Tom Faranda's Folly

Freedom of speech at a marine's funeral? O'Reilly to pay father's legal bills

No matter what your take on freedom of speech issues, this is appalling. A protest at the funeral.

Maryland: Dead Marine’s Father Must Pay Protester

On Friday, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Maryland, ordered Mr. Snyder to pay the costs of Mr. Phelps’s appeal. The United States Supreme Court agreed earlier this month to consider whether the protesters’ provocative messages, which include phrases like “Thank God for dead soldiers,” are protected by the First Amendment. Members of the church maintain that God hates homosexuality and that the death of soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is God’s way of punishing the United States for its tolerance of it.

But -

O'Reilly Pays Legal Bill for Fallen Marine's Father

I'm no fan of O'Reilly, but glad he stepped up and did this.

Funny: Pat "Wheel of Fortune" Sajak demolishes NY Times bloviator Frank Rich

Former NYT theatre critic Frank Rich has since 2003 had a weekly Sunday column in the NY Times. Most of the columns consist of trashing people he disagrees with; especially all those nasty conservatives.

This past week his column, The Rage Is Not About Health Care  was especially vile; people who oppose Obamacare are racist, homophobes, and also hate women, etc, etc. Unfortunately within a large portion of the population, Rich's blinkered view is accepted.

The best way to deal with this kind of mindless drivel is with humor, and Pat Sajak (of all people) had a very funny and right-on blog posting that Drudge picked up on.

Opposed to Obamacare? Then You Must Be a Racist

Frank Rich spent many years as the theater critic for the New York Times, where, at worst, his venom could cause a Broadway production or two to close down.

Now, however, Mr. Rich opines on political and social issues for the Times,  and, while the results are usually mildly amusing (even if unintentionally so), his reach has grown a bit, so the damage he causes can travel beyond the footlights. ...

******

It turns out, according to his well-crafted analysis, that it’s not the bill that’s got people in an uproar; rather, what we’re facing is the death rattle of a dwindling cadre of white, racist, sexist, homophobic males terrified by the ascent of people of color, women and gays.

As the ever-tolerant Rich reasons: “The conjunction of a black President and a female speaker of the House — topped off by a wise Latina on the Supreme Court and a powerful gay congressional committee chairman — would sow fears of disenfranchisement among a dwindling and threatened minority in the country no matter what policies were in play.”

******

Mr. Rich is shocked by the level of anger in the land, and he fears for the safety of our elected officials, much as I’m sure he did during the George W. Bush administration. He calls on Republican leaders to distance themselves from the more radical voices among them, echoing the demands I’m sure he made of the Democrats during the last campaign.

Welcome to post-racial America, where those who oppose a piece of legislation must defend themselves against the scurrilous charges of a man who seems much better suited to reviewing “Cats”.  (He liked it, by the way.) This was a particularly shameful column, and the millions of Americans who oppose this legislation are owed an apology. ...

YIKES! That "Sturgeon Caviar" might actually be Mississippi paddlefish

Food Fraud!

The expensive "sheep's milk" cheese in a Manhattan market was really made from cow's milk. And a jar of "Sturgeon caviar" was, in fact, Mississippi paddlefish.

"Food fraud" has been documented in fruit juice, olive oil, spices, vinegar, wine, spirits and maple syrup, and appears to pose a significant problem in the seafood industry. Victims range from the shopper at the local supermarket to multimillion companies, including E&J Gallo and Heinz USA.

Larry Kudlow: "High Interest Rates, Not Deficits, Cause Inflation"

Excellent posting. And it's only a few paragraphs long.

Only read if you're concerned about your money.

If prices are rising, investors demand higher interest rates as inflation premiums to compensate for their money-value loss. Basically, long-term interest rates fell from 1980 all the way through 2009 — 30 years as the inflation rate dropped from 14 percent to roughly zero. That’s three decades of deficits going up and down and up and down. Rates continued to fall. 

Here's a "Top 100 Hospitals" list

But - it's suspect. There are NO hospitals listed from New York or Massachusetts.

Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals

Good Friday

I will be doing the Pax Christi Station of the Cross across Manhattan this morning, into the early afternoon. I've been going for about 20 years - with Brigid until the boys started to get bigger and with a couple of years off for cancer. I took part in the Plowshares  ("beat your swords into plowshares") protest after the Stations on numerous occasions, including getting arrested for civil disobedience seven times. But I haven't been arrested since Joe was about three, so that's 13 years.

Anyway, thought I'd post some famous Good Friday paintings -

I love El Greco. His 1580 painting of Jesus carrying the cross

Voeut, The Crucifixion - painted in 1622.

And Ecco Homo. Antonio Cisero in the 19th century

 

**************************************************************************************

 

Two by the painter known as Theophanes the Cretan, in the 16th century.  

The second is The Lamentation

****

 

 

Here's a Rubens, The Descent from the Cross

Stabat Mater, by Titian in 1558

The Judas kiss by Gustav Dore in 1866

Another by Antonio Ciseri, around 1866. The transport of Christ to the sepulchre.

 
 

The indefensible priestly abuse in Wisconsin; what the NY Times left out

As they try and pin the situation on the Pope in this March 24th feature .  Now why would they want to do that?

This is a story about the abject failure of the Milwaukee archdiocese to discipline a dangerous priest, and the tardy effort by Archbishop Weakland--who would soon become the subject of a major scandal himself--to shift responsibility to Rome.

UPDATE: The NY Daily news this morning: Arthur Budzinski, who says he was among 200 deaf boys molested by Wisconsin priest, criticizes Pope

Samuelsen: "With health bill, Obama has sown the seeds of a budget crisis"

Robert Samuelsen in the Washington Post. He is one of the few mainstream writers - with the significant exception of the Wall Street Journal editorial and op ed pages - who is willing to state the obvious. 

And this could happen sooner than later. hit the link for the full article.

Should the United States someday suffer a budget crisis, it will be hard not to conclude that Obama and his allies sowed the seeds, because they ignored conspicuous warnings. A further irony will not escape historians. For two years, Obama and members of Congress have angrily blamed the shortsightedness and selfishness of bankers and rating agencies for causing the recent financial crisis. The president and his supporters, historians will note, were equally shortsighted and self-centered -- though their quest was for political glory, not financial gain.

Let's be clear. A "budget crisis" is not some minor accounting exercise. It's a wrenching political, social and economic upheaval. Large deficits and rising debt -- the accumulation of past deficits -- spook investors, leading to higher interest rates on government loans. The higher rates expand the budget deficit and further unnerve investors. To reverse this calamitous cycle, the government has to cut spending deeply or raise taxes sharply. Lower spending and higher taxes in turn depress the economy and lead to higher unemployment. Not pretty.

Greece is experiencing such a crisis. Until recently, conventional wisdom held that only developing countries -- managed ineptly -- were candidates for true budget crises. No more. Most wealthy societies with aging populations, including the United States, face big gaps between their spending promises and their tax bases. No one in Congress could be unaware of this.

******

The parallels with the recent financial crisis are striking. Bankers and rating agencies engaged in wishful thinking to rationalize self-interest. Obama does the same. No one can tell when or whether a crisis will come. There is no magic tipping point. But Obama is raising the chances.

Yankee minor league player prospects to watch in 2010

With six days to go for opening day, here's a good look at past and present Yankee prospects. The Yanks seem loaded with good young catchers and pitchers. But will they pan out?

Pitchers and catchers are plentiful in New York system

Here's a 17 year old!

Gary Sanchez, C: It's going to be a while before anyone sees him at the big league level, but it's going to be worth watching his development. The 17-year-old was one of the top international signees last summer, getting a reported $3 million to join the organization. The Yankees think they've invested wisely in a young player who has the chance to be a special all-around backstop. He's got plus raw power and a good idea at the plate. Behind it, he's got all the tools, including a terrific arm and good athleticism. He should make his U.S. debut this summer and start his slow climb up to New York.

This is funny: CNN version of fair and balanced coverage of Tea Party Rally in Nevada

Amazing - "Hundreds of People, at Least Dozens of People" attending ...

Meanwhile, police estimate 8,000 and look at CNN's own video as the dumb news anchor is speaking!

CNN Lowballs Nevada Tea Party Event

Here is the very reasonable local Nevada media coverage - Searchlight, Nevada tea party

CNN is way down in third place for cable news ratings. Here's their problem: MSNBC has corralled the left wing whacko audience, and while FOX commentators may lean to the right, they deliver the news straight up.  

 

BBC & British newspaper coverage of the Moscow Metro suicide bombings

Moscow Metro hit by deadly suicide bombings

The FSB said it was likely a group from the North Caucasus was responsible.

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Moscow says no group has yet said it carried out the attacks, but past suicide bombings in the capital have been carried out by or blamed on Islamist rebels fighting for independence in Chechnya.

And more coverage from the Daily Mail (UK)

'Body parts belonging to two female suicide bombers were found and, according to initial data, these persons are linked to the north Caucasus,' he said.

 

Did climate change and not an asteroid collision, kill off the dinosaurs?

The idea that climactic changes were the reason the dinos disappeared is not new; and here's a paper aiming to refute another study earlier this month upholding the "asteroid caused the exctinction" theory.

The whole article is 16 paragraphs ling, if you hit the link.

German scientist: climate change killed the dinosaurs

(March 28) -- Was it long-term climate change, rather than a rogue asteroid, that killed off the dinosaurs?

That's the conclusion of German paleontologist Michael Prauss, who studied 65-million-year-old fossils drilled out of the earth in the Brazos River area of Texas and argues that radical changes to the flora and fauna of the era began long before arrival of the massive space rock widely associated with one of the largest mass extinctions in the history of the planet.

That impact, at what is now Chicxulub, Mexico, in the past 30 years has become the primary suspect in the death of the dinosaurs. And it was the subject of an article in the journal Science earlier this month in which 41 scientists from around the world argued that a wealth of global data show the extinctions began at the same time that the asteroid's crash sent debris across the atmosphere and blocked out the sun for years.

But Prauss, writing in next month's edition of the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology and working with Princeton paleontologist Gerta Gerta Keller -- a well-known critic of the Chicxulub theory -- maintained the impact was just one in a chain of catastrophic events that caused substantial environmental upheaval.

"The resulting chronic stress, to which of course the meteorite impact was a contributing factor, is likely to have been fundamental to the crisis in the biosphere and finally the mass extinction," Prauss said.

Which professional team has the highest paid players in the world?

Why the Yankees, of course. Steinbrenner wouldn't have it any other way.

A British study says the New York Yankees are the world’s highest-paid players in a team sport, beating out members of Spain’s Real Madrid soccer team.

The “Review of Global Sports Salaries” published Sunday said that players on Madrid rival Barcelona had the third-highest salaries, followed by Premier League club Chelsea.

The next seven teams were all from the NBA, with the Dallas Mavericks at No. 5 and the Los Angeles Lakers at No. 6.

The report compiled by www.sportingintelligence.com gave figures in British pounds, with Yankees players listed as having an average salary in 2009 of 4.7 million pounds, currently about $7 million. The figure for Madrid was 4.2 million pounds ($6.3 million), and 4.07 million pounds ($6.1 million) for Barcelona.

Obama senior advisor Valerie Jarrett: "Iran will back down"

Valerie Jarrett. Wow. A) I hope she's right. And B) How can she be so sure as to say this publically? 

Iran will back down

Evangelicals and Politics: 2010

Good posting here by Walter Russell Mead , a member of the Council on Foreign Relations  

Evangelicals and Politics: 2010

... 2010 looks very different to me.  Evangelicals are likely to play a larger role in this fall’s midterms than they did in the 2008 general election, and that role will redound in most places to the benefit of Republican candidates.  Evangelicals are more energized than they were in 2008 and their energy is perhaps a bit more conservative now than it was then.

This is the part that concerned some of the call participants.  There’s a kind of cottage industry that involves looking for the emergence of a politically centrist or even liberal evangelical movement in the United States.  Jim Wallis has been beating this drum for a long time, and from time to time there are press reports about a new generation of evangelicals that is going to be more politically moderate than the last one.  There’s nothing inherently improbable about politically liberal evangelicals; William Jennings Bryan was well to the left of most Democrats today on many economic issues (though not on racial ones!) and many American evangelicals considered him the leading voice of the movement from 1896 to his death following the Scopes trial in Tennessee.  Nineteenth-century evangelicals were found on the cutting edge of movements for social change ranging from abolition to prohibition to female suffrage, and mission-minded evangelicals played a significant role in the development of humanitarian and peace-oriented American foreign policy.  Many African-American churches are far more orthodox than Reverend Wright, but are staunchly liberal on a range of economic issues.

"Made in Asia" in Armonk - Yumm!

Two weekends ago - Saturday the 13th to be exact - the"Gang of Four" couples had plans for a big chow-down in Armonk.

That, you may recall, was one of the days of the huge rain and wind storm that brought down many trees and caused power outages throughout the area.

Despite that, and also the fact that my college roomie Mike couldn't make it because of storm related work obligations, the rest of us decided to make the trek over. Karen travelled with us from Croton, and we met up at Paul and Doreen's place in Armonk. The five of us headed the short distance to Made in Asia , not expecting Dennis & Denice Cannon to make it.

But to our surprise and delight they arrived very shortly after we got there.

Further to our surprise, despite the horrible weather, the place was packed. And it was a pretty cool place, with great food. Doreen has never steered us wrong on an eatery! Pictures by Brigid, which explains why she's not in any ...

Yanks vs. Mets among the chefs

Karen checks in on Mike

Chopsticks - Yes I Can!

 

 

Then on to dessert at Chez Novotny

I luv dessert ...

Great night, will be taking the boys to Made in Asia soon. They'll love it.

Harry Reid on the Tea Party and Sarah Palin rallying in his hometown

Gracious.

and here is local television coverage of the Rally.

And a wrap-up

You know the Obama honeymoon is over when the comedians start

From my humor consultant Bernadette, who says: "good laugh if it wasn't so true"

The liberals are asking us to give Obama time. We agree . . and think 25 to life would be appropriate. -Jay Leno

America needs Obama-care like Nancy Pelosi needs a Halloween mask. -Jay Leno

Q: Have you heard about McDonald's' new Obama Value Meal?
A: Order anything you like and the guy behind you has to pay for it. -Conan O'Brien

Q: What does Barack Obama call lunch with a convicted felon?
A: A fund raiser. -Jay Leno

Q: What's the difference between Obama's cabinet and a penitentiary?
A: One is filled with tax evaders, blackmailers and threats to society. The other is for housing prisoners. -David Letterman

Q: If Nancy Pelosi and Obama were on a boat in the middle of the ocean and it started to sink, who would be saved?
A: America! -Jimmy Fallon

Q: What's the difference between Obama and his dog, Bo?
A: Bo has papers. -Jimmy Kimmel

Q: What was the most positive result of the "Cash for Clunkers" program?
A: It took 95% of the Obama bumper stickers off the road. -David Letterman

A key demographic slipping away from the Dems

Originally in the LA Times - White Men Shun Democrats

Millions of white men who voted for Barack Obama are walking away from the Democratic Party, and it appears increasingly likely that they'll take the midterms elections in November with them. Their departure could well lead to a GOP landslide on a scale not seen since 1994.

For more than three decades before the 2008 election, no Democratic president had won a majority of the electorate. In part, that was because of low support -- never more than 38 percent -- among white male voters. Things changed with Obama, who not only won a majority of all people voting, but also pulled in 41 percent of white male voters.

Polling suggests that the shift was not because of Obama but because of the financial meltdown that preceded the election. It was only after the economic collapse that Obama's white male support climbed above the 38 percent ceiling. It was also at that point that Obama first sustained a clear majority among all registered voters, according to the Gallup tracking poll.

It looked for a moment as though Democrats had finally reached the men of Bruce Springsteen's music, bringing them around to the progressive values Springsteen himself has long endorsed. But liberal analysts failed to understand that these new Democrats were still firmly rooted in American moderation.

Pollsters regularly ask voters whether they would rather see a Democrat or Republican win their district. By February, support for Democrats among white people (male and female) was three percentage points lower than in February 1994, the year of the last Republican landslide.

British Ingenuity! Taking pictures from space with a balloon, duct tape, and a cheapo camera

The fella is from West Yorkshire, near where Brigid is from.

"Mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" - but this is impressive!

Did JP II miraculously cure ... his barber?

Well, his barber thinks so -

John Paul II’s former barber says he was cured miraculously

"24" - a wildly popular show I never watched - is ending

After eight seasons. 

I wish I had a dollar for every person who ever said to me "You don't watch 24?", or "You don't know who Jack Bauer is?"

"24" Ends on Fox

the show’s ratings dropped 16% this season to a 3.8 adults 18-49 rating including DVR — still healthy numbers for a scripted drama, yet not enough to overcome the program’s increasing cost, a budget that was set to climb once again since contracts for Sutherland, Gordon and other key players expire this season.

Then there’s the show’s creative struggle. How many times have “24” characters declared that a looming crisis will be addressed “within the hour,” or has Bauer struggled to gain the respect of the latest CTU chief? Gordon says the show’s writers felt they had exhausted the real-time possibilities for Bauer and never came up with a truly compelling idea for Day 9.

Here is an amusing spoof of the show.

 

Top Ten Indicators That Your Employer is Covering You Under Obamacare

HA!

10) Your annual breast exam is done at Hooters.

(9) Directions to your doctor's office include "Take a left when you enter the trailer park."

(8) The tongue depressors taste faintly of Fudgesicles.

(7) The only proctologist in the plan is "Gus" from Roto-Rooter.

(6) The only item listed under Preventative Care Coverage is "an apple a day."

(5) Your primary care physician is wearing the pants you gave to Goodwill last month.

(4) "The patient is responsible for 200% of out-of- network charges," is not a typographical error.

(3) The only expense covered 100% is "embalming."

(2) Your Prozac comes in different colors with little M's on them.


AND THE NUMBER ONE SIGN YOU'VE JOINED OBAMA'S HEALTH CARE PLAN:


(1) You ask for Viagra, and they give you a Popsicle stick and duct tape.

The President was against forcing people to buy insurance, before he was for it

From one of his debates against Hillary Clinton when he was candidate Obama. On the individual mandate.

This was posted on Ann Althouse' website and she comments:

I voted for him, not her. He was so sensible and pragmatic, considering all the details, so carefully and intelligently. He wasn't an ideologue. Where is the guy I voted for?

Social security payouts will exceed payroll tax revenues this year

More bad economic news.

But who cares? We've got Obamacare!!

Analysts have long tried to predict the year when Social Security would pay out more than it took in because they view it as a tipping point — the first step of a long, slow march to insolvency, unless Congress strengthens the program’s finances.

The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security.

This year, the system will pay out more in benefits than it receives in payroll taxes, an important threshold it was not expected to cross until at least 2016, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

Stephen C. Goss, chief actuary of the Social Security Administration, said that while the Congressional projection would probably be borne out, the change would have no effect on benefits in 2010 and retirees would keep receiving their checks as usual.

The problem, he said, is that payments have risen more than expected during the downturn, because jobs disappeared and people applied for benefits sooner than they had planned. At the same time, the program’s revenue has fallen sharply, because there are fewer paychecks to tax.

******

Although Social Security is often said to have a “trust fund,” the term really serves as an accounting device, to track the pay-as-you-go program’s revenue and outlays over time. Its so-called balance is, in fact, a history of its vast cash flows: the sum of all of its revenue in the past, minus all of its outlays. The balance is currently about $2.5 trillion because after the early 1980s the program had surplus revenue, year after year.

Now that accumulated revenue will slowly start to shrink, as outlays start to exceed revenue. By law, Social Security cannot pay out more than its balance in any given year.

For accounting purposes, the system’s accumulated revenue is placed in Treasury securities.

In a year like this, the paper gains from the interest earned on the securities will more than cover the difference between what it takes in and pays out.

Mr. Goss, the actuary, emphasized that even the $29 billion shortfall projected for this year was small, relative to the roughly $700 billion that would flow in and out of the system. The system, he added, has a balance of about $2.5 trillion that will take decades to deplete. Mr. Goss said that large cushion could start to grow again if the economy recovers briskly.

Indeed, the Congressional Budget Office’s projection shows the ravages of the recession easing in the next few years, with small surpluses reappearing briefly in 2014 and 2015.

After that, demographic forces are expected to overtake the fund, as more and more baby boomers leave the work force, stop paying into the program and start collecting their benefits. At that point, outlays will exceed revenue every year, no matter how well the economy performs.

Rep. Clyburn: Republican leaders against Obamacare "aid and abetting... terrorism"

From MSNBC. For decades, the media ignored left wing hooliganism in their street protests - Brigid and I have been there and seen it many times. I great example was the April, 2004 so-called  March for Women's Lives

So here's Clyburn -

Hitler finds out Kansas lost to Northern Iowa in the second NCAA tournament round

HA!

Here's the boy who's been perfect so far in picking wnners in the NCAA championship basketball tournament

Alex Hermann - and he picks Purdue to win it all.

Autistic teen has perfect NCAA bracket

And -

Picks first two NCAA rounds perfectly

An autistic teenager from the Chicago area has done something almost impossible. 

Nearly 48 games into an upset-filled NCAA tournament, 17-year-old Alex Hermann is perfect.

"It's amazing," he says. Truly.

The teenager predicted that Northern Iowa would beat the Kansas Jayhawks. He picked Ohio to knock off Georgetown. And Cornell to knock off Wisconsin.

In fact, he picked every game through the first two rounds correctly. The odds of anybody doing that? One in 13,460,000, according to BookofOdds.com. It's easier to win the lottery. Twice.

"I'm good at math," Alex, a Glenbrook South High School student, said. "I'm kind of good at math and at stats I see on TV during the game."

Alex entered the bracket on CBSsports.com's bracket challenge. His 24-year-old brother Andrew, who helped him enter his picks into CBS' bracket manager, also entered the contest -- and ranks behind 500,000 other people.

Six Nations Rugby: Italy vs. Wales

Played in Cardiff. The last match of the Six Nations. France swept the tournament - a "Grand Slam". Ireland came second, England third. Results can be found here

Robert Culp

Died after a fall, at age 79

Here's the first episode of "I Spy", from September, 1965. Culp and Bill Cosby.

So Long, Patrick Henry

"Wrong Number" - Carol Burnett and Tim Conway

From my humor consultant Ellen

Ann Coulter responds to the Canadian attacks on her

Coulter's speech at the University of Ottawa had to be cancelled when screaming, free-speech (for them) loving (for them) leftist whackos  went on a rampage (videos included).

Here's her column -

Oh Canada!

After Tuesday night, the hatred incited by Francois' letter is no longer theoretical. The police called off my speech when the auditorium was surrounded by thousands of rioting liberals—screaming, blocking the entrance, throwing tables, demanding that my books be burned, and finally setting off the fire alarm.  

Sadly, I missed the book-burning because I never made it to the building.

But, reportedly, a Canadian crowd hasn't been this excited since they opened a new Tim Hortons. Local reporters couldn't make out what the crowd was chanting, but it was something about "Molson" and a "sled dog."

I've given more than 100 college speeches, and not once has one of my speeches been shut down at any point. Even the pie-throwing incident at the University of Arizona didn't break up the event. I said, "Get them!" and the college Republicans got them, and then I continued with my rambling, hate-filled diatribe—I mean, my speech.

So we've run this experiment more than 100 times.  

Only one college speech was ever met with so much mob violence that the police were forced to cancel it: The one that was preceded by a letter from the university provost accusing me of hate speech.

Wall Street Journal Sunday editorial on Obamacare victory: "you broke it, You own it"

House Democrats last night passed President Obama's federal takeover of the U.S. health-care system, and the ticker tape media parade is already underway. So this hour of liberal political victory is a good time to adapt the "Pottery Barn" rule that Colin Powell once invoked on Iraq: You break it, you own it.

This week's votes don't end our health-care debates. By making medical care a subsidiary of Washington, they guarantee such debates will never end. And by ramming the vote through Congress on a narrow partisan majority, and against so much popular opposition, Democrats have taken responsibility for what comes next—to insurance premiums, government spending, doctor shortages and the quality of care. They are now the rulers of American medicine.

Mr. Obama and the Democrats have sold this takeover by promising that multiple benefits will follow: huge new subsidies for the middle class; lower insurance premiums for consumers, especially those in the individual market; vast reductions in the federal budget deficit and in overall health-care spending; a more competitive U.S. economy as business health-care costs decline; no reductions in Medicare benefits; and above all, in Mr. Obama's words, that "if you like your health-care plan, you keep your health-care plan."

We think all of this except the subsidies will turn out to be illusory, as most of the American public seems intuitively to understand.

********

While the passage of ObamaCare marks a liberal triumph, its impact will play out over many years. We fought this bill so vigorously because we have studied government health care in other countries, and the results include much higher taxes, slower economic growth and worse medical care. As for the politics, the first verdict arrives in November.

The President assures us that there will be no "Fiscal Armageddon"

"What reform will mean for you..."

Six Nations Rugby: France vs. England

France goes for the Grand Slam

Jim Cramer on the cost of Obamacare

Financial entertainer (who voted for Obama) Jim Cramer is interviewed by Larry Kudlow below, and had this to say:

 “First, it is the single biggest impediment to the stock market going higher. And a lot of this has to do with what's not being talked about enough with how it's going to be paid for and also about what it will do to small business formation. This bill is a disaster for both.”

God's Gift to the Republican Party strikes again

Q. Why would you consider Mrs. Pelosi "God's Gift to the Republican Party" when she just got the historic Obamacare through the House?

A. Ask me again in November.

CNN poll on Obamacare bill

Done over the weekend. CNN tried to put a good spin on the data; hit the link for the whole thing.

CNN poll: Americans don't like health care bill

 ...56 percent said the bill gives the government too much involvement in health care; 28 percent said it gives the government the proper role and 16 percent said it leaves Washington with an inadequate role.

On the question of costs, 62 percent said the bill increases the amount of money they personally spend on health care; 21 percent said their costs would remain the same and 16 percent said they would decrease.

The poll's results about the bill's fiscal impact were particularly stark: 70 percent of respondents said they believed deficits would go up because of the bill; 17 percent felt they would stay the same and 12 percent said they would go down.

Dem. Congressman Dingell: funny if it weren't pathetic

UPDATE: A further thought - this kind of dishonesty will soon be ending, for the simple reason that it can't go on. We don't have the money to pay for everything, because we don't have the growth in the economy. The day of reckoning has already arrived in New Jersey, where Christy the new governor has had to level with people. And it's already arrived in Westchester County, where I live. The new County Executive Astorino has had to level with people. It will soon be arriving on the national scene, either with this president or his successor. 

Here's the long-serving congressman's commercial for his re-election in 2008 -

Now, here's good ol' John Dingell Sunday -

You almost have to admire the unsrupulous ballsyness of these people ...

Sarah Palin on the healthcare bill

Exactly right.

Palin -  Stand tall, America. November is coming!

In the weeks to come, we can expect them to try to change the subject, but we won’t forget. Don't let them move on to further “transformational” steps while forgetting what Congress just did against the will of the people. Though Obamacare will inflict billions in new taxes on individuals and employers, at least it creates some jobs: the IRS might have to hire as many as 16,000 new employees to enforce all the new taxes and penalties the bill calls for! And that doesn’t include all the other government jobs from the 159 new agencies, panels, commissions and departments this bill will create. As the private sector shrinks, we can count on government to keep growing along with the deficits needed to keep it all afloat. (Is this the kind of “change” Americans asked for?)

In the end, this unsustainable bill jeopardizes the very thing it was supposed to fix – our health care system. Somewhere along the way we forgot that health care reform is about doctors and patients, not the IRS and politicians. Instead of helping doctors with tort reform, this bill has made primary care physicians think about getting out of medicine. It was supposed to make health care more affordable, but our premiums will continue to go up. It was supposed to help more people get coverage, but there will still be 23 million uninsured people by 2019.

First backyard "campfire" of the season

We have a fire pot-thingie and like to do little fires in the backyard when the weather avails itself. Not for cooking, but just because they look cool. A fire is "nature's television" (Bear Grylls quote).

So with good weather yesterday, and lots of wood to burn from fallen and cut off branches due to the storm, as well as Christmas evergreen, we set to it. Joe carved up some wood at the front of the house with the kukri - I carried it to the back - and later Tim got the fire going.

A pretty impressive fire! As Tim learns that evergreen burns quite spectacularly (and hotly), but burns out quickly. That's evergreen creating the big flames, while the hardwood is underlying.

 

 

Meanwhile, Joe videoing while playing a nintendo game -

Tim's new word, which he started using about ten days ago, is "impressive." The flames reached as high as seven feet, so I'd say "impressive" is appropriate for this fire. Lots more wood around, so more fires coming up.

Washington Post feature on CIA chief Leon Panetta

This is a really interesting piece. When Panetta was named CIA chief, I figured it was a bad idea; a purely political appointment of a career Democratic politician.

But he seems to be doing a very good job; respected and praised by members of the Agency, and intensely disliked by the ACLU.

Under Panetta, a more aggressive CIA

... The agency was using a Predator drone to monitor a residential compound; a Taliban leader was expected to arrive shortly; a CIA missile would kill him.

On the morning of Aug. 5, CIA Director Leon Panetta was informed that Baitullah Mehsud was about to reach his father-in-law's home. Mehsud would be in the open, minimizing the risk that civilians would be injured or killed. Panetta authorized the strike, according to a senior intelligence official who described the sequence of events.

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Panetta was pulled out of a White House meeting and told that Mehsud's wife was also on the rooftop, giving her husband a massage. Mehsud, implicated in suicide bombings and the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, was a major target. Panetta told his officers to take the shot. Mehsud and his wife were killed.

Panetta, an earthy former congressman with exquisitely honed Washington smarts, was President Obama's surprise choice to head the CIA. During his 13 months in the job, Panetta has led a relentless assault on al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan, delivering on Obama's promise to target them more aggressively than his predecessor.

Apart from a brief stint as a military intelligence officer in the 1960s, little in Panetta's résumé appeared to merit his nomination to become the 19th director of the CIA, but his willingness to use force has won over skeptics inside the agency and on Capitol Hill. Said one former senior intelligence official: "I've never sensed him shirking from it."

The article continues; I am unsure about the dubious morality of the above attack; not so much killing the terrorist (OK with that!) as knowing you are also killing his wife.  

"Any time you make decisions on life and death, I don't take that lightly. That's a serious decision," he said. "And yet, I also feel very comfortable with making those decisions because I know I'm dealing with people who threaten the safety of this country and are prepared to attack us at any moment."

Mehsud's followers and their al-Qaeda allies vowed to avenge his death, and within months they put into motion a plan that culminated in a Dec. 30 suicide bombing that killed seven CIA officers and contractors at a base in eastern Afghanistan.

On the Monday after the bombing, the regular 8:30 a.m. meeting of senior staff members at CIA began with a minute of silence. Then the director spoke.

"We're in a war," Panetta said, according to one participant. "We cannot afford to be hesitant. . . . The fact is we're doing the right thing. My approach is going to be to work that much harder . . . that we beat these sons of bitches."

Hit the link above and read the whole feature; very fascinating.

Six Nations Rugby: Ireland vs. Scotland

Played at Croke Park in Dublin. Ireland going for the Triple Crown (victories over Wales, England, and Scotland) and the possibilty of winning the championship, if England were to beat France.

The phony abortion "deal"

UPDATE: Very sadly, it worked.  Vote was 219-212.  An error of historic proportions

UPDATE 2: Worth pointing out that there was bipartisan opposition to the bill. 34 Democrats voted with ALL the Republicans.

Tragic. Stupak and his little group just gave up. Although some pro-life Dems (like Shuler) will still vote against the bill.

The excerpt below the link states the obvious. We're not a dictatorship, you can't rescind laws by executive order.

 Statement by National Right to Life Committee on so-called abortion "deal"

The executive order promised by President Obama was issued for political effect.  It changes nothing.  It does not correct any of the serious pro-abortion provisions in the bill.  The president cannot amend a bill by issuing an order, and the federal courts will enforce what the law says.

And then there's this, as one of the Democratic Party House whips makes the same point.

Representative John Lewis, walking by Tea Party protesters

There was an accusation, here, that Democratic Representative John Lewis was called a "nigger" by protesters. As I said in an email to one of my friends "there are a..holes in every group." 

Here's a video - see if you can here anything. Of course, being unable to hear anything, doesn't prove it didn't happen.

Tough commercial from the Republican Governors Association

I expect this is the sort of thing we'll be seeing in the 2010 - and 2012 - political races.

Author Amity Shlaes on how "balance" feels when your ox is gored

There was just some changes in Texas re: curriculum (which I didn't follow) that has some people upset.

 
Ms. Shlaes is the author of The Forgotten Man, a history of the Great Depression.

Liberals Getting a Taste of How "Balance" Feels

March 17 (Bloomberg) -- Lack of balance is the charge being levied against the Texas State Board of Education after it inserted changes to new standards in social studies programs in public schools. The Associated Press said in an article that a “far-right faction” of the board had succeeded “in injecting conservative ideals” into the curriculum.

The Texas flap matters because Texas is so big. Publishers will revise textbooks to win the prize Texas contract. But the debate also reminds us that our current definition of balance is distorted. After all, what’s wrong with “injecting conservative ideals” into a curriculum, as long as they aren’t the only ideals?

At its most devilishly aggressive -- and whatever lines it inserts about church, state, hip-hop or the Alamo -- the board will not restore true balance. It will merely manage to make the curriculum a little less skewed to the left.

These days the word “balance” means what policy makers say it does, not more or less. That kind of definition is responsible for the vertigo that impedes logical cooperation in crucial debates such as this week’s over health-care.

Hitt he link to read the whole thing.

Wall Street Journal editorial: "The Obamacare Crossroads"

The Journal nails it in 15 paragraphs (Hit the link for the whole thing!). Should be required reading for anyone with a brain, of either political party or no party. Amen. Sermon over.

The vote is really about who commands the country's medical resources

With the House's climactic vote on ObamaCare tomorrow, Democrats are on the cusp of a profound and historic mistake, comparable in our view to the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act. Everyone is preoccupied now with the politics, but ultimately at stake on Sunday is the kind of country America will be.

The consequences of this bill will not only be destructive for the health-care system and the country's fiscal condition, though those will be bad enough. Inextricably bound up in a plan as far-reaching and ambitious as ObamaCare are also larger questions about the role of government, the dynamism of American enterprise and the nature of a free society. Above anything else, this explains why Democrats have had such trouble convincing the public, let alone their own Members.

Most acutely in the balance is the future of U.S. medicine. On the opposing page we reprint a 1996 essay by the great Milton Friedman that is more relevant than ever. Drawing from Alexander Solzhenitsyn's novel "The Cancer Ward," the late Nobel laureate traces the ways that national health care fundamentally alters "the consensual relation between the patient and the physician."

In our world of infinite wants but finite resources, there are only two ways to allocate any good or service: either through prices and the choices of millions of individuals, or through central government planning and political discretion. This choice is inexorable. Stripped of its romantic illusions, ObamaCare is really about who commands the country's medical resources. It vastly accelerates the march toward a totally state-driven system, in contrast to reforms that would fix today's distorted status quo by putting consumers in control.

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A self-governing democracy can of course decide that it wants to become this kind of super-welfare state. But if the year-long debate over ObamaCare has proven anything, it is that Americans want no such thing. There is no polling majority or any bipartisan support, much less a rough national consensus, for this expansion of government power. The election of Scott Brown in Massachusetts for Ted Kennedy's seat, of all things, was as direct a referendum as you could have.

So if the health bill passes in the House, it will only do so the way it did in the Senate, with a narrow partisan majority, abetted by political bribery and intimidation, budget gimmicks and procedural deceptions. An entitlement the country can't afford and doesn't want may pass because of sheer ideological willfulness. The ugliness of the bill, and of its passage, means that some or all of it might be repealable, but far better not to make the tragic mistake in the first place.

"Sheer ideological willfulness." That's the answer, isn't it.

People who carry on substantive conversations - as opposed to small talk - are happiest

So "don't worry, be happy" may not work?

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.

Researchers then went through the tapes and classified the conversation snippets as either small talk about the weather or having watched a TV show, and more substantive talk about current affairs, philosophy, the difference between Baptists and Catholics or the role of education. A conversation about a TV show wasn’t always considered small talk; it could be categorized as substantive if the speakers analyzed the characters and their motivations, for example.

Many conversations were more practical and did not fit in either category, including questions about homework or who was taking out the trash, for example, Dr. Mehl said. Over all, about a third of all conversation was ranked as substantive, and about a fifth consisted of small talk.

But the happiest person in the study, based on self-reports about satisfaction with life and other happiness measures as well as reports from people who knew the subject, had twice as many substantive conversations, and only one-third of the amount of small talk as the unhappiest, Dr. Mehl said. Almost every other conversation the happiest person had — 45.9 percent of the day’s conversations — were substantive, while only 21.8 percent of the unhappiest person’s conversations were substantive.

Small talk made up only 10 percent of the happiest person’s conversations, while it made up almost three times as much –- or 28.3 percent –- of the unhappiest person’s conversations.

I (almost) never talk about the weather, so I must be happy. Now, I better get back to reading Rahner and Heidegger ...

NY State income tax refunds will be delayed + interesting stuff on state pensions

The roots of the New York fiscal crisis go back to the Cuomo and Pataki administrations. One Democrat, one Republican. I'm proud to day, I never voted for either of them.

To maintain New York’s cash flow and prevent the state from ending the month in the red, Mr. Paterson is delaying by a few weeks income tax rebates for hundreds of thousands of taxpayers, a move that will save about $500 million in the short term. In the coming days, the administration will also have to identify an additional $1.5 billion in payments that will be delayed into the new year.

It is the second time in recent months that the governor has been forced, in effect, to delay paying the state’s bills. In December, when the state also faced a cash crunch, he delayed about $750 million in state school aid, prompting a lawsuit from local school officials and unions. That money was paid in January.

The latest batch of unpaid bills will essentially be rolled into next year’s budget, forcing the state to begin the fiscal year in arrears.

The state by law must pay the income tax refunds by May 31st, or start crediting interest to the taxpayer.  

Here's another thought: New Jersey (taxpayers) owe $34 billion in unfunded pension benefits to NJ state employees and retirees. I wonder what that number is for NY?

UPDATE: Good news! NY is OK and in the black. Here's a very recent report on the state pension woes, and NY is looking OK Pew Center Research: The Trillion $$ Dollar Gap