Never Will We Ever, Ever, Ever Learn

According to CNN, a lot of those weapons that we ended up giving to the "rebels" in Libya, THEY'RE MISSING. And we aren't exactly talking bb guns and pea shooters here, either. Nope, we're talking to surface to air missiles and some of them may have even ended up with Hamas. Look, I understand that fellows like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich are thoroughly considered cranks and all (even within their own parties at times) but on this one I basically have to agree with 'em. Discretion WOULD have been the better part of valor.

Georgia Tech to the Big Ten?

Alright, I'm done. I'm out.

Miscellaneous 149

1) One piece of evidence that's often given to bolster the claim that WW2 got us out of the Depression (and, yes, this is a topic that I've written on before - http://paranoiacstoogetalk.blogspot.com/2011/04/conventional-thinking-possibly-wrong.html) is the seemingly burgeoning rate of GDP that climbed throughout that conflict. Of course, what these Keynesians fail to point out is that approximately 40% of that increase was government spending and that a significant portion of THAT was military spending. A much more careful analysis of the data reveals that consumer spending actually went DOWN during the war years (guns clearly superseding butter) and that, if it wasn't for the war, GDP would have actually gone down with unemployment remaining high (conscription and the making of weaponry were solely responsible for the decreased unemployment rate). This whole notion that war and other calamities (Pelosi actually said that the earthquake in Haiti might ultimately be beneficial - she obviously never read Bastiat's "The Broken Window Fallacy") having a positive effect on the economy are every bit as ludicrous as they are sick.............2) Allowing the Bush tax-cuts to lapse on people making over $200,000 a year and on families making over $250,000 a year would ultimately net the treasury $70 billion a year (assuming that there isn't a negative effect on the economy for doing so). Mr. Obama's latest proposal claims to raise more than double that; approximately $160 billion a year. I guess what my question is is, where, pray tell, does the other 90 billion come from? Is he strictly going to hit the wealthy again by closing some loopholes, or is he going to get it by hitting the middle-class somehow? I also kind of want to know why he went from advocating a 4:1 ratio of spending cuts to revenues to what is essentially a 1:4 ratio. I mean, is it simply the fact that he won the damned election?............3) Reflecting later on her 1972 trip to communist China, actress Shirley MacLaine referred to the country as "serene"....Hm, must have gotten the guided tour.

Note to Sean Hannity 3

Stop lying, numb-nuts. The "mainstream media" IS covering Benghazi. Eli Lake of Newsweek/The Daily Beast broke the story, the Associated Press served up a story that literally crippled the administration, and CNN in the form of Anderson Cooper and Erin Burnett is covering it NIGHTLY. Yes, there are some outlets that have taken it easy on Obama but you really gotta stop it with this group condemnation stuff. It just makes you look dumb(er).

On Krugman's Idiotic Assertion that the Right Only Acknowledges Financial Crises SINCE the FED

Murray Rothbard actually wrote a book entitled, "THE PANIC OF 1819"!!!!!

On Greed

It's a social constant. The only thing that alters (usually for the worse) it are governmental policies.

On Bill O'Reilly's "War on Christmas" Segments

I would rather watch Gomer and Gilligan while getting kicked in the head by a rabid moose....with a huge hangover (me AND the moose).

Three Ann Coulter Whoppers (Circa Several Months Prior to the Election)

1) "Obama's never faced a real opponent." No, Mr.s Keyes and McCain (the idiot Keyes, especially) weren't exactly formidable but beating Hillary in the Democratic primary wasn't exactly chopped-liver.............2) "He's (Obama) the most left-wing President ever." This one is especially off the charts. Hoover, FDR, LBJ, and Nixon (yes, Nixon was a hard-core operational liberal who not only didn't dismantle the Great Society but in many ways extended it) were all more interventionist than Obama and even a lot of the things that Obama has done and/or proposed were originally Republican ideas (the individual mandate, cap and trade, etc.). Absolute BS on this one.............3) He's (Romney) only flip-flopped on one issue; abortion." The woman is insane. Governor Romney has flip-flopped on a grand number of issues; TARP, Don't-Ask/Don't Tell, carbon emissions, stem-cell research, campaign finance reform, capital-gains tax-cuts, the minimum-wage, the assault weapons ban, his feelings relative to the NRA, his hunting prowess, on the MA health-care plan being a model for the nation, his lack of Vietnam service explanations, etc.. In fact, folks, I would probably have to say that he flip-flopped more than Kerry and McCain combined.

On the Assertion that "People Like Medicare"

Well, of course they do. I mean, why wouldn't somebody like a system in which you pay in an average of $114,000 in premiums and get back an average of $355,000 in benefits? That's a total no-brainer, people - http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/12/114000_that_2011_retirees_paid.html.

Mr. Obama, HIRE THIS MAN! 3

Former Navy Vice Admiral, war veteran, and Congressman (respected on both sides of the divide), Joe Setak. His experience in the military, education in public administration, and service on the House Armed Services Committee make him the ideal candidate for Secretary of Defense (Panetta can either go back to the CIA or move on over to State).

Yet Another Article Underscoring the Idiocy of the "Buffett Rule"

http://money.cnn.com/2012/04/12/pf/taxes/buffett-rule/index.htm - Yeah, that's right, folks, according to money.cnn.com, the average effective income tax rate for people making between $30,000 and $50,000 a year is 6.4% (according to freeby50.com, the average effective rate for people making between $50,000 and $100,000 is approximately 8.4%) and the average effective income tax rate for people making over a million a year is 24.6%....They also cite that this rule would only apply to a miniscule number of people and would raise less than 5 billion a year (yes, better than getting rid of PBS/NPR, but not by a lot). Can you all say a lack of seriousness coming from the White House, me-bucks?

On 1935's "Captain Blood"

The film features a 19 year-old Olivia de Havilland. It that inducement enough? Ti's for me. Who- ahhh!

Miscellaneous 148

1) Another thing that Krugman does a lot is the construction of straw-men. Take, for instance, this assertion of his from a recent New York Times editorial; "There's a very widespread belief on the right that banking crises only happen because either the Fed or Barney Frank cause them; go back to a gold standard, and there would be no need for financial regulation or anything like that." It's an utterly absurd statement and as Robert Murphy has pointed out on his blog, conservative and Austrian economists such as Murray Rothbard, Burton Fulsom, and Walter Bagehot have all written extensively on numerous crises and panics that happened well before the FED. I mean, yes, they've also asserted that the panics have gotten a hell of a lot worse since the FED (and, yes, even the charts that Krugman himself has supplied verify this) but to say that they haven't ever acknowledged them is either a lie or utter stupidity by Krugman.............2) I consider myself a pretty strong admirer of former Pennsylvania governor, Ed Rendell (and, yes, I would absolutely consider voting for him). But when the fellow went on MSNBC the other day and claimed that the numbers "didn't add up" in terms of raising revenue strictly by closing loopholes, yeah, I was kind of disappointed in that. The fact of the matter is that there are hundreds of billions of dollars to be had just from closing loopholes (simply lowering the cap on mortgage interest from a million to 500,000 could potentially raise tens of billions and it wouldn't even touch the middle-class) and to have these Democrats be so stubborn and recalcitrant on rates hasn't been helpful (just like it hasn't been helpful that those on the hard right haven't been budging, either).............3) Screen legend and Oscar-winning sisters, Joan Fontaine and Olivia de Havilland, are 95 and 96, respectively. You think that there might be a spate of decent genes there (age, and the fact that they were both smolderingly hot in their prime)? I certainly do.

On the Moronic and Long-Running Feud Between Bill O'Reilly and Paul Krugman

Let's just call it a cross between "Romper Room" and '70s wrestling and be done with it.

On the Stock-Market in Cairo Plummeting Today

Egypt has a stock-market?

Yes Virginia, There IS a Santa Claus/My Long, Excruciating Nightmare is Over

Don't the door his you on the way out, nummy.

Lunatic Bachmann, CORRECT?

I'm reasonably certain that she wasn't aware of this (or she probably wouldn't have gone off on that John Quincy Adams stretch of hers instead) but, according the the Reader's Digest's Family Encyclopedia of American History, FOUNDING FATHER, George Mason (a Virginian, no less), was "an implacable foe of the slave trade and a fervent advocate for the rights of man." The volume also offers that, as a delegate to the national Constitutional Convention of 1787, "Mason demanded an immediate end to the slave trade (in addition to the inclusion of a Bill of Rights, later included in 1791) and that he "unsuccessfully opposed ratification of the Constitution in Virginia."...............................................................................Now, this is obviously only one of the Founding Fathers and the plain fact is that the majority of the southerners at least didn't even come close to this (a lot of 'em frigging owned slaves themselves) but Mr. Mason here, yeah, it kinda sounds like he did "work tirelessly."

Another Skirmish on the War

According to conservative author, David Horowitz, the Bush administration offered Saddam Hussein an 11th hour ultimatum; step down and let one of the other Ba'athists take over, or face war and be forced out. Assuming that this is true (and I'm suspecting that it's at least partially true), yes, the plot most assuredly thickens..................................................................................a) On the one hand, it puts more of an onus on the critics of Bush to maybe put a little bit more of their bile onto Hussein and a little bit less of it onto the President (the fact that Hussein could have prevented the war simply by stepping down) but b) it also challenges the supporters of Mr. Bush in that it calls into question the manner in which the Texan ultimately handled the conflict; the fact that he disbanded the army, purged the Ba'athists, etc.....................................................................................The way that I decipher it here, Saddam Hussein was virulent a man who engaged in some of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century, and one whose ouster was fully justified (yes, I did in fact oppose the war at the time and still think that it was probably a mistake). But President Bush, in my viewpoint, went way, WAY, beyond what was wise and necessary. The fact of the matter is that Iraq was never tangible country and had only been held together by brute force. It's muti-ethnic makeup anyone should have been able to foretell was not amenable to nation-building. AND the existence of strong Sunni presence in that region was in and of itself a GOOD thing....Not that that's what this Horowitz had in mind, mind you.....

Economist Robert Higg's Synopsis of Bush, Obama, Paulsen, Greenspan, Bernanke, Geithner, Etc.

"Private profit, public loss."

TCU 20 Texas 13

It's a great night to be a frog, folks.......Hook 'em? Not tonight!

The Dumbest/Most Wretched Man to Ever Win a Nobel?

Paul Krugman is one of the most dishonest men in America. The man continues to put forth this absolute lie that Herbert Hoover was a laissez faire capitalist who did seemingly nothing to fight off the Depression. And if he isn't lying, and he's ignorant of the fact that Hoover was the most interventionist President that the nation had ever seen and who rang up more in peace-time debt than his 29 predecessors combined, then he's a imbecile of the highest magnitude......................................................................................As for one his sneakier "assessments" (and, yes, I tend to lead much more toward the dishonesty argument), Krugman claims that it was Hoover's 1932 attempt to balance the budget that made the Depression worse. He claims that Hoover drastically cut spending and that it was this lessening of demand that prompted the downturn. What Krugman does not point out is that, while, yes, Hoover did cut back somewhat on the profligate spending of the previous two years (AGAIN, Hoover out-deficit-spent any other peace-time President in U.S. history), the vast, VAST, percentage of Mr. Hoover's deficit reduction package was taxes. Yep, that's right, Hoover raised the top income tax rate from 25% to 63%, a 152% INCREASE!! And it was more that likely THAT that caused the economy to tank, not the minuscule decreases in spending..............................................................................And if this isn't enough evidence for you, just try some of the statements of FDR and his cronies themselves. Rexford Tugwell essentially admitted that most of the Great Deal was actually nothing more than a continuation of what Hoover had already started. Add to that the fact that during the 1932 campaign, Roosevelt and his running mate, John Nance Garner, both accused Hoover of leading the country "down the path to socialism."...I simply cannot believe that Mr. Krugman is ignorant of all this....or maybe I can.

The Great Jean Arthur, Folks

Mr. Deeds (Gary Cooper) and Mr. Smith (Jimmy Stewart) were two pretty lucky fellows, I'm thinking.

Sidekick Shmidekick

Michael Jordan is still the greatest basketball who's ever lived. Few (if any) would dispute that. But I would also submit that anybody who tries to diminish the contributions of Scottie Pippen to those great Bulls championship teams would be highly misguided. I cite specifically the fact that Pippen was as highly rounded a small forward as any of his era and objectively one of the greatest ever. The dude could drive, shoot from long distance, rebound, pass better than any front-court player this side of Larry Bird/Rick Barry/Wilt Chamberlain, and was possibly the greatest perimeter defender (right up there with Walt "Clyde" Frazier) in the history of the NBA (his guarding of the opposition's best player allowed Jordan to roam and do his thing).............................................................................As for some harder evidence/data, this. Pippen missed the first 15 games of the 1997-98 season and without him the Bulls went 8-7. Compare that to the 54-13 record upon his return and, yeah, you kind of get the message. That, and I also refer you to the 1993-94 season. That was the year in which Jordan played baseball and the Bulls (in large measure due to Pippen's awesome play - the dude was also MVP in the All Star game) still finished 55-27 AND, if it wasn't for an atrocious call against the Knicks in the playoffs, that team might have also gone to the finals. Yes, Jordan indeed was great but, so, too, was Scottie Pippen.

The Contra O'Reilly "Tip of the Day"

Disregard the O'Reilly Factor "Tip of the Day".......I'm still trying to get him to come on "The Contra".

Top 15 Most Overrated Black People (A Good-Natured Response to Professor Hill's List)

15) Maya Angelou (Coleridge she ain't).............14) Barack Obama (a nondescript state senator/mediocre student at Columbia who defeated Alan Keyes).............13) Chris Rock (please, say something funny).............12) Tyler Perry (the new master of mass mediocrity).............11) Mike Tyson (yeah, he was formidable, FOR A WHILE).............10) Whitney Houston (I will always hate her).............9) The Reverend, Jesse Jackson (went from being an inspirational teacher of self-esteem to shilling - bad).............8) Condoleeza Rice (the worst national Security Adviser since McGeorge Bundy).............7) Michael Jackson (in the words of the late, great Andy Rooney, "bad, very bad").............6) Wesley Snipes (how this dude ever got work is beyond me).............5) P Diddy (living proof that literally any idiot can get rich these days).............4) Cornell West (so, so full of shit).............3) Clarence Thomas (the dude just sits there, he literally just sits there).............2) Kanye West (Obama had this one right - he's an ass).............1) Allen Iverson (if selfishness was a virtue...).............................................................................................P.S. I was going to include the Reverend, Al Sharpton and Congresswoman, Maxine Waters, but I don't really know anyone who rates them in the first place, and, in order to BE overrated, you first have to be rated.

Another Peel Off the Roosevelt Onion

You think that the Obama folks have stretched the Commerce Clause? I'm telling you here, it is nothing compared to what FDR and company did during the National Recovery Act. These people actually fined a farmer for (get this) growing too much wheat on his own farm for his own family consumption. The official "reasoning" (as espoused in Wickard versus Filburn) was that, by growing so much of his own food on his own farmland, he was in essence buying less of it on the open market and thereby interfering with "commerce".........................................................................................Look, I can handle a certain amount of government intervention in the market but this was borderline fascism, and the fact that to this day there are still people out there who say that Roosevelt was a better President than Truman is astonishing, I think.

On My Pessimism Regarding a Budget Deal

As long as we have morons on the right like Marsha Blackburn saying that we can balance the budget simply by cutting non-defense discretionary spending and morons on the left like Raul Grijalva saying that the only thing necessary is allowing the Bush tax-cuts to expire on families making over $250,000 a year (68 billion out of a 1.2 trillion dollar deficit), then, no, I am not very optimistic and will in fact remain that way.

Kudos

I'm telling you, folks, if it wasn't for these two guys, Jake Tapper and Ed Henry, I doubt very seriously if Obama would ever get a serious question at these press conferences/fawning sessions. Thankfully, we have at least them.

Republican Congressional Bimbo Eruptions

Congresswomen Bachmann, Blackburn, and Foxx.

Democratic Congressional Bimbo Eruptions

Congresswomen Pelosi, Waters, and Wasserman-Schultz.

Note to Rachel Maddow 4

The Republicans didn't "hang Susan Rice out to dry", the administration did. I mean, I don't know where you've been or how you've isolated yourself these days but the evidence is overwhelming (you've never heard of the Daily Beast, the Associated Press, CNN, etc.?) that the intelligence community knew well within 24 hours (the frigging State Department was watching this in real time) that this was a coordinated terrorist attack (an al Qaeda affiliate was taking credit for it WHILE IT WAS HAPPENING!) and not some spontaneous reaction to some stupid-assed video. a) There weren't even any protesters outside the embassy (and, hence, there couldn't have been a spontaneous reaction coming from them) and b) the fact that these crazy bastards were armed to the frigging gills with mortars, grenades, and AK-47s (none of which you generally see in protests even in the Middle East) SHOULD HAVE BEEN SUFFICIENT. Not to be insulting or anything, but what do you say that you put that Rhodes Scholar education of yours to work for a change? My God.

So, How Extreme WAS FDR's New Deal?

FDR's New Deal was so extreme that a plethora of FDR's own supporters started turning on him. Get a load of these quotes - "Roosevelt's measures only retarded enterprise at a time when the relief of unemployment and of insolvency primarily depended upon the revival of enterprise.....a lack of intellectual effort, the work of tired brains, relying on their wishes and their prejudices, and throwing out casual suggestions which they are just too hot and bothered to think about." Walter Lippman............."The whole conception behind the tax bill (the President's 1935 tax increases) overlooks the fundamental fact that there is little point trying to redistribute wealth as long as there is nothing done to produce more than a fraction of the wealth we are equipped to create." The New Republic............."the wonder that one man could have been so flexible as to permit himself to believe so many things in so short a time. But to look upon these policies as the result of a unified plan was to believe that the accumulation of stuffed snakes, baseball pictures, school flags, old tennis shoes, carpenter's tools, geometry books, and chemistry sets in a boy's bedroom could have been put there by an interior decorator." Raymond Moley............."We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong...somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises. I say after eight years of this Administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started. … And an enormous debt to boot." Henry Morgenthau............."We are entering upon waters for which I have no charts and in which I therefore feel myself an utterly incompetent pilot." James Warburg............."an arraignment of class against class.....these young Brain Trusters have caught the socialists swimming and run away with their clothes." Al Smith..........................................................................................Look, I'm not exactly sure where the sweet-spot is in terms of economics (I suspect that it's probably somewhere between Reagan's supply-side and Obama's demand-push) but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't include massive regulatory measures, major tax increases, significantly higher labor costs, and endless rhetorical spit-balls aimed at American business. Roosevelt dying and Truman ascending - that's what truly got us out of the depression, people, the difference between 'em being night and day.

Mr. Obama, HIRE THIS MAN! 2

And listen to him.

On General David Petraeus

The dude apparently likes women with large foreheads.

Switched at Birth?

I can't help but wonder sometimes what the country would have been like if this Bush had run in 2000 and not the other. You?

Miscellaneous 147

1) According to the A.P. (10/17, and later on on the McLaughlin Group - 10/19), the CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington (and ultimately directly to the A.P.) within 24 hours that there WAS strong evidence that the embassy bombing was carried out by militants and not by a spontaneous mob that was seething due to some American made video which ridiculed the prophet, Mohamed. The fact that somebody in the White House apparently sent Ambassador Rice and Press Secretary Carney out to peddle this video nonsense is exceedingly troubling, I think.............2) I'm sorry, people, but we really need to reexamine this whole concept of foreign aid. As it stands now, all that we're essentially doing is a) transferring wealth that's already been created, b) not transferring the capacity to create that wealth, and c) rewarding nations for doing all the wrong things/subsidizing irresponsibility. The way that I see it, we're just going to have to start making our assistance contingent upon meaningful reforms, and ZERO ASSISTANCE to nasty/corrosive governments that hate us. We just can't afford it anymore.............3) Georgia Tech football coach, Paul Johnson, finally woke up and inserted Vad Lee at quarterback. The result? Try 68 points and a victory against North Carolina. As for Mr. Lee's personal stat-line, he completed 6 of 10 passes for 169 yards and 2 touchdowns and ran 23 times for 112 yards and 2 more more scores. The dude was phenomenal and, while I wouldn't go as far as to compare him to Cam Newton (for one, the size differential), he's certainly close enough. Hell, he might even save that douche-bag Johnson's job.

WHAT....WAS HE THINKING??????

In 2004, President Bush fully urged the Federal Housing Administration to eliminate all down-payment requirements (something in the past that had successfully been used to lessen the chance of defaults) for an additional 150,000 new homeowners. "To build an ownership society, we'll help even more Americans to buy homes. Some families are more than able to pay a mortgage but just don't have the savings to put money down."............Look, I have defended Bush on a number of occasions and, yes, he eventually did come to his senses on this (no less a liberal publication than the New York Times has credited President Bush with attempting to reign in the excesses of Fannie and Freddie, etc.) but, man, the fellow was certainly far off the mark earlier on with statements like these. Big time.

On Obama and the Auto Bailout

I sincerely hope that it works. I'm an American before I am a critic of the President and when he does well, we all do well. That being said, I would in fact caution the fellow that maybe he needs to cease and desist with these victory dances. I just got done reading an article by Louis Woodhill from "Forbes" and he seems to think that there's a better than 50-50 chance that G.M. and maybe Chrysler will be coming to the federal government for additional money in President Obama's second term (or Mr. Romney's first term - he wrote the article prior to the election).....and the President will have to come to the American public yet again.......

Me at the Ballot Box Tuesday

I voted for Johnson and I blackened in the oval as darkly as I could. And I'm telling you here, if the best that the Republicans and Democrats can come up with is Rove, Romney, Axelrod/Cutter (what a piece of doo-doo she is, huh?), Obama, Priebus, and Wasserman Schultz, I just might never vote for a major party candidate ever again.

From Warren Harding's 1920 Republican Nomination Speech

"There hasn't been a recovery from the waste and abnormalities of war since the story of mankind was written, except through work and savings, through industry and denial while needless spending and heedless extravagance have marked every decay in the history of nations."............Many historians have tended to marginalize this man (the anti-Hoover, FDR, Bush, and Obama). Perhaps they and we need to give him a second look.

Hold the Sugar

I'm telling you, folks, nobody can make lemonade out of lemons any better than the Keynesians can. Take WW2, for example. Virtually every Keynesian during WW2 said that the U.S. was going to go into yet another deep depression after the war. They were wrong. But instead of just admitting that they were wrong, they went into this idiotic explanation that it was the deficit spending during the war (in addition to some pent up demand) that got us OUT of the depression. You just cannot make this stuff up....................................................................................And this whole concept that war in general (and other such calamitous events events) can somehow bring about economic prosperity isn't only ridiculous, it's sick. And where is the evidence? There was no boom after WW1, no boom after Vietnam, no boom as a result of the current wars (which I thoroughly opposed, btw), no boom after 9/11. War does nothing but kill people (though, yes, it is sometimes necessary) and bleed the treasury dry. To try and say that it somehow makes us wealthy is purely bonkers.

How 'Bout this for a Compromise (for Starters)?

a) Raise the top rate to 38% (negotiated down from 39.6%) for everything over a million bucks a year.............b) Raise 50-75 billion a year in revenue from closing loopholes (75% of that coming from people making over $250,000 a year).............c) Cut 150 billion from the budget and do it across the board (no, not the most preferable way to cut but, being that these imbeciles are seemingly incapable of making difficult decisions, it just might be the only way to go).

Why OIbama Won, IMO

a) Constituency politics. President Obama has perfected it to a level that hasn't been witnessed since the days of FDR (free contraception to younger woman, low-interest student loans to college kids, health-care waivers to better connected unions, etc.).............b) The fact that the President and Vice President were somehow able to convince the American people that our budget shortfalls can essentially be rectified solely by raising taxes on the wealthy (Mr. Biden literally said as much during the debate).............c) Hurricane Sandy gave the President another opportunity to look Presidential and the man took advantage of it.............d) Governor Romney was an extraordinarily flawed Republican candidate (that rope-a-dope strategy at the end was just plain dumb). The man just couldn't decide who he was and the American public evidently didn't want to fill in the blanks.............e) Changing demographics. Hispanics are the fasting growing population in America and Romney's decision (in what had to be a cold, calculated political move) to place himself to the right of even Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry on immigration was just flat-out moronic.............f) Media coverage. While I'm certainly not as paranoiac about it as Hannity and O'Reilly are, I do in fact think that a lot of the major outlets (NBC News, the Associated Press, The New York Times, CBS News, Newsweek, etc.) significantly preferred the President and it showed (CBS, for instance, sitting on the President's comments pertaining to Libya).

Four More Years?

Allllllllllllrightee then.

Frederick Hayek on Stimulus

"A government which uses inflation as an instrument of policy, but wants it only to produced the desired results, is eventually driven to control ever increasing parts of the economy."............And, yes, feel free to insert the monikers of Hoover, FDR, Nixon, Bush, and Obama.

Road Trip

I had an interesting conversation with Governor Romney the other day. I told him that I was planning a cross-country road trip to California and asked him if he wanted to accompany me. Surprisingly, Romney said, yes. But then he started asking me a bunch of questions as to how I was planning to get there and I was all of a sudden, "Whoa, whoa, I can't tell you that, man. It's a negotiation. We've got the toll people. We've got the gas stations. We've got the hotels. We've got the restaurants. You simply dang gotta trust me here." Needless to say, the Governor responded by saying, "never mind." Ironic, isn't it (the fact that I had used the very same utterance pertaining to his vote)?............And, yes, this blog post has been brought to you by the independent superpac, Moderates for Johnson 2012.

Paul Krugman's Perennial Explanation as to Why His Keynesian Policies Invariably Tend Not to Work

"It wasn't enough."

The New York Times on Alan Greenspan

"The infallible maestro of the financial markets."......Yeah, I think that that may have been off a little.

A Talking-Point Reduced to Whopper

If you only listened to people like President Obama, you'd think that there are scores of folks out there who are currently paying a lower effective tax-rate than Mr. Romney. Fortunately, in a free society, the citizens have a myriad of options as to where they get there information. For instance, William McBride from the Tax Foundation recently crunched the numbers on this and found that 90-95% of the American people paid a lower effective tax rate than the 13.9% that Romney paid in 2011 and that 95-97% of them paid a lower effective rate than the 15.1% that he paid in 2010. Yep, that's right, folks, when you figure in all of the exemptions, deductions, and the Earned Income Tax Credit, most Americans already pay a lower rate than Romney and this whole Buffett Rule thing that the President has been peddling amounts to little more than a couple of days worth of cruise missiles.

Paul Krugman 1998

"The growth of the Internet will slow drastically, as the flaw in "Metcalfe's law"–which states that the number of potential connections in a network is proportional to the square of the number of participants–becomes apparent: most people have nothing to say to each other! By 2005 or so, it will become clear that the Internet's impact on the economy has been no greater than the fax machine's."............Please, explain to me again why we listen to this character.

On the Two Floyd Patterson - Sonny Liston Fights 2

The funniest part is that Patterson actually wanted to fight him a third time. Thank the good Lord that it never happened.

Miscellaneous 146

1) Federal spending as a percentage of GDP essentially tripled from 1929 to 1941. This whole notion that we didn't get out of the Depression earlier than we did being due to frugality (on the part of Hoover and later FDR) is absolutely uproarious.............2) Ditto, Japan in the '90s.............3) My colleague, Rusty, has touted the old ball-coach, Steve Spurrier, as a coach who really gets the most out of his players. And I agree. But let me play a little one-upsmanship here. Yes, Spurrier gets the most out of his talent. But Kansas State head-coach, Bill Snyder, is maybe the greatest ever in this regard. Snyder, in his second stint as the Wildcats' leader, has had these recruiting results according to Rivals.com;10th (out of 10) in the Big 12 in 2009, 10th in 2010, 10th in 2011, and 8th in 2012 (he's currently rated in 10th place for 2013). The fact that any coach could have gotten the results that Coach Snyder has gotten over the past several years is utterly phenomenal (the Wildcats are 19-3 over the past 2 years). The man is a major-league miracle worker.

On the Two Floyd Patterson - Sonny Liston Fights

I prefer to call them muggings.

Fox News's Jenna Lee and Alisyn Camerota

Say what you want about Murdock, there ain't a damn thing wrong with his eyesight. Reeooow!

Miscellaneous 145

1) Eleanor Clift has completely lost it. The woman is now saying that President Obama is the rightful heir to George McGovern as a politician of peace. PEACE - Mr. drone attacks in four counties, Mr. kill list, Mr. surge in Afghanistan. I'm telling you here, folks. If President Obama is the rightful heir to George McGovern, can you even begin to imagine what the rightful heir to President Bush is going to look like? Ka-boom!............2) I've got good news and bad news for Romney. The good news is that there's a plethora of legitimate criticism that one could direct toward President Obama's foreign policy. The bad news is that a substantial chunk of it comes from the left.............3) I really wish that politicians like Obama and Gingrich would cease and desist with all of this "I/we created X millions of jobs" bullshit. I mean, yeah, I suppose that the government can create a business-friendly climate and all but jobs are ultimately created by entrepreneurs who bring to market goods and services that the public wishes to procure. For politicians to so flagrantly try and take credit for it rather unseemly in my book.

Best Political Coinage of the Year, Per Timothy Carney

"Military Industrial Keynesianism."......I mean, it's perfect. It hammers the left for their adherence to spending (as a cure-all) and it hammers the right for their blind obedience to the Pentagon.......Timothy Carney is a treasure, people.

Dana Carvey's Sidesplittingly Uproarious Impersonation of John McLaughlin

What would be my answer to the question, "So, what's your all-time favorite political spoof?"

In the Words of Cosmo Kramer, "Ca...Ca...Cat-Fight!"

According to Diana McLellan's book, "The Girls", Laurence Olivier and his then wife, Vivien Leigh, showed up at a party in which Greta Garbo was prowling around cantankerously. Miss Garbo, seemingly enamored with the handsome Brit, sunk her teeth into him in what was clearly an opportune moment (i.e., when Mrs. Olivier wasn't at his side) and dominated him for the better part of the evening. Needless to say, Vivien was infuriated by this and even came close to going up the Swede and decking her. Wow, huh? Can you even begin to imagine a cat-fight between those two; Scarlet O'Hara versus Queen Christina? I'm frigging shivering just writing about it.

Typical Democrat or Outlier?

My experience says outlier, and I certainly hope that that's the case (a 30 year-old woman wanting birth-control absent even a co-payment).