Fear Mongering by the Media does not count.

Dean Baker: The state of the US economy is a direct result of Bush's policies | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

This is the first time in the history of the United States that the president has sought to provoke a financial panic to get legislation passed through Congress. While this has proven to be a successful political strategy - after the House of Representatives finally passed the bank bail-out plan today - it marks yet another low point in American politics.

It was incredibly irresponsible for George Bush to tell the American people on national television that the country could be facing another Great Depression. By contrast, when we actually were in the Great Depression, President Roosevelt said: "We have nothing to fear, but fear itself."

The Media has been telling us we are already in "the second great depression." They need to absolve the Democrat "Fannie enablers" in Congress so the cause of the crisis is "Bush said boo!" and terrified Wall Street. Of course a lot of them Wall Street Fat Cats are Democrats and they do scare easy. Redeploy into T-bills!

But don't listen to Bush. The fundamentals of the economy are actually great. Until tomorrow, when they will want to blame GWB for the rise in unemployment.

That Washington "thing."

The Democrats in Congress organize “Cartels of Caring.” A “Caring” Cartel is at the very center of the Subprime mortgage mess. Its most visible members came in the form of a “big fat Fannie” and its spawn, an adrenalin addled Freddie. This Federal Grendel and his Ma effectively turned the mortgage industry into a government run cartel. Except in this story, Grendel didn’t lose his arm, home buyers and taxpayers lost theirs. It took advantage of home buyers at one end and mortgage instrument buyers at the other — and the entire US in between once the “implicit” guarantee of Freddie and Fannie finally became explicit. They socialized the risk and let speculators hugely profit.

Citizens struggling to make their mortgage payments don’t give money to politicians. Real Estate speculators do.

Cartels are always sold as being good for the public. Their purpose is to steer power and money to their members. The Democrats (but not just the Democrats) combine these two principles to produce “Cartels of Caring.” In the last few weeks we have found out how much “affordable housing” really cost. Ten years from now we will learn the cost of affordable health care — your life, perhaps, but only after your money.

Do you want them to stick their fat Fannies into your health care? In this respect, the “McCain plan” is better since it does give the patients some control. Sen. Obama constructs another “Cartel of Caring,” only this time he invites the insurance companies to join and removes power from the patients. They will construct a system of incentives to over treat the well and hasten the death of the severely ill. This system will not require a Dr. House — a brief bit of grief “consoling” will do. Twelve stages in two minutes. Because we care.

The Main stream Media is another “Cartel of Caring.” They sell themselves as the watch dogs of the American People when they are actually the Guard Dogs of the Washington establishment — and all the Cartels of Caring they create. Hence their Howling at the Moon when Sarah Palin arrived on the scene.

After the election they will want their own position shored up. They are owed that much (and self interest does dictate…)

If you want a movie that most effectively mirrors the current set up in Washington, watch Goodfellows. “Hey, Congressman, I’d like you to meet a friend of mine. Grendel’s a Good Fellow.”

It makes you want to Howl like a Beowulf.

The Vice Presidential Debate

I think Gov. Palin won the debate because the network commentators on NBC were calling it a tie.

I thought her using the word "blunder" in connection with George Bush was a bit extreme, but hey, it seems to work for everyone else. I thought she should have hit more on the failures of Congress in regards to the subprime meltdown and the lax oversight of Fannie and Freddie.

On several occasions Joe Biden said we spent more in three and one half weeks in Iraq than we have in six and a half years in Afghanistan. My guess is he was a bit off in his math (or it is really fuzzy). Three and a half months might be closer. On Health Care: Sen. Biden wants to stick the heavy Fannie of government in our Health Care while Sen. McCain prefers a defter touch.

I thought the best part of the debate was when the families got up on stage. I think I was as relieved as they were that it was over. I'm off to bed.

Update: Western Standard ran the numbers on Sen. Biden's claim.

According to the Congressional Research Service, spending on the war in Afghanistan since 2001 has been $172 Billion. Spending in Iraq is, as the Democrats repeatedly mention, a little under $10 Billion a month.

In other words, Biden's number is off by, oh, something like 2000%. Perhaps Obama's Sub-Committee ought to have held some hearings on Afghanistan after all.

Our Fat Fannie meets Fredie's nightmare.

I've argued for years that the Mortgage deduction was simply the wrong way to go about providing "affordable housing." Affordable McMansions, maybe. But at an unaffordable cost to the economy.

Instapundit.com

Yes, why not turn the mortgage interest tax-deduction into a refundable credit for a couple of years. Surely that would drastically reduce the default rate, wouldn't it?

If you make it worth no more than, say, 30 percent of the mortgage payment (which must be kept up) and cap it at, say, $2,400 a year. Then let people choose which they want to use.

But it should, in the future, apply to saving for a down payment.

Dahlia Lithwick does not know what Affirmative action is.

What Clarence Thomas might have to say about Sarah Palin. - By Dahlia Lithwick - Slate Magazine

Critics have scoffed at Thomas' tendency to view affirmative action exclusively through the narrow lens of his own life, but it's clear the "badge of inferiority" has tainted a lifetime of enormous achievement. He will never forgive America for the chances he was given, or for how small it has made him feel. I can't help but wonder what Thomas would say to vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who is now suffering the same stigma of affirmative action, and who shows signs of the same blend of defensiveness and outrage that have so shaped Thomas' career.

The criteria used to choose VPs is: can they help the ticket win? That was the criteria used in the Palin pick. If McCain were spotted 10 million votes for making the choice, that would be affirmative action. And if he then "won" by losing by five million votes, of course Liberals would feel good about it -- Affirmative Action works.

The Left promotes Affirmative action by saying we owe women and minorities. But it turns out that woman and minorities now owe Liberals. Clarence Thomas should be saying "thank you" 7/24

There was no Joy in Mudville

I did not catch all of the Debate between Senators McCain and Obama but enough to have some reaction. I thought McCain did alright in a format that did not favor him (he can be quite good in the "Town Meeting" format but stiff behind a podium). Sen. Obama used Henry Kissenger's name -- several times -- while misinterpreting what the foreign policy sage had to say. This could come back to clobber him (but with so much of the Media on his side, who knows?). For the most part I thought Sen. Obama did OK.

What surprised me was the atmospherics of post debate commentary. I figured most of the folks in the broadcast news divisions are Obamaphiles and expected them to be at least moderately pleased. But there was no Joy in Mudville and since I had not seen the mighty orator strike out I wondered why. Then it occurred to me that they expected him to put McCain away -- what with the "subprime mortgage mess" -- and that he had failed to do so. They wanted to see that long ball go out of the park and drive home a few scores to likely put the game out of reach for the Republicans. Instead, Obama may have got on base with a bunt while the lead runner was picked off. McCain was still very much in the game, and may have improved his position a bit.

At Panamas Media Jennifer Rubin asksWho Won the Debate?

And second, the McCain camp will be under the gun to make the most of their material. Some possibilities are already evident. Will the embarrassing stumble over the name on Obama’s bracelet be key? Will the Henry Kissinger misquote come back to haunt him?

I suspect it may be something far more serious. John McCain’s shining moments came in large part when discussing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

She goes on to quote several of McCain's answers about the threat from the Islamic Republic. I also thought it was probably the high point of the debate for McCain.

For Obama the high point was tying the invasion of Iraq to McCain. It is, after all, an unpopular war but seems largely behind us now. And it is better to win wars than to lose them, a point Sen. Obama seems to disagree with.

Cartels of Caring

What we now see in our financial system is what I call "Deregulatory Collapse." That's when years of heaping new regulations on old builds a rickety structure that is about to topple over. At that point a half hearted process of deregulation begins -- and then the process of deregulation is held responsible when the collapse occurs. It is a bit like blaming lung cancer on the "chemotherapy" the patient undergoes rather than thirty years of smoking cigarettes.

The Democrats blaming deregulation in this case is a mighty stretch, especially since the Bush administration tried to extend regulation to an obese Fannie and a hyperactive Freddie. But according to Congressional Democrats and their Main Stream Media coconspirators, it was the rearranging of the regulatory deck chairs on the financial titanic that caused the current inundation. And the ship officers were congressmen who were not properly consulted by the stewards.

At the Belmont Club Richard Fernandez asks:

Who you gonna call? Who you gonna believe? Bailout anyone? A crisis creates an incredible opportunity to play partisan politics. ‘Want me out of the way? Buy me off.’

We are not going to solve our "financial meltdown" problem without recognizing what the problem is.

Central to our problem is Washington’s propensity to organize producer Cartels. Cartels exist to benefit the “partners” but are presented to outsiders as a public good. Because cartels distort market signals, purely private cartels normally collapse or are supplanted by new players in a fairly short time frame. To endure, Cartels need the participation of Government — and, of course, the political establishment. It is the participation of the ruling elite that enables a cartel to withstand market forces and act as a parasite on the larger society for an extended period. Of course when the crisis comes, it’s an eight or nine point — not a four point — shake to the foundation of society.

Cartels are hard to attack because everyone wants one of their own. They appeal to people’s need for “control.” A professional organization can cut down on “unruly” competition, protect the more inept or unlucky practitioners and gain favors from government. A Union can act as a Cartel for labor. In the long run, as Cartels spread, the cartels will even impoverish many of its own members as Society itself becomes poorer. Of course, by that time the insiders are wedded to the system.

Since most folks in a position of influence hope to profit from a cartel, they are sympathetic to blaming the free market, and will ignore the existence of a Cartel at the center of the problem. OPEC, an openly declared Cartel, raises prices? It’s the fault of the oil companies (which are part of the over all “energy international” cartel, to be sure). When Politicians stop oil companies from building a refinery, are they standing up to Big Oil? Or increasing the value of their old refineries and limiting competition?

Of course our Cartels in the US are never presented as such, and are indeed illegal without deep government involvement — which is convenient for our politicians. We have an Education Cartel that requires massive infusions of resources to produce scant positive results — which disappear as soon as our attention wanders (the resources remain, of course, and need increasing).

Fannie and Freddy were part of our Real Estate industry Cartel, along with much of our congress and much of the Federal Bureaucracy. Every twenty years or so it requires huge infusions of money to keep it staggering forward.

The solution here is to demand an end to the Cartel in return for the bailout, and a return of any money the government “clears” from the rescue effort direct to the exploited taxpayer — do not allow it to be recycled into the Cartel.

Most of all, we need to educate voters on what government organized cartels are, and how they are parasitic on society even as they are sold as being symbiotic. But first, we need to recognize them ourselves. They often are, as Adam Smith might say, Government organized conspiracies against the Public Interest — and we all hope to profit from one.

By the way, Health Care is another example of a Government organized Cartel in the US — though not yet fully emerged and “rationalized.” Once it is, it will create incentives to intensely treat well people and speed the death of the severely ill.

Send it back to the Taxpayers -- The Palin Plan.

The Paulson Plan Will Make Money For Taxpayers - WSJ.com

In 1992, hedge-fund manager George Soros made $1 billion betting against the British pound. In 2007, John Paulson's Credit Opportunities fund correctly bet against subprime mortgages, clearing $15 billion for the year and $3.7 billion for him. Warren Buffett is now hoping to make big money on Goldman Sachs.

But these are small-time deals. My analysis suggests that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (a former investment banker, no less, not a trader) may pull off the mother of all trades, which could net a trillion dollars and maybe as much as $2.2 trillion -- yes, with a "t" -- for the United States Treasury.

When Gov. Palin got more money for Alaskan Oil, she sent it back to the taxpayers. If any money is made from the bailout, John McCain should push for returning it to the taxpayers. One hundred billion -- with a "b" -- would be $333 for every American. A trillion would be $3,333. It could be taxed as income so the rich will, in effect, get less and the government will get a taste.

It is important to get that money out of Washington. The Politicians will just waste it -- or use it as a down payment for ongoing future waste. Paying down the national debt won't work because the Politicians will just borrow it right back. Send any profit to the people, and they will spend it in local communities and help stimulate the US economy from the ground up.

It would be a wonderful campaign issues for Republicans, too. The Democrats will just try to give that money to their voters -- or better for the pols, pretend to.

Then again, the whole 700 billion of taxpayer cash might be lost. So don't spend that dividend just yet.

So says The Misrepresentative from Tennessee

Gore urges civil disobedience to stop coal plants

"I believe for a carbon company to spend money convincing the stock-buying public that the risk from the global climate crisis is not that great represents a form of stock fraud because they are misrepresenting a material fact," he said. "I hope these state attorney generals around the country will take some action on that."

This from the guy who won the noble prize for lying. It should be Headlined "Leading Bullshit producer attacks Energy Producers."

So, we should expect another assault on US industry via the shock troops of the trial lawyer brigade and The Legion Demerit of Eliot Spitzer Wannabes. And I thought the Mortgage Bailout was expensive.

You best stock up on candles. The people who brought you "Nightmare on Mainstreet," starring Freddie Mac are back (OK, they never left). Now they'll not only gouge out your incandescents, they're gonna cut off your electricity!

Celebrate, Celebrate

Instapundit.com

Meanwhile, Christine Hurt comments on whether the bailout is a good idea: "That's the question I was asked by my fellow conferees at my non-corporate conference. My answer has to be 'compared to what?' . . . Would the market be able to right itself, after breaking more than a few Wall Street eggs, eventually? Not sure."

Plus this: "What's the easiest prediction to make from the financial crisis? More law school applicants."

There once was a retailer named Pharmor -- the "Phar" being a Pharmacy and "mor" being anything they could buy by the truck load and sell by the truck load. I would shop there and see really good deals and ask myself, "How can they afford to sell this stuff at this price?" Well, it turned out they couldn't. It was kind of a "losing money on every sale but making up for it on volume" kind of deal -- only in their case they opened more stores and acquired more financing (Their corporate books should have been on the fiction "best seller list" or featured in the cooked books section). They were not necessarily bad people, you understand, just silly people doing stupid (and fraudulent) things and then finding they couldn't stop.

Its corporate headquarters was in my home town. One week they were announcing more financing and plans to open dozens of new stores and the next they were going bankrupt. There were rumors flying before but not much definite. In any case, one day I was having lunch across from the Courthouse when a lawyer came in and announced to a bunch of other lawyers that Pharmor was going down. Well, it was like New Years Eve in August. Or Christmas morning, and the children get up to find their "rosebud" sleds under the tree -- or a bb gun that will put other people's eyes out. And I thought, these lawyers should learn to be more discreet in public.

Inflation adjusted, I think the Pharmor mess -- one of the biggest up until that time -- would be less than one/one thousandth of what we got today. So lawyers: celebrate discreetly.

The House of Peace, The House of War, The House of Saud

From Nibras Kazimi, writing at his blog, Talisman Gate بـاب الطلــسم (What would a McCain presidency mean for the Middle East?):

It should be noted that there is a widely accepted and legal form of corruption at play: be nice to the Saudis while you’re at public office, and you shall be guaranteed a nice fat retirement bonus as a lobbyist, consultant, or ‘think-tank-er’. Public servants, whether they be diplomats or spooks, don’t make much money while they are on the government’s dole, but if they keep their heads down and go along with what the bureaucratic mandarins have mandated, then they too can benefit from Saudi or any other petrodollar largesse.

These bureaucracies, as well as their ‘retired’ auxiliaries, bitterly pushed back against President Bush’s limited post-911 reforms, and they are seemingly rooting for Obama’s camp to win, reading Senator Barack Obama as the candidate of less change, and more importantly, the candidate of less experience at changing things.

OK, so I'm not the only person who wonders who some of these folks work for. This is not a case of dressing for your next job. Having multitudes of State Department employees showing up to work in a well tailored Bedouin outfit (and burnoose) might give the game away. People do "profile," which says bad things about people (face it, they're all swine) but not about the person being profiled (we've all be victims of this, and we are not swine -- we are people). Still, why be -- what's the word? -- obvious.

So rather than dress for the next job, they simply adopt the policies of their next job.

So, OK. The House of Saud has penetrated deep into The House of Peace. But the House of War? How many T.E. Lawrence wannabes has the Pentagon brought up? And the CIA? Well, if the Secret Plumbing that connects all our "Houses" leaks to the Washington Post (to applause), why not gush to the House of Saud? They probably have their own high pressure hose.

The Evils of Capitol-ism

An old friend asked the other day, "What are we going to do about that party they got going on down in Washington.  It don't matter who you send there!"

Yup. What about affordable government?

What's clearly on Display in our financial crisis are the evils of Capitol-ism.

I've long thought that the Democrat Party, the National Media and the Federal Bureaucracy are knotted together by self interest and a shared belief in their own importance. Republicans, too, can join them in the knot and often do. Today they form their own political party, the Washington Party, that works to move ever more power to the capital and to the "national centers" -- be it information centers (New York, D.C.), financial centers (New York, Chicago), or entertainment (LA). Basically, for the Washington Party, all problems are national and all problems have a national solution -- and they use the media to bring you along. Your kids go to a lousy school? Look to Washington for the answer, not your local community. This is the platform of "The Washington Party."

The ideology of the Washington Party is Capitol-ism.  For a Capitol-ist, both state power and economic power are centered on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, where the inhabitants of the corridors of power meet and bargain.  Their preferred form of  economic organization is the cartel, sometimes organized by government but always controlled by members of the Washington Party.  These new Cartels function much like the old ones -- except they focus on shielding mediocrity (by emphasizing credentials over performance)  as well as creating abnormally large benefits for the members. 

Of course Cartels are illegal, but only when non-members of the Washington party try to organize them.  As we "fight" global warming the Washington Party will organize Carbon Cartels that will dominate the entire economy.  These will be promoted as life-saving "Cartels of Caring": it is not about screwing you and benefiting them, it is about saving the planet.

All the institutions at the Center of the Washington Party have scandals connected to them where the national "watchdog" media is late to the scene. When they arrive they start tampering with evidence, and then issue reports with mistakes and omissions that point to conclusions that lie in one direction -- a direction favorable to the Washington Party and the system of Cartels it creates.

If there is a problem with the free market the answer is regulation. If their is a problem with the regulations the answer is more regulation. Problems with the additional regulations require yet more additional regulations. It's a one way ratchet -- at least until the whole rickety structure is about to collapse. Then there is a half-assed deregulation, followed by a collapse which is then blamed on the Free Market. In California ten years ago they "deregulated" the electricity market but kept the price controls in place. This was not an example of deregulation. This was an example of stupidity -- or brilliant bureaucratic strategy. When the doo-doo fell into the wind tunnel and the lights went out in California there was someone else with poo-poo on their face.


The Federal Fannie and its spawn, Frantic Freddie are at the Center of the subprime mortgage mess.  Congress constructed a Fun House at the corner of Broadway and Wall Street where low showmanship and high finance meet.  Fannie and Freddie were the host, and they brought the good faith and credit of the American people in there to play.  In those mirrors everyone looked fat and solvent.  The Fat and Frantic Feds were the center of the "Cartel of Caring" which screwed the people it was alleged to help and greatly enriched members of the Cartel.  Even now rule one is: protect the Washington Cartels.

So naturally it is reported as if the fault were in the private economy.  The Mainstream Media is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Washington Party.  The Federal Fannie is already sitting on health care -- another Cartel of Caring.  They want of feed it a much bigger slice of the pie -- so if you think it is heavy now, just wait. 

Belmont Club » Just so

Western civilization is dying a death by a thousand cuts. The quest for perfection has become such an obsession that it is sought even at the cost of basic functionality. A friend who works at big name consulting firm said that so much attention is focused on ensuring compliance — checking off boxes, making sure that everything is gender-friendly, green, non-racist and whatever else — that sound business is almost an afterthought. In this modern world it’s alright to have something that doesn’t work, as long as it’s perfect.

The Heart and Soul of Capitol-ism is "The Caring Cartel." The business of the Cartel is not the general welfare, but the welfare of the Cartel.  In the Cartels of Caring the clerks who run them are king.  Barney Frank is an alpha clerk.  Clerks cut free of their  middle class masters ( and resentful of them) now run government, finance and Eduction.  They give Western Civilization the soul of a Clerk.

Check the box.

Target Acquiring

Spengler over at atimes.com strums the overture for the End of the World (as we knew it). I'm still waiting for him to be right. Is it this time?

Wall Street and the City of London rode an unprecedented wave of profitability by providing overpriced leverage to consumer and corporate markets. Led by the financial engineers at Lehman, the securities industry grew an enormous infrastructure of staff, systems, and financial exposure. They were so successful that when the music stopped, there was no way to liquidate this mechanism gracefully. It only could be allowed to collapse.

Our tax policies and regulatory policies encourage people to put their money in houses. This includes the mortgage deductions in our tax code. Obama policies will make this worse. When you raise the marginal income tax rate you make the mortgage deduction more valuable which will push more money into real estate. This will in no way help the average American since it will take that money from other useful pursuits while at the same time feeding the next bubble. But it will favor professional speculators while leaving people who buy homes to live in (what a silly notion) holding the bag for the results.

I can remember when families with five children lived in houses with three bedrooms. Now a couples with one child or no children live in houses with five bedrooms. And they are never home because they are at work. That's living your life according to the Tax and regulatory code.

Getting caught holding a bag of manure at the end is part of it, too. And because taxpayers feel they have been forced into this position, they feel a lot of resentment. It is up to our politicians to mobilize this resentment and point it elsewhere. Let's see, acquiring target now...

Hurricane Ike becomes a Pug with a Punch

Ike blew through this part of Ohio Sunday night and knocked out power during the Cleveland Browns/Pittsburgh Steelers game. It was nature's way of sparing us the sight of Cleveland's tenth straight loss to the Steelers. Trees were down all over the place and the power here went out for almost 24 hours. It was a little dose of what Houston swallowed.

What I was wondering is: could I put in for a FEMA grant for contents of the refrigerator? I had a couple of cases of lobster in the freezer that I'm scared to touch. And certain other delicacies, such as a dozen "Thousand Year Old Eggs" that went bad. Funny, they can last for a thousand years in swamp muck but cannot stand up to a couple of hours in my uncool refrigerator. Why, we can't even bake a cake with them now.

Do I have to provide receipts for this stuff? Or can I treat it like a $250,000 mortgage? I think I lost the receipts in the storm. The mortgage, too.

Uh-Oh

Here's what I just learned from CBS News:

The Sarah Palin Phenomenon Is Doomed --
The Media Live To Build You Up, Then Knock You Down

So. That's what they've been doing. Building her up. I wonder what their knocking her down will look like?

Put Congress on The No Call List.

OK. Time to face reality. This campaign is going to be totally Obama-Palin. No one (but the McCain Campaign) wants it to be that way. Yet apparently the Left Media is fated to attack her and the rest of us are fated to be amazed at their attacks. Yes, they are trying to help the country (by helping Sen. Obama win) but I ask: are their "street sweeping, Uzi spraying, take no prisoners" tactics actually achieving that end?

According to the Washington Post, we learn that as Mayor of Wasilla, "Palin Cut Own Duties, Left Trail of Bad Blood." Can't you just see the bad blood spurting from that cut in her duties? Apparently the Washington Post believes you can bring about "change" without reorganizing government or hurting anyone's feelings -- or at least the feelings of anyone in government. If you are in upper management in the Private Sector and lose your job, it's your own damn fault and you should have gone long ago. If you are a manager in government and you lose your job, it is the fault of the nearest Republican. Got it? Sen. Obama's change must be the sort Massive Bureaucracies can believe in.

Their attacks undermine the Obama Campaign in another way. They criticize Sarah Palin for getting money from the US taxpayer to help the People of her town achieve what they believe to be worthwhile ends. The National media appears to say the very act of making the request is bad, bad, bad. The Shame is on you for asking! But what is the premise of the entire Obama campaign? That they will take money and resources from one group of Americans and give it to another -- in fact, they will do that globally and on a massive scale. In this case it is good, good, good! The Shame is on you for even questioning!

In their way of telling it, Sarah could just call the US congress and, using her womanly wiles, whisper in their earmarks and ask them for money and those old guys were just so glob struck by her charms that they would cut a check. I wonder what those conversations were like. "Uncle Sugar, you are so big and strong and I am so small and vulnerable. Will Unkie Wonkie let little Sarah feel his big biceps? And will Unkie build little Sarah an itsy-bitsy Bridge to Nowhere." And Congress can't help itself. It just has to say, "Golly, Miss Sarah. Is 200 million enough, Pumpkin? How 'bout we make it 245, just in case?"

And these are the folks who will dispose of extra trillions of dollars of new spending in an Obama Administration. And dispose of it they will. Yup.

So let us take the media portrait of Congress collapsing before the onslaught of mayor Palin's charms as a true representation of reality. Isn't Congress like the old retired guy who will buy power tools he don't need with money he don't have from telemarketers without scruples just because he can't say no? And won't that guy's wife and kids cut up his credit cards and put him on the "no call" list? Can we do that for Congress? Apparently, they can't stop spending so it is up to us to stop asking.

Of course there is a difference between Congress and that old guy. Congress can raise its own debt limit and print its own money. Yup. Trillions of dollars spent and we won't even want to keep the change.

The Gibson-Palin Smack Down.

Palin pressed hard in ABC interview -- baltimoresun.com

Like Thursday's interview on World News, rounds two and three also went to Gibson, who gave voters a much better sense of Palin's limitations than they had before he and she sat down to chat.

Funny, I didn't realize I was watching a championship bout between hostile contenders. I sensed it but I did not know it.

I think Charlie Gibson did Gov. Palin a favor. He put her under a lot of pressure and she handled it well. Most people are probably more confident that if called upon, she could step into the job of president and see the country through the next election -- which is the VPs job. If she seems uninterested in launching sweeping new intiatives should those circumstances occur, so much the better.

I'm Drownding, I'm Drownding. How do you spell Drownding?

I only got to see 35 minutes of the Gibson-Palin interview last night from here in Galveston, Texas. Alright, I'm not in Galveston, even though facing certain death from a 25 foot wall of water sounds intriguing. Apparently, many of the citizens of Galveston feel the same way. But I'm in Ohio facing certain rain. I thought if I say I'm in Galveston it will help blog traffic. But then people will come to the blog and find that I am not in Galveston facing certain death (it's wet, I'm wet, I'm drowning!) and be disappointed. And they don't even know me! Where was I?

Right, I was thinking the whole Sarah thing has peaked. She did not commit a gaffe and Gibson put enough pressure on her to show she does not easily shake. She'll be a fine vice president. She does not seem to believe that the answer to every problem is in DC, and I like that. Of the "three things" they would do different from Bush, getting the regulators in Washington to function on a rational and sound economic basis is mighty important. The whole subprime mortgage mess was a gift from Washington, set in motion back in the 90's by changes to make mortgages more accessible to those who probably shouldn't have one. Regulatory reform is boring, but if they could actually do that, it would be a boon to the economy.

Interestingly, in the discussion afterwards Democrat Dee Dee Meyers refused to go after Gov. Palin. That can only be because their attacks have backfired badly. So look for Gov. Palin to fade from the news while the media and the Democrats nurse their wounds.

On the Democrats Umbrage to nowhere -- I'll point out Senators Biden and Obama voted for funding the Bridge "to nowhere" and the media acts as if they had no other choice. Somehow, it's all the fault of the Governor who cut it from the state budget while the Senators spending the money are like innocent bystanders. So being a Senator is a lot like being a small town mayor except you don't have to take responsibility for anything.

Our national media pretends to be the watch dogs of the people when they are really the guard dogs of the Washington Political Establishment.

Finally they got something on Palin.

A shocker that will kill the McCain campaign with the base.

But in her 21 months as governor, Palin has taken few steps to advance culturally conservative causes. Instead, after she knocked off an incumbent amid an influence-peddling scandal linked to the oil industry, Palin pursued a populist agenda that toughened ethics rules and raised taxes on oil and gas companies.

And she did so while relying on Democratic votes in the Legislature.

Yes, the legions of investigative reporters have uncovered the fact that -- "Palin governed from the center!"

My God, they are throwing everything at her including the kitchen sink. In fact, they started with the kitchen sink, stove and refrigerator. Then they tried to make dinner. Now they have sent out for pizza. Stay tuned.

Should I invest an hour watching Charlie Gibson try to trick Gov Palin tonight? I think the folks who waited for the manuscript of last nights interview did a better job dissecting it then I did (I mean if accuracy counts). But I was just winging it, which don't take as much time.

A Babe not of this Woods

I just watched Charlie Gibson of ABC News interview Gov. Palin. First, he asked her if she is prepared to be President (she's running for Vice President -- people might be getting confused on that point). She said quite forthrightly "Yes." She gave this answer even though Bill Clinton has assured us that absolutely no one is ready for that job. She should have given him the same answer Barack Obama gave to that question back when he announced for the top spot. "You asking me if I'm ready? Are you kidding. Me? Ready? I only been in the Senate for two years. Of course I am not friggin ready to be President, you idiot. No. I'll be ready after I've run for President for two years and after I've served my first term." I remember him saying this because we don't often see such humility.

After Gov. Palin said she was ready-- if not down right eager -- for the job, I thought I heard Charlie Gibson say "Doesn't that take Hubris." I think that's a cheese sauce the French put on roast beef. No. Wait. Hubris means excessive pride or self confidence. To say you are ready to do a job when Charlie thinks your not? Was he referring to his hubris or her hubris or was he just fulfilling the role of the Greek chorus? I could not tell. In any case she just talked right over him which was just as well. Unfortunately, he did get some words in.

He asked her if she agreed with the Bush Doctrine. The Bush Doctrine is where you say "screw the French" and invade other countries. But Gov. Palin didn't want to put it in those words, so she put it in other ones. And if Israel bombs Iran? he asked. Hey, you stand by your friends, she replied. I'm paraphrasing. But I do want the total lack of nuance to come through. I think the mullahs just ran for their prayer beads.

Then there were a couple of those obligatory "so you got a direct line to God: what did he tell you that last time you had lunch together" type questions. I thought she handled them well. "Charlie, I don't know what God has planned--"

She just let it rip. I think a dozen members of our foreign policy establishment had strokes. This interview will cause more controversy than her hairdo. OK, maybe not more but certainly almost as much.

UPDATE: There are some film snips here

The Umbrage to Nowhere.

So Senators Obama and Biden supported the "bridge to nowhere" in the where/where it costs the taxpayers: The U.S. Senate. But who should've stopped them? Why, that person they dismiss as a small town mayor.

While running for chief executive [Govenor of Alaska], Palin backed the bridge, although with little evident enthusiasm. “The money that’s been appropriated for the project,” she told Ketchikan voters in September 2006, “it should remain available for a link, an access process as we continue to evaluate the scope and just how best to just get this done.”

A link? A link may be a bridge or it may be something like this -- a link to the above quote. But where the support counts -- in the state budget -- she found the bridge did not fit the state's priorities. They now have a different sort of link -- a ferry.

But what I love is the assumption that Senators are not responsible for what the Senate spends. When they offer hundreds of millions of dollars to governors, it is up to the governors to do the responsible thing and refuse. This is like adults (or what passes for them in the Capitol) constantly offering candy to children and blaming the children for taking it. I don't want treat the state governments like children -- the national press corps does that already (my chief objection to their Katrina coverage was their refusal to hold state and local officials in Louisiana accountable for their many screw-ups)-- but you can count on politicians to act in the predictable manner. It is up to Senators from other states to stop this nonsense -- not vote for the pork and blame someone else.

Apparently, being a Senator is like being a small town mayor except you're not responsible for anything.

Why the Long Face, Loh

All the candidates' children -- save you-know-whose -- went to private schools, writes Sandra Tsing Loh:

And yes, I know I appear to be ranting on like a pit bull without lipstick, which brings me to the final nail in the coffin in this sorry election year. As a Democrat I am horrified that Sarah Palin is the one who snagged the deeply profound — and absolutely ignored by professional smart people — emotional real estate of “P.T.A. mother.” I too am, in fact, not just “my kids’ mom” but their Title I Los Angeles public school P.T.A. secretary. This unheard female howl is, for better or worse, what Ms. Palin has set out to tap into; it is real, and I am sick that we’ve let the Republicans charge this ground.

Sarah Palin’s children went to what looks like a humble little public school: Iditarod Elementary on Wasilla Fishhook Road. The school’s score on www.greatschools.net is a 4. That’s a lot of street cred, for a gun-totin’, snow-mobilin’ creationist-lovin’ lady.

Oh, I’m such a depressed, Democrat P.T.A. mother.

It's The Party of Education, Not Learning. Interestingly, the schools in my town were more "diverse" before the social engineers took over. And they used to teach reading and writing, too.

Obama-Palin Smack down

I stopped watching the evening news after their Katrina coverage, which I found self serving and incompetent and deserving of every meaningless award the networks gave each other. But I won't go into that now. Suffice to say I haven't watched in a long time.

Yesterday a friend and Hillary supporter told me ABC's Charlie Gibson would be interviewing Gov. Palin. I actually like Gibson (and the other anchors) I just don't trust him (or them). In any case, I turned into the Nightly News to find out when that interview might be. That's when I saw Sen. Obama make that "putting Lipstick on a pig" comment. Now, I did not think they showed the comment because they thought it was a moldy old cliche that no one would associate with Sarah Palin. They do not pick their sound bites on the basis of how cliched and boring they are -- unless it is a Republican making them.

Then tonight they reported on the controversy that grew out of the story -- and Sen. Obama's indignant reaction -- as if it was a moldy old cliche that no reasonable person would associate with Sarah Palin. Except that many in the audience cheered because they did. It was good to see how Sen. Obama soldiered on through the hysterical response of his listeners. Apparently every cliche he utters is greeted with hoots and hollers. I wonder if Sen. Obama has the feeling his attacks on Gov. Palin have been counterproductive? Perhaps his intention is to build up the audience for her interview, hoping ABC will do the right thing by her -- or rather to her. I wouldn't count on it. They may be in the process of changing sides (why go down with Barack's barge?).

Well, I hope I remember to tune in to see the first portion of the Palin interview. I feel I've already had my fill of the network news these last two nights.

The day after Gov. Palin's pick -- all of, what, two weeks ago --my Democrat friend was hitting the Palin family issues, the Governor's lack of experience, and the "investigations" of her in Alaska. After Gov. Palin's excellent convention speech, she was a bit subdued but said, "What can a VP really do?" Yesterday she talked about Palin's opposing abortion in cases of incest and rape. And her general religious beliefs. The Democrats attacks are constantly shifting. It reminds me of that bridge to nowhere Bill Clinton built.

Oh, Barry, Oh!

I think Glenn Reynolds has a good rundown on Barry cracking that "You can put Lipstick on a pig but it is still a pig." The crowd assumed he was talking about Sarah "Piglette" Palin. I think they were meant to think that. I saw video of "the crack" on one of the Network News shows so even they thought we'd think what they thought the crowd thought. And they were right!

Here's a possible ad: I saw a clip of Barry referring to Gov. Palin as a Caribou hunter or some such -- in humorous manner. He also referred to Sen. Clinton as acting like she's "Annie Oakley" (during the Pa. primary, I believe). There were other "humoress" references to Senator Clinton. End with the Piglette gaffe. He's funny. You laughing?

The post below deals with Juan Cole making a Lipstick allusion. So it is well established "code."

Wan Salon

At RealClearPolitics I read the headline for a Salon piece by Juan Cole: "Palin, Muslim Fundamentalists are one and the Same." And I felt such relief. I was afraid they wouldn't like her.

Following the link, I saw the actual headline: "What's the difference between Palin and Muslim fundamentalists? Lipstick ." Not a very original line, Juan. I guess female Muslim fundamentalists are not allowed to wear make-up. That would make sense, I suppose, wearing veils in public and all. Surprising what you learn on the web. I think Juan Cole is an expert in this stuff. We need more of them. Will we get more of them if Senator Obama wins? Yes! And they will have real power, too.

Only the "I" can reinvent himself...

...not the you.

"You can't just make stuff up, you can't just reinvent yourself," he said earlier in Flint, Michigan, in response to Palin's boast that she had intervened to kill the federally funded bridge.

Let's see. In a desperate move to create a record, Sen. Obama gets his name attached to legislation so uncontroversial it passes by a unanimous voice vote -- and then paints it as a "Profile in Courage." He may not have invented "reinventing himself," but he sure has reinvented it.

Now we learn from the AFP that Sen Obama claims McCain-Palin are 'lying' about their "maverick claims." Strong words from a mighty orator.

If that wasn't bad enough, he went on to accuse the boastful Sarah Palin (the AFP's description) and audience seducing Sarah Palin (the AP) of being a great Mayor by snagging millions of Federal dollars for projects in her town. I mean, what's she suppose to do? Send the money to Chicago? I guess this is a stab at the Liberal's favorite charge: hypocrisy. How can you be against earmarks if you in some way benefited from them? But she simply played the game by the established rules until the rules can be changed. (I gather Sen. McCain never accepted an earmark, so it would be hard to attack him.)

Apparently Sen. Obama always voted for Alaska's famed "bridge to nowhere" when it came up on the Pork List. So Gov. Palin can brag -- or boast, if you prefer -- that she turned against it before he did. Sen. Obama is right: you can't just make this stuff up.

UPDATE: Anyone who works in a practical way knows that as you work in a practical way you will spot the impracticalities. When you have responsibilities and as you work responsibly, you more clearly see the irresponsible. The key is not to become impractical and irresponsible yourself, but to work with what you got while seeking improvements. In Sen. Obama case, was he ever really successful at improving things in Chicago when he worked with his leftist friends? By his own admission, pretty much not (and then there is that murder rate). During his association with the Chicago "machine" his behavior is best described as "get along by going along."

The Eight Hundred Word Answer is "Yes"

Discussing Gov. Palin's record, the Washington Post writes:

People are still buzzing about Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin's acceptance speech. But while her style has been minutely analyzed, very little commentary has focused on one of the few substantive claims she made about her brief tenure as governor of Alaska: that she "fought to bring about the largest private-sector infrastructure project in North American history . . . a nearly $40 billion natural gas pipeline to help lead America to energy independence." Is Ms. Palin right about the importance of the pipeline and her role in moving it forward?

They beat around the bush a bit, but over all they give a favorable assessment of her performance.

The oil companies flared off gas on the North Slope for thirty years while multiple layers of Government squabbled amongst themselves and with Industry about a pipeline. Meanwhile, environmental groups and their lawsuits raised the hurdles high. Gov. Palin broke the logjam and got it rolling.

Of course the WP has to end a positive assessment with a snark remark: "Perhaps her Democratic opponent for the governorship in 2006, who campaigned on similar ideas, would have achieved these results. Nevertheless, Ms. Palin actually did." Perhaps in four years they can voice a similar lament about the Obama/Biden ticket. "The Democrats campaigned on World Peace and ending poverty. Nevertheless..."

Convention lifts McCain over Obama

More evidence of a McCain Bounce from USATODAY.com

The Republican National Convention has given John McCain and his party a significant boost, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend shows, as running mate Sarah Palin helps close an "enthusiasm gap" that has dogged the GOP all year.

McCain leads Democrat Barack Obama by 50%-46% among registered voters, the Republican's biggest advantage since January and a turnaround from the USA TODAY poll taken just before the convention opened in St. Paul. Then, he lagged by 7 percentage points.

The convention bounce has helped not only McCain but also attitudes toward Republican congressional candidates and the GOP in general.

Hmm. The bounce moves down ticket. Uh-Oh for the Dems. Among likely voters, McCain leads Obama by 54%-44%.

A Hug for McCain

The normally barely reliable Zogby International has a new poll with McCain/Palin up four points (49.7 percent to 45.9 for Obama/Biden). And there is this interesting tidbit:

McCain's favorability rating increased from 50% favorable last week to 57% favorable now, a significant jump that indicates the GOP convention was a success. Among independent voters, 61% now have a favorable impression of him, compared to just 49% who said the same a week ago.

If "favorablility" is 61 percent among independents it must be 47 percent among Republicans. But hey, they got to vote for him to vote for Gov. Palin. "To get to Palin, you'll have to go through me," says McCain.

It seems the Democrat machine's attacks on Gov. Palin was a double backfire: it drove a hug audience -- excuse me, a huge and sympathetic audience -- for her speech and a subsequent, and surprising, "hug" audience for McCain's. It was called "workmanlike" and "State of the Unionish." But the portions about his military service and his years as a prisoner must have really grabbed people (most of the folks watching the broadcast would have had little idea of what he went through). The entire Republican Party ended the week in a group hug. Hopefully they won't be complaining about each others garlic breath and BO by election day.

I have friend who is very much a Democrat base voter who was telling me a story from his navy days a few months back. He was an enlisted man on an aircraft carrier. I mentioned McCain was in the jet on the deck of the Forrestal that got hit by the rogue missile. He well knew the story of the raging fire and near loss of the ship but not McCain's involvement. He pretty much changed his voting intentions on the spot. Will it hold? Who knows.

It is still the Democrat's election to lose. I can only tell them, "keep up the good work."

The Huff's in a Puff

Labeling the choice of Gov. Palin as VP a distraction, Arianna Huffington writes:

And it's why Democrats need to ignore Palin, and keep the focus on reminding voters about the stark contrast between an Obama and a McCain administration. It's tempting to prime the Palin attack pump. But Obama and the Democrats do so at their own peril.

Now if they can only get Gov. Palin to likewise agree to ignore them, the Dem's might almost be out of Peril.

Ms. Jykell

The unemployment numbers came in at 6.1 percent. There was an “outreach program” at the Labor Department to let folks know they could get an additional 13 weeks of unemployment — that helps swell the numbers and that is swell for the Democrats in Congress. The offer of “money” will certainly help organizational efforts of the unemployed. If the Democrats lose this one you will have to put the entire party (and the MSM) on suicide watch.

With the choice of Palin and his speech last night, McCain has made a good start as “the outside reformer.” I thought Obama’s choice of Biden was a gift in that regard — and the gift might keep on giving.

Joe Biden talked of criminal investigations for the Bush administration the other day. Then he denied it on Fox — someone must have photoshoped that video tape! Of course the Vice President is the one who delivers the “over the top attacks.” The Presidential nominee must look more “Presidential.” So when Joe Biden talks of criminal investigations, he’s performing his political role — one that goes back to Eisenhower/Nixon if not before. This is “covering campaigns 101″ — and is well remembered in the case of Joe Biden.

But in the case Sarah Palin? Sarcastic Sarah? Mean Sarah? The Messiah Belittling Sarah? That behavior may be OK in male VPs, but woman should know better. This will come from the Left’s pet feminists — for whom there is only one standard and that is the “double” one.

WOW! POW!

On Wednesday the Democrats got hit by a truck. Knocked into the ditch, they looked up and saw Alaskan plates on the back (it also had a shotgun rack, an extended cab full of kids, and a moose carcass in the bed). The back plates said "Palin Comparison." And they thought, "Vanity plates! She's got Vanity Plates on her vehicle." And they picked themselves up, brushed themselves off and stepped back out on the road. And they thought, "OK, maybe she wowed 'em in HD, but here's how we'll pow her. It ain't the kids. It ain't the shotgun rack. It ain't the carcass of a state trooper in the back (that was murder but we'll let it go). We'll get her on the admitted use of lipstick! We'll get her on Vanity--"

Then they got hit by the next vehicle to come down the road and they spun around and flopped back down. It was suppose to be an old guy on a unicycle trying to juggle hostile constituencies while peddling through the muddied up Bushes but -- alas, he drove some sort of flex fueled vehicle that no one can quite identify. It weren't a flying saucer. It weren't a tank. It was some sort of hybrid of -- what and what?

Over at the Belmont Club, Richard Fernandez gives it a shot. Trying to identify the fin sticking out of the water that is causing the Democrats to hear deep, distant bass notes, Richard notes:

McCain’s speech was the declaration of someone with nothing left to prove. Any man who can admit that he was broken and afraid under interrogation is describing a kind of endurance, which while any intelligent person might understand, I think only men who have themselves been afraid can truly empathize with. There are places on that dark path which you know you could not have crossed through your strength alone. And whether you owe your emergence to luck or to God might be a matter for debate.

Well. OK. Enough seriousness. Let's get back to the Democrats, who look at the circling fin in the water, and what do they see? Or rather, what do they want you to see?

The Land Shark that is going to swim up the Mississippi River and eat you. Along with Social Security.

Now, if Rod Axle will just get busy, Sen. Obama will explain it all shortly. Let's see. Being a tortured POW has become Sen. McCain's political crutch. The presidency is not a rehab program for the mentally scarred. No. Ah. Here it is: He's going to destroy Social Security! And, and, school choice. If you are for it or against it, vote for us!

Good Night for Sarah.

My instant analysis of Gov. Palin's speech: wow. On PBS Mark Shields thought her line that the Presidency is not "a journey of discovery" was belittling of Sen. Obama. He seems to think it was a sin. To me it sounded like good old politics -- and a fair hit on the man "who has authored two memoirs but not a single law." (I doubt if Mark liked that line, either).*

A note: they said McCain had studied recordings of her speeches before selecting her. I thought he had not vetted her? Do they renounce their earlier reporting?

UPDATE: I quoted the above from memory. The full quote is: "But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform - not even in the state senate."

Crush Earth Right Now

Note: I notice Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit links to a Reason Magazine article about the coming end of the World. This is a subject that has always fascinated me. In fact, I covered the same ground in a June 27 post, re-posted here. The Reason piece is talking a 1 in 1,000 chance that that Eurotrash Contraption (discussed below) will destroy the World. Wish we had one in the USA. No. Wait. What am I saying? Just because the Europeans want to destroy the planet does not mean we should want to, too. We're better than that. Well, in any case, there you are and here it is.

Gaea has her high priests (and priestesses) at work building a mighty temple to her wondrous nature at a secret location somewhere in Europe! And there they will work their dark arts. And I mean really dark arts. Like in "no light or life escapes" dark arts.

You see, man has so poisoned and polluted the planet that Gaea has decided to send earth to the crusher and She is having here holy men (and women) build her temple at the power point of her creation, the place all call CERN. Here's some reassuring words from Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson:

There’s this worry that at CERN, they’re going to turn on the accelerator and create states of matter as never before – which is true – at higher energies than ever before – which is true – and possibly produce micro black holes. What happens if one does not evaporate, but just sort of hangs around? Whatever it touches, it eats, then it gets more massive. The more massive it gets, the less likely it will be to evaporate, because they evaporate quickly only when they’re small. This worry that it will create a runaway black hole that will eat the Earth is what some people have been concerned about.

Silly some people. What are the chances of the Earth gettin' ate, burp.

You see, CERN actually stands for Crush the Earth into a Round bit o' Nothing. The end state has all of the planet's heaviness and all of its gravity rolled into a single point. But all that don't matter because there will be no matter, so the point is kind of pointless -- you know, the way life can sometimes seem when you don't get that fellowship. This point is so small it would fit in the vest pocket of an hydrogen atom -- and eat the hydrogen atom.

Now, are we going to let a bunch of self-loathing European intellectuals make this call? For them, Earth has gone from Planet Hollywood to Planet Ennui. Talk about "Earth in the balance." On one side total planetary annihilation weighed against 2,000 tenured positions and a chance at a dozen Noble prizes -- the things that make life worth the bullshit. I'm telling you, folks, the "little blue marble" is just going to have to take it chances with the rest of us.

Plus, the Euro-smarmy set look at man as a total pest. And woman ain't much better. Remember, we are about to escape the gravity well of earth. So if something ain't done fast, the human rash will spread across the Universe. A rapid transubstantiation of the planet into a single pointless point may be the answer they are looking for. This will take care of the chimp problem, too. Let's face it, they ain't any better than humans and are, all and all, a disappointment. I mean, if mankind just destroys the human race, the chimps will take over and be even worse. Best just take out the whole planet.

It's interesting how uncontroversial this all is. Somewhere in the universe a planet is destroyed every day. But an oil well off the coast? That might dirty a duck and affect property values.

Where are all the people who want to save the Pandas? OK, maybe you don't care about China getting devoured by a black hole. But what about the Pandas? And when the oceans are sucked in, what about the whales? How are you going to Free Willie from a black hole?

And it doesn't have to be this way. We can build this thing in outer space. It will weigh five pounds and collide sun beams with moonbeams -- but in proper proportion. It can be done.

We sure need to do something. Start a movement. I'm willing to sell the T-shirts and bumper stickers if you are willing to buy them. This is an Orca. This is an Orca being devoured by a black hole. Here is a puppy. Here is a puppy being devoured by a black hole. Rid the Grid of CERN!

Confusion in the Media Meme

Over at the Belmont Club the other night, Richard Fernandez asked Who is Barack Obama? In the comment section he referenced the reporter in The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, who said when truth vies with legend "print the legend." And then Richard Observed:

But there is another, less common meaning to the word “legend.” It refers to a cover story under which a real person travels. It doesn’t necessarily connote espionage, but rather to a collection of plausible or alleged biographical facts which conceal another story.

I offered my own take, reprinted (no doubt for the first time ever) here:

Part of the attraction of Gov. Palin is the counter narrative of her life to Sen. Obama’s legend (in Richard use of the term). Her story is extreme but extremely inside the American tradition and his is extreme but extremely on the margins — as a self exile. He is a man without a “Country” but with a “World” of his own.

What I find troubling about O is he don’t have “normal” friends to add ballast for all his past weird associations. In fact, he don’t even have weird associates who are weird in a different way, to sort of cancel each other out. They are all weird in the same stinking way. Even Dude in The Big Lebowski had associates who were weird in a variety of ways, not the same stinking way. OK, I’m referencing movies. Time to go to bed.

It was late. But it does seem to be working out that way. Her story (and her family story) is stepping all over Sen. Obama's story -- or self spun legend -- almost to the point that he is now running against her. Is she as qualified to be President as he is? Or, put another way, is he as qualified as she is? Or put the Drudge way, "I've got more experience than her." On Anderson Cooper 360 the Senator said:

“My understanding is that Gov. Palin’s town, Wassilla, has I think 50 employees. We've got 2500 in this campaign. I think their budget is maybe 12 million dollars a year – we have a budget of about three times that just for the month,” Obama responded.

So if the Presidential campaign were only three months longer, she'd be qualified by the end of it.

But then she did negotiate a multi-billion dollar natural gas pipeline deal with Cananda and renegotiated the royalty deal with the Oil Companies on the North Slope. She cut the budget in Alaska. He helped it grow, big time, in DC.

I think the media needs to tear down her authentic legend and polish up the spun-up legend of Senator Obama. It is "throw it at the wall and see what sticks" time.

Doom for Democrats

Is it really possible? Could the man I describe as "Spengler, the Phlegmatic End Timer" in my blog roll, be a Democrat? And is he pronouncing the DOOM of the Democratic party?

DENVER - Senator Barack Obama's acceptance speech last week seemed vastly different from the stands of this city's Invesco Stadium than it did to the 40 million who saw it on television. Melancholy hung like think smog over the reserved seats where I sat with Democratic Party staffers. The crowd, of course, cheered mechanically at the tag lines, flourished placards, and even rose for the obligatory wave around the stadium. But its mood was sour. The air carried the acrid smell of defeat, and the crowd took shallow breaths. Even the appearance of R&B great Stevie Wonder failed to get the blood pumping.

Hmm. Who is this guy? A spy? Is he even a guy? And what if his name really is Spengler? That would fool everyone. He goes on:

On television, Obama's spectacle might have looked like The Ten Commandments, but inside the stadium it felt like Night of the Living Dead. The longer the candidate spoke, and the more money he promised to spend on alternative energy, preschool education, universal health care, and other components of the Democratic pinata, the lower the party professionals slouched into their seats.

Well, now. Deep, deep, well now. Maybe Spengler is Warren Christopher. Just a guess.

It is a worthy read.

UPDATE: Crush Earth Right Now

The Palin Family Saves Social Security

First I would like to wish Bristol, her soon to be husband, their coming bundle of joy, and the entire Palin Family the very best. And I would like to thank them for doing what the Democrats absolutely refuse to do: their part (and more) to save Social Security. As long as the Democrats keep it a "pay as you go" transfer payment program, we will need "the taxpayers of the Future." My guess is the Palin kids will not only serve the country well, but pay lots of taxes, too. I know the AARP won't say this, so I will: Thank you. And keep them future taxpayers coming.

But only if that is your choice, of course.

UPDATE: Instalanche! Did I spell that right? My spell check says no. It got to be a word by now, doesn't it? Who decides these things? The little wikis? Is "wikis" spelled right? My spell check says no. Who decides? Who decides ketchup is a vegetable? Did I spell ketchup right? My spell check says yes, but I no longer trust it.

American Schlubbish

Well, Sen. Obama sure can give a good speech. Of course, he's allowed to basically say anything as long as it sounds good. If the Devil is in the Details, the devil wasn't in Senator Obama's oratory.

Rather than accepting the nomination, it seemed to me Sen. Obama was accepting the nation (the country sounds like a real "fixer upper"). The "One" of the McCain Campaign attack ads has become the "I" of the acceptance speech. The "I" will do this (treat the sick and not pander to insurance companies) and the "I" will do that (stand up to tyrants and make our alliances strong again). The "I" will make our schools excellent and the "I" will ask that teachers do a few things, too -- but only ask. But there is a "we," too. There is a "we" who should realize that "we" are a nation of schlubs who will make it very hard on the "I" who wants to help the "we" while at the same time making the nation less schlubish -- give it some je ne sais quoi. But the "I" does sais quoi. And so do his adoring fans, whose very look says, "You are right, Barack, I can't tie my shoes without your help!"

I (by which I mean me) think Sen. Obama broke one of the basic rules of influencing others, as taught back in, say, 1964. And that is: Avoid using the word "I" and try using the word "You." Try to make people feel central to the project, and not like schlub spear carriers in a biblical epic starring "Me, Myself, and I." But outsized egos are in style these days.

Sen. Obama sees two Americas: the Politicians and the schlubs. And he's not too sure about the politicians, but you work with what you got. All and all, it sounded to me like he wants to get America cheap by selling it short.

History stuck in a suburban Cul-du-sac. Which way should it go?

Yes, it's true: They Can Only Go So Far, as Francis Ford Fukuyama says (oops, there is no Ford in the name -- I mistook the Director of History with the Director). Various Writers, he opines, "...have suggested that we are now witnessing a return to the Cold War, the return of History or, at a minimum, a return to a 19th-century world of clashing great powers." Ever notice how famous he has become explaining himself? One bad idea ("The End of History") and his career was made. He's like the Middle East Expert to the world: always wrong and always in demand, but on a bigger stage. Now, I've been explaining my bad ideas for...well, we won't go there. In any case, Francis goes on to advise Various Writers (an ancient Roman Pundit, I think):

Not so fast. We are certainly moving into what Newsweek's Fareed Zakaria labels a "post-American" world. But while bullies can still throw their weight around, democracy and capitalism still have no real competitors. The facile historical analogies to earlier eras have two problems: They presuppose a cartoonish view of international politics during these previous periods, and they imply that "authoritarian government" constitutes a clearly defined type of regime -- one that's aggressive abroad, abusive at home and inevitably dangerous to world order. In fact, today's authoritarian governments have little in common, save their lack of democratic institutions. Few have the combination of brawn, cohesion and ideas required to truly dominate the global system, and none dream of overthrowing the globalized economy.

Well, may I be frank, Frank? I would not bet the farm on your ability to interpret the dreams of a megalomaniac and sociopath who excelled during his career in the "Organs of State Security." Still, it is good to know the Tyrant's grasp will seldom exceed his reach -- though those constant stretch exercises are worrisome.

But the real threat may not be foreign tyranny. It may be those "Private-Public Partnerships" that both bureaucrats and Capitalists (and major media) are fond of promoting. After all, Capitalist are not ever-faithful fans of Free Markets, by and large. They are for free markets when it advantages them. But once on top, the advantages of having the Government steer money and customers your way are greater than the advantages the Free Market offers. Besides, the power of Government may be used against you if you are not using it against someone else. So the real danger may be government created -- but privately run and government connected -- cartels. They will be disguised, of course. But they will first take away economic and social freedom -- and then political freedom, as well. This will all be done in the name of planning or promoting some social good (affordable housing, health care, wind to power and natural gas to cars etc., etc., etc and so on and so forth!).

"But while bullies can still throw their weight around, democracy and capitalism still have no real competitors." Not true. The competitor is State Capitalism or The Corporate State. Call it "fascism with a velvet glove" -- over the mailed fist. This is not the "fascism" shouted by the Left, but the Fascism practiced by the Left. And it could take a giant step forward if Sen. Obama wins -- and perhaps a tiny step back if McCain wins, though a slower advance is more likely.

Current History will end with a whimper. It will be "feudalism with the right sort of people in charge." Francis and Fareed will be Barons in the new Aristocracy of Credentials (excuse me, Merit). So the future holds no terrors for these two. Nor for me: I plan on getting a law degree at night school.

The Eleven "10 percent" Solutions

I was watching the Olympics and was therefore forced to watch an Obama Campaign Ad. It was about energy -- the Obama-nation of our energy supplies.

Our national energy policy is a four legged stool: 1) continued use of the traditional hydrocarbon sources of energy; 2) the expansion of same over the short and medium term; 3) getting more "work" from the traditional sources (conservation/efficiency); 3) Developing Alternative sources to replace traditional sources as that becomes both necessary and economical.

The Obama Campaign energy policy, as put forth in the ad I saw, would cut off two of the legs: Traditional sources of energy and the expansion of same. It would largely make the conservation leg redundant (getting more "work" from mostly traditional sources). His policy is to ruin the tax paying, low cost "legs" while heavily subsidizing the higher cost, budget devouring "alternative leg."

So, after hacking at three of the legs with his rhetorical hatchet, Sen. Obama has left us with the "pogo stick plan." If the nation actually jumps on that pogo stick (as opposed to a politician -- the politician -- hopping on it and hoping to win the race) the nation will surely experience a crash. This should surprise no one: it is, after all, a "crash plan."

Instead of the "pogo stick for America plan," why not return to our traditional approach and simply make it work better? So while I will concentrate on production here, I believe all the legs are important and unlike the Democrats I do not recommend hacking off of any of them.

The eleven "10 percent" Solutions

The energy production leg of the stool has been badly neglected and needs to be addressed. The world has plenty of oil that can be harvested at $60 a barrel. So Republican should announce the goal of bringing the world price of oil down to $60 a barrel by encouraging supply increase and demand restraint. The problem is, how do we get there? The trap is getting caught arguing that any one action will be a solution. That is why I recommend eleven "10 percent" solutions -- the first is remembering there are ten of them and each forms a part of the "100 percent" total solution.

How do we cut the world price of oil in half? I am not a expert in the field so this list is an incomplete "suggested" starting point.

1. Keep the Alaskan oil pipeline full (it does not have to be ANWR oil -- there is other available oil in that part of the arctic). Perhaps the pipeline could also be "doubled up" (as it was originally designed) with a second pipe to bring natural gas to market. It does not make sense to flare gas off above the arctic circle while heating prices go up in the US. Apparently the Russians are building an LNG terminal in Mexico. Perhaps Alaskan LNG could be offloaded there and marketed in California.
   
2. Offshore drilling. Why should Republicans worry about what screen actors in Malibu think? Add California to the list (or at least keep it as a threat).
3. International cooperation to lower the price. It is, after all, a world problem. Perhaps there is room for international guarantees for oil workers and investors whereby the pirates that prey on the oil industry (and cut supply) could be severely "sanctioned" by consuming nations.
4. Additional Nuclear.
5. I like the idea of the jet powered SUV hybrid that goes from 0 to 60 like a muscle car but gets 60 mpg. That's conservation! I ran across it in popular mechanics, so it might not be doable for the average Joe.
   

The following might qualify as "six" and "seven," but are perhaps too complicated for a political campaign.

Shell has an environmentally friendly system to produce oil from shale "in situ" at a cost of $30 a barrel. The technique was developed in the US and they are going to put it to work producing oil -- in the Middle East, of course. This is at the insistence of the Democrat Congress. Way to go, guys (is Mary Landrieu a guy?).

Instead, the Democrats want sales from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve -- this is a one off political stunt whose only effect on the oil price might be to raise it in the future (by reducing easily tapped reserves). But twinned with the development of Oil Shale it could produce both short and long term downward pressure on oil prices.

When oil is above $90 a barrel we will sell a set amount from the reserve. The money will go into a fund. Those who develop oil shale deposits will agree to replace the oil at $60 a barrel -- but at any point over a period of ten years. They can sell the rest of their production at world market prices. In other words, it would be an implicit price guarantee of $60 dollars a barrel for a set amount of oil. This would provide insurance for when the market price of oil falls to say, $35 a barrel -- a price that would make production uneconomic.

If there is a refinery built nearby that relies on shale oil, it can count on a supply of oil at the world market price for at least a set period. The oil that is returned to the Strategic Reserve is bought on the world market at $35. It is twinned with a barrel of shale oil that is sold at the world market price of $35 to the refinery. But the shale oil producer collects $25 from the fund established by the original sales from the strategic reserve. (The refinery might be a captive of shale oil production and not hooked into the world oil market). There might be a world price trigger price of below $40 a barrel, say.

Six and seven are aimed at making shale oil an immense strategic reserve that can be ramped up over several years in a period of shortages. Full commercial development should be based on the economics involved, not subsidies. The infrastructure can be "over built" to help it fill the strategic reserve role, should the market not favor commercial development (in other words, the world price has dived -- a good thing).

And here's a possible "big" Number Eight: There is no Big Oil -- Only Big Government/little oil. The biggest oil companies are mostly government owned and operated. The ones that are not run by governments are bound up in so much red tape they are the abused captives of bureaucrats. We need less government, more oil -- and more freedom.

Number Nine? Convincing the Democrats in Congress to leave OPEC. OPEC raises prices by restricting supply. By that measure the Democrats are the most important member of the group. If they left the group, it would likely fall apart as supplies increased and prices came down.

As I say, a partial list. All are welcomed to make suggestions.

Perhaps House Republicans can come up with an easily understood list of "actions for lower gas prices" and make it an issue.

Update: Jon Utley has a good take that fits with the above. You fact obsessed folks should read: Open ANWR Already!

Also, when the Democrats say opening ANWR would only save "pennies on the gallon" the estimated price when the field came into production was $50 a barrel (2006 dollars). I think they are wrong on the "pennies on the gallon" (it's a dollar or more) and right on the $50 a barrel. Because if we produce, everyone will. See the footnote one at the bottom of this Wilderness Society anti drilling screed (pdf file). The footnote contains a dead link to The Energy Information Agency. Is it policy to toss the embarrassingly off estimates down the memory hole?

The Senate Yacht Club Comes out against Oil Development

Well, we know the exclusive Senate Yachting Club opposes windmills off the coast because they might have to look at them when they go sailing. Now the Senate Yacht Club has come out against developing our off shore oil resources.

Sen. Graham, (a Republican, unfortunately) is fronting on this one. I believe he is on the Yachting Club Board. I think he is the chaplain. At least on this issue he is a spokesman for the group. Basically, the Senate Yachting Club wants to keep oil platforms well away from anywhere they might go sailing and they might go sailing pretty much anywhere.

You see, lots of just plain Senate folks go to Davos, Switzerland in the winter and ski and make friends while they are there. And they invite these ski friends to come to the US and go sailing and become sailing friends. Naturally, they don't want them to have to look at an oil rig on the edge of the horizon. In fact, just the thought there might be an oil rig out there would disturb them, because they are quite intelligent and sensitive personages. Now I'm sure we all don't want them to develop the psychological scars that seeing a rig in the middle of a hundred miles of grey ocean might cause -- not when paying a mere two bucks a gallon more for gas would prevent it.

As for energy independence, that is a fairy tale. Of course, that don't mean the Yacht Club won't find ways to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on it. But if to them energy independence is a fairy tale, at least the dollars they spend chasing the chimeras will be real (otherwise the special interest groups will get testy).

Though the Senate Yacht Club is against having five windmills off Nantucket, they are for having five million windmills in the "wind blessed" Midwest. The reason for this is simple: they don't go sailing in the Midwest. Meanwhile, they are realistic and realize that Washington DC, which they represent, needs power -- lots and lots of power -- and it got to come from somewhere. Why not the rest of the Country? I mean, what's it there for?

In a few years, when Midwesterners go driving, they can play "count the windmills" with their children. So a mother will say, "Becky, how many windmills have you counted on your side of the road?" And Becky will say, "1,482." And the mother will say, "and Tommy, how many have you counted on your side?" And Tommy will say, "845,362." And the mother will say, "Gee, boys are better at math."

Education Bubble: A Graphic Illustration

The picture above shows West Kidding County High (WKCH, not a radio station) after its recent expansion. It was kinda squished down and then stretched out like taffy. I thought that would be a good way to handle the space problem presented by the top of the page. But then I was listening to Sen. Obama and heard him talking about inflation -- of tires -- as a solution to our energy problems. Which got me wondering, could inflation be a solution to the space problem? Is there such a thing as inflated graphics to go along with inflated rhetoric? So using hot air graciously provided by the Obama campaign (they passed through town recently), I tried to inflate WKCH (not the radio station). Here is what I got:

Obviously, there is a weak spot in the intertube. I know they don't use inner tubes in tires anymore but they do use intertubes in schools. So what you got here is a classic educational bubble.

Or is it. Because as I considered what might be going on, I remembered the Great Seal of Kiddington. And sure enough:

Now, the great Seal is also the Great Big Seal, but he ain't that big. So what it is, is, the use of false perspective -- same like we are suppose to use to select our President. Arf, arf.

Regular readers of this sight -- such as, for instance, myself -- know that I've been playing around with Open Office. org's software suite (I call it OOf or OOps, depending on what happens) . Then I started with the Open Office Draw feature (which I'll call OODLE's of doodles) and it is as frustrating as I thought it would be. Out of desperation I started reading the directions -- from the beginning, where they suggest you start. After about an hour I was still at, like, Opening a file -- the twelfth way of doing it. Heedless to say, it was saving files that was screwing me up. (You see, you got to export it from the Open Office Universe if you want to actually use it. How silly of me not to know). So I went back to pushing buttons more or less randomly.

There seems to be an extreme bias in the program towards working on the printed page. It will even save your little photo with a whole lot of white space for the rest of a printed page. So I actually did a final crop using my old Graphics Program that I got for twenty bucks 12 years ago. That's why there ain't like, six inches of blank space below the photo. (If there is, let me know). Now to compare the two programs: Open Office was free. (OK, and all the various parts work together, at least in theory).

Unless, of course, you're a Terrorist transporting mad bombers in an Ambulance.

BBC NEWS | Americas

Betancourt rescuer wore Red Cross

Misuse of the symbol undermines Red Cross neutrality

Colombia's president has confimed (sic) that a Red Cross symbol was worn by a member of the military rescue mission that freed 15 hostages from Farc rebels.

Alvaro Uribe said he had apologised to the Red Cross for the error, made by a nervous soldier acting against orders.

Misuse of the Red Cross emblem is considered a violation of the Geneva Conventions and international law.

Well now. Here's a case for the International Criminal Court. Did Columbia make the mistake of signing on?

All you criminals out there: make sure you demand that anyone you meet wears a Red Cross symbol. That way you will know they are not with law enforcement.

Some thoughts on How Republicans can Win.

Instapundit.com

WORST CONGRESS EVER: "Remember when only 14% approved of the job Congress is doing? A year later, only 9% do." The Pelosi/Reid leadership team is taking Congress places it's never been before!

UPDATE: So why are the Republicans running scared, and why aren't they going after the "new Democratic Congress" hammer-and-tongs? Beats me. Because they're idiots, I guess.

The most obvious issue for the Republicans to exploit is Oil and energy. Paint the Democratic Congress as the most important member of OPEC, as I describe below. McCain should change "no drill in ANWR" to "keep the Alaskan Pipeline full." There is a lot of other oil up there we can use.

What the Democrats call Big Oil long ago became Big Government Oil. The Majors are now overwhelmingly controlled by Governments. Some are run as if the personal property of the Tyrant in charge. In the US, government regulation is constant and fierce. When the majors where private companies, fuel was cheap and plentiful. It is now Big Government — little oil. Big Government, shrinking production.

When we import oil we export jobs. So, Run on energy jobs: the jobs that come with exploration and building infrastructure (refineries and Nuclear power plants). It's the greatest job program we can have.

Stop talking about taxes as a burden on this or that individual (and whether he's rich) and talk about it as a burden on the entire economy. The economy can comfortably carry at a government that takes less than 30 percent of the GNP. At forty percent it gets out of breath. It's the difference between being fit and healthy and fat and fainting. Or perhaps a race horse carrying a weight. The heavier the weight, the more the "handicap." The Democrats as handicappers. The Democratic Congress as The DC Handicappers.

I'll have to give this more thought.

The World's Most Oily Politicians.

Pajamas Media » How Oil Prices Could Collapse

Do you think $140 a barrel is insane? Last week the president of OPEC Chakib Khelil predicted $170 a barrel by summer’s end. More sobering, this week the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecast world energy use to grow fifty percent by 2030.

If that pans out, it would mean the world will need to burn more than 120 million barrels of oil that day. We have it, but can we afford it? Nope, and that is why the oil domain is crumbling.

So writes Youssef M. Ibrahim.

If we are switching from oil over the next fifty years, we may as well use what we have now. At $60 bbl the world has plenty of oil (for the next few decades, at least). So $60 bbl is where the price should head.

Right now the most important members of OPEC are the Democrats in Congress. OPEC keeps the price of oil up by limiting supply. Some OPEC politicians do this through deliberate policy. Others through sheer incompetent management of state oil companies. But the Democrats keep more oil off the market than any other national group of politicians. Without the Democrats in Congress, OPEC would be in the pickle business.

Whether this is deliberate policy on the Democrats part or rank incompetence is hard to tell. They have all heard of the "Law of Supply and Demand" and most want to repeal it. Because, you see, suppliers should not make demands, and if they do they should be locked up! Unless, of course, they work for the government.

While they complain about BIG OIL, their mucking about in the markets (and muckraking up voter resentment) actually favors big oil -- foreign government big oil. Look at the price of oil when the "seven sisters" where private, and mainly US operated, firms. Now that the ladies are a government owned OPEC harem, look at the price.

When politicians start blaming speculators, you can be sure the politicians have screwed up. When you see George Soros blaming speculators, you can be sure he is morphing into a politician while doubling down on the other side of the bet.