When Reagan's Approval Hit 35% and the Left Was Right

Robert Samuelson: Volcker, Reagan and history - The Washington Post:

I remember these times very well -- Reagan was the first Republican I had voted for. I listened to A LOT of NPR in those days since I drove more, and their positions on Reagan were quite simple -- idiot, warmonger, destroyer of the economy, etc. Of course their positions on America were pretty much as they are now -- too wealthy, too much consuming, too much income inequality, too much military, too many stupid red state people that don't know what is good for them, too much religion, best years behind it, etc.

At that point in my life I had suspicions that NPR might be right, but being in your early 20's is a time when it is hard to look at the future as a "deserved decline" to everyone living in European sized condo flats, no consumer type toys (boats, snowmobiles, etc), dinky little cars, no real reason to look to "advance" in your career since any increase would just go to tax, etc..

But in '82, it looked like NPR was right and "Reaganomics" was a huge disaster.

Reagan rejected this futile path. As the gruesome social costs of Volcker’s policies mounted — the monthly unemployment rate would ultimately rise to a post-World War II high of 10.8 percent. Reagan’s approval ratings plunged. In May 1981, they were at 68 percent; by January 1983, 35 percent. 

Still, he supported the Fed. “I have met with Chairman Volcker several times during the past year,” he said in early 1982. “I have confidence in the announced policies of the Federal Reserve.”

I can remember listening to NPR, seeing the evening news, and reading "Time" magazine thinking that I was learning an important lesson -- the High School and College instructors really had been right!  In the "modern world", massive government was the ONLY way -- the buying a home and having it go up in value, or investing in the stock market era was over. The best years of a more economically free and vibrant US economy were behind us -- time to turn down the thermostats, shut off the Christmas lights, and learn the life of austerity.

The US stock market had been essentially flat from '62 - '82. The home I would finally purchase at 12.5% interest in '83 was built in '60 and was still "current" in '82, other than the electric heat, which meant I lived in the basement and very cold to save money. The fact that in the '60s the "experts" were so certain that electricity was going to be "too cheap to meter" was a little reminder that the "experts" always quoted by NPR were not ALWAYS correct as I shivered under my blanket reading "Time" in the basement.

But NPR, Time, NBC, ABC, NY Times, etc could not ALL be wrong, could they? It was obvious the climate was cooling at the time, we had harder and harder winters pretty much every year. We CERTAINLY were out of oil -- of that there was ZERO doubt, only a complete idiot would think otherwise, and hunger + "the population bomb" were the issues that would CERTAINLY be gigantic issues the next decade. ("The Population Bomb" had been published in '68, and was known by anyone with any education).

Then of course, the USSR was on the march ... Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Africa -- the inevitability of communism was well, "inevitable". NPR regularly covered with glowing and gushing terms the marvelous healthcare in the USSR and Cuba, the superb free day care for kids, and the complete equality of income. Why should the US even have ANY defense budget agains the inevitable?  The inevitable that was in fact better!

Reagan was not only a fool -- the disaster of "Reaganomics" had been proved by '82, but he was DANGEROUS. To claim that the US would consign the mighty USSR, the inevitable winner of the cold war to "the ash heap of history" was simply insane. The ONLY way that would happen is by a nuclear war that would destroy the planet -- winter was a big theme in those days, so "nuclear winter" fit right into the cold and getting colder ambiance of the time.

But as we know now, the "certainty" that all the experts, media and academia were completely certain of was 100% false. The "stupid actor from California" was WAY smarter than all the PHDs, pundits, economists and columnists. By '84, it would indeed be "Morning in America", and not even the MSM could fight the reality. Reagan would be re-elected by a landslide.

I learned TWO giant lessons:

1). The obvious -- the "experts" are always certain and frequently wrong. If you just have your eyes open that will be obvious MANY times in the course of a lifetime.

But maybe more importantly!

2). The objective of TP is POWER -- not success for the nation, better conditions for the people, or even the continued existence of the US in anything like the state it was founded to be. The expectation that that "the experts will learn", or even that the people that support the "Standard Media Narrative of the Day" will learn is completely false. They will not! "Learning" has never been on their radar except in the case of better ways to gain POWER!

TP (The Party-D) and their supporters in the MSM  learned precisely NOTHING about communism, oil, climate, economics or anything else from the '80s, '90s, and the continued growth of the US up to 2008. Because all of those things that I thought were important -- jobs, homes, economic growth, etc. were not even on their objective list!

They learned nothing because their desire is for POWER and that means MORE GOVERNMENT! No matter who that hurts, how much freedom is destroyed, no matter if people go hungry,  no matter if thousands of young black men kill each other every year, no matter if the nation is sold off in pieces to the Chinese or whomever,  or simply ceases to exist as an entity as it sinks under a horde of illegal immigrants and debt.

For TP, POWER is the ONE singular driving lust that trumps all else, and "facts" relative to things like strong families, individual rights, economic growth, opportunity, innovation, a meaningful life, etc for the masses,  will NEVER mean anything.

The masses living in government mandated cinder block high rises riding public transportation, getting public healthcare with no alternatives, watching government run media and entertainment -- maybe even "enjoying" a 5th of vodka or even few joints as "recreation", while the "deserving" TP elite have their "Dachas" in the Hamptons, Palm Springs, Upper East Side, etc and live the deserved life that elite "servants of the people" ought.

That is the "utopia" that TP sees, and no mere "facts" are ever going to change their minds!

'via Blog this'

Myths, The Center of the Universe

The Biggest Myth About Debunking Myths | RealClearScience:

"To successfully impart knowledge, communicators need to understand how people process information, how they modify their existing knowledge and how worldviews affect their ability to think rationally. It’s not just what people think that matters, but how they think," he says.

It's a recursive (self referential) universe if you are human. All you CAN know is banging around in your head if you are a pure physicalist,  and while Descartes thought that the beginning of all knowledge was "I think, therefore I am", it is earlier than that ... 

Man always wants to be the "center of the universe" ... and today, science and humanist thought are the latest to claim that mantle. They are CERTAIN that THEY think "rationally". Even true brain scientists could tell them that what all humans do is RATIONALIZE -- we are so beset with confirmation bias and selective "facts" that none of us are remotely objective. 

Proverbs 1:7 "The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."

FIRST, you have to recognize your human place in the universe -- tiny, temporal, needy, dependent, emotional, fragile, easy to confuse.

From there, you can pretty much decide "it is all meaningless, I prefer to not think about it", **OR** you can decide "there is more to me and what I see around me than mere randomness, I want to believe there is a purpose, something in my core SCREAMS there is more, and I think I'll look for it".

From that point, Christianity is a pretty quick and easy to understand answer -- none of the other religions offer anything like the success in history of Christianity, nor anything like a God that cares enough for man to take human form and die to save him. What's more, we have 11 Apostles and hundreds of people that saw the risen Savior. Ten of the 11 Apostles died martyrs declaring that knowledge to the end, along with many others. 

To die for what you believe when you THINK it is true, but have no way of verifying it, is one thing. To die a horrible death for something you know to have been a lie -- as the 10 Apostles would have if Christ did not rise, is beyond comprehension or belief.  But that is what you MUST believe if you are to deny the Resurrection!

Our thinking is often in error, as is the thinking of the dominant political parties, scientists, journalists, thinkers, etc.

The beginning of knowledge and wisdom has always been and will always be the fear of the Lord! It is the only escape from human centric thought.

'via Blog this'

Millions Support Slandering the "Prophet""

Array of world leaders joins 3.7 million in France to defy terrorism - CNN.com:

Before the UN General Assembly in 2012, BO stated:

 "The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam."

 ... it was a part of a moral equivalence litany that equated anti-Islam statements with abusing women, making too much money, destroying the environment, and other things which BO on some occasions finds to be "bad things". 

 The administration also condemned Charlie Hebdo  for publishing cartoons that might be offensive to Muslims in 2012. 

BO put the man that made the anti-Islamic movie that was used as his first cover lie for Benghazi in jail. There doesn't seem to be much question that his heart lies with having people like Charlie Hebdo SHUT UP! 

One can imagine that BO is ambivalent at best about the happenings in Paris. You notice there are no calls for more gun control as there would have been with pictures of men dressed in black swaggering down streets and executing a policeman with a full-auto burst in the US. Such pictures in a country with completely oppressive gun control serve to remind the average American sheep that the idea that a government -- even one as massive and  entrenched as the one in France, is ever going to keep you secure is just one more "you can keep your life if you like it" lie!  

BO attended an Islamic school in Indonesia. He was well read and connected to Nation of Islam as documented in "Dreams", expunging white blood is a problem:

As I imagined myself following Malcolm X's call, one line in his book stayed me. He spoke of his wish that the white blood that ran through him, there by an act of violence, might somehow be expunged. I knew that, for Malcolm, that wish would never be incidental. I knew as well that traveling down the road to self-respect my own white blood would never recede into mere abstraction. I was left to wonder what else I would be severing if and when I left my mother at some uncharted border.

BO also connected with Nation of Islam politically  in Chicago.

Since the "Dreams" which BO documents as picking up from his father in the book are the dream of destroying the colonial overlords, it is easy to understand why going to France (full of white blood) to march in solidarity with the colonial powers is just not something BO feels comfortable with.

'via Blog this'

Charts of Religious Devotion to Error, The False Prophecy of TP

Eighteen Years, Three Months With No Global Warming | Power Line:

One of the common laments of TP (The Party-D) and it's media arm is "Christians are science deniers, if we allow Christian beliefs to be followed, our country will be unable to compete in a scientific world". Yet another "scientific" prediction of the future.

Usually this hand wringing has to do with evolution / intelligent design, which are explanations for the PAST, and quite meaningless for the future. Francis Collins, the man who headed the human,  genome project and is now head of the NIH is a practicing Christian, seems to be doing fine in science as a Christian.

For some reason, those of the scientific faith are yet to show us any graphical evidence of the "false course" caused by Christian belief in our culture, but science continues to give us such evidence of how false their beliefs are.

Just look at that chart and think how well you would like the autopilot on your boat or plane if the red line was the projected course with the colored area being the maximum projected deviation, but the actual was the blue line. Not likely you would rely on that autopilot.

But this is standard stuff! Michelle Bachman was derided as dangerously stupid in 2012 for talking about $2 gas, Mitt Romney was derided as "being stuck in the Cold War" for thinking that there could be issues in the Ukraine as a trouble spot.

When you are the dominant party in control of the government bureaucracy, education, and media like TP, you select what stories get reported and which don't, and rely on the usually quite short memories of most people, plus their unwillingness to stand up as a minority and likely to be called "stupid" or "brainwashed by Fox News" and such for pointing out the truth.

So often, the ship of state of the US meanders rudderless being driven by false models and ends up damaged on dangerous souls while those in charge issue stern warnings about "deniers" of one sort or another -- "denier" meaning someone that refuses to just follow as a blind TP sheep.

TP is a religion -- false, often in error, and demanding devotion no matter what the error or costs of continuation in the error.

'via Blog this'

DHMO, EPA Regulation Needed!

Facts About Dihydrogen Monoxide:



Long term readers of this blog know that I typically don't recommend panic nor government intervention, but I think this substance warrants it, just look at the many harmful effects of DHMO (DiHydrogen MonOxide) !

• Death due to accidental inhalation, even in small quantities.
• Prolonged exposure to solid form causes severe skin burns.
• DHMO is a major component of acid rain.
• Gaseous DHMO can cause severe burns
• Corrodes and oxidizes metals, leading to many mechanical / infrastructure failures
• Causes electrical failures 

If you want to research it more, you might want to use H2O or "water" in your search, but with these sorts of known negative effects, it seems only right that it should join CO2 on the EPA list of hazardous compounds! 

After all, the main claim for the CO2 inclusion is that it is predicted to cause a couple degrees more warmth in 100 years (no luck for the past 18 years ;-(  ) , something that seems less negative in January than drowning, frostbite, or even having a bridge fall down! 

'via Blog this'

Mia Love is a White Supremacist

How to Be a Walking 'Confirmation Bias' (Role Model: Mia Love):

I know TP (The Party-D) and it's media arm are going to attack Mia Love -- they have to, a Black Republican Woman MUST be destroyed, and besides, their hate meters have gotta be off the charts, she is a MORMON as well!!  When "liberals" wake up in the middle of the night envisioning the embodiment of evil, Mia has to pretty much be what they think of!

What is really harmed by people like Mia Love, Allan West, Clarence Thomas, Condoleeza Rice, Tim Scott, etc is the TP false narrative that "Republicans are racists". This narrative is extremely important to TP -- it keeps black voter loyalty at something over 90%, AND it allows TP zealots to feel superior and GOOD! Feeling good (and moral and smart and popular, etc) is a very significant part of the TP sales pitch.

So to start the new year, the MSM has fabricated a story about Steve Scalise -- which will now be treated as fact, even though Politifact, a generally left leaning "fact checker" has this definitive statement and the end of a long column of hemming and hawing trying to do all they can to not just state the obvious that what was reported never happened, and even if it had it is WAY less "proof" or even insinuation that that Scalise is a "white supremacist" than BO attending an avowed black supremacist church (Rev Wright for 20 years)!

From the evidence, we know Scalise attended … something. 

Wow, sounds like they may as well string him up -- he attended "something".

So we have a "story" that is very likely false, and meaningless if true. But the MSM makes it SEEM like a real story that means just what they say it means -- Steve Scalise either is a white supremacist himself, or he "associates with them". THEN the the classic tar baby, we tar Mia Love and for some reason Allen West with the same false brush!

Writing off Mia Love and Allen West as out-of-touch right-wingers is easy, but the truth is that these very visible blacks hurt the cause—the ongoing quest for equality. As long as they continue to disregard racism, and side with those who would pander to white supremacists, racists with an agenda will always have a valuable token to confirm their biases.

Got that? See, "Fox news is inaccurate"! Just how inaccurate is it? Does it make up stories and then use those false stories to make doubly false accusations about minority representatives? Especially ganging up on one aht has ben

Oh, and there is certainly no "bias" of any sort, let alone "confirmation bias" on the left!

'via Blog this'

"A New Science of Politics": Eric Voegelin

http://www.amazon.com/New-Science-Politics-Introduction-Foundation/dp/0226861147/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1420587063&sr=1-1&keywords=new+science+of+politics

A very important work that I'm not going to claim to understand -- a great book for developing some personal intellectual humility.

Although not particularly long, the scope of the book is vast -- describing the problem of developing and discussing a theory of politics, "Political Science" if you will, as part of history. The idea that through the use of political symbols and texts, man tries to create a meaning for his political systems / cultures / etc in history as some sort of representation of a transcendent truth.

The attempt is to make political science a study of the context of how humans exist and develop politically in various epochs of history in which the symbols and thus the order are relatively stable.

Three are identified:

1. The Hellenic Crisis -- Plato and Aristotle. 
2. The Crisis of Rome -- St Augustine and Christianity
3. Hegel's philosophy of Law and History

The assertion is that man will demand SOMETHING that extrapolates his very limited existence into some whole that transcends his life -- religion, politics, society, culture, etc. There are 3 ways that man has historically defined this -- in some ways each is the same, we just like to think the current is more "advanced". These are Rite, Myth and Theory. Depending on context of course, a person will think one or more of them vastly superior due to "tradition", "emotional content", "science" (really "scientism"), "sacredness", or some other value system, which will include emotional attachment. 

My biggest learning from the book (outside of looking up a bunch of long words, latin words, etc) relates to the the vast changes caused by Christianity and it's bastard child Gnosticism (the worship or divinization of "special knowledge").

Prior to Christianity, the entire world and everything in it was "divine" and cyclical. There were "gods" everywhere which explained everything, and history nor even existence had much "direction" other than cycles -- seasons, life, etc. However the "meaning" of everything was "divine". 

Then came Christ with a a separation of past and "known" future in that it had an end, a way for man to be completely unique and eternal, OUTSIDE of "nature", and even more, with an ending -- the eschaton (end of the world, heaven on earth), and the idea of eschatology -- the study of how things would (if you were a believer) end, or OUGHT to end, if you were not a believer. (much of this is also in Judaism, but it wasn't universal -- it was just for the Jews). 

Christianity "de-divinized" the world. God/Christ/Holy Spirit were divine -- and the idea of the Trinity itself as a symbol was applied to many things. Including many cases of "three epochs" "ancient, medieval, modern", Hegel's dialectic, the three phases freedom, Marxism with primitive communism, class struggle and final communism, and of course one of the most "successful" applications of gnosticism, "The Third Reich". 

One of the connections made very clear is the application of "divinity" / "teleology from some unknown source" in the case of Marxism -- history is supposed to "inevitably" be going the communist direction, because "that's the way it is". Much like "science", or really "scientism", it is an application of gnosticism -- attempting to make the secular somehow "divinely" (and therefore uniquely correct) "known". 

All of the supposed "modern" isms -- communism, socialism, etc are about "immanentizing the eschaton" -- using gnostic magic to create "heaven on earth". The last greatest attempt was Germany, but the attempts go on, including Obama's "Hope and Change" here early in the 21st century. 

This book was published in '52, I'll close with his quote on the German attempt to create heaven on earth -- you can see if you see any similarity with attempts today: 

"The German Revolution, finally, in an environment without strong institutional traditions, brought for the first time into full play economic materialism, racist biology, corrupt psychology, scientism and technological ruthlessness -- in brief, modernity without restraint."

BO Discovers Terrorism

Obama’s statement on Paris attack | Power Line:

I'm rather amazed that he called this "terrorism". What about "workplace violence"?, the official designation of the shooting at Ft Hood that killed 13 and wounded 32?

Even though the shooters claimed to have "avenged the prophet", it was not of course classified as "Islamic". Hell, ISIS has "Islamic" in it's name, yet BO knows more than they do, so says they are neither Islamic or a State -- while using the designation  "IL" for "in the Levant" to recognize their claim to Israel  rather than the more restrictive "Iraq and Syria". BO is just so much smarter than ANYONE!

I think the thing that struck me the most was the nonchalant demeanor of the guys with the auto weapons on a Paris street. One would hope that in say Dallas or Oklahoma City they would at least have their guns up and be looking around because like 20% of the folks walking on the street are packing.

A double tap center of mass would soften  the "Allah Akbar" and give it a nice gurgle.

'via Blog this'

Harvard Discovers BOcare -- Spending Money Like Trophy Wives

Whining Harvard Professors Discover Obamacare - Bloomberg View:

The Harvard Faculty is up in arms after discovering that BOcare applies to THEM! Oh the humanity!

One more reason the reflect on wisdom of the William F. Buckley quote: "I'd rather be governed by the first 2K names in the Boston Phonebook than the Harvard Faculty".

The quote has naturally received a lot of charges of "anti-intellectualism" and "know nothingism" relative to the Right, which yet again makes one wonder if those making the charge knew who Buckley was, or are just intent to prove his point.

The point of the quote is that being book smart has nothing to do with having any wisdom at all, or even common sense. The Harvard Faculty's  appreciation for the real world is very limited, and they are far more certain of their own superiority than anything else in their comprehension.

The Wisdom of PJ O'Rourke on how money is spent  is quoted in the article, but then a big hunk of the meaning of the quote is not understood:

1. You spend your money on yourself. You're motivated to get the thing you want most at the best price. This is the way middle-aged men haggle with Porsche dealers. 

2. You spend your money on other people. You still want a bargain, but you're less interested in pleasing the recipient of your largesse. This is why children get underwear at Christmas. 

3. You spend other people's money on yourself. You get what you want but price no longer matters. The second wives who ride around with the middle-aged men in the Porsches do this kind of spending at Neiman Marcus. 

4. You spend other people's money on other people. And in this case, who gives a damn?

The Harvard Faculty are indeed unhappy because they moved a tiny tiny bit from 3 to 1, which is actually FINE with those of us opposed to Government, and thus more in favor of reality.

The PROBLEM is that BOcare (and even Medicaid) is largely #4! The GOVERNMENT spends other people's money (ours) on other people, and how much they care about either those providing the money or those receiving the "benefit" is often very evident.

Worse yet,  due to the government aided monopoly aspects of health care, the insurance and the government,the whole unholy trinity  lives at 3 and 4 -- they do everything with other people's money, including paying themselves!  At least 2nd wives have some competition!

Remember, the real purpose of BOcare is to move to "single payer", which means a total lock for government at 3 and 4 (where it always is, which is why it MUST be made SMALLER!), and getting rid of the insurance companies so government and health care can divide up the spoils, happily pay themselves whatever they want, and just not give a damn!

'via Blog this'

Red State Life Better, New York Times

Is Life Better in America’s Red States? - NYTimes.com:

This is an article that everyone ought to read and think about. Rarely does TP (The Party-D) let this much honesty out. For those that merely want the punchline, the article admits (in it's own foggy out of touch way) that Red States are winning economically, socially and politically -- their populations are growing, they have less income inequality, their people enjoy a better lifestyle, etc, so like the Grinch,  the Blue States have to find a way to stop this from happening! They don't really say how, but one wonders if putting up a wall to prevent Blue State serfs from leaving might be on their minds!

Well worth reading it top to bottom for full effect, but here are some segments and analysis.

Blue states, like California, New York and Illinois, whose economies turn on finance, trade and knowledge, are generally richer than red states. But red states, like Texas, Georgia and Utah, have done a better job over all of offering a higher standard of living relative to housing costs. That basic economic fact not only helps explain why the nation’s electoral map got so much redder in the November midterm elections, but also why America’s prosperity is in jeopardy.

"Finance, Trade and Knowledge".  Hmm. Basically they move piles of increasingly other countries and a smaller and smaller percentage of peoples money and stuff around and charge fees. They believe that the universities on the coasts are "better", but  based on actual results, that is getting more and more questionable.  However, the fact that Red States are doing a better job is increasingly not questionable -- and the people migrating from the failing Blue States to the Red States is getting impossible for them to ignore no matter what they want to "believe" about it.

But why does this jeopardize prosperity? What it jeopardizes is BLUE STATE / TP Prosperity! They KNOW that TP political and economic policies are "right" and Red State political policies are "wrong", that is "settled science", but horror of horrors, the RESULTS (as in climate) just don't show that! In fact, they show the opposite! So "something is wrong", or it must not be "sustainable", because (as in "The Princess Bride"), it is INCONCEIVABLE that TP could possibly in any way be wrong!! (one doesn't look at evidence when your positions are settled!)

Red state economies based on energy extraction, agriculture and suburban sprawl may have lower wages, higher poverty rates and lower levels of education on average than those of blue states — but their residents also benefit from much lower costs of living. 

Hmm, "Energy extraction" -- Fracking, horizontal drilling. No "innovation or knowledge there, right?" I'd really like to see MIT genius Jonathan Gruber, BO, or the brilliant author of this column  for that matter try to set up a successful oil extraction operation.

"Agriculture" they said ...  Lots more applied science and engineering in agriculture today than in moving piles of money and stuff around and charging fees, or even in lying about what BOcare is accomplishing. What's more, you grow the stuff  in agriculture -- in NY the piles of money and stuff are mostly created and owned by other folks, increasingly non-US folks, and a tiny percentage of people (hmm, I wonder if that has anything to do with the increasing Blue State inequality? Nah, never mind)

So the residents "benefit from much lower costs of living" --- wow, why is that? Well, because they aren't saddled with as much massive TP mismanagement, bonehead regulations, gigantic inefficient unionized costs, carrying as many people on welfare, public transportation boondoggles, etc, etc, but don't expect TP to mention that.

I'm not exactly sure how someone considers "urban sprawl" a product. There is a lot of land in fly over country as the coasties are wont to call it -- seems reasonable to put up some houses on some of it as long as it is there! What the article fails to mention is that a lot of manufacturing is going on in the heartland as well -- non-union, small shops, lots of innovation. There are a good number of very high ranking universities in Red States, not to mention a number of medical centers and other important parts of the economy that don't meet the TP elites idea of "sophisticated" I guess. Maybe because they are in the "wrong states"?

For blue state urbanites who toil in low-paying retail, food preparation and service jobs, for the journeyman tradespeople who once formed the heart of the middle class, for teachers, civil servants, students and young families, the American dream of homeownership — or even an affordable rental apartment — is increasingly out of reach. Adding insult to injury, rapid gentrification in these larger knowledge hubs brings the constant threat of displacement of creative workers. For even the much better paid techies, engineers, financiers and managers who are displacing them, the metropolitan version of the American dream is a cramped condo or a small house and a long commute. Many are opting to move to cheaper red states instead, further driving their growth.

Blue state knowledge economies are also extremely expensive to operate. Their innovative edge turns on a high-cost infrastructure of research universities and knowledge institutions — a portion of which demand public subsidy. Their size and density require expensive subway and transit systems to move people around. Blue state cities like New York and San Francisco are booming, but they are hampered by potholes and crumbling infrastructure, troubled public school systems, growing inequality and housing unaffordability, and entrenched poor populations, all of which mean higher public costs and higher tax burdens.

Here we have the basic admission that TP politics don't work slathered over with the air of inevitability and mistaken cause and effect. Yes, it is extremely expensive to live in highly zoned, regulated, unionized, taxed, rent controlled, corrupt, high energy cost, high crime, etc urban centers like NYC, Chicago, DC, LA, SF, etc. There is no reason it really has to be, any more than Des Moines, Dallas, Salt Lake City or Oklahoma City, but the TP politics engender a lot of high costs, and lets face it, TP isn't about to recognize that!

We are given the article of faith that "research and knowledge institutions" demand public subsidy. Really? Other than as a TP pronouncement, why is that? They "demand" subways??? Other than TP having a fetish for public transportation, it is difficult to see why this is so. Yes, yes, the poorly managed TP cities, schools and general infrastructure are always "failing", but that is because graft, featherbedding, incompetent leadership and counterproductive policies administered and carried out by vastly overpriced and entrenched public and private unions are guaranteed to fail in the most expensive manner possible.

The system that TP created causes a lot of entrenched poverty, troubled school systems, huge expense in housing, etc, so they do a lot MORE taxing, regulating, subsidization of problem groups, so they get more of all of it and thus add yet more taxes and TP mismanagement in a vicious cycle! And DAMN! The serfs are deserting the sinking Blue State TP ship!

These expenses and failures aren't due to natural forces, they are due to mistaken TP ideas that tend to produce the exact opposite outcome from what was promised. The article does point out that the more Blue states have INCREASING income inequality -- not surprisingly, the OPPOSITE result from what TP constantly harps on as a problem they are going to FIX, when in fact by their own admission in the areas that they have the most control they are MAKING IT WORSE!

And yet for all that, they are pioneering the new economic order that will determine our future — one that turns on innovation and knowledge rather than the raw production of goods.

Despite their longstanding divisions, red state and blue state economies depend crucially on one another. Just as Alexander Hamilton’s merchant cities ate and exported the harvests of Thomas Jefferson’s yeomen farmers, and New England textile mills wove slave-harvested cotton, blue state knowledge economies run on red state energy. Red state energy economies in their turn depend on dense coastal cities and metro areas, not just as markets and sources of migrants, but for the technology and talent they supply. 

Wow. Even in '12, Michelle Bachman was completely derided as a fool for suggesting that $2 gas was a real possibility -- by the super intelligent kinds of folks that write articles like this. Hydraulic fracking and lateral drilling are very much knowledge driven and they were not produced in these highly expensive supposedly impossible to live without centers of TP political brilliance. The idea that all, or even most of our innovation and knowledge is coming from Blue States is just plain old wishful thinking from our self appointed elites like the almost always close to bankrupt NYT.

Who really needs who the most? If there is no energy or food for NYC, Chicago, DC, SF, etc  and all the police turn their backs on the confident and brilliant TP elites, how is that going to go for them? Perhaps they may suddenly turn just a wee bit less confident in their superiority and irreplaceability?

But here comes the punchline!

The allure of cheap growth has handed the red states a distinct political advantage. Their economic system may be outmoded and obsolete, but it is strong enough to blight the future. The Democrats may be able to draw on the country’s growing demographic diversity and the liberal leanings of younger voters to win the presidency from time to time, but the real power dynamic is red. As long as the highly gerrymandered red states concerted federal action on transportation, infrastructure, sustainability, education, a rational immigration policy and a strengthened social safety net will remain out of reach.These are investments that the future prosperity of the nation, in red states and blue states alike, requires. Heightened partisan rancor is the least of our problems. The red state-blue state divide threatens to kill the real American dream.

Ah, the working Red State model that is showing results while the TP managed Blue States are sinking into debt and losing people. Therefore,  the WORKING model must be "outmoded and obsolete"! I guess it is obvious if you are a TP true believer at the NYTs.

The TP model is essentially "Nazi Germany / USSR Lite", but there certainly isn't anything "outmoded and obsolete" about those models, right? Again, maybe the best thing for TP to do is to put up a wall around their states -- or perhaps militarily attack the Red States (how well do Financiers, Global Traders and University PHDs shoot?).

Those are classic leftist ideas of "reasonable things to do" when it becomes clear that others are not only successful but your serfs are voting with their feet!

I love their ideas of "what is needed" -- "transportation, infrastructure, sustainability, education, more immigrants (read TP voters) and more "safety net"" ... EXACTLY the policies that they push more heavily in the current Blue States causing exactly the problem that the article points out.

Again, we see the TP / Socialist / Communist way -- our polices WORK! Agree with us or we will lock you up or shoot you! Got it?

'via Blog this'

Obama Eats Dogs, Ellen DeGeneres Abuses Dogs

Sarah Palin vs. PETA | Power Line:



Well, Obama enjoyed eating dog as a child in Indonesia -- it doesn't get published much, I'm sure it wouldn't if W was a childhood fido foodie either. From BO's "Dreams":

“I learned how to eat small green chill peppers raw with dinner (plenty of rice), and, away from the dinner table, I was introduced to dog meat (tough), snake meat (tougher), and roasted grasshopper (crunchy),”

Naturally we know that such quotes from a "Citizen of the World", sophisticated beyond our poor provincial understanding in the highly respectable customs of those not subject to the whims of PETA are something brought up by only right wing "small brain consistency" hicks.



Large brained consistency is a topic that is managed by the gods of the NY Times and NPR. For an unwashed small brained midwesterner like myself to question the majesty of my betters on such a topic is absolute proof of my pedestrian intellectual stature.



The picture that Palin and that DeGeneres posted are in the linked article for examination. The statement relative to Palin is nearly too much to believe, even for them "PETA, along with everyone else, is used to the hard-hearted, seeming obliviousness of this bizarrely callous woman,”. Bizarre indeed.


What PL said that I think bears just a bit more thought is:

Governor Palin, for whatever reason, continues to be catnip to liberals. I can’t explain it; the only observation I can offer is that there is something about attractive conservative women–Palin, Michelle Malkin, Michele Bachmann, younger generation conservatives like Dana Loesch–that causes liberals to take leave of their senses.

The level of the hatred seems hard to understand, but I think the source of it is explained in the Bible: 

Rom 1:26, For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature

The repertoire of human reaction and behaviour is at many levels quite simple, and there is not much more naturally beautiful than an attractive woman, which becomes even more appealing and likely to be respected as a capable mother.

An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.

Attractive, Godly, conservative women and especially mothers are symbols that must be destroyed! The very natural attractiveness of these women is something that is a great enemy to the National Socialist creed of TP (The Party-D) . PETA for example is against eating meat -- so natural to humans that we have canine incisors. They often go beyond even this to be against any domestication of animals, even pets -- an integral part of human culture all the way back to early primitive tribes. PETA would have been a big hit in National Socialist Germany -- Hitler was a Vegetarian and a huge animal rights guy. The natural must be exchanged for the unnatural.



Humans WILL hold some things sacred (well covered in "The Righteous Mind"), so the problem of TP is to convert those symbols from the natural to the unnatural. For "attractive, caring mother", substitute manlike coarse lesbian (say Ellen DG). Especially for white people, make the idea of children to seem to be "sinful" --- destructive of the environment, selfish.



The age old problem with "progressivism", National Socialism, etc is that the vehicle of their promethian dream, man, is actually built up from and exists in nature. Stop people from having children, and nature takes it's course -- and quite quickly in terms of history.





'via Blog this'

ThinkProgress -- Thanking The Republican House

4 Things That Were Supposed To Happen By 2015 Because Obama Was Reelected | ThinkProgress:

Some lefties have been posting this and it reminded me how seldom we that have a conservative bent thank the Republican House of Representatives. Admittedly, one has to be severely gullible, a complete leftist, intellectually challenged, or all three to take anything from such a site remotely seriously, but FB lets one realize how prevalent such maladies really are today.

They picked 4 "supposedly predicted" things that "someone said" that would happen if BO was elected. Their picks:

1. Gas at $5.45 a gal
2. Unemployment over 8%
3. Stock Market Crash
4. Entire US Economy Collapse 

For someone with a conservative bent, looking at the list is incredible right off.  They are bragging bout low gas prices? Liberals? That would be about the equivalent of a conservative bragging about how large the deficit was, or how high interest rates were -- or maybe how many people had signed up for BOcare! One of the CORES of the left in this country has been "gas prices are too LOW"! We need to abandon fossil fuels, raise taxes on gas, force higher mileage standards, shut down Fracking, etc, etc. How bad off do you have to be before you brag about something that you found tooth and nail to insure would never happen? It boggles the mind!

Anyway, let's give them a short response:

1) . BO being responsible for lower gas prices is a lot like Slick Willie being responsible for a balanced budget -- Slick Willie fought a balanced budget tooth and nail and was totally drug into the deals kicking and screaming and the Gingrich House took all the blame for the "cuts" IN THE RATE OF GROWTH of medicare that allowed the "surplus" (it was still a deficit if you took future liabilities into account). Let's be real, gas prices are low because of Fracking in ND and Canada, BO had NOTHING to do with that and in fact would have stopped it if he could have.

If there had NOT been an R congress, BO would likely have had his way to do more than just block the Keystone -- as in more gas taxes, restrictions on ND drilling, etc. THANKS GOP HOUSE!


2). If you count the reduction of the work force under BO the real rate is something between 8.9% and 12% http://www.bls.gov/lau/stalt.htm ... again, if BO had his way on extending unemployment benefits forever, further minimum wage actions, etc, it would likely be much worse than that. So, pretty darned good prediction by whoever made it, but again, likely much worse without GOP House. THANKS!

3). Predicting the stock market is always a fools errand. BO has pumped well over $1T of printed money into the economy every year of his presidency, so so far the bubble has not popped. An organization like ThinkProgress applauding a high stock market, which is pretty much a pure 1% of the income earners benefit is maybe even funnier than them applauding low gas prices!

4). Oh really. Rush Limbaugh? He would be only a bit better "source" than ThinkProgress for "predictions". If they check around a bit they might find that Rush is in the radio rabble rousing business -- pretty much like all the folks at ThinkProgress, NBC, ABC, NYT, etc -- one hopes that the folks at ThinkProgress aren't dumb enough to take their own predictions as truth.

If you look at these 4 items and consider ThinkProgress, just imagine how really really bad things are. In '07 the budget deficit was $165B, the economy grew at about 5%, the Stock Market hit record highs, and the unemployment rate (with hugely greater labor participation) was 4.7%.

Somehow, I doubt ThinkProgress found any of that to be good at the time.We were also one year into Democrat control of both houses of congress in '07, and the "winds of change" were blowing us in a new direction!

Yes, I would like John Boehner to generally be tougher and a better speaker. Yes, I think they MIGHT have been able to do more with a few better speakers, writers and leaders ....
BUT, what they WERE able to accomplish is to prevent the very worst that BO would very likely have "accomplished" had they not been present.

We need to give some credit where credit is due.


'via Blog this'

Resisting Arrest is Not a Right, Common Sense Has A Conservative Bias

Mike Rowe discusses Ferguson, Garner and police protest - CNN.com:

As he says, it is not only not a "right" it is a bad an dangerous idea -- no matter the color of your skin.

Mike seems to have a lot of common sense -- no doubt he will be considered "conservative", because unsurprisingly, common sense tends to have a "conservative bias". I really ought not to have to explain that, but in this day and age, I suppose I must.

"Conservative" means "sticking with what works", "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and "First, do no harm". Conservatives believe that the earth has been spinning for a good while already and more than a few generations have managed to be born, find mates, produce the next generation and die without finding some magic bullet that produced utopia. Some things are better today than they were 100 years ago for sure, but outside of "technology", which is always at best a two edged sword, we are born, live and die in pretty much the same span give or take a decade or two as we have for thousands of years.

While evolution leads people to falsely believe in an "arrow of progress" as in "things get better", it really doesn't say that. It claims that RARELY some TINY PERCENTAGE of changes to an organism are "more adaptive". "More adaptive" should in no way be confused with some human idea of "better" -- for an Ebola virus for example, "more adaptive" might mean airborne transmission, which from our perspective would definitely not qualify as "better".

No, "on average", most changes don't work at all, a few work pretty well, and even the ones that we think are completely superb -- say antibiotics, turn out to have downsides that have negative potentials up to and including killing us all (eg. antibiotic resistant super organisms). So on a very high average, a bias against change is highly adaptive and is a major component of "common sense".

Again, since this is somewhat the age of the idiot (as in no common sense), I said BIAS, I did not say Amish /luddite complete rejection of EVERYTHING new FOREVER. "Bias" means not jumping quickly at the latest brand new idea, and being even more suspicious of anything that is going to "improve" something as complex as "society".

Prior to the radio, the TV, the internet, smart phones, etc, we probably tended to talk to each other a bit more than the party Mike describes in his column. Today, all that technology not only allows us to be constantly distracted, it allows us to pretty much filter our information sources so we only see and hear what we want to hear. Conservatives get their Fox and talk radio, liberals get NPR, CBS, ABC, NY Times, CNN, etc, etc.

Conservatives tend to be better at argument than liberals because they can't mange to NOT know what the liberal position is, and probably a couple levels of  rebuttal -- it is one of the advantages or disadvantages of being a minority party depending on how one looks at it.

But argument is bad today -- better to throw off a couple one-liners from the "news" outlet your tribe prefers and then just get huffy. The one thing odd about Mike's column is that he was at a party where liberals and conservatives were somewhat evenly divided -- that is really rare from my experience. Parties and even family events now days are pretty much one tribe or the other and everyone knows which. Make any comment that might be political -- like "the weather sure has been cold" for example, and your wife is likely bruising your shin.

Stick to non-political topics -- like "American Idol", or sports (as long as your team isn't the Redskins)  or ... well, maybe just check your smartphone like everyone else. ...

'via Blog this'

Drinking the Original Kool-Aide, Jonestown and Associates,

Media Report Podesta’s Apology for Jonestown Quote, Ignore Jim Jones’s Strong Democratic Ties:

A few conservative outlets have been mentioning Jim Jones and Jonestown relative to the  "guilt by association" scam the MSM attempted to falsely create to start the new year relative to Steve Scalise. Kinda looks like nasty partisan politics with heavy handed MSM involvement will be part of the new year too. Damn! I was so certain they would resolve to mend their ways after the people had spoken so loudly in November!

I had just started IBM in '78. Still a Democrat as far as I knew, still assuming that whatever Uncle Walter Cronkite said  really was "the way it was". For over 30 years at IBM, whenever they came out with some "flavor of the day" program -- "Zero Defects", "Six Sigma", "Q-pride", etc etc, those of us that really built things used to question each other if it started to look like someone really believed the current tripe, with the phrase "Did you drink the Kool-Aide?".

The "Kool-Aide" was a reference to the mass suicide at Jonestown where 918 people died -- largest single loss of US civilian lives in one day since Pearl Harbor until 9-11.

Since I didn't pay much attention, I knew that a congressman was killed and accepted the media reports that it was "a bunch of RELIGIOUS nuts" -- now I find out what BRAND of nuts it really was. What it preached was "Apostolic Socialism" ... the Temple preached that "those who remained drugged with the opiate of religion had to be brought to enlightenment — socialism". Hmmm

So what kind of politicians might be associated with this fine group? Oh, Jimmy Carter, Walter Mondale, Jerry Brown, etc. I love the Mondale quote ...“Knowing of your congregation’s deep involvement in the major social and constitutional issues of our country is a great inspiration to me.”

Wow, what a wonderful thing that Mondale was "inspired" by a nut and his followers, 918 of which drank poisoned Kool-Aide! Sorta brings a tear to your eye. Good thing that kind of association wasn't in any way brought out as a concern relative him running for president!

Somehow, the branding of Jonestown as "Religious Nuts" fit the narrative of the day a lot better than words like "Marxist, Socialist, Communist, etc" and association with Carter, Mondale, Brown, etc. Isn't that a surprise? There was no talk radio, no Fox and no Internet then, so nobody was the wiser.

And so it goes, what Walter said was yet again the way it wasn't in 1978.

'via Blog this'

The GOP's Bad Habit

The GOP's Bad Habit | RealClearPolitics:

I love the title. The fact that the big incident used as "the example de jour" is false ( The now debunked  Steve Scalise spoke to "White Supremacists") points to a BIG habit of TP (The Party-D) has. Both their narratives and the supposed supporting "facts" are often false, but hey, it's TP -- just keep saying it and most people will assume it MUST be true! They hear it often enough.

It would be wonderful to see the MSM hold TP to a standard remotely like what the column ends with:

"Maybe someday the Republican Party will say clearly that anyone associated with Duke, his little group or any racist association should find somebody else to vote for. But this message must be sent with actions that have consequences -- and it wasn't sent this week. "

Yea, maybe "someday" TP will disassociate from known terrorist bombers like Bill Ayers, Tom Hayden, etc.  Or possibly clearly say that someone associated with Black Supremacists and race baiters like Reverend Wright, Obama, Holder, Sharpton, etc can "find someone else to vote for".

Perhaps the same for Nation of Islam folks like Louis Farrakhan who espouse the killing of Jews, or Black Panthers that support violence against whites. Maybe they will even tell known Communists that they need to "find someone else to vote for".

Somehow though, I don't think this will be happening very soon. Nor do I believe that it is likely that we will see TP narratives become any more reality oriented of fact based at any time in even the foreseeable future. Their BIG habits will remain constant -- and don't expect anyone in the MSM to be calling them "bad" anytime soon either. What would they have to print if they couldn't just make it up out of whole cloth!