Sunday, March 22, 2009

How did we survive?


I am one of the baby boomers, born between 1946 and 1964. I sometimes wonder how we survived. Consider:

Our mothers smoked and/or drank while pregnant.

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can and didn't get tested for diabetes.

Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with brightly colored, lead-based paints.

There were no childproof lids on medicine or special locks on cabinet doors.

We we rode bikes, we wore baseball caps, not specially engineered helmets.

As infants, we rode in cars without car seats or booster seats, no seat belts and no air bags. Sometimes, as tots, we rode in small moving boxes packed with blankets and toys.

We rode in the back of pickup trucks and no one was arrested or cited.

We drank water from garden hoses, not from plastic bottles.

We shared a single bottle of Coca-Cola with three friends -- and no one died.

We ate cupcakes with food coloring, white bread, real butter and bacon. In fact, we drank Kool-Aid mixed with tablespoons of real sugar.

Yet we weren't overweight, because we were always outside playing.

We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when dusk fell. And no one was able to reach us all day. And: we were okay.

We'd spend hours in the forest with Daisy rifles, or building go-carts without brakes, or sledding with wooden and steel monstrosities that could sever a limb.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's and X-Boxes. There were no video games, no cable television, no DVD players. There were no computers, no web, no Facebook, no Twitter.

We had friends and we went outside and found them... without cell phones or text messages.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits resulting from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.

We were given BB guns and knives for our birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, played lawn darts and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them.

Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment.

The boomers have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers, inventors and entrepreneurs ever.

The last 50 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas.

We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all.

We had the good fortune to grow up as kids in America, before the government regulated so much of our lives "for our own good".

Give thanks, for such an age will never occur again.


Hat tips: How Beautiful We Were (American Digest), Contrairimairi and AdClassix. Linked by: Paul Ibrahim. Thanks!



The Immigrants and the Pelosicrats



For centuries, it's been part of the American story.


Immigrants came here from every corner of the globe.


Yearning to be free and seeking a better life for themselves and their families.


They worked hard, embraced our culture, and helped make America great.


Republicans believe all immigrants should be welcomed here, provided they play by the rules.


But too often today, people enter our country illegally.


Their first act: to break our laws.


Too many Democrats want to reward them with citizenship if they pay a meaningless fine.


Selling American citizenship?


That means millions of illegals would get legal status more quickly than those who followed the rules.


On top of that, they would get Government benefits, paid for by your tax dollars:


Billions of dollars in social security and Medicare benefits.


There's a right way to come to America and a wrong way.


Democrats don't seem to know the difference.


Or, if they do know, they don't seem to care.


But, if you care, then there's only one choice.

Stop the open-borders agenda of the Pelosicrats. Let your representative hear your voice.


Hat tip: Rep. Jon Kline (hat tip: Powerline).

The Ontario Project


I'm looking for readers in upstate New York: Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo, Utica, Erie, Oswego and surrounding areas.

The requirements:
  • A camera or camera-phone
  • The ability to visit the parking lot of a hospital or urgent-care facility
  • Mathematical skills: you must be able to count to ten
I'm looking for the approximate number of Ontario license plates in American health care facilities near the Canadian border.

Given the vaunted, "free" Canadian health care system, my questions are: how many Canadians are visiting American medical facilities? Of every ten license plates you see, how many are from Ontario?

My contention is that quite a few Canadians are trying to escape the queues (waits) for routine tests like MRIs, CAT scans and the like. Or they seek specialized treatment that is unavailable in Canada.

Here's how you can help: Visit the parking lot of an upstate New York medical facility. Estimate the percentage of Ontario license plates. Take a snapshot or two of Ontario plates in the parking lot (I'll obscure the actual plate number). Then email me with sample counts and pictures. You can also post a link or request on message boards you frequent, or just email this request to your friends.

For those who respond, I'll provide credit and thanks by name in a summary post (unless directed to remove the name).

The deadline: one week from today.

Any help you can offer is appreciated.


Update: Kim Priestap of Wizbang writes "People are now beginning to ask if [Natasha Richardson's] death could have been prevented with a medical helicopter system, which Quebec does not have."



Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Faux Outrage & the Bonus Coverup

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Obama on 60 Minutes: Ace
Obama violating law on TARP oversight?: Morrissey
Five signs of a flailing presidency: Barnes

The AP... openly doubting Obama: AP
Democrat anger at Obama overkill: Times (UK)
It's not the bonuses... it's the Democrat cover-up: AJ Strata

White House: Average electric bill will rise $1800 a year: Patriot Room
Ezra Klein smears Ann Althouse: LegalIns
Nationalized Socialism is Obama's Goal: Dog

Barack Obama is a terrible bore: Newser
Happy New Year Mullahs: Obama's Message of Weakness: Kristol
Don Boudreaux Says ‘Have Faith’ with a Basis (with a Faith-Based Add-on): BizzyBlog

Dear President Obama: I guess we can add "transparency" to your mountain of lies: DPO
Keeping up with Barney & Chris: S, C & A
If Somebody Knocks on Your Door Today…: Doug Powers

Fair Play: A Tour of CT Working Familes Party: Temple
The Left's Army of Mandatory "Volunteer Corps" Bill Passes in the House: Weasel Zippers
Can Kristallnacht be far behind?: GM's Place

"Dodd must go and the Senate must impeach him if he will not resign": Tennessean
Virginian Pilot Sells Financial Crack Heroin to Readers: MoneyRunner
Mob mentality: ACORN’s “Working Family Party” bus tour of AIG exec homes: Flopping Aces

Outrage Kabuki & the limits of telepromptered cool: Steyn

The investor class invests in jurisdictions where the rules are clear and stable. Right now, Washington is telling the planet: In our America, there are no rules. Got a legally binding contract? We’ll tear it up. Refuse to surrender the dough? We’ll pass a law targeted at you, yes, you, Mr. Beau Nuss of 27 Plutocrat Gardens, Fatcatville. If you want a banana republic on steroids, this is great news. So cheer on thuggish grandstanding by incompetent legislators-for-life like Barney Frank if you wish. But, in any battle between the political class and the business class, you’re only fooling yourself if you think it’s in your interest for the latter to lose.

The first two months of the Age of the Hopeychange have been an eye-opener. I expected it to be ideologically distasteful to me, but I didn’t expect it to be so inept. Not because I had any expectations of President Obama’s executive skills. But I assumed he’d have folks around him who could take care of details like governing, while he pranced around as the smiley-face hopeychange frontman. But the bench is still empty save for a handful of mediocrities. And the disconnect between the smoothly scripted mush and what’s actually happening makes the telepromptered cool look even more ridiculous.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

World economy kills four-door Lamborghini


The worldwide car sales depression has affected all tiers of the auto business. Autoblog reports that Lamborghini's planned four-door Estoque has been shelved.

R.I.P.

In addition, half of all major U.S. suppliers are said to be bankruptcy risks in 2009.


Financial Post Editor asks "Is this the End of America?"


Terence Corcoran is the editor of The Financial Post, the oldest of Canada's financial newspapers. Corcoran's most recent op-ed excoriates the Obama administration and the Democrat-controlled Congress, asserting that they are "riddled with slapdash, incompetence and gamesmanship":

[The] Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U.S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U.S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

...Reform of health care, environmental policy, education, energy, banking, regulation — every nook and cranny of the U.S. economy has been put on alert for major change. Expansion of government spending, plunging the U.S. into unprecedented deficits, is without parallel. In economic policy, through regulation and control of energy output, financial services and monetary expansion, the U.S. government has embarked on a fundamental reshaping of America. It is designed, in short, to bring on the end of America.

...The total monetary base, already at astronomical levels, is now expected to take another big hit with the new Fed policy of buying up U.S. longer-term treasury bills in a bid to drive down long-term interest rates... For the rest of the world, however, the worry is that America is at risk of becoming the fountainhead of a new inflationary outburst. The U.S. dollar is now in decline, gold is moving sharply higher, and new global currency turmoil is on the horizon...

...A paper just published by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, source of the chart above, says that the Fed will have to be prepared to absorb all the excess money it has poured into the U.S. economy. It will be a technical and political challenge unlike any central bank has ever undertaken. The future of America is at stake.

Americans must stop Barack Obama and the Pelosicrats from their program of economic suicide. The alternative is too difficult to contemplate.


Related: St. Louis Federal Reserve: Deficits, Debt and Looming Disaster: Reform of Entitlement Programs May Be the Only Hope.

Economic Suicide and Revolution


Barack Obama's profligate spending programs, in aggregate totaling many trillions of dollars, translate to the act of printing money at a rate never seen in human history. Experts, from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office to Democrat economists, believe that these plans put America on a glide-path to catastrophe over the next ten years.

President Barack Obama's budget would generate unsustainably large deficits averaging almost $1 trillion a year over the next decade, according to new estimates released Friday... The [CBO] figures predict Obama's budget will produce $9.3 trillion worth of red ink over 2010-2019. That's $2.3 trillion worse than the administration predicted in its budget just last month.

Worst of all, CBO says the deficit under Obama's policies would never go below 4 percent of the size of the economy, figures that economists agree are unsustainable. By the end of the decade, the deficit would exceed 5 percent of gross domestic product, a dangerously high level.

And consider the spending itself: a stimulus bill that sends billions of taxpayer dollars to a "criminal enterprise" like ACORN and spews hundreds of billions to pork-laden construction projects. A budget that includes 9,000 earmarks. Mortgage rescue packages for deadbeats and real-estate flippers. Trillions of dollars going out the front door and the back door of the Federal Reserve.

The full faith and credit of the U.S. financial system hangs in the balance. The dollar, once the strongest currency in the world, is on a trajectory to rival a third-world medium of exchange.

The national debt just hit $11 trillion, which reflects only the "on-the-books" amount. The true debt -- including Social Security and Medicare -- is now $56 trillion. This translates to:

$483,000 per American household

That amount of debt is, quite obviously, unsustainable.

Whether the outcome is rampant inflation (devaluation of the currency); an inability to sell U.S. debt to foreigners (China has already warned us about our spending); or the federal government's inability to make payments on the debt (bankruptcy), Barack Obama's behavior should come as no surprise. The urgency of destroying capitalism was baked into his upbringing.

* * *

Obama's mentor Frank Marshall Davis -- the veiled figure known only as "Frank" in Barack Obama's memoir Dreams from my Father -- was openly sympathetic to Communists. His affiliations with a variety of hard left groups were open. At that time, the Communist Party had tens of thousands of members, some of them clandestine Soviet officials who had penetrated government and industry. It received covert subsidies from the Soviet Union itself. In 1949, Davis himself predicted the collapse of Capitalism:

"Democracy today lies weak and slowly dying from the poison administered by the divident doctors in Washington and Wall Street who have fooled a trusting public into believing that they are the specialists who would save us from the dread diseases of socialism and communism. . . . They hope to hand us fascism disguised as the healed democracy." (Honolulu Record, July 28, 1949, p. 8)

Bill Ayers, who worked closely with Barack Obama on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge and the Woods Fund, wrote an eerily similar missive in 2008. It plainly predicts the death of Capitalism:

"Capitalism played its role historically and is exhausted as a force for progress: built on exploitation, theft, conquest, war, and racism, capitalism and imperialism must be defeated and a world revolution—a revolution against war and racism and materialism, a revolution based on human solidarity and love, cooperation and the common good—must win."

Jeremiah Wright, Obama's self-described spiritual advisor, mentor and family friend, offered a similar theme over the two decades comprising their relationship. Hostility to capitalism and America itself make steady appearances in Wright's sermons and his writings.

Wright views the United States as a criminal nation... Implicitly drawing on Marxist "dependency theory," Wright blames Africa's troubles on capitalist exploitation by the West, and also on inadequate American aid: "Some analysts would go so far as to even call what [the United States, the G-8, and multinational corporations] are doing [in Africa] genocide!"

According to Wright, America's alleged genocide in Africa, as well as its treatment of "Africans in the Western diaspora," both leads to and flows from a single underlying truth: "White supremacy is the bed rock of the philosophical, ideological and theological foundations of this country." So for Wright, it's really not a question of correcting America in the spirit of a loving patriot. America, to Wright, is a kind of alien formation, scarcely less of a "cage" for "Africans in the Western Diaspora" than it was during the days of slavery: "...White supremacy undergirds the thought, the ideology, the theol-ogy, the sociology, the legal structure, the educational system, the healthcare system, and the entire reality of the United States of America.

In 2008, Wright, like Ayers, predicted that a revolution would destroy Capitalism as a force in the world.

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, 'This is not just.'

* * *

This theme is the single immutable and consistent lesson taught by Obama's mentors and spiritual advisers: Capitalism is dying -- must die -- as an economic force for reasons of fairness and justice. America, as the world hub of capitalism, is evil. Therefore hastening the collapse of capitalism is an act of goodness.

If you concede that Barack Obama is a bright man -- and with Columbia and Harvard degrees under his belt, it's hard to dispute that notion -- then only one conclusion is possible. Barack Obama, at the helm of the world's strongest country, is fulfilling his promise to his mentors. Barack Obama is intentionally destroying the American economy.

The Revolution is Here.


Linked by: Bob McCarty and Parkway Rest Stop. Thanks!



Gold at $1,050 an ounce predicted


Ashraf Laidi maintains that gold is probably headed higher in the short run.

Gold's uptrend was bolstered by its ability to hold above the bottom of the 4-month channel of $880, its ability to limit periodic declines to no more than 10-11%, as well as holding above its 50-day MA. These technical criteria were first brought up on March 6. Having passed all these tests, I reiterate the near term target of $1,050.

Larwyn's Link Kerplosion: Living on Homeric Time

Have a great link you'd like me to review? Drop me an email!

Obama's overture to Iran. And Iran's response.: Fausta
Bush did it: unlwaful combatants: Hanson
Altruism at the point of a gun: Moran

Megyn Kelly rips ACORN scumbag a new one: DequalsS
Conyers suggests probe of ACORN: Times
When will Obama wag the dog?: Beldar

Are we a Banana Republic?: Power Line
Worst political class ever: MoneyRunner
The Return of Slavery to the U.S.: Red Ink TX

Megaphone envy and the Fairness Doctrine: AT (Somsel)
Maxine Waters calls out Obama: Surber
Radical Islam is coming to America: PJM (Gaffney)

It's a small world, George Soros: PJM (Fernandez)
A raw deal for Muslim women: PJM (Poole)
Obama: not ready for prime time: Riehl (actually, he's as ready as any Marxist President we've had)

Global warming researchers stranded in Arctic by freeze: AT (Fenig)
Help the Obama Family Name Their New Dog: Lucianne
Dept. of Stupid Questions, Peggy Noonan Edition: American Digest

Sayet says it: RWN
Noted Incompetent Stutters, Mumbles Way Through Press Conference: Ace
A $2.3 trillion worse deficit... in one month: Dinocrat

Living on Homeric time: Crittenden

...Six years later, I can drive up the highway without the mild g-force of acceleration, forward movement of the vehicle, triggering a flood of armored assault memories. Emotional reactions at thoughts of the dead and sacrifice are generally less intense and do not interrupt conversation. But I still look at Purple Heart license plates and think, “That guy knows.” Talking a lot and writing a lot was good.

Hundreds of thousands more who are still in this war, or whose experience was more recent, more intense, whose losses are limbs and loved ones, don’t have the luxury of time and distance. I am grateful this anniversary finds us in a time of relative quiet, the dying and maiming greatly diminished, and I pray that our leaders are wise and capable enough to carry us through the next phase of this long war. Because it is far from over.

A friend of mine who claims some ability to read signs told me six years plus a few weeks ago in an email that this business would dominate my life for 10 years. Looks to be more or less true, though not to the extent it could have. That Homeric timeframe clearly applies to our nation, for which much is still at risk and much can yet go badly wrong, and which will be lucky to be done with this war, both Iraq and Afghanistan and the greater war in the world, within a 10-year span. Then, we still have our homecoming Odyssey still ahead of us.

Memory lane, which is a route through the desert, the Euphrates Valley, up Baghdad’s grand boulevards and through the Assassin’s Gate... Continue reading.