Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Nightmare in Econ 101

I was just looking for a video that had been on YouTube that gave a very clear and very concise definition of capitalism as an economic system. Can't find that video. Instead, came across dozens of others that would have been funny except that they were so very painful to watch. When you get a headache while you're thinking about something -- I mean your head just starts to ache as you try to wrap your brain around a certain idea -- usually it's because the idea is fundamentally flawed and so full of contradictions that it can't be assimilated by anything as stubbornly logical as the human mind. 

After listening very sincerely to some of these poor people on YouTube, I think I discovered what their problem is: They've all been taught Marxism as a sort of "economic truth." And Marxism really doesn't make a damn bit of sense when you hold it up against REALITY. The confusion, and the headache, come in as you try to reconcile what you see all around you with Marx's interpretation of it. 

First of all, Marx says that labor is the basis of economic value. No. Not necessarily. Not unless you want it to be. According to that standard, wildflowers would have no value, since they require no human labor to produce. Is it true that wildflowers have no value? What do they mean to you personally? 

You see, nothing in the world contains within itself what we, as human beings, would call "value." Gold, diamonds and things like that are said to have an "intrinsic value" due to their scarcity. But who cares if they're scarce? We care, the human race cares, so we assign them a value. 

Is oil valuable? Up until the middle of the 1800s or thereabouts, crude bubbling up out of the ground was collected by con artists, packaged into small bottles with ornate labels, and sold as cure-alls (the infamous "snake oil.") The smelly, tarry stuff had not much other value, and it certainly didn't cure anything. Until somebody figured out how to make kerosene out of it to replace whale oil for use in lamps. Then Rockefeller started mining and marketing it. 

Takes lobsters... please. I don't like lobster and once asked a guy, "What on earth possessed someone to actually eat something that looked like that?" Easy answer: Starvation. I suppose if I was starving in Maine or someplace, I'd assign some value to lobster.

OK, so compare this to labor-as-the-source-of-value. All of you cogs in the corporate machinery, who sit all day taking one column of numbers and turning it into two or three other columns of numbers... Do you value those columns you've created? I mean, do they have any value for you? You've invested your labor in them. According to Marx, they should be of extreme importance to you. Are they?

On the other hand, you might own a little hat that your mother knitted for you from a ball of cheap yarn. She probably invested a couple hours in the hat's creation. Is it the labor that makes it valuable, or is it because it is your mother's labor? You give it value; the poor little hat probably doesn't mean much to anyone else.

In one video on YouTube, you can see this one tormented wannabe economic scholar sinking ever more deeply into the quicksand of confusion as he claims that "early capitalists" wanted monopolies so that they could sell "commodities" for more than they were worth. Here's a hint, earnest little dude, you can't sell commodities or anything else for more than they're worth. The buyer pays only what it's worth to him or he doesn't buy it. The price he's willing to pay is one way to measure its value TO HIM. It may not be as valuable to someone else. And what other value does the commodity have? Compared to what? Where ELSE does this commodity get value, except from people who assign a specific value to it? 

If the seller prices a thing too high, potential buyers will find or create substitutes. Labor, priced too high, is substituted with machinery. AUW, SEIU, Teamsters, beware. No one really has to put up with your demands and if you price your skill and labor too high, well, too bad for you. 

And this is what a "market" is:  A place where buyers and sellers determine the economic value of things. Doesn't matter how much labor it took to create a thing. Doesn't always matter much what it's made of. The buyer and seller get together and determine -- How much is this worth?

There simply is no other source of value, economic or otherwise, in human civilization, except the human capacity for identifying and organizing things. In addition, the markets and the value they generate for things is extremely fluid. A while back, some people would stand out in the rain in front of Toys R Us and pay anything for a Cabbage Patch doll. What do you think these dolls are going for now? Not a fraction of the current "value" of the latest iPad, apparently.

Another example, people who do crafts can sit for hours producing a single lovely cut-out paper snowflake, or a crocheted afghan, or a handmade sweater. The fact that these items might represent hours of somebody's labor doesn't give them any kind of value -- not when they're exchanged in a market where all of these items can be made by machine much more quickly and usually to a higher standard of quality. 

So Marx is full of crap. He's just one more guy who contrived a metaphor for the world he saw around him. We all do. We all have our way of interpreting the world around us. Some use religious precepts as their way to organize and evaluate their lives and the world around them. Others use money exclusively. Others prioritize and value things according to their usefulness for their children, spouses, or pets. 

The metaphor Marx came up with apparently suited his own purposes -- or at least his friend, Engels, was willing to pay Marx's bills to keep Marx producing -- but Marxism is not a very accurate description of the world or of human civilization, and therefore not a very useful interpretation of economics. 

Keynes doesn't really work, either. If anything, Keynesian economics only demonstrates the principle that Milton Friedman described as the economy being like a balloon -- if you pinch one end of it, the air inside only bulges out somewhere else. (And, of course, pinched too tight all around, or inflated beyond capacity, the balloon can also explode....)

You know, life is not all that complicated -- until misguided professors and others compel you to view the world through a distorted lens. Suddenly nothing makes any sense. Here comes that damn headache.

So what to do? Live by your own lights. Organize and evaluate the world according to what makes you comfortable and satisfied. I think Jefferson called this "the pursuit of happiness." You have to have some personal liberty to have any chance at that at all. And you  have to have some confidence in your own individual judgment. Don't be afraid to try and fail. That's how you learn, as in, "Man, that socialist thing is totally screwed up!" Tried and failed. 

Save the Republic! 



Saturday, November 27, 2010

North Korea: the irrational actor

You know, law is built on the idea of the "rational actor." The rational actor is a person or entity that will act in its own best interests. They act more or less rationally; they have a positive reason for what they do.

So introducing the "irrational actor." The irrational actor is a person or entity that acts on what looks like impulse, whether or not their actions are apparently in their own best interests. They are, in a word, loose cannons.

Khaddaffi played the irrational actor for a while. Just a looney-toons, doing what comes natcherly, impuslively, without a thought to the impact of his actions. Supposedly. That is, Khaddaffi did somehow profit for his role as the irrational actor. For a while. Until Ronald Reagan just got fed up with it and bombed the crap out of him. We haven't heard too much from Khaddaffi since then, except for that bizarre spectacle he put on at the U.N. a year or so ago. We must conclude, on the basis of that, that he has completely lost his grip on reality -- if he had a grip in the first place.

So now comes Kim Il Jong or whatever. The lunatic who heads up North Korea. Lately he's been sort indiscriminately bombing South Korea, sinking South Korean ships, lobbing mortars over a small island.

China has long served as a kind of suzerain for Korea as a whole. I mean, over centuries. A suzerain is kind of a protector. And China also has stepped in when Korea got just so nutsoid even China couldn't deal with it. China would just take over until Korea could sort out its internal problems and prove it was capable of looking after itself. Then China would step back.

So now with Korea going nuts and shooting off rockets and bombs kind of willy-nilly, the USA among others has asked China to go have a quiet talk with the lunatics running North Korea. Heard just today that China finally has agreed to go have some kind of talk.

Meanwhile, the US is participating in "war games" in the Yellow Sea this week with South Korea. North Korea says that's why it's been so nervous lately. Actually, North Korea is less "nervous" than it is entirely "unstable." And that's why it's been behaving badly.

So, while we have air craft carriers and all that over there, why not just take out their high command? See, in a country with a dictator and highly centralized command-over-everything government situation, it's pretty easy to annihuilate them in one fell swoop. So, why not? The worst that could happen is that Kim Jung Un (the Un-Kim?) will pop up at the U.N. in a couple years, dressed like a polar bear or something, and rambling about God knows what.

Just a thought.

Save the Republic.

(P.S.: I've worked 60 - 70 hours in each of the past couple weeks, so now's my chance to make up for it with all these pent up comments. You don't have to read them all.)

So what's with Assange?

What is this Assange guy's problem, exactly? He's an Australian with some history in Sweden -- that is, he is accused of rape there, so apparently fled that country. He seems to be living in Iceland now or someplace? Not sure. At any rate, he really, really, really, really, really hates America, even though he seems to have so little experience with the USA.

He's the guy with WikiLeeks (yeah, I know I spelled it my way) where he releases confidential information stolen from the US government.

First of all, let's set Assange aside for a moment. What about the US citizen -- and a soldier, I believe -- who sent Assange the secret files? I do hope that person is charged with treason and will be executed. Treason is the only crime defined in the US Constitution, and historically it's been very hard to prove. However, in this case, treason seems to be pretty apparent, if not blatantly obvious. So hang the guy. Or exile him to the mountains along the Afghan-Paki border and let's see if does as well as bn Laden.

At any rate, so we come back to Assange. I repeat, what is his problem? What the hell has he got to do with anything? Just trying to bring the USA down? Why? I can only conclude that Assange likes the idea of global terrorism and will do all that he, as an individual, can do to protect and promote it.

One sick puppy, n'est-ce pas? And a rapist? Apparently. He seems to be among the knee-jerk anti-American crowd. And I repeat, what has America ever done to him? Perhaps he failed to qualify for a job rounding up dingos in the outback and it was all George Bush's fault. I don't know. For people like him, that seems to be as good an excuse as any.

What a twisted world.

We need the USA more than ever with lunatics like Assange at large.

Save the Republic.

What makes people happy?

Just watched this rather weird segment on Fox with a guy named Dan Buettner, author of a book called Thrive. Apparently the National Geographic Society funded Buettner's trips around the world as he sought the world's happiest places.

I was expecting a review of Disneyland. But Buettner's findings were very different.

So what did Buettner come up with? He discussed a few:

*  Some town in Denmark where Buettner says the government funds everything, so lawyers make about the same thing as garbage collectors and nobody cares about status.

*  Singapore, where the government makes it easy for people to buy property, so extended families all live together. And people like to socialize most with their parents.

*  Then, San Luis Obispo, Calif., where no one smokes, there's not much obesity, and everyone rides bikes.

Anybody else find this a little strange?

First of all, personally I'm not plagued with envy of the rich, and don't know many people who are. Being concerned with justice, I find it appalling that a lawyer would make about the same income as a garbage collector, but that's just me. Do believe Buettner has confused "justice" with "egalitarianism" though.

Second, my relatives are dead, but my mother lived me for the last 15 years or so of her life. I didn't own a house at the time, and still managed, somehow, to socialize with her. I mean, why does that require a government-funded house? And maybe Singapore has a different system, but our government helps people buy houses, and the overall impact on the economy has been completely disastrous.

Frankly, smoking, obesity, and bike riding seem like pretty weak criteria to judge somebody's happiness. I mean, really, those specific values are rather markedly characteristic of political correctness. Seems to me that those values are held mainly by the small far-left splinter group that supports the Comrade.

But perhaps this book may useful as a handbook about what the left regards as the criteria for happiness.

And it just goes to show, one size doesn't fit all.

Save the Republic.

Friday, November 26, 2010

State capitalism by any other name....

Was watching Glenn Beck as he was describing "state capitalism." Honestly, I think he sometimes takes the longest and most complicated route to explaining things. Like the way he struggled with "monetizing the debt." But maybe he was too young to remember exactly what inflation was like in the 1970s, so he goes through three or four chalkboards and lots of graphics when he could have just said "flooding the globe with lots of paper dollars seriously dilutes the value of each individual dollar."

Anyway, back to state capitalism. Which sounds to me like a contradiction in terms. Like "socialist-anarchists." That's actually laughable.

Look, if you have "state capitalism" that means the state essentially owns everything -- going by a strict definition of "own," which means to have the right to determine a thing's use -- though citizens get to run it day-to-day. When it comes to big decisions, the government steps in with regulations and so forth. Strikes me that it's a total recipe for clinical stress, stress being when you have a lot of responsibility and no authority. You don't get to make any decisions, but everything is all your fault.

What a dream world, huh? Wouldn't you want to live there? Sorta like heading up a pharmaceutical company, isn't it? Or a bank. Or GM. Or anyplace that hires people or serves food.

I've mentioned this book before, but actually found it in my library -- The Russians, by Hedrick Smith, who was the New York Times (I think) bureau chief in Moscow for many years when it was the USSR. He wrote the book about everyday life in a "state capitalist" culture. He doesn't really go for the outrages and shocking rights violations so much as he just talks about the routine stuff, like toilet paper not being available to buy all the time -- or anything else. The central planning committee just had bigger fish to fry.

That's what you get with a centrally-controlled economy. Believe it was in this book that he talks about how Russian women complained that the clothes in the stores were unfashionable, unattractive, etc etc. So the state's central committee really made an effort to respond to these complaints and one year came out with something like a dozen different dress styles you could buy. When they were available. Somehow a dozen different styles really didn't solve the problem. They still all looked like cut-out dolls.

Don't even have to go so far afield. Anyone else remember when Nixon froze prices? That was interesting. At the time I worked for a company that made equipment used mainly for aircraft maintenance. (No, not factory work; I worked in the Engineering Office.) Anyway, so Nixon froze prices and everything else.

I used to have lunch every so often with the company's purchasing agent. Almost always when a salesman invited her to lunch, because her husband was the production manager and didn't want her going to lunch alone with the salesmen. So, anyway, this company used a lot of steel for manufacturing, and we sold an awful lot of stuff to the military. But when Nixon put the freeze on, the mills were apparently in process of making rolled steel -- like pipes and stuff -- and we needed flat steel. And couldn't get it. Because there was a freeze, and the steel companies couldn't make it. They couldn't even allow buyers to bid up the price for whatever inventory they might have for flat steel, or not legally anyway, because of the price freeze. The only reason my company got any flat steel was when we could prove it was to produce something the feds had ordered. You like that scenario?

I mean, a centrally-controlled economy is just exactly that stupid and inflexible. One size fits all, they say, it's more efficient that way. Except that it just doesn't work when you're dealing with human beings in a civilized society. Introduce freedom and free markets, and everyone's happy and much, much more productive. Suddenly there's tons of options for everything, lots of jobs, everyone has money to spend. You get the idea.

And anarchist-socialists, like those poop-for-brains currently burning down London because suddenly they're threatened with having pay something for a college education... What the hell kind of an education are they getting? Anarchy is just about the diametric opposite of socialism. Anarchy is the absence of government. Socialism is having a very tightly centralized and authoritarian government that divvies up and redistributes the goods. You can't have both at the same time. It just isn't possible.

Anyway, that's enough for now.

Save the Republic.

Thankful

I wanted to take some time and write about things to be thankful for.

Well, for one thing, I had to work on Thanksgiving. So I'm thankful for that -- that I am working.

I'm extremely thankful that I'm not the only American citizen who still believes in America.Can't even say how thankful. I love America not only for its ideals, but because we understand and believe in those ideals, and are willing to act in order to maintain them.

Thankful that people like Jim DeMint and John Boehner and even Mitch McConnell have agreed to try to do something to make congress more accountable and responsible.

Thankful that there is an America and that I was just lucky enough to be born here. But that wasn't luck so much as some long-dead relatives escaping from Europe. I'm thankful for their courage in making the journey to someplace thousands of miles from their homeland and families, thankful that they were willing and able to put in the work and commitment to build their lives here.

Thankful for Jefferson's idealism and Madison's foresight, George Washington's integrity, and Lincoln's, Reagan's, and even George W. Bush's steadfastness in insisting that America is right and worth preserving.

I'm very thankful that Fox News presents both sides of the story. Don't know that anyone else noticed, but the networks traditionally never discussed substance -- or the actual content of anyone's argument in politics. All they reported on was process -- that is, strategy. How a candidate plans to win, not the platform he or she is running on.

Fox changed all that. I love those guys.

And for anyone (like Ted Koppel or Jay Rockefeller) who perceive Fox and/or even MSNBC as "the death of journalism," gotta say, you guys don't know history. Newspapers and other media have been extremely and forthrightly biased through 99% of their existence in human history. Objectivity is only an illusion, and it's actually dangerous if people believe a news source is unbiased. Bias comes out not only in things like language or a slanted tone, but primarily in deciding exactly which stories are picked up and which aren't. No way to escape being biased. So thank you Fox and even all those looney and extremist blogs, like Huffington, who tell it as they see it and let the public sort it out.

Lots to be thankful for, but that's the public part.

Save the Republic.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

All about the junk

Well, I don't fly. So I don't have to worry about strangers goosing me in the name of national security.

You do know how terrorism works? Terrorists aren't trying for the typical capture-the-flag war goals. Their aim is to destabilize governments, create internal conflicts, and provoke otherwise benign governments into becoming oppressors for the sake of "public safety."

So with the new TSA airport feel-'em-all-up policy, Al-Qaeda seems to be winning. Actually my favorite description of the policy comes from a bumper sticker: "Can't see London, Can't see France, Until we see your underpants." I do hope Janet Napolitano flies commercial. She really should. I mean if anybody's a threat to the USA....

What bugs me the most is the posture of so-called Homeland Security. Their modus operandi is to wait until terrorists think up some new tactic, and then respond to that by stripping away one more layer of privacy and dignity from American citizens. We had the shoe bomber, so everyone had to have their shoes scanned. We had the underwear bomber, now airline passengers are subjected to the "porn scans" and/or "enhanced pat-downs" that, in one case, required a breast cancer survivor to show the screener her breast prosthesis. And supposedly neither the scanners nor the pat-downs can detect things like potentially lethal powders or C-4 plastic explosives.

Someone on Fox asked something like, "What will the response be if a terrorist sticks some C-4 up his butt?" Don't even want to think about it. I suppose in that case, every airport would be equipped with an MRI or something. Or you'd have to have a colonoscopy immediately before boarding.

I'd rather drive, anyway. But soon we'll all be required to drive only Government Motors "enhanced semi-electric-powered roller skates," so that the bird-brains in the EPA can nurture their own personal doomsday myth.

It all kind of emphasizes that those in DC have put Al-Qaeda in charge of US security policy. That pisses me off more than anything else. Like, "We'll have to wait and see what they do before we can do anything." That's truly stupid. No other word to describe it.

And meanwhile, any ol' terrorist who wanted to could strap on 150 lbs of C-4 and simply stroll unmolested across the border into Arizona. He'd be lost among all the other mules burdened with marijuana.

What's wrong with this picture?

I think the Israelis have a better program. A former security chief for El-Al airlines was talking, and noted that stopping and searching everyone isn't half as effective as using your brain. The guy brought up the explosives recently found in toner cartridges that were being shipped to Chicago from Yemen. The El-Al guy pointed out that it was a curious situation all together, since there are no toner cartridge factories in Yemen, and tone cartridges don't need to be imported to Chicago. Apparently these things made some people suspicious.

'Course, the USA doesn't want to offend anybody. So even if a Nigerian kid's father calls the US Embassy and warns that his son is probably going to blow up an airplane, the US does nothing about that. Or some schmuck buys a one-way ticket on a trans-Atlantic flight and has no luggage with him. Doesn't even raise an eyebrow.

But that's the difference between putting on a show for the public and really getting smart about security. Napolitano et al fall into the first category, unfortunately. Challenge her or Pistole (strange name for a security guy?), and they demand "Well, what would you do?"

Tell you what, give me your salary and resources and I'll come up with something.

And that's all for now. Probably write more later. I'll feel better once I get my load of tryptophan.

Save the Republic.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Hey, Mr. Rockefeller...

Why don't you just shut up?

Seriously, Mr. Rockefeller, why don't you just shut up?

Does that jerk actually hold any office anymore? Pity the fools who'd vote for him.

Save the Republic.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Wranglin' Rangel

Oh, I get it. Thanks for the tip, Charlie.

The feds are after me for my taxes. So next time I hear from them, I'll just tell them, "Gee whiz. I'm sorry. I just haven't had time to launch a legal defense fund to pay for a lawyer and an accountant."

Doesn't Rangel qualify for a public defender?

That's all for now.

Save the Republic.

Sunday, November 14, 2010

The great earmark debate

OK, when you hear the word "earmark" are you really thinking "pork"? Because they are two slightly different things. Heard the debate about this on Fox this morning and also looked it up to make sure I'm not just making a fool of myself discussing it. So here's what I found.

Not all pork is earmarked, but all earmarks are pork, otherwise they'd be "special bills," which apply to only certain individuals or states rather than to the population as a whole.

That is to say, congress can pass a law that says, "$250 billion will be allocated for interstate highways," and this might be interpreted as pork. But with an earmark, the bill would read, "$250 billion will be allocated for interstate highways, with $100 billion going to fund projects on I-75 between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia." In addition, earmarks aren't limited to money allocations, but can also take the form of "special favors" for one or another interest group.

See the difference?

Mitch McConnell, Senate Minority Leader, argues in favor of earmarks, saying, "The money will be spent anyway. The argument is over who controls where it's spent."

That's kinda true. If that $100 billion of the total $250 billion for highways is NOT earmarked by congress to be spent in Pennsylvania, then the Executive branch will decide where it goes -- maybe Pennsylvania, maybe somewhere else, probably depending on who kisses the Comrade's butt.

On the other hand, Senator Jim DeMint and others in the Tea Party who want to eliminate earmarking all together claim that if the dollars can't be earmarked, they probably won't be allocated at all. I mean, who wants to give the Executive branch any more money to play with and spend at its own discretion?

I tend to agree with the Tea Party argument. If congressmen do look at legislation and ask, "So, what's n it for me and my state?" and they see there ain't nothin' in it for them, they probably won't vote for it without some other, more compelling reason -- like genuine need, or because it's right, or would help the nation as a whole.

It's a disgrace and a shame on the nation that it's become almost business-as-usual in congress to "buy" support for legislation by promising earmarks to legislators.  For example, let's look at the socialized medicine bill. Any earmarks there? How about exempting Florida from the bill's ban on Medicare Advantage programs? The Corn Husker Kick-back that gave Nebraska special favors to buy Nelson's vote? Or the $200 billion pay-off to Mary Landrieu of Louisiana to secure her vote?

Would the socialized medicine bill have passed without these earmarks? I don't think so. Socialized medicine didn't then and doesn't now enjoy much public support. The only way to pass that piece of crap was to bribe the senate. That it worked highlights a very, very sad state of affairs in American government. And I don't care if "they do it all the time." If congress does operate that way all the time, then we should vote all the bums out and start over with a clean slate and nothing but the Constitution. And judging by the last election, I'm not alone in holding that attitude.

"They do it all the time" assumes that legislators don't vote on issues or policy anymore, but on how many goodies they can accumulate. That's not the way America is supposed to work. Changing it -- taking it back to Constitutional intentions -- is not blind idealism, either, but more like restoring the nation to its stated principles and securing the blessings of liberty. That is, after all, the only purpose for the US government.

Some interesting fall-out from all the earmarks in the socialized medicine bill, too. Because of all the personal promises and earmarks in that bill, legislators did not include what's called a "severability clause." "Severability" means that if one section or clause in the bill is ruled unconstitutional, then that clause alone can be omitted, or severed, but the rest of the bill would stand.

However, in order to protect the earmarks -- to make sure that they couldn't be cut out of the bill -- the socialized medicine bill doesn't include a severability clause. So if one clause or one section of that bill is ruled unconstitutional, the whole thing goes out the window.

Woohoo! Otherwise known (to lit majors, anyway) as "hoisted on their own petard."

We can only hope.

Save the Republic. And eliminate earmarking.

"Cool It" or Don't give up on socialism quite yet

Saw this guy, Bjorn Lomborg, on TV the other day talking about a movie he's got out called "Cool It." Let me make it clear that I haven't seen this movie and really don't intend to. But I did see the guy and read about a half-dozen reviews of it at RottenTomatoes. It may not be as bad as I assumed, or perhaps not bad in the same way that I assumed.

Lomborg looks like a college cheerleader. Really. Very bouncy, optimistic, hair cut that looks exactly like a hay stack after a not-too-devastating wind storm. For some reason he reminded me of these relentlessly cheerful and clean-cut singing groups that were popular in the late 1960s/early 1970s. They made a bizarre kind of counterpoint to the hippies and went around the country singing happy songs and apparently indulging in some well-rehearsed and entirely non-offensive patter between sets. Pretending it was maybe 1954 and there was no "Generation Gap" and your kids weren't dropping acid and burning down the Administration Building on weekends. Sort of playing into the wishful delusions of a certain market.

Anyway, that's how this guy struck me. My first thought, OMG, Al Gore Lite.

He said something like, "OK, for the movie, we're just assuming there is Global Warming... We just think there might be some less disruptive solutions for it."

Yup. Al Gore Lite? As it turns out, going by the reviews, maybe not. Quite.

According to the film's synopsis at RottenTomates, "Lomborg is the founder of the economic think tank, Copenhagen Consensus, which brings together the world's leading economists to prioritize major global problems -- among them malaria, the lack of potable water and HIV/AIDS -- based upon a cost/benefit analysis of available solutions."

So he's basically another globalist, and apparently what he wants to do mainly is shift the public's attention from Saving the Planet to his own particular concerns. OK. Fine.

But don't we (the US and other developed nations) already pour billions of dollars every year into U.N. programs to combat malaria, the lack of potable water, and HIV/AIDS around the world? And doesn't all that money already just go into some rat-hole somewhere, i.e. the numbered bank accounts of certain third-world ambassadors or delegates or whatever they call themselves?

I mean, maybe Bjorn is new to the USA, though he speaks pretty good, idiomatic, and even bouncy and perky English -- but doesn't he know that most of the people in the US are growing pretty damn weary of having all the world's problems laid on our doorstep? I mean, it's not like we have any money left. And what we do have is not going to be worth anything by Christmas.

And why is this movie in English, by the way, if his think tank is in Copenhagen? Shouldn't it be in Danish? Or maybe even Esperanto to attract the world's attention.

Anyway, just something that caught my attention. Haven't written in here for a while, and these things pile up.

Wouldn't it be nice if the so-called undeveloped nations of the world did something once in a while to develop themselves? I mean instead of just accepting the status of being "causes" for well-meaning global socialists?

Just a thought.

Save the Republic.

Saturday, November 13, 2010

"deNial" on de Potomac

Haven't written for a couple days -- just bombarded with work, which is a good thing. Kinda blows my mind how, starting on Election Day, my personal economy has suddenly exploded. I've hardly had time to sleep with so much paying work on order.

Anyway, I have been keeping up with events, such as they are.

The Comrade was smart to get the hell out of Dodge after the Nov. 2 massacre. Not so sure it was necessary to bring $200 million-per-day worth of the USA along with him. But he did get to visit his boyhood home on the taxpayer's dime. From what I hear, that was probably the greatest benefit to come out of that trip. Maybe he should consider staying forever in the Far East.

What really boggles my mind is that the dems in congress still just don't seem to get it. Pazzo Pelosi still insists things like socialized medicine and the proposed annihilation of US industry through crap-n-tax were just "badly explained" or just "didn't happen fast enough." And perhaps that's because she has such a problem constructing complete sentences. However, I do believe the Stimulus acted pretty powerfully and quickly -- to put the USA almost irretrievably into overwhelming debt and help stamp out individual liberty. No doubt this is exactly what Pazzo wants for us all. She's such a damn fool.

Most recently, she's "carving out," according to the news, a third position in the Minority leadership so that everyone can hang onto some useless title and specious sense of personal power, even while Pelosi refuses to withdraw gracefully. And of course, the "chain of command" assures that all her underlings report to her directly... That is, she is the peak of the hierarchy. She doesn't want to share her power even with those who claim to agree with her. Even the most casual observer must admit, she is a little tetched.

Pazzo is demonstrably quite the control freak. She puts Elizabeth I to shame. She may be rather more like Russia's Catherine.

Have another Oxycontin, Pazzo, and everything will remain rosy in your little world. And keep your grip on that giant hammer as you wallow in the misty nostalgia of your glory days, long gone now.

I'll try to write more later, but I've been busy.

Save the Republic.

Sunday, November 7, 2010

Change we can believe in

Watched Fox Sunday, with Eric Cantor, Issa, and Paul Ryan, but haven't had time to see the regular network stuff. And I'm assuming the regular networks had all the former majority on, hinting about how stupid the population-at-large is to boot out their sorry butts.

Must say, I'm rather amazed that Pazzo Pelosi still wants to serve, but as House Minority Leader. Poor Steny Hoyer.  He spends years sucking up to Pazzo only to be shafted in the end. And is Pazzo really the best choice? Sure she rammed through socialized medicine -- and without a second thought about undermining the US Constitution along the way -- but she also handed the Republicans their greatest victory in 60 years. Yeah, keep her on. The dems need someone like her. So do the Republicans.

I must say, if there's anything we "little people" out here in the hinterland have seen this year, it's how addictive power is.  First, Arlen Specter, then Crist, then Murkowski, and on and on, down to Pazzo Pelosi -- 70 years old, defeated, and still a determined control freak. Hey, Pazzo, think "Johnny Carson," and bow out gracefully, before you make a total fool of yourself drooling all over your shoes.

Even more surprising is the dems' apparent inability to understand that We, the People, really did mean it with the Nov. 2 election. We don't like you people. We want you out. We don't think you're doing us any good; matter of fact, we're certain you're trying to kill us.

Meanwhile, Pazzo, and I'm sure others like Dick(head) Durbin are still running around going, "Wait until the benefits kick in, then you'll love it." They're beginning to sound a bit like incorrigible rapists, convincing themselves their victims are just asking for it and really just love being assaulted and violated.

As far as a rift between Republicans and the Tea Party goes, I don't really see much daylight between them. Maybe in some districts.  However, look who's going to be in majority leadership positions in the next congress:  John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Issa, Paul Ryan.  I don't see the "Old Guard" anywhere -- the old leadership. Looks to me like the older generation is giving the younger ones an opportunity, though I guess Boehner was in congress during the 1994 Republican sweep. And I don't see that any of those people named here vary in any large degree from Tea Party values.

The Senate is much older, as they probably should be. And the Senate is still under a dem majority, though not by much.

Anyway, interesting to watch. Here's hoping the "Young Guns" in the House majority now follow through. We'll be watching.

Save the Republic.

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Agenda for the new congress

I believe it was one of the "Young Guns" in congress, or it may have been the Republican Pledge to America, that suggested that congress pass a law to ensure that no agency or department of the executive branch can institute regulatory measures that would place a burden of more than $100 million (in aggregate) on American citizens without legislation.  That is, if the EPA still wants to do crap-n-tax, it would have to go to congress and ask for legislation to pass such sweeping and expensive rules.

In my opinion, this should be the very first thing the new congress does. Because you know the Comrade may have been moderately amused by our little election, but he's also very likely entirely undaunted by it in his efforts to turn America into a backwash commune. He still doesn't "get it." And I'm sure it doesn't bother him to be opposed by 300 million people -- not as long as he has his little coven of like-minded marxists around him. I'm sure they're all still patting each other on the back and assuring each other that the House of Representatives so dramatically changing hands was just a minor setback. Something they can circumvent and ignore.

After all, the merry marxists know what's good for America so much better than American citizens do.

Apparently the Comrade has finally given up blaming George W for everything. Now it's more like "shit happens"  As in, there was an emergency and he simply rose to the occasion. Not like there were other approaches he could take, other options. 'Course, it's not like he knows about any other options, having been a dedicated marxist his entire life.

Perhaps he believes it's that inexorable marxist dialectic at work -- the pendulum swinging back and forth. No doubt the Comrade sees Tuesday's election as a similar swing. Anything but face the facts, right, Comrade?

He's already suggested even more spending. My stars, does he comprehend nothing? See nothing? Hear nothing? If he'd been on the ballot, he'd be out on his butt, like most of his cronies.

What's even funnier is the "lamestream media" blaming the Republican success on Fox News. Truly a case of "shoot the messenger." At least Fox is a messenger, rather than a cheering section.

And isn't it funny that Fox stands all by itself, while "the other side" is made up of three nationwide networks and two cable channels. And Fox is still preferred.

How very blind can the left be? I guess we'll find out. Their blockheaded density has been apparent to me for quite some time, and it's also rather obvious now to much of the rest of the country.

But let's face it, the fight is far from over. I'm actually more optimistic about what this congress can and will do -- much more optimistic than some naysayers. After all, the Tuesday massacre of liberals can't go unnoticed by others who face regular elections. The Comrade, of course, doesn't care about being re-elected. He regards the US Presidency as little more than a bully pulpit, and his primary aim is to just do as much irreversible damage as possible in his four years with a political forum.

All the rest of us are charged with the task of stopping him. At least now we'll have some help from certain portions of the government -- not all, but some.

Save the Republic.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Give that man a hug

Well, I'm happy.

By the latest count, the score stands:

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
   Republicans: 243
   democrats:    192

U.S. SENATE
   Republicans:  46
   democrats:     49
   Independent:   2

I was going to name this blog "Woohoo!" but let's not rub it in.  And remember, somewhere in Washington, DC, Pazzo Pelosi is locked in her bathroom crying into a towel. Just like the Comrade at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

I like John Boehner. He cried as he delivered a victory speech tonight, talking about putting himself through school and having "every rotten night job in the world." We share that. He said his life has always been all about the American Dream. And nobody stepped up and gave him a hug. I wanted to.

And apparently the Comrade, for the first time in his inexcusable term in the White House, telephoned Boehner, who has been Minority Leader. Better late than never, Comrade? Think it's still possible to turn on the ol' charm and maybe ram yet another TRILLION in new b.s. taxes on the American public cover the TRILLIONS the Comrade has already flushed down the toilet? We've got a ways to go to undo all the damage Comrade, Pelosi, Reid, and the rest of the merry marxists have done.

By the way, in Illinois, the Comrade's former Senate seat went to Mark Kirk, who wouldn't have been my first choice, but at least he's a Republican. He did vote for crap-n-tax, however. After being verbally assaulted about that for a month or two, Kirk noted "OK. I get it." We'll see.

And bubblehead Melissa Bean, US Rep and a dem from my district, the 8th, lost to Joe Walsh. For some reason, Fox seems to be refusing to report on the Illinois 8th. But they do suggest that Walsh has flip-flopped on abortion and gun control. Oh well, he seems to be in the right place for now. And better than Bean.

You know, just after Bean voted for socialized medicine, I emailed her and told her it would be wise for her to start looking for another job now, because the employment situation was pretty bleak out here and she'd be out on the street soon. Apparently she didn't believe me.

Cannot fathom how Pat Quinn has clung (by his fingernails) to a slim lead over Brady for Illinois Governor. I met Pat Quinn a couple times, though I'm sure he wouldn't remember me. He was running for State Treasurer or Secretary of State or something at the time. I'm quite sure he's run for every available position in Illinois at one time or another, and by a trick of fate -- and Blagojovich's dishonesty -- Quinn finally ends up as governor. But I just can't imagine he's going to stay there.

Sharron Angle didn't win in Nevada, and if I was her, I'd demand a recount. Lots of funny things going on with Nevada voting machines for a week now, and I heard they also had a power outage there that put the machines down. Double-check, Sharron.

Of course, the problem with Nevada is that so many liberals fled there from California, after ruining the Golden State. But the Golden State seems to like it just fine. I mean really, who the hell would vote for Barbara Boxer? Apparently the same people who vote for Pazzo Pelosi, Diane Feinstein, Governor Moonbeam, et. al. I've always believed that California was not really part of the USA. They proved it tonight.

And I also got a whole truckload of work today. I knew that would happen -- just because I wanted to watch the election returns. Oh well -- can't complain. My economy is already looking up!

Now we must begin to get rid of the Comrade. As Boehner said, our work has just begun. But the Comrade and the Federal Reserve are giving the effort a huge boost. Tomorrow the Fed starts printing up trillions of pieces of Monopoly dollars to scatter far and wide across the nation. So inflation is on its way, with a bullet. Just another way to tax us into poverty. And what do you want to bet that the Comrade and Sad Sack Harry Reid already are blaming the Republicans for it? I'm sure they've already got their signs printed up.

Save the Republic!

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Save the Republic

This is just crazy. I feel like a kid on Christmas:  I get to vote today! I get to vote!

And the polls aren't even open yet.

Cherish the USA.

And, of course, save the Republic!

Monday, November 1, 2010

YOU are the driver

So the Comrade started out with this nifty little metaphor about George W driving "the car" into a ditch and asking if you want to give the keys back to the Republicans. Then he suggested that all Republicans can just sit "in the back," in a rather unfortunate reference to racial prejudice in the South. Yup. That's exactly it -- trying to make everyone but his merry marxists second-class citizens. Glad he finally admitted that. "Some are more equal than others," Comrade?

Let me tell you about how I learned to drive a car. I took lessons, and scared the instructor to within an inch of his life on a Chicago side street when I squeezed between a double-parked delivery truck and cars parked on the other side of the street doing about 40 mph. Hey, I didn't hit anything. Didn't even sideswipe. No problem, why the panic?

Anyway, so all the lessons were in a car with an automatic transmission, and the instructor even had his own brake pedal on the passenger's side. However, when it came to actually buying a car, about the best I could do was a VW Bug with a stick shift. I bought it from a guy I worked with for about $400, and it was in pretty good condition. He showed me the basics about stick shifts and took a spin with me around a shopping mall parking lot in the middle of the night. Then the car sat in front of my house for about a month while I tried to work up the courage to actually try driving it on my own.

The guy I bought it from suggested I drive it around early Sunday mornings when there wouldn't be too much traffic. Only in Chicago, early Sunday mornings, the streets are littered with the twisted wrecks and pools of human blood left behind by the Saturday night drunks. Not encouraging. Anyway, one of my brothers volunteered to ride along with me for a while until I felt comfortable with it.

That was interesting. Don't know if he did it on purpose, but he drove us out to a fairly rural area (well, it was then) northwest of Chicago and the 'burbs, and we drove around through forest preserves. Low speed limit, not a lot of traffic, pretty easy roads. I did OK there, so my brother insisted that I drive us home -- through some ravines and all. Sort of hilly country, which, granted, is pretty damn rare around Chicago.

Don't know if you know anything stick shifts, but when you're stopped, your feet are on the brake and the clutch, and as you start moving again, you shift, then give it a little gas and lighten up on the clutch until first gear engages. But to do that, you've got to take your foot off the brake.

And in a stick shift, if you're stopped at the top of a really steep hill and don't have your foot on the brake, you tend to roll backwards down the hill.

So here we are at a stop sign on top of a hill. I take my foot off the brake and we start rolling backwards down the hill. So I slam on the brake again -- other foot on the clutch -- and we just sit there for a minute. I'm panicking -- OH MY GOD! WHAT HAVE I DONE! My brother's just very calm, looking out the window.

Finally he looked at me and said, "The car's not going to do anything until you do. You're the driver."

Needless to say, I figured it out. I've also owned a couple other stick shifts since then, and even taught a couple other people how to drive them. It isn't hard, it's just a matter of confidence, mainly. Honestly, about the worst thing you can do is stall.

So tomorrow is Election Day. I've been waiting for this day for TWO YEARS!

The country's not going to go anywhere or do anything until we at least vote. We're the drivers, no matter what kind of drivel the Comrade is trying to sell you. The worst thing we can do is stall.

Your vote does count. You might say, "People who vote against my guy will cancel out my vote." But look at it this way -- you're canceling out their vote, too!! Your one little measly vote is serving a large and important purpose. Feel better now??

Need a ride to the polling place? I've got an automatic now. I've even driven through mountains. I can get you there, but you've got to pull the lever, or punch the card, or make the check mark, or whatever. But you've got to do it. Nothing good's going to happen until you do.

Save the Republic. We're the only people who can.