Chuck Norris Endorses Newt!

My Endorsement for President - Page 1 - Chuck Norris - Townhall Conservative

I thought I was ready to finally accept and start getting exited for "Mitt", "Mittens" Romney, then the people of SC rose up, and now I read that Chuck Norris has endorsed Newt! My god, Chuck Norris doesn't do "push ups", he pushes the planet down!!

That is why Gena and I have committed the rest of our lives to help Old Glory rise again to its heights of splendor. And that is why we are endorsing and standing with Newt Gingrich, because we believe he can lead all of us who have committed to the same.

After 2 in a row, I was hoping that the party could unite behind Mitt, but the fact is that didn't happen. I love the Newt combativeness and at least seemingly straight talk. What I hate is the hubris, the meanness, the history of breaking things and the sense that he can't be trusted. One of the reasons that womanizing is accepted for Democrats is because nobody EXPECTS then to follow though on their promises ... marriage or otherwise. (See BO ... campaign finance, raising debt limit, Gitmo, unemployment staying under 8.1, more open government, recess appointments, etc, etc).

Newt displays core Democrat values at times ... womanizing, petulance, flip flopping (doing a commercial with Pelosi on GW), massive inside the beltway deal making, etc ..

But CHUCK NORRIS!!! If anyone can keep him in line, it is Chuck!!! 

Realizing the Dismal in Economics

RealClearPolitics - Why the Fed Slept

Economics is often called "The Dismal Science" for much the same reason that we say "What goes up must come down" ... or young pilots are admonished that taking off is a decision entirely in their hands, landing, not always so much.

The salient point of this article is:

There's a paradox to economic policy. The more it succeeds at prolonging short-term prosperity, the more it inspires long-run destabilizing behavior by businesses, banks, consumers, investors and government. If they think basic stability is assured, they will assume greater risks -- loosen credit standards, borrow more, engage in more speculation, relax wage and price behavior -- that ultimately make the economy less stable. Long booms threaten deep busts.

There is a paradox to everything human -- we aren't endowed with the god-like powers of "final solutions", and when we attempt them, what we create are even bigger problems.

Humility, humility, humility --- but hubris is our nature.

MIGHT We Agree After All???

Online activists triumphant as Congress buries anti-piracy bills - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

Lots of folks in congress supported this bill on both the right and the left -- both MN Senators, and Marco Rubio were sponsors.

People on BOTH the left and the right on FB were adamant in opposition.

Here is my view on WHY:

1). The internet is very precious to both the left and the right, AND the idea of "government control of speech" is a huge fear of both sides.

2). What one had to do to support the bill was to trust government AND to some degree corporations to do the right thing. The left doesn't trust the corporations and the right doesn't trust the government -- so we agree on stopping it, just for somewhat different reasons.

3). On both the right and the left, the high regard for free speech on the internet changed the "calculus". The normal corporate supporters realized that the natural caution of corporations would likely make them overly restrictive if there was a CHANCE they would come under legal jeopardy if copyright material was found on their sites. The normal government supporters thought of government bureaucracy, paranoia and incompetence and their scale fell down hard on the side of "keep your hands off my internet".

So where might we go from here?

1). Realize what happened!!! People that we normally argue vehemently with were in complete agreement --- maybe not for precisely the same reasons, but it is MUCH easier to "see the other side" from a position of agreement rather than opposition.

2). Think about this in different areas. It we think that corporations (especially big ones) are likely to be overly cautious when faced with laws in THIS CASE, why do many think so differently in other cases??? Are the characteristics that we worried about from the government ALSO valid in healthcare? Spending money prudently? Making decisions on wealth allocation?

3). Perhaps we actually AGREE on "smaller" for BOTH government and corporations??? It is actually true that both go together -- big corporations work to influence government, and the bigger the government, the bigger the corporations that are best suited to influence and "partner" ("collude"?) with it.

EVERY human institution -- Government, corporations, sports teams, glee clubs, etc. is "flawed, fallible, self perpetuating ...." It IS NOT "one or the other" ... that best approach in nature and in human affairs is checks and balances.

A Consistent Liberal!!!

Cohen-Head: Defending Big Money in Politics | Power Line:

Nearly always, liberals follow a maxim that I refer to as "consistency is NOT an issue"!! Which means it isn't even a consideration -- I get bored of pointing it out because it is so obvious. Money in campaigns for Republicans, BAD ... BO spends record amounts, NO PROBLEM!!! Gitmo with Bush, BAD ... under BO??? Gitmo what?? ... "civility" ??? really really important if Tea Party said anything REMOTELY "uncivil" ... Occupy Wall Street ??? Whatever ...

BUT, here we have a case of a liberal columnist, Richard Cohen, pointing out that Eugene McCarthy's NH candidacy was financed by a few fat cats that were fed up with Vietnam ... SO, since he supported that, and generally supports free speech, he can't see how he can go against conservatives that do the same thing!!! Wow, my hat is off to a liberal for taking a CONSISTENT POSITION !!! If this caught on, one could actually have reasoned discussion with liberals!!

The quote from George Will in the piece is priceless and right on ...

"Campaign reformers constantly argue that, a) there’s too much political speech in this country, b) they know the right amount and, c) they want to criminalize speech in excess of that."

The classic "liberal" position ... I know what is "right, fair, correct, proper, environmentally sound, diverse, etc" ... AND, I'm willing to lock you up if you disagree!!

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Titanic Concordia

After sinking, some wonder: Is cruising safe? - CNN.com

The modern media wags the public like the dog wags it's tail. We are forever trying to compare current events with events of the past as if there were some correlation.

The Titanic was a completely new technology ship trying to break the speed record from Europe to the US through the ice infested N Atlantic. It went down hundreds of miles from land with over 1,500 dead. Yes, some remembrance might be in order since it was 1912 ... 100 years ago this April.

The Concordia is a big fat cruise ship that was transporting nobody anywhere except for hoped for R&R. It ran over a reef trying to do a show-off "flyby" at a little Italian town and ended up on it's side less than 200yds from shore. We may see 20ish dead out of over 4K.

My how far we have come in 100 years. The people on the Titanic were generally going somewhere -- ships were mostly for transportation, not recreation. Much like planes occasionally crash, ships occasionally sank. People had some overblown hopes for technology ("unsinkable"), but at least they were doing something and had some hopes.

The Concordia capsized on the shores of Italy -- one of the many formerly sovereign European states that traded their sovereignty for supposed wealth and are well on the way to reaping bankruptcy. It was just "wasting time" as is the case with so many in the modern world. The captain of the Titanic and many of his officers went down with his ship. The captain of the Concordia left early and had to be arrested in town even though he had been admonished to stay with his ship -- 100 years of mostly soft liberal outlook tend to breed some very weak character.

The left leaning educational and media establishments have drilled into our heads the folly and hubris of the Titanic for 100 years now. What they have failed to see is the hubris is as human as the AM bathroom trip and just as hard to eradicate. What they failed to see is their own hubris in moving from an overly proud and optimistic world moving faster and farther to an overly proud and generally pessimistic world on a bankrupt slow cruise to nowhere.

Massive recreational technology lying on it's side 200yds from shore may be one of the very best symbols of our times. Perhaps that is the real unintended link to the majestic Titanic. 

Flanders and Wallonia

The European Crack-Up by Theodore Dalrymple - City Journal

A little on the longish side but worth it. Many times people can only understand reality by being given multiple examples of what it is and how it works. Turns out that Belgium is a pretty good example -- and the differences between Flanders and Wallonia could well be Red vs Blue in the US.

This is then painted on the larger canvas of Europe with the differences between Ireland and Greece highlighted. Both of them went on a bender, it appears that Ireland has opted for black coffee and a couple of aspirin as the AM solution, Greece is hell bent on bloody mary's with a beer chaser.

Most of all, as is commonly the case with Dalrymple, it is an eyes wide open appraisal of human nature, unintended consequences and the boundless hubris of government and the "progressives".

Economic Divide

Niall Ferguson: A Conservative Take on America's Economic Divide - The Daily Beast

Like most things from Ferguson, a worthy read. I have no idea what Murray means by a "guaranteed income", but I'll read the book and figure it out -- no, it doesn't sound like a good idea to me.

The diagnosis of how we got in this ditch sounds right on to me though.

The Scent of BO From Europe

Why are Barack Obama’s critics so smart? – Telegraph Blogs:

When W was president, any little foreign criticism that could be dredged up was worthy of front page treatment here. "See, Europe hates us!!!".

My how times have changed!!! Now NewsSpeak is essentially an extension of the WH press office and some people in Europe disagree with both it and the BO administration.

Newsworthy?? Barely.

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John 3:16

Explain it to me: John 3:16 – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs

Despite Stewart's story, many sports fans continue the tradition of evangelizing at sports games by holding up John 3:16 on placards.

Uh, despite John Hinkley's sad tale, many people continue to attend movies?? Despite the Nazi's (National Socialists) not being very nice people, there are still a quite a few people who espouse socialist principles??

One could go on and on forever. So one guy that displays John 3:16 goes crackers and thus everyone should ??? uh, never pay attention to John 3:16 anymore??

Should anyone ever read CNN again after they put out this kind ot thought?

A Government Luther??

Where Are the Liberals? - NYTimes.com:

It is amazing how liberal a guy the NYTs puts up as their "conservative" -- Brooks voted for Obama.

Here his thesis is basically "liberals are right, but they have fouled the pool" ... so they need a "State Martin Luther" to clean it up ... Luther cleaned up the church, now we need a state version of Luther. Neat.

Some thoughts:

-- Luther moved the western church to BIBLICAL principles, not some "Catholic cleanup". It is true that he WANTED to reform the Catholic Church, but what he did was essentially give the Bible to the people (German translation) ... a cause that was also helped by Gutenberg. Luther applied "technology" (printing press) to Christian faith, thereby basically decentralizing the control of faith and creating an explosion of churches. The Catholic Church survived, but it never again had the power it had pre-Luther. 

-- If one was going to apply Luther to government, it would make people MORE self governing, which would make the Democrats even more wrong than they are now.

-- Rent seeking,  profit,  market share, competitive advantage, we won the election, currying favor, political influence, inside information, etc, etc. Those are all HUMAN ideas ... and they are pretty much the same thing. Luther didn't make himself Pope, King, Chief, wealthy, or anything -- neither did Christ. Our founding fathers were very successful people that took huge risks (including their lives) to give us liberty. A "government reformation" would operate on WHAT set of "transcended principles"??

-- The idea that "capitalism failed us" relative to the sub-prime crisis is like saying "technology failed us" when there is a car or plane crash, nuclear plant problem, power outage, or discovery of large defect in some product. **ALL** our systems --- government, private, military, corporate, non-profit, religious, educational, etc, etc are HUMAN designed, built, and operated. They are **ALL** subject to failures great and small. Government is pretty much the bottom of the barrel on quality of systems because:

1.  It's primary motivation is short term votes. In the long run, the politicians at hand are out of office.
2. It plays to constituencies, not science, principles, results (other than votes), efficiency, etc. 
3. It can't be destroyed by "lack of profits" or "measured failure", or consumer dissatisfaction like any other business. 

Making government work "better" is much like building a bigger H bomb or tiger, or fuel tanker. There may or may not be an UPside, but there is ALWAYS a DOWNSIDE!!!

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The Land of Envy

GHEI: The class warfare toxin - Washington Times:

Good column on how Obama and the left has already made a lot of progress at moving us from being the land of opportunity to being the land of envy.

One of the huge "successes" of the BO administration has actually been in one of the areas that they constantly talk about "doing in the future" -- a vast reduction in wealth disparity by the destruction of wealth.

That is precisely what "transfer of wealth" accomplishes. If you demand that some of Bill Gates wealth be transferred, the act of the transfer means that the wealth is no longer optimally allocated, so therefore the total wealth of the nation is lowered. For example, the wealth might have been invested in a new project at Microsoft that now has to be cancelled. Rather than potentially providing the next big computing breakthrough, it is transferred to a series of people that buy large screen TVs ... and becomes a depreciating rather than appreciating asset.

The economic pie is NOT fixed -- in the zest of the left to divided it to their political advantage, they completely lose sight of just how easy it is to SHRINK it.

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Tebow Halo??

'Mile High Halo' Forms Over Tim Tebow And Mile High Stadium During Broncos Steelers Game (PHOTOS):

Hey, it's in HuffPo, it MUST be true!!

Of course there is too much Tebow hype -- is anyone aware we have 24x7 cable sports and news + internet and other media??? There is ALWAYS too much hype of EVERYTHING from now on. People just decide which things to complain about ... and there are off switches, filters, etc.

I do really really enjoy seeing him do well playing football.

How many sorts of weird "Nation of Islam" statements, ex-cons, drug charged, criminal charged, strage haircuts, tats, demonstration "dances", completely off the wall statements about professional sports being like "slavery", "love boats", pushing meter maids with your car, etc, etc have we seen??? Endless.

But a practicing Christian and kneels and prays. Now THERE is something to really get bent out of shape about.

In the Superbowl??? Providing my Pack is there I hope he has the worst game in the history of the sport !!!! Otherwise, it would be fun to see.

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Gitmo Makes News!!!

Guantanamo 10th Anniversary Protests: Demonstrators March From White House To Supreme Court (PHOTOS):

Remember Gitmo??? It was a HUGE "stain on America", it "made us less safe", it was "against international law" ... it was HORRIBLE!!!

St. BO promised to "close it as his first act"!!!!

oops ... not so easy. It is still open. It is the 10th anniversary and at least some of the lefty groups took the time to do a little demonstration. No doubt there will be VERY little press coverage, and to the "99%" of the US public sheep, this issue is as dead as a dodo.

Bias??? Oh, come on, there is no such thing!!!

If Bush promised to close it but didn't, that would be a LIE!!!

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There They Go Again

William McGurn: The Stephanopoulos Standard - WSJ.com:

Good article on how Republicans need to handle the obvious press bias. Reagan tended to do a good job of not confronting Carter's obvious attempts to build off the press picture of him as some sort of "dangerous, wacko" and to calmly let people realize what Carter was trying to do. Thus Mitt with Stephanapoulos ... no need to get ones undies in a bundle, just calmly point out that it is "silly" to be asking questions about something that is on no agenda anywhere.

I question the wisdom of having so many Republican primary debates. We know the MSM / Democrat establishment approach will be to do their best to make sure that EVERY Republican candidate is "damaged goods" by the time they get through the debates and step up to face their guy BO. Why make it so easy for them??

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BO Campaign Literature as "News"

Poor, but feeding the rich - CNN.com:

This was the center CNN headline this AM, it was "news". A few points:

-- The "poor" have been feeding "the rich" since Biblical times. I suspect that the "poor" will ALWAYS feed the rich ... and work for them, and wait on them in restaurants, clean their homes, park their cars, etc, etc, etc ... this is "news" in the sense that the sun rising in the east is news. When "the rich" are Democrats, they love to have the folks taking care of them be illegal aliens ... that is why they want open borders.

-- One thing that has changed over history is that the "poor" didn't get poor after divorce/re-marriage, living in a home that cost 2.5 times their yearly income and having hi-tech stents put in their hearts. These guys would call me "rich", and I never paid 2.5x my yearly income for a house.

-- The "poor" in the past -- and in not very many places today, get heart stents put in. They also typically didn't and in most of the world yet today, don't get enough to eat to have enough cholesterol in their arteries to even need a stent. The 2.5 Billion ACTUAL POOR in the world TODAY that have no sanitary facilites usually die in smelly ways way before they need stents. Oh, and their buck a day lifestyle means that there aren't any of their cardboard "homes" that are 2.5x their income.

-- Ruth's Chris Steakhouse is for "the 1%" only in the dreams of CNN. I've not been to one since I get to go to IA and have steaks nearly as good for $10 ... so it just isn't cost effective, but I know plenty of people that are maybe "upper 20%" who have been to one more than once.

-- He serves "the 1% of Americans who have enjoyed nearly 60% of all gains in income over the last three decades.". Well, this couple was poor, "sort of made it" with a $100K home and $40K income in the last "15 years", and now they are "poor". Doesn't that tell anyone anything??

Fortune top 10 1980 --- Exxon, GM, Ford, Texaco oil, Chevron oil, Gulf Oil, IBM, GM, Amoco oil

Fortune top 10 2010 -- WalMart, Exxon, Chevron, GE, Bank of America, Conoco Phillips Oil, AT&T, Ford, JP Morgan Chase, HP

Guess what? They aren't the same. Oil, Cars and tech are still there --- but many of the names are different, and banking/finance has become more important. The retail giant WalMart has become top of them all.

So the "top 1%" enjoys a lot of gains (and losses), but THEY ARE NOT THE SAME PEOPLE OVER 30 YEARS!!!!! My guess would be that there is virtually nobody that was top 1% in 1980 that still is in 2010. It is like being the top 1% of anything -- QBs, hitters, etc ... your time at the very pinnacle is SHORT, and then someone else takes over in the 1% spotlight. The top 1% of hitters did some high percentage of the hits in the last 30 years as well -- thing is, NOT ONE of the top 1% of hitters from '80 is still playing at all!!! Talking about "gains of the 1% over 30 years" is like talking about "percentage of beer drank by the top 1% of beer drinkers over the past 30 years". I GUARANTEE you that not a single top 1% beer drinker from 1980 was still in that category by 2010!!!

So the bottom line is that this headline and article is the equivalent of an Obama ad, since we know he is going to run on "the wealth gap". CNN figures that they need work hard so that everyone is suitably angry about how HORRIBLE this "gap" is ... even though the gap is pretty much 100% a fabrication just to produce more polarization in our society -- of course since this is polarization that the Democrats and the MSM want, this is GOOD polarization!!

Democrats are just so completely incensed about the SCOTUS ruling on "corporations being able to contribute as people" ... it means "more money" that they believe is going to go to Republicans -- of course,  Google, Apple, most of the Banks / Stock houses, etc contribute to DEMOCRATS, but never mind. Even if they didn't, it would take INFINITE money to counter the MSM doing campaign literature as "news".

We have a LONG way to go before a significant number of the sheep figure this out.

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