $1.8 trillion, nearly double that.

Thanks to current low interest rates, servicing the debt costs the government only $200 billion this year. But the White House estimates that debt service will exceed $700 billion in 2019. “In a few years,” the Economist editorializes, “the AAA rating of Treasury bonds, the world’s most important security, could be in jeopardy.”

It’s not only Republicans who decry this prospect. Examining the Democrats’ health care proposals, William Galston, domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, writes, “We’re already facing an unsustainable fiscal future.”

”

- Damn the deficit: Full speed ahead on health care | Washington Examiner

nomosshere: Op-Ed Columnist - They Chose Celebrity - NYTimes.com This column completely ignores the...

Thu, 26 Nov 2009 12:37:00 -0600

nomosshere:

Op-Ed Columnist - They Chose Celebrity - NYTimes.com

This column completely ignores the repeated attacks against Gov. Palin by a democrat operative that were costing the state of Alaska large sums of money to defend against. In addition to giving the leftist “news” talking heads the chance to state that yet another “ethics” charge had been brought against the governor. Nor did they ever mention that the majority had been dismissed as having no merit.

Sarah Palin’s resigning, and letting her Lt. Governor implement her policies instead, was a brilliant move of political jujitsu, completely defanging those attacks. Note that there have been no “ethics” charges brought against the current governor. That proves that “charges” against Gov. Palin were personal, partisan attacks.

These facts just don’t matter to the haters.

"This meant that both faced the same post-election choice. Did they want to take their newfound..."

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 16:40:55 -0600

“

This meant that both faced the same post-election choice. Did they want to take their newfound eminence seriously? Or did they want to cash in on their celebrity?

For Palin, the serious path required at least serving out her term as governor before returning to the national stage. For Huckabee, it could have involved anything from starting a think tank to running for the Senate in 2010. For both, it would have meant wedding their political identity to ideas as well as attitudes.

So far, they’ve chosen celebrity instead. Huckabee spent the last year hamming it up on a weekly talk show, and the last month hawking a book of inspirational Christmas stories. As for Palin — well, you probably know what she’s been up to lately.

Nobody should begrudge them their choices. Think tanks are a snooze; Senate races are a grind. Signing autographs for your adoring fans is more fun than rounding up budget votes in Juneau.

But they were the wrong moves if either wanted to become president someday.

”

- Op-Ed Columnist - They Chose Celebrity - NYTimes.com

NewsBusters.org captured a fascinating exchange about so-called health-care reform on “Inside...

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:03:07 -0600

NewsBusters.org captured a fascinating exchange about so-called health-care reform on “Inside Washington.” The panelists were columnist Charles Krauthammer, Newsweek’s assistant managing editor Evan Thomas and National Public Radio’s Nina Totenberg:

Krauthammer: The fraudulence of these numbers is absolutely staggering, and I’ll explain to you why. The benefits kick in in 2015, so outlays are only for half of that decade. The taxes and the cuts, the presumed spending cuts, all kick in at the beginning. You’ve got 10 years of money in and five years of outlay, so of course it will produce a deficit—I mean, a surplus. If you start of 2015 and go until the end of time, the amount of deficit added every decade is going to be about half a trillion. So once you start—when the program starts, it will be annually—it will cause a huge deficit annually. That is an absolutely phony number that [Sen. Harry] Reid gave us.

Thomas: Charles is right. This bill is a fiscal fraud. I’d still vote for it, because I think it’s a good thing to extend benefits and start down the road to universal and—because of the health insurance. But we have to be—if we were honest about it, we would say that we have not dealt with the money piece of it, with the cost thing, that we’re going to have to deal with. We’re going to kick that down the road and have to deal with it later.

Krauthammer: How do you do that?

Totenberg: The thing about the health care bill, though, is that—the Senate bill—is that it actually tries to do something about costs. It its starts down that road.

Thomas: It doesn’t! It doesn’t, it’s as fake as a $2 bill [sic]. You don’t get serious about costs.

Totenberg: Unlike the House bill, it tries to do things about cost. I am not saying it’s ideal. But we have to start this. But if we don’t get a health care bill this time, it is probably the last chance.

So here we have an editor of what used to be a newsmagazine endorsing what he himself calls “a fiscal fraud,” and an NPR reporter referring in the first person to partisan advocates of a controversial piece of legislation.

- via Best of the Web Today

[Emphasis mine]

Just makes you fell all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?

"Once the government creates an insurance company or plan, the government or the taxpayers are liable..."

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:39:49 -0600

““Once the government creates an insurance company or plan, the government or the taxpayers are liable for any deficit that government plan runs, really without limit,” [Lieberman] says. “With our debt heading over $21 trillion within the next 10 years…we’ve got to start saying no to some things like this.””

- Lieberman Digs In on Public Option - WSJ.com

Obama Says He Intends to ‘Finish the Job’ in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 12:27:54 -0600

Obama Says He Intends to ‘Finish the Job’ in Afghanistan - NYTimes.com:

Good for him.

notthatkindagay: This Antarctic Leopard Seal was very...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 10:26:48 -0600

notthatkindagay:

This Antarctic Leopard Seal was very aggressive and threatening—almost certainly a territorial instinct. After a 90-minute battle of wills, during which time the seal delivered a wide variety of escalating threats, this seal eventually bit the photographer, David Barr.

(via)

That’s not a seal. It’s a shrieking eel.

Tell the FCC to Say "No" to the Cable Kill Switch | Public Knowledge

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 09:41:47 -0600

Tell the FCC to Say "No" to the Cable Kill Switch | Public Knowledge:

So Hollywood supposedly wants the FCC to give movie studios the ability to remotely shut down video outputs on your home theater system when you are watching movies on cable (to prevent pirating, I would assume.)

Doubt it? Hey, I heard it from Adam Savage (yes, the guy from Mythbusters.)

un: (via lenxo:apsies:mikehudack:artistspaid:newspeedwayboogie) ...

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:56:13 -0600

un:

(via lenxo:apsies:mikehudack:artistspaid:newspeedwayboogie)

“This morning, with her, having coffee.”

-Johnny Cash, when asked for his definition of paradise.

"What sets the politicians of 2009 apart from the ones of 1787 is the pervasive modern denial that..."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:48:47 -0600

“

What sets the politicians of 2009 apart from the ones of 1787 is the pervasive modern denial that human nature is something we can understand and a basis on which we can found a political order. The Americans who wrote and ratified the Constitution believed in certain truths about human nature. These included our fundamental equality, the securing of our inalienable rights as the government’s raison d’être, and the need to channel the natural selfishness that engenders factionalism through a constitutional mechanism that protects individual rights and promotes the public good.

The modern belief, instead, is that what matters is human history, not human nature, our evolution rather than our essence. As the historian Richard Hofstadter wrote in 1948, “[No] man who is as well abreast of modern science as the [Founding] Fathers were of eighteenth-century science believes any longer in unchanging human nature.” Having discarded the concept of human nature as a fixed star by which to navigate, modern political actors and thinkers can only fall back on “the evolving standards of decency that mark the progress of a maturing society,” as the Supreme Court said in 1958.

”

- Incharacter.org

"President Barack Obama took office promising to lead from the center and solve big problems. He has..."

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:03:16 -0600

“

President Barack Obama took office promising to lead from the center and solve big problems. He has exerted enormous political energy attempting to reform the nation’s health-care system. But the biggest economic problem facing the nation is not health care. It’s the deficit. Recently, the White House signaled that it will get serious about reducing the deficit next year—after it locks into place massive new health-care entitlements. This is a recipe for disaster, as it will create a new appetite for increased spending and yet another powerful interest group to oppose deficit-reduction measures.

Our fiscal situation has deteriorated rapidly in just the past few years. The federal government ran a 2009 deficit of $1.4 trillion—the highest since World War II—as spending reached nearly 25% of GDP and total revenues fell below 15% of GDP. Shortfalls like these have not been seen in more than 50 years.

Going forward, there is no relief in sight, as spending far outpaces revenues and the federal budget is projected to be in enormous deficit every year. Our national debt is projected to stand at $17.1 trillion 10 years from now, or over $50,000 per American. By 2019, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) analysis of the president’s budget, the budget deficit will still be roughly $1 trillion, even though the economic situation will have improved and revenues will be above historical norms.

[…]

What to do? The best option would be for the president to halt Congress’s rush to fiscal suicide, and refocus on slowing the dangerous growth in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. He should call on Congress to pass a comprehensive reform of our income and payroll tax systems that would generate revenue sufficient to fund its spending desires in a pro-growth and fair fashion.

Reducing entitlement spending and closing tax loopholes to create a fairer tax system with more balanced revenues is politically difficult and requires sacrifice. But we will avert a potentially devastating credit crisis, increase national savings, drive productivity and wage growth, and enhance our international competitiveness.

The time to worry about the deficit is not next year, but now. There is no time to waste.

”

- The Coming Deficit Disaster - WSJ.com

Mr. Holtz-Eakin is former director of the Congressional Budget Office and a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. This is adapted from testimony he gave before the Senate Committee on the Budget on Nov. 10.

I’m glad to see someone is telling them.

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake..."

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 13:12:24 -0600

“All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible.”

- T.E. Lawrence, better known as Lawrence of Arabia

"When Alabama Congressman Artur Davis voted against the health-care bill that passed the House..."

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:22:53 -0600

“

When Alabama Congressman Artur Davis voted against the health-care bill that passed the House earlier this month, he probably expected some grief from fellow Democrats. But he couldn’t have anticipated being accused of selling out his race.

Mr. Davis was the only black Member to oppose the legislation, and his vote earned him a rebuke from Jesse Jackson at a Congressional Black Caucus Foundation reception Wednesday night. “We even have blacks voting against the health-care bill,” said Mr. Jackson. “You can’t vote against health care and call yourself a black man.”

Mr. Davis is running for governor in a state that John McCain won last year, and his vote was surely influenced by the reality that Alabamans aren’t the biggest fans of ObamaCare. The Congressmen, to his credit, took the high ground in response to Mr. Jackson’s low blow. “One of the reasons that I like and admire Rev. Jesse Jackson is that 21 years ago he inspired the idea that a black politician would not be judged simply as a black leader,” he said in a statement referencing Mr. Jackson’s 1988 Presidential bid. “The best way to honor Rev. Jackson’s legacy is to decline to engage in an argument with him that begins and ends with race.”

”

- Jesse Jackson Slams Artur Davis - WSJ.com

"“If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do,” the vice..."

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 08:02:57 -0600

“

“If they take them back, this the end of the road for what Barack and I are trying to do,” the vice president said at a fundraiser for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) today in Greenville, Delaware.

Republicans need to pick up 40 seats next November to take back control of the House.

There are 49 seats currently held by Democrats in districts that Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) won in last year’s presidential election.

Biden said these House seats are Republicans “one shot” at breaking the Obama administration’s agenda. But if Democrats can hold on to those seats, “the dam is going to break,” he said, and a new era of bipartisanship will begin.

“All the hidden Republicans that don’t have the courage to vote the way they want to vote because of pressure from the party … it will break the dam and you will see bipartisanship,” Biden said.

”

- Biden: 2010 GOP Success would be ‘The End of the Road…”

Uh, how’s that Joe?

Search the Good Stuff

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:18:29 -0600

Search the Good Stuff:

christianity:

A friend put together a custom search engine of his favorite biblical resources. Search multiple sites by topic, keyword, etc. he should be posting his own stuff in here—ahem!—but until then, it’s worth checking out.

While we’re on the subject of good searches, be sure to check out Good Search, a search engine using Yahoo’s framework that donates money to the charity of your choosing for each query you make.

azspot: David Fitzsimmons Hahaha.

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 10:58:47 -0600

azspot:

David Fitzsimmons

Hahaha.

Tax the Rich

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 08:04:57 -0600

Tax the Rich:

azspot:

Ten percent of Americans are unemployed, and many doubt that President Obama’s stimulus will create enough jobs to reduce this rate significantly. But given the structure of our labor force, more jobs is not necessarily what we need anyway. Our workforce includes 13.5 million people who don’t belong in it at all. Permitting them not to work would free up jobs and raise the wages of millions of workers who belong in the middle class. It would also free all of us of our dependence on Wall Street.

Currently, four million children under the age of eighteen work, filling the equivalent of two million full time jobs. (The actual number is higher. Even though the law permits the employment of children over the age of fourteen, the Census Bureau only collects data about workers who are older than sixteen.) Ten million college-age youth (between the ages of eighteen and twenty one) also work, and they fill the equivalent of eight million full time jobs. Five million of these college-age youth do not attend college at all. Finally, there are also four and a half million workers who are sixty six years or older, and they fill the equivalent of three and a half million full time jobs. The questions before us are then: Should these workers be removed from the workforce? How much would this cost? Can we afford it? And finally, what will our lives look like after all these workers stop working?

How to make people ~~rich~~ ~~better~~ ~~happy~~… No, let me start again, giving the actual title - How to Reduce Unemployment, Rebuild the Middle Class and Free Ourselves From Wall Street, by economics professor Moshe Adler: force lower income workers out of the market, give them government subsidies, and tax the rich more.

Sarah Palin and the Decline of Conservatism - Reason Magazine

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:23:21 -0600

Sarah Palin and the Decline of Conservatism - Reason Magazine

Worse Than Taxes - Reason Magazine

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:20:09 -0600

Worse Than Taxes - Reason Magazine

"The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover — and..."

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 13:24:12 -0600

“

The 2,074-page Senate health care bill would take 34 hours to read cover to cover — and that’s just what Sen. Tom Coburn wants done on the Senate floor.

The Oklahoma Republican has threatened to invoke parliamentary rules to force the Senate clerk (or more likely, a team of clerks) to read the massive bill before the full Senate begins formal debate on the legislation.

The move is strictly according to Senate rules, which say any senator can demand a bill be read in its entirety before debate begins. While Democrats could, if they wish, repeatedly make motions to end the soliloquy, Republicans on the floor could object, and the reading would continue.

What’s even more interesting is that Senate Rule XIV (paragraph 2) states that every bill and joint resolution “shall receive three readings prior to its passage.”

”

- Health bill could get 34-hour reading in Senate - Washington Times