U.S. Robbed of Winning Goal in World Cup Soccer Game vs. Slovenia

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Everybody knows soccer is for fags. Still, this doesn’t give anti-American referees the right to screw us over:

The United States staged the greatest rally in its World Cup history Thursday, overcoming a two-goal halftime deficit to record a 2-2 draw with Slovenia at Ellis Park.
Michael Bradley’s goal in the 82nd minute tied the game . . .
The Americans (0-0-2, two points) will face a must-win situation against Algeria on June 23. . . .
It appeared the Americans had pulled ahead in the 84th minute on a Maurice Edu goal off a Landon Donovan free kick, but referee Koman Colibaly apparently called a foul before Edu got the ball. . . .
“I still don’t know why the goal was disallowed,” Bob Bradley said after the match.

Yeah, well, I know why the goal was disallowed: Koman Colibaly hates America, that’s why. This is an international crime against truth and justice:

For the love of all that is holy! Those Slovenian scum were all over Bradley like it was pro wrestling! Some fag at Time magazine named “Sean” describes it:

On a free kick moments later, Landon Donovan delivered a beautiful ball into the box, which Maurice Edu knocked in to give the U.S. what looked like a historic victory. Gooooaaaal!!! But Coulibaly blew his whistle, and called a phantom foul on the Americans. The replay could not have been clearer: no infraction, the goal was legit. If anything, a hold on Bradley should have given the Americans a penalty kick . . .
ESPN commentator, and former Team USA defender, Alex Lalas called Coulibaly’s call “a disgrace.”

You’re damned right, it’s a disgrace. The CIA needs to capture Koman Colibaly, ship him to Guantanamo, and waterboard that terrorist bastard. Meanwhile, here is video of the schweet first goal by Landon Donovan:

Soccer is for fags and foreigners. Only our patriotic jingoism — USA! USA! USA! — gives us Real Red-Blooded Americans an excuse to pretend we actually care about the World Cup.

UPDATE: Dr. Rusty Shackleford is also a Real Red-Blooded American.

Obama to Europe: ‘Double-Dip,’ Anyone?

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The headline is “Obama Urges Europe Not to Drop Stimulus Measures Yet,” but to understand what the president is actually trying to say, you have to read this New York Times story very carefully:

President Obama signaled on Friday that countries in Europe should not withdraw their extraordinary spending programs too quickly.
In a public letter to other leaders of the Group of 20 nations in advance of a summit in Toronto next week, Mr. Obama wrote, “Our highest priority in Toronto must be to safeguard and strengthen the recovery.” . . .
Mr. Obama also wrote, “We must be flexible in adjusting the pace of consolidation and learn from the consequential mistakes of the past when stimulus was too quickly withdrawn and resulted in renewed economic hardships and recession.” . . .
American officials are concerned that fiscal retrenchment by too many countries at once could imperil the global recovery.
Mr. Obama warned of the risks of a double-dip recession, which most economists consider unlikely but not impossible.
“In fact, should confidence in the strength of our recoveries diminish, we should be prepared to respond again as quickly and as forcefully as needed to avoid a slowdown in economic activity,” he wrote.

People who haven’t been paying close attention might not understand why Obama is saying all this. Obama, his advisers and the Democrats in general are firm believers in Keynesian economics, which prescribes deficit “stimulus” spending. But Germany isn’t buying that baloney. Bloomberg News explains:

While Obama endorsed restoring order to public finances in the “medium-term,” his focus on growth is at odds with that of German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s preference for budget cuts amid Europe’s debt crisis. Each strategy carries risks. Continued stimulus risks bondholder revolt over rising debt burdens, while spending cutbacks could tip the global economy back into recession.. . .
Merkel, the head of Europe’s largest economy, said June 11 she expects to have a “hard time” at the summit and that she will respond that “there is no alternative” to cutting the fiscal deficit.
Germany’s Cabinet this month backed budget cuts worth more than 80 billion euros through 2014, while French President Nicolas Sarkozy this week raised the retirement age and increased taxes.

Pay close attention to this part of the Bloomberg story:

Chinese officials said in Beijing today that they plan to use the Toronto talks to discuss responses to Europe’s sovereign debt turmoil while keeping the yuan’s value off the agenda. The yuan has been held at about 6.83 yuan to one U.S. dollar since mid-2008 to help protect China’s exporters, drawing threats of tariffs from among U.S. lawmakers.
Obama doesn’t mention China in the letter but maintains his position that China’s currency value should be determined by the market. “I also want to underscore that market-determined exchange rates are essential to global economic vitality,” he said.
Obama is facing domestic pressure from his own party to lean on China to raise the value of its currency. Lawmakers such as House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Sander Levin and New York Senator Charles Schumer, both Democrats, say a weak currency gives Chinese exporters an unfair advantage over their U.S. competitors and costs U.S. jobs.
Levin said yesterday that the value must be increased by the end of the summit. After the G-20 meeting, “if China does not act and the administration does not respond promptly thereafter, the Congress will act,” Levin said yesterday at a hearing.

The Bloomberg reporter doesn’t connect the dots here, but mention of a potential “bondholder revolt” and this trade issue with China are in fact connected.

China owns a lot of U.S. debt, and there seems to be an implicit bargain here: China will keep funding Obama’s deficit spending spree, so long as the U.S. keeps its markets open to Chinese goods. Under pressure from U.S. labor unions, however, Schumer and Levin are starting to talk like Smoot and Hawley, which would undo that bargain.

So we’ve got high unemployment with mind-boggling deficits as far as the eye can see, and the whole thing could unravel if China ever gets tired of buying U.S. debt. 

Gold just hit $1,262 an ounce. Mere coincidence, I’m sure.

The Triumph of Alvin Greene

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Good news for America’s favorite Democrat:

Democratic Party officials in South Carolina voted Thursday to uphold the result of their controversial Senate primary even though the winner was Alvin Greene, an unemployed political novice who stands almost no chance of defeating Republican Sen. Jim DeMint in November.
Meeting in Columbia, members of the state Democratic Party executive committee voted by a 38-7 margin to reject a protest from former state lawmaker Vic Rawl, the establishment-backed candidate who unexpectedly lost last Tuesday’s primary to Greene.
“They did the right thing,” Greene said in a brief phone interview. “I am the best candidate for the United States Senate in the state of South Carolina.”

Guess who’s a huge Alvin Greene fan?

Newsweek Intern Attempts to Describe Hayek’s Road to Serfdom: Massive FAIL

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Thanks to Kathy Shaidle for calling attention to this sophomoric effort by Princeton senior Isia Jasiewicz:

On June 8, Beck devoted an entire episode of his talk show on Fox News to The Road to Serfdom, a work of political theory written in the immediate aftermath of World War II by Friedrich von Hayek, an Austrian émigré to the U.K. and the 1974 recipient of the Nobel Prize in economics . . .
The Road to Serfdom is a treatise on libertarianism, well-known only in academic circles or among political theory wonks stalwart enough to wade through the 60-page introduction and chapters on “Planning and the Rule of Law” and “The Prospects of International Order.”

Ha. Ha. Haha. BWAAAAA-HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Just a few points:

  • The term “libertarian” in its present meaning was not commonly used until the 1970s.
  • Far from being known only to “wonks,” The Road to Serfdom was a best-seller in 1944 and ’45, going through multiple printings, and was originally popularized through a condensed version published by Reader’s Digest.
  • It was not “a work of political theory,” but an attempt to explain the rise of Nazism and fascism — 1944? hint, hint — as one consequence of the prevalence of socialist ideas. It was a very practical book, warning leaders in England and America that the tendency toward the “planned economy” could produce similar results even in Western democracies.
  • The book obviously wasn’t written in the “aftermath of World War II,” but during the war.
  • As to being “stalwart enough to wade through the 60-page introduction,” my own copy (50th anniversary edition, 1994) includes an 11-page introduction by Milton Friedman and a couple of prefaces to previous editions. The most interesting chapters, to my mind, are Chapter 8 (“Who, Whom?”), Chapter 10 (“Why the Worst Get on Top”) and especially Chapter 12 (“The Socialist Roots of Nazism”), which has never ceased to provoke howls from the Left, who refuse to admit that National Socialism was socialism at all.

Next assignment for Isia Jasiewicz? “The Bible, a theological treatise well-known only in religious circles or among clergy stalwart enough to wade through several pages of ‘begats’ and the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy.”

ADDENDUM: Whatever happened to young journalists learning their craft as reporters before trying their hand at punditry or criticism? I suppose it would be slumming for a Princeton grad to take a job as a staff writer for a newspaper, covering school-board meetings and such. But am I the only reader who resents being lectured to by 22-year-olds? I don’t care what your SAT score was, sweetheart. You’re not that precocious.

UPDATE: Welcome, Instapundit readers! Remember that Professor Reynolds is a Yale Law grad, so the humiliation of Princetonians and Harvardians (e.g., Andrew Sullivan) warms the cockles of his heart.

UPDATE II: As I remarked last week, it is unfortunate that most people who read The Road to Serfdom stop there and don’t pursue Austrian economics or Hayekian philosophy further. One of the finest treatises Hayek ever wrote was The Mirage of Social Justice — which goes in-depth on a key theme briefly explored in Road — and yet it gets short shrift. Hayek famously described the errors of socialism in The Fatal Conceit. 

If you want to read some excellent Hayek for free, I recommend “The Intellectuals and Socialism.” And, oh, yeah, Glenn Beck is right: Buy gold.

UPDATE III: Linked by Greg Ransom at the Hayek Center. Wouldn’t it be nice if the center were Hayekian? 

Little Miss Attila has some great Hayekian video.

UPDATE IV: E-mail from a reader:

I’m a former editor at the [Reader’s] Digest. Actually, RD didn’t just do a condensed version of Road to Serfdom, they published the condensed version in the magazine, which at the time was one of, if not the most, widely read magazines in the country.  One of the reasons it is so well known by a certain generation, is that it was read by millions of people who other wise might not have been aware of it. 
No need to mention me, just the fact, which reinforces that this guy’s a moron.  Cheers.

Thanks!

Stupidest Statement Of The Year?

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by Smitty

Via Frank J, Sour Krauthammer on the Barton apology to BP:

“I think that wins the award for the most politically stupid statement of the year. We can retire it right now, in June.”

I’ll concede that it was gratuitous, tin-eared, and inarticulate.  BigFurHat has educated me on the point.  But we have some really stiff competition here.
Just for starters, via Gateway Pundit, we have word of the reaction to the Secretary of State from AZ-Gov:

“This is no way to treat the people of Arizona,” said Governor Brewer. “To learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the Secretary of State is just outrageous. If our own government intends to sue our state to prevent illegal immigration enforcement, the least it can do is inform us before it informs the citizens of another nation.”

Governor Brewer said, “I just visited with the President in the Oval Office about our differences over immigration policy, and the one firm understanding we had was that within two weeks he would provide details of his commitment to deploy National Guard troops to the border. While I am grateful that communications have taken place about a possible visit by Administration staff before the end of the month, there is not yet a confirmed date. More importantly, no information about additional troop and border security enhancements has been provided by the Obama Administration to the citizens of Arizona.”

Really. If Governor Brewer didn’t at least get an Executive Order to back up the conversation with BHO, she got less than Rep. Stupak. Which is less than zero.

Less Than Zero recalls a flick with a soundtrack featuring Slayer covering Iron Butterfly, which leads to this disturbingly appropriate bit of YouTubery, which is apparently an outtake from a horror flick I haven’t seen. Viewer discretion advised:

What would life be like if the memory spent on useless associations like that were full of something useful?

Update: via American Power, Governor Brewer has launched Keep AZ Safe.  Now, if she is transparent and effective in getting citizens to pay voluntarily what their tax dollars are supposed to be doing, how silly will Obama Won Kabuki look?

Not Wanting To Take On The Big Fur Hat Here. . .

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by Smitty

BFH at iOwnTheWorld says:

Everyone, by now, has heard that Representative Joe Barton, from Texas, apologized to BP’s Tony Hayward for the “shakedown” they received from the Obama administration.
Geez. Talk about a tin ear. Barton, everyone but BP and their family wants BP to pay for the clean up, so, you lost everyone with your “apology” to Hayward. For style points alone you get the raspberry.

Is the ear really tin, or is Barton just dispassionate? All of the evidence thus far points to a colossal screw-up on BP’s part. And they’re not going to spend significant cash to make amends sooner than required. So it can be seen as a Not Bad Thing that BHO spared 20 minutes of golf time to offer encouragement.

But wait. Have all survivors been interviewed? Have they raised the Deepwater Horizon, to ensure we’re not remembering the Maine here?

You’ll notice, if you check out Daniel Foster’s live blog, it took the WH ~.5 hours (as opposed to 5 weeks) to hammer Barton, emphasis mine:

11:54 A.M.: The White House issued a response to the Barton statement. “What is shameful is that Joe Barton seems to have more concern for big corporations that caused the disaster,” than for its victims, the White House said. “Most Americans know that the real tragedy is what men and women of the Gulf coast are going through right now.” The statement goes on to say that both parties should “repudiate” Barton’s comments.

No, Barton was concerned with due process.

Now, granted, BP isn’t a private citizen of Louisiana destroyed by all this, and Barton isn’t the ACLU, but the Obama Administration couldn’t lead two nuns in one minute of silent prayer, to say nothing of handling the Federal end of a disaster relief operation.

The final report, after a thorough investigation, could very well show that $20B is merely an overture. However, if this incident proves as steeped in creepy as everything else from the past 18 months, we’re better off awaiting the results of that investigation. Oh, wait: Eric Holder is on the case? That knob can’t even manage a blatantly obvious election case. OK, we’re tubed.

Oh, and the BlogProf notes that the people who’re going to pay the $20B are British pensioners.  Let’s here it for the “special relationship”, shall we?

Update: check Ace’s Alternate Reality Version.

Gold Price Hits Record High

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Nothing to worry about:

Gold futures closed at a record high on Thursday, handily surpassing the mark reached just last week as investors grew more concerned about the U.S. economy and its proxy, the stock market.
Gold for August delivery, the most active contract, added $18.20, or 1.5%, to settle at $1,248.70 an ounce on the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. That left the June 8 record close of $1,245.60 in the rearview mirror. . . .
“Equities are in a precarious situation,” said Charles Nedoss, a senior market strategist with Olympus Futures in Chicago. Investors feel stocks may be overbought and turned to the safety of gold, he added.

Should have listened to Glenn Beck.