From the Bedroom Window

This is a shot through our big bedroom window of the back yard this AM. Not a lot of melting happened today other than on the roads, so it looks like this will be staying for awhile. From my 40+ years of decent memory of falls and winters in MN and NW Wisconsin, I'd say this is pretty normal. Milder early, then pretty average out to now with snow trying to show up here about when it usually does -- "first of December". Looks like 36 degrees forecast for Tuesday is the highest we will see on the 10-day extended, nothing else above freezing at all, which seems about right.

The Fable (parable?) of Boris' Goat

POLITICIANS, CEO PAY & THE TALE OF BORIS' GOAT - New York Post

Just read it, it is short. Increase the envy, misdirect the scapegoat and shear the sheep. So is the new "centrist BO" the REAL BO, or is he just playing with the sheep? I'm not sure how one would ever know. I suspect a lot of business will just sit on the sidelines until his actions make some committment that means he has made up his mind. Sure, he has appointed some folks that OUGHT to be reasonable, and has SAID that he is holding off on raising taxes for now, BUT, his rhetoric still says this is going to be a "new way".

Like, what does that mean? Really, nobody knows yet.

Hysteria

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Hysterical Style

Some perspective on the current situation, something the MSM isn't very excited to do. I like the idea that Harry Truman and George Bush have similar popularity ratings as they leave office. Harry doesn't seem so bad these days, does he?

Reid Enters the Fray

Power Line - Minnesota Senate Recount, Update IX

As I've been watching the MN Senate recount, I harken back to FL and Katherine Harris. Somehow the Dems and the media seemed to be VERY concerned that the head of the canvassing board was a Republican. Here in MN, the head of the board is a Democrat, Mark Ritchie, but it seems that nobody in the MSM, nor thankfully from the Republican party is making much of a stink about that fact.

Now have Harry Reid entering the fray providing a not too veiled threat that if the answer isn't the one that the Democrats like, maybe they will just have to throw it into the Senate. Golly, if the situation was reversed -- 58 seat Republican majority, Republican in charge of the canvassing board and this came out, might one suspect that the MSM would go a just a BIT bonkers???

Not now, hard to find anything on the situation at all on the MSM, and only these rather muted strains on the right wing blogs.

As The Rich Get Poorer

RealClearPolitics - Articles - As the Rich Get Poorer

Good article, everything in there has been covered in this Blog, and to anyone that understands even the basics of economics, the conclusions are on the order of "the sky is blue", "many people like chocolate" -- however, we seem to live in a country where something over 50% don't quite get these basics, so I guess this kind of article is needed.

First, when the stock market goes down, then there aren't any capital gains to get $100 Billion a year or so in taxes from. True, the rich folks are less wealthy, but so are all the rest of us. You take 7.5 Trillion out of the economy and folks tend to feel less wealthy for some reason. I'm thinking at some point Democrats may understand that "losing $7.5 Trillion is bad", but I guess I might be wrong:

Unfortunately, the mine has less gold. All the financial turmoil has
left the wealthy -- however defined -- much less wealthy. Stock
ownership is highly concentrated. In 2001, the richest 1 percent owned
34 percent of stocks and mutual funds, estimates economist Edward N.
Wolff of New York University. Let's see. Since the market's high in
October 2007, stocks are down (through Oct. 31) 38 percent, or $7.5
trillion, reports Wilshire Associates

Second big point. If you like to redistribute wealth, it is kind of important to have something to redistribute. If it is gone, you can't redistribute it. I guess this is tough to fathom for the left, but I remain nearly certain that they are going to "get it" here at some point in the next few years.

But the redistributionist argument is at best a half-truth. The
larger truth is that much of the income of the rich and well-to-do
comes from what they do. If they stop doing it, then the income and
wealth vanish. No one gets it. It can't be redistributed because it
doesn't exist. Everyone's poorer.

Ever helpful to those leftys that may be reading here, Samuelson points out that if your cookie jar is empty, you can be really really generous, but there will be no cookies to redistribute! Now I know that BO will be printing a lot of imaginary cookies (debt/inflation), but I really think that the leftys will realize that an imaginary cookies are a whole lot less satisfying after awhile.

This isn't just theory. Last week, Gov. David Paterson of New York
pleaded with Congress to provide emergency aid to states. Heavily
dependent on Wall Street for taxes, he testified, New York faces a
$12.5 billion budget deficit next year and expects joblessness to rise
by 160,000. Wall Street bonuses will drop by 43 percent and capital
gains income by 35 percent, he estimated. People in New York would be
better off if the securities industry were still booming, even if there
were more economic inequality.

Conclusion, the sky is still blue, up is up and down is down. Perhaps BO believes he will repeal all that is factual, but I'm one of those nasty doubters.

BO Taking "Owership"

Borger: Obama takes ownership of the economy - CNN.com

Man, this BO guy is really something. Larry Summers was secretary of the treasury under Slick Willie, and then went off to be president of Harvard, but had to resign in "lefty disgrace" because he made politically incorrect remarks. So when BO the savior appoints a person to something, apparently even all past lefty sins are forgiven!

Tim Geithner started his career at Kissinger and associates and has recently been on the Federal Open Market Committee which is chaired by the Fed Reserve Chair, Ben Bernanke. He certainly worked as part of the BUSH administration on bailing out AIG and Bear Stearns, and not bailing outLehmann Brothers (and I suppose now bailing out Citi). How can a smart guy like that we working with the worst president ever, BUSH??? One would think that leftys would see him as having horrible judgement, but again, one he is appointed to treasury by BO, he is "redeemed".

The GREATEST slight of hand  is here:

Not only is there a team, but there's also a plan.

It's a
stimulus package with a price tag that could total as much as $700
billion over the next two years. It's as much as Congress allowed for
the Wall Street bailout, and more than we've spent in Iraq. The
incoming administration is also sending clear signals that it could
delay its promise to repeal President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.

All of which are good signs.


WOW, now "delaying the repeal of tax cuts" is something that is a "good sign" to a lefty? How can that be? If it is bad to raise taxes when the economy is bad, how can it be good to raise them when it is good? Isn't a delay and admission that taxes remove funds from the economy that can be better allocated by market forces to allow the economy to grow and that doing it when the economy is growing just reduces growth by some value related to the size of the tax increase? If there was such a thing as "consistency", one would think that all the people that have gone beserk over the past 7 years on those HORRIBLE "Bush tax give-aways for the wealthy" would be simply apocoleptic and the idea that their knight in shining armor would delay their repeal due to a poor economy!

Again, if one thought there ever were any consistency on the left, they are probably so fart out to lunch that this whole thing is simply invisible.

BO Will "Do What's Necessary"

Obama will 'do what's necessary' to fix economy, aide says - CNN.com

Easy to see why the mood of the country is so bright an cheery now that BO has been elected. Talk about leadership! When is the last time we have had a President-elect with such comforting and insightful leadership as "Doing What is Necessary", and on a specific topic! Thankfully, he had an aide provide the information so BO himself has some plausible denyability in case going out on the limb with such a bold and insightful statement needs to be softened. Sources close to the administration claim to be working on something less restrictive, such as: "Obama is studying what may be hopeful ways to change the economy". Some hard line aides are pushing for "earnestly studying", but feel that would  fail to connect with the rural red state voters.

CNN reporters were gratified to see BO return to "his roots" of "hope and change" rather than the stark and slightly wonkish pronouncement made by Axlerod.

The Market Keeps Voting

CNNMoney.com Market Report - Nov. 20, 2008

The Dow closed on election day at 9,625, today it closed at 7,552, 2,073 points or 22% lower. One thing very nice is that in listening to NPR, they are a lot less concerned now. Market drops prior to the election were all due to Bush, and the 300 point rise on election day was due to BO, but now I guess it is "unimportant". I suppose it is just another sign that evil market economy is a thing of the past and in the age of BO, who needs markets? BO will just wave the magic government wand and we will see jobs created, incomes rise and tax dollars stream in with nary a deficit in sight.

Ah yes, happy days are here again!

Count Every Vote (Democrat Style)

Whistleblower » Blog Archive » One challenge headed to the state so far in Plymouth

It would be really nice if I was joking here, but I'm not. How many times have you heard Demcrats talk about "all they want to do is make sure that every vote is counted" ... which usually means a bunch of ballots of questionable lineage, dating, etc that "the found" that simply MUST be counted.

However, in reality, here is the sort of vote that they feel SHOULD NOT be counted!

BO Could Re-brand America

 Obama poised to rebrand America, experts say - CNN.com

Now here is a really newsworthy piece! Let's see, since he has been elected, the Dow is down 1,600 points, so maybe the "brand" will be more something in a "Wal-Mart to Dollar Store" kind of brand? I wonder why the US reputation has been in decline the last few years? Certainly it can't have anything to do with the MSM and the kind of wonderful reporting they have done. Naturally, at this point, someone that has a few doubts about if it is really Lincoln and FDR that BO will be compared with is seen as "negative". I was alive 8 years ago. The President hadn't been officially named yet and all the media had to talk about was extremely dire predictions. Of course we didn't know about 9-11 yet then, and after that the predictions became apololyptic. Considering where we were then, things were going pretty darned good until the sub-prime blew up.

Should Bush have dealt with that? Absolutely, however in politics (unless you are BO) you usually don't get to play with a Fillibuster proof Senate and huge house majorities. The Democrats successfully protected their lobbyist cash cow and low income vote buyer right into 2008. Since 2006, when they promised "change", they had the actual control of the "go lever", all Bush had was the brake (veto).

So the Dems promised "change" in 2006, and in those two years has anyone noticed any? I'd say they have been pretty darned succssfull -- way more than politicians usually are. We certainly do have change, and now we have BO promising "more change" and the markets seem to be in agreement.

"Re-branding" indeed.

No Justice No Peace

RealClearPolitics - Articles - The Right to Win

Sowell does his usual great job here with the "right" of the "losers" in an election to throw a fit. In this case, his primary targets are the gay activists that are protesting against churches and even blacks, since they didn't agree with them on Gay Marriage.

Reading the whole thing is very worth it (it isn't long), but here are a couple of good teasers:

With all the various groups who act as if they have a right to win,we got to the present situation over the years, going back to the 1960s, where the idea started gaining acceptance that people who felt aggrieved don't have to follow the rules or even the law.

"No justice, no peace!" was a slogan that found resonance.

Like so many slogans, it sounds good if you don't stop and think-- and awful if you do.

Long time readers of this blog will know that I love his closing here ... my current view is that when asked, something between 80-90% of Americans say Baaaah ! Some Baaah to the right, some to the left, and some to the "mainstream", but the bleat goes on.

When the majority of the people become like sheep, who will tolerate
intolerance rather than make a fuss, then there is no limit to how far
any group will go.

How far do you think the BO bandwagon will rumble before the sheep start to get wise?

The Malaise Returns

The Seven Deadly Deficits

Ah yes, things were just peachy at this time in 2000 and BUSH just messed it all up! For those whose memory of 8 years ago is fuzzy:

• On September 1, 2000, the NASDAQ traded at 4234.33. From September 2000 to January 2, 2001, the NASDAQ dropped 45.9%. In October 2002, the NASDAQ dropped to as low as 1,108.49 - a 78.4% decline from its all-time high of 5,132.52, the level it had established in March 2000.
• On Sept 11, 2001 I think we ALL know what happened. Also, the USS Cole was bombed in October of 2000. Since we have not had an attack similar to the Cole yet in 2008, we will know for sure by Sept 12, 2009 if the Demorats and MSM are correct that "The Bush policies have made us less secure". Since they were SO quick NOT to blame Slick Willie for 9-11, I'm SURE they would NEVER blame Bush for an attack post 9-12-2009!
• Uh, equality deficit? The rich got richer (and so did the poor) under Slick as well as under Bush. Zero was still zero then as now. The top moves more than the bottom -- 10% more income if you make $10K is $1k, it is $10K if you make $100k. It works the other way as well ... -10% of the guy with $100K is $10K, but it is only $1K for the guy making $10K ... BUT, what probably happens is that the guy making $10K loses his job.
  
• Want to read back to me what wonderful things Slick / Al did for the environment? Other than make more noise? Uh, like nothing -- if they had pushed Kyoto through (which they never tried), then they wouldn't been able to complain about Bush not doing it either.
  

Yes, yes, I know this is Mother Jones and they are out there on the left, but it is amazing to read how doctrinaire these folks are, and how much of it is very similar to what you read in the rest of the MSM.

The Bush is Hoover Story

Op-Ed Columnist - William Kristol - George W. Hoover? - NYTimes.com

I think Kristol hits the nail directly on the head. The masses of people operate with a VERY simple story in their head. Something of the nature of "Government Good / Business Bad", "Republicans are for the Rich / Democrats are for the common man", "Republicans bring opportunity / Democrats bring more taxes", "Republicans support values / Democrats are anti-values" ... and on and on it goes.

While there are nuggets of truth in all those "stories", there is also a whole lot of falsehood. The onset of the depression of the '30s is now usually linked to a simple story that goes like "stock market bubble, Smoot Hawley, FDT got us out". Part of the magic of being the dominant majority (which the Democrats have been since that time) is that they get to write the schoolbooks. Oddly, people remember people better than they remember facts, dates, and certainly complex economic theorums. "Hoover bad / FDR saint" is a lot of the core of what they remember ... and they tend to to judge the parties and policies on the basis of that casting.

Note another element -- it is MUCH easier to create a single person scapegoat than it is to explain a complex phenomenon in a story that is simple enough to that the common man can grasp it. Conservatives are also hampered by this horrible problem that they really want their stories to not only be true, but it is important that they actually work for the benefit of the country. Since the Democrats are after raw political power, it doesn't matter to them one whit if the story is even remotely true, nor even if the policies it engenders fail miserably. If it keeps Democrats in power, it is "a success".

Thus we have FDR the hero and Hoover the goat, although FDRs poliices never did work to get the country back on track, that was WWII. As Krisol points out though it did by and large keep Democrats in power for 50 years, so for them it was "successful". The task Republicans face is indeed huge -- we require a "story" that faces facts about what happened, proposes real policies that work to move us forward, AND is something that the common man can understand. A tall order indeed.

Eleven Economies

Here is something you rarely see in the MSM, pulled from the depths of a CNN story. One of the things a NONpropaganda news source will regularly provide is CONTEXT. In order to have rational, as opposed to emotional meaning, humans require context. One of the keys to propaganda is emotion--"crisis", "meltdown","debacle" etc don't really tell you anything rational, they only tell you how you ought to feel about it.

In the chart above you see that the "Financial Crisis" in the US is FAR from the worst among all those countries. Note Germany, China, Japan -- consider how large their economies are in comparison to ours and it becomes clear that there is more to what is going on than JUST "poor regulation in the US".

Is our MSM interested in understanding that? Not in the least -- they want to make sure to tar and feather Bush and the whole market based US economy before they even consider looking around for some context. They are interested in providing a "simple story", even if that story has no actual relation to facts, and that acting on it may well be horrible case of mistaken identity. Shooting the Golden Goose as a prowler.

The Hunt

I spent last weekend, Friday evening the 7th-Sunday evening the 9th at deer camp not too far from Preston MN. It was a fairly blustery and chilly weekend with lows in the 20's and highs in the 30's. The pictures in the blog are from last year, this year it wasn't quite as green and I kept my camera in my backpack too long and the cold sapped the batteries. I also managed to leverage the flex time from work to shoot down for an evening hunt on Wed the 12th plus Thursday AM. The bottom line this year for me ... no shots at deer.

Opening weekend however I did get to see 5-10 deer each day and was a little too selective. I had deer in range that I certainly would have shot at had they come by Wed-Thur. We would like to get bigger does and at least "decent" bucks on my friends deer land, so we need to be selective -- no "shoot and release" in the deer hunting game!

The fun of deer camp and the hunt is undiminished for me by not shooting however -- I can punch holes in paper all I want, and while having been raised on a farm with a detailed understanding of "where meat comes from" (including my "pet" calf "Jingles" when I was like 9), there isn't a lot in the killing part that I particularly crave. I'd like to get a big buck someday, and I'd sooner get deer than not get deer, but getting "skunked" on deer is way more palatable than getting skunked on walleye!

A lot of the fun is enjoying the hunt from "The Stump" stand that makes the cold wind not much of a problem. I do think though that post season this year I need to sneak over to Gander and pick myself up some sort of a "2nd stand", harness, etc. The Stump is maybe a bit TOO "genteel" for days other than the really nasty ones. Nice to have the option of being a little closer to the deer. However, I DID get to be very close to watch "the chase" of a year old buck after a year old doe.

About 4 in the PM on Saturday they showed up coming up the draw below me toward the pond that is right below the stand (right to left in the picture that shows the stand and the pond). For the next 20-30 min she led that buck on a merry chase that included SIX extended swims in that freezing cold pond! I don't mean splashes either -- the pond is mostly 10'+ deep and she swam round and round like 3-4 "center laps" on most of the dips. Mr Buck never lost interest and stayed pretty close. Most of the time she would get out of the pond right below the stand, so like '15 yards", shake like a dog, then take off on land -- they were both very tired, but instinct isn't a very forgiving master. Round and round they went and eventually they headed off. It was nice that other hunters in the party were able to see the show from a greater distance and hear the splashes as they went in, so I didn't have to defend my sanity or accusations of falling asleep in the stand and dreaming.

Another good year of hunting, hopefully there will be many more. While the general outlook for '09 politically and economically from our deer camp could be summarized as "dismal", things like deer hunting are comforting along with religion, family and friends to "cling to bitterly" in these times. Now, I don't really see myself as being "bitter" about those things at all, but the nation has spoken, I must be. It is time for me to get my head right, BO just can't be wrong!