No Runny Eggs

The repository of one hard-boiled egg from the south suburbs of Milwaukee, Wisconsin (and the occassional guest-blogger). The ramblings within may or may not offend, shock and awe you, but they are what I (or my guest-bloggers) think.

Archive for December, 2008

December 10, 2008

Call It A Trial Run

by @ 5:15. Filed under Economy, Politics - National.

Most news agencies are reporting that an agreement has been reached between the Democrat Congressional leaders and the White House, to provide the $15 billion in Federal funding, bail out, bridge loan….pick your favorite euphemism.   The agreement calls for the creation of a Car Czar who will

have powers to shape a restructuring of the companies, withholding further loans if progress toward a turnaround stalled.

While Nancy Pelosi may want to see House Republicans sign on to the bail out just to provide the appearance of her greater bipartisanship, there’s no doubt that the Democrats will pass the bill now that they don’t have to worry about the implications of impending elections.

On the Senate side, the outcome of a vote on the package is far from certain.   There are reports of dissatisfaction within the Senate Republican ranks.   The question will be whether, while they still have 49 seats, the Republicans can hold together 41 votes and keep the bill from a vote.

In just a few weeks Barack Obama will be sworn in as President.   Despite what some are calling “centrist” cabinet selections, there is no doubt that Obama’s views are far to the left of the American public.   Couple him with Nancy Pelosi and her faux bipartisanship in the House and you are 2/3rds of the way to passing nearly any legislation that Obama or Pelosi may dream up.   The only place where Republicans have a chance to influence policy for the next two years will be in the Senate.

In January the Republicans will be pared down to 42 or possibly 41 Senate seats.   Included in that number will be Senators Snowe, Collins, Specter and of course the ever enigmatic McCain.   It has been much debated whether the Republicans will be able to hold together to create any amount of resistance to the Democrat agenda.

61% of Americans are unwilling to provide a bail out for the auto industry. That coupled with Republicans now lip syncing that they want to be the party of smaller government (again), seems like the perfect opportunity, while we still have the 49 vote training wheels on, to see if we can hold the caucus together and flex some minority muscle. If they can, well, maybe there is some hope. If they can’t, buckle up, it’s going to be a long couple of years.

I think you can consider the Senate vote on the auto bill a trial run for what we will see at least until 2010.

Hmmmmmm

by @ 5:01. Filed under Law and order, Politics - National.

Alright, I heard when US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald said that the criminal complaint  against Blagojevich didn’t involve President-elect Obama.  

I’ve now read the entire complaint and in 17 separate phone calls or conversations, the complaint documents Blagojevich and others discussing how to extract something for Blagojevich in return for his selection of the President-elect’s preferred person to replace him in the Senate.

That leaves me thinking that either Blagojevich and those around him are the most delusional people on the face on the earth or they were receiving feedback along the way.   At this point I’m not suggesting that Obama was involved but if Blagojevich was getting feedback, someone was giving it to him.   I think this investigation has the potential to make the Scooter LIbby situation look like first year law school stuff.

This could be fun.

December 9, 2008

Refinancing defaulted mortgages – FAIL

by @ 15:45. Tags:
Filed under Business, Economy, Politics - National.

CNN reports on a statement from US Comptroller John Dugan that states that over half of those that had their defaulted mortgages adjusted through the Hope Now Alliance, a coalition of lenders, servicers, investors and counselors, redefaulted on their mortgages within 6 months of having the adjustment. Some numbers from the article:

– So far in 2008, 1.7 homeowners have had their mortgages adjusted through this program.
– 53% of those who had their mortages adjusted in the first quarter of 2008 have redefaulted within 6 months.
– At least 51% of those who had their mortgages adjusted in the second quarter of 2008 have redefaulted within 6 months. This percentage could easily increase, as those who underwent the adjustment in June (and possibly part of May) have not reached the 6-month threshold.

Despite these failures, FDIC chairwoman Sheila Bair wants to extend this program to reduce payments to no more than 31% of gross monthly income by lowering interest rates to 3% and extending the mortgage to 40 years, with the government eating 50% of the loss of those who make it past 6 months without redefaulting to the tune of an estimated $24.4 billion.

Now, what did Albert Einstein say about insanity? I believe it had something to do with doing the same failed thing over and over while expecting a different result.

Congrats on the big 1-3 Scott

by @ 12:46. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Scott Feldstein has had a web presence for 13 years. Yes, he is one of the “old-timers” who had hard-coded his stuff, and he was around before there was such a thing as a “blog”. Little-known fact about Scott; he self-hosts rather than trusting a hosting company.

Drinking Right tonight

by @ 10:43. Filed under Miscellaneous.

This is the Emergency Blogging System. Tonight’s Drinking Right is ON! You are instructed to shovel yourself out of however inches of snow you’re under and report to Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee, at 7 pm.

As The Chad says, “It’s better to weather the weather with drinks and friends.”

This has been an Emergency Blogging System alert. Had it been a test, you would have been graded. Hell, if you’re not there and you don’t have a better excuse than the weather, you will receive a FAIL.

It’s Fitzmas! (now complete with indictm…er, criminal complaint)

by @ 8:45. Filed under Politics, Politics - National.

(H/T – Eric Odom’s Twitter stream)

The Chicago Tribume is reporting that Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich (D-with the reference in paragraph #4) was taken into federal custody this morning. This comes a few hours after the Trib reported that the federal investigation into pay-for-play allegations against Blagojevich led by US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had been expanded to include Blagojevich’s choice for Barack Obama’s replacement in the Senate.

I’m under no illusions that Blagojevich will either be convicted or not pardoned. Fitzgerald has but 40 days to get a conviction before he is no longer US Attorney. Further, Blagojevich and Obama share a friend convicted on public corruption charges, Tony Rezko, and Obama will, as of January 20, have the power to make all of Blagojevich’s federal charges disappear.

Revisions/extensions (9:35 am 12/9/2008) – The Trib comes through with the two-count-apiece indictment criminal complaint against Blagojevich and his chief of staff John Harris. The first count involves multiple instances of play-to-play, including the attempted sale of Obama’s Senate seat for personal gain. The second involves a scheme to have members of the Trib’s editorial board, who had been agitating for Blagojevich’s impeachment, fired in exchange for help in disposing of Wrigley Field. The short-version press release is also available from the Trib.

R&E part 2 (12:24 pm 12/9/2009) – A few updates. First, I have to thank Emperor Misha I and Allen Fuller for linking to me. Welcome those of you from Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler and RootsHQ.

Second, I just got done listening to the press conference with Fitzgerald and the FBI Special Agent in Charge. One important item from the conference; in response to a question of whether Obama knew anything about the attempt to sell his vacated Senate seat, Fitzgerald pointed back to the indictment complaint/affidavit combo and said that it didn’t indicate that Obama or his team knew anything about that. He pointedly refused to say whether any evidence not included in that did indicate either Obama or his team knew anything, which is standard procedure regardless of whether the evidence exists or not.

I suppose I should answer the Emperor on how this will go away because I didn’t explain it very well above. I doubt it will get to the point of Blagojevich needing a pardon, but if it does come to that, it will happen. The fact that Fitzgerald included the shakedown of a childrens hospital as part of count #1 makes it likely that, if necessary, it will happen later rather than sooner (say the third quarter of 2011).

However, a pardon isn’t the only way that Obama could influence this. It has become customary for the entire US Attorney corps to be replaced by an incoming administration. I would expect the new US Attorney for Northern Illinois to “quietly” seek the dismissal of charges. Whether Blagojevich would have any legitimate juicy dirt on Obama or not, he strikes me as the type to try to use that to try to strike a deal. Obama can’t risk that dirt coming out, whether or not it is real.

R&E part 3 (12:29 pm 12/9/2008) – I really need to check my overbloated feed. I somehow missed doubleplusundead linking to me. Guess that’s why I’m a Moron.

R&E part 4 (12:33 pm 12/9/2008) – DrewM. live-blogged the press conference for those of you who missed it.

R&E part 5 (1:51 pm 12/9/2008) – I erred in calling this an indictment. It is a criminal complaint; the indictment will come from a grand jury. Sorry about that.

R&E part 6 (1:56 pm 12/9/2008) – Blagojevich and Harris are free on $4500 bond. They do have to turn over their passports and any firearms under the terms of the bond. They best not have any handguns because they’re both Chicago residents.

R&E part 7 (2:24 pm 12/9/2008) – Obama is “saddened and sobered” by the indictment, but says it’s “inappropriate” to comment on it at this time. He had “no contact with the governor or his office,” so he had no idea what was happening.

R&E part 8 (2:59 pm 12/9/2008) – Obama senior adviser David Axelrod contradicts those claims in an appearance on “Fox Chicago Sunday” from 11/23 (starting at the 1:14 mark, with the money quote at 1:20):

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=konL35ur0Bo[/youtube]

Oops, Obama did it again!

R&E part 9 (4:16 pm 12/9/2008) – With a hat-tip to Allahpundit, I direct your attention to Jake Tapper, who has a couple more tidbits on Obama’s closeness to Blagojevich, and the $999 million questions – “But there remain questions about how Blagojevich knew that Mr. Obama was not willing to give him anything in exchange for the Senate seat — with whom was Blagojevich speaking? Did that person report the governor to the authorities?”

The Leftosphere thinks that Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel did tip off the authorities. He may have, and if he did, I’ll gladly give him a couple of “atta-boys”, but judging by the publicly-available timeline, I believe Fitzgerald and company knew about this the moment they reviewed the wiretaps.

R&E part 10 (4:46 pm 12/9/2008) – With a tip of the hat to EM Zanotti, I have bad news for friends of clean government – Blagojevich is going nowhere.

Meanwhile, Rick Moran has the definitive south-of-the-Waukegan-toll-plaza view. While I won’t be able to listen to Rick’s BlogTalkRadio show live because of Drinking Right, I will tune in sometime before 2 pm tomorrow. If you’re not going to DR, at least tune in to that.

…..Two Bits

by @ 5:42. Filed under Economy, Politics - National, Taxes.

Barack Obama was on Meet The Press with Tom Brokaw this weekend.   Obama provided the following perspective on the auto bail out during the interview:

MR. BROKAW:   …should the current management be allowed to stay in their jobs?

PRES.-ELECT OBAMA:   Here’s what I’ll, I’ll say, that it may not be the same for all the, all the companies, but what I think we have to put an end to is the head-in-the-sand approach to the auto industry that has been prevalent for decades now.   I think, in fairness, you have seen some progress made incrementally in many of these companies.   You know, they have been building better cars now than they were 10 or 15 or 20 years ago.   They are making some investments in the kind of green technologies and, and the new batteries that would allow us to create plug-in hybrids.   What we haven’t seen is a sense of urgency and the willingness to make tough decisions.   And what we still see are executive compensation packages for the auto industry that are out of line compared to their competitors, their Japanese competitors who are doing a lot better.

Now, it’s not unique to the auto industry.   We have seen that across the board.   Certainly, we saw it on Wall Street.   And part of what I’m hoping to introduce as the next president is a new ethic of responsibility where we say that, if you’re laying off workers, the least you can do, when you’re making $25 million a year, is give up some of your compensation and some of your bonuses.   Figure out ways in which workers maybe have to take a haircut, but they can still keep their jobs, they can still keep their health care and they can still stay in their homes.   That kind of notion of shared benefits and burdens is something that I think has been lost for too long, and it’s something that I’d like to see restored. (Emphasis mine)

Today, Nancy Pelosi echoed the meme  of “shared sacrifice:”

Pelosi said that everyone involved in the U.S. auto industry, including management, labor unions, parts suppliers, investors and dealers, would have to make a sacrifice to ensure the continuing viability of the industry.

“We call this a barber shop: everyone’s getting a hair cut,” said Pelosi, speaking at a press conference in the U.S. Capitol.

According to these Democrat leaders, the threshold for determining when a sharing of sacrifice should occur is when you are leader who has been fiscally irresponsible with your charge.   You should share even more if your irresponsibility requires the American taxpayer to bail you out.

Hey wait!

Hasn’t Congress been irresponsible with their financial responsibilities?

  • Leaving Fannie and Freddie unchecked and unsupervised.
  • Ignoring the risk of leverage on exotic financial instruments and leaving them completely unregulated or over seen.
  • Constricting energy exploration which resulted in a 24 month hyper price speculation.
  • Giving Hank Paulson nearly completely unchecked ability to spend $700 billion entirely on his whim.
  • Adding over $100 billion of pork to the TARP bill….just because.

And who is now bailing out Congress’ financial irresponsibility?   That’s right, you and me, the American taxpayers.

If sharing the pain is what Pelosi and Obama think should happen to leaders who rely on the American taxpayers for a bailout,  Democrat and Republican Congress people alike,  ought to be answering the door and the American taxpayer ought to be knocking….

Shave and a haircut, two bits!

 

A Bridge To Nowhere

by @ 5:39. Filed under Business, Economy, Politics - National.

It appears that there may be an agreement to bail out the auto industry is close to fruition.   Being discussed is providing a $15 billion loan to the three US auto makers.

The term “Bail out” has gotten an increasingly negative response from the American public.   It probably has something to do with the fact that Hank Paulson threatened and then lied to the American public and seems unsure of how to spend the rest of his piggy bank; “To buy mortgages or not to buy mortgages, that is the question.”   As a result, Congress has come up with a new term to describe their steps toward socializing our economy, “Bridge Loan.”

In normal finance and banking arrangements, a “Bridge Loan” is just what it sounds like; it is a loan for a limited period of time.   Bridge loans are often provided during the riskier parts of a project for example during the construction process, when  collateralization is difficult and day to day value of the asset is difficult to determine.    For this reason, providers of bridge loans generally have tight controls over what they are financing and often  require that there is assurance of permanent financing for the completed process before they offer the interim financing.   In other words,  Bridge Loan providers  generally know exactly what the plan is, and how it will be executed, before a bridge loan is provided.    

Leave it to Congress to turn normal business terms on their head!   With their “Bridge Loan” Congress has no idea what they have or where they are going to with their “project.”   They are loaning money to enterprises who have no reliable plan that allows them to pay it back.

Of course “not knowing where they are going” doesn’t stop Congress from making demands along the way.   Rather than ensuring a reorganization of the automakers that would focus on developing a profitable business, Congress is focused on enforcing their “Green Dream” on the industry and thereby ensuring that the money lent to them will never be repaid.

Barney Frank had a moment of candor regarding the farcity of calling the $15 billion a “bridge Loan”:

“We don’t think the $15 billion is enough to get them into March, but given the administration’s insistence "¦ that’s where we are now,” Frank said.

Frank said that in the new Congress, which will have stronger Democratic majorities and a friendlier White House, the funds taken from the energy loans this year to prop up the ailing industry would be restored.

“Once we get a new administration we will replenish that money,” he said. “We will not see a diminution of funding available for energy efficiency.

“The reason for that is that then you get the new administration "” the Obama administration "” able to take it up from there and make the longer-range projections,” he added.

Yup, a new administration with longer-range projections with even greater demands for greenery and even less concern about financial viability.   It seems like the only bridges that Congress is able to finance are bridges to no where.

December 8, 2008

Customizing comment output in WP 2.7

by @ 19:46. Tags:
Filed under The Blog.

One of the big things with WP 2.7 is paginated and threaded comments. That is great; however, there is one problem. The code masters had to create a new method of calling comments to get that, and as a result, I had been less-than-impressed with how WP 2.7 had been handling comment meta data (the “who” and “when”), and hacking the core was less-than-satisfactory. Instead of displaying my custom “…said on…/…pinged back on…with/…tracked back on…with”, it had a very ugly “…says:” with the when on a separate line.

Fortunately, Jeremy Clark found a way to allow customized comment meta data. The very-short version:

– Create a function in the theme’s functions.php that recreates, using the pre-WP 2.7 method, the customized styling. Don’t forget to add the new “reply” code, and don’t forget to save.
– Edit the “wp_list_comments” in the comments.php file to create a callback to that new function.

Thanks Jeremy. My one big complaint with WP 2.7 has been worked around. I can’t wait for it to hit public consumption.

As a side note; I’ve also done some further hacking of the Journalized 2.7.1 theme to get the threaded comments display the way I like it.

Eggs on the road – Double dose of Papa’s

by @ 13:34. Tags:
Filed under Miscellaneous.

Since it’s December, we of the Cheddarsphere have not one, but two outings scheduled for Papa’s Social Club, 7718 W Burleigh in Milwaukee.

Dose #1 – Drinking Right, 12/8/2008 at 7 pm. As Nick said, “Don’t give into the hype! Go out when it’s snowing!” Besides, the snow (it will be all snow well before then, with the freezing rain coming overnight tonight) will be tapering off.

Dose #2 – Cheddarsphere Christmas party, 12/28/2008 at noon. This one is strictly non-partisan, and there will be a gift exchange during the halftime of the Packers/Lions game.

Be there or be nowhere.

…Worse Than The Disease?

by @ 5:29. Filed under Global "Warming".

According to the UK Independent, we no longer have to fear global warming….we’ve found a solution!   All we have to do is 1. Grow a bunch of trees, 2. burn them without releasing the CO2 they’ve absorbed, 3.   Burn them without using more energy than they create in the burning process and 4.   Bury the ashes in the soil.

Sounds simple; well, except that whole burning them without releasing the C02 and not using more energy than they create part!   But, hey, let’s not be negative.   After all, as Big G points out regularly to me, no one thought we could go to the moon but we did!   It does sound simple except for a minor detail.   In order to do this, we would need to grow and burn forests that are the equivalent of 2.5% of our productive land.

2.5%, doesn’t sound like much does it?

The World has approximately 33 Million sq. Mi. of productive land.   2.5 % of that would be approximately 835,600 sq. miles that would be needed for our carbon tree farm.   So far so good.

I think it’s safe to assume that planing our Carbon tree farm willy nilly around the world isn’t what these folks have in mind.   I think it would be safe to assume that they would determine that the tree farms should be where the carbon dioxide is.   After all, you’ll want to soak it up right after it gets produced so that the carbon dioxide doesn’t get a chance to further warm the world right?

According to this chart by the World Bank, the US, Saudi Arabia, Canada and Australia have the highest carbon dioxide per capita.   It would seem to make sense to plant the bulk of the trees in those countries.

The US has about 1.5 million sq. mi. of productive land, Canada has a little over 100,000 sq. mi. and Australia has about 138,000 sq. mi.   That’s a total of about 1.74 million sq. Mi. of productive land in the most offensive (carbon dioxide wise) countries.   If I take it one step further, of the US’ productive land, only 58% of it is in crop or forest land.   I suspect a similar number would be found in Canada and Australia, the balance of the land is pasture.

The reason that I raise the US, Canada and Australia is that with their productive lands account for over 70% of the world’s wheat exports, over 60% of the world’s corn exports and even 13% of the world’s rice exports.

Remember what was happening to the price of corn this past spring as energy prices were rising and the US was forcing more production into creation of ethanol?   Just to remind you, corn went from a recent average of less than $3/bushel to nearly $8 bushel.   Do your remember the stories about how the increased price of corn was increasing the cost of tortillas in Mexico?     Do you remember how the increased price of corn was being blamed for people starving in developing countries?

The additional corn production required to make our expected ethanol mandate this year amounted to less than .75% of our total productive acres.   Only .75% yet, it over doubled our price of corn.   The Carbon Tree Farms are expected to need 2.5% of all our productive acres.

Does anyone else see a problem?

December 5, 2008

I’ll drink to this anniversary

by @ 11:38. Filed under History.

Doug Mataconis reminds us that today is the 75th anniversary of the repeal of Prohibition.

Hoist a cold one.

Force Majeure Run Amok

by @ 10:50. Filed under Miscellaneous.

Force Majeure is a French phrase meaning “greater force.”   It is also a legal phrase used in many contracts.  

The “Force Majeure clause” is typically used in contracts that require the contracting parties to act over a period of time.   The clause generally says that the contracting parties are freed of the contracts obligations if an extraordinary and unforeseeable event occurs that prevents them from fulfilling their contractual duties.   Typical “extraordinary and unforeseeable” events that are called out in these clauses are riots, war, severe climatic event such as an earthquake, volcano etc.

I’ve been in business for more than a quarter of a century (doesn’t that sound like a long time?) and have been party to hundreds of business contracts that have had a Force Majeure clause.   I can’t remember one time that a Force Majeure event has been claimed in any of those contracts.   I’m not suggesting that Force Majeure never comes into play, it certainly does.   What I’m suggesting is that it’s a rare event when it does get invoked.

Donald Trump is building the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, which is to be the second-tallest building in that city (after the Sears Tower).     The NY Times chronicles Trumps problems with the project as the real estate market has become recently challenged (you may have read about that.)  

Trump has a personal guarantee of $40 million on his project and he’s not happy about having to pony up on that guarantee.   In an attempt to save himself $40 million and perhaps to save his project, Trump is suing his lender Deutsche Bank.   His suit claims that the current economic conditions allow him to invoke the Force Majeure clause of his contract.   Trump’s reasoning?

"Would you consider the biggest depression we have had in this country since 1929 to be such an event? I would," he said in an interview. "A depression is not within the control of the borrower."

Oh man, where do I go from here?

I could go down the path of the automobile industry executives claiming Force Majeure has caused them to be in their current financial distress.   That Force Majeure has them standing in Washington with their hands out.   That Force Majeure is why they think we should agree with Nancy Pelosi that “bankruptcy is not an option!”   Yeah, I could go there….

I could go down the path that Hank Paulson appears to agree with Trump that the economic situation is a Force Majeure.   Why else would Paulson have asked for extraordinary and unforeseeable powers except to address a situation that was extraordinary and unforeseeable?   Of course what Paulson doesn’t seem to understand is that his extraordinary and unforeseeable measures are likely to have as extraordinary and unforeseeable circumstances.   Do you get the feeling at all that Paulson is just running to one side of a teeter-totter only to find that the other side just shot into the air?   He corrects this by running to the other side of the teeter-totter and the side he used to be standing on shoots into the air.   Yeah, I could go there…

I could go down the path that Nancy, Harry, Barry and the rest of the Dems also agree with “The Don.”   It’s really the only explanation for why they would want to throw another $700 billion of claimed “stimulus” into the economy when their first pass at it did bupkus.   Yeah, I could go there…

No, I don’t think any of those are the directions to go with this.   Not because they aren’t real but because they are all symptoms of the real issue.   “The Don” has hit upon a nugget of truth in his lawsuit.

Watching the “Bail out-o-mania” and the “I’m voting for Barack because he’ll pay my gas bill and my mortgage,” it strikes me that a significant portion of Americans believe that their entire lives  have become  subject to Force Majeure:

  • I can’t pay my mortgage – It wasn’t possible to forsee that I wasn’t really qualified to pay this loan
  • Abortion under any circumstances – It wasn’t possible to foresee the consequence of last night’s actions
  • Trophies for all – It wasn’t possible to forsee a winner and a loser as an outcome of the contest.

Force Majeure is commonly referred to as “Acts of God.”   Isn’t it ironic that so many people who don’t act as if they want God in their daily lives are now claiming “Acts of God” as the reason they are having the problems that they have?

December 4, 2008

The Morning Scramble/Open Thread Thursday – 12/4/2008

by @ 9:38. Filed under Open Thread Thursday, The Morning Scramble.

There’s finally enough snow on the ground outside the bunker to drive back the foot that’s slow.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ae-LDQVrDUY[/youtube]

  • JammieWearingFool reports that the next Congress will be known as Teh Most (Un)Ethical Congress Evah Ver. 2.0™, partly because Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told Charlie Rangel (D-NY) that he will continue to write tax laws as long as he wants despite an ongoing House ethics investigation into his failure to pay taxes on various money-making schemes.
  • Rick Moran finds history about to repeat itself in Chicago. Of course, back in the day, Michael Bilandic blamed The Next Ice Age for the unremoved snow and consequently lost his mayoral office, while Richard M. Daley’s blaming Gorebal “Warming” and doesn’t face a challenge.
  • William Teach answers the question why a significant number of meteorologists (as opposed to climatologists, who are the altar boys and girls in the Church of Gorebal “Warming”) are not buying Gorebal “Warming” hook, line and stink..er, sinker – there is but one constant – back-and-forth change in the weather.
  • Lady Logician has a couple more nails in the coffin of the climatic truth Gorebal “Warming”, including the inveterate gamblers in Britain breaking The Man on a white Christmas.
  • Stephen Kruiser issued his Envirodork of the Day award to the LeftStreamMedia for applying their election template to the Gorebal “Warming” debate battle.
  • RadicalRon found a new hero for those of us who haven’t consumed the Gorebal “Warming” Kool-Aid – Czech President (and soon-to-be EU President) Vaclav Klaus.
  • Kat has a lesson from the Massacre of Mumbai – “Do not act as the terrorist expect. Do not be terrified into inaction. Expect no mercy and shrink their window of opportunity to act at every turn.”
  • Speaking of the Massacre of Mumbai, Stephen Green wonders how one says “DEFCON 2” in Hindi.
  • Dad29 found some serious respect for the US military from their French counterparts.
  • Rick Moran dubs Barack Obama “The Promise Breaker”. As Jim Geraghty said way back when, all statements by Barack Obama have an expiration date. All of them.
  • Jim Hoft reports the payoffs are starting to come in for the Missouri Obama “Truth Squad”, with one of their number the favorite to become eastern Missouri US Attorney. My advice to Jim is to get across the Mississippi STAT (and probably move south across the Ohio because Illinois isn’t exactly the best place to be – sorry Rick and my other readers south of the toll booths).
  • Jon Ham recycles a classic “Mad Magazine” cover for the incoming Obama administration. While he believes things are darkest just before the dawn, I tend to take the “darkest just before things go to pitch black” approach.
  • Allahpundit found a CNN poll that says 61% are now “dead set” against bailing out The Big Three automakers the United Auto Workers union.
  • Mark Pribonic takes us on a fabulous journey from Henry Ford’s “Let everybody fail, including me” attitude during the Great Depression to the Not-So-Big Three’s tin cups. Do read all the way to the end for Mark’s predictions of what will happen when they burn through their cash.
  • Speaking of tin cups, Nate Beeler pictures that as only he can.
  • Matt Lewis has a pair of frightening predictions from John Fund. While I agree that Dingy Harry and company will refuse to seat Norm Coleman, nationwide same-day registration will wait until abortion-on-demand is part of the United States Code.

The dogs of doom are howling as well because I have to go to the younger sister’s place for more tech support on their wireless network. Since it’s Thursday, that means the thread’s yours. I know there’s a bunch of stuff I haven’t touched on; I had to deep-six some very good items just to get this out before 10 so I can do said tech support.

A Silver Lining?

by @ 5:58. Filed under Economy, Immigration.

With the recession officially called, there may be a silver lining to the economic challenges that seem to appear around every corner; illegal immigrants are returning home.

McClatchy writes the article about an illegal who is contemplating moving back to Mexico for better economic prospects.

McClatchy gets the news aspect correct with their headline:

With economy souring, illegal immigrants going home

But that’s where the news ends and the editorial disguised as news begins.   McClatchy begins their lament with:

But the U.S. economic crisis has disrupted his life and the lives of countless other illegal immigrants who are now planning to leave or have already left.

Sure the economy is causing folks to adjust but didn’t the illegals  disrupt their lives when they chose to illegally move into the US?

Oh, but it’s not just the people in the US that are hurting.   The US slow down is also hurting the economy of entire towns in other nations:

The ripple effects are already being felt. Communities in Latin America and the Caribbean report a reduction in remittances — money sent home from the United States. That money is critical to the survival of families and the success of local civic projects. Border communities that once thrived as way stations for those heading north are now little more than ghost towns.

Is the Governor’s conference still going?   Perhaps the mayors of these border community ghost towns can get in line with California, Michigan and others and get a piece of a federal bailout to allow them to survive the down turn?   Maybe Hank Paulson has a bailout plan for the Latin American house payments that will now go unpaid?

Rasmussen Reports issued a polltoday on America’s sentiment of illegal border crossings.   74% of those polled still believe that the US government isn’t doing enough to secure our borders.   Interestingly, less than half of those polled now believe that there is no way to end illegal immigration.   That’s a shift of 7% in just 6 weeks.

I’d really prefer the economy back to where it was in mid 2007.   That said, how many months of consumer malaise would it take to solve a our illegal immigration problem?   Well, we ought to at least ask!

December 3, 2008

Oh Good Lord!

by @ 16:47. Filed under Elections, Politics - Minnesota, Vote Fraud.

Another Twin City precinct found another problem with their count of Senate ballots on election day.   According to this article, Minneaplis has come up 133 ballots short in their recount, of the ballots that they recorded on election night.   The Election Director came up with another lame excuse for how that “could” have happened and said she would verify the new numbers with Secretary of State. The reduction of the 133 ballots provided Coleman with a net pick up of 44 votes (apparently Franken had a 44 vote advantage in the 133 nonexistent ballots).

Minnesota has consistently been in the top 5 states of highschool graduation rates.   It is similarly rated for college graduates.   Apparently none of the folks in these “oops precincts” have  accplished either of those mile stones.

How stupid are Obama voters and Democrats?

by @ 13:24. Filed under Politics - National.

(H/T – Pam)

You may or may not remember John Ziegler or his poll and video of Obama voters. For those of you who have short attention spans and don’t want to click back to the archives, Ziegler interviewed a dozen Obama voters right after they stepped out of the voting booth and asked them some basic current civics questions such as which party had control of Congress going into the election. He also commissioned a Zogby poll asking 512 Obama supporters those same questions. Needless to say, they blew chunks on that.

Also needless to say, the Nutroots were incensed, and claimed it was a misleading push poll designed to embarrass them. Ziegler offered to fund a follow-up poll involving McCain voters, and after getting turned down by Zogby, he went to Wilson Research Strategies and reran the poll among both McCain and Obama supporters, with an additional question on the Keating Five and a change on the “started his/her political career at an ex-terrorist’s house” question to name Bill Ayers specifically. The results are, shall we say, even more embarrassing for the Nutroots, at least among those that care about an educated populace.

Like everybody else, I’ll focus on the pre-election Congressional control question (pages 19-21 on the crosstabs), but run with something that hasn’t exactly been explored elsewhere. First off, let’s review the actual question (“Before this election, which political party controlled both houses of Congress?”), and the responses allowed (I assume in order because there isn’t a notation in the methodology to rotate, Republican, Democrat, neither Republican and Democrat were rotated with neither third; see Chris Wilson’s comment below). Among all 1000 participants, 51.4% got this correct by saying “Democrat”, 35.2% got it 100% wrong by saying “Republican”, 4.5% got it wrong by saying “Neither”, 8.5% admitted they didn’t know, and 2 of them refused to answer the question.

Let’s first delve into the Obama vs McCain voters that everybody else ran with. The designed split of 53.0% Obama voters versus 46.0% McCain voters is close enough to reality to run with. McCain voters got it right to the tune of 62.8% Democratic control, 26.5% Republican control, 6.1% “don’t know”, 4.1% neither, and 1 refusal. Obama voters got it wrong to the tune of 43.0% Republican control, 41.3% Democratic control, 10.6% “don’t know”, 4.9% neither, and 1 refusal.

Now, let’s deviate from the “blame the media” game everybody else is playing because while viewers of CNN and the broadcast networks couldn’t create a majority correct, they did manage a plurality. Instead, let’s take a look at the partisan splits on that question. This poll had a party split of 21.9% “strong Republican”, 10.1% “not-so-strong Republican” (or “soft” for short; for a 32.0% total “Republican”), 26.7% “independent/other”, 9.4% “not-so-strong Democrat”, 29.5% “strong Democrat” (for a 39.0% total “Democrat”), and 2.3% refusal (not reflected in the crosstabs). The highest percentage of those who got this question correct was among “strong Republicans”, at 65.8%. “Soft Republicans” were next at 60.4% correct, which gave the Republican universe a total of 64.1% correct. “Independents” were next at 55.1% correct. “Soft Democrats” could only manage a plurality correct of 45.1%. Worst were the “strong Democrats”, where only 36.6% got the question correct, and a near-majority of 48.5% got it 100% wrong.

If the GOP is “The Stupid Party”, what does that make the Democratic Party? No, you Lefties can’t appropriate “morons”, We AoSHQ Morons have already done that.

Revisions/extensions (2:39 pm 12/3/2008) – Chris Wilson, CEO of Wilson Research Strategies, points out that the first two prompted answers of the Congressional control question (Republican, Democratic) were rotated.

R&E part 2 (10:55 pm 12/3/2008) – Ed Morrissey interviewed John Ziegler late this afternoon.

R&E part 3 (11:03 pm 12/3/2008) – I thought I had corrected the link to the question list. Guess that’s what I get for assumptions. It is now pointing to the correct file.

Congratulations Senator Chambliss!

by @ 5:44. Filed under Elections, Politics - National.

Senator Chambliss has been called as the winner of the runoff election in Georgia.   This will give the Republicans at least 41 votes, on paper, in the Senate.

While the vote totals appear to be substantially lower than the general election, they still managed to get about 55% of the folks to return for a second time.   55% is a pretty good overall return rate for a runoff.   However, the two candidates fared very differently compared to the average.

I’m working off of numbers from the Secretary of State as of about 10 PM.   At that time, Chambliss had about 64% of the general election total while Martin only received about 50% of his general election total.   95% of the precincts had reported in those numbers.   If this difference holds, and I suspect it will generally based on the precincts left to report, I’ve got the following questions questions:

  • 93% of blacks voted for Martin when Obama was on the ballot.   They accounted for 56% of Martin’s vote total.   Did they come out and support an older white man when there wasn’t a black candidate on the ballot?
  • With the Democrats within reach of the magic 60 number in the Senate, how many folks switched from Martin to Chambliss?
  • Chambliss and Martin split the 29 and under group in the general election.   It will be interesting to see whether that group was able to show up a second time this year.
  • Sarah Palin made several campaign appearances for Chambliss.   By all accounts the events were very well attended.   How much, or was she a factor in generating turn out for Chambliss?
  • Do you remember how the MSM was carrying on about how the special elections for Mississippi and Illinois told us that conservatism was dead rather than the fact that Republicans know how to run crappy candidates.   Will the MSM be running stories about how Obama has lost his coat tails?

This and more I’d like to see.   I haven’t found any exit polls yet.   When I do, you’ll be the first to know!

RIP NBC

by @ 5:40. Filed under Presstitute Follies.

Tim Russert had been the most of Meet The Press for 17 years until his untimely death in June.   While strongly aligned with the Democratic party, Russert aggressively questioned Democrats and Republicans alike.   He did his job so well that if you didn’t know about his previous work for Senator Moynihan and Governor Coumo, you would never have known his political leanings.   Russert had a reputation as having the toughest interview regardless of your party affiliation.

Apparently six months is what the GE management handbook says is the official mourning time for the last person in your employ who was able to exhibit any level of professional integrity.

Based on reports by AP and others, David Gregory will be announced as the permanent host of “Meet the Press.”   Yes, THAT David Gregory!

The David Gregory who made this appearance on Imus:

And the David Gregory who provided this professional insight when Helen Thomas asked him why politics had become so polarized:

While NBC has been in an integrity coma since Russert’s death, there was hope of a reawakening or at least a stabilization, with a permanent host who would not replicate Russert’s style but honor his intellectual drive. If Gregory is named the permanent host, how long before the plug gets pulled?

December 2, 2008

Senate updates

by @ 20:31. Filed under Politics - Minnesota, Politics - National.

I bring good news and more good news on the Senate front, where the dreams of Harry Reid of a filibuster-proof majority got smashed against the rocks of reality:

Item #1 – Saxby Chambliss has won his runoff rather handily. At the point AP finally called the race at approximately 7:58 pm (my time, of course), the Georgia Secretary of State site had Chambliss up 882,385-570,598 (60.7%-39.3%) with 71% of the precincts reporting.

Item #2 – The semi-official Norm Coleman lead in Minnesota, taking the official pre-recount margin of Coleman +215 and the net Coleman +88 in the recounted precincts (taking the difference of Al Franken’s pre-recount 2,623-vote lead and Franken’s post-recount 2,535-vote lead among the recounted ballots), is 303. The Minnesota Secretary of State site states that as of 8 pm, 95.30% of the precincts and 92.69% of the ballots have been recounted. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which has Coleman up by the same 303, there are 8% of the precincts in Hennepin County (with 7% of the ballots cast in the county) that have yet to finish recounting, with the counties of Rock, Scott, Winona and Wright beginning their recounts tomorrow.

Before we start popping the corks off the champagne for Coleman, however, those totals do not include 3,093 ballots challenged by the Coleman campaign or 2,910 ballots challenged by the Franken campaign. Those will not be judged by the State Canvassing Board until December 16.

Decline and Fall of the British Empire – parts 3,432,125 and 3,432,126

by @ 19:25. Filed under Immigration, Politics.

Item #1 (H/T – Jon Ham) – The Daily Mail reports the “Catholic” bishops of England and Wales want to open up Muslim prayer rooms and facilities for Muslim pre-prayer washing facilities in every Roman Catholic school in Britain. The Mail reporter who wrote the piece, Simon Caldwel, notes that the recommendations (termed by Caldwell as “demands”) “go way beyond legal requirements on catering for religious minorities.”

Item #2 (H/T – Ace – Tory MP and immigration spokesman Damian Green was arrested and held for 9 hours while his home and House of Commons office tossed by Metropolitan Police for the “crime” of revealing various episodes of coddling of illegal aliens by the ruling Labour Party on the floor of the House of Commons. Roger Kimball has a rather good wrapup of reaction on the far side of the pond.

Filosofo Comments Preview 1.5-alpha test

by @ 18:29. Filed under The Blog.

Overnight, I reported that Filosofo Comments Preview 1.0.5, which I’ve used here for something north of a year, was broken in WP 2.7 RC1 with regard to threaded comments. Austin Matzko, the author, invited me to try out a version that works with threaded comments. The good news – for the most part, it works. The not-so-good; previewed comments have the “click here to cancel reply” replaced with “reply”, and clicking that unthreads the comment without warning.

I’ve temporarily enabled it here to see if it still is compatible with earlier versions of WordPress (2.6.3 in this case).

Revisions/extensions (6:32 pm 12/2/2008) – It works. Back to the release version here.

Attention Georgia readers

by @ 8:44. Filed under Politics - National.

There is a very important runoff election today for the Senate seat currently held by Saxby Chambliss. I wholeheartedly recommend that you vote for him.

That is all.

Franken leading? Not so fast.

by @ 8:42. Filed under Politics - Minnesota, Politics - National.

(H/T – Nice Deb via Ace)

If one takes a look at the DFL (that’s big-D Democratic for those of us outside the land of 10,000 lakes) Minnesota Secretary of State incomplete unofficial numbers for the Senate recount between Republican Norm Coleman and DFL’er Al Franken, one would assume that Franken took a 4,108-vote lead. Meanwhile, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, showing a few more votes recounted, has Coleman with a 340-vote lead.

Allow me to throw the bullshit flag at the DFL SecState before Harry Reid takes a gander at that and decides to seat his soulmate. The DFL SecState thoughtfully included the by-precinct recounts, which allows me to throw the bullshit flag. There are several counties missing mostly because they have yet to begin their recount process, and a few others are not yet 100% complete. How do I know this? The Strib included those missing returns in their tabulation. 3 of the 4 counties that have yet to begin their recounts, as well as a county that is inexplicably missing from the DFL SecState totals, were carried by Coleman rather heavily, and those are not part of the DFL SecState totals.

So, why did the DFL SecState issue this bullshit number? Simple; they’re setting up for a repeat of 1975, when the Democrats successfully stole a seat from the voters of New Hampshire. If that happens (and honestly, even if that doesn’t), I double-dog-dare the Republicans to filibuster every last item that can be filibustered in the Senate in the coming term.

Revisions/extensions (4:08 pm 12/2/2008) – A couple of items I forgot to mention initially. First, the SecState numbers show a net gain of 129 votes for Coleman. That, combined with the total pre-recount lead of 215 for Coleman, gave Coleman a semi-official 344-vote lead as of 8 pm last night. As noted above, it is mostly Coleman strongholds that have yet to count.

I’ll repeat what I said below – “A process that allows some counties to not even begin a recount process before most of the state finishes said process is not exactly conducive to fairness. I suppose the next question is how that happened.”

Second, the links to both the SecState and the Strib are dynamic. Indeed, the Strib has already updated, and Coleman’s lead according to the Strib is down to 305 as of 2:48 pm.

We’re #1!

by @ 5:30. Filed under Economy, Taxes.

One of Barack Obama’s primary campaign positions was that he was going to realign income taxes so that the “rich” didn’t get by without paying their fair share.   In an October, 2007 Democrat debate, Barack Obama said:

There has to be a restoration of balance in our tax code. We are going to offset some of the payroll taxes that families who are making less than $50,000 a year get a larger break. I want to make sure that seniors making less than $50,000, that they get some relief in terms of the taxes on their Social Security. Those kinds of progressive tax steps, while closing loopholes and rolling back the Bush tax cuts to the top 1 percent, simply restores some fairness and a sense that we’re all in this together.

“Fairness” – did anyone ever bother to ask Obama  what he was  basing his fairness on?

Throughout the campaign it appeared clear that Obama felt the United States was too independent.   He made clear that he had a vision for the US that looked more like the rest of the world, especially Europe.  

OK, let’s use the rest of the world as our “fairness” test for progressive taxes.   Typically when one thinks progressive taxes, one thinks of Canada, England and Europe in general.   The assumption is that the more socialism a country has the more “soaking of the rich” occurs to support those government programs.

I found an interesting analysis today.   The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) did an analysis of the progressive nature of taxes in their 24 member countries.   Member countries include most of Europe, Canada, Japan, Australia, Korea and Mexico.   The analysis looked the top 10% of households in each country and determined the amount of the country’s income that was reflected in those households and the % of income taxes that those same households paid.  

It turns out that while the top 10% of US households have a bit more (but not the highest concentration) of income, 33% compared to the OECD average of 28%, those same households pay 45% of their income in taxes compared to the OECD average of 32%.  

OK, given all the countries involved, maybe a comparison to the entire OECD is “fair,” let’s look at a peer.   The UK has 32% of its income in the top 10% households (1% less than the US) yet only takes 39% of it in taxes compared to the US’s 45%!   To add insult to injury on this analysis is that included in “taxes” is Social Security type taxes which at higher incomes, is actually regressive because it caps out.

It turns out that the US collects more income taxes from the top 10% of income earners than any other country!   The US comes in second to Ireland for most progressive income tax system.  

I’m all for making the US #1. Productivity, average income, philanthropic activity are all good  statistics to be #1.   However, being #1 in the world in taxing  our most successful, especially when we’re already #1before the expiration of the “Bush tax cuts” or any imposition of “fairness” by the Obama administration, is not something we should be proud of.

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