One year after Gaza invasion, Israel proved right

On my understanding, there WERE a few rockets fired into Israel after the IDF withdrew from Gaza but the bombardment did stop shortly thereafter -- JR

It's something that has largely gone unnoticed but, with Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech winning praise for his defense of war in the name of peace, it is a good time to point out, that in the year since Israel invaded Gaza, they accomplished what they had to do. There has not been one single rocket attack launched into Israel from Gaza. None.

It's important to remember this not only in light of Obama's speech and his defense of war in Afghanistan, but to remember the criticism of Israel's invasion of Gaza from around the world, mostly from people who were thousands of miles away from the rocket attacks and were not, nor their families, at risk.

At the time, many of them criticized Israel's invasion to defend its citizens against Hamas' rocket attacks and many criticized Israel for a "disproportionate" use of force, an argument that is both practically,intellectually and morally bankrupt ( if a criminal comes at you with a knife you are not obligated to make it an equal fight and come back at him with a knife -- if you have a gun, you shoot him in self-defense).

This reminder is also timely in light of the absurdity of a British magistrate issuing an arrest warrant for war crimes for Tzipi Livni, Israeli foreign minister during the Gaza invasion and one of three Israeli officials who were overseers of the invasion.

There were countless complaints of civilian casualties and what was called human rights violations. But the charges were baseless. There was no intention of the IDF to kill civilians but since Hamas used civilian structures to make their bombs and rockets destroying those facilities were necessary. If anyone was guilty of war crimes it was Hamas.

The fact is war is war. And that was a war started by Hamas as has all the wars in that region been started by those who sought to destroy Israel. And in war innocent people unfortunately become victims. Hamas should know. They have waged war for years by attacking unarmed civilians and using their own civilian populations as shields, hoping the Israelis had more respect for the lives of their own people than they did.

Israel ignored these complaints from the international community, doing what it thought was best for their own country and they have been proved right once again. There have been no more attacks. What's more, Hamas knows Israel will do it again with devastating effects on the Gaza infrastructure, economy, and Hamas itself, if any other such attacks are launched. And it is that deterrence that has kept the peace. Not the absurdity of the British government issuing warrants for war crimes.

SOURCE

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Stockholm syndrome? Jews who won't support their allies

Why don't Jews support those who support them? Last week, on December 13, Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) held a protest rally in what can only be described as an Islamic fortress in the heart of Harrow, England. I strongly urged Jews to attend. Islamic anti-Semitism is more poisonous and more dangerous than even Nazism was to the Jews. The promise of Jewish genocide is made "sacred" by Islamic texts such as the one in which Muhammad says that the end times will not come until the Muslims kill the Jews, and the Jews hide behind trees, which then cry out, "O Muslim, there is a Jew hiding behind me, come and kill him."

The SIOE demonstration was against the building of a mosque there, and the larger issues of the advance of Sharia and Islamization in the United Kingdom. SIOE pointed out the words of the Prime Minister of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan: "The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and Muslims our soldiers..."

Political parties, racist chanting, banners and placards, and totalitarian symbols such as Nazi swastikas, communist hammer and sickles, and the Islamic star and crescent were banned. The initial announcement of the demonstration asked those attending to bring one thousand Israeli flags, and said: "SIOE supports Israel's right to defend itself against Islamist attempts to annihilate Jews." SIOE called on Jews living in London or within travelling distance of London to attend the demonstration, saying that "vile anti-Semitism is being preached in mosques across the world and almost certainly the one in your neighbourhood....Non-Jews are demonstrating on 13th December against the anti-Semitism being taught in mosques which goes unchallenged by politicians, the media and so-called ‘moderate' Muslims. Jews cannot, in all conscience, leave it to non-Jews to protest on the behalf of Jews who are once again the world's whipping boy."

But they did. The Community Security Trust, a leading Jewish group in Britain, urged the Jewish community there not to support the demonstration. The CST said in a statement that it "has drawn attention to the Islamaphobic comments on SIOE's website, and compared the group to the English Defence League, and the BNP's Nick Griffin, who have attempted to gain support from Jews through pro-Israel and anti-Muslim statements.... A demonstration against Harrow mosque under the banner ‘Stop the Islamisation of Europe', is as stupid and offensive as a demonstration against Harrow synagogue, under the banner ‘Stop the Zionisation of Europe.'"

Once again leftist Jews were lying and deceiving to advance the aims of the enemies of Jews and Jewish life. Stephen Gash of SIOE responded: "I have stood several times in elections against the BNP and what they stand for. Equating synagogues to mosques is reprehensible in my view. When terrorists leave synagogues to blow up planes and tube trains then we at SIOE might reconsider our position. Until that happens we will continue to support Israel and the right of Jews to exist and to defend themselves."

Rabbis attacked the campaign also. They said that SIOE's "only purpose" was "to spread hatred and fear," and wrote: "We share the desire of the Muslim community of Harrow to respect our mutual traditions, to learn from each other's cultures and ways of life, and to live together in peace." Even the Rabbis abandon Israel when the going gets rough. These morally ill rabbis have lost their basic instinct of self-preservation.

The Jewish Chronicle even went so far as to gloat when attendance was small. Did the Chronicle ask why so few people attended this demonstration in a town where the majority does not want this mosque? The majority knows what's happening in their country and fear it. But the Chronicle did not restate the obvious -- that people did not attend out of fear.

Did the Jewish Chronicle cover the Death to the Jews protests back in January? Does the Jewish Chronicle cover the ongoing jihad against the Jews?

Much like the Jewish councils of World War II Germany that helped assist in what would become the extermination of the Jews, we are witnessing Jewish groups like the CST aiding and abetting Islamic jihad and Islamic anti-Semitism. I see the Muslim community doing nothing to expunge their texts and their teachings of the virulent Jew hatred that fills the Koran and Hadith.

Jewish history is littered with these traitors. The failure of the Jews stand up and fight this century's Philistines after thousands of years of persecution is difficult to swallow. The death wish of the Jews....it is to break the heart. When has the Muslim community ever stood against ‘divisive' anti-Jewish protesters? I ask you. Where were Muslims during the death to Jews marches across the UK during the defensive in Gaza? Where are the Muslim groups and Jewish groups demanding that Jew hatred be expunged from the Koran and Islamic teachings?

Jews should have stood with SIOE. These cowards put all Jews at risk. If you are too scared to stand up, then shut up!

SOURCE

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On the Collapsing US Dollar

While I am normally not much of a fan of The New York Times, one of their articles in November 2009 about the ballooning US national debt is worth quoting. The White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the national debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion in 2009, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher. Although other industrialized countries have heavy debt loads, too, the United States is a special case because of its sheer size.

Put simple, had the United States been a private person he would have been declared bankrupt by now and put under administration by the bank. But the United States is not a private person; it is still the world’s largest economy and with huge armed forces. It is worth quoting Takuan Seiyo in one of the installments of his brilliant From Meccania to Atlantis series:

“The strongest, most admired country in the world until just a few years ago is now a cautionary tale of the wages of sin and stupidity told to Chinese schoolchildren. A nation that works for a living can weather perhaps even such great storms. But the jobs of the American lower class have been outsourced to imported Mexicans. The jobs of the American middle class have been exported to China and India. The jobs of the American upper-middle class have been taken from the white males who held them by merit, and given to resentful identity groups that hold them by the fiat of the government’s preferred skin colors and favored genitalia. And thejobs of the American upper class have been reprogrammed from leadership and service, to ripping off the less clever via lawyering, banksterism, and padding one’s golden CEO parachute, and then expiation via funding and leading socialist NGOs. A freefalling dollar cannot help by increasing exports, when you have off-shored your manufacturing, and your main industries are predatory lawsuits, selling shoddy American housing to Salvadorians with faked mortgages, and marketing financial weapons of mass destruction worldwide. And a falling dollar is not a good inducement for the world to keep buying dollar-denominated U.S. debt. The cessation of that buying has such dire consequences tothe United States that Chinese strategists have named them ‘the nuclear option.’”

I have sometimes encountered Americans online who are convinced that they will face an armed conflict with a rising China in the future. Perhaps. But they often seem to take it for granted that such a conflict will be triggered by Chinese aggression against “foreign devils.” I’m not so sure about that. Right now I don’t see what interest the Chinese should have in provoking a war. They are currently behaving smarter than the Americans in many respects. I suspect that the Chinese are quite happy with selling cheap toasters tothe United States while their presidents are bankrupting the country by making the world safe for sharia, their businesses are outsourcing jobs to Asia and their universities are educating Asian students.

The USA, on the other hand, is a country with a massive national debt and large armed forces, a potent combination which has facilitated wars in the past. I don’t rule out the possibility that Chinese nationalists could create trouble at some point but frankly, if there is a war between China and the United States in the near future it may well be triggered by the USA, not China.

Whether the Americans, whose armed forces are infiltrated by Muslim Jihadists and Mexican gang members, would win a conventional war is a different matter. After the Muslim Nidal Hasan killed many of his fellow soldiers the US military intensified its efforts to recruit more Muslims to the military. Recruiting people from hostile cultures to protect your country is the behavior of nations that want to die, and apparently, that is what the West now wants to do.

The US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was named Time magazine’s Person of the Year for “saving” the global economy. Man of the Year, as the award was called before our gender neutral age, has earlier been awarded to Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin (twice), the Ayatollah Khomeini and other distinguished gentlemen, so Mr. Bernanke is in good company.

Yet as the insightful financial observer Karl Denninger states, “Bernanke’s actions have singularly done more damage to the American economy - and America - than anyone in the history of this nation. He clearly eclipses Nixon in his dissembling, while making a mockery of the free market.” This is because “By encouraging the bubble economy during Greenspan's time in The Fed (Bernanke was the chief agitator for 1% interest rates - and holding them too low during the early part of the 2000s) and trying to restart the bubble economy this time around through both ZIRP and intentional distortions through the credit markets, shielding those who made bad decisions while cramming the inflationary pressures down the throat of trading partners, Bernanke has guaranteed the loss of global reserve currency status for The Dollar. Our Senate is too stupid to recognize this and stop his re-nomination.”

Regarding the financial crisis of 2008, Denninger comments that “We have fixed nothing in the last two years.” In his view, “…the root problem is an excessive level of debt in the system at all levels, a level of debt that exceeds capacity to pay, and as a consequence any and all attempts to restart the credit-driven consumption economy would fail, and if pressed too far the government will fail. The evidence strongly suggests that you are getting awfully close to your last chance to stop being stupid before the market hands you a lesson that has the potential to destroy both our economy and government.”

In case Europeans believe that the EU is in a much better shape, the same man also claims that the Eurozone is “an absolute train wreck” which is “dancing with jugs of nitroglycerine.”

The price of gold will probably continue to rise. Investors buy precious metals because they no longer trust many currencies, above all the US dollar, and they are right to distrust the dollar. Although the price of gold has already risen significantly, the expatriate American investor Jim Rogers believes this is not a bubble since virtually nobody still owns gold. As a friend of mine comments, “I think gold is going to hold the level for a while now, for some months bordering to half a year. Then, due to the money-printing, the sky will be the limit.”

I have heard several people who are into precious metals state that silver is currently preferable to gold, and platinum may be a good bet as well. Exactly which precious metal is better I will leave to the experts, but a combination of all three might be sensible, in addition to property or other assets. This could be one of the few cases where “diversity” really is a good thing. An ancient and time-tested advice is to never put all of your eggs in one basket.

According to blogger Dennis Mangan, “While predictions are difficult to make, especially about the future, Williams marshals the facts that support his analysis. Runaway government spending, aided and abetted by massive printing of dollars by the Federal reserve, have doomed the dollar. It is only a matter of timing. A hyperinflation will be accompanied by political upheaval and, in my opinion, could see the end of the U.S. as we know it. What shape that upheaval would take is anyone's guess.”

Not all observers agree that the USA is facing a hyperinflation; there are those who believe the result will rather be a serious deflation. Whatever will be the end result it is quite evident thatthe United States is now headed for turbulent times, financially and politically. Since ethnic diversity is rapidly increasing and national cohesion is decreasing correspondingly, a Second American Civil War could be considered one of several possible outcomes.

Frankly, I suspect that more or less the entire Western world is heading for serious financial instability and Multicultural tribalistic violence in the coming generation. The most important thing that the common man can do in such turbulent times is to be mentally and physically prepared to protect the life and property of his family as best as he can until the dust settles. This includes having guns and ammunition as well as money. All things considered I believe that Americans and Westerners in general would be smart to invest some of their savings in metals as soon as possible, starting with gold, silver and lead, not necessarily in that order.

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ELSEWHERE

Judge mulls key issues in US murder trial: "A judge is weighing a critical legal question in the case of a man who confessed to killing one of the few late-term abortion providers in the U.S.: Can the man claim at his trial that the slaying was justified to save the lives of unborn children? Scott Roeder, a 51-year-old Kansas City, Missouri, man, is charged with one count of premeditated, first-degree murder in Dr. George Tiller’s death and two counts of aggravated assault for allegedly threatening two ushers during the May 31 melee in the foyer of the doctor’s Wichita church.”

Dodd slips $100 million for hospital into “reform” bill: "A $100 million item for construction of a university hospital was inserted in the Senate health care bill at the request of Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., who faces a difficult re-election campaign, his office said Sunday night. The legislation leaves it up to the Health and Human Services Department to decide where the money should be spent, although spokesman Bryan DeAngelis said Dodd hopes to claim it for the University of Connecticut.”

More homosexual aggression: "A Memphis attorney is being sued in connection with biting off a portion of a man’s nose at a Midtown restaurant. In a lawsuit filed this week by Greg Herbers, 48, local trial attorney Mark Lambert is accused of biting off part of Herbers’ nose during a fight last June at Dish in Cooper Young. The dispute started when Herbers, a self-employed hairstylist, entered the restroom around 9 p.m. and noticed the one stall was occupied by two men ‘performing some activity other than going to the bathroom.’ Herbers claims that when he told the men he needed to use the toilet, Lambert, who was standing at the urinal but appeared to know the men in the stall, became aggressive.”

In praise of Sweden: "We’re all familiar with the idea that Sweden is a social democratic hellhole where you cannot keep even an extra penny or krone for yourself but it gets taxed off you and used for the benefit of ’society.’ But as our Danish correspondent has been pointing out here those Nordic social democracies are not quite as they seem. High tax rates, yes, high levels of redistribution, yes, but underneath that social democratic bonnet there’s (to use the phrase of one commentator here) a surprisingly liberal capitalist economy purring along.” [See also some of my comments on Sweden here -- JR]

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Freedom doesn’t have to ask the government for permission

The federal government was created by people who were sick and tired of a king’s government that controlled every facet of life. They wrote a Constitution that explicitly limited the power of the new government. Under this new government, individuals were free to pursue happiness as they chose. In 200 years, this new nation of free people created prosperity unmatched in all of history.

While free people were busy pursuing their happiness, others were free to pursue political power. Throughout the 20th century, a cancer grew in the very fabric of freedom. The idea that the role of government is to provide for its citizens is a return to the dark ages when the prevailing thought was that without the protection of a benevolent government (king), man’s life was, as Thomas Hobbes put it, “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.”

The people who share Hobbes’ philosophy have been called by many labels over the years, but they all fit rather nicely into the ideas expressed most eloquently in modern times by Karl Marx.

It matters not what labels are pinned on the people who want to put government in charge of individual lives; what matters is that freedom cannot exist when it requires the permission of government. Freedom cannot co-exist with a government that insists on controlling its citizens

The people who have found life to be “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short,” are eager for government to take control of their lives, and the lives - and fortunes - of those people whose pursuit of happiness has produced prosperity. When government assumes control it can “spread the wealth around.”

The war in Washington is far more than a battle between political parties; it is a war for the survival of America. Forget the labels; forget the political affiliation. Focus on the people who believe that America must remain a nation that honors its’ Constitution and cherishes the freedom of every individual. These are the people who must be elected. People who want to transform the foundation of America must be rejected. Freedom cannot co-exist with a government that insists on controlling its citizens.

For generations, government has been moving away from the idea of Constitutional limitations. Now, Congress no longer even pays lip-service to the Article 1, Section 8 Congressional limitations of power. Now, led by a devout, admitted, “wealth-spreader,” the federal government is moving rapidly to bury all traces of individual freedom. The new government now under construction will require that the pursuit of happiness begin at the desk of a federal bureaucrat, and follow only the path prescribed by government.

The federal government has already imposed, or is imposing, what is called Sustainable Development. This “sound-good” label obscures the control that government exercises over where an individual may live, what type of transportation must be used, and even the kind of materials that may be used in his home. This is not freedom; this is tyranny.

Government has taken control of land use through wetland, critical habitat, urban boundary zones, and other control mechanisms. Government is attempting to take control over all water in the United States, as well as the activities that may affect water (S-787).

Government ignored its Constitutional limitation when it used its citizens’ money to bail out those financial institutions it favored, while allowing others to go broke. Government didn’t even consider the Constitution when it fired the CEO of General Motors, reorganized a private corporation and used tax dollars to buy a controlling interest.

Government is taking control over energy use by declaring carbon dioxide to be a pollutant, and allowing the EPA to regulate it. Government is attempting to create a “cap & trade” program that will not only control the energy available to individuals, but will also produce windfall profits for the government at the expense of the individual.

Nothing in the Constitution authorizes the government to take control of the health care industry. Nevertheless, legislation now pending will create more than 100 new bureaucracies to take control of virtually every facet of health care.

The federal government has become the tyrannical king that our forefathers fought so hard to cast off. The next two elections will determine whether the great American experiment succeeds – or not. The current majority in Washington, which obviously rejects the idea of limited government and individual freedom, must be removed, or at least significantly reduced, in 2010. In 2012, a whole new regime must capture the Capitol.

Support those who support the Constitution. Only candidates who demonstrate their reverence for the Constitution by pledging to vote only for legislation that cites its Constitutional authority should be elected. The people who must be removed from Washington are those who vote for government’s takeover of all water, energy use, or health care. There is no way a politician can “preserve, protect, and defend” the U.S. Constitution while allowing the government to ignore the limitations imposed upon it by the Constitution.

Patriots must look beyond party affiliation to see how individual politicians vote. Support those who support the Constitution and its principles of freedom. Reject all others.

SOURCE

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The Party of Repeal

In 1994, Republicans seized control of Congress, largely due to their Contract With America pledge which resonated with the electorate. The same concept will work for the 2010 election — if Republicans have the guts and the foresight to run with it. Note I used the word "concept," because this time their pledge should center around a completely different set of promises.

To begin with, Republicans must understand that Democrats and their media lapdogs are unwittingly doing them a huge favor by referring to them as obstructionists for refusing to abide Democrats' intention to socialize America. They should take that obstructionist label and double down on it: Republicans must become the "Party of Repeal." To wit:

If Democrats pass government-run health insurance, Republicans must first tell Americans they want no part of it — and them tell them that if they become a majority in 2010, they will repeal it.

Ditto for a host of other leftist agendas. Cap-and-trade passes? We'll "unpass" it. Terrorist trials in civilian courts? We'll overturn the Attorney General's decision by crafting a law stating that all non-citizen terrorists will stand before military tribunals. Democrats pass illegal immigration "reform?" We'll toss it overboard and enforce the laws already on the books — and we'll also cut federal funds to all "sanctuary cities" until they comply with those laws.

Runaway government spending? We'll peg federal spending to inflation and population growth, and come up with a realistic plan to reduce federal debt — including a pledge that no Republican will ever again add a single earmark to any federal bill. Democrats raise taxes? We'll lower them and get America working again.

Gutsy? Only if Republicans ignore the reality that Americans identify themselves as forty percent conservative, thirty-five percent independent and twenty-one percent liberal. Only if they have managed to miss the stunning uptick in people supportive of Tea Party Americans who have prospered despite a relentless bashing by the mainstream media and Democrats.

Only if they don't understand that one of the primal fears of most Americans is that once a government program is enacted, it is forever.

Republicans can make it crystal clear that nothing is forever, especially anything which has the capacity to undermine two hundred and thirty three years of individualism, freedom and prosperity.

If Republicans need reassurance that standing against rampant liberalism is a potential winner, perhaps they should cast their collective gaze toward Florida where their own "machine politician," Charlie Crist, has just been caught from behind by conservative upstart — and virtual unknown — Marco Rubio. This is happening despite Crist's huge advantage with regard to both campaign funding and name recognition. At the very least, such a startling development should tell them that Republicans are fed up with the status quo. Add the gubernatorial victory of Chris Christie in bluer-than-blue New Jersey — by an "ACORN-proof" one hundred thousand vote margin — and maybe Republicans might get the idea that moderates are ripe for the taking as well.

Moderates plus conservatives? Even the most math-challenged Republicans should be inspired by the possibilities.

One of the great strategies in selling anything is to turn a negative into a positive. Democrats and the media have excoriated Republicans, labeling them the "Party of No." Republicans should wear that label like a badge of honor — if they truly care about the country. A sizable majority of Americans are fed up with big — and getting bigger — government. If Republicans can't see that, they're comatose.

SOURCE

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A lesson from Greece for America

If you don't think heavy regulation, elephantine bureaucracies, union rule and runaway spending amount to poison for an economy, take a gander at what decades of such socialist policies have done to Greece. Last week, the tiny Balkan state seemed like a blazing house threatening to set the rest of its European Union neighborhood on fire.

It started when Greece earned the first of two sovereign downgrades from ratings agency Fitch over its $436 billion budget deficit. Then Standard & Poor's cut Greece to BBB+ from A- and sternly warned that if the government didn't get serious about controlling its spending, the downgrade wouldn't be its last. Through the week, investors dumped Greek bonds, and word rose that Greece would need a bailout from the European Union.

European leaders such as German Chancellor Angela Merkel loudly said no to that Wednesday, but it didn't help. By Thursday, Greece's problem became Europe's problem, with the euro tumbling to a three-month low against the dollar while U.S. Treasury prices -- a traditional safe haven for sovereign investors -- soared. On Friday, S&P announced "a more pronounced and faster economic deterioration than we previously anticipated" for Greece, with a "protracted hard landing" next.

The whole crisis has a perfectly logical basis: Greece's budget deficit is more than four times higher than the European Union's 3% ceiling and stands at 12.7% of GDP. Its gross debt, at 112% of GDP, indicates it has more debt than productive output. And its socialist government has no credible plan to quit spending. Years of embedded socialism -- in spending, labor and regulatory practices -- are responsible. They've enabled the government to consume the very economy that's supposed to sustain it.

Even supposedly right-of-center parties spent state cash the same way. The last party in power was nominally conservative, but failed to stop expansion of government. It kept hiring, kowtowed to union demands for fear of strikes and did little to change the culture's gimme-gimme mentality. Bureaucrats were hired like there was no tomorrow. These state employees are union members who can never be fired no matter how nasty, lazy or corrupt. Layers of such people go into ministries as payoffs for political favors.

The newly elected socialist prime minister, George Papandreou, claims he's cleaning up. He has denounced corruption and asked to freeze public hiring and pay. He has proposed to cut social security 10%, perhaps privatize state firms and gut military expenditures -- easy to do with the U.S. doing the heavy lifting in Afghanistan.

Papandreou still can't bring himself to lay the blame where it belongs -- on big government. Instead, he makes bankers the scapegoat, calling for a 90% tax on bank bonuses and vowing to end tax exemptions for everyone else to raise more revenues for the state. His own party blames foreigners. "This group dismisses Greece's financial predicament as a short-lived west European conspiracy to discredit the socialist government," according to a socialist policymaker quoted in the Financial Times.

Papandreou also has vowed to protect the little guys in the bureaucracy, making them immune to discipline even if they protest meager cuts. Already the communist labor union PAME has roused 5,000 teachers and hospital workers to strike, warning Papandreou to cut nothing and blaming the "greedy" private sector. "Papandreou, remember who elected you," the strikers shouted. Newspapers followed with their own work stoppage, and two of the bigger Greek unions warned the government to go gore someone else's ox.

With a shrinking private sector, that's getting harder. One in four Greeks is employed by the state, and 422,000 Greeks -- 10% of the work force -- are unemployed. Salaries and prices are as high as Germany's, but productivity is not. Job mobility is the most rigid in Europe. In 2009, Greece ranked second worst in Europe on the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom.

This culmination of years of runaway socialism has left the public resentful, bitter and unwilling to pay taxes. "Why should I pay?" a Greek citizen told the New York Times. "I don't care about my government, I don't care about my country." Greece may be Europe's problem for now, but the lesson should not be lost on the rest of us.

SOURCE

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The Bondage of Debt

Obama's huge spending has already devalued the dollar, which means that the low prices Americans have been accustomed to pay for goods made overseas will rise -- thus making everyone poorer -- as a dollar buys less. And that process is just beginning

In the Old Testament book of Proverbs, King Solomon details the differences in thought, word, and deed between a wise man and a fool. In addressing the foolishness associated with borrowing money, he makes clear the relationship between debt and servitude: No man can truly be free when he is bound by financial indebtedness to another. It's clear, however, that the danger of debt is something a majority of the American people—including members of Congress and our President—have yet to take seriously. Even though our national debt is spiraling out of control, we appear unwilling to change our spendthrift ways.

Congress has just taken action to increase our national debt limit by $290 billion—bringing our debt ceiling to a whopping $12.4 trillion. This, after two years of unprecedented spending during which time we accrued the same amount of debt that we accumulated in the first 200 years of our nation's history. No matter how much money Uncle Sam extracts for his coffers, however, it appears it's never enough. The demand for entitlements continues to grow and liberals in government are only too willing to accommodate that demand by expanding the power of the nanny state. Contemporary society has been taught that when it comes to the world of finance, credit is king. Credit, we are told, is how we finance the good life. When Gordon Gekko told us that greed was good, we apparently believed him, and set about to prove his point.

But, as the old saying goes, there's no such thing as a free lunch. The United States cannot continue on this path of fiscal gluttony indefinitely. With every dollar we borrow, we sacrifice more and more of our freedom.

As individuals, we've come to rely increasingly on those credit cards in our wallets, charging 40 cents out of every dollar we spend. We finance everything: our homes, our vehicles, our educations, our entertainment...even basic essentials like food and clothing are more often than not purchased on credit in today's marketplace. Thanks to the folks at American Express, Visa, MasterCard, and Discover, the American worker's penchant for champagne and caviar need not be stymied by the constraints of a beer budget.

As a nation, we've racked up nearly $12 trillion in debt and have seen the budget deficit soar from $455 billion to $1.4 trillion in the last year alone. And in the same way a strapped homeowner takes out a second mortgage on his house to stave off financial ruin for one more year, Congress has time and again—in the name of the people's "general welfare" no less—voted to take on more and more debt to fund a ballooning list of appropriations and entitlements.

In the face of this grim economic picture, only one of Solomon's fools could say with a straight face that the American government and her people are economically free. To keep up with our consumption habits, we have surrendered the freedom that comes with true ownership and live in service to our lenders. Because we have lost the discipline and maturity to distinguish our needs from our wants, we find ourselves surrounded by material goods bought on credit. But, one too many missed payments and that luxury vehicle in the driveway will be repossessed, and that McMansion in the suburbs will fall into foreclosure.

The risks associated with excess borrowing are no different at the federal level. As it now stands, 35% of the United States' gross domestic product is comprised of foreign debt. Each year, we are financing a larger and larger chunk of the nation's day to day operations on borrowed money, and each year the cost of servicing this debt goes up. This debt burden not only impacts our fiscal strength, it also significantly compromises our political and diplomatic position on the world stage. When the U.S. Government is beholden to foreign nations because of its debt, it is not free to act in the best interests of the American people, particularly when those interests conflict with the interests of our lenders.

Up to this point, America's approach to dealing with the pressures of our debt has been to take on still more debt and leave the headache to future generations. This folly must end. If we truly value our freedom we must overcome our addiction to debt and learn how to live within our means.

SOURCE

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There is a new lot of postings by Chris Brand just up -- on his usual vastly "incorrect" themes of race, genes, IQ etc.

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Obama: Hysterical exaggeration in a calm voice

President Barack Obama grimly warned America this week that if his health care plans fail, the nation will go "bankrupt." Sure, adding another trillion-dollar entitlement program to our $12 trillion of debt may seem like a counterintuitive way to stave off economic ruin, but who are we to argue? The president's got smarts. And as is the case with so many issues, Obama adorned his rhetoric with sharp warnings of calamity should he fail, fabricated consensus to buttress his case and a promise of rapture should he succeed.

You'll remember it was Obama who cautioned that failure to pass the stimulus boondoggle would "turn a crisis into a catastrophe." He claimed that a failure to act on cap and trade will lead us to "irreversible catastrophe" and that a failure to pass a government-run health care system will mean "more Americans dying every day." It's like living the Old Testament. Scary.

Holy burning bushes! Did you know that everyone -- and I mean everyone -- agrees with the president? Obama stressed this week that you can "talk to every health care economist out there and they will tell you that ... whatever ideas exist in terms of bending the cost curve and starting to reduce costs for families, businesses and government, those elements are in this bill." Not "some" or "most" or "Peter Orszag on a two-day bender" but "every" health care economist in the entire world would tell you as much.

This sort of exaggeration reminds us of another whopper the president unloaded. While promoting the stimulus plan in January, he claimed that "there is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jump-start the economy." No disagreement whatsoever ... until the Cato Institute found 200 economists from major universities across the country who did have a disagreement -- and judging from the stimulus plan's impressive impotence, perhaps Obama should have lent them an ear.

So when Obama says that "whatever ideas exist" to help with cost are featured in the health care bills, let's chalk it up to his propensity to exaggerate, embellish or worse.

What about re-importation of pharmaceuticals developed and manufactured in the United States -- available now more cheaply abroad? Is that an idea that exists? (Drug companies, a group that Obama regularly condemned before cutting a sweetheart deal, made sure that idea was DOA.) What about balancing tax codes so that those with employee-provided health insurance and those with individual health insurance can benefit from the same benefits? Does that idea exist? You don't even need a staff of researchers to find economists who say it does. What about opening up health insurance markets beyond state lines to create competition and more access? What about tort reform to end frivolous lawsuits? What about expanding health savings and flex accounts instead of killing them?

Let's concede that there might be a number of ideas -- both on the left and the right -- that haven't been embraced. Still, the most misleading assertion of the president is that his focus is on bending the cost curve in the right direction -- or that it's even a goal. The prevailing objective of health care "reform" has been to expand coverage to the uninsured and to throw federal control on everyone. Cost has proved to be largely irrelevant -- other than being a political consideration.

Of course, ignoring the substantive ideas of the ideological opposition is not, in and of itself, new for presidents or politicians. But Obama's fondness for creating imaginary consensus and offering false choices to the American people has been something to behold.

SOURCE

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Jealous females can't think straight when talking about Sarah Palin

Calling Rupert Murdoch! There’s an errant hen in the Foxhouse. And she seems to have developed a particular penchant for pecking away at Sarah Palin – the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth notwithstanding. Here’s Chicken Little’s MyFox New York story – in its entirety:

Sarah Palin Blacks Out John McCain's Name on Hat

By LILY FU

Former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin appears to be making a bold statement about her feelings for John McCain. Palin was photographed in Hawaii while vacationing with her family and was sporting a visor that had blacked out "McCain for President," leaving just a faint outline of his name, according to the New York Daily News. See photos from TMZ .

The paper adds that the message on her T-shirt was much more clear -- "If you don't love America," it said on the front, "then why don't you get the hell out," it said on the back.

Palin has been on a nationwide tour promoting her bestselling book "Going Rogue" in which she admits that there was tension between her aides and the McCain camp while on the campaign trail . Palin writes that she was denied the chance to speak on election night and that McCain's people constantly kept her "bottled up" from reporters. McCain has said that he considers Palin's attacks "vicious ."

Now, here’s the rest of the story: If you happen to click on the line “he considers Palin’s attacks “vicious” … lo and behold, it turns out that McCain wasn’t talking about Palin’s attacks on him at all -- he was talking about the media’s attacks on Palin! Here is his actual quote: “’I’ve never seen anything like it in all the years that I’ve been in politics, the viciousness and the personalization of the attacks on Sarah Palin.”

Now, that seems to suggest one of two things: either Ms. Fu can’t read – or she shouldn’t write. Not for Fox News, at any rate. Perhaps it’s time for the Farmer Rupert to toss out some bad eggs. Mr. Murdoch, we report – you decide.

SOURCE

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Penetration Even At The Pentagon: Radical Muslims Setting Muslim Policy

The internal threat from Muslim extremists in the military extends to high-level Defense Department aides who have undermined military policy. In fact, one top Muslim adviser pushed out an intelligence analyst who warned of the sudden jihad syndrome that led to the Fort Hood terrorist attack.

An honored guest of the Ramadan dinner at the Pentagon this September was Hesham Islam, who infiltrated the highest echelons of the Ring despite proven ties to U.S. terror front groups and a shady past in his native Egypt. As senior adviser for international affairs to former deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England, Islam ran interference for the Islamic Society of North America and other radical fronts for the Egypt-based Muslim Brotherhood, the subject of my new book "Muslim Mafia."

For example, Islam persuaded brass to sack a Pentagon analyst, Stephen Coughlin, after he advised cutting off outreach to ISNA, which he accurately ID'd as part of a covert terror-support network in the U.S. -- something the Justice Department recently confirmed in a major terror finance trial.

Islam invited ISNA officials to lunch with the avuncular England, known by insiders as Gullible Gordon, who in turn spoke at ISNA confabs. Islam also helped set up a Pentagon job booth at one recent ISNA convention to recruit Muslim chaplains and linguists. Most disturbing, Islam met regularly with Saudi and other embassy officials lobbying for the release and repatriation of their citizens held at Gitmo. He in turn advised England, who authorized the release of dozens of Gitmo detainees. Some have resumed terrorist activities.

No one really knew who Islam was when he was promoted -- in fact, the Pentagon removed his bio from its Web site after reporters noted major inconsistencies in it -- yet he was allowed to get inside the office of the Pentagon's No. 2 official. "In effect," a senior U.S. Army intelligence official told me, "we've got terrorist supporters calling the shots on our policies toward Muslims from the highest levels."

Meanwhile, politically incorrect prophets like Coughlin have been frozen out. After the betrayal at Fort Hood, the military could use his analysis of Islamic doctrine more than ever. I attended a private briefing by Coughlin in February. In a PowerPoint presentation, he detailed how jihadists use the Quran to justify their actions. Some of his slides matched almost word-for-word Hasan's own PowerPoint slides extolling the virtues of jihad and martyrdom. Both, for instance, quoted from the same Quranic passage known as the "Verse of the Sword."

Eerily, Coughlin predicted Hasan's mind-set. He first began briefing the Pentagon on this jihadist doctrine in 2002. So brass can't say they didn't know. They were warned that the enemy was drawing on religious principles, and that our own Muslim soldiers could succumb to such thinking. And they were warned that by using ISNA and other radical Brotherhood fronts to endorse Muslim chaplains and recruit Muslim soldiers, they were courting enemies of the U.S. -- and courting disaster. But they were too drunk with political correctness to listen.

The jihadist threat to U.S.-based armed forces is external as well as internal -- and far greater than reported. It comes from both inside and outside the military. Fort Hood follows in a line of attacks or plots against military personnel and installations since 2006, when al-Qaida spokesman Adam Gadahn, an American convert to Islam, appeared in a video with Osama bin Laden and encouraged fellow Muslim-Americans to "go on a shooting spree at the Marines' housing facilities at Camp Pendleton" in California. Over the past few years, an alarming number of homegrown Muslim terrorists have targeted military installations, including:

* A North Carolina cell of white converts to Islam who trained to attack Marine headquarters in Quantico, Va.

* A New York cell of black jailhouse converts who planned to down planes at an Air National Guard base with shoulder-fired missiles.

* A lone Muslim convert who shot two soldiers at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting station, killing one.

* A Los Angeles cell of black Muslim converts who plotted to hit military bases in California.

* A New Jersey cell of hardened jihadists who trained to attack Fort Dix by posing as pizza delivery drivers.

The Fort Dix terrorists had also talked about joining the U.S. Army so they could kill U.S soldiers from the "inside." They planned to hit the post just days after a National Guard unit arrived back from Gitmo. Some of them were inspired by al-Qaida preacher Anwar Awlaki, who on his Yemen-based Web site calls for jihad against U.S. military targets inside and outside the U.S.

But so do so-called moderate American clerics like Zaid Shakir. In "Muslim Mafia," I transcribe for readers a CD recording of one of his sermons circulating in mosques across America. In it, he exhorts the Muslim faithful to attack planes carrying the 82nd Airborne. Frequently booked by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as a guest speaker at its events, Shakir tells his Muslim audience: "Jihad is physically fighting the enemies of Islam to protect and advance the religion of Islam. This is jihad." Acceptable targets of jihad, he says, include U.S. military aircraft. "Islam doesn't permit us to hijack airplanes filled with civilian people," he said, but "if you hijack an airplane filled with the 82nd Airborne, that's something else."

The 82nd Airborne is based out of Fort Bragg, which is part of North Carolina state Sen. Larry Shaw's home district. Shaw is CAIR's new chairman. He is also a minority contractor who operates Shaw Food Services Co. near Fort Bragg. According to the legislator's financial disclosure form, Shaw Food customers include the Defense Department. Yet CAIR, like ISNA, is an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator. The FBI says CAIR is a terrorist front group and has cut off formal ties to it. So should the military. Will Fort Bragg be next? Does anybody care?

More HERE

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Radical Is as Radical Appoints

I'm wondering whether there's anyone out there with the guts to pretend that it's insignificant that President Barack Obama keeps appointing radical after radical to his czar positions. Can anyone honestly say Obama's appointments don't tell us a great deal about Obama himself -- as if we needed any further proof he is a left-wing extremist?

I don't need to make a list of his radical appointees and detail proof of their extremism. Anyone paying attention knows it's irrefutably true that this has become a deliberate pattern. Statistically, Obama couldn't accidentally appoint this many radicals in two political lifetimes. Is he rubbing these people in our faces or just surrounding himself with like-minded soul mates -- or both? My educated guess is "both" because his general attitude toward governance has been utterly dictatorial. He knows what's best for America -- the type of America he envisions, anyway -- and he will proceed to implement it, full well knowing that he's violating the will of the majority every step of the way.

It's truly sad to me that our federal government has expanded to the point that no one flinches at the thought that we need some federal bureaucrat in charge of making our local schools indoctrination facilities for homosexuality, er, safe. As you know, Obama appointed known homosexual activist Kevin Jennings for the position.

Why would Obama, a self-professed Christian, choose Jennings, who admitted in his 2006 memoirs that he harbored a deep-seated hatred for God and religious believers at the time he embraced a homosexual lifestyle? Jennings wrote: "Before, I was the one who was failing God; now I decided He was the one who had failed me. ... I decided I had done nothing wrong: He had, by promising to 'set you free' and never delivering on His promise. What had He done for me, other than make me feel shame and guilt? Squat. Screw you, buddy -- I don't need you around anymore, I decided."

Jennings may have since modified his beliefs, but it's still clear that he hates Christian conservatives. LifeSiteNews.com reports that he told fellow homosexual activists in 2000 that members of the "religious right" were "hard-core bigots" who should "drop dead." He said he really wanted to tell them, "F--- you!" He was also on the advisory board for a 2001 PBS documentary "that slammed" the Boy Scouts of America for its policy of excluding homosexuals from membership. This video was then promoted at gay pride conventions to galvanize homosexuals against the Scouts.

More here

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BrookesNews Update

The US economy is looking very sick indeed : There has been a massive increase in the reserves of depository institutions which now pose an immense inflationary threat to the US economy. In the meantime, the monetary figures suggest an inadvertent tightening in credit that will have a detrimental impact on economic activity. The fall in capital orders could be an unwelcome sign of this event
The Australian economy is looking super - but is it a mirage? : Serious distortions could be developing in the Australian economy, one sign of which could be manufacturing as a proportion of GDP shrinking further while what is left becomes overly oriented to serving the mining industry in response to China's growing demand for our minerals
What has Obama accomplished? : Ignored by the left and the media, however, is the inconvenient fact that every single policy promoted by Obama and passed by congress has been a dismal failure. From the jobs 'stimulus' package that has cost taxpayers a whopping
Israel must not waste time on rebuke : Endless amounts of time and millions of dollars are wasted on rebuking false accusations and deliberate distortions of the facts of history as well as the current 'reality' invented by Arabs, made by traditional anti-Semites, self-hating Jews and all sorts of sophisticated and primitive xenophobes
Taking the wind out of energy : Spain's alternative energy policy has turned into an economic disaster, something any free market economist could have predicted. Spain's painful experience ought to be taken into account at the upcoming Copenhagen summit on climate change. In recent years, many countries, including the United States, have touted the Spanish model as an inspiration. They really need to look again
Look who's clubbing Tiger Woods now : For black activist Democrats, Tiger is not a self-determining soul, but a black man who must live by - and never violate - their constraining tribal rules. They are furious at Tiger - not because he cheated on his wife, but because his wife is white, and all of his affairs were with white women. Moreover, he has always refused to play the race. Now it's payback time
America's Great Leap Forward : Like Mao, Obama will most likely never be held to account when the socialist, big government policies he has championed fail. And fail they must. History shows us that. The American people will, once again, be forced to pay the very real price for Obama's naive attempt to prove socialism is a workable theory, as long as its Obama's version

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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The crooked British Left again

Vandals deface town war memorial

A Royal British Legion boss says vandals have “dishonoured those who have given their lives for our country” by defacing Burton's war memorial. Roy Whenman, vice-chairman of the town’s Legion branch, received calls from members saying an extremist message had been written on the statue.

Having been informed at 9.20am, borough council chiefs had cleaned the graffiti from the relic, situated outside Burton College, in Lichfield Street, by 9.40am.

Mr Whenman, of Birches Close, Stretton, has described whoever committed the offence as “diabolical”. He said: “There’s nothing worse, in my eyes, than discrediting a war memorial. It dishonours those who have given their lives for our country. “I don’t know how long it was there for, but I was pleasantly surprised by the council’s quick action and I commend them for it.

Dennis Fletcher, chairman of East Staffordshire Racial Equality Council, said he suspected someone from the far right was responsible.

More HERE

Do you wonder why the graffiti got cleaned off so quickly? 20 minutes is the speed of light for a British bureaucracy. The picture of it below may help. The details below were "removed" from most pictures of the vandalized memorial



Those dastardly "Far Rightists"!

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What Do Believers In Global Warming, Supporters Of Obamacare, And The New York Times Have In Common?

Overweening arrogance

Given the heavy and increasing opposition to Obamacare, Byron York asks in the Washington Examiner, “why are Democrats dead-set on hurting themselves?” “Because,” he asks “a Democratic strategist” who for understandable reasons wants to remain anonymous,

they think they know what’s best for the public,” the strategist said. “They think the facts are being distorted and the public’s being told a story that is not entirely true, and that they are in Congress to be leaders. And they are going to make the decision because Goddammit, it’s good for the public.

Ben Stein makes a similar point in The American Spectator, referring to climategate.

Based upon a great deal of data, many scientists have come up with a theory that human activity is wrecking the climate of the planet and that if the wise, good people are not allowed to compel the stupid, evil people to change their ways drastically, terrible things will happen.

Never mind “that there is major controversy about whether global warming is really happening in a long-term way” or “whether whatever climate change is occurring is anthropogenic....” If you are in any way skeptical of even the more extreme global warming claims or in fact if you disagree with any of a number of favored liberal nostrums, you are either stupid or evil, or both, and in addition, as I argue in a not quite published piece that I will come back and link later, you are “on the wrong side of history.”

This all-knowing, morally self-congratulatory, superciliously sneering attitude of superiority is now so endemic on the left that it has even begun to attack, and thus offend, some of its natural allies. Thus, with fury supported by chapter and verse evidence, this is how Feminist Law Professors summarizes a “contempt-laden” recent New York Times piece: “From the NYT: You Dumb Women are Opposing the New Mammogram Recommendations Because You Don’t Understand Science or Math.

The left is increasingly embattled and defensive, but circling the wagons and then shooting everyone inside the circle has not historically proved to be a winning tactic.

SOURCE

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Poll: Tea Party Patriots Most Popular

The Tea Party Patriots conservative grassroots movement is now more popular than either major party according to a major new poll. According to the new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday, 41 percent of likely voters now have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party Patriots. That compares to a 35 percent favorable rating for Democrats and 28 percent for the GOP.

The stunning conclusion: If the Tea Party Patriots were a political party – it is increasingly shifting its emphasis in a nonpartisan political direction – it would be the most popular party in America.

The results suggest voter antipathy toward both major parties is more profound than initially recognized. It also indicates that the left-wing bloggers and talk hosts who have consistently derided the Tea Party Patriots throughout the year with an obscene “tea bagger” reference are out of step with the American people. “This is stunning to me just because it shows how angry Americans are – the Tea Party movement [is] more popular than both major parties,” MSNBC Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough said Thursday. “The parties are dying.”

NBC chief political correspondent Chuck Todd observed: “Candidates that align themselves against Washington and Wall Street are going to have good success right now in 2010.”

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll also reflected the results of other surveys that have shown President Obama’s approval rating dipping below 50 percent. The survey states only 47 percent approve of his job performance. Also, only 39 percent say they have confidence in his goals and policies. Todd described it as “a bad poll for the president.”

SOURCE

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Democratic districts receive nearly twice the amount of stimulus funds as GOP districts

A new analysis of the $157 billion distributed by the American Reinvestment and Recovery act, popularly known as the stimulus bill, shows that the funds were distributed without regard for what states were most in need of jobs. “You would think that if the stimulus money was actually spent to create jobs, there would be more stimulus money spent in high unemployment states,” said Veronique de Rugy, a scholar at the Mercatus Center who produced the analysis. "But we don't find any correlation."

The Mercatus Center at George Mason University in Virginia is one of the nation's most respected economic and regulatory think tanks and has a Nobel prize-winning economist on staff. The econometric analysis was done using data provided by Recovery.gov -- the government website devoted to tracking the stimulus data -- as well as a host of other government databases.

Additionally, Mercatus found that stimulus funds were not disbursed geographically with any special regard for low-income Americans. “We find no correlation between economic indicators and stimulus funding. Preliminary results find no statistically significant effect of unemployment, median income or mean income on stimulus funds allocation,” said the report.

The Mercatus Center analysis also found that Democratic congressional districts received on average almost double the funding of Republican congressional districts. Republican congressional districts received on average $232 million in stimulus funds while Democratic districts received $439 million on average. “We found that there is a correlation [relating to the partisanship of congressional districts],” de Rugy said. Her regression analysis found that stimulus funds are expected to decrease by 24.19 percent if a district is represented by a Republican.

“During the appropriations process, you're not surprised to see the Democrats are getting more money, but in this case a lot of the money we're looking at is going through HUD [Department of Housing and Urban Development], or Department of Education, Department of Transportation etc. and they're following a formula,” she said. “But the correlation exists, and not only does it exist -- when you look at how much money we're talking about, it's a pretty big deal.”

The analysis found that neither congressional leadership positions of local members nor presidential preference in 2008 were factors in stimulus allocation by congressional district.

Finally, the Mercatus analysis shows that a majority of the funds allocated went to public rather than private entities -- nearly $88 billion to $69 billion. While some of the money given to public entities may eventually filter down to the private sector, it's much less transparent how money given to public entities is spurring economic growth and job creation.

SOURCE

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The decline of the almighty dollar

Financial and economic leaders around the globe have finally gained an understanding of just how damaged and weakened the United States is becoming with the daily devaluation of the American dollar. Historically, the United States has never experienced a massive collapse of its currency as have Russia, Argentina and other countries.

However, the recklessness of our current fiscal policy is causing other sophisticated global players to get fed up — and for legitimate reasons. They are made vulnerable by the actions of a belligerent few, and are positioning themselves to do what any other sane person would: seek alternatives in case the dollar collapses.

It’s sad to think that right now the defense of our aimless fiscal policy is to hold the other countries so close to our chest that they will drown with us unless we succeed. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to do this forever. What happens when they see the light?

Before Nixon, we had the gold standard; after Nixon, we were given fiat money — therefore, the government used manipulations to increase the value of the dollar. Now we have more than one major economic player in the global economy that realizes the deception behind the value of the dollar and wants an alternative.

BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China), let me introduce the BRIC-plus-1 and we'll rename it CRIBS, adding South Africa is already looking to create the next largest world currency — one that will be pegged to oil. This will be an extreme threat to the dollar, because trading oil in dollars is one thing that gives that currency much of its value.

Currently, the fiscal policy of America should force politicians to seek solutions that restore the integrity of the dollar so our children have a future. Buenos Aires was at one point among the top 10 most expensive cities to travel to. Now it is a discount destination where the people have little to no hope for economic mobility.

SOURCE

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ELSEWHERE

To whom is a business manager morally responsible?: "Over the last several decades the field of business ethics has become very popular in colleges and universities, including business schools, around the world. Actually, other professional ethics courses have also gained entry into the medical, legal, engineering, and other curriculums. (Oddly, though, the ethics of education and scholarship have not joined this trend!) In the field of business ethics the focus has tended to be on what has come to be called the theory of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). This view takes it as a given, not in need of a lot of argument, that what corporations ought to do, first and foremost, is to benefit society and not those who own the firm.”

A380s are just too complex. Something is always breaking down. One day it will be serious: "An Airbus A380 superjumbo had to turn around mid-flight and land back in Paris due to an electrical fault, a spokesman for its operator Singapore Airlines said. "We had an electrical current fault in the kitchen areas and the captain turned the plane round two hours into the flight to return to Charles de Gaulles airport so it could be fixed," the spokesman said. It was a "minor fault which does not at all compromise the safety of passengers or the crew," he said. "But if it wasn't repaired they could not have served hot food and drinks." It was at least the fourth time an A380 flight had been disrupted by a technical fault. A glitch grounded an A380 operated by Air France in New York on Monday. Last month an Air France A380 was forced to turn around and land in New York after a fault with its navigation system, days after the airline started flying the superjumbo. Air France cited "a minor computer problem" in that incident. An A380 flown by Singapore Airlines also had to return to Paris on September 27 after one of its four engines failed during a flight to Singapore."

Groupthink as a political mental illness: "Since the first publication of Victims of Groupthink, many researchers have been moved to study, to support, or to refute both Janis's theories and the implications of groupthink. Whatever has motivated any of these people, one thing is clear; that single work has been the starting point for many, if not all of these studies, and research on this phenomenon uniformly refers to Janis as the originator of the concept of groupthink, as well as its definer." [Slow-loading site. Another copy here]

Massive failures: "How many times, in the last year, have I heard praise for FDR's banking reforms, even down to the specifics of federal deposit insurance? The funny thing is, this factoid is false. Roosevelt opposed deposit insurance. Everyone did who at that time knew the history of the states that had experimented with this form of subsidy. Only logrolling pushed deposit insurance into law as a known special favor to small banks in rural areas - not to cure the nation's ills."

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

List of backup or "mirror" sites here or here -- for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is "down" or failing to update. Email me here (Hotmail address). My Home Pages are here (Academic) or here (Pictorial) or here (Personal)

****************************

The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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Once again Obama says one thing and does the opposite

"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," President Obama told "60 Minutes" onSunday, the eve of White House meeting with top Wall Street bankers. This line, and the credulous media coverage that followed, fed the image of Obama as the people's crusader against the wealthy special interests. But if you skip the rhetoric and focus instead on verifiable facts -- campaign contributions, administration appointees, White House visitor logs, Obama's bailouts and even his proposed regulations -- you see instead that Obama may be closer to Wall Street than any modern president.

Obama raised $14.8 million from Wall Street in the 2008 election, according to the Center for Responsive Politics -- more than any politician ever, and more than George W. Bush raised in both of his elections combined. From the fattest cat, Goldman Sachs, Obama raised $997,095, more than four times McCain's Goldman haul and more than any candidate has raised from any single company since the McCain-Feingold campaign finance regulations.

Then there's the revolving door between Wall Street and the West Wing, spinning as rapidly as ever. Citigroup's and Goldman's tentacles into the White House have been well-documented by Obama critics on the Right (most thoroughly by Michelle Malkin in her best-seller "Culture of Corruption") and the Left (most famously by Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone).

And on the substance, Obama's policies and proposals have been a boon to Wall Street interests. Begin with the bailout. Back in September 2008, Barack Obama was the only man outside of the Bush administration who could have blocked that $700 billion corporate welfare boondoggle. Had Obama opposed this transfer of wealth to fat-cat bankers, it would have died in the Democrat-controlled Congress. Since becoming president, Obama has ramped up the bailout machine, notably by creating a new double bailout program called the Public-Private Investment Partnership that relies on subsidies from both the FDIC and the Federal Reserve.

Then Obama rewarded the captains of Team Bailout 2008. Timothy Geithner, who ran the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, steered government through the creative bailouts of Bear Stearns and AIG. Obama put Geithner in charge of Treasury (and Geithner picked a Goldman Sachs lobbyist as his chief of staff). Obama also renominated Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, the other savior of the Wall Street giants last fall. Obama praised him for his "outside-the-box" thinking. For a president who talks like a reluctant bank saver, Obama certainly has bought into the bailout apparatus with enthusiasm.

But with his new regulations, Obama claims he's calling these banks to heel after using taxpayer money to save them. This is just more example of Obama's shadowboxing. In truth, he's nearly on the same page as the bankers. The AP reported Monday that Wall Street CEOs "believe the president has mischaracterized them as being against the new rules, when in fact they support the vast majority of the administration's proposals."

"I have no intention of letting their lobbyists thwart reform," Obama warned. But neither, apparently, do the lobbyists. The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, the lobby for Wall Street, applauded the House's passage of financial regulation last week, stating, "There is no doubt that the industry shares the same goal of reforming our financial system as President Obama and the Congress."

Obama's tough talk towards lobbyists looks even more absurd when you see who these lobbyists are. Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Credit Suisse, ING and the Investment Company Institute are all clients of the Podesta Group, co-founded by Obama's transition director, John Podesta, and the first K Street firm to hire away an Obama administration official. Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, the Futures Industry Association, the Managed Funds Association and SIFMA are all clients of Steven Elmendorf, a top Democratic lobbyist who has visited the White House at least five times. American Bankers Association lobbyist Edward Yingling has visited at least six times.

These banks and lobbies have some disagreements with the president, but they are not the intransigent opponents he portrays them to be. But admitting to cordial relations with Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan would pierce Obama's crusader image. As his climate bill turns into a corporate porkfest and his health care reform turns into an insurer's and drug maker's dream, Obama needs to keep at least one imaginary corporate enemy.

SOURCE

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Obama: Just another crooked and destructive politician

The White House thinks it can jawbone banks into lending to people they don't want to lend to. We've been down this road before, and it led all the way to the 2007 financial meltdown. The president on Monday gave a tongue-lashing to the "fat-cat bankers on Wall Street," as he called them the day before. He wants them to make more loans to small businesses and consumers to give the economy a boost.

But should banks be lending just because a politician tells them to? We tried this before. Indeed, it's the very source of the financial and economic calamity of the past two years. President Obama may think dressing down the top dogs at Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Bank of America and others is good politics. But it's demoralizing and will only lead to more bank write-offs, more bank failures and less lending.

Besides, as economist Thomas Sowell noted in a recent series in IBD, our current economic ills are largely due to just the kind of government meddling we now see in the financial markets. In this, President Obama is treading the very same ground as President Clinton and President Bush in pushing banks to make risky loans they shouldn't make. And it will have the same dire results.

For those who don't remember, the federal government became more involved than ever in determining how banks make their loans — and to what customers — thanks to the creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac out of the wreckage of the Great Depression. They were followed by the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act of 1975, the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977, the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery and Enforcement Act of 1989 and the Federal Housing Enterprises Financial Safety and Soundness Act of 1992.

Go back to the 1970s and early 1990s you'll see that, just as today, bankers were criticized heavily for their alleged racism and lack of concern for the poor. President after president lambasted them for not lending more to support presidential social policies. By 2000, President Clinton's HUD required half of Fannie Mae's loan originations to go to poor and moderate-income borrowers — whether they could pay on the loans or not. It marked the triumph of leftist politics over financial common sense.

This is how the subprime meltdown, the source of our current financial troubles, came about. Not by "greedy" banks or by "deregulation." Banks had a choice: make bad loans or face more scrutiny when it came time to raise capital or to merge with other banks.

As such, President Obama must know his attack on banks is dishonest. Plans for a new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, the $700 billion TARP bailout and the creation of a "pay czar" who determines the pay of the top officers at companies that took bailout funds, have created a timid, risk-averse financial sector.

Banks have nearly $1 trillion in reserves. So why don't they lend them? Simply put, they can't sneeze without government permission. Worse, they don't know what taxes or regulations they'll face in coming years. If the House's vote on Friday to impose a $150 billion "fee" on Wall Street is any indicator, they can expect far lower profits and much more destructive government control — not less.

SOURCE

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Democrats' Blues Grow Deeper in New Poll: Many of their voters may stay at home next November

Less than a year after Inauguration Day, support for the Democratic Party continues to slump, amid a difficult economy and a wave of public discontent, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. The findings underscored how dramatically the political landscape has changed during the Obama administration's first year. In January, despite the recession and financial crisis, voters expressed optimism about the future, the new president enjoyed soaring approval ratings, and congressional leaders promised to swiftly pass his ambitious agenda.

In December's survey, for the first time, less than half of Americans approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing, marking a steeper first-year fall for this president than his recent predecessors. Also for the first time this year, the electorate was split when asked which party it wanted to see in charge after the 2010 elections. For months, a clear plurality favored Democratic control.

The survey suggests that public discontent with Mr. Obama and his party is being driven by an unusually grim view of the country's status and future prospects. A majority of Americans believe the U.S. is in decline. And a plurality now say the U.S. will be surpassed by China in 20 years as the top power.

Democrats' problems seem in part linked to their ambitious health-care plan, billed as the signature achievement of Mr. Obama's first year. Now, for the first time, more people said they would prefer Congress did nothing on health care than who wanted to see the overhaul enacted. "For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "What we don't know for certain is: Have we reached a bottoming-out point?"

The biggest worry for Democrats is that the findings could set the stage for gains by Republican candidates in next year's elections. Support from independents for the president and his party continues to dwindle. In addition, voters intending to back Republicans expressed far more interest in the 2010 races than those planning to vote for Democrats, illustrating how disappointment on the left over attempts by party leaders to compromise on health care and other issues is damping enthusiasm among core party voters.

But public displeasure with Democrats wasn't translating directly into warmth for Republicans. Twenty-eight percent of voters expressed positive feelings about the GOP -- a number that has remained constant through the Democrats' decline over the summer and fall. Only 5% said their feelings toward the Republicans were "very positive."

And in one arena, Afghanistan, Mr. Obama appeared to have some success in winning support for his planned troop surge. Liberals remain largely opposed to the strategy, but in fewer numbers compared with before Mr. Obama made his case in a speech at West Point. Overall, by 44% to 41%, a plurality believe his strategy is the right approach.

Still, the survey paints a decidedly gloomy picture for Democrats, who appear to be bearing the brunt of public unease as unemployment has risen from 7.6% to 10% since Mr. Obama took office. Just 35% of voters said they felt positively about the Democratic Party, a 14-point slide since February. Ten percent felt "very positive."

More here

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Duck-and-Run Obama

President Obama’s athletic prowess is becoming a real advantage in office as he recently has taken the duck-and -run approach to the media. Instead of defending himself in front of the open microphone, he is dispatching his cronies to defend his policy positions. Our commander-in-chief isn’t living up to his campaign promise of presidential access and transparency.

Obama hasn’t held a formal press conference since July 22. At that event he infamously gaffed that Cambridge Police had acted stupidly when confronting Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. at his home. Since that time, Obama has avoided off-the-cuff question and answer sessions, preferring to rely on his teleprompter for scripted remarks. On his recent trip to Asia, Obama limited questions at his joint press conferences to one each from a U.S. reporter and a foreign journalist. At his “joint press statement” with Chinese President Hu Jintao, no questions were allowed.

This is all shocking given the hyperbole that was spewed during the campaign from the media, who referred to Obama as the ‘Great Communicator.’ While the press were admiring Obama’s rhetorical skills, behind the scenes, handlers were scripting all events and carefully controlling the message.

Rather than running one of the most open and transparent administrations ever, team Obama is running one of the most disingenuous and scripted. As White House Communications Director Anita Dunn boasted, “We controlled the media coverage of the campaign.”

Obama is running a charade. If he were genuine about what he is trying to accomplish, he would not be so afraid to face tough questions. Obama fears that if he makes himself available to the press, he will make another blooper and be caught in his lies.

This past week, Obama again practised deception. After pointedly declaring in his speech to the joint session of Congress that “my plan will not include taxpayer funding of abortion,” Obama lobbied Congress in support of abortion funding in the health reform bill. His administration has even lobbied against the pro-life amendments to these bills. Obama’s spokesman Robert Gibbs argued that these health bills are not the president’s, therefore “his plan does not include taxpayer funding of abortion.” This is a laughable explanation at best, and one that Obama clearly does not want to say himself. Therefore he is avoiding a press conference like the plague.

The American people are catching on and it is one reason why his approval rating is down to 47 percent in the most recent Gallup poll.

More HERE

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ELSEWHERE

Why independents are abandoning Obama: "Many voters who were attracted to promises of ‘hope and change’ are now asking, ‘What the heck have I done?’ President Obama rode into office on the coattails of some horrible economic realities …. The nation needed both to energize new policies and to help us continue down the path to recovery, specifically in the areas of job creation and economic growth. … In 2008, 43% of evangelical Christians voted for him and he rewarded them by turning around and signing an executive order to authorize the spending millions of dollars for international abortions via the Mexico City policy. And he did it at the peak of the economic meltdown. Those who wanted America to withdraw from Iraq and to see Gitmo closed are still waiting for those promises to come true.”

Credit Suisse bank to pay $536 million for assisting Iran: "Credit Suisse AG agreed to pay $536 million to settle claims the bank helped process payments that let Iran and other nations avoid government sanctions and gain access to U.S. financial markets. The bank entered into a deferred prosecution agreement as part of the settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, a spokesman for U.S. District Court in Washington said today. The settlement, which included a local prosecutor and the Federal Reserve, relates to a previously disclosed probe of dollar payments from 2002 through April 2007, the bank said today in a statement.”

Disastrous subway cuts -- but no cuts to the bureaucracy? "New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority on Wednesday approved drastic service cuts as part of its new budget that must close a nearly $400 million deficit. The service cuts would include closing two subway lines, cutting station agents, slashing weekend and overnight service, and forcing pupils to pay for their travel to school, but MTA Chairman Jay Walder, at a webcast board meeting, promised to review the cuts over the next few weeks to see if their impact can be lessened.”

"Let me be clear" means "I am about to lie": "'There are those who claim we have to choose between paying down our deficits … and investing in job creation and economic growth,’ President Obama said last week. ‘This is a false choice.’ During the same speech, he asked his audience to ‘let me just be clear’ that his administration, having racked up the biggest budget deficits ever, is embracing fiscal responsibility, as reflected in his vow that ‘health insurance reform’ will not increase the deficit ‘by one dime.’ For connoisseurs of Obama-speak, the address featured a trifecta, combining three of his favorite rhetorical tropes. There was the vague reference to ‘those who’ question his agenda, the ‘false choice’ they use to deceive the public, and the determination to ‘be clear’ and forthright, in contrast with those dishonest naysayers. These devices are useful as signals that the president is about to mislead us.”

Free stuff from Uncle Sam: "I just got a free golf cart. Actually, it cost me $6,490 — but the dealer, Colin Riley of Tucson, Ariz., points out that there’s a $6,480 federal tax credit on such vehicles. Riley runs ads that say: ‘FREE ELECTRIC CAR … !’ Some consumers probably assume it’s a car-dealer scam, but it’s not. It’s an Uncle Sam scam.”

FTC suit against Intel misguided and uninformed: "Today the Federal Trade Commission filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against Intel Corporation. The suit, which accuses Intel of violating Section 5 of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, comes on the heels of a separate antitrust lawsuit filed against Intel last month by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo. Technology analysts at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based public interest group, questioned whether the FTC’s action is actually about protecting consumer welfare. ‘This lawsuit may succeed at grabbing headlines, but it won’t benefit consumers one bit,’ declared Ryan Radia, Associate Director of Technology Studies.”

My Twitter.com identity: jonjayray. My Facebook page is also accessible as jonjayray (In full: http://www.facebook.com/jonjayray). For more blog postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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