No Oil for Pacifists

From a February 24th Wall Street Journal piece on Obama's budget plan:


source: WSJ


MORE:

See MaxedOutMama's analysis of the Obama budget:

The numbers behind the, ah, "budget" can be read here. Start with the tables (22 page pdf file). Go to page 5 and look at that chart. The first section is the baseline projection of outlays. The huge budget item (a fact that Democrats don't want to see) is the social welfare spending. That includes Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and all other welfare programs such as food stamps, other medical grants, and welfare.

In 2008, the outlays for these programs ALONE are 2.9 trillion. Yes, that is TRILLION. In 2018 the projected outlays for just these programs are just under 5 trillion. Current dollar US GDP as of Q4 2008 was estimated as 14.26 trillion. Thus, we are spending slightly over 20% of GDP on just the entitlement programs. That doesn't include defense, and it doesn't include interest on the deficit.

In 2008, interest on the deficit is listed as 253 billion. In 2018, interest on the deficit is expected to cost 651 billion.

In 2008, the deficit was 459 billion. Now we go to table 1 in the pdf, which shows the proposed spending. The proposed 2009 deficit is 1.7 trillion. In 2010 the proposed deficit is 1.1 trillion.

(via Chas' Compilation)

Matthew Continetti in the March 2nd Weekly Standard:

Recently the world's highest-paid baseball player, Alex Rodriguez, admitted that he had used performance-enhancing drugs during the early part of this decade. A reporter asked President Obama for his reaction to the news. "You know what?" Obama said. "There are no shortcuts. . .When you try to take shortcuts, you may end up tarnishing your entire career."

Bunk. In the age of irresponsibility, when you take a shortcut, you end up with $275 million from the New York Yankees.

MORE:

Blogger Tom Carter in comments: "I'm sorry...I just have trouble stifling a grin when I see President Obama talking about not taking shortcuts on the way to the top."

President Obama said Tuesday that he "will soon announce a way forward in Iraq that leaves Iraq to its people and responsibly ends this war." Friday, he formally decided to "withdraw the bulk of U.S. forces from Iraq by Aug. 31, 2010, and to pull out all remaining troops by the end of 2011."

Twenty-two months is a bit longer than the 16 months candidate Obama favored. Indeed, as David Freddoso on The Corner observes, "For those paying attention, that is exactly how long President Bush planned on staying in Iraq." Change.

Still, I oppose a specific deadline. So, before 2012, I hope the President reads Kenneth Pollack's op-ed in Thursday's New York Times.

A word about Pollack: By the end of the Clinton Administration, Pollack was director for Gulf affairs at the National Security Council, where he was the principal working-level official responsible for implementation of U.S. policy toward Iraq. Previously, he had served as the NSC's Director for Near East and South Asian Affairs following seven years in the CIA as a Persian Gulf military analyst. Pollack's a Democrat, and no cheerleader for President Bush -- indeed, a critic of post-invasion Iraq policy, especially in his 2008 book, A Path Out of the Desert.

Yet, in September 2002, Pollack published The Threatening Storm, the single best assembly of facts supporting invading Iraq. The book was touted by lefties (e.g., Joshua Micah Marshall) and righties (e.g., me) alike -- indeed, even liberal New Yorker editor David Remnick called the work "the most comprehensive and convincing case for the use of force in Iraq."

Pollack remains a keen observer of Iraq issues, and now serves as Director of Research at the (lefty) Brookings Institution's Saban Center for Middle East Policy. His latest analysis, co-authored with his Brookings colleague Michael O'Hanlon, in Thursday's New York Times is fact-based and non-ideological:

The Iraq war isn’t over. And while President Obama’s apparent decision to withdraw the bulk of American troops by August 2010 is not necessarily a mistake, it cannot be carried out rigidly. If all continues to go well, it should be eminently feasible; if not,the administration will have to show the strategic wisdom to slow down as needed to deal with problems.

Having just returned from a trip to the country arranged by the top American commander there, Gen. Ray Odierno, we agree that Iraq continues to make tremendous strides, thanks to American assistance and, increasingly, the efforts of Iraqi politicians and security forces. But both those ready to dust off the infamous "Mission Accomplished" banner and declare victory and those who continue to see Iraq as an inherent disaster that must simply be abandoned have to realize that continued American involvement will be crucial for several more years.

Young democracies are fragile entities. Political scientists generally agree that achieving a peaceful and credible second round of elections is critical in putting a new democracy on a path toward stability, because such elections test whether the country can accomplish a nonviolent transfer of power.

Iraq is holding its second round of real elections this year. It just concluded extremely successful provincial votes, and national parliamentary elections are to follow. Iraq’s calendar this year is also jam-packed with other important political events. If the United States can help the Iraqis secure even modestly positive outcomes for these events, we will have gone a long way toward realizing our goals of sustainable stability in Iraq and bringing most of our troops home next year.

Iraq is no longer convulsed by the chaos, sectarianism and terrorism that were driving it into all-out civil war in 2006. To be sure, friction remains, most notably in the ethnically diverse city of Mosul in the north, where coalition forces have only recently been reinforced to the point where they can conduct the kind of counterinsurgency campaign that secured the rest of the country. Unfortunately, they are racing against the clock to do so, since the recently signed security agreement between Baghdad and Washington requires American combat forces to leave Iraq’s cities by June 30.

But the main challenge now is that some key political players, strengthened by Iraq’s enormous recent progress, are less interested in moving their country forward than in using every tool at their disposal to put themselves in advantageous positions after the American withdrawal. Worse still, some -- perhaps many -- are doing so by exploiting the immaturity of the political process and the ambiguities in Iraq’s constitution.. . .

The Obama administration has been handling the Iraq war pragmatically so far. And while announcing a timetable poses a serious risk, the details of Mr. Obama’s plan leaked to the press this week are promising, especially leaving behind a large residual force including trainers and quick-reacting "maneuver units" and slowing the drawdown by three months relative to what he had promised on the campaign trail. Those few months are vital, as they should give the Iraqis adequate time to form their new government before the American troop levels are vastly diminished. Ideally, whatever he announces now, Mr. Obama will remain flexible, and slow the pace next year if necessary.

Given Iraq’s strategic significance, the mission ceased to be a "war of choice" the moment American forces crossed the border in March 2003. Now we have no choice but to see Iraq through to stability. . .

In addition, we cannot overlook Iraq’s enormous regional significance. President Obama has rightly insisted that the Bush administration committed cardinal sins by failing to engage Syria and Iran in its regional strategy and by remaining aloof from the Israeli-Palestinian and Lebanese conflicts for too long. But any broader Middle Eastern agenda is hostage to the situation in Mesopotamia. If Iraq slips back into chaos, President Obama is going to find little desire among Jordanians, Saudis, Syrians and Turks for taking the hard steps to forge a durable peace with Israel -- or among Iranians to reach a rapprochement.

In the end, it is up to the Iraqis to make their nation peaceful and productive -- we should not baby-sit Iraq through all of its problems as a young democracy. But it faces one last crucially tense period in the coming 12 to 18 months. American interests argue strongly for using all the leverage we have gained among Iraqis during six years of intense partnership to help Iraq through its "year of transitions" -- then we can bring our troops home quickly, but responsibly.

The far left continues to insist that Obama withdraw from Iraq immediately. The President need not satisfy such extremists--nothing short of pacifism will.

Setting a deadline for exit of our forces vitiates much of our remaining influence, shifting the advantage to the advocates of anarchy. Obama's been wrong about Iraq before--most famously insisting that the surge would fail. The President should ask whether he might be wrong again, and consider the more reasoned analysis of O'Hanlon and Pollack. A draw-down, not an inflexible deadline.

I'm not a fan of pro basketball. But I would read Michael Lewis on any topic, and last Sunday, he wrote about Houston Rockets' forward Shane Battier in the New York Times Magazine. Fans of Lewis's "Moneyball" (as I am) will find it a must-read:

[T]he big challenge on any basketball court is to measure the right things. The five players on any basketball team are far more than the sum of their parts; the Rockets devote a lot of energy to untangling subtle interactions among the team’s elements. To get at this they need something that basketball hasn’t historically supplied: meaningful statistics. For most of its history basketball has measured not so much what is important as what is easy to measure — points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots — and these measurements have warped perceptions of the game. (“Someone created the box score,” Morey says, “and he should be shot.”) How many points a player scores, for example, is no true indication of how much he has helped his team. Another example: if you want to know a player’s value as a ­rebounder, you need to know not whether he got a rebound but the likelihood of the team getting the rebound when a missed shot enters that player’s zone.

There is a tension, peculiar to basketball, between the interests of the team and the interests of the individual. The game continually tempts the people who play it to do things that are not in the interest of the group. On the baseball field, it would be hard for a player to sacrifice his team’s interest for his own. Baseball is an individual sport masquerading as a team one: by doing what’s best for himself, the player nearly always also does what is best for his team. “There is no way to selfishly get across home plate,” as Morey puts it. “If instead of there being a lineup, I could muscle my way to the plate and hit every single time and damage the efficiency of the team — that would be the analogy. Manny Ramirez can’t take at-bats away from David Ortiz. We had a point guard in Boston who refused to pass the ball to a certain guy.” In football the coach has so much control over who gets the ball that selfishness winds up being self-defeating. The players most famous for being selfish — the Dallas Cowboys’ wide receiver Terrell Owens, for instance — are usually not so much selfish as attention seeking. Their sins tend to occur off the field.

It is in basketball where the problems are most likely to be in the game — where the player, in his play, faces choices between maximizing his own perceived self-interest and winning. The choices are sufficiently complex that there is a fair chance he doesn’t fully grasp that he is making them.

Taking a bad shot when you don’t need to is only the most obvious example. A point guard might selfishly give up an open shot for an assist. You can see it happen every night, when he’s racing down court for an open layup, and instead of taking it, he passes it back to a trailing teammate. The teammate usually finishes with some sensational dunk, but the likelihood of scoring nevertheless declined. “The marginal assist is worth more money to the point guard than the marginal point,” Morey says. Blocked shots — they look great, but unless you secure the ball afterward, you haven’t helped your team all that much. Players love the spectacle of a ball being swatted into the fifth row, and it becomes a matter of personal indifference that the other team still gets the ball back.

There's much more--read the whole thing.

Paul Ingrassia in the February 19th Wall Street Journal:

"I frankly don't see how we're going to meet the foreign competition," said Henry Ford II, then chairman and CEO of Ford Motor Co., on May 13, 1971, right after the annual shareholders' meeting. "We've only seen the beginning," he predicted. Regarding American's increasing preference for small cars, Henry II declared: "Mini car, mini profits."

That was a couple years before Detroit agreed to let auto workers retire with full pension and benefits after 30 years on the job, regardless of their age. In practice, that meant a worker could start at age 18, retire at 48, and spend more years collecting a pension and free health care than he or she actually spent working. It wasn't long before even union officials realized they had created a monster.

In 1977, UAW Vice President Irving Bluestone said he was "flabbergasted" that so many workers were retiring at age 55 or younger. "We were aware that the trend to early retirement was escalating . . . but we were surprised at the escalation in 1976," Mr. Bluestone declared. "It is astounding."

None of this is ancient history. The 30-and-out retirement program persists -- a sacred part of the inflated cost structure that makes it unprofitable for Detroit to make small cars in America. Another example: Every Detroit factory still has dozens of union committeemen -- the bargaining committee, shop committee, health and safety committee, recreation committee, etc. -- who actually are paid by the car companies. This is a "legacy cost" that the nonunion Japanese, German and Korean car factories in America don't have to carry.

The union, though, shouldn't bear the entire blame for Detroit's disaster. It wasn't the UAW that pushed GM into the home-mortgage market where it has incurred billions in losses over the last couple of years. Nor can the UAW be blamed for Saturn and Saab, two brands that never made money, as GM executives have recently acknowledged. What they haven't explained is why their company would keep these money-losers around for nearly 20 years.

So why were these problems allowed to fester, when smart people recognized them all along? The answer is that the solutions were painful, requiring not just brains but considerable amounts of courage. UAW officials weren't brave enough to risk re-election defeat by agreeing to curtail the 30-and-out plan. Detroit executives weren't about to take on the union and risk a strike that could cost them billions. GM likewise felt hamstrung on Saturn and Saab by state dealer-franchise laws, especially after they spent $1.3 billion to shut down Oldsmobile a few years ago. . .

Which brings us back to the restructuring plans proposed by GM and Chrysler, the two companies currently getting government welfare. Missing from both are concessions from the UAW to reduce the cost of health care for retirees. Ironically, union retirees over age 65 continue to receive generous, company-paid benefits, while their former bosses in management have to rely on Medicare. The companies could -- and did -- unilaterally change the health-care plans for management, but they have to negotiate changes for union workers and retirees.

Agreed.

UPDATE: below

There's no doubt the Administration intends to spend more:

President Barack Obama is sending Congress a budget Thursday that projects the government's deficit for this year will soar to $1.75 trillion, reflecting efforts to pull the nation out of a deep recession and a severe financial crisis.

The $1.75 trillion deficit projected for this year would represent 12.3 percent of the gross domestic product, double the previous post-war record of 6 percent in 1983, when Ronald Reagan was president, and the highest level since the deficit totaled 21.5 percent of GDP in 1945, at the end of World War II.

The question is whether this is wise spending. Writing in Thursday's DC Examiner, Susan Ferrechio says the spending bill's "overrun with pet projects":

There is a barn in Deerfield, Mass., that is one step closer to getting a face-lift, courtesy of the federal government.

The House on Wednesday voted 245-178 to approve a $410 billion government spending package, and as is customary with appropriations measures, the legislation is lined with thousands of pet projects designated by Democrats and Republicans alike, including $100,000 requested by Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., for the restored former tobacco barn known as the Ashley House, built in 1734.

There are approximately 9,000 earmarks in the bill totaling nearly $8 billion, according to a tally by the watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense.

The bill is intended to fund the federal government from March until the end of the fiscal year on Sept. 30 and would provide an 8 percent increase over last year’s spending.

House Republican leaders, invoking President Barack Obama’s recent calls for fiscal responsibility, demanded Democrats institute a spending freeze, which would have maintained 2008 spending levels. They also asked to have the earmarks stripped out.

"Are these projects really necessary in these challenging economic times?" House Republican Conference Chairman Mike Pence, R-Ind., asked during debate on the bill. "House Republicans and millions of Americans are saying enough is enough."

While some Republicans stayed clear of earmarks, including Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio, many others did not. Democrats were quick to point out that by their estimates, about 40 percent of the earmarks in the bill came from GOP lawmakers.

Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., for instance, included $300,00 for the preservation of a 1925 coach stop in Savannah.

Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., added $400,000 for the Tennessee State Museum.

Millions more in local projects were funded through earmarks by Republicans and Democrats, many making bipartisan requests for the money.

Sens. Tom Harkin, a Democrat, and Charles Grassley, a Republican, requested $400,000 for the Salisbury House, billed as an “historic house museum” in their home state of Iowa.

A group of New York members inserted a $750,000 earmark for the state to hold festivities celebrating its 400th anniversary.

Democrats argued that the earmarks provide important funding for infrastructure and other projects and that the use of earmarks has declined significantly since Democrats took over the majority in 2006. . .

Next week, the bill heads to the Senate, where Republicans may attempt to pare down the cost of the measure, according to GOP leadership aides. Senate Republicans may also try to strip from the bill a provision that would phase out a popular D.C. school voucher program created when Republicans were in charge of Congress.

"Some folks, Democrats included, are not happy with what the Democratic leadership tried to pull on this specific issue," a Republican leadership aide said.

At least one of those earmarks came from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, says Jonathan Allen in CQ Politics:

Funny how items show up in spending bills without any notice — like an earmark for a president who promised not to seek any.

President Obama, who took a no-earmark pledge on the campaign trail, is listed as one of dozens of cosponsors of a $7.7 million set-aside in the fiscal 2009 omnibus spending bill passed by the House on Wednesday.

But not for long.

On Thursday, Rob Blumenthal, a spokesman for the Senate Appropriations Committee said the one earmark in the bill that carries Obama’s name will be edited. The committee will attribute that earmark to other senators on the list of that provision’s supporters, but not Obama.

No changes are expected to the earmarks requested by other lawmakers who ended up in top jobs in the Obama administration months after they sought set-asides for special projects in the bills that became the omnibus (HR 1105).

The catchall bill is an accumulation of leftovers from 2008 — spending measures that weren’t enacted before the 110th Congress expired. It’s moving through Congress now because a temporary extension of funds to run the government will run out after March 6.

By the way, "The House voted Wednesday to kill a resolution calling for an ethics investigation into potential quid pro quo between lobbyist campaign donations and lawmakers."

MORE:

See Dr. Sanity's post "The Democratic Party As a 'Shame' Culture?", including this:

[M]any Democrats and certainly most leftists are completely shameless in the sense that they will never ever, for as long as they can possibly get away with it, going to admit to bad behavior. And in those rare cases where they simply cannot wiggle and maneuver and lie and deceive; or self-righteously tell you how wonderful they really are and all the wonderful things they have done; they will simply pretend they are still virtuous and have been victimized in some way.

The Wall Street Journal shows that the Administration's math doesn't add up:

President Obama has laid out the most ambitious and expensive domestic agenda since LBJ, and now all he has to do is figure out how to pay for it. On Tuesday, he left the impression that we need merely end "tax breaks for the wealthiest 2% of Americans," and he promised that households earning less than $250,000 won't see their taxes increased by "one single dime."

This is going to be some trick. Even the most basic inspection of the IRS income tax statistics shows that raising taxes on the salaries, dividends and capital gains of those making more than $250,000 can't possibly raise enough revenue to fund Mr. Obama's new spending ambitions.

Consider the IRS data for 2006, the most recent year that such tax data are available and a good year for the economy and "the wealthiest 2%." Roughly 3.8 million filers had adjusted gross incomes above $200,000 in 2006. (That's about 7% of all returns; the data aren't broken down at the $250,000 point.) These people paid about $522 billion in income taxes, or roughly 62% of all federal individual income receipts. The richest 1% -- about 1.65 million filers making above $388,806 -- paid some $408 billion, or 39.9% of all income tax revenues, while earning about 22% of all reported U.S. income.

Note that federal income taxes are already "progressive" with a 35% top marginal rate, and that Mr. Obama is (so far) proposing to raise it only to 39.6%, plus another two percentage points in hidden deduction phase-outs. He'd also raise capital gains and dividend rates, but those both yield far less revenue than the income tax. These combined increases won't come close to raising the hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue that Mr. Obama is going to need.

But let's not stop at a 42% top rate; as a thought experiment, let's go all the way. A tax policy that confiscated 100% of the taxable income of everyone in America earning over $500,000 in 2006 would only have given Congress an extra $1.3 trillion in revenue. That's less than half the 2006 federal budget of $2.7 trillion and looks tiny compared to the more than $4 trillion Congress will spend in fiscal 2010. Even taking every taxable "dime" of everyone earning more than $75,000 in 2006 would have barely yielded enough to cover that $4 trillion. . .

The bottom line is that Mr. Obama is selling the country on a 2% illusion. Unwinding the U.S. commitment in Iraq and allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire can't possibly pay for his agenda. Taxes on the not-so-rich will need to rise as well.

See also MaxedOutMama's critique of Obama's plan, and Heritage's Brian Riedl's breakdown of Barack's "budget trickery."

From the February 19th Daily Telegraph:

Music, chess and cricket are just three things banned in some Muslim schools in the UK. Others are drama, dance, sport, Shakespeare, and, in some cases, any aspect of Western culture whatever. According to the management committee of London's Madani Secondary Girls' School, this is because "our children are exposed to a culture that is in opposition with almost everything Islam stands for". The response to this sense of danger is often to forbid outright any kind of relationship with non-Muslims: "Allah has warned us in the Koran, do not befriend the kuffaar. The Jews and Christians will never be content with you until you follow their way," says Riyadhul Haq, a teacher in Kidderminster.

As reported in the February 19th New York Times:

Britain's government apologized Thursday for endorsing a lesson plan which asked students to think like suicide bombers.

Britain's government-run Teachernet Web site pointed teachers to a lesson plan about the deadly attacks which suggested that students think about the bombings from the perspective of the people who carried them out.

A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families described the site as a "one-stop-shop" for British teachers looking for lesson plans and teaching aids. He acknowledged that the lesson about the bombings was inappropriate for schoolchildren and said it had been pulled from the site.

"We've apologized," he said, speaking anonymously in line with official policy.

The lesson plan, called "Things Do Change," examines life in multicultural Britain. The focus is on the "golden rule" -- treating others as you would want to be treated -- but it also touches on the London bombings, in which four British Muslims killed themselves and 52 others aboard subway cars and a double-decker bus.

Among the lessons' suggested features was: "A brief presentation on the 7/7 bombings from the perspective of the bombers."

From the February 21st Daily Telegraph:

British Muslims are providing the Taliban with electronic devices to make roadside bombs for use in attacks against British forces serving in southern Afghanistan, The Telegraph can disclose.

The devices, which enable Taliban fighters to detonate roadside bombs by remote control, are either sent to sympathizers in the region, or carried by volunteers who fly to Pakistan and then make their way across the border. . .

They included mobile phones filled with explosives, which could kill or seriously injure British soldiers patrolling on foot, and more sophisticated devices that can be used against military vehicles.

Explosives experts who have examined the devices say they have found British-made electronic components that enable Taliban insurgents to detonate their home-made, road-side bombs by remote control.

The electronic devices smuggled into Afghanistan from Britain range from basic remote control units that are normally used to fly model airplanes to more advanced components that enable insurgents to conduct attacks from up to a mile away from British patrols.

From Bob Krumm:

"Why are they doing all this when they have to know that it isn’t going to work?" was the question my wife asked about the stimulus package. My answer to her: "It’s not about fixing the economy; it’s about proving Reagan wrong." It’s about proving that an enlightened government is superior to a country led by tens of millions of individual sovereign decision makers.

I’ve lived through the Carter years once before. As a nation, we’ll survive this again. Sadly every quarter century or so America has to relearn its lesson.

All I ask is, please, don’t add insult to injury by bringing back disco.

(via Instapundit)

The New York Times in full partisan "hit-mode," February 21, 2008:

Early in Senator John McCain’s first run for the White House eight years ago, waves of anxiety swept through his small circle of advisers.

A female lobbyist had been turning up with him at fund-raisers, visiting his offices and accompanying him on a client’s corporate jet. Convinced the relationship had become romantic, some of his top advisers intervened to protect the candidate from himself — instructing staff members to block the woman’s access, privately warning her away and repeatedly confronting him, several people involved in the campaign said on the condition of anonymity.

When news organizations reported that Mr. McCain had written letters to government regulators on behalf of the lobbyist’s client, the former campaign associates said, some aides feared for a time that attention would fall on her involvement.

Mr. McCain, 71, and the lobbyist, Vicki Iseman, 40, both say they never had a romantic relationship. But to his advisers, even the appearance of a close bond with a lobbyist whose clients often had business before the Senate committee Mr. McCain led threatened the story of redemption and rectitude that defined his political identity.

The New York Times with a comfortable Democratic majority, February 19, 2009:

An article published on February 21, 2008, about Senator John McCain and his record as an ethics reformer who was at times blind to potential conflicts of interest included references to Vicki Iseman, a Washington lobbyist. The article did not state, and The Times did not intend to conclude, that Ms. Iseman had engaged in a romantic affair with Senator McCain or an unethical relationship on behalf of her clients in breach of the public trust.

Even the Times' public editor concluded the natural reading of the story implied a sexual relationship--and the article flatly asserted an ethical violation. What's that slogan?--all the news . . . wait . . . "just kidding."

(via Best of the Web)

From Justice Alito's majority opinion in Pleasant Grove City v. Summum, No. 07-665, Section IV.C (Feb. 25, 2009), rejecting a demand that a private religious organization had a First Amendment right to build a permanent monument in a city park:

Respondent contends that this issue "can be dealt with through content-neutral time, place and manner restrictions, including the option of a ban on all unattended displays." Brief for Respondent 14. On this view, when France presented the Statue of Liberty to the United States in 1884, this country had the option of either (a) declining France’s offer or (b) accepting the gift, but providing a comparable location in the harbor of New York for other statues of a similar size and nature (e.g., a Statue of Autocracy, if one had been offered by, say, the German Empire or Imperial Russia).

From Page 1 of Sunday's Washington Post:

From Captive To Suicide Bomber

Accused of Being Little More Than a Low-Level Taliban Fighter, Abdallah al-Ajmi Was Held by the U.S. for Nearly Four Years. After His Release, He Blew Up an Iraqi Army Outpost. Did Guantanamo Propel Him to Do It?

Who knew the WaPo endorsed the Flip Wilson defense? Especially when a founding Al Qaeda member properly blames Bin Laden.

(via Right Wing News)

Liberals often argue that sustainable energy technologies have been insufficiently supported by government-supported research, and that the bureaucracy and the private sector have mismanaged the process, necessitating government intervention. Prior Administrations "have spent more than $100 billion chasing [renewables] with limited success."

But President Obama vows to "end the tyranny of oil in our time." To that end, the recently-passed stimulus package:

contains about $40 billion in funding for [energy] research and capital improvements.

That's a staggering amount. The Energy Department's entire budget is just $25 billion, most of which goes to maintaining the nuclear weapons stockpile and cleaning up former weapons plants.

Its total research budget now is about $3 billion. The stimulus bill provides about $2 billion just for research on advanced vehicle batteries.

And the Department of Energy has promised to expedite "dispersal of direct loans, loan guarantees and funding contained in the new recovery legislation . . . [for] investments that will put Americans back to work, reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil, and improve the environment."

One problem--according to the Chicago Tribune's Jim Tankersley, alternative energy won't work without fundamental technological breakthroughs:

[O]ver the last three decades, the U.S. has spent many times that much on energy research and development -- with nothing like a transistor to show for it. . .

A recent Energy Department task force report details the sort of breakthroughs crucial to fulfilling Obama's vision of a "clean energy economy" that could slash dependence on foreign oil, combat climate change and ignite the next great domestic job boom.

The wish list includes cells that convert sunlight to electricity with double or triple the efficiency of today's solar panels; batteries that store 10 times more energy than current models; a process for capturing and storing the carbon dioxide emissions from coal; and advanced materials that allow coal and nuclear power plants to operate at hotter temperatures and higher efficiency.

Researchers are working on all of them. But what's required is more than incremental advances in technology. It is advances in understanding basic physics and chemistry that are "beyond our present reach," the report said.

The Washington Post hailed the stimulus bill as government's "chance to prove it can work." Certainly not in the short term. And who knew big government was hanging on a "rewrite [of] the second law of thermodynamics"?

(via The Corner)

UPDATE: below

Though District of Columbia residents like me aren't represented on Capitol Hill, this result is required by the Constitution itself, as I repeatedly have shown. Though many Senators are lawyers, and Senators take an oath (Art. VI, cl. 3) "to support [the] Constitution," Senators are about to violate their oaths and the Constitution when they vote this week on legislation to add a House seat for the District (and one for Utah).

Prior complaints about taxation without representation have been rejected by the Courts. See Adams v. Clinton, 90 F. Supp.2d 35 (D.D.C.) (three-judge court), aff’d, 531 U.S. 941 (2000). But Obama already has signaled he will sign the bill, and there's no question the Democrats have the votes. Writing in the National Review, Hans von Spakovsky says the Congress is about to violate its "sacred honor":

This is not an attempt to secure representation for District residents’ interests, then, but a raw grab at political power. It will establish a new, permanently Democratic seat in the House of Representatives. The bill attempts to balance that by adding a second seat as well (bringing the total number of representatives to 437), and giving that seat to Utah. But unlike D.C.’s seat, Utah’s extra seat is guaranteed only until next year’s Census — after which each state will be assigned seats in proportion to its population. The extra seat will almost surely be transferred to a Democratic state like California or New York.

The fact that the bill is unconstitutional and politically motivated, however, does not mean the courts will strike it down. The reason is that in order for a court to strike down a law, someone needs to challenge the law before the court — and in order to challenge the law, a plaintiff needs to demonstrate standing, or that the law has harmed him in some way. Even if the bill contains a section that purports to provide lawmakers standing, there is grave doubt that the courts would respect it. Members of the Senate sued in 1997 regarding a statute that contained such a section, but the Supreme Court ruled that the senators lacked the direct and personal injury required for standing. The type of political injuries that the D.C. bill would inflict might not be sufficient to meet this standard, either.

Statehood proponents know that there is insufficient support nationwide to amend the Constitution to give D.C. a voting member of Congress. They’re willing to violate the Constitution instead. It will be a sad day in American political life if they succeed.

Laziness and expediency shouldn't trump the Constitution. Period. I hope a suit gets filed soon.

MORE:

I should be more careful what I wish for--some good news and some bad news:

The Senate today passed a bill that for the first time would give the District a full voting member of the House of Representatives. But senators managed to attach an amendment that would scrap most of the District's local gun-control laws.

Agreeing that China and India won't agree to carbon cuts, Bjorn Lomborg has a better idea:

Kyoto’s successor will not be successful unless China and India are somehow included. To achieve that, the EU has made the inevitable, almost ridiculous proposal of bribing developing nations to take part -- at a cost of 175 billion euros (US$225.7 billion) annually by 2020.

In the midst of a financial crisis, it seems unbelievable that European citizens will bear the financial burden of paying off China and India. The sadder thing, though, is that this money would be spent on methane collection from waste dumps in developing nations, instead of on helping those countries’ citizens deal with more pressing concerns like health and education.

There is an alternative to spending so much to achieve so little. Cutting carbon still costs a lot more than the good that it produces. We need to make emission cuts much cheaper so that countries like China and India can afford to help the environment. This means that we need to invest much more in research and development aimed at developing low-carbon energy.

If every country committed to spending 0.05 percent of its GDP exploring non-carbon-emitting energy technologies, this would translate into US$25 billion per year, or 10 times more than what the world spends now. Yet, the total also would be seven times cheaper than the Kyoto Protocol, and many times cheaper than the Copenhagen Protocol is likely to be. It would ensure that richer nations pay more, taking much of the political heat from the debate.

Decades of talks have failed to make any impact on carbon emissions. Expecting China and India to make massive emission cuts for little benefit puts the Copenhagen meeting on a sure path to being another lost opportunity. Yet, at the same time, the Chinese and Indian challenge could be the impetus we need to change direction, end our obsession with reducing emissions and focus instead on research and development, which would be smarter and cheaper -- and would actually make a difference.

The best stimulus summary is by Robert Samuelson in Monday's Washington Post:

Judged by his own standards, President Obama's $787 billion economic stimulus program is deeply disappointing. For weeks, Obama has described the economy in grim terms. "This is not your ordinary run-of-the-mill recession," he said at his Feb. 9 news conference. It's "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression." Given these dire warnings, you'd expect the stimulus package to focus almost exclusively on reviving the economy. It doesn't, and for that, Obama bears much of the blame.

The case for a huge stimulus -- which I support -- is to prevent a devastating downward economic spiral. Spending is tumbling worldwide. In the fourth quarter of 2008, the U.S. economy contracted at a nearly 4 percent annual rate. In Japan, the economy fell at a nearly 13 percent rate; in Europe, the rate was about 6 percent. These are gruesome declines. If the economic outlook is as bleak as Obama says, there's no reason to dilute the upfront power of the stimulus. But that's what he's done.

His politics compromise the program's economics. Look at the numbers. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that about $200 billion will be spent in 2011 or later -- after it would do the most good. For starters, there's $8 billion for high-speed rail. "Everyone is saying this is [for] high-speed rail between Los Angeles and Las Vegas -- I don't know," says Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association. Whatever's done, the design and construction will occupy many years. It's not a quick stimulus.

Then there's $20.8 billion for improved health information technology -- more electronic records and the like. Probably most people regard this as desirable, but here, too, changes occur slowly. The CBO expects only 3 percent of the money ($595 million) to be spent in fiscal 2009 and 2010. The peak year of projected spending is 2014 at $14.2 billion.

Big projects take time. They're included in the stimulus because Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are using the legislation to advance many political priorities instead of just spurring the economy.

Agreed.

By the way, Obama has put Joe Biden in charge of implementing the stimulus package.

From Rich Sandomir's New York Times column, February 17th:

Every time Alex Rodriguez defaulted Tuesday to saying he was stupid, naïve or ignorant for taking steroids, I thought of Dean Wormer’s words to the flunking frat boy Flounder in "Animal House:" "Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, son."

(via reader Tony B.)

Philip Jenkins over at the American Conservative magazine has more history lessons for BO-44, you and I. The lesson concerns Argentina, once an economic powerhouse:

...[a nation with] a strong infrastructure and an excellent system of free mass education. It had the largest and most prosperous middle class in Latin America. When World War I began, Argentina was the world’s tenth wealthiest nation.

So what happened? Certainly the country was hit hard by the depression of the 1930s, but so were other advanced nations that ultimately recovered, and Argentina profited from intense wartime demand for primary products.

The country was killed by political decisions, and the primary culprit was Juan Perón. He dominated political life through the 1940s and ruled officially as president from 1946 to 1955, returning briefly in the 1970s. Although he did not begin the process, he completed the transformation of Argentine government so that the state became both an object of plunder and an instrument for plunder.

Perón ...[with] his second wife Eva... aimed their rhetoric against the nation’s rich, a designation that was swiftly expanded to cover most of the propertied middle classes, who became an enemy to be defeated and humiliated. To equalize the supposed struggle between the rich and the dispossessed, the Peróns exalted the liberating role of the state. The bureaucracy swelled alarmingly as nationalization brought key sectors of the economy under official control. Government bought loyalty through a massive program of social spending while fostering the growth of labor unions, which became intimate allies of the governing party. Argentina came to be the most unionized nation in Latin America. Perón also ended any pretense of the independence of the judiciary, purging and intimidating judges about whom he had any doubts and replacing them with minions.

Since 1976, Argentine economic policies have lurched from catastrophe to catastrophe. The military junta borrowed enormously with no serious thought about consequences, and the structures of Argentine society made it impossible to tell how funds were being invested. Foreign debt exploded, the deficit boomed, and inflation approached 100 percent a year. ...Military defeat in the Falkland Islands destroyed the junta. By 1983, a civilian president was in power once more. But nothing could stop the nosedive. Inflation reached 672 percent by 1985 and 3,080 percent by 1989. The disaster provoked capital flight and the collapse of investor confidence, not to mention the annihilation of middle-class savings.

Another civilian president, Carlos Menem, took office in 1989, and despite his Peronist loyalties he initially tried to restore sanity through a program of privatization and deregulation. But events soon proved that Menem was only following a familiar pattern whereby a new regime would speak the language of reform and moderation for a couple of years before facing a showdown with the underlying realities of Argentine society. Menem could not overcome the overwhelming inertia within the country, the juggernaut pressures toward the growth of the state, to bureaucratization and regulation, and the destruction of private initiative and free enterprise. Between 1991 and 1999, Argentine public debt burgeoned from 34 percent of GDP to 52 percent. During the same decade, government public debt more than doubled as a percentage of GDP. These burdens stifled private investment so that productive sectors of the economy languished. ...It is trivial to list the many other allegations of corruption and embezzlement surrounding Menem: what else is politics for, if not to enrich yourself and your clients? ...At the end of 2001, the country defaulted on its foreign debt of $142 billion, the largest such failure in history. With the economy in ruins, almost 60 percent of Argentines were living below the poverty line. Street violence became so intense that the president was forced to flee his palace by helicopter.

Since 2002, yet another new government has presided over an illusory economic boom before being manhandled by the ugly ghosts of Juan and Evita. Those specters were on hand to whisper their excellent advice to a new generation: if you face a crisis caused by excessive government spending, borrowing, and regulation, what else do you do except push even harder to spend, borrow, and regulate? Over the past two years, new taxes and price freezes have again crippled the economy, bringing power blackouts and forced cuts in production. Public debt stands at 56 percent of GDP, and inflation runs 20 percent. Last October, the government seized $29 billion in private pension funds, hammering the final nail in the coffin of the old middle classes. Judging by credit default swap spreads on government debt, the smart money is now betting heavily on another official default before mid-year. The Argentine economy may not actually be dead yet, but it has plenty of ill-wishers trying hard to finish it off.

Could it happen here? The U.S. certainly has very different political traditions from Argentina and more barriers to a populist-driven rape of the economy. On the other hand, events in some regions would make Juan Perón smile wistfully. California runs on particularly high taxes, uncontrollable deficits, and overregulation with a vastly swollen bureaucracy while the hegemonic power of organized labor prevents any reform. Thankfully, the state has no power to devalue its currency, still less to freeze bank accounts or seize pension funds, and businesses can still relocate elsewhere. But in its social values and progressive assumptions, California is close to the Democratic mainstream, which now intends to impose its ideas on the nation as a whole. And at over 60 percent of GDP, U.S. public debt is already higher than Argentina’s. When honest money perishes, the society goes with it. We can’t say we weren’t warned.

Could the United States of America ignore these lessons and 'spend, borrow, and regulate' ourselves into, at best, a much lower standard of living? The tell-tale signs of its start are unmistakable, rhetoric against the nation’s rich, bureaucracy swelling as nationalization brought key sectors of the economy (think Health Care) under gov control, and a government buying loyalty through a massive program of social spending. This brought a series of economic disasters. Sound familiar?

In Italy, green power is greed power:

Italian police on Tuesday arrested mobsters, businessmen and local politicians who allegedly used corrupt practices and bribes to gain control of a project to build wind farms in Sicily.

Operation "Aeolus," named after the ancient Greek god of winds, netted eight suspects, arrested in the Trapani area of western Sicily, as well as in Salerno on the Italian mainland and in the northern city of Trento.

Police in Trapani said the local Mafia bribed city officials in nearby Mazara del Vallo so the town would invest in wind farms to produce energy.

The project, worth hundreds of millions of euros (dollars), was first devised in 2003 and later uncovered by an investigation that included wiretaps, police said in a statement.

Investigators discovered that luxury cars and thousands of euros in bribes were given to politicians to ensure that a Mafia-backed company won the lucrative public contract.

The suspects also illegally accessed the municipality's safe to copy the proposal of a rival company, which was later excluded from the bidding.

"All activities were controlled by these businessmen tied to Cosa Nostra," police official Giuseppe Linares told Italy's Sky TV. "Not only the construction of the plant, but also all the subcontracts for building materials: concrete, carpentry, electric systems and metal."

Remember the meme that electing Obama would cause America to be better loved in the world? Moisés Naím in Foreign Policy explains how that's working out:

It is not easy to have such a popular guy in the White House. For too many governments—those of Cuba and Iran, for example—having an easy-to-bash figure in the Oval Office is indispensable. And we all know people for whom anti-Americanism is almost a basic instinct and an automatic inspiration for their political views. Thus, the high approval ratings that Barack Obama enjoys almost everywhere are a very problematic trend for those in need of a U.S. president who can be easily portrayed as one more executor of the deeds of the devilish American empire.

That is why the "Bushification" of Barack Obama will become fashionable.

The morphing of Obama into George W. Bush is the inevitable next chapter in a narrative common outside the United States, one that began with erudite explanations of why the American political establishment would never allow a black man to become president, that continued with the surprise of Obama’s victorious campaign, that followed with the eruption of emotions during his inauguration, and that then led to widespread concerns about the difficulty Obama faces in meeting the impossibly high expectations created by his election. In the next phase of this story, many will begin to claim that, in practice, there is not much difference between George W. Bush and Barack Hussein Obama. Or, as the poetic president of Venezuela has already said, they are "the same miasma"; that is to say, that they are both malignant effusions emanating from rotten material.

And it’s not just Hugo Chávez who’s making comparisons; "Bushing" Obama will become a global trend. For the Iranian regime, it will be important to demonstrate that regardless of the fact that the middle name of the new president is Hussein and that in Farsi "Obama" means "he’s with us," in reality Obama remains, just as his predecessor, the executive of the Great Satan.

See also Christian Brose in Foreign Policy:

My hunch, and my hope, is that Obama will be a successful president, not because he’ll totally change the foreign policy he’ll inherit from Bush, but because he’ll largely continue it.

According to the World Tribune, the BO-44 administration has reversed previous administration interpretation of the Syrian Accountability Act (emphasis added):

Government sources said Obama directed the Commerce Department to approve the export of U.S. components for Syria's fleet of Boeing 747 aircraft. The sources said a Saudi defense company would supply and install the components in the aging Syrian dual-use aircraft.

The sources said the approval by Commerce marked a departure from nearly five years of sanctions by the outgoing Bush administration. Under the Syrian Accountability Act, Syria was to be denied all but food and humanitarian supplies from the United States. Bush aides said Syria had used passenger jets to ferry weapons from Iran to Hizbullah in Lebanon.

Syria has reported several U.S. measures to improve relations under the Obama administration. On Feb. 15, Syrian ambassador to the United States, Imad >Mustafa, said the U.S. Treasury Department approved the transfer of $500,000 to a Syrian charity.

Mustafa's announcement came on the eve of the visit by a U.S. Senate delegation to Damascus. The delegation was headed by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Sen. John Kerry, scheduled to meet President Bashir Assad.

El Opinador Compulsivo, a blog in Argentina is saying that this is evidence that "Obama - Friend to terrorist countries." They also have a photo shopped picture of Obama in a turban with Bin Ladin and an AK-47. I can't and don't support that, but I will note that the only news source on this startling revelation of change in foreign policy is the World Tribune.

Questions: This is change. Does it matter? Has anyone sorted through the legalese in the Syrian Accountability Act to see if the administration is following the law? Why hasn't the mainstream media (aka democratic mouthpiece) picked up this story?

(via El Opinador Compulsivo, Motto: "Everyone Is Entitled To Our Opinion.")

From the February 15th Jerusalem Post:

The CLA [the Israeli army's Gaza Coordination and Liaison Administration] gave the Post the names of several fatalities who it said had been classified by the Palestinians as "medics," but who it stated were Hamas fighters, including Anas Naim, the nephew of Hamas Health Minister Bassem Naim, who was killed during clashes with the IDF on January 4 in the Sheikh Ajlin neighborhood of Gaza City.

Following the clashes, the Palestinian press reported that Naim was killed and that he was a medic with the Palestinian Red Crescent. The Gaza CLA, however, produced photographs of Naim posing holding a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and a Kalashnikov assault rifle that had been posted on a Hamas Web site.


source: Jerusalem Post

See the round-up of other refutations at Augean Stables, and read Elder of Ziyon for what really happened at that UN school.

(via Volokh Conspiracy, Little Green Footballs)

The left's commitment to freedom isn't even skin deep. California Attorney General (and former Governor) Jerry Brown appeared on conservative talk host Michael Savage's radio show on Feb. 13, and was asked about re-instituting the Fairness Doctrine:

During the interview, Savage noted that Brown sounded as if he wanted state control over the media.

"Well, a little state control wouldn't hurt anybody," Brown replied.

The angry left is increasingly angry . . . at Obama, as this example in the New Statesman by British lefty journalist John Pilger shows:

Far from "deconstructing the war on terror", Obama is clearly pursuing it with the same vigour, ideological backing and deception as the previous administration. George W Bush's first war, in Afghanistan, and last war, in Pakistan, are now Obama's wars - with thousands more US troops to be deployed, more bombing and more slaughter of civilians. Last month, on the day he described Afghanistan and Pakistan as "the central front in our enduring struggle against terrorism and extremism", 22 Afghan civilians died beneath Obama's bombs in a hamlet populated mainly by shepherds and which, by all accounts, had not laid eyes on the Taliban. Women and children were among the dead, which is normal.

Far from "shutting down the CIA’s secret prison network", Obama’s executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, "current and former US intelligence officials said that the rendition programme might be poised to play an expanded role". A semantic sleight of hand is that "long-term prisons" are changed to "short-term prisons"; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America’s numerous "covert actions" will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet’s in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.

Bush's open support for torture, and Donald Rumsfeld's extraordinary personal overseeing of certain torture techniques, upset many in America's "secret army" of subversive military and intelligence operators because it exposed how the system worked. Obama's newly confirmed director of national intelligence, Admiral Dennis Blair, has said the Army Field Manual may include new forms of "harsh interrogation" which will be kept secret.

Obama has chosen not to stop any of this. Neither do his ballyhooed executive orders put an end to Bush's assault on constitutional and international law. He has retained Bush's "right" to imprison anyone, without trial or charge. No "ghost prisoners" are being released or are due to be tried before a civilian court. His nominee for attorney general, Eric Holder, has endorsed an extension of Bush's totalitarian USA Patriot Act, which allows federal agents to demand Americans' library and bookshop records. The man of "change" is changing little. That ought to be front-page news from Washington.

Chortle.

(via Norm Geras)

I'm still stunned about this article in the February 11th Guardian:

Experts at Britain's top climate research centre have launched a blistering attack on scientific colleagues and journalists who exaggerate the effects of global warming.

The Met Office Hadley Centre, one of the most prestigious research facilities in the world, says recent "apocalyptic predictions" about Arctic ice melt and soaring temperatures are as bad as claims that global warming does not exist. Such statements, however well-intentioned, distort the science and could undermine efforts to tackle carbon emissions, it says.

In an article published on the Guardian website, Dr Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office, calls on scientists and journalists to stop misleading the public with "claim and counter-claim".

She writes: "Having to rein in extraordinary claims that the latest extreme [event] is all due to climate change is at best hugely frustrating and at worse enormously distracting. Overplaying natural variations in the weather as climate change is just as much a distortion of science as underplaying them to claim that climate change has stopped or is not happening."

She adds: "Both undermine the basic facts that the implications of climate change are profound and will be severe if greenhouse gas emissions are not cut drastically."

Dr Peter Stott, a climate researcher at the Met Office, said a common misrepresentation was to take a few years data and extrapolate to what would happen if it continues. "You just can't do that. You have to look at the long-term trend and then at the natural variability on top." Dramatic predictions of accelerating temperature rise and sea ice decline, based on a few readings, could backfire when natural variability swings the other way and the trends seem to reverse, he says. "It just confuses people."

Pope says there is little evidence to support claims that Arctic ice has reached a tipping point and could disappear within a decade or so, as some reports have suggested. Summer ice extent in the Arctic, formed by frozen sea water, has collapsed in recent years, with ice extent in September last year 34% lower than the average since satellite measurements began in 1979.

"The record-breaking losses in the past couple of years could easily be due to natural fluctuations in the weather, with summer ice increasing again over the next few years," she says.

"It is easy for scientists to grab attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change."

Quite a change from the Met's office now annual prediction that the new year will be the hottest ever.

Of course, the view is different on this side of the pond:

The planet will be in "huge trouble" unless Barack Obama makes strides in tackling climate change, says a leading scientist.

Prof James McCarthy spoke on the eve of the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), which he heads.

The US president has just four years to save the planet, said Prof McCarthy.

If major policy changes do not happen within Mr Obama's term of office, they will not happen at all, he warned.

And see Reuters' coverage of the AAAS meeting.

Then-- On October 15th, candidate Obama said:

[T]here is no doubt that we've been living beyond our means and we're going to have to make some adjustments.

Now, what I've done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut.

Now-- As summarized by Gerald Warner in the February 15th Scotland on Sunday:

There is no terminology available to express adequately the appalling irresponsibility of this naked political banditry. To have squandered a fraction of the near-$1 trillion cost of Obama's pork barrel in days of prosperity would have been more than reprehensible; to do so at a time of financial crisis is unforgivable. Obama likes to pose as the heir of Abraham Lincoln: as this shameless bribery demonstrates, he is heir only to the Chicago Democrat political machine that spawned him.

(via John Lott, Don Surber, who says, "The gilded age greed is nothing compared to the political avarice of this raid.")

The future Obama Administration health care plan could look a lot like Canada, says Nadeem Esmail in the Wall Street Journal:

Health-care resources are not unlimited in any country, even rich ones like Canada and the U.S., and must be rationed either by price or time. When individuals bear no direct responsibility for paying for their care, as in Canada, that care is rationed by waiting.

Canadians often wait months or even years for necessary care. For some, the status quo has become so dire that they have turned to the courts for recourse. Several cases currently before provincial courts provide studies in what Americans could expect from government-run health insurance.

In Ontario, Lindsay McCreith was suffering from headaches and seizures yet faced a four and a half month wait for an MRI scan in January of 2006. Deciding that the wait was untenable, Mr. McCreith did what a lot of Canadians do: He went south, and paid for an MRI scan across the border in Buffalo. The MRI revealed a malignant brain tumor.

Ontario's government system still refused to provide timely treatment, offering instead a months-long wait for surgery. In the end, Mr. McCreith returned to Buffalo and paid for surgery that may have saved his life. He's challenging Ontario's government-run monopoly health-insurance system, claiming it violates the right to life and security of the person guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Shona Holmes, another Ontario court challenger, endured a similarly harrowing struggle. In March of 2005, Ms. Holmes began losing her vision and experienced headaches, anxiety attacks, extreme fatigue and weight gain. Despite an MRI scan showing a brain tumor, Ms. Holmes was told she would have to wait months to see a specialist. In June, her vision deteriorating rapidly, Ms. Holmes went to the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, where she found that immediate surgery was required to prevent permanent vision loss and potentially death. Again, the government system in Ontario required more appointments and more tests along with more wait times. Ms. Holmes returned to the Mayo Clinic and paid for her surgery.

On the other side of the country in Alberta, Bill Murray waited in pain for more than a year to see a specialist for his arthritic hip. The specialist recommended a "Birmingham" hip resurfacing surgery (a state-of-the-art procedure that gives better results than basic hip replacement) as the best medical option. But government bureaucrats determined that Mr. Murray, who was 57, was "too old" to enjoy the benefits of this procedure and said no. In the end, he was also denied the opportunity to pay for the procedure himself in Alberta. He's heading to court claiming a violation of Charter rights as well.

See also Steven Crowder on Big Hollywood.

Here's hoping Obama "opts out" of the flawed Canada/Europe model.

(via Conservative Grapevine, Protein Wisdom, Jawa Report)

I'm traveling for several days, so expect some slow-down here.

Thankfully a so-called stimulus didn't exist in 1819, for James J. Audubon (his Adult Bald Eagle above) might never have given us the gift of his art. Danny Heitman over at the Christian Science Monitor relates to us part of the story of John James Audubon (emphasis added):

By 1819, Audubon appeared to have achieved the American dream: a successful business as a Kentucky merchant, a nice house, a wife and children. But then a dramatic reduction in business credit shook the country, and alas, there was no bailout that year from Washington.

Audubon, like many other businessmen along the American frontier, found himself bankrupt almost overnight. "Drawing birds had been something of an obsession, but only a hobby, until Audubon's businesses failed in the Panic of 1819," writes Audubon biographer Richard Rhodes. But perhaps sensing that he had little else to lose, Audubon turned his art from an avocation to a full-time job.

The transition proved difficult, but it eventually produced the most famous bird artist in the world. Audubon conceded the early hardships of his change from merchant to full-time artist, "yet through these dark days I was being led to the development of the talents I loved," he later wrote.

The Audubon society, which bears his name, relates its connection to John James:

Although Audubon had no role in the organization that bears his name, there is a connection: George Bird Grinnell, one of the founders of the early Audubon Society in the late 1800s, was tutored by Lucy Audubon, John James’s widow. Knowing Audubon’s reputation, Grinnell chose his name as the inspiration for the organization’s earliest work to protect birds and their habitats. Today, the name Audubon remains synonymous with birds and bird conservation the world over.

Audubon’s story is one of triumph over adversity; his accomplishment is destined for the ages. He encapsulates the spirit of young America, when the wilderness was limitless and beguiling. He was a person of legendary strength and endurance as well as a keen observer of birds and nature.

Would Audubon's genius would have flourished in an era with food stamps, ACORN and public housing? How much of the spirit of this America will this stimulus bill suppress?

If necessity is the mother of invention, then this so-called 'stimulus' is the father of lethargy. You know what else big government fathered? That's right, the poster children of the coming pro-free market movement.

Larry Lindsey in the February 23rd Weekly Standard:

There are no easy answers when facing a trillion-dollar hole in the banking system. Either the banks will fail, or money is going to have to be given to the banks to fill the hole, or the proverbial can will be kicked down the road with enough money being slowly injected into the system to keep it going. The first option is a nonstarter. This brings the essential choice down to writing a big check now to the banks or writing a lot of little checks over time, and bankers are not the most politically sympathetic recipients of federal largesse at the moment.

So there is a political incentive to create a focus on issues that are tangential to the trillion-dollar problem. Make sure that bankers sell their corporate jets! No more bonuses!

The sale of 50 corporate jets in today's market might fetch you $1 billion if you're lucky. End all the bonuses on Wall Street and you get real money--another $18 billion. Put the two together and a $1 trillion problem shrinks to a mere $981 billion one. The administration's hope was that such measures plus the group flogging of the CEOs of the big banks on the Hill last Wednesday would focus the media, Congress, and the public away from the fundamental enormity of the task at hand.

As reported at Texas Rainmaker, a photo taken at a Borders bookstore in Dallas:



(via Right Wing News)

UPDATE: below

Canada continues to be a beacon for free speech. Not (emphasis added):

Another anti-Semitic incident took place in a Canadian university Thursday when over 100 anti-Israel activists surrounded a campus building belonging to the Jewish student club 'Hillel' at York University, Toronto. The activists pounded on office doors while yelling out racial slurs.

Campus security was forced to alert police to restore order and the latter demanded that the offices be shut down.

This is called a "heckler's veto." It is unconstitutional in the United States--but a de rigeur response to Islamic thuggery in Canada, and now in India too.

MORE:

AVI in comments: "Progressives believe their world-view will bring comity. When it doesn't, they blame reality, not their theory."

(via American Thinker, Mere Rhetoric, The Corner, Volokh Conspiracy)

Last year, injuries forced the Washington Nationals to use a league-leading 133 different line-ups. But even if the DL is shorter, there's little relief in sight for fans, according to today's news:

Shortstop Esmailyn Gonzalez, one of the best prospects in the Nationals organization, isn't who he says he is.

According to SI.com, which cited four sources, Gonzalez is actually a 23-year-old named Carlos Alvarez Daniel Lugo. The Nationals list him as being 19 years old.

Gonzalez's current agent, Stanley King, said early Wednesday morning he was shocked by the revelations.

"I hope this is a mistake," King said via telephone. "I was at his house this winter and he answered by his [baseball name]. I will look into this."

The Nationals agreed to terms with Gonzalez on July 2, 2006. The switch-hitting Gonzalez received a $1.4 million signing bonus, the largest the club has paid for an international signing. . .

The signing had already raised red flags with the FBI and MLB's department of investigations, which are looking into allegations of improprieties regarding bonuses for Latin players.

As SI.com reported, it is not known if there is a real person or baseball player named Esmailyn Gonzalez, how the falsification of documents might have occurred, and if Gonzalez will be able to secure the proper visa to join the club at Spring Training.

This past season, Gonzalez played for the Gulf Coast Nationals and hit .342 with 33 RBIs and a .431 on-base percentage in 181 at-bats.

"Those are great numbers," a scout told SI.com, "but you should be hitting that well if you're that much older than your competition."

When a market becomes monopolized, the government is empowered to intervene in to foster competition. Antitrust law has three basic components:

• Prohibiting agreements and practices that restrain trade;


• Banning abusive behavior by a firm dominating a market;


• Transactions that are considered to threaten the competitive process can be prohibited.

Alas, the Federal government is exempt from antitrust liability. United States v. Cooper Corp., 312 U.S. 600, 609 (1941). Taking full advantage of this, liberals are poised to create a powerful national health care monopoly--already accomplished, in various forms, in Canada and Europe--a perpetual socialist machine managing the economy and controlling your life.

To show how clearly the current Administration is signal-calling from the socialist playbook, Texas Rainmaker collected various campaign and policy pronouncements to create a clever video "debate" between Ronald Reagan and Barack Obama. Roger Kimball over at PajamasMedia highlights moments from this popular video:

Reagan:

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can’t afford it.

BO-44:

As President, I will sign a universal health care plan into law by the end of my first term in office.

Reagan:

The doctor begins to lose freedom. . . . First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then doctors aren’t equally divided geographically. So a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him, you can’t live in that town. They already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it’s only a short step to dictating where he will go. . . . All of us can see what happens once you establish the precedent that the government can determine a man’s working place and his working methods, determine his employment. From here it’s a short step to all the rest of socialism, to determining his pay. And pretty soon your son won’t decide, when he’s in school, where he will go or what he will do for a living. He will wait for the government to tell him where he will go to work and what he will do.

(via El Opinador Compulsivo)

Mike Thomas in the February 10th Orlando Sentinel:

The science of global warming has arrived at a conclusion, which all data must now accommodate.

Unfortunately, it sometimes does not.

You may recall that in his movie, An Inconvenient Truth, Al Gore noted nine of the 10 hottest recorded years have occurred since 1995. That's what the NASA data showed until a blogger crunched the agency's data and found out it made a mistake.

In fact, six of the 10 hottest years came before 1954, with the 1930s being particularly toasty. Ever hear of the Dust Bowl?

There has been much alarm about Greenland melting and drowning Florida. Feeding this are images of rapidly melting glaciers. They were melting quickly between 2000 and 2005. But since then the melting has slowed to what is considered a normal level.

Researchers from the Los Alamos National Laboratory discovered that the rate of warming in Greenland between 1920 and 1930 was 50 percent higher than today. And the glaciers were smaller.

Ice cores taken from a Russian research site in the Antarctic reveal that when you go back in time, the theory of global warming seems to put the cart before the horse. We are told that greenhouse gases build up and cause temperatures to rise.

But an analysis of the ice cores shows the temperature goes up first, followed by an increase in greenhouse gases. The heat is triggered by other natural phenomenon, such as solar radiation. This heats up the ocean, which releases carbon dioxide.

The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere right now actually is downright paltry compared with what it has been during Earth's history.

I could go on and on. Most all scientists agree the world has gotten warmer.

But many distinguished scientists think the evidence blaming humans is either bogus, incomplete or not overwhelming enough to think we are a significant part of a problem.

I have gone from being a believer to being a global-warming agnostic. I think we are having some impact but am not convinced how much of one. I remain receptive to arguments from both sides.

Global warming is a science in which imperfect data are plugged into imperfect models by too many scientists looking for the same conclusion.

(via Planet Gore)