NITA GHEI: Global Meltown: Is Paris Next? I was at a conference last week talking to some bond traders and they were extremely pessimistic: Italy will fail and is “unbailable,” and it’ll drag the Eurozone down with it. Overall take on the economic picture: “It’s even worse than you think.” Let’s hope they’re overly pessimistic.
Archive for 2011
August 14, 2011
CHARLES CRAWFORD on the London Riots.
The only worse thing than having a problem is not knowing you have a problem.
And even worse than not knowing you have a problem is knowing you have a problem, but being unwilling to accept responsibility for doing anything about it.
And that’s the problem of our political elites, from all parties.
They dimly sense that things have gone badly awry, with Sprawling State (UK and EU combined) no longer the answer. But they just don’t have the strength or insight or idealism to do anything meaningful about it.
And nor it must be said do we, the mass of enervated citizens.
WHITE HOUSE FLOATING THE IDEA OF A “DEPARTMENT OF JOBS?” “Brilliant. How about the Department of I-Got-Nuthin? The man is floundering.”
PETER HITCHENS: Police water cannon and plastic bullets? After 50 years of the most lavish welfare state on earth? What an abject failure. “Bitter laughter is my main response to the events of the past week. You are surprised by what has happened? Why? I have been saying for years that it was coming, and why it was coming, and what could be done to stop it. I have said it in books, in articles, over lunch and dinner tables with politicians whose lips curled with lofty contempt. So yes, I am deeply sorry for the innocent and gentle people who have lost lives, homes, businesses and security. Heaven knows I have argued for years for the measures that might have saved them. . . . As the polluted flood (it is not a tide; it will not go back down again) of spite, greed and violence washes on to their very doorsteps, well-off and influential Left-wingers at last meet the filthy thing they have created, and which they ignored when it did not affect them personally.”
DNC HEAD DEBBIE WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ booed in Iowa.
THE RAW FOOD DIET: Is The Cure Worse Than The Disease? I’m going with “yes.”
RUNNING ON EMPTY: “On some days, the pilots with Great Lakes Airlines fire up a twin-engine Beechcraft 1900 at the Ely, Nev., airport and depart for Las Vegas without a single passenger on board. And the federal government pays them to do it. Federal statistics reviewed by The Associated Press show that in 2010, just 227 passengers flew out of Ely while the airline got $1.8 million in subsidies. The travelers paid $70 to $90 for a one-way ticket. The cost to taxpayers for each ticket: $4,107.”
MORE HOPE AND CHANGE: Economic Turmoil Taking Its Toll On Childbearing. “The struggling economy may be causing women of childbearing age to have fewer or no children, suggests demographer Sharon Kirmeyer of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, lead author of two reports out Thursday that analyzed historical childbearing data.”
THIS MUST BE MORE OF THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WE WERE PROMISED: US apologises for diplomat’s ‘dirty’ Indians comment. “The United States has apologised for controversial remarks made by a US diplomat who spoke of ‘dark and dirty’ Indians, calling the comments ‘inappropriate’.”
The Indians remain unmollified. “The apology failed to satisfy the chief minister of Tamil Nadu, Jayalalitha, who called Chao’s remarks ‘highly condemnable’, according to the Press Trust of India.”
AT AMAZON: Essential books for children.
HEY, WAIT, THE ANTI-GUN PEOPLE WERE PREDICTING A BLOODBATH: Gun Crime Drops At Virginia Bars And Restaurants After Liberalized Carry Rules:
Virginia’s bars and restaurants did not turn into shooting galleries as some had feared during the first year of a new state law that allows patrons with permits to carry concealed guns into alcohol-serving businesses, a Richmond Times-Dispatch analysis found.
The number of major crimes involving firearms at bars and restaurants statewide declined 5.2 percent from July 1, 2010, to June 30, 2011, compared with the fiscal year before the law went into effect, according to crime data compiled by Virginia State Police at the newspaper’s request.
And overall, the crimes that occurred during the law’s first year were relatively minor, and few of the incidents appeared to involve gun owners with concealed-carry permits, the analysis found.
In other words, exactly what carry advocates predicted, and exactly the opposite of what anti-gun folks predicted. Again.
I AGREE THAT IT’S TIME TO OPEN “Tam’s School of Common Sense Shooting Skills.”
HOW’S THAT HOPEY-CHANGEY STUFF WORKIN’ OUT FOR YA? The 10 Housing Markets That Will Collapse This Year.
SWAN LAKE in China.
AT AMAZON, Back-To-School Deals In Computers And Office Supplies.
Also, 30% or more off software for students and teachers.
UPDATE: Sorry, back-to-school link was busted before. Fixed now!
GALLUP: Obama’s Job Approval Falls to 39%.
UPDATE: More here: “Gallup finds that Obama’s overall approval rating is down to 39%, the lowest of his Presidency. My gut tells me that whatever the polls tell me his approval rating is publicly, it’s probably a bit worse. I’m sure internal polling at the White House has them in a panic. In related news, CNN has a new poll that shows that democrats are backing Obama for renomination, but that democratic support for him is fading. . . . When’s the last time you saw polling about the prospect of an incumbent President even being the nominee? The fact that they’re even conducting this poll tells me that Obama’s in more trouble than maybe even we realize.”
ANOTHER UPDATE: Reader John Steakley writes:
This is all just battlefield prep for Obama’s “Comeback Kid” theme in 2012. The worse things appear now, the more they will appear to be improving a year from now.
Yeah, yeah, I know: “Cynical.”
So cynical, and so young.
BECAUSE WOMEN WOULDN’T COUGH UP THREE MONTHS’ SALARY FOR ‘EM? Why don’t guys wear engagement rings?
TAKING A ROAD TRIP IN A VINTAGE MERCEDES: “In 1977, the late David E. Davis, Jr., tested a 6.9 for this publication—back when it was the fastest sedan in the world. On his 4000-plus-mile journey, the A/C quit the team and a lower engine pulley worked itself loose. That car was a factory-fresh press vehicle. This is a 78,000-mile, 34-year-old example with a limited-production SOHC big-block, a Citroën-licensed hydropneumatic suspension system only ever used on this particular model, and a whole lot of vacuum lines in likely questionable shape.” Note the hopeful conclusion.
J.D. JOHANNES: The SEALS I Met. (Via BlackFive, where it is noted: “J.D. Johannes doesn’t write for The New Yorker. Because he is not a tool for the administration to push its PR.”)
ILLINOIS IDIOCY: State deems future soldier unfit for football after basic training. Personally, I’m questioning their patriotism.
ASKING THE IMPORTANT QUESTIONS: “Am I Dating A Weirdo?”
HAPPY VJ DAY. The country was very different then.
BATMAN VILLAINS psychoanalyzed by mental health experts. “As a mental health professional, Batman comes across as insensitive.”