Free kibbles

So Mr. Transparency Obama negotiated with Senate Democrats and Nancy Pelosi in secret to settle the conference bill, settling on a final total of $789, after cutting some programs and adding many back in. As a result of being snubbed, House Democrats revolted and refused to vote on it. So far, nobody has seen the actual bill, nobody knows exactly what is in it, and representatives will be asked to vote on it in a couple hours without ever having the chance to read it. This is the kind of opaque, secretive irresponsible government we can believe in. Like Bush on steroids.

And here's the reason for the rush to socialism - retail sales level off. Jobless claims down less than expected. The US economy is diverse and powerful, and American entrepreneurs and workers are already overcoming the damage government caused with loose money, the subprime mortgage policy, and the income tax. Obama's window to take advantage of this crisis to pass his stimulus boondoggle is quickly closing. The next dip in the economy will be the secondary recession caused by Obama and Democrats.

Political correctness in Britain has run amok. Britain bars anti-Islamic Dutch lawmaker from entry. But they sure do welcome Islamic radicals.

Scientists sequence Neanderthal genome so they can compare human and Neanderthal DNA to determine the differences. One of the differences is not the primary speech gene, so Neanderthals may have been able to speak like us.

Barney Frank calls bonuses bribes. I wonder what he calles earmarks. Frank says companies will no longer be in the drivers seat, implying that government is taking over control of our economy. This just keeps getting better. I was one of the people who thought that because of the institutional slowness in Washington, the damage Democrats could do would be limited. Maybe that will be true over time, but they're doing a ton of damage quickly.

Deflation is over. Hello inflation. We're in for 70s style trouble at least.

Is anybody surprised that Geithner doesn't have a clue how to solve our economic problems? That's because he's approaching the problem as a central planner. We started this process with a mild recession that George Bush and Barack Obama make sound like the end of the world, but the government's subsequent intervention by both parties is a disaster and getting worse every day. The solution is freedom, but government can't stand that.

Why was this trooper suspended for forwarding, not originating, an email with pictures of mug shots of people in Obama T-shirts from his home while off duty? Hopefully he was suspended because the policy doesn't allow troopers to forward photos of mugshots, but given liberals' assault on free speech, it's likely he was suspended because the email ridiculed Obama supporters.

Marc Cuban starts venture capital program, calls it a stimulus program, and gets in the news. I applaud Cuban for entering the risky venture capital business, but there are plenty venture capitalists out there who don't crave the headlines like Cuban.

Australian environmentalists oppose controlled burns to limit deadly wild fires. Of course. To environmentalists, people are the problem. Better to have wild fires kill people than have controlled burns to keep forests healthy and people alive.

Big government is out of control at all levels. Boston wants to track how many miles people drive in the city. Every professional politician in America, aristocrats all, have abandoned the idea that America is free country with limited government. We're collapsing under the weight of government.

How bad must your schools be if you think having a graduation ceremony for elementary school is a good idea?

Tremendous, easy to read and understand WSJ essay advocates using gold and silver as alternate currencies because the government and the Fed are destroying our currency, and we're all paying the price. Despite all the pessimism I have about government and our economy, we might well be on the verge of ending government's monopoly on money that is as devastating as government's monopoly on education and as devastating as a government monopoly on health care would be.

Cato calls Zimbabwe's power sharing deal an illusion.

Cato explains that the cultural battle over creationism versus evolution is schools is largely an artifact of the government monopoly on schools and that scientific debate and original thinking are the biggest losers.

Cato points out that climate alarmists claim both warming and cooling in Antarctica are predicted by their global warming models. How funny. Finally a sunspot, but it's a cycle 23 spot, not cycle 24. Cycle 24 is still DOA. Whatsupwiththat wonders if we've finally the reached the tipping point where the climate change debate can become an honest debate. The Guardian and the climate scientists at the Met Office in Britain have been pushing global warming hysteria as strong as anybody, but today the Guardian led with a story from the Met Office attacking global warming alarmists. The skeptics are overcoming the alarmists, and the result will be honest science and honest debate about climate change. This is big. Let's hope Obama, Gore and power-grabbing Democrats don't implement their anti-capitalist policies anyway.

Obama urges Americans to follow Lincoln's example. I guess he wants to see a civil war with 600,000 Americans killed. We also see comparisons to FDR. Who would want that record?

Because Obama wouldn't allow the Census Department to remain in the Commerce Department with a Republican secretary, Gregg withdraws his nomination. Obama has had more screwups in weeks than most presidents have in years. It's unbelievable.

Like Bush on steroids, Obama is trying to convince the American people of impending disaster to push his liberal agenda. Reason compares this to George Bush using the specter of another terrorist attack to push legislation. The difference is the threat of a second deadly terrorist act was and still is real. The Patriot Act was bad legislation, but the threat was real. But there is no threat to our economy by doing nothing. Our economy would recover more quickly and with less pain if government would quit meddling in it. The something Obama plans is much worse than doing nothing.

Reason informs about the overlooked entrepreneurial and business career of George Washington.

Can you imagine what the press and Democrats would have done had George Bush preselected the reporters he called on at a press conference and had notified them in advance?

Dickerson must have watched a different campaign than I did. He thinks this is not the change Obama promised. But in the campaign I watched, Obama never specified the change he would bring. He worked hard to be vague so that every person would read into his statements whatever he wanted to hear. Thinking people dug into Obama's record and found a radical leftist who surrounded himself and partnered with avowed Marxists. A thug who could read golden speeches but can hardly speak English without a teleprompter. We got the change that anybody who put the work in expected. Count Dickerson among Obama's useful idiots.

Isn't it odd that after winning a fortune in what used to be one of the freeest economic segments in America, Bill Gates turns out to be a socialist? No. Like many of the ultra-rich, Bill Gates wants government to guarantee that is always on top. People who become aristocrats tend to start thinking like aristocrats.

How the stimulus bill will expand the welfare rolls.

Cato explains that the more money government spends, the more powerful lobbyists become. If lobbyists get their hooks into the stimulus bill, this bill will likely tranform into a $3 trillion bill.

Cato breaks down the $18.4 billion bonus estimate paid to Wall St. employees, but then the author seems to knock down a straw man. I didn't read anybody or hear anybody, including the president, say the bonuses were paid to executives at handful of companies. On the other hand, I don't have a problem with any company paying bonuses, so maybe I just wasn't listening close enough. What I have a problem with is politicians taking money from taxpayers by force and giving it to anybody in any form, including a bailout. As I've posted before, I agree with this Cato writer than firms who asked for a bailout opened the door to wage controls, and if these wage controls stop other companies from seeking bailouts, that's a great thing.

Economists say stimulus boondoggle will be ineffective and doing nothing would have been better. Economists have been saying that for weeks. How come these articles are only appearing in the mainstream media now? Oh yeah, the bill is a foregone conclusion.

Los Alamos has lost 67 computers, 13 in the last year. But officials say don't worry. Nothing important was on them. I feel so much better.

I find it hard to believe that the Secret Service didn't come up with solutions to the problem of Obama's BlackBerry effectively broadcasting his location all the time before he was allowed to keep it. I'm more concerned with the info Obama has in that BlackBerry. What info was so important and so private that he was scared to transfer it to a secure government device? Can't he memorize Bill Ayers's phone number?

Economists still think recovery will start in Q3, but the more government interferes, the more pessimistic the projections. This article shows how the projections have gotten worse since September as government interferes more and more.