Category: Uncategorized

by Smitty

In the Pagan Progressive Pantheon, Fairness is a minor, throw-away deity to whom random, cost-free appeal can be made. Preston at The PJ Tatler gives us Rick Santelli schooling ueber-knob Ezra Klein:

“Moving money around in ways that are unfair,” Ezra? Really? That’s what you’re going with? The left’s focus on “fairness” led directly to the housing collapse, and its focus on “fairness” now is creating an extremely hostile economic climate.

Generally speaking, Klein, fa(ir|re) is what you pay to ride a bus. That is, while the Golden Rule governs our output to others, voicing expectations of fairness from government in particular, and life in general will:

• go unmet
• result in loss of your lunch money
• make you sound the sort of feckless Lefty twerp that would write for the WaPoo.

In summary, I personally try to transmit fairness to all I encounter. In contrast, when somebody whines about unfairness, particularly in a political conversation, I mark them either an utter rube (common Lefty) or a dangerous emotional manipulator (uncommon Lefty).
The Fairness God, in the Progressive Pantheon, also governs taxation, and, while no warrior, stirs up a great deal of class warfare, when his worshippers get a good chant going.

by Smitty

Hey, if BHO gets the credit for bin Laden, he gets the blame for the downgrade. Particulary ironic in light of the recent 14th Amendment whining about the validity of U.S. debt. Not the same thing, sure, but a finely related twist.
If there is any good news here, it is that the attribution is squarely on BHO. It will be spun as unimportant, I suppose.

UPDATE (RSM): I was at an event with Michelle Bachmann in West Des Moines when the downgrade was announced. Bachmann made a statement calling for a Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner to resign. I called Eric Dondero of Libertarian Republican and gave him the report. I’m now trying to upload video, which is difficult with the crappy Wifi at this hotel.

by Smitty

Stephen Green comes close to throwing Virginia under the bus:

Virginia is traditionally GOP-friendly, but has been trending purple. Also, there’s been a huge influx of money and power and more money into the Northern VA ‘burbs around DC. That helps the state’s economy (at the expense of the rest of the nation), and makes Virginia a tough state for the GOP to pick off of Obama’s 2008 column.

You’re just trying to irritate me into even further efforts in support of American recovery, aren’t you, VP? Your double-secret head fake is likely to succeed!

Maybe I’ve lived in Northern Virginia for too long, but that concentration of history, of the very places where so many Founding Fathers lived, has me particularly incensed to see the place over-run by these slack-jawed homo bureaucratus tools. It’s flipping disgusting, starting with “Gentleman” Jim Moran at the top and proceeding down through the whole lot of the rot.

by Smitty

Insty points to a devastating Bloomberg piece:

So the balanced-budget amendment, whatever its political popularity, possesses the following difficulties: It is poorly written and easy to circumvent; it invites judicial control of the appropriations process; and it pretends to know more than we can confidently say we do about how the economy works.

Why do we have to tell the government to manage money responsibly? Prudence in the management of the public fisc should go without saying. The fact that we have to try to be explicit about prudence is a failure. The fact that some, even the GOP leadership, think an explicit failure can succeed is downright worrisome. The fact that elected officials don’t seem to notice the downright worrisome aspect is utterly terrifying.

The problem is not an output problem. The government knows how to spend, yet the spending is where the political theater keeps the action focused. No, the problem is on the input side. If the economy is a receiver, then the government is a loudspeaker with insufficient input impedance. Maybe the loudspeaker is shorted, sitting in a puddle. If we don’t constrain the federal government’s ability to draw current, it will continue to draw current, until the receiver, currently hot to the touch, lets all the smoke out.

Thus, we can pass an Amendment a year from now until that receiver is a Class C fire, the economy is reduced to barter, and BHO is gibbering “Bushbushbushbush. . .” in the I-love-me jacket, and it won’t mean a thing.

Private Pyle is relatively serious, compared to the political theater passing itself for leadership in DC.

by Smitty

Once again, I’m not tracking the uproar over the recent Progress made in comic book characters. While the World’s Youngest Blogger isn’t yet into comics, I remember fondly collecting comics for several years.

That I may not agree with the direction some comics I used to enjoy are taking seems more an opportunity than a problem, to me. Guys like Muir at Day By Day can be relied upon to produce work that is more in keeping with the American tradition.

It’s a fantastic thing that Marvel Comics is following their muse and producing the comics they feel have a market. Just that, in the privacy of my own home, we’ll be addressing the secular culture with, let us say, clarity.

This is what I mean about laughing, rather than shooting the messenger. Leave the caustic tone to the Left.

by Smitty

Got to find a way to squeeze a post out of these outbursts of Twitter hash:

by Smitty

Yid with Lid enumerates the news, then points out the coming Equality of Condition:

The only possible good news coming out of the latest economic reports is the “class warfare” approach is likely to end soon. Not because of any change of heart by the President, but because the ruined economy will leave everyone in the same, poor class.

As we were chatting on Twitter, YWL and I, it came to me that facing reality is not a Bad Thing, though it may be temporarily painful. Frankie Smith (no relation) doubles down on the double dip with the new transportation plan we’ll be using when we can no longer afford to fuel individual cars:

by Smitty

What a jacked-up pile of crazy talk this is:

I mean, really: parents having any say about schools? How regressive a notion is that? To top it off, if you read Luther Olsen’s bio page, he has six kids. Clearly a conservative Gaia-hater, committed to ensuring his progeny upset the Progressive fair-adise that has been so long in the making.

(via Orit Sklar on Twitter)