Saturday, May 29, 2010

I'm shocked, shocked.
Americans are increasingly optimistic about the economy, but that brightening outlook hasn't softened their outrage over the country's direction and its political leadership, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds.

Two-thirds of those surveyed this week describe themselves as "angry" about the way things are going in the USA, the highest percentage in the decade the question has been asked. By nearly 2-1, they would rather vote for a candidate who has never served in Congress over one with experience.
It's time for a paradigm shift in politics, and if the politicians don't change with it, they'll be replaced.

When Obama loses Chris Matthews, he of the "tingle down my leg," things are really going bad in a hurry. In two months he has estranged his biggest supporters in the media, not to mention earned the enmity of a lot of people in the South.

I'm amazed at the outright anger from members of the media and his own party. The GOP should be studying the situation he finds himself in and focus on not blowing their chances for the fall.

I feel no schadenfreude here; just a sad sense of my premonitions being fulfilled.

Mark Steyn and Dana Milbank on Obama's "I'm responsible" speech. Surprisingly, they agree about a lot.

More bad news from the Gulf. "Top kill" isn't working, after all.

"What's the next thing Obama will go to bed thinking about?"

When you're trying to persuade people that you're serious about their problems, don't use cliches, especially ones you've used before.

Friday, May 28, 2010

I suspect that we're not getting the whole story from Joe Sestak, and he's looking more and more like the kind of incumbent who should be sent home from D.C. or at least not given more access to the public purse.

My admiration for the wit and wisdom of Charles Krauthammer never ceases. He asks, "Why are we drilling in 5,000 feet of water in the first place?" Good question. We have more oil in the Dakotas and Wyoming, Utah, Colorado in oil shale deposits than the Arabs have, but these have been under a moratorium from development for 30 years. This oil is recoverable by a similar process to that used to draw natural gas out of subterranean coal seams. You drill into the seam and fracture it all around the drill bore and then pump out whatever liquid begins to seep out. With coalbed methane, this means pumping up water at first, but as the pressure in the seam is released the amount of water goes down and the amount of gas goes up.

Shale beds not too deep can be mined like coal and the oil extracted. Environmentalists hate mines, but they're unwilling to admit that they would be preferable and easier to reclaim than the leak we're watching in the Gulf of Mexico.

The sooner Americans figure this out and get fed up with being dictated to by these
nitwits, the better off we'll all be. We don't need the government to force us to accept alternate energy sources if they become truly economically viable. Nobody likes smog, any more than earlier generations liked horse manure or coal soot, but we aren't going to get to the next stage without a robust economy.

Heh. Behold the power of Sarah Palin's Facebook page.

How many Japanese were killed by our atom bombs again? I doubt that anybody can ever come up with an accurate count and it isn't important. What is important is that we had do bring down the regime of the generals. Here's another reason why.

Friday Before Holiday News Dump

The Sestak problem is not going away. Charles Krauthammer tore this statement to ribbons on Fox News Special Report this evening. And note the final graf:
There have been numerous, reported instances in the past when prior Administrations -- both Democratic and Republican, and motivated by the same goals -- discussed alternative paths to service for qualified individuals also considering campaigns for public office. Such discussions are fully consistent with the relevant law and ethical requirements.
The "Everybody Does It" defense. In other words, the law means nothing because people in Washington violate it all the time. Hope and Change!

Well, there was change, but for the worse and that adds up to less hope.

Listened to Obama's press briefing earlier about the BP oil spill, and it sounded like he'd been taking lessons from Rudy Giuliani. No anecdotes about his daughter, just statements of what is being done and acknowledging what needs to be done. That's the whole difference: showing that you're engaged, and you're aware of the people who are hurt and the problems ahead and are working on them. If he had done this earlier, he wouldn't be in this mess. This is what his job is. Quit trying to transcend it.

Where's the Hope and Change?

I'm watching Joe Sestak talking to the press about the call he received from Bill Clinton, who "mentioned" that Rahm Emanuel had "mentioned" that the White House would like to give him an appointment and asked if he were interested. Sestak understood this as a request to drop out of the senatorial primary. He said that he would not drop out of the race; Clinton chuckled and said I knew you'd say that.
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What I keep hearing is that this sort of thing goes on all the time in Washington politics, but where is the Hope and Change? It sounds like politics as usual. And how is Joe Sestak any different from other Washington insiders. "I have great respect and admiration for President Clinton.. . . I've asked him for advice." Including when Arlen Specter switched parties. Does anybody really believe that this appointment wasn't tied to Sestak's pulling out of the Senate primary? I don't, and I don't buy Sestak's characterization of it, because of the way he says he responded to Clinton's query.

Peggy Noonan
I don't see how the president's position and popularity can survive the oil spill. This is his third political disaster in his first 18 months in office. And they were all, as they say, unforced errors, meaning they were shaped by the president's political judgment and instincts.. . .

I don't see how you politically survive this.
This, in essence, is what I've concluded: the man is not doing his job. I'm not sure he really knows his job. He's supposed to be an executive, to see to the running of the federal bureaucracy. Admittedly, that's an almost impossible job, considering the way Civil Service laws make government employees nearly immune from accountability, but that's the nature of the beast, and he should have understood that before he ran for President. He was told that he has a gift, that he was the new JFK, etc. but those who cynically pressed him to run obviously didn't consider what in his ability or experience would make him a successful president. They only cared about getting access to power, and he would no doubt be pliant, a spokesman for their grand desires.

But ironically, the BP oil spill seems to have cost him the loyalty of the left. Was it his fault? Only in that there were problems in the bureaucracy that was supposed to have made sure all the regs were followed before a permit was issued to drill this well, but between him and those officials was a long string of other officials who weren't paying attention either. But the illogic of politics is inexorable, and by accepting responsibility for this, he's agreed to be subject to those rules. It now appears that BP's "top kill" technique is working, but there are now thousands upon thousands of barrels of oil ringing the Gulf Coast that will have to be cleaned up and I don't see how big government gets that done. It will probably be cleaned up by nature, over 100s of years, certainly not before 2012.

Update: James Taranto notes this remark from the President's presser yesterday:
My job right now is just to make sure that everybody in the Gulf understands this is what I wake up to in the morning and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about: the spill.
Precisely the point I've been making for some time. He doesn't seem to know what his job is or how to do it. It sounded different today, however. Maybe he's figuring it out. And it's only 17 months into his term. Bright, very bright.

White House used Bill Clinton to offer Sestak a job. Déjà vu if Clinton becomes a witness for federal investigators. It depends on what the meaning of (fill in) is.

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Look at the bright side. At least we can pronounce "Katla."

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Government regulators screw up royallyin the agency that oversees off-shore drilling. So the remedy is . . . bigger government and MORE REGULATION!

More pressure at this point will probably just increase mistakes.

Little-noticed?

Maybe the reason so many things about Obamacare are "little-noticed" is that we weren't allowed to see them before they passed it. Remember that they had to pass it so that we could find out what was in it. They were so intent on patching deals together to get the thing passed, that they never really thought through how it would all work in the hands of people who weren't ideologues but businessmen whose job is to maximize profits. That's why Obama, Reid, Pelosi and the rest despise business and profits. It all worked so much better in their minds.

Joe Sestak should have figured out that you can't run against Washington in the primary and then cozy up to it afterwards. If he's that thick, why would you want him for your Senator?

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

When, oh when, will someone have the wisdom to take down the New York Times for leaking classified information. This is not a case of prior restraint. It IS one of betraying national security, giving aid to the enemies of this country, and helping discredit this country in the eyes of the world. Smart diplomacy would be to put some teeth into our laws. This is not about the Pentagon Papers or airing dirty laundry. It's a release of our tactics and plans to some seriously nasty people who will slit our throats as soon as look at us. And yet the Times publishes these stories as if it can't distinguish between embarrassing a political regime and endangering the country. If I had a business needing advertising in New York, I'd sure find some outlet other than this nest of vipers.

What is most ironic is that this should happen so shortly after a plot to blow up Times Square failed, not because of our brilliant anti-terrorist team, but because the bomber was a bungler.

Carly Fiorina is way ahead in her primary race.Now, if she can do the same to Barbara "Call Me Senator" Boxer, whose ad at the same site talks about the number of jobs she'll create by building more roads and mass transit. But I thought more roads and automobiles was bad? Oh, I'm so confused. Interesting how the only jobs she knows about are the ones based on cash from Wasthington.

Patriotism as Sedition. Shrewd politics, dude.

Does this tell you anything about the quality of this "recovery?" When I was sixteen I reasoned that if the time came that more than half of the earners were living off government, it would be the death knell of our republic. Now it's happened. To reverse this trend will be nearly as painful as what Greece is going through, but unless we do it and accept the pain, we're going to end up with the same scenario as "Atlas Shrugs." The statists will hate it and resist it to the point of violence, hopefully limited and scattered. They have gotten too many of their demands too easily by demagoguery and intimidation, but unless a majority of us wakes up and stands up for freedom, our children will have no future.

Nuke the Whales!

The news today has been mostly about the BP well blowout. I agree that the bureaucracy established to prevent this sort of thing failed miserably, which is both a scandal and a good reason to reject more bureaucratic fixes. This morning on C-Span I listened to callers who all had the answer for an immediate fix, including the use of explosives, which I didn't quite understand. Maybe the guy thought that since explosives are used to put out oil fires on land, they would work for this, too. Or maybe he knows something I don't, like how a nuclear weapon would stop that sucker forthwith. I wonder how the Gulf States would like that solution.

One thing that seems clear in hindsight is that drilling under 5000 feet of water was a new thing, in many ways experimental. It certainly seemed clear that they knew that attempting to contain the leak with the so-called dome would be foiled by the formation of hydrates which form at such depths and pressures. Shouldn't some trials have been made before sinking this well? They supposedly had a blowout preventer/arrester, but it failed. I hope they do some experiments at depth and develop new technology before we allow more of these deep wells to be drilled. Maybe they just aren't able to be made safely, but I'm not interested in just giving up on all offshore drilling. We should be developing oil shale deposits which are vast, and keep working to find better alternatives. Electricity will someday replaced gasoline, but how we'll generate the electricity to take over that load will involve nuclear generation almost certainly, and more methane and clean coal, if we can ever get over the obsession with carbon dioxide.

First Spain, California bursts the green bubble and the myth of green jobs being the way to restore the economy. Just as the New Deal launched hopeful communal farms in the Southwest only to have them fail and disband, this New Age big new thing has never made any sense.

The Real Astroturfers.

I searched Memeorandum in vain for any links to the mob of SEIU members gathered at the residence of Greg Baer, an attorney for Bank of America, until I found this one. Why they chose to single out Mr. Baer's home isn't clear, but I'll bet they didn't realize that Nina Easton is one of his neighbors.

There are conflicting reports about the demonstrators having a police escort and the police in all jurisdictions are all "Who, me?"

The main thing that strikes me is that this kind of behavior on private property, in a suburban residential area with 500 "protesters" is exactly the kind of thing the President and his party and supporters are working hard to convince us that the Tea Parties do, which is a slander. If they held a Tea Party without a permit, trespassing on private property, disturbing the peace and placing residents in fear for their safety, the WaPo, NYTimes and every lefty blogger in the country would be condemning it in full throat and probably calling for Congressional Hearings.

The curious incident of the silence of the press over this outrage indicts it as partisan, biased and cowardly. Apparently the SEIU is one power they refuse to speak truth to. And, as I said before, this "union" is beginning to resemble Obama's version of the Nazi Sturmabteilung, the Brownshirts, who broke heads and took care of Hitler's enemies until they became such a public scandal that he had to disband them and have their head, Ernst Röhm, liquidated in The Night of the Long Knives.

Blogger has disabled the blog I was using

http://to-god-and-country.blogspot.com just disappeared, with a statement that it was disabled, along with my gmail address. The whole thing seems kind of mysterious. No notice given, no explanation.

On the other hand, nobody was reading it, but I will have a number of emails to my gmail address bounced.

I stopped posting here because I was concerned that the name, which is a perfectly acceptable word meaning a small, self-important person (like a bantam rooster), might be misinterpreted as some kind of obscenity. But I'm back here until this is resolved. The only reason for this I can think of is that I posted in response to a story about President Obama calling people "teabaggers" in which I said I wouldn't call him an (N-word) if he wouldn't use obscenities to describe Tea Partiers. That might have been a violation of the Terms of Service.

I don't swear or use the so-called n-word, which I heard someone on TV call an obscenity. I don't go out of my way to be offensive, but I also take it seriously when liberals slur honest citizens who have begun to use their rights to assemble and speak out against government actions and petition the government for redress of their grievances. They're called violent, threatening, mobs, astroturf, etc. and accused of spitting on members of Congress and calling them the dreaded "n-word," without any proof. I consider "teabagger" an obscenity akin to "c**ks**ker." It's not funny; it's degrading, demeaning and dismissive.

So if that is the reason for disabling my blog, I'm off to wordpad or wordpress.