Not even good propaganda

Godwin's law violation studiously avoided:

President Barack Obama’s proposal to end a tax break for corporate jet owners, a repeated refrain in his news conference yesterday, would achieve less than one-tenth of 1 percent of his target for reducing the federal deficit...

Obama mentioned the corporate jet break six times, criticizing Republicans’ unwillingness to include tax increases in legislation to raise the federal debt ceiling.

Here's a pair of questions that none of the President's leg-humpers ever seem to want to ask: what is the 'tax break for corporate jet owners' and where did it come from?* But here, for the edification of my reading audience, is the underwhelming answer.

The 'tax break' is a rule that allows the depreciation on certain jets to be taken over five years instead of seven on a corporation's income tax form. That's it. That's the tax break.  It's a freaking miniscule accounting rule that was created to encourage corporations to buy jets, many of which are made right here in good old Kansas.  It's a stupid rule, surely**, but it's hardly worth six mentions in one speech, given that it would raise a whopping $300 million dollars a year using even the government's own rosy figures. The Bitter Half can spend that much on a week-long fact-finding trip to the Spanish Mediterranean.

But secondly, as Bob Weeks notes, the tax change

was designed to provide a stimulus to a specific industry. And if that term “stimulus” seems familiar, the legislation that created this accelerated depreciation incentive was part of H.R. 1: American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, also known as ARRA, also known as the stimulus bill, and one of the first legislative initiatives by President Obama.

In other words, Obama is railing against a corporate tax break that Obama signed, which was passed through the House of Representatives without a single Republican vote, and the Senate with only two***. And somehow this sop to the rich is the GOP's fault.  If Obama was honest, he'd be the first to admit that he and his party are solely responsible for this 'break,' this 'dodge,' this taking of food out of the mouths of starving children from sea to shining sea, and then he would beg the Republicans to help him clean up his mess. If he was honest. Which is why I expect to hear his silliness repeated eight times the next time he's on TV.

UPDATE: Even the Washington Post gives Obama 2 Pinocchio noses for that news conference.  And if he's lost the Washington Post, he's lost middle America. 

* Because they already know it's a check written by Uncle Sam to people who buy corporate jets as a reward for being rich capitalist running dogs.  And it was George Bush's idea.
** 99% of such rules designed to help one company or industry have unintended consequences that are at least as bad as the rule is good, even when the rule does everything its designers intend, which is seldom. It's safe to assume that all such rules are stupid, or at least passed by stupid people.
*** One of whom, Arlen Specter, actually became a Democrat in the following months. The other, Olympia Snowe of Maine, was once indicted for being a Republican. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence.

The Fabulous Honey Badger

(language warning)

Music to my ears

Typical NPR Listener

but not subsidized music:

TOPEKA — Public radio and television, your turn is next.

In addition to eliminating the Kansas Arts Commission, which disappeared last month after he vetoed its funding, Gov. Sam Brownback has said he’ll ask the 2012 Legislature to cut funding for public broadcasting.

Governor Switchback FTW! The best part is that he only has to convince 1/3 of one house to support the veto*, since he has line-item ability.  I was amazed he didn't do it this year, but I'm willing to give him a pass since he so masterfully eradicatedprivatized the Kansas Arts Commission.  Like public radio after next year, it still exists. Like public radio, no one will care except people who listen to it, feel good about themselves for listening to it, but refuse to donate $50 a year to ensure it stays on the air.  NPR's almost all-white demographic is "set apart by its high degree of educational and professional attainment," which degree is exceeded only by its sniveling, self-righteous liberal stinginess.

I have no beef against public radio; I have supported it for years and enjoy it no little bit. That said, government funding is a real problem that goes right to the heart of what has been called the 'Professional Left' in this country.  The business of the professional left is robbing the low-sloping foreheads while laughing at them. That they have been able to pass their larceny** off as being in the public interest should command the same kind of respect one reserves for a Heinz Guderian or Erwin Rommel. Yes, you have to beat his ass. But you don't underestimate him even while you do it.

All that said, if NPR can make it on its own, great. Public radio insists that it is "listener-supported."  It insists that it provides a valuable service to 'communities.' Here's its chance to discover what its Kansas listeners really think it worth. I'm betting it's not as much as its defenders would like to think.

* It won't be in his budget, but the squishes in the state senate will assure that a couple million dollars is allocated, however, briefly
** how else can one describe a scheme in which taxpayers support Sesame Street on public TV, while the 'non-profit' organizations which own the licenses for the toys and t-shirts pocket hundreds of million in revenues and pay executives a million bucks a year?  It's a scam of epic proportions.

Thug Life, suburbia edition

Then it's not a bloody default

CNBC worries about the end of the world:

A default will likely lead to market panic, a devastating spike in interest rates, lack of credit, a plunging U.S. dollar and another, potentially more severe, recession, with repercussions for the global economy...

Analysts say that in the event of a default, the U.S. Treasury will have no option but to pay interest on the debt first, so that no payments to creditors are missed.

The Treasury will then have to decide who to pay next, and how much.

Default does not mean 'unwilling to borrow more money.'  Nor does it mean 'not fulfilling political promises.' If the government is paying its debts, on time and in full, then it is not in default on them. It's simply what the word means.  Interest on the debt comes in at about 10% of its revenues, leaving 90% of government revenues to cover day to day operations, like dropping bombs on civilians in Africa.  And so long as that interest is paid, there is no default to cause all these horrible imaginary problems* being used to scare Americans into going further into debt.

Assume just for a minute that Uncle Sam decided not to borrow any more money and to pay interest on what he had outstanding** before any other payments. Why should that cause a spike in interest rates? Are people less likely to buy debt from someone who pays his bills from cash flow than from someone who puts his credit card payments on a credit card?  Why, pray tell, would the dollar plunge?  The world is awash in dollars and it has been plunging for years.  Why would the prospect of fewer extant dollars, caused by an honestly balanced budget, make its value less? It wouldn't.  In fact, after the initial shock, the results are likely to be exactly the opposite of what the Chickens Little of Wall Street are claiming.

Surely there will be repercussions for the world economy, and in the short term some of them might be bad, like the first few months after one gives up one's long-term quart a day whiskey habit.  Bad short-term repercussions are not a reason to avoid doing the right thing.  Unfortunately, our politicians for a generation have fled bad short-term repercussions - even making up imaginary ones to avoid - and put us in a position where our choice is delirium tremens today or cirrhosis of the liver in a few short years.  This is the last chance to get on the wagon.

Fear not, CNBC: the Republicans will pop the cork soon enough.

* They left out dry mouth, ingrown toenails, and excessive ear hair growth.
** Instead of borrowing to cover interest as he does today.

Legos Rock

It's more racist to give a black guy a gun

Nat Turner exercising his right to remain silent.

than it is to take it away:

The pervasion of illegal guns in America's black and Latino communities is a result of "government-sponsored racism," akin to "slavery, segregation, black codes [and] Jim Crow," Rahm Emanuel's new police chief, Garry McCarthy, told parishioners at St. Sabina's Church earlier this month...

"Now I want you to connect one more dot on that chain of the African American history in this country, and tell me if I’m crazy: Federal gun laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms, into our urban centers across this country, that are killing our black and brown children," he said.

McCarthy blasted the NRA...

I suppose it's a weird irony that I happen to have sitting on my bathroom floor this month's issue of America's First Freedom*, perhaps better known as the NRA monthly mag**. In that magazine this month is a feature-length article based more or less on Clayton Cramer's Racist Roots of Gun Control.  You might imagine that the slant is a bit different than that taken by Mr. McCarthy. It's also a lot better grounded historically.

Gun control began as a 19th Century method for keeping blacks unarmed, and therefore at the mercy of whites. The fact is inarguable, as before the Civil War laws like this one were on the books in a number of states:

"That if any free negro, mulatto, or free person of color, shall wear or carry about his or her person, or keep in his or her house, any shot gun, musket, rifle, pistol, sword, dagger or bowie-knife, unless he or she shall have obtained a licence therefor from the Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions of his or her county***, within one year preceding the wearing, keeping or carrying therefor, he or she shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and may be indicted therefor."

Which law was upheld by the NC Supremes, even in the face of their state Constitution's very second-amendmentlike clauses, by arguing that, "[The law's] object is to preserve the peace and safety of the community from being disturbed by an indiscriminate use, on ordinary occasions, by free men of color, of fire arms or other arms of an offensive character."In other words, gun control exists to keep weapons out of black hands. 

After the Civil War, laws against Saturday Night Specials or laws limiting handguns to military pistols (which only whites had), provided the same result.  When the race riots came, one side had all the guns, and it wasn't the black side.

Fast forward to today, where blacks have finally gained Second Amendment protections, and the Chicago Police Chief calls such a situation racist, and harkens for laws that will keep firearms out of the hands of free men of color, like Redeemer Governments and the Klan of old. It boggles the mind****. Then again, he's just playing to a crowd that thinks that freedom is a racist concept because black people use it so poorly. McCarthy is not crazy. He's simply another crooked and ignorant Chicago machine politician willing to lie, cheat, and steal to keep the sheep from wandering away from the herd.  I hope to God one of them never becomes President.

* Ironic because if the NRA crowd were really as racist as liberals say, there is no way they would argue, in their own magazine, that their political opponents had a pretty effective method of keeping the brother down. That the NRA uses the historical racism of their opponents to advance their position in internal communications is just one more proof that racism is a battle that was won 50 years ago.  Inner-city politicians need a new scapegoat for their charges' inability to refrain from killing each other.
** My wife is a gunsmith, kind of, so we're on the list. Ted Nugent aside, I'm not a big NRA guy myself. I lean more toward the Second Amendment Foundation.
*** Good luck getting one of those.
**** "Federal laws that facilitate the flow of illegal firearms" is oxymoron enough to do that all by itself.

Meanwhile, in Stalingrad

Test today on Battle for the North Atlantic, Eastern Front, Rommel. WWII is not as fun a study as some others, like the American Revolution or the Civil War. But I have to admit the movies it produced are much better.

Just because you're black

Doesn't mean they're mocking you because you're black:

Presidential hopeful Herman Cain knows why Jon Stewart was so quick to mock him during a recent episode of "The Daily Show."

It's because he's a "black conservative." ...

Cain's remarks came after Stewart attacked the GOP candidate's proposal that all bills be three pages long.

Cain's take on Stewart's "I'm Herman Cain and I do not like to read," is certainly more reasonable than that of Newsbusters'*,which claimed that Stewart's statement was "racially charged."  Still the idea that Cain is being mocked because he's a black conservative is a little much.  Stewart mocks everyone; it's part of his schtick.  When Stewart said he doubted that the grey underwear picture was really Tony Weiner because the bulge was too big, was that because Weiner was black or a conservative?  No, it was because he was a public figure.  So are you**. Get used to the treatment.

But more important than the fact that a comedian made fun of Cain is the fact that his 3-page bill idea is really stupid. Colossally stupid. Historically ignorant.  If I believed that he was at all serious, I would not under any circumstances vote for Herman Cain***. And there is a simple illustration of the reason for that: the Constitution, as originally printed, is 4 pages long, even before the bill of rights was added. What part(s) would you like to throw away in order to reach this arbitrary length?

The simple fact that some things simply take more than three pages to write properly means that, should they be forced into a three page length, they will consist of nothing but broad goals, vague directions, and enabling legislation to create an office with a budget that will write the real rules. That result will be worse than 2000-page legislation, because it will leave everything to the discretion of the bureaucrat, rather than just most things as it is now.

The problem with today's legislation is not that it is too long, nor that it is too specific. The problem (though this is closer) is not even that it is too vague.  The problem is that it is too broad.  Congress has taken all of civil society, all economic activity, all relationships, and made them the subject of legislation.  It is less important that this legislation is poor than that it exists in the first place.

Rather than worrying about how long legislation is, he would be far better off**** discussing why there need be so much of it in the first place.

* Which is tantamount to saying one has a better grasp of history than Joe Biden. Of all the conservative sites in the blogosphere, Newsbusters is about the lamest and least insightful around. But that's because it's not an investigative site as it claims, but a GOP shill factory. 
** Though Cain is probably safe from Stewart's small dick jokes.  I suspect deep down he is thankful for some stereotypes.
*** Not that I would vote for a former Fed official anyway.
**** perhaps Cain would be best off insisting that his main priority as President will be to enforce the first five words of the First Amendment to the best of his ability.

The good news

...is that Republicans have walked away from talks designed to sink America even deeper in debt. The bad news is that they still agree, in principle, that America needs more debt. Which means they'll ultimately cut a deal that will be ignored by future politicians in the same way that current politicians ignore Gramm-Rudman*. While I'm not sure how the GOP will get out of the rhetorical corner into which they have painted themselves vis-a-vis tax increases and the debt-increase/spending cut ratio, I look forward to seeing how they do it. 

Then again, I always was a sucker for magic shows.

* Hell, even Gramm and Rudman ignored Gramm-Rudman.

Are you for Castro or Batista?

And other false choices:

Washington (CNN) -- With pressure mounting at home on an American withdrawal from the Libya war, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton dismissed fears of a quagmire and said the mission should not be abandoned now.

"...[T]he bottom line is, whose side are you on?" she said, speaking to reporters during a trip to Jamaica Wednesday. "Are you on Gadhafi's side or are you on the side of the aspirations of the Libyan people and the international coalition that has been created to support them?"

"For the Obama administration, the answer to that question is very easy."

As is usually the case, the Obama administration is asking the wrong question*. The real question is, are we going to send American soldiers, sailors, and airmen to die** on behalf of the 'aspirations of the Libyan people,' when in all likelihood, those aspirations will result in a society not measurably different than the one in which they live now?  The 'Libyan people,' given their choice, are not going to create New Hampshire on the Med, and while Gadaffi is a ruthless dictator, he replaced one just as bad and will likely be replaced by one - after a few purple-thumb parades - who is just as bad.

America loves to be on the side of the rebels. We love the underdog. Most of all we love moral preening, standing up against dictators and  Making the World Safe for Democracy™. We forget so soon that Castro was a rebel once as well, facing down a vicious dictator named Fulgencio Batista***. Ask your average Cuban how well that turned out for them.

* which explains why it finds the answer so easy.
**And if we are going to send our kids to die, how many are acceptable? The 2500 we spent to save Afghanistan? How about the 50,000 we spent to save Vietnam?
*** " I approved the proclamation which Fidel Castro made in the Sierra Maestra, when he justifiably called for justice and especially yearned to rid Cuba of corruption. I will even go further: to some extent it is as though Batista was the incarnation of a number of sins on the part of the United States. Now we shall have to pay for those sins. In the matter of the Batista regime, I am in agreement with the first Cuban revolutionaries. That is perfectly clear. ”
— U.S. President John F. Kennedy, to Jean Daniel, October 24, 1963

Beware of Greeks

bearing nonsensical choices:

"The heart of the conflict is that if you ask the Greek people would you like to halve your pension and cut your salary and dismantle the welfare state because some banks and politicians have mismanaged your state finances? The majority would say no. But clearly there aren't that many alternatives to that," Egger said.

There are no alternatives to that.  Pensions and the welfare state - massive transfers of wealth from people who create it to those who consume it - are the mismanagement. Getting rid of the mismanagement without getting rid of the welfare state is like getting rid of your pets because the lease demands it, but keeping a dog, a ferret, and a dozen cats. Your house is still going to stink, your stuff is going to covered in hair, and you're not going to get your deposit back. Even if you insist they are not pets, but animal companions.

Greece has simply given away too much for too long and it's out of stuff to give away.*  Those who have been on the getting end are not going to be happy. Sucks to be them. But calling it something else is not going to change the math even a little.

* Greece doesn't even have the excuse of having to run the world like America has. Well, uses.

Out you go

Another scapegoat walks the plank:

Washington (CNN) -- Kenneth Melson, acting director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, is expected to resign under pressure, perhaps in the next day or two, in the wake of the ongoing controversy over Operation Fast and Furious, two senior federal law enforcement sources said Monday.

There's no doubt in my mind that Fast and Furious was an exceedingly stupid operation, with the lying and stupidity reaching all the way to the top*, and I'm glad that heads are rolling.  Heads should roll. Better yet, Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms ought to be converted to a big box outlet store and the government agency eliminated**.  The Constitution has given the federal government no jurisdiction over any of them.

That said, this part of the story is a little too much:

The idea was that once the weapons in Mexico were traced back to the straw purchasers, the entire arms smuggling network could be brought down. Instead, the report argues, letting the weapons slip into the wrong hands was a deadly miscalculation that resulted in preventable deaths, including that of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry.

Weapons in the wrong hands, check. Deady miscalculation, check.  Resulted in preventable deaths, no check.  Seriously, are these people arguing that if one particular gun had not been sent into Mexico, the smugglers who killed Brian Terry would have simply pointed a finger at him and said, "Bang! Bang!"?   Fast and Furious didn't get Terry shot; there are plenty of other Executive Branch stupidities that can account for that. And they can bring down that weapons smuggling ring just as soon as they bring down the drug smuggling rings that are operating in the same area. How's that going, by the way?***

I don't think it's overly paranoid to presume that even when the Obama administration provides guns to bad guys, they are doing so in order to undercut Second Amendment protections here at home. They are certainly not opposed to bypassing congress via executive action.  That said, the incompetence of this administration is a sight to behold; I doubt there is anything they could do that would make Sarah Brady smile.  Plus, we are 16 months from an election, and 6 from full-scale election season. And anything they could do now would merely fire up the Republican base to deliver the Senate half the of the ass-whupping that started last year. I'm sure the few remaining white Southern Democrats are hoping Obama will look elsewhere for election-year beehives to bash.

* where 'the top' is in this case is the only thing in question.  I suspect we are not quite high enough yet.
** If the GOP had any balls that would have been done a decade ago. FDR lives on in the budgets of his spawn.
*** he asks 40,000 dead Mexicans.

...like Che T-shirts

All you get is funny pictures until after today's test. The big question*:

Using pertinent examples from the lectures, text, films, and outside reading, recount and assess the Allied counteroffensives against the Japanese, from December 1941 to February 1943. Include, as a minimum, Coral Sea, Midway, New Guinea and the Solomons campaigns. Note any significant political, diplomatic, strategic, tactical, logistical, and command problems faced by both Allied and Axis forces.

Oh, and answer it in an hour.

UPDATE: That was not the question.  As is usually the case, we got the two that I would like least.  In this case, Pearl Harbor and Barbarossa.  Both operations turned out to be really, really bad ideas in retrospect.

* At least I hope this is the question. Dr. Tank Officer** gives us 5 possible questions ahead of time: the above and similar questions on Japan's 100 Days of Glory, the Battle of Britain, Operation Barbarossa, or Mussolini's bonehead actions in Yugoslavia, Greece, and North Africa. He puts two on the test, of which we answer one of our choice.

** If you're going to take a WWII course, take it from an old tanker. That makes all the difference.

Friday Randomness

CNN.com has a front-page story on their site titled "Casey Anthony Trial a Sad Obsession." It is one of five stories/shows concerning the trial that appear on the front page.

The Associated Press notes that, "Republicans and Democrats on Thursday derided President Barack Obama's claim that U.S. air attacks against Libya do not constitute hostilities...". It's a nice change that AP is using words like "mock" and "ridicule" to apply to the White House's preposterous lies, rather than trying to pass them off as cosmic truths were are too stupid to understand. But it's even nicer that the President has finally succeeded in bringing a spirit of bi-partisanship to Congress.

One of the great ironies of the 21st century thus far has been that former commies are claiming "the proposition that the government is always right is manifested either in corruption or benefits to 'preferred' companies," and socialists in Greece and Spain are cutting spending, loosening their grip on the economy, and selling state assets*.  Meanwhile here in the free, capitalist US, total government spending at all levels is about $40% of GDP** and growing, and our government is cracking down on lemonade stands.

Anthony Weiner looks like Beavis:

Sounds like him, too:



*  and socialists are bounced in Portugal when they refused to do so.
** A GDP which fraudulently includes government spending as a major component.  Government 'grows' GDP merely be spending more money. But it is the only thing growing GDP.

Bride of Spankenstein

That's what impeachment is for

wussies:

A bipartisan group of House members announced on Wednesday that it is filing a lawsuit charging that President Obama made an illegal end-run around Congress when he approved U.S military action against Libya.

“With regard to the war in Libya, we believe that the law was violated. We have asked the courts to move to protect the American people from the results of these illegal policies,” said Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), who led the 10-member anti-war coalition with Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.).

So a judge is supposed to tell the commander in chief that he must pull troops out of Libya or something? Good God, that's even a worse solution than what we have now*.

Instead I have a little suggestion: if you truly believe that Obama had violated the law, if you believe that he has abused his authority as commander in chief, then you get a new one. Impeach Obama, remove him from office, and make Jumping Joe Biden the new commander in chief.  Not only is that course of action within your power, it's how the freaking Constitution was designed to work in the first place. In other words, that's your job.

But if you don't have the votes** to impeach the President, then I respectfully request that the undistinguished member from Ohio*** sit down, shut up, and yield the balance of our time to Anthony Weiner.

* Besides, the most likely result will be the Supremes throwing out the War Powers act, leaving little or no room for Congress to complain about similar acts in the future. Left or right aside, presidential appointees like the Supremes are consistently deferential to presidential power.
** or more likely, the balls
*** And if Ron Paul is involved in this, then him, too.

I'm glad most of my professors are normal

Rule 30 strikes again

There are no girls on the internet:

LONDON – The hoax involving the true identity of a Syrian lesbian blogger has taken another turn, as another man has acknowledged he is behind a lesbian blog that republished vivid accounts of revolt in Damascus.

... The Washington Post reported that an editor of lesbian news website Lezgetreal.com — who encouraged Arraf and republished her* blog entries — was a man named Bill Graber who used the name Paula Brooks as an online persona.

I suppose it's not much of a revelation that actual blogging lesbians are no more common than actual lesbians in internet chat rooms**. But it is kind of funny how quickly moonbats will fall for the heart-wrenching story of an American lesbian kidnapped in Damascus, who discovers that everyone is gay***, just because it appeared on blogspot.

People, this is the internets.  It's no more real than television.

* his.
** A/S/L = 41/M/Mom's basement
***"I went into a hair salon one day and, not long after I arrived, I picked up on something between the women working there; I spoke around in circles and so did they and finally learned that the women there were all gay...I realized I'd found an underground outpost of our kind..." she wrote.

Stay, Tony, Stay

Lots of people calling on the Distinguished Member from New York to resign* today, but not me.  Seriously. If there's one thing better than a hobbled, mocked liberal, I can't imagine what it is. If he quits, he'll just be replaced by another liberal, one who might actually get something done**. We can't have that - for the good of America, we need to keep that wiener out front where we can see him and where he really can't do any harm***.

* nor the president, who finds Weiner's wiener a distraction but for some reason doesn't want it to go away. I applaud him minding his own business.
** And whose name is almost guaranteed to be less funny.
*** some might argue, of course, that keeping a wiener in Congress lowers our esteem of Congress.  I think such people ought to look up 'impossible' in the dictionary.

Future Catladies of America

Shut it down

Gates fights the obvious necessity:

BRUSSELS (AP) - America's military alliance with Europe - the cornerstone of U.S. security policy for six decades - faces a "dim, if not dismal" future, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Friday in a blunt valedictory address.

In his final policy speech as Pentagon chief, Gates questioned the viability of NATO, saying its members' penny-pinching and lack of political will could hasten the end of U.S. support.

As it should. It should go without saying that NATO's purpose died twenty freaking years ago and the alliance should have been mothballed then. What followed instead was wholly predictable:

• An increase in the number of NATO countries from 16 to 28*
• An increasing number of poorly-planned and peripheral missions, all of which dump unnecessary costs on the already-broke American taxpayer.

NATO's continued existence is a shining example of a law that I have not named yet*** but which applies to any organization which fulfills its primary purpose. It does not matter if that organization is a labor union, a church denomination****, a civil-rights organization, or in this case, an extra-national military structure, once an organization is created to solve a problem, and that problem is solved, the organization will immediately start to create problems to justify its existence. NAACP will find 'racism' in standardized tests, labor unions will become the fundraising arm of the Democratic Party, NATO will bomb Tripoli. Such organizations need to be killed wholesale, and if something arises that still needs to be done, then it ought to be done by an organization that has not yet developed a half-century's worth of ass-shaped indentations on all the chairs.

There is nothing NATO is doing now that America cannot do better on an ad-hoc alliance basis, or better yet, leave undone.  Why the hell should we still be guarding South Korea 60 years after Michael Dukakis made it safe for democracy? Why the hell do we need an alliance with Slovenia and Luxembourg to fight against a tinhorn north African dictator***** who has not bothering us since Reagan blew up his house back in the 80s?

* several of which used to be part of the very Warsaw Pact that NATO opposed**.
** Or which was created to oppose NATO, whatever.
*** El Borak's First Law of Bureaucracy.
**** In the case of churches, it is generally and purposely knocked from its purpose by liberals rather than fulfilling those purposes, but the result is the same.
***** I mean, the guy's only a colonel for crying our loud.

Zombies in Madison

Crap!

I just might be too slow:

WASHINGTON – Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich's campaign manager, senior strategists and key aides in early delegate-selection states all resigned on Thursday, a mass exodus that leaves his hopes of winning the Republican nomination in tatters...

It's not like he was going to win anyway, but I did think I had a little more time. I don't ever remember seeing someone's entire campaign quit 18 months before the election...

Don't know much about Quartering

I spend as much time thinking about Sarah Palin as I spend writing about her*, which is to say none at all. But I did have to laugh at the kerfuffle over her proclamation that Paul Revere warned the British, which has been spun by both sides, either as a further evidence of her idiocy or of her supreme depth of knowledge**.  I don't laugh only because of all the amateur historians coming out of the closet to pile on, but because the professionals**** get the story just as wrong.

Kenneth C. Davis, author of "Don't Know Much About History," proves it with this gem:

[Palin's] words provoked an awful lot of hysteria, but not enough history, about this signal event...

...it was a tense, dangerous time in Boston, then under martial law. Some 3,000 British troops, many living in private homes under the Quartering Act, were despised by the people of Massachusetts.

No, they weren't. Not 'despised;' they most certainly were.  But they were not living in private homes under the Quartering Act - for the Quartering Act did not authorize such things.  What the Act said was:

[The colonies]  are hereby required to quarter and billet the officers and soldiers, in his Majesty’s service, in the barracks provided by the colonies; and if there shall not be sufficient room in the said barracks for the officers and soldiers, then and in such case only, to quarter and billet the residue of such officers and soldiers, for whom there shall not be room in such barracks, in inns, livery stables, ale-houses, victualling-houses, and the houses of sellers of wine by retail ... [and if that's still not enough, to ] make fit for the reception of his Majesty’s forces, such and so many uninhabited houses, outhouses, barns or other buildings, as shall be necessary, to quarter therein the residue of such officers and soldiers for whom there should not be rooms in such barracks and publick houses as aforesaid, and to put and quarter the residue of such officer and soldiers therein.

The Quartering Act did not put soldiers in people's houses, especially against their will. That's a persistent myth, but it's a myth nonetheless. It put soldiers in existing barracks, in inns, and if that was not enough, in empty buildings. The 1774 Act did precisely the same; it just gave the governor the right to act in place of recalcitrant local authorities. The colonists' complaints were not that they each had a spy at their dinner table, but that the colonies had to pay for the 'protection' of the British Army in Boston, who was there supposedly to keep them safe from the French and Indians. Oh, and to collect all those new taxes.

Sarah maybe probably got it wrong - usually I can't understand what she's saying without diagramming her sentences anyway. I really don't care, because it's not really worth the effort to listen to what any politician has to say about history in the first place*****. But it is funny to watch the self-appointed mythbusters spin their own.

* I realize that will have to change if she is to become a true apocalypse dwarf, but that doesn't mean I'll have to like it.
** For the record, I think they're both wrong. She is neither idiot nor thinker, she's a noise merchant, much like Obama***. She talks because she talks because she talks because that's what she does.
*** Only hotter.
**** By 'professionals,' I don't mean 'historians,' merely people who have written books about this stuff and whose opinions are supposed to be important enough to appear on CNN.com. Some are historians, some are not.
***** Just ask the guy who beat her in the last election.

At least it was a double

A girl's gotta have her standards.

Making it up

Compare this:

Conservative activist Andrew Breitbart of the website BigGovernment.com tells NBC's "Today" show he considers the image "an insurance policy" against attacks from Weiner, who on Monday admitted the crotch photo was of him.

with this, a full paragraph later:

Asked directly if he considered the purported unpublicized picture an insurance policy, Breitbart replied, "I don't like to think of it that way."

And tell me the press doesn't just make it up as they go along.

But at least finally figured out the obvious, as soon as the Distinguished Member from New York admitted he was lying.

UPDATE: the major difference between Republicans and Democrats is that the Republicans have the decency to resign over their sex scandals. 

WWII class starts today

2 hrs/day for the next 19 days, a test every Friday, plus a 25-page paper based on 6 books due July 31.  For all that work, America had better win, that's all I can say.

Soon...

Getting ready to face the music

I'm not a big fan of campaign finance law, but I have to admit that I'm not really opposed to any law that a) applies almost exclusively to politicians*, and b) results in them spending time in sub-standard federal housing. In fact, given the choice between jailing your average drug offender and a senator**, the nation would be far better off with most of the latter safely behind bars.

Here's to hoping John Edwards gets to spend a full term with someone who likewise thinks he's pretty.

* Especially those politicians who voted for it.
** So anyway, I come to work in jeans today, not only because the boss is on vacation, but because it's Friday, I'm tired after having been up late with new foster kids, and because, well, I thought I could get away with it***.  I mean, I haven't actually seen anyone all week and my phone as rung a half-dozen times, tops.  Summer on campus is like that.  Well, I pull up at 7:40 and the parking lot is completely full, and someone very familiar-looking is talking with a small group out front. Hello, Senator, it's nice to see you again.
*** 10 minutes later, I'm hiding in my office. I'm the only one here, and there's a rap-rap-rap on the outer door. I open it, and who is it but my boss' boss - the very reason we don't wear jeans  - who needs to get some extra chairs.  Yeah, that idea worked out well. I should have been late today.

How do you know there's a God?

I play the odds.

Besides all the normal reasons*, people will often tell you they know that God is there because they asked for something and got it.  I've had that, too many times to count, but as is our wont in those situations, the mind eventually chalks those things up to what we do ourselves**.  It's the things that we don't have control over, however, that are hard to argue.  And it's especially hard to argue when you ask God for something and He tells you 'no.'

As most of you know, the lovely and gracious Rogue and I are foster and adoptive parents. You may not know that when we started this process 7 or so years ago, we asked God for boys.  It's not that there's anything wrong with girls, it's just that boys are simpler***, and since we had two of each sex already, we wanted to keep things simple.  God said no.  Not just no, hell no. We adopted 2 more girls in March, making 3 total.

Which is why I laughed when the phone rang last night and intake called asking us if we had room for 4 children, ages 1, 3, 5, and 7. After all, our license is only for 3 foster kids, and we are not exactly an empty house. Sure, if they can get the judge's approval, we have room for 4 more girls. On top of the 4 already here.

It's going to be a complicated summer. Thank God.

* Bible tells me so, I've felt His presence, etc.
** And often not unfairly. We may ask God for good health, but we certainly help him by eating our vegetables.
*** not easier, just simpler.

Sammy Borden took an axe

gave the budget forty whacks:

The remaining slim hope for the Kansas Arts Commission slipped away Wednesday during the 2011 Legislature’s ceremonial adjournment session, as the House fell far short of the two-thirds constitutional majority necessary to override Gov. Sam Brownback’s line-item veto of the commission’s funding. So Brownback wins. The arts lose.

Taxpayers win.

I've got to hand it to the governor formerly known as "Senator Switchback," he certainly stuck to his guns on the Arts Commission. No monkeying around: he offered a compromise and when that was thrown back in his teeth, he simply vetoed every red cent the Commission was supposed to get and laid off all their personnel.  In the words of the Wichita Eagle, he "buried a state agency." He killed it. Killed it dead.  A lesson for Republicans: if you want to cut budgets*, you do what Sam did: you kill agencies.

Budgets that are 'trimmed" or "cut" or "pruned" are budgets that will quickly grow back**.  The only way to control spending is to rip up entire agencies by the roots, put them through the chipper, burn the remains, and salt the ground in which they once stood.  Now that the Arts Commission is completely dissolved, it will take three times the effort to re-establish it than if it had just been pruned. If Sam can get the law repealed that created it in the first place, the job will be complete, demanding that Patrons-with-other-people's-money re-justify the entire concept of giving you the culture they think you need, whether you want it or not.

Only complaint is that he let state funding for Public Radio slip through.  Oh well, gotta save something for next session, I guess.


* I was going to mocking say, "let's pretend," but the state-level Republicans have done a good job of it this year. They really cut real budgets, very much unlike their co-partisans in Washington.
** usually they are budgets where the amount actually spent was never cut back in the first place. If one year the agency spends $8x dollars, then asks for $10x dollars, the GOP usually cuts that back to $9x and claims a 10% budget cut. That's why budgets are constantly being cut while government spending keeps going up.

Seriously, who cares?

Sure, it's funny that a member of Congress took a picture of his own junk, sent it to 100 people instead of a young lady who is not his wife, then made up half a dozen* mutually-exclusive lies designed to deny the undeniable fact that he's an idiot. It's not just funny, given that the guy's name is Weiner**, it's freaking hilarious.

But is a lecherous, lying congressman really news?

* and counting
** and that he's newly married to the woman long rumoured to be Hillary Clinton's lesbian lover. You simply can't make this stuff up.

UPDATE: OK, I laughed...


Pretty sure "I remember it being smaller" is not a defense that the Distinguished Member from New York appreciates.

Not just wrong

The Concord Coalition is exactly wrong:

Approval of a debt limit increase is necessary to maintain the full faith and credit of the United States government. Failure to approve an increase would not be an act of fiscal responsibility, unless it can be said that deadbeats are fiscally responsible because they refuse to pay their bills. It would result in the United States defaulting on the commitments it has already made, including Social Security, Medicare and veterans benefits, vendor payments, tax refunds, student loans and interest payments on outstanding debt.

A quiz for the reader:

There is a deadbeat (let's call him Sam) who is notoriously fiscally irresponsible. He has been this way for many years, is spending about 40% more than his income presently, and has run up a cumulative debt of about 6 times his annual income. He has also promised to pay friends and family dozens, maybe hundreds of times more than his outstanding debt. Realizing this course of action cannot continue, he has decided* to get his financial house in order.

Deadbeat Sam is most fiscally responsible by:
a) refusing to borrow more money, and instead adjusting his promises to meet his income, or
b) borrowing more money because he doesn't want to 'default' on his 'commitments**.'

People who choose a) and people who choose b) really have nothing left to talk about. Either we are going to stop borrowing more money now, or we are simply never going to stop expanding government until we cannot borrow any more and it all collapses in a Greek-style heap. The budget process is broken, the present promises are unkeepable, and Congress has shown that they simply cannot help themselves - they will pile it on because that's what short-term-oriented voters want.

Not borrowing any more - not a single cent more - is the first and most necessary step to getting our financial house in order.  If the government cannot do that, then the house will simply not be put in order before it burns down. Plan accordingly.

* This assumes, or course, that the GOP is serious about cutting spending.  A few Republicans might be, but I do not believe the majority has any real principles in this direction at all.  If they did, they would have never voted for Bush's Medicare expansion, which is the single biggest promise that must be jettisoned. But if they cannot even jettison NPR, where will they find the balls it will take to cut entitlements?
** In other words, doing exactly what he's doing now.

One for the Professor to pass along

No, 'inarticulate' is the word

Who are you going to believe, Meghan Daum or your own lying ears?

Admittedly, the president is given to a lot of pauses, "uhs" and sputtering starts to his sentences. As polished as he often is before large crowds (where the adjective "soaring" is often applied to his speeches), his impromptu speaking frequently calls to mind a doctoral candidate delivering a wobbly dissertation defense. ...

Of course, the president enables that stigma by stammering his way through town hall meetings and other public dialogues as though they were philosophy lectures. Irritating? Sure. But inarticulate? Sorry, folks, but you'll have to find another adjective.

It's always amusing to see how far liberals will go to deny the obvious. The reason President Obama is 'soaring' in front of large crowds is because he is reading the soaring words from a teleprompter. When he does not have to think, and when all the choices have been made for him, he performs quite well.  But put the man in a position where he has to think and speak at the same time, then he stammers along.  He is, in many unscripted situations, inarticulate - unable to speak distinctly or express himself clearly. That's what the word means. Denying its fitness in this situation because of its negative connotations is simply dishonest.

But the really funny part is the reason why President Obama is inarticulate:

It's not that Obama can't speak clearly. It's that he employs the intellectual stammer. Not to be confused with a stutter, which the president decidedly does not have, the intellectual stammer signals a brain that is moving so fast that the mouth can't keep up.

Yeah, that's the ticket.  The President is so smart that he can't communicate with us lesser beings.

But even the Intellectual Stammer Defense, lame as it is, makes no sense.  If the mouth could not keep up with a fast-moving brain, that would necessitate that the President be speaking quickly - the brain is fast, the mouth not quite as fast, no? We've all seen this with people who are not used to speaking publicly - they trip over their words because they are trying to say too much too fast.

But that is not what Obama does. He moves smoothly down one idea, but as soon as transition to the next one is demanded, he crashes and burns - he mumbles and bumbles and stumbles along and says almost nothing but trite phrases. He certainly says nothing in those situations that would signal a deep and nuanced grasp of the subject matter*, nor the ability to connect divergent parts of a larger whole. That's not a brain that is moving fast, that's a steam engine on bad rails.

Look, a lot of people aren't very smart**.  That's not a problem. In fact, I prefer my Presidents a little on the dumb side - so long as they know and respect their limitations - because I don't want them thinking they can run the whole country. There is a respectable modesty about a man who is average and accepts that. The danger arises when people who are not very smart*** are told that they are, and believe that they are, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

* 57 states anyone?
** even 50% of doctors graduate in the bottom half of their classes, and 1 in 4 graduates in the lowest quarter.
*** Actually, I think Obama is smarter than the average Progressive, which is one reason they look up to him as much as they do. But he is not a lot smarter, or they would think him insane (Vox's First Law). He is certainly not as smart as he needs to be to do what Progressives think he ought to do, which is everything.