More Unimpeachable Evidence

This is the Indian economy, folks. For the first 43 years of its existence it was tightly managed by government. You see what happened? And do you see what happened when they finally liberalized the sucker? Yeah, huh?

On the Government Simultaneously Subsidizing Rich Tobacco Farmers and Bankrolling Anti-Smoking Campaigns

Left hand, right hand. Right hand, left hand.

CNN's Don Lemon on MSNBC

 "a bunch of people on the left who all agree with each other, and there's no diversity of opinion. And they're saying mean, smug things about people who may disagree with them." Good for Mr. Lemon, telling it like it is.

If This Was a Fight, They Would Have Stopped it By Now

Hong Kong's unemployment rate - 3% (millions of people having been brought out of poverty via a free market approach), Spain's unemployment rate - 26% (the severance package in that grotesquely mismanaged country rising to as high as three years).

The Great Post War Showdown

While there can never be any true controlled experiments in economics, you do on a rare occasion get an example that is close. I refer you here to the way that the country of India and the jurisdiction of Hong Kong structured their respective economies in the years and decades after WW2. While the former example relied disproportionately upon social planning/interventionism, protectionism, a large public sector, and business regulation, the latter went almost immediately to a free market capitalistic approach. Gee, guess which one did better. Two guesses and the first one doesn't count...................................................................................Yeah, that's right, folks, India remained impoverished for over 40 years and Hong Kong quickly became one of the fastest growing economies in the history of human civilization (it's GNP growing by close 18,000% from 1961 to 1997). Now, to be fair here, India eventually did engage in its own form of economic liberalization in the early '90s and they, too, are finally doing well. But from 1947 to 1991 a better comparison/contrast you will never find and it underscores YET AGAIN the fact that the freer economies do significantly better than those that are structured by bureaucrats and philosopher kings................................................................................P.S. And what makes the Hong Kong situation even more remarkable is the fact that the island has almost zero natural resources and even less in terms of farmland. 

On Hoover and the Great Depression

No, Mr. Hoover didn't cause the Great Depression but his policies, I believe, made it far, FAR worse. a) He instituted voluntary wage controls (which, unfortunately, most U.S. businesses adhered to) which, when combined with strong deflation, seriously distorted the market and made hiring much more difficult.............b) He signed into law the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act which significantly stymied international trade and probably led to early bank failures.............c) He created the Reconstruction Finance Corporation which essentially turned into a bailout entity.............d) He increased federal spending by a whopping 49% in just three years and literally mushroomed the deficit.............e) He signed into law the Davis-Bacon Act which AGAIN made the cost of hiring shoot up astronomically.............f) He raised the top tax rate by a draconian 152% and revenue immediately plummeted....................................................................................P.S. Oh, and if there's anybody out there who still thinks that Hoover WASN'T a progressive; this, from Rexford Tugwell, "We didn’t admit it at the time, but practically the whole New Deal was extrapolated from programs Hoover started." Herbert Hoover, free market capitalist - LOL!!!

On the Low Income Earnings of the Bottom Quintile

The average number of workers per family in the bottom quintile is .5. The average educational attainment of this same grouping is barely a high school diploma (a 27% high school dropout rate). Of course you're not going to have a high level of income with statistics such as this. I mean, my God, this is not frigging rocket science.

On the Appropriateness of Including Transfer Payments When Calculating Income Inequality

As I understand it, the entire point (the hard-left's anyway) of this whole income inequality argument was to underscore just how terribly off those in the bottom income quintile truly are. But how in the hell do you accomplish that if you fail (and/or refuse) to include in the calculations ALL of the disposable income that the groupings under study have at their disposal? The fact of the matter is that if you also include all of the transfer payments (and, no, it isn't just welfare - it also includes such things as Social Security and the Earned Income Tax Credit) that those at the bottom rung of the income ladder have been given, the actual level of income inequality (especially if you gauge it predominantly on consumption - which is now quite close to 200% of income in the bottom quintile) is significantly less than what a lot of these tables have been showing (in fact, according to UCLA economist, Lee Ohanian, the disparity has been SHRINKING!!). I mean, I know that the radicals are desperate to make some sort of political point here and all but at some juncture you have to be fair and include ALL of the statistics (which would also include items such as capital income, under the table income, tips, taxes, etc.).

Blunt Force Dogma

Keynesian analysis is as about as blunt an instrument that exists. a) It only looks at aggregates and b) it essentially treats all forms of spending equally (digging holes and filling them providing the same form of economic stimulus as capital investing, for example)..............................................................................So, with the passing of Smoot-Hawley, for example, they would strictly look at the fact that imports and exports represented only 4.2% and 5% of the U.S. economy and fail to see that there was also a massive difference between the states regarding this (the fact farm and steel states were disproportionately affected by this and that this in fact was where many of the early bank failures happened)....Or even with federal spending in general/wasteful spending - as long as it adds to the overall aggregate demand they like it and it doesn't matter one iota if it distorts the market, blows a hole in the deficit, creates more cronyism, throws more taxpayer money down a rat-hole, etc.. I mean, it's almost as if these people have never actually looked at the real world and seen just how pitiful of an approach that this is; Hoover, FDR, Bush 2, Obama, Japan in the '90s, the fact that socialism practically annihilated the Argentinian and Swedish economies (Sweden to its credit righted the ship in the '90s and instituted much more free market policies) back in the '60s and '70s, etc.. Heaven help us if these folks ever get yet another bite at the apple.

The Long and Lingering Lie

"The American criminal justice system is racist." We hear it so frequently that most people assume the authenticity of it. Hell, I assumed that it was true myself - until, that is, I examined the evidence...................................................................a) "Our overall assessment of the available research suggests that factors other than racial discrimination in the sentencing process account for most of the disproportionate representation of black males in U.S. prisons.......No evidence exists of a widespread systematic pattern of discrimination in sentencing." The National Academy of Sciences 1983.............b) "Black incarceration rates for imprisonable crimes are substantially higher  than those for whites because black crime rates are substantially higher than those for whites." (Liberal researcher) Michael Tonry, "Malign Neglect" 1995.............c) A Sampson/Lauritsen 1997 study likewise found that "large racial differences in criminal offending", not racism, was the major reason why more blacks were imprisoned more than whites and for longer terms.............d) A 1994 Justice Department survey of felony cases showed that blacks actually had a lower chance of prosecution (66% versus 69%) following a felony than whites did and that they were also less likely to be found guilty at trial (75% versus 78%).............e) A 1996 analysis (Gerald Reynolds) of 55,000 big city felony cases showed that black defendants were actually convicted at a lower rate than whites in 12 of the 14 federally designated felony categories.............f) In 1993, criminologist Alfred Blumstein found that when comparing black arrests for homicide and the presence of blacks in prison for that offense, African-Americans were significantly underrepresented among incarcerated inmates.............g) A 1991 RAND Corporation study found that a defendant's ethnic and racial background bore little if any relationship to a criminal's conviction rate and that other factors such as evidence and the existence of an eyewitness were significantly more important.............h) As far as the charge that blacks are arrested disproportionately, that, too, has largely been repudiated. According to statistics from the National Crime Victimization Survey, the percentage of blacks that have been accused by the actual victims (a large percentage of who are black themselves!!!!!) of crimes is almost identical to their arrest rate. So, unless these victims are wholesale falsely accusing innocent black folks rather the real perpetrators (which makes absolutely zero sense) you really have to consider it legit. 

On Jerry and Rusty

I actually have a soft spot for both of these fellows (Jerry for his civility and Rusty for his dry humor). Go figure, huh?

The Not So Beneficent Hand(s)

Economist John Taylor did a regression analysis on retail sales throughout the 2007-2009 recession and found that the trend line proceeded accordingly/modestly and that it only bottomed out when Bush, Paulson, and Bernanke a) started talking about another great depression and b) foisted upon the American public and taxpayer the Troubled Asset Relief Program. This stat coupled with the fact that lending in both the individual and business sectors was never in any sort of death spiral has led many of the saner American economists (Lee Ohanian, Edward Prescott, Taylor, etc.) to conclude that this current economic downturn was never in fact a financial crisis but a policy crisis (a crisis that has been made all the more worse by the fact that Obama has pretty much doubled down on Bush's interventionist policies). And I wholeheartedly agree.

wd and the Devil Had a Kid

Named him Moochifer.

Oh, There's a Gap, Alright - It's Between Their Ears!

According to UCLA economist, Lee Ohanian, using the broadest measure of income (i.e., that which also includes things such as transfer payments, capital income, etc) and subtracting taxes, inequality in the United States had actually gone DOWN from 1979 to 2007 by 2%. And even more telling than that is the fact that consumption inequality has gone down by an even larger percentage; 12% since 1990 (the poverty line for a family of 4 is $23,000, the average consumption level being $44,000). Oops goes the weasel yet again, people.

On the Kirk Douglas/Stanley Kubrick 1957 Classic Film, "Paths of Glory"

a) The best war movie ever made (the abruptness of the ending, notwithstanding). b) The best anti-war movie ever made.

The Number of Recently Formed Mainland European Companies/Firms that Have Achieved the Dizzying Heights of Microsoft, Apple, Oracle, Genentech, Amgen, Amazon, Facebook, Google, Etc.

One, a Norwegian oil company by the name of Statoil and the only reason for that is the fact that the North Sea is loaded to the brim with offshore oil. Pure luck, in other words....The moral of the story? I'm gonna go with, freer markets, lesser regulations, and a higher reward for innovation and risk-taking, thank you very much.

Ya' Want Deaths?

Try THIS system - http://www.fee.org/library/detail/socialized-health-care-the-communist-dream-and-the-soviet-reality/#axzz2oRVI5q6v

On Liberals and Leftists

I make a distinction. Folks like Senators Wyden, Durbin, Chucky Schumer even - while I don't necessarily always agree with them, a) they're sane and b) I feel that I could eventually sit down and hammer out some sort of an agreement with them (Senator Schumer's tax compromise in 2012, for example). Contrast that with the endless parade of freaks/guttersnipes which show their vitriol on a nightly basis over at MSNBC (add also a handful of Congresspersons like Alan Grayson) and it is an entirely different story in my book. I mean, I don't know about you folks but I wouldn't even want to be in the same damn room with people like Ed Schultz, Rachel Maddow, and Chris Hayes, never mind having to sit down and cut a deal with them.

On Chris Matthews Recently Doing Yet Another Story on "Birtherism"

They (i.e., hard-core partisan fools) have officially run out of shiny objects...........................................................................P.S And, yes, there certainly is a hard-core cadre of morons on the right who still believe that Obama wasn't born in America (a moot point in that his mother absolutely WAS American). But it's also approximately the same size as the cadre of hard-core leftist morons who still think that President Bush was responsible (as in, he was the damn perpetrator) for 9/11. Fringes, they're fringes, folks.

On Bill O'Reilly's War on Pot

This dude is so full of shit. He actually said on one of his more recent segments that, once a kid starts smoking pot, his entire life is ruined and he can never recover from it. I mean, I don't know about you folks but I grew up in the '70s and a good solid percentage of the kids that I went to high school and college with used to get high and used to do so regularly, and the vast, vast percentage of them turned out OK. Not that I'm advocating, OBVIOUSLY, that students should smoke pot but enough already with these damned scare tactics of his.

I Say, Let 'Em Come

According to economist and immigration expert, Giovanni Peri (UC-Davis), 600 million people on the planet would like to migrate and of them 23% would like to migrate to America. Sounds like a plan (not to mention a possible solution to the demographic/entitlement problem currently bearing down on us) to me.

Depressing Logic

For the first 124 years of America's history, we had NO income tax whatsoever. Using this progressive argument which states that the allowance for private citizens to keep more of their own private property causes not just economic downturns but long and virulent downturns, one would think that this was a period of miserable economic growth. WRONG!! From 1872 to 1913 alone, per capita GDP went from (in 2009 dollars) $4,400 a year to $10,800 a year (a 145% increase). And, while, yes, we did experience economic downturns in the 19th Century (The Panic of 1819 - brilliantly chronicled by Rothbard, the panic of 1837, the Panic of 1873, etc.), they were a) invariably tied to government banking policies, b) not anywhere near as severe as the Great Depression was, and c) apparently unrelated to low taxation. History 101, folks.

On the 45,000 people Who Purportedly Die Every Year From a Lack of Health Insurance

Yes, there is a study which has been touting that statistic. But it's also fair to point here out that two of the authors of this study are hard-core leftists who have been trying for years to get the country to adopt a single-payer system and so, no, they aren't exactly disinterested. That and I would also refer you to two other studies (also by liberals) that have full-throatedly contradicted this one; the one by Richard Kronick of UC-San Diego ("their estimates are almost certainly incorrect") and the one by Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution ("Like Kronick, I am a strong advocate of measures to achieve universal insurance coverage and would rather that Kronick’s study and the Oregon project provided evidence in support of my policy preference. But, as far as mortality is concerned, they just don’t"). Just for a modicum of balance, I'm saying.

On the KGB's Claim that Many of the 40 Million Folks Who Died in the Gulags Perished There Due to "Natural Causes"

Yeah, if you only give them 200 calories a day, make them work barefoot in the dead of winter in Siberia, and restrict their sleep to several hours at a clip, maybe.

On Fascism, Continued

According to the University of Hawaii's, R.J. Rummel (a political science professor and researcher), a grand total of 262 MILLION citizens have been slaughtered at the hands of their own governments over the past 113 years (more than 6 times the number that have been killed in wars). He refers to this phenomenon as democide and I would hazard a guess here that, yes, it constitutes a form of fascism. 

Cancer Survival Rates - England Versus the United States (Data from Lancet Oncology)

Men, the United States - 66%. Men, England - 45%. Women, the United States - 63%. Women, England - 53%. So, you all still want that kick-ass single-payer healthcare system?

On Fascism

It originates in government, not business. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the Killing Fields. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the Final Solution. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the Armenian genocide. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the gulags in Soviet Russia. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the Rwandan genocide. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the killing of nuns in El Salvador. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the gassing of the Kurds in northern Iraq. It wasn't a business that perpetrated a policy in the Congo which essentially turned it into one massive forced labor camp in which millions were killed. It wasn't a business that perpetrated the Chilean torture chambers in which thousands of innocent human beings basically just "disappeared". It wasn't a business that perpetrated the Great Leap Forward in China. It wasn't a business that killed, tortured, and imprisoned over 100,000 folks in Uganda during an 8-year bloody reign in the '70s. And it isn't a business now that is slaughtering people in Darfur, murdering homosexuals in Saudi Arabia, etc.. Business? Oo, I'm scared.

On New York's "Stop and Frisk", Continued

Here are the stats (from the Center for Constitutional Rights and the elite law firm of Covington and Burling), folks; African-Americans - 23% of the population, commit 66% of all violent crime and 73% of all shootings, 53% of all stops; Caucasians - 35% of the population, commit 5.5% of all violent crime and 2.5% of all shootings, 9% of all stops...............................................................................So, there it is for you, all lined up. African-Americans are stopped at a rate that is LESS than the rate of their violent criminal activity while whites are stopped at a rate that is HIGHER than theirs. How, pray tell, does this fit the definition of hard criminal profiling?

On New York's "Stop and Frisk"

91% of the stop subjects (according to the Center for Constitutional Rights) have been male. Does this in any way constitute male profiling?

On Crack Prosecutions of Blacks Being Proof of a Racist Criminal Justice System

Maybe. Maybe not. I cite specifically several critical points. a) It was black leadership (Charlie Rangel immediately comes to mind) that initially sounded this alarm about crack and it was also them who called for these stiffer sentences (a point that obviously makes it much harder for them to scream racism now). b) Only about 5,000 black people a year are prosecuted for crack while the total black population in prisons, jails, etc.is 858,000. OBVIOUSLY, most of the black folks in prison are in there for violent activity. And c) While, yes, most of the people in prison for crack offenses are black, it is also true that most of the people in prison for meth-amphetamine offenses are white. I mean, is it not at least partially feasible that the people in prison are in there for the crimes that THEY do?

On Michele Bachmann's Husband Trying to "Cure" Homosexuals

This is the dude. Ya' thinkin' what I'm thinkin'?

On Sarah Palin's Recent Defense of this "Duck Dynasty" Ignoramus

Yet another example of the woman's total incapacity to keep her yapper fused, pick her battles wisely, etc.. Enough already, Mrs. Palin. It's stale!

The Progressive Solution to the Upcoming Doctor Shortage

Pay them less and give them more paperwork.

Miscellaneous 174

1) "I predict future happiness for the American people if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them." Thomas Jefferson.............2) "Medicine is the keystone in the arch of socialism." Vladimir Lenin.............3) "Those who give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety." Benjamin Franklin.............4) "If you're not a liberal at twenty you have no heart, if you're not a conservative at 40 you have no brain." Winston Churchill.............5) "You will understand the game behind the curtain too well not to perceive the old trick of turning every contingency into a resource for accumulating force in the government." James Madison.............6) "To live in this process (the slow march to fascism) is absolutely not to be able to notice it....one no more saw it developing day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head." Milton Mayer, "They Thought They Were Free".............7) "We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibilities and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions." Adolph Hitler.............8) "No matter how trustworthy he may appear, do not give the monkey your pistol." Unknown.................................................................................P.S. And, no, I'm not comparing President Obama to Adolph Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. I'm simply trying to underscore the fact that no matter how benign and beneficent that any government at first glance may appear to be....... 

Leftist Revisionism Run Amok

If a Democratic President had instituted policies which immediately coincided with a rapid reduction in the unemployment rate from 12% to 2%, partisan leftists would have demanded that this individual be glorified as a superior President. But because it was a Republican President (Warren Harding, 1921) who did these things, not only is he not being given credit for it by these idiots, he's also being blamed for causing the Great Depression TEN YEARS SUBSEQUENT (private citizens being allowed to keep more of their own private property causes depressions, we're led to believe - watch it, Singapore, you people must be on the verge of a dandy!)...................................................................................And it's all so completely ignorant, too. Anybody who knows anything about economics and history knows that the Great Depression was largely brought about by an absolutely incompetent Federal Reserve policy (both in the years leading up to and also in the aftermath), European countries reneging on their war debt, and a world-wide deflationary policy relative to the gold standard, and so to even attempt to blame it on Harding is full-bore idiocy (yes, the top 5%'s share of the total income rose from 1920 to 1929 but only from 25.47% to 26.09% AND consumption as a percentage of GDP had actually RISEN from 68% to 75% - statistics courtesy of economic historians Burton Folsom, Thomas B. Silver, Peter Temin, and Gene Smiley)...................................................................................P.S. The 1920s was actually a decade of overconsumption rather than underconsumption. To quote specifically Professor Temin here (from MIT), "The concept of underconsumption has been abandoned in modern discussions of macroeconomics....The ratio of consumption to national income was not falling in the 1920s. An underconsumptionist view of the 1920s, therefore, is untenable." Case closed.

The Progressive Pay-Scale

Walmart greeter - $15 an hour. Walmart CEO - $17.50 an hour. MSNBC on air host - the sky's the limit. Pimper of "green" energy - get out the wheelbarrow.

The Main Problems With Obamacare

a) Price controls which will inevitably lead to shortages. b) Central planning which will undoubtedly drive up costs (either through inefficiency, fraud, or crony capitalism). c) Additional reliance on third party payments which will also drive up costs. d) Mandates, ditto. e) A massive number of exemptions which has significantly reduced the risk pool and heightened the cost for others. f) An absurdly perverse incentive and tax structure which has seemingly caused economic harm already (huge layoffs in the medical device industry)...........................................................................Look, I have no problem with giving the President some credit here in terms of getting this issue to the forefront. But the dude has never run anything and it shows. I mean, why in the hell DIDN'T he call John Mackey or the dude who runs Starbuck's? Hubris? Unfettered faith in government?

Bleeding in the Red

If doctors and surgeons had to rely entirely on Medicare and Medicaid, THEY WOULD GO OUT OF BUSINESS. Between the pathetic reimbursement rates and the regulatory idiocy (the average education level of a Medicare auditor is four years of high school) of these two behemoths, it is becoming increasingly harder and harder to make ends meet, meet a payroll, etc., and if it wasn't for private insurance and money payments to subsidize them, few doctors if any would probably take it. And now with this whole frigging Obamacare, watch out! If I had to make a prediction here, I would say that within the next decade or so, most doctors will either a) become employees (of hospitals, clinics, etc.), b) retire, or c) get the hell out of third party payment altogether....Yep, and all because of you collectivist fools trying to reinvent the damn wheel. Gee, thanks!

On the Assertion that Austerity Invariably Leads to a Bad Economy

It is false, demonstrably. Harding cut spending by 50% in 1921 and the unemployment rate dropped from 12% to 2% in less than two years. Truman cut spending by 45% in 1946 and the following several years were amongst the best in U.S. history. The Canadian government (the liberal party, no less) cut spending in real dollars (none of this Washington D.C baseline budgeting bullshit) by 20% in 1993 and the ensuing growth rates over the next few years were in the 5-6% range. The Swedes in 1994 eventually reduced government spending as a percentage of GDP from 66% to 51% and that economy greatly benefited. And Estonia in 2009 was one of the few European countries that actually did institute significant austerity measures and now their economy is growing at a 7.6% rate (4-5 times the growth of the Eurozone which only instituted phony austerity). Yes, folks, it absolutely does appear as if the private sector does things better.

On the Average French Citizen

They simply cannot fathom an existence on this planet without a government to coddle them 24/7.

The Progressive "Solution" to a System Hemorrhaging

More (and, yes, I could have said the exact same thing about the neocons for certain; military spending, troop levels, etc.).

It's the Math, Stupid

Medicare and Medicaid are unquestionably the 2 major drivers of all future debt, and if they are not reformed and reformed expeditiously, WE WILL GO BROKE. I mean, just take a look at the numbers over the past 40 years and the projections 10 years onward. According to the CBO, Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security represented only 4% of the total GDP in 1970 and by 2020 this is projected to grow all the way to 11%. That is totally unsustainable and for former speaker Pelosi to say that her plan for Medicare is "Medicare" is quite possibly the most idiotic statement ever uttered by an American politician this side of GWB.....................................................................................Oh, and if that stat isn't quite persuasive enough for you, try this one. In 1970, discretionary spending was 62% of the budget and mandatory spending (not including interest on the debt) was 31% of the budget. By 2010, those numbers had essentially flipped to 38% and 57%, respectively. How ANYBODY can say that we don't have major problem here is beyond me...................................................................................Jason Fichtner of the Mercatus Center with the noxious messaging - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cSp-grHU3Kc&feature=c4-overview-vl&list=PLA6A5D9E793C3B46F Please, don't shoot him.

On This

I'll take, "Three Lukewarm Socialists Having a Whale of a Time and Not Really Harming Anybody (Save for Maybe One Jealous Spouse) in the Process", for a thousand, Alex.

The Eclectic Visions of Frank Ward

P.S. The first two are from Russia.

The Era of Big Goverment Apparently WAS Over

According to the CBO, federal expenditures represented nearly 23% of the country's GDP in 1992. By 2000, that statistic had shrunk all the way to 18% (the end result of Newt Gingrich and Erskine Bowles sitting down and rolling their collective sleeves up). This whole notion that the government was somehow able to balance its budget predominantly via tax increases in the 1990s is nothing but pure partisan revisionism (not to mention the fact that it ignores how capital gains taxes actually went down during that era).

The Greatest Example of Keyenesian Idiocy Ever

"Were the war to end suddenly within the next six months, were we again planning to wind up our war effort in the greatest haste, to demobilize our armed forces, to liquidate price controls, to shift from astronomical deficits to even the large deficits of the thirties - then there would be ushered in the greatest period of unemployment and industrial dislocation which any economy has ever faced."......Keynesian economist, Paul Samuelson, 1943.......Please, tell me again why we continue to listen to these numbnuts. The post war American economy of the was one of the strongest in human history and it happened not because of government spending but because (at least in my estimation) we actually cut government spending DRAMATICALLY (from a high of over 40% of GDP in 1944 to approximately 10% of it in 1946).

The Best and Worst of Fox News

The best; Shepard Smith, Ed Henry, James Rosen, Howard Kurtz, John Roberts, Harris Faulkner.......The worst; Sean Hannity, Eric Bolling, Fox and Friends, John Bolton, Karl Rove, Gretchen Carlson.

On Norway and Their Relatively High Per Capita GDP

There are basically five reasons for it; a) massive reserves of off-shore oil, b) access to some of the better fishing waters on the planet, c) a relatively small population (fewer people you have to share the oil booty with), d) the fact that Norway has scored consistently (and, yes, surprisingly) well on a myriad of economic freedom indices (a respectable 31st and ahead of countries such as Belgium, France, Spain, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, South Africa, Greece, Brazil, Argentina, China, Italy, Turkey, Slovenia, and even South Korea on both the Heritage Foundation and Fraser Institute rankings), and e) the fact that Norway only spends approximately 1.4% of it's total GDP on national defense. This whole leftist assertion that Norway is wealthy mainly because of its welfare state and high level of taxation (except in the corporate area in which their rates are actually lower than ours) is patently absurd, in my opinion.

Pat Condell on Progressives and Islam

"One of the few certainties in life is that if you criticize the religion of special needs, you will be called a racist by people who know perfectly well that you're not but who don't care. These people are called progressives. A progressive is what happens when a liberal goes bad."

On Bill O'Reilly's Umteenth War on the "War on Christmas"/Oy Vey

What is it with this guy? He's like that hack comic on "Seinfeld" (Kenny Bania) who's seemingly fixated on Nestle's Quick, Bosco, and Ovaltine. It's like, "Yes, Bill-O, there are some crazy people in this country and they do some crazy things, but out of a population of some 300 million plus, we really need to learn to live with it, me-bucko. And, besides, aren't there are many more important things to worry about these days (the war on soft-core lesbian pornography, for example)?"

On the President's Decision to Unilaterally Delay the Employer Mandate

It's exactly the same type of thing that kings and queens in England, France, Spain, and Sweden used to do in the 15th and 16th Centuries....Gotta love him, huh?

Multiplication Fable

The performance of the American economy during World War 2 is proof-positive that the Keynesian multiplier effect is absolute rubbish. The U.S government spent massive amounts of money and, while, yes, the total GDP of the country did go up, the private sector component of it actually WENT DOWN................................................................................And this whole notion that it was the war that got us out of the Depression is also a load of bullshit. The American economy was a veritable mess during the war (lots of guns and very little butter) and all of the available data substantiates this fact; production of durable goods - DOWN, consumption - DOWN, investment spending - DOWN, rationing - UP....And it isn't even as if those Keynesians of that day had ever once predicted such a thing in the first place, most of them in fact actually saying that the opposite would happen and that we would probably need yet another massive infusion of spending in order to prevent yet ANOTHER depression. It was only many decades after the fact that these fools concocted this whole "war and other disasters are good for the economy" bullshit..................................................................................P.S. And for those of you who would counter this by pointing to the 16 million citizens serving in the military as a reason for the lowered GDP, I would respond by saying, yes, but only to a degree. a) Not all 16 million of these people were serving simultaneously. b) Close to 30% of these individuals never even left the mainland. c) A lot of the money that was paid to these soldiers eventually found it's way back to America. And d) even in 1945, 16 million people was only about 11% of the total population anyway and so it couldn't have been a major factor period.

So, Will Young Voters Turn to the Republicans in 2014-2016?

My first inclination is of course to answer, no (especially if the Republicans continue to hold hard-line positions on issues such as abortion, gay-rights, gun-control, etc.) but, now, I'm not so certain. I guess that it all depends on whether or not any of those dire predictions (50-100 million people getting bounced off of their employee health plans and into either Medicaid or possibly one of those equally crappy "bronze" plans) come true. I mean, yeah, I could potentially see the young folks of American revolting if Obamacare ends up screwing them. Now, whether they vote for the Republicans or simply stay home is obviously another story.

On Kennedy Conspiracy Theories

The irony about these suckers is that they do have a certain logic to them. Kennedy and Castro in fact DID despise each other. RFK in fact DID put a fair number of gangsters away. But at some juncture you eventually have to put some HARD evidence on the table. Something. Anything.

On the Chris Matthews Interview with President Obama

Didn't suck his wiener long enough.

He's Still My Guy

Teddy Bridgewater isn't going to win the Heisman. But after the year that this fellow just had (not a single bad game, 4 interceptions in 382 throws, leading his team to an 11-1 record, etc.), and the way that he performed in the second half tonight on the road against Cincinnati (scraping himself off the grass after literally every throw), he had better at least get an invitation to New York. Teddy Ballgame!

"Fuck Moeee"

What would be my answer to the question, "So, what's your all-time favorite Dwight Yoakam thespian moment?"

The Truth Taking a Beating

The amount of misinformation that gets sullied around at major colleges and universities is quite alarming. One of the more persistently bogus claims is the one that's constantly made by feminist and women's studies professors in which it is alleged that 30% of all women's visits to emergency rooms is due to domestic abuse. To say that this statistic is off is the understatement of the millennium. Knowing fully well that it was patently absurd from the get-go, Christina Hoff Sommers from the AEI contacted the Centers for Disease Control and got a letter back saying that the actual number was .02%, a 150,000% discrepancy. Please, try and find me a larger factual error than that one, I beg you.

Doing My Part

I enrolled in Obamacare today...under the name of Kyle Broflovsky. I probably shouldn't have done that, huh?

George Washington University Law Professor, Jonathan Turley, On the Recent Antics of the Obama Administration

"The rise of an uber Presidency."

On the Evidence that Fidel Castro, The Mob, LBJ, The KGB, Etc. Somehow Conspired to Kill JFK

Where in the hell is it; this evidence? The FBI has done tens of thousands (this, according to Vincent Bugliosi) interviews and they have yet to uncover one scintilla of evidence that any of these individuals had any contact whatsoever with Lee Harvey Oswald. And why in the hell would anybody even think to go to such an amateur and loser in the first place if they wanted to assassinate ANYBODY? It makes absolutely no sense AT ALL. That, and the fact that the route of the motorcade had only been determined three days prior to the damned event. Hello!

Oh, I'll Cry Alright

Argentina was at one point one of the wealthiest countries on the planet (late 19th and early 20th Centuries). It had a per capita GDP higher than Austria and Italy, four times as high as Japan, and nearly as high as the United States. So, what in the hell happened to it? Uh, try socialism and protectionism......................................................................................Yeah, that right, folks, starting in the '40s and continuing throughout the rest of the 20th Century, the Argentine government (initially under the auspices of Nazi sympathizer and protector of Nazi war-criminals strong-armed thug, Juan Peron) proceeded to a) close off the Argentinian economy to international commerce, b) nationalize numerous public services, c) engage in a hyperinflationary monetary policy (the printing of money to pay off its monstrous public debt eventually resulting in a 3,000% inflation rate) and d) establish state control (either directly or through massive government regulations) of most economic activities...........................................................................................Not surprisingly, the results of this madness were dozens of other countries proceeding to leap-frog Argentina (Japan in 1960, South Korea in 1980) and the country continuing to be an economic basket-case today. One can only hope here that the leaders of this once prosperous country will eventually see the errors of their ways and not have to fritter away another 70-80 years (maybe look to Singapore, Estonia, countries like that).  

On Israel and Foreign Aid

Yes, Israel does get foreign aid. But does anybody really think that Israel is affluent because of this foreign aid, and that doesn't have much more to do with the fact that Israel also has a) private property, b) a fair and impartial judiciary, c) enforceable contracts, d) a stable currency, e) a relative ease in starting up new businesses, f) a free press, g) a limited amount of corruption, h) a sane level of regulation, i) a sensible trade policy and j) democracy? I mean, I know that foreign aid to Israel is a contentious issue and all (and I'm certainly willing to revisit it - as is Daniel Pipes, believe it or not) but to draw any sort of causal connection here is a little bit, off in my opinion.

On the Clamoring for Nebraska Coach, Bo Pellini, To be Fired After Going 57-24 During His First Six Seasons

It makes me want to vomit. The guy is a whale of a football coach and about as squeaky clean as you can get. I mean, I know that Nebraska is a legendary football school and all but 57-24 in this day and age of limited scholarships and parity (Alabama the obvious exception) is pretty damn good and maybe all of these frigging boosters ought to simmer down a trifle and/or get a damned life.

San Jose State 42 Fresno State 41

AT HALFTIME!!!!

A Manufactured Crisis?

According to a 2008 study by the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, approximately 80% of business borrowing at the time of the financial crisis was taking place OUTSIDE THE BANKING SYSTEM, and that even within the banking system the actual amount of lending had remained exceedingly high all throughout the crisis. This whole narrative by the likes of Paulsen, Geithner, and Bernanke that the economic and banking systems were literally on the verge of some sort of catastrophic collapse was and continues to be absolute bullshit.

Will Durant on Free Trade and How it Helped to Build Athens

"The crossroads of trade are the meeting places of ideas, the attrition ground of rival customs and beliefs, diversities beget conflict, comparison, thought, superstitions cancel one another and reason begins."

A Tale of Two Chickies

There were these two women who I used to work with from another nursing home and the contrast between the two is interesting. First off, their situations were actually identical in that they were both high-school educated, divorced with two children, and worked as CNAs. But, while the older of them worked 44 hours a week (four hours of OT) every week in an effort to not have to be reliant on assistance, the other woman worked 32 hours a week every week in an effort to MAXIMIZE HER entitlements....Gee, guess which one of these two individuals who I more admired and whose work ethic the country was founded upon.

On Sarah Palin Recently Referring to Moderates as "Road-Kill"

I'm going to tell this biotch the same exact thing that I've uttered to every other individual who's tried to slander centrists. a) We aren't moderate on everything and we arrive at this via an open mind on literally every issue. b) The point to being moderate is an understanding that systematizing, doctrine, and ideological rigidity (whether it be the Keynesian foolishness of the left or the neoconservative foolishness of the right) are not only ineffectual but dangerous and that compromise in and of  itself is a virtue and not a vice. c) And, while, yes, it can in fact be dangerous at times to assume a centrist position (slings and arrows from every direction), rarely is it lethal (no roadkill as far as I can fathom) and at the very minimum you have to keep your wits about you in a way that the likes Sarah Palin have rarely shown capable, thank you very much.

On Patrick J. Buchanan

The last straw for me? Probably when he started defending all of those Nazi war criminals....A little bit hard to take, don't ya' think?

Immigration and the Myth of Plummeting Wages, Addendum 2

The reason that immigration doesn't push down wages is essentially two-fold (not to mention exceedingly elementary). a) Immigrants don't just alter the supply side of the curve. They also alter the demand side of the curve in that they obviously require a great many goods and services (it's like, what, the racists on the hard right and the hard left think that these people grow all their own food, sew all their own clothes, refine all their own gasoline, don't pay rent, etc.?). And b) the jobs that these immigrants tend to fill are different from the ones that native born workers tend to fill (immigrants tending to fill either unskilled manual labor or highly skilled STEM positions), a reality that seemingly makes them much more complimentary than competitive. I mean, I know that this is a little bit more nuanced that the typical Keynesian sledgehammer approach of only looking at aggregates and all but sometimes you really do have to disaggregate in order to get to the reality of the matter - http://economics.ucdavis.edu/people/gperi/site/papers/rethinking-the-effect-of-immigration-on-wages.............And there is ZERO evidence, none whatsoever, that immigration causes unemployment. In fact, this is the one area in which pretty much every researcher agrees upon (the total increase to the American economy due to immigration has recently been estimated as somewhere between 40 and 200 billion dollars per annum).

A Little Late but More Than Happy to Hear it Now

"Commerce is real. That's what you're about here (in the U.S.). It's real. Aid is just a stopgap. Commerce and entrepreneurial capitalism brings more people out of poverty than aid. Of course we know that.......In dealing with poverty here and around the world, welfare and foreign aid are a Band-Aid. Free enterprise is a cure." Bono at Georgetown University, 2012

On the Obama Administration's Decision to Delay the 2015 Individual Mandate Until After the 2014 Mid-Term Elections

Yeah, I would say that that was pretty nakedly political (going from 2 weeks before the election to 2 weeks after the election) and something that only a hard-core partisan dullard would even attempt to champion.

Immigration and the Myth of Plummeting Wages, Addendum

And it isn't as if Borjas is the only or definitive researcher on the subject. Ottaviano and Peri from UC-Davis came out with an even more expansive analysis on the subject and they concluded that a) immigration actually has a positive long-term effect on overall wages and b) even the long-term effect on high school dropouts is significantly less than the 4.8% that Borjas came up with (the fact that even amongst these low-skilled populations there exists a difference in the type of jobs that the two demographics gravitate to; native born workers going more for jobs that require language while immigrants tending to go more for physical labor)....Immigration, folks, it's what made the United States not just great but uniquely great and in my opinion we gotta get back to it (protestations from the hard-right and hard-left, notwithstanding).

Immigration and the Myth of Plummeting Wages

One of the main justifications that people use in their effort to oppose immigration is that it pushes wages down. The only problem here is that it largely isn't true. I cite specifically the research of Harvard economist (and staunch immigration OPPONENT), George Borjas. According to Professor Borjas, the long term effect of immigration on wages overall is ZERO, and even the long-term effect on low-skilled individuals/high school dropouts is only about 4.8%. The "solution" here seems to me to be one of better training the American work-force and NOT trying to keep hard-working and law abiding Latin-Americans out of the damned country (http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2007/03/borjas_wages_an.html).

Highlights From the Mead Museum in Amherst MA

"Lady Arnold" by James Archer, "Ophelia" by Thomas Francis Dicksee, and "Salome Dancer" by Robert Henri. Stellar museum. If you ever get to Amherts MA, please, check it out. It's free!

Duke 28 Wake Forest 21

No, it wasn't pretty but the Dukies are 9-2 now and next week's game in Chapel Hill against North Carolina will be the biggest in program history since the 1961 Cotton Bowl (in which they played and defeated a Lance Alworth led Arkansas team, 7-6). What an absolutely phenomenal job by David Cutcliffe.

On Jennifer Aniston Recently Being Named the Sexiest Woman of All Time

I'll take "Sex-Starved Individuals Wholly Trapped in the Present" for a Thousand, Alex.............................................................................P.S. Yes, the woman is obviously smoking, but the sexiest of all time? Really? Sexier than Cyd Charisse? Sexier than Hedy Lamarr? Sexier than Fay Dunaway? Sexier than Gene Tierney? Sexier than Marlene Dietrich? Sexier than Ava Gardner? Sexier than Susan Hayward? Sexier than Lana Turner? Sexier than Bridget Bardot? Sexier than Rita Hayworth? Sexier than Jane Fonda? Sexier than Greta Garbo? Sexier than Vivien Leigh? Sexier than Olivia de Havilland? Sexier than Natalie Wood? Sexier than Dorothy Malone? Sexier than Lauren Bacall? Sexier than Eva Marie Saint? Sexier than Lena Horne? Sexier than Grace Kelly? Sexier than Barbara Stanwyck? Sexier than Diahann Carroll? Sexier than Elizabeth Taylor? Sexier than Donna Reed? Sexier than Tina Turner? Sexier than Virginia Mayo? Sexier than Jennifer Jones? Sexier than Ann Margret? Sexier than Vanessa Redgrave? Sexier than Raquel Welch? Sexier than Sophia Loren? Sexier than Vanessa Redgrave? Sexier than Deborah Kerr? Sexier than Gina Lollobrigida? Sexier than Claudia Cardinale? Sexier than Claudette Colbert? Sexier than Dorothy Dandridge? Sexier than Kim Novak? Sexier than Ann Sheridan? Sexier than Marilyn Monroe? Sexier than Carol Lombard? Sexier than Jane Russell?...Once again, Really?

Journalist, Gerald Posner, On the Oliver Stone Film, "JFK"

"The only thing that he got right was the date."

My All-Time Least Favorite Conservative?

Wow, that's a tough one. I'd probably have to go with that bible-thumping, militaristic, anti-gay, anti-abortion, and absolutist biotch, Phyllis Schafly. The chick is 91 and still irritating the piss out of me, for Christ.

On Hamas, The Karzai Regime in Afghanistan, Hezbollah, The Taliban, The Iranian Mullahs, The Saudi Royal Family, Al Qaeda, The Al Aqsa Martyr's Brigade, The Musilm Brotherhood, Etc.

I'll take "Genocidal, Racist, Anti-Semitic, Anti-Hindu, Anti-Christian, Anti-Buddhist, Misogynistic, Troglodytic, Gay-Murdering, Delusional, Anti-Modern, Anti-Free-Speech, And Thoroughly Moronic Barbarians" for a thousand, Alex.

On the Assertion that Healthcare Costs are Rising at a Slower Rate than Previously

True but deceptive. Yes, people are dishing out less than they had been prior to the financial crisis but that can at least be partly due to a) the lousy economy and b) the fact that co-pays have gone up so precipitously that people have probably been much more hesitant than they used to be in going to the doctor. I mean, I know that the Obama administration really wants to take the credit for it and all but at least in terms of logic there are certainly far more credible explanations.

On the Burqa

I find it every bit as offensive as the KKK cross and the Nazi swastika and I wouldn't cry one iota if it was banned period....Of course, what's even more offensive is the Islamic rationale behind it; the fact that these Muslim "scholars" continue to think that men are incapable of controlling their sexual urges and that if a woman doesn't wear a burqa (never mind concealing every other bit of herself) she is literally asking to be raped. I am sorry but this is an abominable level of medieval idiocy and it thoroughly needs to be both condemned and ridiculed starting now.

Note to Homosexual American Leftists Who Sympathize With Islam

You're either insane, stupid, or you have a death wish. I mean, come on, man! Iran, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Afghanistan, Nigeria, virtually all of these Islamic countries would literally murder you, simply for being who you are. Yes, we have to be sensitive to other cultures and reach out whenever it's possible but in this particular instance, political correctness is lethal and isn't it about time that you showed some stones (ironic, in that that's what you'd get over there) regarding it?

A Small Minority? 2

That same Pew survey also uncovered an interesting (interesting as in scary) fact regarding Muslim support for Sharia Law. According to the survey, 99% of Afghans, 91% of Iraqis, 89% of Palestinians, 86% of Nigeriens, 84% of Pakistanis, and 83% of Moroccans said that they fully supported Sharia Law being the supreme law of the land in their respective countries. And, no, this doesn't even include Islamic countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the Sudan which have already essentially established the sucker to the tune of just being a homosexual and you're dead-meat there. Those are separate.

A Small Minority?

According to a Pew Research survey from earlier this year, 40% of Palestinians, 39% of Afghans, 29% of Egyptians, 26% of Bangladeshis, and even 15% of Turks and Jordanians (inhabitants of arguably the 2 most sane Islamic countries) all agree that suicide bombing is a legitimate form of social unrest. How anybody out there could even attempt to assert that this is somehow an insignificant demographic is utterly bizarre, in my opinion.

On Mormonism, Islam, And the Left

While both of these religions are thoroughly bat-shit crazy and in a myriad of ways, it is only Mormonism (the one, ironically, that hasn't been going on a full-bore killing-spree of late) that the progressive community seemingly wants to ridicule, denigrate, and criticize these days. It really kinda makes me wonder here. I mean, could it simply be the fact that Mormons tend to be white Americans while Muslims tend to be darker skinned Arabs, Africans, Persians, Pashtuns, Javanese, etc., and that this is just another example of the softer bigotry of diminished expectations? Me, I'm kinda thinking, yes sir.

Duke 48 Miami 30

Duke (one of the most rigid academic schools in the country) is 8-2 now and if David Cutcliffe doesn't get some serious consideration for national coach of the year, then there really needs to be an investigation. The end.

A Spate of Points Pertaining to Higher Education

a) As it stands now, people who are unable to pay off their student loans cannot file bankruptcy. Perhaps we need to change that. I mean, think about it here. Would not a potential lender be far more careful if he knew that the government wouldn't bail the borrower out, and wouldn't the borrower himself be far more careful in what he took the loan out for (as in maybe choosing a more prudent major)? Just a thought.............b) The way that student loans work now, there are no credit checks, no underwriting, and no collateral. I ask you, is that any way to run a damned business?............c) According to economist, Alex Tabarrok, more than 1/2 of all the graduates in the Humanities eventually end with jobs that don't even require a college degree. Don't you think that maybe we ought to start thinking about facts such as this (waitresses with tens of thousands of dollars in student-loan debt, for example) going forward and not continuously subsidize them?............d) Debt forgiveness for student loans is a total misnomer. Not a damn thing gets forgiven in that it's the taxpayer who ends up fitting the bill AS USUAL. And why pray tell would we even consider bailing out college graduates anyway? These are people who already have a leg up in many ways to start and what about all of the future college debt? Are we going to bail out the next generation of college graduates, too? This is insanity.

Yes, Progressive Friends, Millions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTLcM4iZSTo - Again, the biggest challenge currently facing the country and the American workforce is a lack of skills; a) skills specific to particular fields (the skilled trades, healthcare, IT, etc.) and b) general skills; reading, writing, basic computation, etc. (high schools are presently churning out hundreds of thousands of kids every year that cannot accomplish these basic things) and until this skills deficit is corrected, there will continue to be major problems ahead for us in an increasingly changing and competitive global economy. Period, as the President likes to say.

Buy a Nose

Am I the only person who has a real hard time looking at reality star and former Olympian, Bruce Jenner (above and beyond the idiocy of the reality crap, I'm saying)? I mean, the guy was easily at the 97th-98th percentile of handsome American fellows and, instead of just being happy with that, he fucking mutilates himself and now he looks like a fucking chick (yeah, he looks younger but, still)! What is the matter with these people? It's like, what, just because the celebrity asshole next door has some plastic surgery, they have to do it, too? Enough already, for Christ.

A Spate of Troubling Facts, Addendum 2

I want you to look at this one more time, folks. You see it, in the second column? If your family (two workers, no kids) income is $62,040, your premiums under Obamacare would be $5,894 and if it's $62,041, your premiums go all the way up to $16,382....I mean, is that a monstrous disincentive to work/insane or what; one extra dollar in wages and your premiums go up $10,488? If you're asking me, the individuals who put this sucker together had a preexisting condition of their own; brain-dead.

Soldering Home a Point

According to EzineArticles.com, the average age of America's 500,000 welders is 55. To say that this represents a golden opportunity for currently unskilled young folks to get some skills and make some serious money (6 figures, according to some) is a monstrous understatement. What do you say that we put our political differences aside for a millisecond and take a whack at this one to start?

Certainly Not Forever

What would be my answer to the question, "So, how much longer do you think that the Germans are going to be willing to bend over and take it up the poop-shoot by European slacker counties like Greece, Spain, Italy, and Portugal?

A Spate of Troubling Facts 2

a) According to CBS News, a September 3rd government memo addressing the Obamacare web-site security situation claimed that "the threat and risk potential (to the system) is limitless." This is what the memo said and they decided to go ahead with the roll-out anyway. Try and blame this one on Reagan....or Bush, I dare ya'.............b) The early enrollment figures for Obamacare are in and they're hugely disappointing; 106,000 (their target for the first month was 500,000). But that's not the only thing. It appears that amongst these numbers are people who have simply put an "item' in their shopping cart and not paid a penny as of yet and, yes, if you were to remove these folks from the data the stats would be even more pitiful.............c) It would also be interesting to see how many of the new enrollees are young and healthy as opposed to old and sick, 'cause if it's in any way seriously weighted toward the latter we are fucked yet again.

Mr. Obama, CALL THIS MAN (John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods)!

The man has put together the most innovative health insurance plan in America (a high deductible policy supplemented with health savings accounts) and it is the only plan (other than single-payer rationing) which has a halfway decent chance at bending the cost curve (in that it significantly reduces the middleman actually makes providers compete for a change). My suggestion is that invite this dude to the White House and, please, let him do most of the talking, OK?

On Those 60-Somethings Who Lost Their Shirts During the 2008 Financial Crisis

I feel sorry for them, but I kinda don't. I mean, think about it here. What kind of a moron in his early 60s would still have the lion's share of his investment portfolio in high-risk long-term securities and then try and blame somebody else for his own imprudence? It makes no sense. Any idiot knows that once you hit 50-55, you at that point start to put more and more of your money into safer instruments such as bond funds, annuities, CDs, etc. and that once you hit 60-65, pretty much all of it should be out of the market. These people were just frigging greedy and stupid, in my opinion.

Depending Upon

The poverty rate was coming down precipitously in this country and for the most part people weren't having children out of wedlock, and then came the Great Society. Thank you so much, the political class..............................................................................P.S. Yes, there are some possible intervening variables here, but this is one hell of a strong correlation and you know, YOU KNOW, that if the trend-lines had been plotted out in the opposite direction the left would have been singing and dancing that it was some sort of proof-positive that the Great Society was effective....And the fact that it makes such total fucking sense. Of course when you subsidize something you're going to get more of it. Hello!

Christopher Hitchens on Islamic Extremism

"Demands that you believe the impossible do not lead to peaceful outcomes. Nor do they lead to peaceful or tolerant regimes.......It (peace) will not come by the fanatical adoption of a man-made text and a man-made supreme leader. Nothing but war and tyranny has ever come from the adoption of a formula such as these.......The President and the head of the joint chiefs were so pulverized with fear that they had to address personally in pleading tones a Christian nut-bag in Florida who might have been or who might not have been  about to commit a minor act of blasphemy. Is this the culture that Islam wants us to have in relation to it? One of, if you like, preemptive submission, preemptive cowering, backed by the fear of force?"

A Spate of Troubling Facts, Addendum

As you can plainly see, once the family income exceeds that threshold of $62,041, it is far, FAR, more economically advantageous to simply live together than to marry....A stimulus package for divorce lawyers, let's call it.

A Spate of Troubling Facts

1) Back in 2011, 15 IRS agents seized the private medical records of some 10 million American citizens. The Obama justice department did not press charges but a class-action lawsuit has recently been initiated in San Diego.............2) The number of Obamacare waivers now tallies 1,471, the largest chunk of which represent cronyism and rank political payback.............3) In response to the Obamacare medical device tax, manufacturers such as Stryker, Welch Allyn, and Zimmer have decided to engage in a series of preemptive layoffs and now even supporters of the bill such as Senators Franken, Warren, Murray, and Schumer are calling for a repeal of the tax.............4) Obamacare subsidies are significantly more generous to couples who cohabitate than they are to married folks and it is feared that a lot of couples will ultimately divorce and live together rather than stay married.............5) "Starting on Tuesday, every American can visit HealthCare.gov to find out what's called the insurance marketplace for your state. If you've ever tried to buy insurance on your own, I promise you this is a lot easier." President Barack Obama 09/26/2013, 5 days prior to the roll-out.

Duke 38 N.C. State 20

BREAK UP THE DUKIES!!......Seriously, though, these guys might actually make the ACC title game against Florida State. Youza, huh?

Toward a Workable Governance

New Mexico is one of the most liberal states in the country and not only did Gary Johnson get elected Governor there, the dude got reelected via a double-digit margin. The man obviously knows how to govern.........................................................................He also represents a significant (albeit far too quiet) minority amongst the American electorate in voters who are fiscally conservative, socially liberal/tolerant noninterventionists. Of course, a lot of those same people who would have normally voted for a fellow like Johnson probably steered cleared of him (in 2012) because they didn't think that he could win and didn't want to throw their vote away. My hope is that the next time the dude can reach whatever it is that that threshold is and get himself  up on that debate stage. 'Cause I'm tellin' ya' here, if those Ds and those Rs continue to trot out numb-nuts straight out of central casting, he's gonna look darn good, and he's gonna look darn good to folks from across the political spectrum.

On Obamacare "Navigators" Not Having to Undergo Background Checks

This is just getting more disturbing by the day.

On the 14 Moderate Democratic Senators Who Stuck Their Necks Out Voting For Obamacare

Yeah, I would say that they're probably pretty ape-shit by now.

On the "Sausage-Making" Down in Washington

A little less fennel, please.

My Mount Rushmore?

Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and Cleveland.

Who Was that Unmasked Man?

There is footage of President Obama in 2010 specifying that an individual could keep their policy if they liked it EVEN IF IT WAS A HIGH DEDUCTIBLE CATASTROPHIC PLAN (he sanctimoniously and condescendingly referred to it as an "Acme plan"). I mean, does this fellow simply not know that videotape exists?

On the Limitations of Income Inequality Arguments - A Review

a) The analysis tends to focus on static categories and not on flesh and blood human beings who consistently move amongst these categories. b) The statistics do not include transfer payments which in a great many instances represent the vast proportion of a family's purchasing power. c) The statistics tend to examine only pre-tax income and because of that the purchasing power of the top 1% is significantly exaggerated. d) The statistics do not take into account the fact that families in the upper qunitile have significantly more workers (4Xs as many in fact) per family and that this is a major reason for the disparity. e) The statistics fail to underscore the fact that workers in the highest quintile are older (the highest age demographic in terms of income is 45-54) and much more highly educated.

Obama - What I Ultimately Received

Obama - What I Was Hoping For

A Race to the North

Whenever anybody brings up the racist past of the Democratic party, the left is always quick to point out that these were the Southern Democrats and that their lineage eventually found its way more to the Republican party. Yeah, well guess what? Woodrow Wilson was from New Jersey and he was amongst the most virulent racists in American political history. a) His writings are absolutely littered with racist sentiments (one of the dude's quotes is actually used in the 1915 film, "Birth of a Nation"), b) he supported eugenics and campaigned vigorously for the compulsory sterilization of not just poor blacks but the mentally retarded, and c) as President, he championed segregation and racial discrimination all throughout the Federal government...........................................................................And Wilson was far from the only progressive thinker (from the U.S. and England) who espoused such sentiments. Margaret Sanger, John Maynard Keynes, H.L. Mencken, George Bernard Shaw, Teddy Roosevelt, and H.G. Wells also advocated such things as eugenics and isn't is about time that this nasty side of the progressive movement got a little exposure here?

On Toronto Mayor, Rob Ford, Smoking Street-Crack During One of His "Drunken Stupors"

Well he's certainly got my vote.

On Bobby Fisher and Noam Chomsky

I'll take, "Two Really Brilliant Guys Who Thoroughly Know Their Field but Only One of Which Has the Good Sense and Decency to Refrain From Spouting Off On Other Subjects that He Basically Knows Jack-Shit About", for a thousand, Alex.

Two Quotes From 1981

"Those in the U.S. who think that the Soviet Union is on the verge of economic and social collapse are only kidding themselves." Arthur Schlesinger............."It (the Soviet Union) is also on the verge of economic difficulty." Ronald Reagan.............And the real idiot here is who again?

On Whether Having Multiple Billionaires in a Society is Desirable or Not

In and of itself it's a meaningless question. You would also have to known, in my opinion, a) the overall size of the economy, b) the growth rate, c) the opportunity structure, d) the regulatory climate, e) the amount of crony capitalism involved, f) the power of the country's central bank g) the legality of the earnings (we certainly don't want a country that's loaded with Bernie Madoffs), and h) what the people do with the money (do they waste it on politics or are they philanthropic?). I mean, I know that the left de facto wants me to say that billionaires are evil and all but I would simply point out that Cuba, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe, and Indonesia don't have any billionaires and do we really want to emulate them?............................................................................P.S. That, and I would also ask them to look at how the likes of Annenberg (50 million alone to the United Negro College Fund), Melon (The National frigging Gallery of Art, for God's sake), Carnegie, and the two Rockefellers spent THEIR money and compare it to how the government for the past 80 years (starting with Hoover and right on up to Bush and Obama) or so has been spending OUR money and then decide.

On Ebay Auctioning Off Holocaust Memorabilia

Yeah, somebody was definitely taking a nap during that one, for sure.

On Morons Who Use the Race-Card as Readily as They Breathe

When you only have so many quivers at your disposal.......

On Mary Elizabeth Williams's Assertion that "Not All Life is Equal" and that "The Woman is Boss"

I'm with her to a point. But when you get into the third trimester and the baby is viable and the woman just decides that she doesn't want to be pregnant anymore and so concocts some ludicrous ailment to justify killing the baby, yeah I'm kind of not with her at that point.

Dis Incentives

Constantly telling people that the larger society is unjust, that other people are responsible for their dire situation, that they don't have what other folks possess (and that they should resent them for it), that it is always somebody else's fault, and that the only way in which they can succeed is through political agitation, is a recipe for disaster. It leads to lowered expectations, learned helplessness, and a political situation in which all of the incentives are pathetic/perverse. Somehow, someway, we have to convince young disadvantaged black people that they, too, can be pilots and teachers, welders and nurses, computer programmers and realtors, and that the only legitimate way to get ahead in life is to equip yourself with skills that other folks are willing to pay for (a la what the Jews did in Eastern Europe, what the Chinese did in Malaysia, what the West Indian blacks did in America, etc.). Here's to hoping that the Al Sharptons and Jesse Jacksons of the world eventually see the light on this, or at the very least step aside for those folks who do.

Milking it Money

The problem with progressives and taxes is that they're seemingly never satisfied. I mean, we just got done raising taxes to the level that they've been clamoring for FOR YEARS (and to which I agreed to more than two years ago) and now, before the ink even becomes dry on it, you have folks like Jerry (who's views I generally respect but not on this) not only asking for another 4.6 percentage points but another 10!.................................................................................Look, I am totally in favor of tax reform (a lowering of rates for all and an elimination - or as close to an elimination as we can get - of deductions) and if that mean that the rich end up paying a little bit more, fine, so be it. But this whole "let's keep going to the well until the well becomes dry" approach is really starting to get ridiculous, in my opinion...................................................................................P.S. And it also should be pointed out that a 50% top tax rate today would be significantly more draconian than the one of 30 years ago in that there were far more loopholes and deduction back then (though, no, you couldn't deduct your golf-cart).

The Most Underrated Sports Superstar Ever

Yeah, I'm probably going to have go with "the man" on this one; 3,630 hits, 475 homers, 1,951 RBIs, 1,949 runs scored, 725 doubles, 177 triples, a .331 lifetime batting average, and 7 batting titles. To say that this fellow was a great hitter isn't just an understatement, it's a damned insult.

That's Rich, And so is That

The assertion that the rich are getting richer is a patently false one and here is the evidence. According to the 2007 Treasury Department report, "Income Mobility in the U.S. From 1996 to 2005", the actual flesh and blood human beings in the top 1% of wage-earners in 1996 actually saw their income go DOWN by 26% by 2005 and more than half of these people fell out of the category altogether..................................................................................And what about the 1% of the 1%, you ask? You just might be surprised to learn here that three fourths of those folks ended up being displaced as well....Look, I'm not saying that we need to start having have tag-sales and fund-raisers for these people, or even feel sorry for them, but we really do need to be a lot more careful in our analysis and check the demagoguery at the door once in a while.

The Shortcomings of Using Household Statistics to Buttress One's Arguments Pertaining to Income Inequality

a) Family size has been steadily declining since the 1960s and, with it, the average number of workers per household.............b) There also exists a huge disparity between the top and bottom quintiles in terms of the average number of workers (people, also) per household. Many households in the bottom quintile in fact have zero full-time or even part-time workers and so of course when you compare this fact to the two and sometimes three workers in the highest quintile, it shouldn't be surprising at all that a massive income disparity exists.............c) Families in the bottom quintile receive far more in terms of transfer payments (the obvious exception here being wealthy senior citizens collecting Social Security and Medicare) than those in the highest quintile and rarely is this ever included in the income tallies.............d) People in the highest quintile have significantly more marketable skills and a much higher education level than those those in the bottom quintile and, yes, this is yet another reason for the difference in family income between them.

On New York Police Commissioner, Ray Kelly, Getting Shouted Down at Brown this Weekend

They don't call it the armpit of the Ivy League for nothing, now do they?

On Obamacare Mandates

I get it to a point but when you start mandating that 60 year-olds carry maternity coverage and Mormons carry alcohol and drug rehabilitation coverage, you're really starting to get into some soft fascism there and at that point my support for it ends (period, to steal a phrase from Obama himself).

On this Morning's Cat-Fight Between Marsha Blackburn and Kathleen Sebelius

Raquel Welch versus Faye Dunaway in 1973's "The Three Musketeers" IT WAS NOT!

On President Obama

I think that there are actually two Obamas. You have the activist Obama who clearly wants to remake the American economy and make it "just". But you also have the pragmatic Obama who occasionally shows a willingness to work across the aisle in an effort to reach what is actually attainable. My feeling here is that the latter Obama would be more than willing at this point to listen to constructive advice if it meant that his signature achievement, health-care reform, could be salvaged. Unfortunately, the Republican Party in D.C. doesn't appear to be in any sort of constructive mood these days and so, yeah, the downward spiral of Obamacare is likely to continue. A pox on multiple houses, I've been thinking.

The Greatest Monotheists in World History

3) Mohammed - Allah....... 2) Moses - God....... 3) Paul Krugman - Demand-Push Government Deficit Spending.

So, Just How Important IS Alexander Amidon to the Boston College Passing Attack?

The dude has 585 yards receiving and the next fellow has 97. He IS the Boston College passing attack.

On Me "Being What I Read"

Well then I must be Flannery O'Connor. I must be Andre Gide. I must be Carson McCullers. I must be Somerset Maugham. I must be Willa Cather. I must be Kate Chopin. I must be Erskine Caldwell. I must be Truman Capote. I must be Edith Wharton. I must be Jack Kerouac. I must be Fyodor Dostoevsky. I must be John Dos Passos. I must be Samuel Beckett. I must be Elie Wiesel. I must be Kurt Vonnegut. I must be Franz Kafka. I must be Ivan Turgenev. I must be William H. Burroughs. I must be John Steinbeck. I must be Sherwood Anderson.

The Dull Hypothesis

The case for catastrophic anthropogenic global-warming is one of the most pseudo-scientific (not to mention, politically corrupt) enterprises in human history. What you essentially had was a bunch of bureaucrats, politicians, reviewers, crony capitalists, and activists creating this theory out of borderline cloth and then hiring a bevy of like-minded/addicted to government largess "scientists"/lackeys to prove it. That isn't science!! Science is all about observations and data collection, formulating hypotheses empirically, and then testing these hypotheses, not to prove them but to DISPROVE them (it's a little something called rejecting the null hypothesis, Michael Mann)...................................................................................And now, of course, the whole damned thing has taken on a life of its own; entire government agencies now existing to fight something that hasn't been happening since 1998, entire departments at major universities groveling for research money (studying the mating cycle of the painted lady butterfly won't get you money but studying the mating cycle of the painted lady butterfly as it pertains to global warming will - that thoroughly corrupt it's become) to study this "something". If it wasn't so tragic (a trillion dollars down a rat hole that could have been spent to eliminate malaria, third-world blindness and provide to millions of folks clean burning and inexpensive butane stoves - this, so they don't have to constantly burn cow-manure), it would almost be uproarious.

He's at it Again, Folks

Only this time, instead of comparing his political opponents to the Taliban, he's comparing them to the equally loathsome KKK. Hey, maybe he and his douche-bag Republican counterpart, Gohmert, can get together some time and compare (vitriolic) notes/brewskis. I'd watch!

On Religious Extremism and Violence

The more extreme that a Jainist becomes, the less that we have to worry about him (or her). The more extreme that a Muslim becomes.......

On Roy Spencer

He is a climatologist, research scientist (University of Alabama at Huntsville), former chief scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center, and the developer (along with John Christy) of NASA's satellite temperature monitoring system. Amongst his many awards are the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1991) and the American Meteorological Society's Special Award (1996) "for developing a global precise record of the earth's temperature from operational polar orbiting satellites, fundamentally advancing our ability to monitor climate." The fellow probably knows more about the atmosphere and ocean patterns than just about anybody out there and, so, yes, it is at the very minimum amusing that there are still morons out there who continue to put more stock in contaminated land thermometers and, worse still, those who attempt to slander him (can you all say those douche-bags over at Skeptical Science?).

Catch 22/Hell

Elizabeth Cohen, CNN's medical correspondent, attempted FOR DAYS to register with Obamacare AND COULD NOT. The gal even set her alarm for 3 o'clock in the morning and was stymied yet again. They had better fix this thing and fast, 'cause if we end up here with a situation in which people start getting fined for simply not doing something that isn't even feasible in the first instance, we all gonna be Tea Partiers at that point.

The Gradual Approach to Wealth

According to Wikipedia (2007), the median net worth of a person age 65-74 is $218,000. This is roughly 3Xs the amount of a person in the 35-44 age bracket. Is not this one fact alone proof positive that there exists a) ample income mobility and b) an actual career contingency within which most flesh and blood human beings proceed? I mean, I know that the progressive folks really relish this whole notion that people are somehow these powerless creatures that the government has to rescue and all but maybe it isn't quite as dire as that........................................................................................P.S. I actually could have painted an even brighter scenario here by utilizing the means ($924,000 and $296,000 respectively) instead of the medians but that would have skewed the data much more toward the wealthy and I wanted to avoid that.

Ivy Leaguer? 3

Alright, I'll give you this one.

Ivy Leaguer? 2

Oh, this is too easy. This is way, WAY, too easy.