BO: Miserable Failure

Answering Jonathan Alter’s Challenge « Commentary Magazine:

Not that any of this is surprising at all to anyone that reads this Blog -- BO is worse than Carter. But we knew that already ...

The Technocratic Saint

Text of Steve Jobs' Commencement address (2005)

In the pantheon of computer technology in the modern world, Gates is the Devil and Jobs is god. One might contrast the attached commencement address to the book "The Purpose Driven Life" as to how an aspiring Christian might view life as opposed to Jobs view.

George Thorogood pretty much has the question down; "Who do you love?" ... Jobs translates it as "find what you love and do it". A gigantic amount of faith that the universe of random selection has randomly endowed each human with an "inner love" of something to do that will "make us happy, fulfilled, etc"

Christ says "Love God with all your heart and with all your soul" ... and since that is impossible for a sinful human, he died to give us the sacraments of Holy Baptism and Holy Communion to draw us to our eventual heavenly home.

I have a lot of respect for Jobs and I like his products. I hope he finds both health and Christ, but Christ is much more important. All of us live under a death sentence.

It is gratifying to see however that every Christian meets Seve's ultimate advice; "stay hungry, stay foolish". To the secularist, nothing is more foolish than Christian Faith, and every Christian is hungry for more of it.

Issues of Faith vs Science

RealClearPolitics - "Science" When It Suits Them:

Extremely well done article. I'm the sort of Christian that doesn't happen to find Creationism disconcerting -- I've decided that I'm magnanimous enough to allow an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God create the universe anyway he sees fit. That is just the kind of liberal minded guy that I am!!!

Everyone has a ton of faith -- it is just placed in different places. I've got more faith in God, liberals have a ton of faith in Government . In even the medium run, I'm very confident that their government faith isn't going to pan out. Even the less than observant and starting to see a couple signs of that!

As a voter, like me, you may find Perry's view on creationism disconcerting and a sign of an unsophisticated candidate. But the fact is that the progressives' faith-based devotion to government is far more consequential than Perry's faith-based position on evolution.

Despite the rare political dispute, in the real world, science -- real science -- is rarely controversial. It's politicized science that is prickly. And science is easy to politicize. Maybe if schools began teaching students that "life" begins at conception and that each zygote, embryo and fetus is a unique human being in some early stage of development just waiting to be born, liberals would see the point.

"Progressives" **DO** Want a Revolution

What's next for Wisconsin progressives? - Wisconsin - Salon.com:

In case any of you doubt what the REAL regressive ("progressive") agenda in this country, see "Arab Spring". Oh you say "Progressives are liberal" ... uh, no, progressives are STATISTS ... their highest good is state control. Sharia Law is WAY better in their minds that Capitalism!!! Just like the Muslims, it is individual freedom and the potential for differential outcomes that they really can't stand in any case.

"Even activists on the ground in Wisconsin don't yet know if that will happen. For the rest of us, their decision either to press on or pack it in will speak volumes about where progressive organizing stands in America, a nation where too many protesters believe it's enough to turn up for a few rallies and then go home, even though the foundations for real mass movements (like Egypt's democracy uprising) are laid years before lasting change occurs.

Americans need such a movement, built on economic populism and the dream of shared prosperity. The question is: Are Wisconsin's progressives the first spark in that movement? Or is theirs a flare that is already flickering out?

BO Business Uncertainty Defined

How Democrats Hurt Job Creation - NYTimes.com:

There really need be no questions at all why Democrats kill jobs -- this is just one reason of many, but it is a VERY good one!!!

That is what is so jarring about this case — and not just for Boeing. Without any warning, the rules have changed. Uncertainty has replaced certainty. Other companies have to start wondering what other rules could soon change. It becomes a reason to hold back on hiring.

Come On Media!!!

Review & Outlook: The Biggest Trade Barrier - WSJ.com

BO chides congress for not moving fast enough on trade legislation and it has been sitting on his desk since he took office!!

THIS is not a news story??? Come on, this is beyond funny -- it is sad, disgusting, incompetent, ridiculous, etc.

Since the MSM is letting BO get away with this, it is apparent that they will get him get away with ANYTHING!!!

The BOnomics "Silver Lining"

Review & Outlook: Millionaires Go Missing - WSJ.com

As I've often pointed out, income inequality is the bane of a growing economy -- zero stubbornly stays at zero, and the fact that people have different gifts that are valued differently by other people produces that liberal horror "income inequality" as surely as the sun rises.

The inverse is also true-- another mark of things that liberals hate, since it tends to indicate "reality basis". 40% of our millionaires are missing!! Super news -- BOnomics works!!! We are all poorer, but the "rich" are more poorer than the less rich.

Congratulations BO!

Defending TX Economy

Review & Outlook: The Texas Jobs Panic - WSJ.com

It's pretty much the same old statistical sleight of hand that the MSM uses to fluff up their own guys numbers and make a Republican look bad. If a Republican was President now we would be in a DEPRESSION not still mincing words about a "Double Dip" -- and the jobs situation would be a CRISIS for which the President was "out of touch, incompetent, etc" for not having a plan LONG before going on vacation ... but I digress.

Next time you hear somebody talking about the "false economy" in TX, just come back and look at this. There is no questions the Dems and the MSM MUST attack Perry on the TX economy any way they possibly can -- they SURE don't want to compare BO to his record!!!

Ending Capitalism

The U.K. Riots And The Coming Global Class War - Forbes:

Excellent article. The Judaeo-Christian work ethic, generally accepted social values including personal responsibility, and the rule of law allowed Capitalism to create a cornucopia of wealth in the west. But, it has also enabled world wide completion, at the time when the western attitudes of hard work, thrift, innovation and risk taking have largely turned to entitlement, redistribution, protectionism and consumption. The formerly "virtuous cycle" of the old characteristics has given way to a new "death spiral" that has riots and state power taking the ever smaller shrinking wealth from those that formerly drove the virtuous cycle.

"The hardening of class divisions has been building for a generation, first in the West but increasingly in fast-developing countries such as China. The growing chasm between the classes has its roots in globalization, which has taken jobs from blue-collar and now even white-collar employees; technology, which has allowed the fleetest and richest companies and individuals to shift operations at rapid speed to any locale; and the secularization of society, which has undermined the traditional values about work and family that have underpinned grassroots capitalism from its very origins."

CNN, Strong Praise for Perry

Why Rick Perry is headed to the White House - CNN

Ran into this the other day on the left side of the CNN page right with the NEWS! Perry has to be doing something right if he can raise this kind of MSM hatred before he even runs.

His Saturday speech in South Carolina will make clear that he is entering the race for the White House and will spawn the ugliest and most expensive presidential race in U.S. history, and he will win. A C and D student, who hates to govern, loves to campaign, and barely has a sixth grader's understanding of economics, will lead our nation into oblivion.

Expensive is bad? Uh, BO broke all records in '08 and it was GOOD then. How the hell would we know what kind of student BO was? He was never spotted at Columbia, but nobody cares. The interest in his grades are of completely ZERO interest to the MSM. Not really so bad -- it is just the CONTRAST that gives on pause. "Barely a six graders understanding of economics"?? One shudders to think what one would rate BO's level of economic understanding. To paraphrase a famous BO bowling comment -- I'll wager their isn't a single participant in the Special Olympics that isn't 10x the "economist" of BO!!!

Oblivion??? It is going to take a great president to get us back there from where we are now!!!

It is really hard to imagine the level of hatred that brings a screed like this to the online front page of a major media outlet before the guy even DECLARES his candidacy. But I guess one needs no imagination at all -- there it is!

You recall anyone on the left taking the Mormons side on anything prior to now? Me neither.

A BO Biparticle

The most powerful man on Earth? - The Washington Post

Yet Obama plods along, raising gobs of cash for his reelection bid — he was scheduled to speak at two DNC fundraisers Monday night — and varying little the words he reads from the teleprompter. He seemed detached even from those words Monday as he pivoted his head from side to side, proclaiming that “our problems is not confidence in our credit” and turning his bipartisan fiscal commission into a “biparticle.”

Journalists are writers, to whiich the spoken word often sounds "tentative" or "ill formed". When one is thinking critically, as a journalist is always supposed to do, the little gaffs that are part of common speech grate on them. Especially for "the most powerful man in the world". Shouldn't such a person be "special" in areas that are near and dear to "our" (the journalists) hearts?
Typically, because they have some understanding of the world around them, they avoid nit picking public figures. It seems "ticky-tack". But once they take a dislike to a poltiician ... Nixon, Reagan, Quayle, and both HW and especially W Bush, "the gloves are off". It appears that even the lefty press like Milbank is getting a distinct whiff of BO.

I really think it is hard to beat "biparticle" as a name for a "bipartisan fiscal commission" ... it is really even better than W's "misunderestimated".

WI Recall Fails

Report: GOP retains Wisconsin senate control in recall battle - CNN.com

WAY too close! With the teachers off work and going door to door, plus the deep national union pockets spending like there was no tomorrow, this one was huge. If they had won control this would have been the top story for the rest of the week in the MSM with all sorts of "harbingers for the future" and "stinging defeat for the Tea Party" rhetoric.It would have been a big energizer for the Democrats and Unions.

As it is, they spent millions and lots of door to door time and failed ... all be it narrowly. It OUGHT to further energize Tea Party and Republicans, but we will have to come up with our own media buzz to do that because this version of the WI story will be a non-story in the MSM after today.

 

 

 

Left Starts to See BO Reality

What Happened to Obama’s Passion? - NYTimes.com

There is a reasonable set of quotes here that indicate that a true whacked out rabid lefty is actually starting to see some of the reality if the BO story:

"This pattern of presenting inconsistent positions with no apparent recognition of their incoherence is another hallmark of this president’s storytelling."

Uh, this is a hallmark of ALL liberal storytelling ... it is known by reality oriented people as "consistency is NOT an issue" ... and like always, the view of the lefty writing the column is rife with such inconsistency. The role of Fannie and Freddie in creating the sub-prime / credit default swap crisis is completely ignored, as is the inconvenient truth that FDR's programs not only didn't end the depression (WWII did), they actually DID turn out to be unaffordable and destructive to the moral fiber of people to delay gratification and save for the future -- it just took longer than expected. Oh, and BTW, the same realities apply in Japan and in Europe and indeed everywhere. There STILL is no free lunch!

THE real conundrum is why the president seems so compelled to take both sides of every issue, encouraging voters to project whatever they want on him, and hoping they won’t realize which hand is holding the rabbit.

and this is new to you? This is PRECISELY how he ran as a candidate and it was pointed out SOLIDLY by many of us who were labeled as "racists", or when they were kind in the name calling just "misinformed". One might say, "welcome to at least a partial whiff of reality".

Those of us who were bewitched by his eloquence on the campaign trail chose to ignore some disquieting aspects of his biography: that he had accomplished very little before he ran for president, having never run a business or a state; that he had a singularly unremarkable career as a law professor, publishing nothing in 12 years at the University of Chicago other than an autobiography; and that, before joining the United States Senate, he had voted "present" (instead of "yea" or "nay") 130 times, sometimes dodging difficult issues.

Bewitched? I guess -- all those facts and hundreds more equally and even more disquieting were well known and indeed often written by his own hand in two books. One really doesn't have to have much for common sense to be able to see a bit of a problem with a person that writes not one but two autobiographies prior to reaching the age of 50.

The president is fond of referring to “the arc of history,” paraphrasing the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous statement that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

King is very eloquent, but it is even more true that the arc of all history bends toward reality. Eloquence is super, but in changes many aspects of reality not one whit. Sure, "to the moon before the end of this decade" was motivational, but the late 50's and 60's were a different time. "The Great Society" was in it's infancy, and FICA had only been falsely promised a mere 30 years prior. The number of retirees relative to workers was still small, and the pernicious corruption of "may as well spend it today, the government will take care of me when I get older" was just beginning.

The multiple realities of longer lifetimes, a more competitive global business market, technologies that boost inefficiencies and further level the competitive field and the grinding inefficiencies of big government weigh on the US as a millstone around the drowning nations neck.

But, but, I'm ignoring his "facts" like "It does not bend when 400 people control more of the wealth than 150 million of their fellow Americans.".

Ok, the origin of that "fact" is Michael Moore in Madison this past spring. The top 400 Americans control $1.5T in assets ... the vast majority in stocks of the businesses they control, and at which many Americans work. The total private wealth of the us is around $55T - $1.5T, so "$53T". Surprise, surprise, the bottom 50% of the population controls very little wealth. Why?
30% of them are under the age of 20. To not recognize this is simple incompetence or malfeasance. There are no other alternatives.

"Wealth" is acquired over a lifetime (or if you are a Kennedy or Dayton, inherited). FICA, government assistance, education, etc are NOT counted as "wealth" -- only personal assets that can be sold are. The very programs that the left pushes contribute mightily to wealth inequality. FICA transfers 15% of the earning power of the predominately young workers to the elderly. The group that controls 80%+ of the wealth in the country is the beneficiary of the largest government transfer payments, and it is THE LEFT that created the transfers!!

Downgrade Paternity

“Tea Party Downgrade”? They Can’t Possibly Sell That | Power Line

"Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan". Decent column by PL talking about the Democrats and blame for the downgrade. I'd never underestimate the power of the MSM to re-write history in a form that flatters Democrats though. I wonder if there would have been any question with a Republican President in office as to "where the buck stopped"?

I suppose you can't really be blamed though when you are "leading from behind".

Wishing for Winston

In economic turmoil, U.S. needs a leader like Churchill - CNN.com

Gergen is one of those guys they love to put in the media as a "moderate" -- like NPR and the NYT, he is pretty much floating out there between "the left" and "the far left", or in terms of the MSM, "moderate".

It is laughable to look at someone like that pining away for Winston Churchill ... he may as well pine away for Margaret Thatcher or Ronald Reagan. They aren't coming back either -- nor would he really want them to. The problem is that the left doesn't really want a "leader" nearly so much as they want a Dictator. They want "someone that fixes all the problems" ... so they won't have to. Their idea of "a difficult decision" is just how much of someone else's income and wealth should be confiscated so that their economically disastrous programs can be continued.

Winston was indeed a leader. He led Brittan to win the war, and when he wanted them to pull up their socks and get back to the business of being a world power, they promptly threw him out of office. They also didn't much like what he had to say when other voices like Chamberlin were out there talking of "peace in our time".

Winston once said that the American people would do the right thing once al other options had been exhausted. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that is human nature and true of all of us and thus all democracies. As long as there is someone out there selling the snake oil of "hope and change", or "peace", or "strength through disarmament", or "improving the economy by borrowing", or "leading from behind", or countless other nostrums that may sound good for a season, many will be buying. Maxim's like "work and study hard, be responsible, be a maker not a taker, worry about doing good and you won't have to worry about who to blame ..." and thousands of others don't sound as slick. In fact, they sound "hard" ... the only minor difference is that they actually work, where wishful thinking is just as wishful as it ever was.

It's the principles stupid!! The great leaders are only great leaders because at the time they come along ... or maybe come along again, as in Winston's case, the people are ready to follow the principles they embody. We don't need Winston, we don't need Reagan -- we need to get back to the timeless principles that both of them embodied as leaders.