Saturday, July 9, 2011
Liberalism: Out of a Job
Belmont Club: The liberal project has finally run out of other people’s money.
Obama's DOJ: subprime round 2
Don't worry - taxpayers will back them. CRA, the sequel:
"In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination."
Read the whole thing at IBD.
"In what could be a repeat of the easy-lending cycle that led to the housing crisis, the Justice Department has asked several banks to relax their mortgage underwriting standards and approve loans for minorities with poor credit as part of a new crackdown on alleged discrimination."
Read the whole thing at IBD.
Friday, July 8, 2011
Quote from today's G-File
It was once considered better to live up to your ideal standards inconsistently, than to consistently live down to your lack of them.
In larger context: Now, for me the really interesting discussion here is how this relates to the modern Left's obsession with hypocrisy. It was once considered better to live up to your ideal standards inconsistently, than to consistently live down to your lack of them. The logical upshot of liberalism's hatred of hypocrisy is that it is better for the liar to champion lying, the glutton to advocate gluttony, the adulterer to celebrate adultery, than for someone to preach the right thing if he himself occasionally does the wrong thing. Better to let your failings define you and be happy about it, than to let your ideals define you but then fall short of them, for that opens you up to the charge of hypocrisy (or inauthenticity, or denial, or whatever).
In larger context: Now, for me the really interesting discussion here is how this relates to the modern Left's obsession with hypocrisy. It was once considered better to live up to your ideal standards inconsistently, than to consistently live down to your lack of them. The logical upshot of liberalism's hatred of hypocrisy is that it is better for the liar to champion lying, the glutton to advocate gluttony, the adulterer to celebrate adultery, than for someone to preach the right thing if he himself occasionally does the wrong thing. Better to let your failings define you and be happy about it, than to let your ideals define you but then fall short of them, for that opens you up to the charge of hypocrisy (or inauthenticity, or denial, or whatever).
VDH: Business Replies to Obama
The job creating community that makes America work is replying, in its stasis, that it likes Barack Obama about as much as he likes them.
Friday links
Dental bling: Viking marauders had patterns filed into their teeth.
Grandmother Assaults Nine-Year-Old Grandson for Eating Too Much Bacon.
15 Foods that Could Survive the Apocalypse.
Fatty foods trigger the body to produce chemicals much like those found in marijuana.
Jobs numbers - 18K vs 90k expected
Unexpectedly low: Nonfarm payrolls rose only 18,000, the weakest reading since September, the Labor Department said on Friday, well below economists' expectations for a 90,000 rise.
'Gateway to Hell' to Erupt Again
Not the one in Sunnydale: Iceland 'Gateway to Hell' Volcano to Erupt Again.
Swamp Ass - A PSA from Nathan Fillion.
Nathan Fillion addresses an important issue affecting gamers worldwide: Swamp Ass.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Napolitano's Lies: They didn't actually TEST those scanners she said they tested
Workers blame machines for “growing number” of cancers.
via Advice Goddess Blog : All those who've been going through the scanners on the government's word they're safe, aren't you feeling a little scammed now? Maybe you can turn this into a good thing, and come to understand that bureaucracy's job is promoting and strengthening bureaucracy, not looking out for little old you.
via Advice Goddess Blog : All those who've been going through the scanners on the government's word they're safe, aren't you feeling a little scammed now? Maybe you can turn this into a good thing, and come to understand that bureaucracy's job is promoting and strengthening bureaucracy, not looking out for little old you.
Illinois warns out-of-state firms to collect 'Amazon tax'
The law forces Internet retailers to collect Illinois' 6.25 percent sales tax on all purchases made in the state. The so-called "Amazon tax" won't affect the online giant because it has terminated its relationship with all in-state affiliates.
Even U.N. Admits That Going Green Will Cost $76 Trillion
FoxNews.com: The survey details where that money would go. “Survey estimates that incremental green investment of about 3 percent of world gross product (WGP) (about $1.9 trillion in 2010) would be required to overcome poverty, increase food production to eradicate hunger without degrading land and water resources, and avert the climate change catastrophe.”
So eradicating hunger and overcoming poverty are now part of the climate debate.
ObamaCare and Kagan's Conflict of Interest
The American Spectator: Self-recusal is the only honest course of action open to Justice Kagan if any of the constitutional challenges to ObamaCare reach the Supreme Court. As Solicitor General she was clearly involved in orchestrating the administration's legal strategy for warding off such lawsuits and, as a Supreme Court nominee, she expressed sympathy with the views of the defendant. It’s not even a close call for anyone with respect for the Court and concern for public confidence in our legal system. But this is the Obama administration we're talking about here. So, when PPACA finally winds up before the Supreme Court, it is probable that Kagan will be sitting there with the honest justices and pretending that her obvious conflict of interest is just a product of the conservative imagination.
Expansion of broadband in stimulus: $349K per household
In one area it was $7 MILLION per household:
So how much did it cost per unserved household to get them broadband access? A whopping $349,234, or many multiples of household income, and significantly more than the cost of a home itself.
Sadly, it’s actually worse than that. Take the Montana project. The area is not in any meaningful sense unserved or even underserved. As many as seven broadband providers, including wireless, operate in the area. Only 1.5% of all households in the region had no wireline access. And if you include 3G wireless, there were only seven households in the Montana region that could be considered without access. So the cost of extending access in the Montana case comes to about $7 million for each additional household served.
via Ace.
Homeowner who shot burglar gets 5 years in prison
Moral of the story - wait until they're inside. Jonathan Meyer, Lewis County's prosecuting attorney said had the couple been in the act of stealing something, or had they been in Brady's garage, Brady likely would not have been charged with a crime.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
TV is making us stupid
Rich Lowry: This inexorable trend mostly serves the cause of sloth, stupidity, and superficiality. “Television,” Berger writes, “makes us fat, lazy, inattentive, unsociable, mistrustful, materialistic — and unhappy about all of that. It cheapens political discourse, weakens family ties, prevents face-to-face socializing, and exposes kids to sex and inures them to violence.”
Teen faces 8 years in prison for senior prank
When 18-year-old Tyell Morton put a blow-up sex doll in a bathroom stall on the last day of school, he didn’t expect school officials to call a bomb squad or that he’d be facing up to eight years in prison and a possible felony record.
“The question is what type of society we are creating when our children have to fear that a prank (could) lead them to jail for almost a decade. What type of citizens are we creating who fear the arbitrary use of criminal charges by their government?”
“The question is what type of society we are creating when our children have to fear that a prank (could) lead them to jail for almost a decade. What type of citizens are we creating who fear the arbitrary use of criminal charges by their government?”
NY: Invasion of the monster plant
Also, Peter Gabriel's lyrics (below) to the Giant Hogweed song by Genesis.
New Yorkers warned about spread of 'monster plant'
Turn and run!
Nothing can stop them,
Around every river and canal their power is growing.
Stamp them out!
We must destroy them,
They infiltrate each city with their thick dark warning odour.
They are invincible,
They seem immune to all our herbicidal battering.
Long ago in the Russian hills,
A Victorian explorer found the regal Hogweed by a marsh,
He captured it and brought it home.
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
He came home to London,
And made a present of the Hogweed to the Royal Gardens at Kew.
Waste no time!
They are approaching.
Hurry now, we must protect ourselves and find some shelter
Strike by night!
They are defenceless.
They all need the sun to photosensitize their venom.
Still they're invincible,
Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering.
Fashionable country gentlemen had some cultivated wild gardens,
In which they innocently planted the Giant Hogweed throughout the land.
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
Soon they escaped, spreading their seed,
Preparing for an onslaught, threatening the human race.
The Dance Of The Giant Hogweed
Mighty Hogweed is avenged.
Human bodies soon will know our anger.
Kill them with your Hogweed hairs
HERACLEUM MANTEGAZZIANI
New Yorkers warned about spread of 'monster plant'
Turn and run!
Nothing can stop them,
Around every river and canal their power is growing.
Stamp them out!
We must destroy them,
They infiltrate each city with their thick dark warning odour.
They are invincible,
They seem immune to all our herbicidal battering.
Long ago in the Russian hills,
A Victorian explorer found the regal Hogweed by a marsh,
He captured it and brought it home.
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
He came home to London,
And made a present of the Hogweed to the Royal Gardens at Kew.
Waste no time!
They are approaching.
Hurry now, we must protect ourselves and find some shelter
Strike by night!
They are defenceless.
They all need the sun to photosensitize their venom.
Still they're invincible,
Still they're immune to all our herbicidal battering.
Fashionable country gentlemen had some cultivated wild gardens,
In which they innocently planted the Giant Hogweed throughout the land.
Botanical creature stirs, seeking revenge.
Royal beast did not forget.
Soon they escaped, spreading their seed,
Preparing for an onslaught, threatening the human race.
The Dance Of The Giant Hogweed
Mighty Hogweed is avenged.
Human bodies soon will know our anger.
Kill them with your Hogweed hairs
HERACLEUM MANTEGAZZIANI
CA legislature passes gay-history mandate as the ship sinks
Hot Air: The Golden State is sinking into a sea of red ink because of holes drilled in their financial ship by public-employee unions, and the political class at the helm can only act to instruct passengers to salute politically-correct victim classes on the way to the bottom.
Job Gains in Private Sector Are Illusory
Bloomberg: ...employment statistics define the private sector far too broadly. The numbers include too many industries in which demand, and therefore employment, depends heavily on subsidies.
Remember the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
The verdict is now in on the effects (or lack thereof) of the release of 30 million barrels of oil in late June.
Broken record politician interview
Hard to describe - just watch. Ed Milliband (the interviewee) is 41 years old and already the head of the UK's Labor party - something of a political wunderkind. The reporter conducting the interview has comments here.
Lies, Damned Lies And Job Statistics
Investors.com $278K per job, according to Obama's own economists. IBD comments on the Friday night news dump from the Obama administration.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Back to work links
12th century skyscraper deep in the Afghan mountains.
Viagra Beer. Also, 400 trillion trillion pints of beer lost in space.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Dave Shifflet: Happy 4th While My Son Serves in Iraq
WSJ.com:
For the most part, however, the usual response when we tell people about Sarge is to say that we must be proud—which we are—and we must also be worried. Well, sure. We're parents—worry is our fate. Yet we try to worry wisely.
via The Corner.
For the most part, however, the usual response when we tell people about Sarge is to say that we must be proud—which we are—and we must also be worried. Well, sure. We're parents—worry is our fate. Yet we try to worry wisely.
via The Corner.
Judges in two states allow pension benefit cuts
Colorado and Minnesota have ruled that certain cuts to pension benefits are constitutional in those states because the statutes covering them are not contracts. Some other state constitutions do reference those agreements as contractual.
Calvin Coolidge July 4, 1926
150th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence:
Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.
Amid all the clash of conflicting interests, amid all the welter of partisan politics, every American can turn for solace and consolation to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States with the assurance and confidence that those two great charters of freedom and justice remain firm and unshaken. Whatever perils appear, whatever dangers threaten, the Nation remains secure in the knowledge that the ultimate application of the law of the land will provide an adequate defense and protection.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Obama’s Declaration of Dependence
Mark Steyn: even being a hollow unprincipled demagogue requires a certain lightness of touch Obama can’t seem to find.
Fukushima - workers say damage started before the tsunami
Meltdown: What Really Happened at Fukushima?
If the quake alone structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan is at risk.
If the quake alone structurally compromised the plant and the safety of its nuclear fuel, then every other similar reactor in Japan is at risk.
Why Legalize Now?
Economic issues: Drug prohibition is a burden on taxpayers. It is a burden on government budgets. It is a burden on the criminal-justice system. It is a burden on the healthcare system. The economic crisis has intensified the pain from all these burdens. Legalization reduces or eliminates all of these burdens. It should be no surprise that alcohol prohibition was repealed at the deepest depths of the Great Depression.