Sep 30 2008

MESS, the new economic foreign policy

Category: Congress,economy,Russia — harmonicminer @ 2:50 pm

Russia’s economic prospects were looking up when the price of oil was in continuous ascent. But it’s stock exchange has lost enormous amounts in the last year or so. Which suggests a new strategy: instead of MAD (mutually assured destruction), the old Cold War stalemate, we should try MESS (mutual economic strategic starvation). We have more food than they do. Let’s destroy their economy by merely crippling ours. Maybe that’s the reason for the inexplicable congressional inertia for the last few years regarding Fannie and Freddie. It’s all part of the conspiracy to beggar Russia.

Russian stock indexes sank Tuesday despite the federal market regulator ordering a two-hour trading halt in anticipation of massive fallout from the rejection of a bank bailout in the U.S. Congress.

It sort of gives a new meaning to starving your enemy into submission.

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Sep 30 2008

The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling!

Category: capitalism,Congress,constitution,economy,housing,liberty,politics — amuzikman @ 9:41 am

Once upon a time….

Be it myth, legend, tale or fable we all know these four words and understand them to be a preamble to the telling of a make-believe story (though possibly based on fact).  Such stories serve many purposes, not the least of which is to teach an object lesson to the very young, a meaningful and memorable way to instruct children about great and noble virtues such as loyalty, honor, courage and truth.

Chicken Little is one such story. The diminuitive foul who determines Armageddon is at hand after being struck on the head by an acorn.  The story proceeds with Chicken Little determining the best course of action is to tell the king whereupon a journey commences and various encounters with other creatures ensue.  Depending on which version of the story is told, a final encounter with a deceitful fox who manipulates the circumstances brings about a close call or bad ending to the story.

I find several interesting parallels to current events.

Continue reading “The Sky Is Falling, The Sky Is Falling!”

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Sep 29 2008

House of Ill Repute: Meet Madame Pelosi

Category: Congress,economy — harmonicminer @ 5:22 pm

Townhall.com::Blog

Elections have consequences, and one of those is that Pelosi bears responsibility for the financial bill’s defeat

Read it all.

And then there’s this extra commentary.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, the number two House Democrat in authority (behind only Speaker Nancy Pelosi), in defending his party from responsibility for the defeat of the financial stability bill today, delivered the all-time lamest excuse I’ve ever heard (my transcription from video on the PBS NewsHour; boldface mine):

“No Democrat that we could get to vote for the bill didn’t vote for the bill.”

Behind that tortured double-negative is a tautology. This is empty double-talk, delivered by the dishonest, intended for the gullible.

More here.

UPDATE following here:

Continue reading “House of Ill Repute: Meet Madame Pelosi”

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Sep 25 2008

Heroes & Villains

Category: Congress,corporations,corruption,economy — amuzikman @ 6:29 pm

From our earliest childhood we are confronted by the epic struggle between the forces of good and evil.   We see it in literature, in sports, on stage and screen.  It is a subject with apparently endless possibilities.  This conflict between two opposing forces is frequently illustrated through fictitious characters who personify those forces and who engage in frequent battles for supremacy.  Countless myths and stories are told of heroes vs villains, evil witches and fairy God-mothers, the cowboy in the white hat vs. the one with a black hat.  For every Luke Skywalker there must be a Darth Vader, Batman has the Joker and the Dodgers have the Giants (sorry, bias exposed!). The object lesson is clear.  These stories teach us to seek the good.  Likewise we learn to shun the bad.

But what is so very clear and simple in a play, motion picture or novel, is almost never as clear in real life.  But that doesn’t keep us from trying to disregard the complex in favor of the simple.  We want to blame someone for their evil deeds and we want the hero to show up just in the nick of time and save us just like in some old serial Western.

Continue reading “Heroes & Villains”

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Sep 11 2008

Libertarians vs. conservatives on the role of the presidency

Category: Bush,Congress,constitution,freedom,Group-think,legislation,liberty,politics,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:02 am

I love it when the libertarians and conservatives square off and start punching. It’s always instructive, and is a good tonic for those who believe “the right” is monolithic.

Claremont Institute fellow Michael M. Uhlmann has a dismissive review of The Cult of the Presidency in the current issue of National Review: “It’s Not Just the Executive,” September 15, 2008. (Here it is if you get NR Digital, otherwise it’s available in the print edition). It seems to me that the review largely consists of inaccurate characterizations, unsupported assertions, and non sequiturs. But hey, I’m the author, and understandably biased, so check it out and judge for yourself.

Uhlmann writes that “The bulk of Healy’s book is devoted to various sins, offenses and negligences of the Bush administration.” That’s a bizarre statement, given that the book has nine chapters and an introduction, and only three of those chapters cover GWB’s tenure. In fact, the “bulk of the book” is devoted to demonstrating that, as I write in Chapter Two, “the problems of the modern presidency did not begin when George W. Bush emerged victorious from 2000’s seemingly interminable Battle of the Chads” and that–despite what some on the Left seem to believe–those problems will not vanish in January 2009 when he heads back to the ranch to cut brush.

Read it all.

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Sep 09 2008

Thank You, Sir. May I Have Another?

Category: Congress,corruption — amuzikman @ 8:00 am

OK, movie trivia buffs – from what movie does the title of this blog come? If you said Animal House, (1978) you are correct. The scene is an outrageously funny spoof of a fraternity initiation. In a secretive, candle-lit, quasi-sado/masochistic ceremony, gleefully sinister hooded frat boys take sensual delight in whacking the backsides of the “whitey/tighty”-clad pledges who must cry out, “Thank you sir. May I have another?” each time they are smacked with a wooden paddle.

It struck me this scene is a perfect metaphor for the relationship between American citizens (the pledges) and the United States Congress (the frat boys). The latest wallop to our collective backsides? The recent revelations regarding unethical and quite possibly illegal real estate dealings of the “honorable” Charles Rangel, Congressman, 15th Congressional District, New York.

According to Thomas Lifson, at American Thinker:

Charles Rangel, a man who writes federal tax laws as head of the House Ways and Means Committee, not only failed to pay taxes on income he received from a luxury resort property he owns, he financed the purchase with an interest-free loan from a campaign backer who is also a politically active lawyer.

To read the complete article, go to: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2008/09/the_rangel_scandal_deepens.html

And, of course Speaker of the House Pelosi will do everything she can to hide, obfuscate, and delay any investigation until after the November election. The other frat boys and girls, (Congressional members of the same party) will circle the wagons in order to protect one of their own. The Mainstream Media shills will bury the story as long as possible – heck, we might even get some cries of “racism”, because ol’ Charlie happens to be black. And We The People will respond once again in enthusiastic unison, “Thank you, sir. May I have another?”

When are we going to get up off our proverbial hands and knees? When do we collectively put our pants back on, snatch the paddle from their hands and decide to offer up an equally famous quote from another movie, “I’m mad as Hell and I’m not going to take it any more!” (Peter Finch in the 1976 movie, Network)?

We CAN say that very thing, if we possess the collective will. We CAN do something about it, if and when we decide we’ve had enough. We don’t have to keep getting paddled by a seemingly endless parade of the corrupt, greedy, and hypocritical from both sides of the aisle that populate the halls of Congress. We The People can go to the ballot box. We The People can vote out EVERY incumbent. There’s one action that might just send a message.

Or we can all bend over, grab our ankles and wait for our corporal cue to utter the Animal House line once again…and again and again and again and………….

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Aug 24 2008

What They Say vs. What They Mean

Category: Congress,energy,legislation — amuzikman @ 8:42 am

Here in California we have something called the “Flex Your Power” program. Here is their website self-description.

Flex Your Power is California’s statewide energy efficiency marketing and outreach campaign. Initiated in 2001, Flex Your Power is a partnership of California’s utilities, residents, businesses, institutions, government agencies and nonprofit organizations working to save energy.

Part of the Flex Your Power program includes something called a “Flex Alert”. It is a public warning that we are getting dangerously close to overloading our energy grid, or as they put it, our energy reserves are getting low.

The reasons? What they say:

  • High peak demand
  • Unplanned generation outages or transmission problems
  • Adverse weather

What they mean:

Your federal, state, and local government has not been doing it’s job. In fact while we have been passing ridiculous laws about plastic grocery bags, Co2, and removing the words “mom” & “dad” from school textbooks our supply of energy has not kept up with demand. We will not admit we are abject failures in energy planning. Instead, we are blaming you and expecting you to make do with less energy though our lack of foresight and planning, along with a death-grip on us by the environmental wacko lobby, has put us all in this precarious position.

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Aug 13 2008

Not a voter “literacy” test: a civics test instead

Category: Congress,constitution,election 2008,White House — harmonicminer @ 9:09 am

So, here is a civics test for prospective voters. The test’s author, Doug Patton, has devised a 27 question test that 8th graders would once easily have passed. He thinks you should be able to score at least 18 in order to vote. That’s 66.6%, a “D” when I was in school.  Patton’s introduction to his test:

I have never been an advocate of the popular notion that “everyone should vote.” Some people look at me as if I am somehow un-American when I say that I am not in favor of encouraging people to vote who would otherwise never darken the door of a polling place. I really don’t want someone on the streets of Hollywood, who just failed to identify the vice president of the United States on one of Jay Leno’s “Jay-Walking” segments, helping to select the person who will lead my government for the next four years.

Take the test here.

I have to report, sadly, that enormous numbers of high school graduates cannot pass this test (that is, get a score of 66.6%). More college graduates than I would wish are similarly unprepared. Yet this test is not hard, for anyone who has the vaguest notion of how our government functions, and the barest minimum of knowledge about current events. I know it is politically impossible that a test such as this will ever be adopted. But if you can’t pass it, you should be embarrassed to be voting. And in all honesty, I think the author of the test was too generous. In my opinion, if you can’t score about 24 out of 27, you should go out to lunch on election day (since you’re already there…), and then go home, and read a book or something.

Continue reading “Not a voter “literacy” test: a civics test instead”

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Aug 12 2008

Senator Pat Wiggins Wigs Out

Category: Congress,humor,politics — harmonicminer @ 9:18 am

Well… now we know the high level of discourse in the California State Senate, when an invited witness says something even vaguely challenging to the status quo. Warning: the following is rated PG for language. Not R… but definitely PG.

Democratic Senator Pat Wiggins decided on a terse, efficient response to the testimony of a pastor who was discussing the impact of proposed federal regulations on his community: Bulls**t. That’s right… to a pastor, who was speaking with complete politeness and deference to the high station of the Senators. Republicans have been known, on rare occasions, to use, uh, colorful language to other Senators. I do not recall hearing of one speaking this way to a witness, particularly one so polite and graceful himself.

You’ll note that the committee chair immediately leaps in to try to ameliorate the damage… but in this case, video is wonderful thing.

If Senator Wiggins, a white woman, had been a Republican who spoke this way to a black witness (espeically one so polite), anyone want to take the bet that she wouldn’t be getting called a racist? Pastor Robert Jones is a United Methodist, a denomination not known for rabid conservatism and right-wing polemics.

The hearing was about (you guessed it) global warming. I guess the good Senator got a little hot under the collar.

Senator Pat Wiggins Wigs Out

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Jul 23 2008

When there’s a financial crisis, look to the government as the cause, part 2

Category: Congress,corruption,diversity,economy,election 2008,housing,politics — harmonicminer @ 12:11 pm

Thomas Sowell continues his previous discussion of how the government is the primary cause of our current financial issues.

We don’t look to arsonists to help put out fires but we do look to politicians to help solve financial crises that they played a major role in creating.

How did the government help create the current financial mess? Let me count the ways.

Continue reading “When there’s a financial crisis, look to the government as the cause, part 2”

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