The Wall

TOC has mentioned Professor Paul Rahe before. Here is a must read analysis of President Obama's gestures.

Yesterday, I mentioned the President's midnight call to the Poles announcing his unilateral abandonment of the missile defense shield they, and the Czechs, had risked much to achieve. I forgot that insult was trebled because it came on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet Union's invasion of Poland. This could not have been accidental. It was certainly petty.

Poland has 2,000 troops on the ground with us in Afghanistan. Unlike France and Germany, their mission is to fight. Poland has seen 15 of its soldiers killed in Afghanistan.

Professor Rahe's point today is that President Obama's refusal to go to Berlin on the anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is a rejection of an achievement unequaled in the history of free men. Rahe's list of American leaders who fought to bring down that Wall constitutes a lesson in bi-partisanship, and is a catalog of mistakes from which the West learned hard lessons. The Wall was a powerful symbol of totalitarian thuggery. Fallen, it is an even more powerful symbol of freedom.

In 1963, President John Kennedy speaking in Berlin at the Rathaus Schönebergand said, "Ich bin ein Berliner."


In 1987, President Ronald Reagan, at the Brandenburg Gate, demanded of Mikhail Gorbachev, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"


In 2008, then Presidential candidate Barack Obama spoke at the Tiergarten, a few kilometers from his preferred location (the Brandenburg Gate, but his presumption was blocked by German Chancellor Angela Merkel). As a mere candidate, the plan to speak at the Brandenburg Gate was widely regarded as unseemly overreach.

During that Tiergarten speech Presidential candidate Obama said this, "I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we’ve struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions." An uttering so bland and general that it need not have been said of any democracy, much less of one's own on foreign soil.

Today is the 20th anniversary of the tearing down of the Berlin Wall, and President Barack Obama, who wanted to speak at the Brandenburg Gate in 2008 as a candidate, will not attend the ceremony.

This is the same President Barack Obama who found time late last month to take a day trip to Copenhagen to lobby for the 2016 Olympic games in Chicago. He had sent his close adviser, Valerie Jarrett, to lobby for a Chicago Olympics as early as June.

The contrast seems to say something about his priorities.

The fall of the Berlin Wall was the culmination of a decades long defense of liberty against tyranny. The fall of the Berlin Wall represented American leadership and determination in support of free nations' insistence on the dignity of man in the face of totalitarian butchers. The anniversary is no small thing to us and it is no small thing to our allies in Germany or Europe. Especially Eastern Europe. It's only a small thing to a small President.

All I can say is, "We're sorry."

Caution is as caution does

The Associated Press quotes President Obama about the Fort Hood massacre.

"We don't know all the answers yet, And I would caution against jumping to conclusions until we have all the facts."

Would that he had followed his own advice regarding Professor Gates and Officer Crowley.

The View from Dromore - Rule # 1: Tell them what they want to hear

Following is a letter received from Ontario which, I suspect, tells us more about our own stimulus packages than we'd like to know.

Duane,

An opinion on all this “jobs created / jobs saved” nonsense.

We have the same “stimulus” spending issues here in Canada, although we handle it a little differently. Up here, the Feds contribute 1/3rd, the Province 1/3rd and the local municipality 1/3rd. Even though these are 33¢ dollars from the perspective of our local municipality, we still have “skin” in the game – it’s not “free” money, just relatively cheap.

Last summer I wrote several stimulus grant applications (batted about .800) including one for the paving of a parking lot on behalf of my Township.

I won’t bore you with the details of our local Township politics, other than to say that there is a serious east / west split politically. The east has an urban centre which is relatively easy to qualify for stimulus funding and received considerable monies (I wrote some of the grant apps for those projects as well). The west is rural (although politically powerful), but has little (nothing?) that qualified. I was charged with “dreaming something up” for the west so that it didn’t look like the east was getting it all from a political perspective. I hit upon “recreation” as a defined use under stimulus funding guidelines and there is a parking lot beside a kid’s soccer field that needed paving. Was it a high priority (or even wise) use of stimulus funds? – I leave that conjecture to your readers.

When it came to the “jobs created” section of the application, I wildly guessed that 10 people might be involved in paving the parking lot. First, I had no idea how many people (nor did I ask – it seemed like a “reasonable” number) and second, I had no idea whether any or all of these people might have already been employed by the paving contactor or if their jobs were in some jeopardy if this two day project did not occur (nor did I ask).

Having spent about 20 years in municipal politics and administration, I am keenly aware of how to slant grant applications towards success - Rule # 1: Tell them what they want to hear.

We got the stimulus money for the parking lot and, no doubt, our Prime Minister (analogous to your President), our Provincial Premier (analogous to your State Governor) and their bureaucratic minions have included my “10 jobs” in their tallies and are delighted about how well their stimulus spending is working.

I realize that this makes me some kind of “K Street whore”, but we now have a paved parking lot. In my own “whore” defence, it gets a lot more use than Murtha’s airport in PA. I see he’s putting in a backup runway in case the barely used primary runways fail. Good thinking Jack! Is that pork I smell?

Ours was a tiny tiny project in the overall scheme of things, but I write to warn you (although I doubt you or your TOC readers need to be warned) to be very sceptical of any “jobs created / jobs saved” numbers coming from your Administration. It’s largely smoke and mirrors.

I know. I’m part of the smoke up here and I doubt it’s much different down there.

Don Seim

Just Words

Our President has subjected us to a wearing parade of oversights, sleights, and pettiness - at once vacuous and calculating – a tendency that seems to lay close beneath his intellectual patina. I say calculating rather than accidental because it has become impossible to imagine these blunders are not deliberate. This is insensitivity masquerading as cluelessness.

Large policy errors can be understood within the overarching sweep of an ambition to “remake this country,” but when the tiny things at the edges, the easy to avoid slips and smallness, continuously suggest that the clothes have no emperor, it is disquieting.

Some examples:

• The DVD package, for the wrong region, he gave to Prime Minister Brown after returning a bust of Winston Churchill which had been in the Oval Office on loan from the UK.
  
• The picture of the soles of the President's shoes while he's speaking to the Israeli Prime Minister.
• Flipping the bird to Hillary. It's the childish “I'm clever” grin and the crowd reaction that makes the case the gesture was no accident.
• Calling the Poles and the Czechs in the middle of the night to tell them he was scrapping anti-missile deployment the next morning.

Sometimes he even acknowledges mistakes. President Obama actually apologized for jokes about Nancy Reagan “speaking with the dead” and comparing his terrible bowling skills with the Special Olympics. He “clarified” remarks about his grandmother being a “typical white person,” and tried to recast a comment about his opponents bitterly “clinging to their guns and religion.”

Most of these cannot be written off as accidental cluelessness. The most recent one surely resulted from a plan. You might argue the planning itself was uninformed by reality or responsibility, but it was premeditated: Our President's first remarks on the shootings at Fort Hood.



All of TV breaks to cover his words, and he speaks for 2 minutes before mentioning the murders of American soldiers on a US Army post in what, at that time, had to be considered a possible terrorist conspiracy (and it was a terrorist attack, even if not an al-Qaeda conspiracy). Before even a nod of reassurance to Americans, who were only watching because of that attack, and before acknowledging the sacrifice of those American soldiers, President Obama thanks the conference organizers and Department of Interior staff. He gives a "shout out" to some Tribal Nations Conference delegate as a winner of a Congressional Medal of Honor (false, the President confused a military award with the Medal of Freedom, a civilian award). (Applause) Then he thanks the attendees and assures them, "[I]t's not the end of a process, but the beginning of a process" (Applause) “...every single member of my team understands this is a top priority for us."

At this point the President mentions himself in a clumsy segue from the cozy repartee; "...[B]eyond that, I had planned to make some broader remarks about the challenges that lay ahead, ...but as some of you might have heard, there's been a tragic shooting at the Fort Hood Army base [sic] ...my immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded and the fallen" Well, yeah, "immediate"ly after the implied apology for failing to deliver his "broader" wisdom on the "top priority" conference items. And all of you "might have heard" about it 2 minutes earlier if our Commander in Chief had had the sense to make that tragedy his immediate priority.

This is one more demonstration of tone-deafness on the part of the man himself, and it is an indictment of his advisers, by whose character and skill he invited us to judge him. None of them apparently thought the sole focus should be on murdered American soldiers.

Skipping the folksy, campaign style preamble is what a CinC would have done. A CinC would not have been seen to regard the death of American soldiers as a contretemps.

When our President did get to the shooting the words were right, but delivered in the trademark boring, affectless tones and cadence so in contrast to the soaring rhetoric on things he cares about.

Apparently, being a Community Organizer teaches one the square root of zero about leadership. The leadership qualities required at ACORN seem to be quite different from those required to lead America's Armed Forces. Or the free world.

It's what he's tone-deaf about that's worrisome.

Kimberly Munley - hero

If a beer in the Rose Garden were a collegial sort of thing, where you need not consort with your assailant, I'd say Kimberly Munley is a cop who deserves one.

The woman who stopped a mass murderer

Clunker

Congressman Mike Rogers wants me to know he is opposed to the Pelosi health care bill. More power to him. I applaud his opposition to it. Here's what the Congressman sent me today:

I write to update you on recent developments in the health care reform debate in Washington, D.C. I appreciate the opportunity to contact you.

As you may know, House Democrat leaders recently introduced another massive health reform bill. This legislation (H.R. 3962) clocks in at 2,000 pages, $1.2 trillion in new spending, and over $400 billion in cuts to Medicare services for seniors. The bill also includes over $700 billion in new tax increases, clearly violating President Obama's pledge to not raise taxes on middle-class families. I wanted to share with you a list of the tax increases found in H.R. 3962:

Small business surtax (Sec. 551, p. 336)- $460.5 billion
Employer mandate tax (Secs. 511-512, p. 308)- $135 billion
Individual mandate tax (Sec. 501, p. 296)- $33 billion
Medical device tax (Sec. 552, p. 339)- $20 billion
Annual cap on tax-free FSAs (Sec. 532, p. 325)- $13.3 billion
New taxes on HSAs (Sec. 531, p. 324 and Sec. 533, p. 326)- $6.3 billion
Tax on health insurance policies (Sec. 1802, p. 1162)- $2 billion
Other tax hikes on U.S. job creators (Secs. 553-562)- $56.4 billion
Other "revenue raising" provisions- $3 billion

TOTAL TAX INCREASES $729.5 BILLION

To read more about the Democrat health legislation, please visit my website at mikerogers.house.gov and click on "Health Reform Update."

Rest assured, I will continue to oppose plans to raise taxes and put the federal government in charge of America's health care. Instead, I will continue to work on bipartisan solutions that will enact real health reform - lowering costs, expanding access and improving care for all American families.

Again, I appreciate the opportunity to contact you. You can also follow my efforts on YouTube (RepMikeRogers) and Facebook (Mike J. Rogers). Should you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to call on me.

Sincerely,

Mike Rogers
Member of Congress

Well and good. However, opposition to the health care fiasco is pretty easy. Opposition to the cash-for-clunkers program, on the other hand, was impossible for Congressman Rogers. He wrote me earlier extolling the virtues of that program. So, here is my response to today's email:

Dear Congressman Rogers,

Thank you for your steadfast opposition to the Democrat plan to nationalize the health care industry, raising health care costs and taxes, and reducing the quality and availibility of health care. The principles of small government and a commitment to liberty are clear in your position on this.

I wish I could have written "your principled position." I could not, however, because of an earlier email wherein you took credit for the cash-for-clunkers program. What difference is there in principle between health care takeover dollars the money dumped into cash-for-clunkers?

Your eager support for cash-for-clunkers has two unfortunate consequences. 1) It makes you seem like a Jack Murtha, but lacking the gravitas to obtain really district-focused pork and, 2) it makes your opposition to spending and taxation on health care seem shallow, partisan and cynical.

Principles, Congressman, principles. There is no difference between cash-for-clunkers and health care spending except for the number of dollars.

23 Skidoo

I have more thoughts on the New York 23rd District House election to be settled tonight than I have time to put into a post.

However, Dede Scozzafava's endorsement of her putative Democrat opponent tells us the opposition to her candidacy was correct and that the GOP establishment which nominated her is not merely tone deaf, but possibly terminally stupid.

Yes in Dede, they should have realized the tea party and town hall protests meant people are fed up with those who support union thuggery (card check), massive deficits (the stimulus), higher taxes, and pork barrel cynicism (a la Jack Murtha). These were all Scozzafava positions. She was endorsed by ACORN and The Daily Kos.

The zombie Republicans will still vote for Dede, they won't even know she's withdrawn. They do not know that she is a DIMWIT (Democrat In Matters Which Impact Them). Lots of voters do, however.

When you hear the talking heads bemoan the loss of the "moderate" wing of the GOP, the coming disaster for Republican electoral prospects because they are being captured by right wing nuts, and the evil intolerance for dissent in the GOP, remember that none of them said anything similar regarding Joe Lieberman in 2006 when he was kicked out of the Democrat Party.

I have repeatedly said I would not bemoan, but cheer, the loss of the GOP as it is presently constituted. If the left, or pseudo-left, think losing that GOP is a problem for libertarians or conservatives, they just don't get it. They, and by "they" I do not mean simply the Democrats, delude themselves into thinking that seizing control of a morally corrupt system in order to maintain it is "serving the people." Let them then preside over its decline. I think I'll decline to participate.

Vicarious self-esteem

Posting has been relatively slow of late and will continue to be for awhile. I'm looking for a new career direction and the fall house and yard maintenance impinge.

However, here's a thought about a recent (Oct. 16-18, 2009) CNN/Opinion Research Corporation Poll.

"As you may know, the Norwegian Nobel Committee recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama. Do you approve or disapprove of that committee's decision to award the prize to Obama?"
Approve 42, Disapprove 56, Unsure 2

"Do you think Obama has accomplished enough so far to deserve the Nobel Peace Prize, or don't you think so?"
Enough 32, Don't Think So 67, Unsure 1

"Regardless of how you feel about Obama, do you feel proud that a U.S. president won the Nobel Peace Prize, or don't you feel that way?"
Feel Proud 70, Don't Feel Proud 29, Unsure 1

On average 61.5% of those Americans surveyed think the President did not deserve/should not have received a Nobel Peace Prize. Nonetheless, 70% of those same Americans take pride in the accomplishment. How can you be proud of an award you've identified as undeserved? How proud are these people that Dhimmi Carter received it?

Seems like Americans have been well steeped in the leftwing political view of affirmative action narcissistic pride individualistic jingoism unwarranted self-esteem "exceptionalism."

Canada Health Care - Recent News. And some from here, too.

Except for 1 nod to The Wall Street Journal, please note that all sources are Canadian.

Canadians face 16-week wait for surgery: Report
Calgary Herald
October 29, 2009

Canadians looking to undergo surgery can expect to wait an average of 113 days in 2009, a slight improvement over last year, a national health-care survey has found.

The Fraser Institute's annual report on hospital wait times found that the median wait-time for Canadians seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment is 16.1 weeks in 2009, down from 2008's 17.3 weeks.

..."In spite of large increases in health spending, Canadians are waiting 73 per cent longer for surgery than they did in 1993," said Nadeem Esmail, author of the report and a director with the right-wing think-tank.

Province Wants to Sell Surgeries to Saskatchewan
TheTyee.ca
October 29, 2009

People from Saskatchewan may soon be coming to British Columbia for surgery, if negotiations between the two provincial governments are successful.

B.C.'s health minister, Kevin Falcon, said selling surgeries will bring money into B.C.'s system and help British Columbians get care sooner. But New Democratic Party health critic, Adrian Dix, said the plan makes no sense when health authorities are already cancelling surgeries for British Columbians.

...The move comes while health authorities are cutting the number of surgeries they provide, said NDP critic Dix.

The Fraser Health Authority has said it will cut as many as 9,900 surgeries because of budget constraints and the Interior Health Authority has cut 428 orthopaedic surgeries before the end of the fiscal year, he said.

Across the province, there are 15,000 people waiting for orthopaedic surgery, Dix said. The figure is confirmed on the province's waitlist website.

"They cancel 10,000 surgeries for us and they offer up those surgeries to people in Saskatchewan," said Dix. "When you offer up spaces to people from other provinces, then those are spaces that could and should be taken by the people who paid for those hospitals, paid for those operating rooms, paid for that capacity, and that's the people of British Columbia."

Tommy Douglas: Not Dead Enough
smalldeadanimals.com
October 29, 2009

There are 1,100 vaccination clinics open in Alberta today.

Manitoba opened to the general public yesterday. Pharmacists can give the vaccine.

And in Saskatchewan?

Nope. Allowing anyone even a sniff of vaccine outside of the Official Health Care System would be "two-tier" health care. So if you want a vaccination for H1N1, you have another two week wait before the vaccine is "released" to the general public. And in Saskatoon, they're going to have everyone - which will include many who are incubating and infectious - congregate at a single site Prairieland Park) to receive it.

Declining Standards of Canadian Health Care
Canada Updates
October 25, 2009

Mountain-bike enthusiast Suzanne Aucoin had to fight more than her Stage IV colon cancer. Her doctor suggested Erbitux—a proven cancer drug that targets cancer cells exclusively, unlike conventional chemotherapies that more crudely kill all fast-growing cells in the body—and Aucoin went to a clinic to begin treatment.

But if Erbitux offered hope, Aucoin’s insurance didn’t: she received one inscrutable form letter after another, rejecting her claim for reimbursement. Yet another example of the callous hand of managed care, depriving someone of needed medical help, right? Guess again. Erbitux is standard treatment, covered by insurance companies—in the United States. Aucoin lives in Ontario, Canada.

Can there be the slightest doubt that government subsidy brings government control? If you are wavering on that question, you should read what the US government does with car companies, where, unlike health care, it said it does not want to be in the car business.

Politicians Butt In at Bailed-Out GM
The Wall Street Journal
October 30, 2009

Montana Rep. Denny Rehberg was no fan of the $58 billion federal rescue of General Motors Co., saying he worried taxpayer money would be wasted and the restructuring process would be vulnerable to "political pressure." Now the lawmaker says it's his "patriotic duty" to wade into GM's affairs.

...Probably no company has been more on the receiving end of congressional attention than GM, whose widely scattered factories, suppliers and dealership network put it in touch with nearly every U.S. congressional district.

Ask yourself 2 questions.

1. Given how the US government has maneuvered Medicare into bankruptcy, and given how the US government is currently handling the automobile manufacturing business: If you could, would you switch your health care services to Medicare just before $500 million dollars are cut from it?
2. Will Congress accept exactly the same health care entitlements they want to force on us?

If you answered either of those questions "Yes," you need medical attention immediately.

One indication of the level of nanny state control we've been paying our national legislators to develop for most of the year: The 1,990 page bill (H.R. 3962) will require nutritional labels on food dispensed from vending machines. Since you probably cannot see what's printed, in 4 point type, on the package inside that vending machine:

In the case of an article of food sold from a vending machine that—

(I) does not permit a prospective purchaser to examine the Nutrition Facts Panel before purchasing the article or does not otherwise provide visible nutrition information at the point of purchase; and

(II) is operated by a person who is engaged in the business of owning or operating 20 or more vending machines, the vending machine operator shall provide a sign in close proximity to each article of food or the selection button that includes a clear and conspicuous statement disclosing the number of calories ...

This is what Congress thinks of as health care reform. The number of calories for vending machine snacks have to be displayed, so before you select "Deep-fried Twinkies" or "Unsalted Chocolate-covered Bacon/Cheese Sausage/Reject Bits," you'll be able to compare caloric content.

Let me suggest that the only people interested in this information are people who would prefer to starve to death rather than eat from a vending machine. Well, they are also interested in what you eat from a vending machine, but isn't that the whole point? All in all, though, this is small stuff. A half... no, a quarter-measure.

Consider that minor adaptations to vending machines would allow detecting your weight and height. Certain combinations of weight and height could be refused service for certain snacks. If you persist despite a recorded warning, you don't get a snack and you don't get a refund, that's a "trying to game the system" fine.

A blood pressure cuff and blood sugar testing device could be installed in the snack delivery opening, and if you fail to meet a government determined ratio of these numbers you can't pull your arm out until you drop the snack. You don't get a refund, and the snack is donated to People for the Ethical Treatment of People for third world disposal. That's a healthy living tax.

Finally, while we're talking about whether your body is your property, can we at least recognize the threat posed to the pregnancy termination advocacy industry?

It was something that got into your body that caused that medical condition, wasn't it? How it got in there can effect very different outcomes. To ensure choice at the earliest stages, and to avoid the necessity of FCC monitored wireless personal-implant electronic devices, the caloric content of a unit dose of semen alongside a warning of the risks of pregnancy must be tattooed on all male, um... biologic delivery systems.

We can probably persuade condom manufacturers to subsidize the tattooing. It's a natural advertising opportunity for male enhancement.

Pragmatic Pathological Narcissism

The persistent disconnect between President Obama's actions and the interminable rhetoric of his perpetual campaign derives from an unshakeable faith in his own transcendence. This dogmatic self-regard renders him unreflective: His predisposition to regard his intelligence, charisma and rhetorical ability as decisive in human history makes him ready clay for the stylings of David Axelrod, Rahm Immanuel, Jeremiah Wright and Chris Matthews. It even explains his recent overtures to "real journalists" like Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow.

Barack Obama strongly resents any entity that doesn't love him more than he loves himself. "As much as," might keep you off the enemies list, but it won't get you a beer in the Rose Garden unless you're a cop he's strongly suggested is a racist (without any evidence) or a Harvard professor friend who actually displays racist behavior.

The President truly believes he can succeed, by force of personality, in unconditional negotiations with Iran. His own faith in his personal charm allows him to abandon allies in Poland and Checkoslovakia to the mercies of Vladimir Putin.

The President believes supporting a totalitarian dictator wannabe in Honduras is the right policy because it will endear him to his base - and, by extension, to Hugo Chavez. Worse, Obama believes that to be an important duty of a US Commander in Chief.

President Obama is considering foisting upon Afghanistan a ruling partnership - including the Taliban - because he truly believes he has made America more likable to the world; thugs and terrorists not excepted. He believes our Afghan allies won't be shot and hung up to rot for the crime of US alliance. He will simply say "Stop!" and 14th century thinking will be magically transformed into progressive multi-culturalism. Afghanistan will immediately become a place where the education of girls is no longer despised and where gays are no longer thrown off towers. One wonders why he has not already done this.

On foreign soil, the President has serially apologized for America's history. He has insulted the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, dissed the President of France, and made Leftwing American Jews, much less Israelis, wonder if Israel can depend on the United States any longer.

Obama can take all these risks because he is a true believer in himself. He thinks he is much, much more than the leader of the free world.

President Obama and American Exceptionalism
By Robert Heiler

Several pundits have observed that the rhetoric of candidate Barack Obama has differed considerably from the conduct of President Obama's administration.

...Why is Obama acting this way? Why is he failing to live up to the promises of his campaign?

There are two possible reasons: extreme cynicism or breathtaking naiveté. Obama either never intended to behave as he campaigned, or he did intend to. If he never intended to, then he is a cold, calculating manipulator of the political system and the noblest aspirations of the public. But if Obama did intend to transform our politics and is now finding that he is unable to do so, he may be even more dangerous

Because if Obama really bought all of his own hype, then he must have thought that his opposition and the public would forever remain in the thrall exhibited by some at his campaign rallies. This is what the McCain campaign was getting at with the Paris Hilton Celebrity ad and the "cult of personality" attack. And here is the key to understanding why Obama might have really thought that he could sustain his presidency with the power of personality cult: his utter rejection of American exceptionalism.

O's embarrassment
By MICHAEL BARONE

...In the Tiergarten, Obama spoke of "the terrorists who threaten our security in Afghanistan" and of the need "to defeat the Taliban and al Qaeda" there. That doesn't mesh well with his recent reconsideration of the Afghanistan strategy he announced in March and reiterated in August or with the White House spin doctors' suggestion that the Taliban and al Qaeda aren't necessarily allies anymore.

In the Tiergarten, Obama asserted his "resolve to work with Russia when we can, to stand up for our values when we must and to seek a partnership that extends across this whole continent." That doesn't mesh very well with the "reset button" policy toward Russia that looks past its attacks on Georgia and Ukraine and propitiates the Putin regime with unilateral withdrawal of missile-defense installations from Poland and the Czech Republic.

In the Tiergarten, Obama said America must "stand with Europe in sending a direct message to Iran that it must abandon its nuclear ambitions." But that message, if sent, has evidently not had the intended effect on the mullah regime, which is drawing out negotiations while presumably continuing its nuclear program apace.

"Will we stand for the human rights of the dissident in Burma, the blogger in Iran or the voter in Zimbabwe?" Obama asked in the Tiergarten. "Will we give meaning to the words 'never again' in Darfur?"

Well, the administration has toughened up a bit on its negotiator's recommendation that we give "cookies and gold stars" to the Sudanese regime that has terrorized Darfur, and our diplomats have tried to help out in Zimbabwe. But we haven't done much of anything for the dissident in Burma, and Obama, while truckling to the mullahs, showed stony indifference to the thousands protesting the stealing of the June 12 Iran elections.

Mark Steyn: Obama a tough guy, at least with Fox News

The most recent whine – the anti-Fox campaign – is, apart from anything else, unbecoming to the office. President Obama is the chief of state of one of the oldest free societies in the world, but his official White House Web site runs teasers such as: "For even more Fox lies, check out the latest 'Truth-O-Meter.'" It gives off the air of somebody only marginally less paranoid than this week's president-for-life in some basket-case banana republic ranting on the palace balcony because his interior security chief isn't doing a fast-enough job of disappearing his enemies.

Update 28-Oct 6:15PM Legacy defense? The legacy of nine months?

President Barack Obama has been in office just nine months and already he is defending his legacy, pushing back more aggressively against criticism of his record on health care, climate change, closing Guantanamo, reforming immigration laws and financial regulations and managing the war in Afghanistan.

For the past two weeks, as he’s jetted across the country to fill Democrats’ 2010 coffers, Obama has been test driving a new speech that sounds a lot like one he’d be giving if he were on the ballot next year...

Well, at least that Nobel Prize didn't go to his head or anything. That was for his future legacy.

Some health care premiums are more equal than others

Regional inequities in health care reform

In the pending health care bills, low-income individuals and families who buy health insurance outside employment will get large government subsidies. Those subsidies vary by locale. This represents a significant implicit policy decision with enormous distributional and political consequences. I don’t think most Members or their constituents have focused on this. I think they should.

In local, practical terms, this will mean that Lansing taxpayers will subsidize Detroit residents to the tune of nearly $2,000 per family per year. Grand Rapids taxpayers will subsidize Detroit residents to the tune of nearly $4,000 per year and Lansing residents by approximately $2,000 per family per year. (Click the opening link for more. Recommended.)

That's bad enough, but all Michigan taxpayers will be subsidizing health insurance in New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, among other States.

H/T Carpe Diem:

The average annual premium for individual coverage was $2,985, but ranged from a low of $2,606 in Iowa to $6,630 in New York. Family coverage ranges from $5,120 in North Carolina to $13,296 in New York.

Rather than promote competition by promoting a free market; i.e., by removing State borders as a limit to insurance companies offering health care, the Feds are going to redistribute your money into the most expensive health care plans. You can afford it, people in New Jersey need it. John Corzine is smiling.

This redistribution of wealth as health insurance is nothing new, of course, you're already paying for solid platinum Congressional health insurance, whose members are specifically excluding themselves from health care "reform" in the Baucus bill.

Where are the Dollar-a-Year men when you need them?

Who would have guessed that the position of CFO at Freddie Mac carried a salary of $23 million dollars? Nonsense, you say. Ross Kari, the guy they hired last week, is getting only $2.3 million in salary (plus a $2 million signing bonus)?

Well, yes, but Obama's pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg, proposes to cut executive salaries by 90% at firms receiving large government bailouts. Surely this applies to government employees at agencies bailed out to the tune of $51 billion and counting?

I guess good help doesn't come cheap.

Conspiracy of the herbivores

Cows are the only herbivores, aside from a select few Ralph Loren models, to fully grasp their own major existential problem. The "Eat mor chikin" ad campaign is proof enough. The cows (bovine), however, have missed the high concept.

Not to worry, Victoria University professors Brenda and Robert Vale have pointed the way forward. In a study financed by the I am a Black Angus Society,

...and published in New Scientist, they calculated a medium dog eats 164 kilograms of meat and 95kg of cereals every year. It takes 43.3 square metres of land to produce 1kg of chicken a year. This means it takes 0.84 hectares to feed Fido.

They compared this with the footprint of a Toyota Land Cruiser, driven 10,000km a year, which uses 55.1 gigajoules (the energy used to build and fuel it). One hectare of land can produce 135 gigajoules a year, which means the vehicle's eco-footprint is 0.41ha – less than half of the dog's.

RTWT

The fact that the dog consumes oxygen and excretes carbon-dioxide is not apparently included in the "eco-footprint" calculations. It should be. A dog never born does not breathe, does not spew CO2. A dog in the stew pot has ceased breathing. The "don't eat a cow" advertising folks should take note. (Methane emission is another question, of course, but this is being worked on. Ungulants with less eruptive digestive processes are funding it.)

The Professors Vale published a small book entitled Time to Eat the Dog: The real guide to sustainable living which, despite its provocative title, suggests owning animals you can eat according to the folkways of Western Civilization. I have owned many animals you (at least I) can eat in that regard, and I have actually slaughtered and eaten a goodly number of them. I never considered them to be pets, however; I never named them.

As pets, ducks, chickens, sheep and rabbits (food animals with which I have extensive direct experience) are lacking in several ways. Their major deficiency is their inability to act as a pet. Dogs show enthusiasm in your company; cats, disdain. Both recognize you and can sustain a relationship. Ducks, chickens, sheep and rabbits can, at most, muster a distinctly violent Pavlovian response. Sheep, ducks, rabbits or chickens can't be pets in any serious sense of the term. This is why it is easier to eat them than dogs or cats.

Sheep are the least intelligent mammals I am willing to imagine, chickens are slightly dumber. Ducks fall between chickens and sheep, perhaps only because of better survival instincts (at least Muscovys). Domestic rabbits are docile and panic less easily than sheep, so rabbits actually can serve as pets to people who cannot distinguish live animals from polyester-stuffed replicas. However, the major problem with all of these herbivores is getting them house trained. Petdom is not possible without that. You can eat them, but you can't love them. (I categorically include rabbits here because only pre-teenage girls with a polyester fetish have ever taken care of a rabbit, as a pet, once they obtained one.)

Morever, these food animals cannot defend themselves. Dogs automatically protect the sheep, ducks, rabbits or chickens from those pesky coyotes, foxes and weasels. Cats automatically protect the food supply of these herbivores from rats and mice. So, unless you welcome the "defecate anywhere, anytime" animal contingent into your home, you'll need a dog and a cat anyway.

I am not entirely dismissive of the Vales' book title, however. I think raising dogs for food may be appropriate on the merits. In addition to being edible, the dog defends itself and its pack (of which you become a member). The best I've seen a sheep do is bleat piteously and run about blindly in a manner likely to knock you down, placing your throat in a more convenient location for the wolf pack. Should you survive this sabotage all you can do with the sheep, then huddling catatonic against your knees, is try to throw it to the wolves. Sheep are heavy. Even a successful throw does not gain much in the way of running distance.

Rabbits, ducks and chickens are not so heavy. For this reason they can be thrown farther, but they delay ravenous carnivores only briefly. This is yet another argument against dogs weighing less than 25 pounds - unless you keep two breeds - one for throwing to the wolves and one for a holding action against the wolves while you run. Dogs will actually do that for you. It's why I would not like to make a habit of eating them.

Dogs can be trained not to defecate or urinate in the house, and on a really cold night three of them can help keep you warm. I don't know if it is a characteristic of carnivores to be more fastidious, but you can let a dog or cat live in your house. OTOH, no amount of effort will stop a rabbit, a chicken, or a sheep from apparently unconscious defecation or urination. I admit humans have entertained these animals in their houses, but the development of the germ theory of disease has curtailed this activity more than somewhat.

So, raising dogs for food actually does make sense according to the Vales' idiotic study policy sarcasm and displays your own apocalyptic scenario good sense. It's only a prejudice of Western Civilization that you don't eat your friends, after all.

Think about it, while a docile sheep might have saved Jack London's protagonist in To Build a Fire, he had no possible reason for traveling with Ovis aries in the first place.

Your tax dollars at work - against you

Here is a heartfelt plea from your federal government to itself. The government asks you, the employer, to assist in the internal petitioning. It's as if the employees don't recognize their status and cannot recognize they should avoid blatant political messages. Inmates. Asylum.

Dear Mr. President,

We strongly support your commitment to comprehensive health reform.

This is not a luxury. The continuing, sharp escalation of health care costs for families, businesses, and government is unsustainable. Reform is imperative.

We believe that health reform must be enacted this year.

Reform is needed to help America's families struggling with rising costs and those who are losing their insurance. At the same time, real health reform is crucial to keeping American businesses competitive in the world economy and for the country's long-term economic viability. As our country faces economic challenges, the time for reform is now.

We support health reform that follows these principles:

• Protect families' financial health
• Assure affordable, quality health coverage for all Americans
• Provide portability of coverage
• Guarantee choice of doctors
• Invest in prevention and wellness
• Improve patient safety and quality of care
• End barriers to coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions
• Reduce long-term growth of health costs for businesses and government

During these extraordinarily challenging times, we need to put aside past differences and address the health and economic crisis. Our shared interest must come before narrow interests so we can achieve a health system that is affordable and provides high quality for all Americans. We will support your budget with its reserve fund dedicated to achieving health care reform in a fiscally responsible manner. Each of us must be prepared to contribute to achieving this fundamental goal.

By signing this statement we affirm our commitment to work with you and our Congressional leaders to enact legislation this year which provides affordable, high quality coverage for all Americans.

Where did this come from?
"This is an official U.S. Government Web site managed by the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services".

I think I will not sign the petition, even though they are keeping it on the up-and-up in the tradition of the Obama campaign's online credit card verification and ACORN voter registration practices: Please check this box to indicate that you are at least 13 years of age. Unfortunately we cannot accept submissions from children under the age of 13.

Mickey Mouse and the Dallas Cowboys starting lineup are all over 13. So is John Galt, whose identity I used.

Obamaganda, Mmm, mmm, blecch!

Fuggidabahdit Glenn.
Anita Dunn update:
White House boasts: We 'control' news media

Servitude is encouraged by bribery at the moment, so they'll already know your price.
Involuntary servitude update:
LEAKED NETWORK MEMO REVEALS: Obama Controls Your Television Set

All is not lost, even if Europe is.
Nobel Prize - domestic analysis update:
Unlike Obama, Americans Reject European Model

Jared Bernstein

Joe Biden has a chief economist? There's an oxymoron in there somewhere, and/or it explains quite a bit.

And how do you get that job, anyway?

Politicians and the consequences of lying

From The Belmont Club, The Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.

Robert Reich has been widely quoted in the news and blogs lately, citing a 2007 speech he delivered at UC Berkeley in which he is supposed to have said of health care reform that:

• Younger people should pay more
• Healthier people should pay more
• Older people should just die- they’re “too expensive”
• There should be “less innovation” in medical technology
• You should not expect to live longer than your parents.

That is largely going to be interpreted as the “hidden truth” that the MSM doesn’t want you to know and to a certain extent it is, but not in the way the casual reader may understand it. Robert Reich was once my teacher and I knew there had to be more to it than that, and so I went to the source: ...

RTWT You'll need to to appreciate the following.

The post suggests that what Reich was saying was "telling the truth is electoral suicide." I think this is demonstrably naive. The idea that telling the truth is electorally irrelevant seems a lot closer to reality.

Put it this way, Barack Obama told us the truth over and over again and it was much clearer and starker than a thousand page cap-and-tax bill; "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted." Other truths he told us: "The Supreme Court, tragically, never spoke on redistribution." or, "Judge me by the people who surround me." or, "What I really favor is a single-payer health care system."

Even now, when he says, "If you want to keep your health care plan, you can," it's true. The unspoken implication that makes that so is, "It's just that it will bankrupt you or your employer."

On the evidence, I'm afraid politicians telling the truth actually doesn't matter much. Most American voters don't listen.

Anecdotes

The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has spoken with some Canadians about wait times for health care. This is anecdotal, of course, and you could certainly find stories in the United States that would tear at your heart. For example, Michelle and Barack Obama both tell an intensely personal health scare story involving meningitis and their daughter, Sasha. In fact, they tell two substantially different stories. Both are anecdotal. One can't be true.

Often, as any normal politicians would, the Obamas arrange for people to show up at their pressers in order to illustrate particularly poignant failures of the health care system in the United States. Several of these have turned out to be on the order of Al Gore's claim that his mother and his dog took the same arthritis medicine, and his mother was being ripped off. This was not the truth, but Gore said it was for a good cause.

Anecdotes from ordinary people do have their place, though, especially when not promoted and financed by government. Among many other Canadian health care related posts, I have conveyed my own anecdotes, having had 22 years experience with Canada's system. TOC has also had Canadian guest posts on the topic. This blog is interested.

So when Michigan Taxes Too Much posts Mackinac Center videos of Canadians speaking about their health care, I recommend a look-see. Click the link, but also click the link to the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, in the blogroll or at the top of this post. They deserve your attention and support.

The reluctant hegemon

An important piece by Charles Krauthammer:
Decline Is a Choice

Insightful comment on the above:
Paul Rahe: Obama's agenda

Western Civilization, by-and-large this means Judeo-Christian tradition and mores, is beating itself into moral equivalency with all other socio-political-philosophic systems - real or imagined. We've already lost Europe. Thus, when American exceptionalism is finally not simply abandoned, but abhorred by its leaders, it is the philosophical abandonment of exceptionalism for Homo Sapiens. It is We the Living and Animal Farm.

Two related items noted without further comment or emphasis:

1- From the Announcement by the Norwegian Nobel Committee; The Nobel Peace Prize for 2009:

Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future. His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

2- Barack Obama adviser says Sharia Law is misunderstood

Miss [Dahlia] Mogahed, [President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs] appointed to the President's Council on Faith-Based and Neighbourhood Partnerships, said the Western view of Sharia was "oversimplified" and the majority of women around the world associate it with "gender justice".

The White House adviser made the remarks on a London-based TV discussion programme hosted by Ibtihal Bsis, a member of the extremist Hizb ut Tahrir party.

The group believes in the non-violent destruction of Western democracy and the creation of an Islamic state under Sharia Law across the world.

Miss Mogahed appeared alongside Hizb ut Tahrir's national women's officer, Nazreen Nawaz.

The Cato Institute on Baucuscare

In the last post I noted that Megan McCardle was having difficulty making sense of the CBO estimates of Baucuscare. Cato points out that that is because the numbers don't make sense.

The Real Cost of the Baucus Bill: $2 Trillion+

The CBO scoring makes it clear that the Baucus bill's reduction in future budget deficits comes not from controlling government spending or reducing health care costs, but because of a rapid escalation in tax revenues

...its individual mandate pushes more than half of the legislation's cost off-budget, and onto businesses and individuals who will have to shoulder that burden.

Read the whole thing.

CBO analysis of the Baucuscare Bill; which doesn't yet actually exist as, you know, legislation

Megan McCardle is confused.

...Going by the fairly sketchy description, virtually all of the extra benefit appears to come from estimating that employers will see their health care costs fall, mostly because they put those workers into federally subsidized programs, pass the resulting savings along to their workers in the form of higher wages and salaries, and that the Treasury will thereby gain, at a rough guess, about $12-15 billion a year in tax revenues.

This is somewhat confusing to me. The CBO seems to be assuming it will get just about 20% of the amount spent on subsidies back in the form of tax revenues. But the effective income tax rate on the quintiles covered by the subsidies, according to the CBO, is less than 5%. Perhaps the savings comes from the payroll tax, but even including the payroll tax, it's less than 15%. And the tax rates are directly proportional to the size of the income, while the subsidies are inversely proportional. I'm sure I'm missing something that would make the math work, but I can't figure out what.

Well, who could? I mean, why would the evil corporations, including insurance companies and Big Pharma, suddenly decide to pass payroll savings on to their employees, especially if there's a new tax targeting them and the medical device suppliers? And if the Feds are only going to get back (a grossly exaggerated) 20% of what they spend, how is that an efficient use of tax dollars? Further, if this were successful, doesn't it increase the demand for health care expenditures while simultaneously raising the cost?

RTWT including the comments.

Torture

If TOC did quotes of the day, this would be today's:

As a very off-the-subject side note, the Atlantic cover story on torture contains this sentence, intended as part of its condemnation of U.S. interrogation techniques: "But 48 days and nights with no more than four hours' sleep every 24, combined with stress positions, hypothermia, and forced nudity, push these nuances over a line any decent person would acknowledge." Aside from the hypothermia, this is a precise description of the two-month period during which I gave birth to twins.

- Amy Ridenour at National Center Blog. RTWT

Could this be an explanation for why some women tell their husbands what they really think while giving birth?

Are you being served?

AMA Endorses Largest Denier of Health Care Claims

Report: Lansing may be 'overserved'

What do these two stories have in common? They're both about Medicare.


So is this update. 6:46PM 6-Oct
H/T JR

You Vill be Served!

EDITORIAL: POMS de terror

...The Social Security Administration has issued rules in its Program Operations Manual System (POMS) that state that "the only way to avoid" the hospital and outpatient services provided by Medicare Part A is also to forgo Social Security benefits that have been earned through a lifetime of payroll taxes.

What sort of insanity is it that the Social Security Administration will not allow you to opt out of Medicare without also giving up your Social Security benefits? The savings aren't big enough? They don't want to contribute to medical unemployment rates? They're arbitrary bureaucrats with an obscure agenda? To handle this their computer system will require a billion dollar upgrade? They are just not efficient, marketwise?

Maybe this is the waste and fraud our President has been railing about.

It reminds me of an old French saying: Pommes de la route.

The missing part is why the SSA won't let you forgo your Medicare benefits on their own. The Wall Street Journal mentions it here: Opting Out of Medicare, but without enlightenment.

The only thing I have found that is close to an explanation of this bureaucratic fiat is here (registration required):

Lawsuit Challenging Government Policy
Brings Renewed Focus on Private Contracting With Medicare Beneficiaries

A recent lawsuit filed by three Medicare-eligible individuals on October 9 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has brought renewed attention to private contracting with Medicare beneficiaries... If the plaintiffs are successful in this case, physicians, hospitals, and other providers may face potentially fewer obstacles and disincentives to entering into lucrative private contracts to treat Medicare beneficiaries.

Why private contracts should be more lucrative is not made clear, but I'm of the opinion it's because the health care is better.

This bureaucratic manipulation is a preview of Obamacare, where you also won't be able to opt out.

Tree Ringers

Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
-Matthew 13:10

If you ask a scientist for the data upon which he bases his theory and you are told, "You are not meant to know the mysteries," someone is not practicing science. Some anthropogenic climate change acolytes practice science with all the rigor of Fleischmann and Pons. Fleischmann and Pons did better though, they released their data almost immediately.

Flawed climate data

The Yamal implosion

The credibility of the Hockey Stick graph seems to depend on hiding the data. This does serious damage to the theory and to the scientists. One would think scientists considered reputation to be more important than theory. Oh, wait, they do.


Bad link fixed. 12:00PM 6-Oct

Victiming the blame

Thirty years ago Roman Polanski was a 43-year-old movie director in Hollywood. He drugged and then raped - vaginally and rectally - a 13-year-old girl. He plea bargained into lesser charges, but fled the country before he could be sentenced. In a 1979 interview, Mr. Polanski defended himself thusly

“If I had killed somebody, it wouldn't have had so much appeal to the press, you see? But … f—ing, you see, and the young girls. Judges want to f— young girls. Juries want to f— young girls. Everyone wants to f— young girls!”

Not so much, thanks. I'd rather see Mr. Polanski f__ed. And maybe he finally will be. He has just been arrested in Switzerland, and is now awaiting extradition to the United States.

His arrest at a film festival, where free speech is greatly admired as long as it does not involve cartoons of Mohammed, praise of capitalism or speculation that George Bush was not the progeny of a Mengele experiment involving Hitler and a chimpanzee, has upset well over 100 Hollywood "movers and shakers." We know this because they have signed a petition protesting his arrest.

Among these tinseltown ethicists are Woody Allen, who married his own adopted daughter, the quintuply married director Martin Scorsese, and producer Harvey Weinstein, described by LA Weekly as "one of the most successful yet psycho movie producers of modern times."

More surprising perhaps, are the feminist women rallying to support Polanski's patriarchal right not to be inconvenienced by the criminal sexual exploitation of a minor who, by the way, possessed two X chromosomes.

Debra Winger complains "the whole art world suffers" in such arrests. Millionaire film maker, unrestricted abortion advocate, and founder of the Feminist Majority Foundation, Peg Yorkin, says,

"My personal thoughts are let the guy go. It's bad a person was raped. But that was so many years ago. The guy has been through so much in his life. It's crazy to arrest him now. Let it go. The government could spend its money on other things."

"It's bad a person was raped." Indeed. And even worse than person, Polanski's victim was a 13-year-old female who is apparently ineligible to be a member, or a concern, of the Feminist Majority Foundation - insofar as she didn't need any government funds for an abortion.

Then there is Whoopi Goldberg, who explained that Polanski hadn't really committed the crime he was charged with. The LA Police and the most of the rest of us have been calling it rape all these years, but Goldberg apparently knows it as "rape-rape." Real rape, I guess she means. Mere rape is nothing that justifies arresting him while he's attending a sacred film festival.

"Whoopi Goldberg has said that Roman Polanski was not guilty of "rape-rape" following his arrest in Switzerland over his conviction for unlawful sex with a minor.

In 1977, Polanski was charged with rape by use of drugs, perversion, sodomy, lewd and lascivious act upon a child under 14 and furnishing a controlled substance to a minor.

These charges were dropped as part of a plea bargain that saw the director admit to the lesser charge of unlawful sex with a minor, while he later fled the US on the eve of sentencing.

Of Polanski's crime, Goldberg told The View: "I know it wasn't rape-rape. It was something else but I don't believe it was rape-rape.

"He went to jail and when they let him out he was like, 'You know what, this guy's going to give me a hundred years in jail. I'm not staying'. So that's why he left."

She added: "We're a different kind of society, we see things differently. Would I want my 14-year-old having sex with somebody? Not necessarily, no.""

"[H]aving sex?" "Not necessarily?" "Different kind of society?"

Whoopi, you provoke this question; "Under what conditions is the rape, which you call having sex, of your 14-year-old child considered necessary?" I don't need an answer, it just does prove you live in some different place.

It sounds like these moguls and celebs are taking their direction from ACORN, an organization that considers 13-year-olds "assets" on the "sex-slave" balance-sheet.

If you acknowledge the fact that by watching the movies made by this cadre you are financing a moral cesspool, then you are culpable if you do not boycott everything they touch.

They are entitled to express their opinions, and the rest of us are entitled to react. So while we're mocking celebrities, here's a mocking critique of another aspect of Hollywood's moral preening. Same group of people, similar message: "We are advanced thinkers and your moral superiors. So we made this commercial."

In which I agree with Babs

Streisand Admits At Historic Show: “Singing ‘People’ Is Boring”

Only on a "need to know" basis

The Democrats in the Senate of the United States have rejected an amendment requiring their health care legislation be put online a minimum of 72 hours prior to any Senate vote. The Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee has said that doing so is not an option because it would take Senate staffers 2 weeks to get the bill posted to the Web.

In addition to the obvious question of why a 2 week delay is such a big deal when contemplating turning 1/6 of our economy into a government program, one might ask why it should take so long for such a simple activity. There seem to be only 2 possibilities: 1) Senate staff are not competent to copy and paste the bill onto the Internet, or 2) to get the bill ready to be posted would take 2 weeks.

The latter, and more likely, explanation implies that much of it exists only as disjointed, hand-written, perhaps marginal notes and has yet to be "typed up." That is, it simply isn't available for anyone to read as a coherent whole. And it won't be for at least 2 weeks. If the vote is taken as scheduled, not only will no Senator have read it before they vote on it, no Senator could have read it because they can't possibly get a 72 hour advance on the actual content either.

Unless you count ignorance as representation you are being taxed without it, representation that is. You're certainly about to be taxed in ignorance.

You are responsible

My first exposure to Demure Thoughts came today, thanks to Day by Day.

It's worth the visit just for this,

...the practice of trying to separate a man from his actions is what has gotten this country into the s**t hole it is [in] today.

...A man is defined by his actions or lack there of. [sic] There is no separating the act from the person who commits it. That is like saying the act is a living breathing thinking entity that has the ability to stand on its own. It is f**king stupid. It is also the foundation of everything liberal in this f**king country.

...but RTWT, it starts with a comment or two on Bill Clinton: TDFU: Sunday Stupidity

The idea of "hate the sin, not the sinner" had value when most people could still feel shame. We don't generally have that ability anymore. Without that, the act is easily separated from the actor. Intrinsic values become external, disconnected, free of moral weight. Whether you should feel shame comes down to what the meaning of "is" is.

If you think what you do has nothing to do with who you are, you are probably a result of government school self-esteem training. Teaching the act as the focus is teaching getting away with it as the justification.

We're sorry.

Michigan Democrats propose health care tax surcharge

You can't imagine this stuff, much less make it up.

On the eve of a government shutdown, Michigan Democrats are proposing a 4% tax on health care - not on Doctors, not on insurance companies - on your cost of health care. Oh, and those people Barack Obama is complaining about who are a burden on the system because they don't buy health insurance even though they could? And those people who truly can't afford health care but receive it anyway? Add their 4% to your taxes, too. And have a plan for finding a new Doctor when yours moves out of state.

GOP blasts Democrats' proposed health care tax surcharge
Tax on doctors will make medical treatment more expensive, push deficit on backs of patients, health care

House Republicans today blasted a proposal by Democrat lawmakers to tax health care in order to help balance the state budget.

House Bill 5386, which is currently in the tax policy committee, levies a 4 percent tax on physicians' gross receipts. Democrat House Speaker Andy Dillon was quoted in a recent news article saying the state would be crazy not to do it.

"It is astounding to me that right now when we are in the middle of a national discussion about lowering the high cost of health care, Michigan Democrats are actually pushing for a new tax on doctors that will make medical treatment more expensive," said House Republican Leader Kevin Elsenheimer, of Kewadin. "Doctors are going to have to pass these costs onto their patients, making the cost of health care go up."

If approved, the tax would raise health care costs in Michigan by nearly half a billion dollars annually.

"House Republicans proposed a plan to balance the budget without raising taxes months ago - and our plan didn't reduce Medicaid reimbursements by any more than what the governor recommended," said state Rep. Matt Lori, of Constantine. "There is absolutely no way we are going to support the Democrat plan to tax health care just because lawmakers waited until the last minute and now are under the gun to finish the budget by Oct. 1."

Elsenheimer also said he was concerned the plan could negatively affect Michigan's growing health care industry:

"Two years ago lawmakers rammed the poorly thought out business tax surcharge through the Legislature at the 11th hour, and we've only seen unemployment go up since. Now we're about to repeat that mistake by adding a new tax surcharge on health care. It makes me wonder, who's next? Who's left to tax?"

Elsenheimer also noted that the Speaker has recently indicated that House Democrats will vote Tuesday on raising taxes.

#####

____________________________
Phyllis Browne
Communications Manager
Michigan House of Representatives
(517) 373-1690 office
(269) 806-4936 cell

The question that comes to my mind is what's the real objective? What do they want in exchange for dropping this? Some other tax that won't get them thrown out of office, I'm sure.

Let them pass it. Write down their names.

The View from Dromore

Recently, I was visited by an old friend from Dromore, Ontario, Canada. During his visit I had occasion to see my doctor because of an infection on my left ankle that was not responding to home treatment. Because it resulted from a quite minor scrape, I expected it to heal in a few days. A month later it was getting worse, so I called my Doc around 11AM Wednesday and was given an appointment at 10AM Thursday. I had a followup a week later, and he was quite pleased with the progress of the treatment (antibiotics and hydrogen peroxide soaks).

Following is the impression this made on my visitor:

Duane,

During my recent visit to Michigan, I was totally shocked by your ability to get a doctor’s appointment on short notice. If the American health care system is “broken”, I didn’t see it. It may be expensive, but it would appear to work the way most people would want it to work. It doesn’t matter what your problem was (not immediately life-threatening – apparently easily resolvable with antibiotics), what struck me was the speed with which you got a doctor’s appointment. I think you said you called on Wednesday and had an appointment on Thursday – unheard of in Canada in my experience. You also lost very little time from work. The appointment was at 10:00 and you were probably back at your desk by 10:30. It would appear that when you make an appointment for 10:00, the doctor actually sees you at 10:00. Interesting concept.

It made me reflect upon what would have happened to me in a similar situation under the Canadian government-run single-payer system.

First off, I have a “family” doctor and have had for over 30 years. That immediately puts me in a rather unique position. Neither he, nor any of the other doctors in my area are accepting new patients unless a current patient dies or moves away – the wait-list is years long. My doctor, who used to have his own office, is now part of a government-mandated Local Healthcare Integrated Network (LHIN) – i.e. a clinic, composed of local docs and supported by a number of nurses and nurse practitioners (a relatively new breed - registered nurses who have taken additional training and are allowed to do certain things normally done only by doctors) as well as a common administrative staff.

So, let us assume that I had a relatively minor problem similar to yours. What would my options be under the Canadian system?

There are four: 1) Ignore the problem, cross your fingers and hope it goes away on its own – an option I have taken in many cases; 2) Ask for an appointment with “my” doctor – and be prepared to wait a couple of months (not that dissimilar to option 1); 3) Ask for an appointment with any doctor at the clinic and be prepared to wait for a couple of weeks; and 4) Go to the emergency at the local hospital and bring a copy of Tolstoy’s War and Peace with you as you are likely to be able to get most of the way through it while you sit in the crowded waiting room for several hours.

At the emergency, there is a one-in-six (we have six local docs) chance that I will actually see my own doctor because they are mandated to supply emergency room service on a rotating basis (I am in a rural area – this may not be true in an urban area).

In defense of the system, the common administrative staff and records at the clinic means that any doctor has complete access to my medical history. How much time they may have to review that information before seeing me is open to question. Nonetheless, it seems mildly efficient.

Also in defense of the system, if I was exhibiting symptoms of a truly serious nature (arriving at the emergency carrying a severed limb, bleeding from the ears, chest pains, etc.), I would move to the express line and would probably be seen fairly quickly.

The vagaries of our Canadian system means that I normally take option 1 (ignore the problem) or option 4 (go to the emergency). Options 2 and 3 are not really viable options.

Having said all that, no matter what my situation may be, I only need to present a health card, not a credit card. It’s “free” in the sense that I’ve already paid for it through my taxes. I will never be bankrupted or even majorly affected in financial terms by my health situation.

Again, I was impressed by your ability to get quick medical attention from your own doctor. If Americans want to experience my situation, go ahead, but I’m not sure you’ll be all that happy with the resulting process.

Rationing of services and extended wait-times are the real prices you will pay for a government-run system. Cheaper? – probably (although I question the government’s (either yours or mine) ability to run anything either efficiently or effectively). Better? - you decide.

As to the expense, it was paid for by insurance and, having given my insurance particulars many years ago, I did not need to present any card. This does not mean that I like the idea of employer-based health care, or that I had not been paying (tax exempt) premiums. Still, the visit was simple and easy, including scheduling the followup appointment.

Finally, it turns out that options 1 through 3, above, would have been pretty bad choices. The Doc explained that if the infection spread to my Achilles tendon I would have been in for significant difficulty and the insurance company in for significantly greater expense.

State of War in the Americas?

David Ridenour makes a good point:

A State of War Exists in the Americas

I think Brazil would not have dared this provocation absent the protection of the US Secretary of State and the encouragement of the President of the United States.

Call it a foreign policy success, then. Obama does.

It isn't funny in Zimbabwe anymore

To:
President Obama,
Treasury Secretary Geithner,
Congressman Frank and his staff,
All members of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and
All the Republicans who set the ball rolling,

Please review the simple graphic above. Contemplate the subdued pastels. Revel in the serene understatement in the text of the value. Appreciate the pastoral simplicity. Absorb the artist's graceful vision. It's as if Zimbabwe had a program like our own National Endowment for the Arts. The very money is propaganda.

Artistic praise aside, I doubt you could have made an honest living as a counterfeiter in Zimbabwe. The government must have been selling the old plates as fast as they could get new ones engraved, just for the revenue, and the bill conveys the wrong message. If I had designed it, it would been a bit more authoritative and colorful,

"ONE HUNDRED
TRILLION
DOLLARS.
SO THERE Sucka!"

Notice that rock in the middle of the stack? It's between a rock and... well, another rock.

And who features a pile of rocks on the face of a $100,000,000,000,000 reserve note, anyway? Maybe a government presiding over an economy where it would be insulting to put some historical hero's face on the note.

Can you count the zeros? There are 14. Coincidentally, 14 is close enough for government work to the deficit you are creating - if multiplied by a trillion.

You probably can't read the signature of one Dr. G. Gond, who promises to pay the bearer One Hundred Trillion Dollars on demand, but perhaps you can imagine your own name in that space. Does that make you wonder what Dr. Gond is doing these days? Does it give you any slightest qualm? Can we just keep printing money if you have to sign it?

But, no worries, as long as he can still wield a pen, we could give that job to Jimmy Carter. It won't bother Jimmy, so you can avoid the embarrassment while continuing to temporize that you inherited the problem. I'm sure Dr. Gond felt that way.

The Zimbabwe dollar, for reasons that are apparently confusing to you, was suspended indefinitely in April 2009. That is, in Zimbabwe today other countries' currencies are used for all transactions. Zimbabwe has no monetary system of its own.

The parallel development you might grasp would be the burgeoning international interest in replacing the US Dollar as the world's reserve currency.

I know President Bush left you some problems, I complained about his policies at the time he was setting you up, but please note, it is now your problem. Stop whining, and instead give some serious consideration to the number of Government of Zimbabwe Treasury Notes China owns.

Devaluing our currency is one way to pay off the debt you're accumulating, but that would in fact be a monstrous tax on every American who saved for their retirement, for a new home, for a new car or for medical expenses. It is a deathly blow to those capitalists who would invest in the creation of new businesses, which means (would have meant) new jobs. Inflation is a stealth punishment for the industriousness, thrift and probity you all claim to admire.

Stop it!

Sincerely,
Your employer

cc:
Angela Merkel
Gordon Brown

Berna Lewis is Shocked...

Shocked!

"Outraged" by the behavior of her employees, ACORN CEO Bertha Lewis said, “all of our employees, if they’re too stupid to understand that they’re not reaching professional standards, we terminate them.”

One might wonder, given ACORN's history of trying to avoid paying even the minimum wage to its employees, whether inadequate training expenditures combined with exemplary executive thievery were more to blame than staff stupidity. One should wonder how management could hire so many stupid employees, from New York City to San Diego, and then blame the employees for stupidity. One is compelled to wonder what Ms Lewis means by "professional standards." Does that simply mean "the ability to get away with it?"

The question arises because this "fired if they're too stupid to reach professional standards" criterion was not applied to Dale Rathke, brother of ACORN founder Wayne Rathke. Dale embezzled a million dollars from ACORN, and Wayne covered it up for 8 years. When the board was informed, some directors demanded a comprehensive investigation. They were fired. They have their own website, ACORN 8, founded to help bring some accountability to ACORN.

Ms Lewis promised that ACORN would announce the identity of a "independent investigator" today. This has not worked well in the past, so perhaps she can tell him or her to start here (RTWT):

The Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN) has repeatedly and deliberately engaged in systemic fraud. Both structurally and operationally, ACORN hides behind a paper wall of nonprofit corporate protections to conceal a criminal conspiracy on the part of its directors, to launder federal money in order to pursue a partisan political agenda and to manipulate the American electorate.

Emerging accounts of widespread deceit and corruption raise the need for a criminal investigation of ACORN. By intentionally blurring the legal distinctions between 361 tax-exempt and non-exempt entities, ACORN diverts taxpayer and tax-exempt monies into partisan political activities. Since 1994, more than $53 million in federal funds have been pumped into ACORN, and under the Obama administration, ACORN stands to receive a whopping $8.5 billion in available stimulus funds.

Operationally, ACORN is a shell game played in 120 cities, 43 states and the District of Columbia through a complex structure designed to conceal illegal activities, to use taxpayer and tax-exempt dollars for partisan political purposes, and to distract investigators. Structurally, ACORN is a chess game in which senior management is shielded from accountability by multiple layers of volunteers and compensated employees who serve as pawns to take the fall for every bad act.

The report that follows presents evidence obtained from former ACORN insiders that completes the picture of a criminal enterprise.

...First, ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self dealing, and aided and abetted a cover-up of embezzlement by Dale Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.

...Second, ACORN has committed investment fraud, deprived the public of its right to honest services, and engaged in a racketeering enterprise affecting interstate commerce.

...Third, ACORN has committed a conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.

...Fourth, ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Department of Labor, in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

...Fifth, ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).

Reading that paper would give an independent investigator a leg up in figuring out why 5 ACORN offices felt that they were not only qualified, but that it was their duty, to give advice on the specific lies necessary to get Federal funds for the purchase of a house where 13 year old illegal aliens would be used as sex slaves - and to avoid taxes on the proceeds.

The leadership is outraged at the staffers? Why aren't they handing out bonuses?

Racism loses its meaning

The left has been throwing the "racist" epithet about so much lately that it, the epithet, has lost most of its impact. At the present rate, I predict the word will be semiotically empty by Thanksgiving.

The racial ambulance-chasers have rapidly and impetuously rebranded "racism" as "one who opposes Obama." I don't think they quite meant to, because it implies a significant number of liberals progressives who ostensibly support Obama are, in fact, racists.

Many, many people people at Daily Kos, Huffington Post, firedoglake and MoveOn.org, etc. have regularly and roundly condemned Obama for being insufficiently progressive. His actions have been called a betrayal, and worse. When criticizing the President has become ipso facto, racist, all those president-criticizing progressives are, ipso facto, racists.

The words "petard" and "hoist" come to mind, because this attack on the meaning of racism brings up a problem not unlike the one that caused liberals to rebrand themselves as progressives. When all the impact has been sucked out of "you're a racist," what phrase will replace it? Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Jeremiah Wright and the inquiring minds of the Congressional Black Caucus* want to know.

Bigot? No, you can be a bigot without caring about a person's genetic code. Prejudiced? Ditto. Biased, illiberal, intolerant? Weak sisters. Chauvinist, xenophobic? The white feminists already trademarked the former, and the latter is just prejudice against people who are foreign, even if they are of your own race.

So I put it to you as a problem worthy of some thought, what word will replace "racist?" Its loss is a significant problem for the language.


*James Taranto notes that

...fewer than 1 in 4 Black Caucus members voted to stop spending taxpayers' money on an organization [ACORN] that has been caught on video at least five times offering advice on how to practice slavery.

Insufficently COI

COI is another acronym for ACORN.

The fact that ACORN employees in Baltimore MD, Washington DC, Brooklyn NY and San Bernardino, CA all gave the same advice to a couple looking for a housing loan is not surprising and is certainly evidence of organizational practice and preference.

If the New York Times is your news source, or if you watch any of the TV networks for news, you would not know the couple were openly posing as pimp and madam looking for a loan to open a brothel, using underage illegal immigrants and to avoid taxes on the proceeds. In all 4 cities ACORN reps gave essentially the same advice: Lie on the loan application, lie about the nature of your business, lie to the IRS, and avoid certain behaviors likely to attract the attention of immigration authorities or vice squads looking for sex slave operations. Not one ACORN rep questioned the morality of the business plan, or even demurred on the concept.

In light of these revelations ACORN has taken several actions. First, they fired the employees who were exposed. This is consistent with the "ACORN defense," established in the dozen or so cases where they are charged with voter registration fraud: "It was individual employees, not the organization." This is SOP.

Second, they accused the people who did the filming and anyone who reported it of "smearing" ACORN. The "vast right-wing conspiracy," don't you know, tends to be racist. This is a standard ACORN response.

Third, ACORN says workers conduct 'indefensible'
Suspends, plans audit, in wake of videos

ACORN, calling the actions of some of its employees "indefensible," has suspended advising new clients as part of its service programs and is setting up an independent review to see what happened.

ACORN chief executive Bertha Lewis said in a written statement that she was "ordering a halt to any new intakes into ACORN's service programs until completion of an independent review."

The actions were taken, she said, "as a result of indefensible action of a handful of our employees."

Videos of ACORN workers giving tax advice to people posing as prostitutes and other revelations have led to growing criticism of the organization in recent days.

Now, I think I'd suspend operations, too. But it would not be because I thought any reasonable observer (even the Senate has voted 83-7 to withhold funding from ACORN) would think an "independent investigation" would change organizational practices extending from New York to California, or even identify organizational practices as a problem. If that were the result of such an investigation, the "ACORN defense" disappears.

No, I would do it because I wouldn't want any more of my employees caught on tape telling people how to obtain funding for a prostitution ring using underage illegal immigrants, avoid the law and cheat on taxes - or dispensing extra-credit advice about how to murder a husband and get away with it.