Free kibbles

ECONOMY:

Will the collapse of the Dubai sovereign wealth fund or rising oil prices put and end to the illusion of recovery we're suffering right now, or will it be something else?

TAX AND SPEND:

It's in vogue to blame Obama for the 2009 deficit, but Cato reminds us that fiscal year 2009 started on 10/1/08 and that 96 percent of the federal spending in fiscal 2009 belongs to Bush. Obama's increases for 2009 amount to only 4 percent. That's why Bush warning against big government was such a travesty.

FEDERAL RESERVE:

When the failures of central planners create crises, the central planners invariably call for more power to central plan. Ben Bernanke shows he's nothing but a typical central planner.

"These matters are complex, and Congress is still in the midst of considering how best to reform financial regulation. I am concerned, however, that a number of the legislative proposals being circulated would significantly reduce the capacity of the Federal Reserve to perform its core functions. Notably, some leading proposals in the Senate would strip the Fed of all its bank regulatory powers. And a House committee recently voted to repeal a 1978 provision that was intended to protect monetary policy from short-term political influence. These measures are very much out of step with the global consensus on the appropriate role of central banks, and they would seriously impair the prospects for economic and financial stability in the United States.
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The Federal Reserve, like other regulators around the world, did not do all that it could have to constrain excessive risk-taking in the financial sector in the period leading up to the crisis. We have extensively reviewed our performance and moved aggressively to fix the problems.

Working with other agencies, we have toughened our rules and oversight. We will be requiring banks to hold more capital and liquidity and to structure compensation packages in ways that limit excessive risk-taking. We are taking more explicit account of risks to the financial system as a whole."

Never allow the people who created a crisis to solve it. Asking the Fed to solve our economic problems is like asking an arsonist to help put out the fire and rebuild. Bernanke seems desperate. I think he knows he's been instrumental in creating Great Depression II, and he's flailing about like a mouse in a trap trying to get out of it.

Ben Bernanke named top thinker in 2009 for staving off a second Great Depression. Barack Obama was second. I checked that website off my list to visit.

HEALTH CARE:

So-called moderate Democrats voted for radical health care oppression. There are no moderates in Congress. All congressmen are all working for themselves.

GLOBAL WARMING:

Who peer reviews the peer reviewers? That play on words can only come from Mark Steyn.

"The trouble with outsourcing your marbles to the peer-reviewed set is that, if you take away one single thing from the leaked documents, it’s that the global warm-mongers have wholly corrupted the “peer-review” process."

But we can see what the Democrat talking point is.

"When Geophysical Research Letters also showed signs of wandering off the “consensus” reservation, Dr. Tom Wigley (“one of the world’s foremost experts on climate change”) suggested they get the goods on its editor, Jim Saiers, and go to his bosses at the American Geophysical Union to “get him ousted.” When another pair of troublesome dissenters emerge, Dr. Jones assured Dr. Mann, “I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

Which in essence is what they did. The more frantically they talked up “peer review” as the only legitimate basis for criticism, the more assiduously they turned the process into what James Lewis calls the Chicago machine politics of international science. The headline in the Wall Street Journal Europe is unimproveable: “How To Forge A Consensus.” Pressuring publishers, firing editors, blacklisting scientists: That’s “peer review,” climate-style."

They corrupted the peer review process through thug tactics, so now Democrats are going to push peer review as the excuse for people to check their brains at the door.

"Looking forward to Copenhagen, Herman Van Rumpoy, the new president of the European Union and an eager proponent of the ecopalypse, says 2009 is “the first year of global governance.” Global government, huh? I wonder where you go to vote them out of office."

The newly crowned most powerful man in Europe is pushing for one world government through the global warming fraud. As is Pharaoh Obama. Lovely. But which one will be world emperor? That could be a sticky point. Steyn on how the mainstream media is derelict in its duty to report on the global warming fraud.

"If there were no impending ecopalypse, then "climate science" would be a relatively obscure field, as it was up to a generation ago. Now it produces celebrity scientists living high off the hog of billions in grants. They thus have a vested interest in maintaining the planet's-gonna-fry line. So what do the media do? Instead of exposing the thesis to rigorous journalistic examination, they stage fluffy green stunts, run soft-focus "living green" features with Hollywood "activists", and at a time of massive staff cutbacks in every other department create the positions of specialist "climate correspondent" and "environmental reporter" and fill them with sycophantic promoters of the Big Scare to the point that, as Dr Mann coos approvingly to The New York Times, "you've taken the words out of my mouth"."

This is why I love Mark Steyn.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION:

I don't understand Cato's call for temporary workers. We already have a visa program. People can come here and work for six months. Then they can apply for a green card or we can send them home. If that's not a temporary worker program, I don't know what is. If Cato just wants to expand the numbers, they should just say so. If they want the visa system changed, they should just say so. But instead they keep talking about a temporary worker program as if we didn't already have one. We do.

FOREIGN POLICY:

Iranian government announces plans to build 10 new nuclear fuel enrichment facilities. The punch is they're for peaceful purposes. If you believe that, you probably believe Obama loves America too.

Honduras is finally holding its presidential election. Needless to say, leftist governments are refusing to accept the results, but fortunately, President Obama has been persuaded to acknowledge the results if it was a free and fair election. Funny how he didn't add that caveat to the Iranian government.

For 60 years the US has been meddling in the affairs of Israel and its neighbors. For 60 years, there's been violence between Israel and its neighbors. Einstein pointed out that repeating the same behavior and expecting a different outcome is insanity. Let's try a sane policy - let Israel and its neighbors work out their differences on their own. It may not work, but we know that meddling doesn't work. Central planners can't let it go. They can never admit they're part of the problem.

POLITICS:

Tea parties now a big moneymaker. Our corrupt political system is compromising them at an impressive rate, but the small government concerns of the people who attended them aren't going away.

This essay sounds like a fake to me. Maybe the author is fooling herself as well us as, but either way, it seems fake. Phrases like:

"One clue: the miscreants who were brutalizing me didn't exactly look Reagan-esque. In middle and high schools, they were minority kids enraged about forced busing. On the streets of New York City and Berkeley, they were derelicts and hoodlums. And when I was accosted by thugs, those leftist men were missing in action.
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The Left's behavior towards Palin is not politics as usual. By their laser-focus on her body and her sexuality, leftists are defiling her.
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And so the Left must try to destroy her. And they are doing this in the most malicious of ways: by symbolically raping her."

Make me wonder. How many times was she brutalized? It sounds like a regular event. Why wouldn't she protect herself better? If attacking somebody with words, no matter how viciously is symbolic rape to her, what does she mean by brutalized? This sounds to me like a warped conservative pretending to be a man-hating feminist writing what she (if it's a she) thinks mainstream conservatives want to hear.

MISC:

Missing ACORN documents found in dumpster.