Archive for 2010
February 18, 2010
CHANGE: Feb 17, 2009: Stimulus will create 109,000 MI jobs! Feb 17, 2010: MI lost 162,000+ jobs since one year prior. “Being that we were promised 109,000, that puts the Obama administration, both ironically and rightfully so, in deficit for job creation, by 271,000 jobs in Michigan alone.”
IRONY: THE PROFESSORIAL RUSH LIMBAUGH. Wait, isn’t it racist to call him that? . . . .
“UNEXPECTEDLY!” Jobless claims rise unexpectedly. Again! “The number of newly laid-off workers filing applications for unemployment benefits unexpectedly surged last week after having fallen sharply in the previous week. The gain dampened hopes about how quickly the labor market may improve this year.”
MORE TROUBLE FOR BILL DELAHUNT: DA Rips 1986 Bishop Report. “Three people might be alive today if Delahunt had done his job in 1986. The blood is on his hands. Instead he made a phone call and the case disappeared. Thanks to him, Amy Bishop went on to become a one-woman crime wave.”
UPDATE: Related: The inevitable effort to link Amy Bishop to Tea Party protesters.
It would be easy to dismiss the attempt to link Bishop and the Tea Party movement given the absurdity of the connection. After all, Bishop loves Obama, so how could the “anti-Obama” nature of the Tea Party movement have caused Bishop to do anything?
It’s just that these things have a way of working their way into the mainstream media, regardless of how outlandish the supposed connection.
Keep repeating Amy Bishop and Tea Party in the headlines, and it will not be long before 35% of Democrats believe there is a connection.
And that is the true slant.
Indeed. Running interference for Delahunt, among others.
HOMELAND SECURITY AT WORK: Homeland Security reports losing guns. “The nation’s Homeland Security officers lost nearly 200 guns in bowling alleys, public restrooms, unlocked cars and other unsecure areas, with some ending up in the hands of felons.”
WELL, YES: Americans are ‘most attractive’ people in the world, poll finds.
Of course, maybe we just wash our sheets more often.
REPORTING FROM Toy Fair 2010.
INSTAVISION! I talk to economist Russ Roberts about his Hayek/Keynes “Fear The Boom And Bust” Rap Video. Also about the state of economic literacy in America, and what to do to improve it. (Bumped).
THE RIPPLE EFFECTS OF FEDERAL ACTION:
On April 18, the Bumble Bee Foods sardine cannery in Gouldsboro, Maine will close and 128 people will lose their jobs. That may not sound like a large number, but Gouldsboro is a small town, with a population of only 1,941 as of the 2000 census. So the jobs lost represent 6% of the town’s total population. To a community that small, that’s a stunning blow.
The jobs lost in Gouldsboro are not the fault of the financial crisis, or the continuing recession. They are the direct result of a decision made by the federal government.
Related, from Jim Geraghty: It’s the Economic Uncertainty, Stupid.
PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: No dip in earmarks despite White House push for transparency.
Transparency requirements pushed for by the Obama administration have not changed the total spending on earmarks for 2010, according to a study by a group critical of the practice.
The amount of money directed by lawmakers in 2010 to specific projects back in their districts adds up to $15.9 billion, according to the analysis by Taxpayers for Common Sense. . . . As a presidential candidate, Obama called for cutting earmarks down to their 1994 levels, or about $8 billion. He has since called for a competitive bidding process for earmarks going to for-profit companies, a move that has been adopted by the House but not the Senate.
Worse yet, the earmarks are vote-buying tools to promote the passage of huge spending bills. It’s not the amount of spending the earmarks embody, it’s the big-government corruption that they enable.
CRYSTAL MANGUM UPDATE: Duke lacrosse accuser charged with attempted murder, arson. “Authorities charged her with attempted first-degree murder, five counts of arson, assault and battery, communicating threats, three counts of misdemeanor child abuse, injury to personal property, identity theft and resisting a public officer.”
VERONIQUE DE RUGY: The Recession’s Fat Cats: Public Employees.
MEGAN MCARDLE: Can Greece Pull Out Of The Euro?
BROWN UNIV. PRESIDENT QUITS AS GOLDMAN DIRECTOR. Is there an Academic-Wall Street complex?
FORBES: The Global Debt Bomb.
VICTOR DAVIS HANSON: Where Did Our Real Wealth Go? “Greece is the canary in the mine of the impending crack-up of the modern welfare state. It is a great gift to us all, this example. A year ago, the socialists, even as they were juggling and falsifying their books, were bragging that the Wall Street meltdown was a referendum — and capitalism was doomed. Now, the entire socialist dream is exposed and even the most ardent statist knows that there is no longer enough ‘others’ to pay the tab. . . . Here in California we idle farmland, though we have the water, expertise, and soil to produce far more food than we do. We put vast swaths of both land and sea off limits to gas and oil production, though we could produce far more petroleum and natural gas than we do. We snub nuclear power, though our population steadily increases and its desire for electronic appurtenance grows, not shrinks. We like ‘wilderness areas’ (who doesn’t?) where we build no roads, harvest no timber, and build no dams. We strangle Silicon Valley with all sorts of labor and business regulations until it fabricates and outsources abroad. In other words, we are creating no real new sources of concrete wealth as we nuance the shrinking capital we inherited.”
Apparently someone really DOES miss Dubya.
Items featuring a smiling former President George Bush and the question, “Miss Me Yet?” are doing a brisk business as sales of pro-President Obama items lag, reports the Web shopping site CafePress.
Yeah, but the people buying those are giving ’em to Democrats. . . .
February 17, 2010
SOON THEY’LL BE LIVING IN “OBAMAVILLES:” Suburban homeless: Rising tide of women, families.
BUT PROBABLY NOT THE LAST: First Tea Party Candidate Elected to Office on Long Island.
CLOSING THE PUPPET GAP: Not a good idea.
CADDELL UNLEASHED: Democrat Caddell rips White House for obeisance to organized labor.
AT AMAZON, a camera, photo, and video sale. I want all my readers to have a pocket-size camera that shoots decent photos and video. This is entirely selfish on my part, as it’s how I get my best material . . . .
IS THE DREAM OVER? Tom Spaulding sends this pic from Nashville to complement the Mardi Gras shot from New Orleans, below.
But hey, cheap beer is change I can believe in!