Computer Tanning?

Now, obviously, this ad is sheer nonsense. But now, given the site they’re pushing has already pulled a million hits, we perhaps have some idea of how it is we have Obama as President:

“There’s a sucker born every minute” – Syracuse, NY Banker David Hannum,

BBCT: thebcast, via Twitter

There is one thing you can depend on with all oil salesmen, no matter what your ailment happens to be, the snake oil sales man will claim that his snake oil is just the cure.  Robert B. Reich is a snake oil salesman. Reich’s particular brand of nnake oil is public policy.   Note to snake fanciers, I not comparing Reich to a snake, just a snake oil saleman.   A comparison of Riech to a snake would be unfair to the snake.    Reich writing in the Wall Street Journal attempts to defend the one’s economics:

Reaganomics surely marked the beginning of one of the longest bull markets in American history and generated enormous gains at the top. But its benefits were not widely shared. After the Reagan tax cuts, growth in the median wage slowed, adjusted for inflation. After George W. Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the median wage dropped. Meanwhile, an increasing share of total income went to the top 1% of income earners. In 1980, before Reagan took office, the highest-paid 1% took home 9% of total national income. By 2007, before the economy melted down, the richest 1% was taking home 22%.

Obamanomics, by contrast, holds that an economy grows best from the bottom up. The president proposes to increase taxes on the highest 2% of income earners starting in 2011. Those tax increases will fund more Pell grants allowing lower-income children to attend college, better pay for teachers that show they’re worth it, broader access to health care, improved infrastructure, and more basic research. These and related expenditures are designed to help Americans become more productive. You might think of it as “trickle up” economics

Ronald Reagan, never called his policy ‘trick-down” nor claimed to have invented a new form of economics.   The Gipper just fixed the mess he inherited from Jimmy Carter.

In contrast, Reich is long on detailing supposed flaws in Reagan’s plan, and in showering  Barack Obama’s plan with nobility of intent.    See book on Road to Hell, chapter of paving material.    Reich provides no evidence of where Obama’s economic vision has ever worked any where in the world at any time.

Extraordinary claims, as the claim of benefits of  a radical new economic system, require extraordinary evidence   No such evidence is provided.   Note, in an attempt to sell the benefits of his economic plan, Obama has to get a professor of public policy to pushes  it.   Reich is not equipped to make this sale.    Reich comes up short.

Hat tip and more, Lance Fairchok, American Thinker:

Robert Reich, professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley and the former Clinton Administration Secretary of Labor thinks we are all idiots. In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Obamanomics Isn’t About Big Government,” Mr. Reich tells us that catastrophic government spending, un-constitutional legislation, uncontrolled earmarks, corruption, cronyism-bloated bureaucracies, class warfare, and social engineering are “trickle-up economics.”

The old adage, when the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like nails.   Reich’s hammer is big government.

Now this is why Kate, Small Dead Animlas, is my favorite north of the border blogger.   Sorry Kathy.

Constitution of the United States, Article VI:

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwith-standing.

The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.

 Via Steve Gilvert, Sweetness & Light, from the Denver Post:

CHICAGO – In a bid to get more Muslim Americans working in the Obama administration, a book with resumes of 45 of the nation’s most qualified – Ivy League grads, Fortune 500 executives and public servants, all carefully vetted – has been submitted to the White House.

The effort, driven by community leaders and others, including U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., was bumped up two weeks because White House officials heard about the venture, said J. Saleh Williams, program coordinator for the Congressional Muslim Staffers Association, who sifted through more than 300 names.

I realize that literacy is not exactly Barack Obama’s long  suit.   But you’d think at least one person on the one’s staff could take time to read the Constitution and explain to the one the flat-out prohiti0n of any relgious test for office.

Earlier, I said no.

Now I inclined to believe that Canada’s health was not helpful to the late Ms Richardson.  Ingrid Perez, Globe and Mail, offers a pretty good time line.  I am less than impressed with the four hours it took to get Richardson to a trauma center.

On the counter-point, Max Harrold, Vancour Sun, argues “Socialized medicine didn’t kill Natasha Richardson, says doctor.”

As for me, if Barack Obama wnnts to go north of the border to seek his medical care, such is his right and choice.   However, I say leave the Canadian healthcare systerm where it is, north of the border.

The right of a citizen to petition the state is fundamental, presumed to have been endowed by our creator.   More over, all members of the public have a right to attend public meetings.   Yet for reaons unknown to thinking man, the one, who claimes to have taoght constitutional law, demonstrates a pathetic ignorance of the Constitution of the United States, Kenneth P. Vogel, Politico:

Under the directive, which began going into effect this week, agency officials are required to begin meetings about stimulus funding for projects by asking whether any party to the conversation is a lobbyist.

“If so, the lobbyist may not attend or participate in the telephonic or in-person contact, but may submit a communication in writing,” reads Obama’s memo, which requires the agencies to post lobbyists’ written communications online

Ed Morrisey, Hot Air, draws an analogy between Obama question and that which be asked by a whore:

This procedure sounds a lot like the kinds of questions hookers ask johns to keep from getting busted, under the mistaken notion that a cop has to admit his identity if asked directly to avoid entrapment. In this case, with loads of cash going to little use, the situation is reversed but still ironically applicable. The johns now have to ask the hookers whether they’re professionals or amateurs.

The ACLU and CREW consider this an unconstitutional infringement. The First Amendment reads in full

 For the record, i agree with both the ACLU, and CREW.

I implore you to attend any public meetings pertaining the the Stimulus and to respectfully refuse to answer the question of if you are a  lobbyiest.   The state has no right to ask the question, and you have no duty to answer it.

An interesting, and mostly unsurprising report from the New York Times this morning.  Indeed, the only thing surprising about it is that it comes from the New York Times. Here’s some of it:

SAN FRANCISCO — It sounds like such a simple thing to do: buy some new light bulbs, screw them in, save the planet.

But a lot of people these days are finding the new compact fluorescent bulbs anything but simple. Consumers who are trying them say they sometimes fail to work, or wear out early. At best, people discover that using the bulbs requires learning a long list of dos and don’ts.

Take the case of Karen Zuercher and her husband, in San Francisco. Inspired by watching the movie “An Inconvenient Truth,” they decided to swap out nearly every incandescent bulb in their home for energy-saving compact fluorescents. Instead of having a satisfying green moment, however, they wound up coping with a mess.

“Here’s my sad collection of bulbs that didn’t work,” Ms. Zuercher said the other day as she pulled a cardboard box containing defunct bulbs from her laundry shelf.

One of the 16 Feit Electric bulbs the Zuerchers bought at Costco did not work at all, they said, and three others died within hours. The bulbs were supposed to burn for 10,000 hours, meaning they should have lasted for years in normal use. “It’s irritating,” Ms. Zuercher said.

A compact fluorescent bulb

Irritation seems to be rising as more consumers try compact fluorescent bulbs, which now occupy 11 percent of the nation’s eligible sockets, with 330 million bulbs sold every year. Consumers are posting vociferous complaints on the Internet after trying the bulbs and finding them lacking.

Bulb makers and promoters say the overall quality of today’s compact fluorescents is high. But they also concede that it is difficult to prevent some problem bulbs from slipping through.

Experts say the quality problems are compounded by poor package instructions. Using the bulbs incorrectly, like screwing low-end bulbs into fixtures where heat is prone to build up, can greatly shorten their lives.

Some experts who study the issue blame the government for the quality problems, saying an intensive federal push to lower the price essentially backfired by encouraging manufacturers to use cheap components.

“In the pursuit of the holy grail, we stepped on the consumer,” said Michael Siminovitch, director of a lighting center at the University of California, Davis.

Well, gee, it’s not like we haven’t been saying this all along, is it?

In fairness, I have a couple of these things, there’s two of them sitting over my desk right now.  Departing sockets in my basement.  The two when the basement have been burning literally for years without interruption save the odd power failure.  The ones over my desk, similarly have not been turned off in years.  Mostly this is a function of soft lighting for when we’re not in the room, because of the cats.

We are finding however that the ones they get turned on and off regularly are the ones that fail regularly.

A PAR38 light

Further, we’re finding that the fluorescent replacements(actually just CFL’s in a PAR38 package) that we bought to replace the standard PAR38’s we were using … garage lights don’t work well at all in the cold .  They take forever to warm up and come to full brightness.  This is particularly problematic when you’ve got them set up on motion sensors to deter tresspassers.

Outlawing the regular incandescent bulbs as some states and indeed the Federal government have been contemplating doing even absent the question of whether not the government should be doing such things, is at least premature.

There’s another factor here, though.  Consider the last line in what I quoted of the Times story :

“In the pursuit of the holy grail, we stepped on the consumer,”

It seems to me, that there’s an awful lot of that going on in terms of energy use, these days, across the board.  In each case the consumer is being stepped on in the name of attaining someone’s version of the ‘holy grail”.

In terms of fuel, we have stepped on the consumer by a telling him know we can’t drill for domestic oil.  No you can’t have the size of car or truck you need to do the job you want to do.  You have to cram you and your family and all their stuff into a ‘car’ that wouldn’t have been a serious contender at a go-cart track a few years ago. Or better, you’ll be crammed into busses and trains. No, we don’t care if nobody wants to ride them. You’re going to pay $5.00 a gallon if we have to tax at the rate of $4.00 a gallon .   And so on.

Americans as never before are finding themselves demonized by their own government if they don’t fall into greenie lockstep as consumers. our government is in pursuit of their version of the holy grail, and we’re the ones getting stepped on.  The question arises, then; why are they still our government?  Aren’t they supposed to be working for or interests and not their pie in the sky schemes?

I’ve managed to get a WYSIWYG editor to the comments area. Tiny MCE is nice if it works, but for some reason I’ve  never figured out, it doesn’t get along with this theme.

So I found another way to get a visual editor in place. Let me know what you think.

Look at the bright side with a gross income in excess of a million and half dollars a year, George Tiller is the type of small business man that Barack Obama wants to punish,  Associated Press:

Tiller estimated that he performed 250 to 300 late-term abortions in 2003, each costing an average of $6,000.

Tiller said he is one of three doctors in the U.S. who currently perform late-term abortions. The others are in Boulder, Colo., and Los Angeles, he said.

This is one case where I can sympathize with Obama’s vindictive economic policies.    Doctor Tiller’s victims were not available for comment.

Representative Eric Cantor (Virginia – Seven) has created a media firestorm because he went to a Britney Spears concert rather than a Barack Obama press conference,  Anne Schroeder Mullins, Politico:

Everybody has been asking GOP Whip Eric Cantor about going to the Britney Spears concert on Tuesday night. The Takeaway asked yesterday, to which Cantor replied that he didn’t understand what the big deal was – he was attending a political event at the concert. And this morning, “Fox & Friends” ribbed him about it, too

Elementary!   By going to Britney Spears concert, Eric Cantor got to see two boobs.   If Cantor had gone to the one’s presser, Cantor would have only heard one boob.  Plus between Spears and Obama, Spears is the smarter one.

Sad word from the radio just now… Dan Seals… One half of the duo of England Dan and John Ford Coley, has died. Apparently, Seals contracted lymphoma two years ago, and it was complicatioons from that, that took his life at age 61.

A very talented person, that, and a sad loss.

from the Palm Treo..

Welcome one and all to the most intense nghtly read anywhere on the sphere: The BitsBlog Nightly Ramble

This is the ‘Wonderful Wino” edition.

• Olberman still a loser: Glenn Reynolds notes that Glenn Beck is outdrawing Keith Overbite. Like, this is a surprise?
• Rove in 2010?: I’ve been watching Karl Rove quite closely the last several weeks. I started once I started noticing he was quite a bit more visable than any of the other Bush White House alums. I’ve long since started to wonder if he’s going to be a player in the 2010 election. He clearly will be a large voice for the mid-terms.  Anyone who rattles the left that badly while being the nice guy that he invariably is, has to be worth something. He’s a little too centrist for my taste politically, but…
• Trouble in Doggie Land: Word on the wire is that Dylan Ratigan has quit over at CNBC.  Apparently this has been brewing for a while. Apparently Ratigan is blaming the problem on network biggie Susan Krakower. Perhaps more importantly, the word on the street is that a lot of others at CNBC are, too. Yesterday was his last day.  He’d be a smart pickup for FNC.
• For those of you keeping track, Charlie Cook puts the Dodd race at ‘a toss up’ If there’s anything that amazes me it’s that in spite of all the facts that are in on this man’s misdeeds, there are people still willing to vote for him. Then again, he’s not unique in this. William Jefferson, Barnety Frank, Harry Ried, Nancy Pelosi… you get the picture. If facts were the only measurement by which voting was decided, we’d not even be discussing this now. They’d have each been history a long time ago.
• See, I told you so: Obama is sending more troops to Afghanistan. Once again, the Bitmater was correct; He’s sticking to Bush’s plans for the region, as I told you he would.
• I could tell you but I’d have to kill you: Kaus has been chasing JurnoList, and has rather a lot of info on that group nobody will admit to being a part of.
• Who’s asking? Boortz, somehow, found out what the most popular question of yesterdays online White House Q&A was: Will Obama legalize Pot?  ths is one of the few areas where Boortz and I don’t see eye to eye. Be that as it may, it strikes me that the reason that question came up so high…(Sorry) … well, consider the kind of people who would have had the time to sit in on such as session. Jobless, for one thing. You figure the rest out.
• Tax Cuts: Rasmussen polling data says 63% of Americans suport tax cuts.  Yet the Democrats are about making Obama’s proposed tax cuts disappear, and Obama doesn’t seem overly concerned about it?  Indeed, the same polling company reports that 66% of Americans say Obama will raise taxes on people earning less than $250k/yr. Gee… tell me again how Democrats running in the wrong direction,  isn’t going to affect the midterms, and 2010. The backlash is already in motion, folks. That’s why the Democrats are in such a hurry to grab as much power as they can.
• What was the cause? We’re learning that government interference in the markets caused the housing bubble.   Well, at least the evidence is there. If we actually learn from that evdience or not, is still an open question.

…

The long and winding road, the Gipper nails Obama, with a wee bit of help from Fred Barnes.   Ronald Reagan (audio), 1964:

“Well, the trouble with our liberal friends is not that they’re ignorant; it’s just that they know so much that isn’t so.”

Your truly:

The last time I checked Obama has a hack lawyer, who has never released his college or law school transcripts and never published anything, he himself, has written.   Obama has trouble understanding laws or executive orders he has signed.   Translation, if Obama is really a lawyer, he not a very good one.

So this hack lawyer makes this radical economic pronouncement that somehow economic recovery is magically linked to enacting his bloated three trillion dollar budget.  Since when?   Obama has no economic credentials..   He cites no economic experts who can collaborate his theory.   In short Obama gives us no reason to believe that his private theory is true.

Eric, on the clueless one’s desire, to run the entire domestic auto industry:

Look, James, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking he’s interested in running a car company, much less three. He’s trying to save the Unions. First off, are we really to take from this, that the government that within a month has opened the American people up to a debtload that is bigger than all the debt incurred from the time of President Washington to President Bush, will have a clue how to keep a car company afloat?

Fred Barnes, Weekly Standard, picks up the baton:

President Obama insists he’s a free-market guy. But you have to wonder whether he understands how a free economy really works. His policies and his words–especially what he said at his press conference this week–suggest his sense of what makes economies grow and how people are affected by government policies is surprisingly weak.

Some of what Obama says is just pablum and isn’t supposed to be taken as serious economic thought. At least I hope not. Rather, it might be called economic morale-boosting. Nothing wrong with that, unless he actually believes what he’s saying.
He said at his press conference, for example, that prosperity won’t return unless we’re all working together for a higher purpose than ourselves. Adam Smith, the guru of free markets, would disagree heartily with this, since he believed a strong economy grew out of individuals acting in their own behalf. But Obama talks as if he knows better. Pablum

Yes, just as Reagan said back in 1964 and just a Fred Barnes detailed, the problem with Barack Obama is not what he knows, but rather what he knows that just isn’t so.   Adam Smith demonstrated that he knew why economies worked, human self- interest.   Economies built on Smith’s ideas have thrived.    In the meantime economies built on the Karl Marx and now Obama model of centralized planning and control like the former Soviet Union and Cuba have utterly failed.

James Joyner, this morning:

President Obama says he’ll help GM and Chrysler but they’ll have to agree to some “pretty drastic changes.”

“We will provide them some help,” Obama said. “I know that it is not popular to provide help to auto workers — or to auto companies. But my job is to measure the costs of allowing these auto companies just to collapse versus us figuring out — can they come up with a viable plan?”  He added: “If they’re not willing to make the changes and the restructurings that are necessary, then I’m not willing to have taxpayer money chase after bad money.”

[…]

“Everybody is going to have to give a little bit — shareholders, workers, creditors, suppliers, dealers — everybody is going to have to recognize that the current model, economic model, of the U.S. auto industry is unsustainable,” Obama said.

Says James;

Obama’s absolutely right that, if the federal taxpayer is going to bail out these companies, then the government has a right to insist on major restructuring. He’s wrong, though, and Kroes is right on how to get there.

While the government employs some really smart people with substantial knowledge of economic matters, it has no specialized expertise in how to run an automobile company.

Look, James, let’s not kid ourselves into thinking he’s interested in running a car company, much less three. He’s trying to save the Unions. First off, are we really to take from this, that the government that within a month has opened the American people up to a debtload that is bigger than all the debt incurred from the time of President Washington to President Bush, will have a clue how to keep a car company afloat?

Secondly, the best of the “major restructuring” plans would have been bankruptcy. It’s what should have been allowed to happen. Among other things, it would have allowed the companies to shed the Unions, which are the only thing, really, that can be changed. The car companies would have returned to viability in a heartbeat, had that been allowed to happen. It will not be allowed. Do not forget that the Democrats are tied at the purse strings to the unions.

Government interference in the car business also helps make car companies unviable, (How long can they continue to be forced into making “green” small cars that nobody’s buying, and penalized financially for building cars people WILL buy, and be expected to survive the financial burden?) … but apparently there’s no stopping that. So it’s down to fixing what can be fixed and eliminating the unions seems the most viable course. They may be viable with the unions or the government but not both. Unless and until the unions are removed, America car conmpanies will never be viable.

But that will never be allowed to happen, particularly with the Democrats in power. Face it, the bailout of car companies was never about saving the car companies, it was about bailing out the unions. Absent the unions, the car companies would have been allowed to go bankrupt without any discussion on the topic.

So, we’ll continue pouring good money after bad on this, because nobody wants to face the real problems…. government and unions.

John Ray, Stop the ACLU, reports on another skewering of Algore pet theory of anthropengic global warming:

By Richard Courtney

I write to report on a debate that defeated the motion “This House Believes Global Warming is a Global Crisis” during a meeting of the St Andrews University Debating Society [in Scotland]. It is difficult to arrange a debate of anthropogenic (that is, man-made) global warming (AGW) because few proponents of AGW are willing to face such debate. They know from past experience that they always lose such debates because there is no evidence that AGW exists and much evidence that it does not.

 Yet more evidence that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is a hoax.