Obama-nomics: Borrowing and spending so we can borrow and spend more

Der Spiegel's Gabor Steingart has been an apt chronicler of our nation's decline. His series on that very subject, from last year, was dead on. (His pieces on U.S. politics and campaigns, while enjoyable to read, are frequently wrong in their predictions, on the other hand.) He has a new article on our fiscal insanity, a continuation of George W. Bush's nitwit excesses by Obama's overmatched economic team. A particularly choice passage:

The crisis, Summers intoned last week at a conference of Deutsche Bank's Alfred Herrhausen Society in Washington, was caused by too much confidence, too much credit and too many debts. It was hard not to nod along in agreement.

But then Summers added that the way to bring about an end to the crisis was -- more confidence, more credit and more debt. And the nodding stopped. Experts and non-experts alike were perplexed. Even in an interview following the presentation, Summers was unable to supply an adequate explanation for how a crisis caused by frivolous lending was going to be solved through yet more frivolity.

Mind you, this is precisely what Nobel Prize-winner Paul Krugman recommends -- except he recommends even more borrowing and spending:

As for worries about increasing the national debt, Krugman said there's still plenty of room for the United States to borrow without losing the confidence of the financial markets.

"Belgium has debt equal to 87 percent of its gross domestic product," he said. "That's 40 percent higher than ours, with no financial crisis. So we can probably run up another $6 trillion in debt."

Belgium has no financial crisis? That may come as news to Belgium:

Belgium's economy will shrink by 2.5 percent this year and grow by a modest 0.3 percent in 2010 with a steeply rising budget deficit, the International Monetary Fund said on Tuesday.

'With a protracted global financial crisis and recessions in partner countries, GDP growth is expected to contract sharply in 2009 and to recover only sluggishly in 2010, with significant downside risks,' the IMF said in a report.

Paul Krugman is a very smart man, but he's got his blind spots, like the rest of us.

Another "pastor" out to fleece the flock

Why is it that idiot-level ethics eludes so many "Christian" leaders? Latest under the microscope: David Cerullo (son of the also-noxious Morris), whose $4 million home continues even as his Inspiration Ministries continues with layoffs and pay freezes. The (Raleigh, NC) News & Observer reports:

At a time when Inspiration Networks has been cutting jobs, freezing wages and even adjusting the office thermostat to save money, the chief executive of the Charlotte-area broadcaster has invested about $4 million in a lakefront home under construction in South Carolina.
CEO David Cerullo's new house includes more than 9,000 heated square feet, along with a 2,000-square-foot screened porch, records show. It sits on the edge of the Blue Ridge Mountains west of Greenville in a gated community that overlooks Lake Keowee.
And it's shaping up to be one of the priciest houses in western South Carolina. On Realtor.com, just two homes in the greater Greenville area are on the market for more than $4 million.

It's not just sad; it's angering. Thankfully, Cerullo is being investigated:

Cerullo's fast-growing religious network, meanwhile, is drawing scrutiny for the money it collects from donors and the incentives it won from the state of South Carolina to move from Charlotte. ...

S.C. taxpayers are already helping to subsidize the project. In recent years, South Carolina offered the broadcaster incentives worth up to $26 million to land its City of Light campus.
Taxpayer advocates question the deal, particularly in light of Cerullo's salary and real estate holdings. “If they've got these kinds of assets, does the state really need to offer… tax breaks?” asked Don Weaver, president of the S.C. Association of Taxpayers.

Naturally, Cerullo is one of the false "health and wealth" preachers who collectively blacken the eyes of Christians (as if we needed more of it). It's past time that Christians started cleaning house by withholding donations for those who use the faith as an ATM.

Government health care estimates

No matter your thoughts on the various health care proposals being trotted out at in Congress, it bears hearing Peter Schiff's reminder on government estimates of health care costs:

When Medicare was first proposed back in 1966, it cost $3 billion per year, and the projection was for inflation-adjusted annual costs to rise to $12 billion by 1990. The actual cost in 1990 was $107 billion, and the 2009 estimate is a staggering $408 billion! So much for government estimates on health care.

Ditto all other government estimates. A safe bet, always, to multiply by 2 what the feds tell us anything will cost (or state and local bodies, for that matter -- when was the last time you heard of a road or building project coming in at budget?). Where health care is concerned, I'm thinking 4x is the proper minimum multiplier -- even though the government estimate in 1990 for Medicare was a mere 1/9 the actual cost.

Even the Obama administration is revising upward, from the $950 billion over the next 20 years the president relayed to the AMA audience to $1.6 trillion, projected by the Congressional Budget Office. Remember, this is in addition to the cost of all health care now, which approaches $2 trillion as is.

As the Senate nears approval of some form of package, tax increases, benefit cuts, and new requirements on employers will come with it. There is no choice; it has to be paid for.

GWOT vs. GWOD

The U.S. is now involved in so many "wars" that conflicting interests are inevitable. Case in point: Afghanistan, the world's biggest provider of poppy derivatives (especially heroin). Comes now the news that the Obama administration is (wisely) ramping down the pesticide-spraying program aimed at Afghan poppy production in order to cease driving rural peasants toward the Taliban. I don't imagine the DEA is too happy about this, but Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, sees the wisdom in this decision:

"Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars we've spent on crop eradication has not done any damage to the Taliban. On the contrary, it's helped them recruit," Holbrooke said.
"In my experience," the veteran US diplomat and negotiator said, "this is the least effective program ever."

He's right. This has been a stupidly counterproductive program that has done more to help the Taliban than to eradicate the world's heroin supply, which is a quixotic quest, to put it mildly. The Bush administration instituted the spraying program to attack heroin production, but it resulted in a record HIGH in heroin output emanating from Afghanistan in 2006.

Was that year unusual? Hardly. As Prof. Peter Dale Scott wrote at GlobalResearch.org:

Just as the indirect American intervention of 1979 was followed by an unprecedented increase in Afghan opium production, so the pattern has repeated itself since the American invasion of 2001. Opium poppy cultivation in hectares more than doubled, from a previous high of 91,000 in 1999 (reduced by the Taliban to 8,000 in 2001) to 165,000 in 2006 and 193,000 in 2007. (Though 2008 saw a reduced planting of 157,000 hectares, this was chiefly explained by previous over-production, in excess of what the world market could absorb.

No one should have been surprised by these increases: they merely repeated the dramatic increases in every other drug-producing area where America has become militarily or politically involved. This was demonstrated over and over in the 1950s, in Burma (thanks to CIA intervention, from 40 tons in 1939 to 600 tons in 1970),[35] in Thailand (from 7 tons in 1939 to 200 tons in 1968) and Laos (less than 15 tons in 1939 to 50 tons in 1973).[36]

The most dramatic case is that of Colombia, where the intervention of U.S. troops since the late 1980s has been misleadingly justified as a part of a "war on drugs." At a conference in 1990 I predicted that this intervention would be followed by an increase in drug production, not a reduction.[37] But even I was surprised by the size of the increase that ensued. Coca production in Colombia tripled between 1991 and 1999 (from 3.8 to 12.3 thousand hectares), while the cultivation of opium poppy increased by a multiple of 5.6 (from .13 to .75 thousand hectares).[38]

I am not suggesting that there is any single explanation for this pattern of drug increase. But it is essential that we recognize American intervention as part of the problem, rather than simply look to it than as a solution.

The lesson here is that our interventions in everyone else's business -- even their illegal business -- tends to make the problems worse, not better. What was it that Ronald Reagan said about "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help"? (Too bad Reagan didn't follow his own advice, either.)

Heroin is a godawful drug, and addiction is a serious problem requiring treatment. Prohibition has been a disaster, and in Afghanistan, prohibition efforts are simply putting our troops in greater danger.

Individual suicide: the ultimate act of "going green"?

I am all in favor of conservation. I am all in favor of developing technologies that deliver the energy we need without taking the toll on public health and the planet that current technologies do. (Yes, we've come a long way in cleaning up internal combustion engines and manufacturing discharge; but it's becoming apparent that, globally speaking, we need to do much, much more.)

Admittedly, I am of the camp that thinks the science is not settled on global warming or climate change. How could it be? Science is never settled; we're still learning about gravity as we gaze outward from our earthly perch. I suspect, in time, we'll figure out all the inputs into climate and have a better understanding of the many, many things that affect today's weather, much more so the trends in climate.

But the interesting combination of zero population growth supporters, climate scientists who hold to AGW, nonprofits, international governmental bodies, and many more who hold this position, more or less, may be absolutely right. We're causing it, and it's going to be bad. Certainly, allowing the human population -- the biggest irritant in the planet's harmony -- to continue growing rapidly is only going to make it worse, and maybe it's time we plan for the worst.

The shrillness of the environmental movement is hard to avoid. Some in the anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) climate change advocacy movement say it's already too late; others, that it's nearly there; still others, that we'll encounter smaller disasters (potable water's increasingly limited availability) en route to massive exterminations if we don't make radical changes now. (By radical changes, I mean things along the lines of banning the internal combustion engine, banning all oil- and coal-burning technologies, strictly enforcing population controls, et al. That is, pure eco-fascism.) But shrillness does not mean false or wrong.

Now, we've established that there are far too many people on the planet. Who decides what "too many" is? Not clear, but there are far too many here now, and the population is only growing. Population control policies don't work, unless they're sufficiently harsh (i.e., one-child policies, with large orphanages to take in what abortion doesn't get), and even then it creates its own set of population-related problems (e.g., the Chinese problem of too many men, not enough women, because of the desirability in the nation's massive rural areas for male children).

It's clear that Russia, most of Europe, the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Israel, and the other nations of the west are falling below the level of replaceability (if they aren't already there), so -- aside from illegal immigration -- the wealthy West won't be adding much to these problems beyond what they already do, although implementing some of these ideas will create new problems as wealth disappears. (Poor countries can't afford to create environmental policies on the backs of people who are struggling to survive.)

The really big problem here are the developing nations, especially India, where population growth, poverty, and development are creating a heady brew of disaster for the planet. Factor in the many nations where wood and charcoal are burned routinely to cook and for heat, and the "carbon footprint" of the desperately poor becomes an enormous problem.

So, what to do?

• To borrow from the old Dead Kennedys song, "Kill the poor."I don't mean exterminate en masse, obviously; but just as we've allowed civil war in the Congo to rage on (and off and back on again) for these past, what, 11 years, with a death toll pushing 5.5 million, we can keep hands off from other "humanitarian" disasters. If humanity is the problem, then the term "humanitarian" should go the way of the dinosaurs, right? No more "humanitarian" aid. No more efforts to control or prevent disease. No efforts to end war or famine at all. Let the good times roll!
  
• Espouse suicide as an act of kindness toward the planet we're all condemned to share. Rich or poor, we can all do our part. We can quibble over who should go first, et al., but at some point we're all going to die anyway, and at that point we cease being a drain on limited resources.
  

At this point, is it not true that the situation is one of crisis -- that the sources of the problem should be addressed directly, rather than danced around? I'm thinking, "Yes."

Of course, if the situation isn't that desperate -- if we're getting way too alarmed over a public relations effort, engineered by the UN and at the highest levels of global governance, that is relying on shaky science -- then this will all be a "tragic" overreaction (to us and those who know us -- but the planet doesn't care). But we should know by now that halfway measures aren't going to bring temperatures down to habitable ranges. Everything else amounts to half-steps that will not preserve humanity or the planet.

Let's kill ourselves for Gaia. Kill ourselves for the well-being of our offspring. Kill ourselves because we're a drain on precious resources. Whatever the reason, help out the planet.

Agree with me? Kill yourself now. Don't agree with me? Ditto.

--

(With apologies to Jonathan Swift and thanks to Finnish environmentalist Pentti Linkola ["We still have a chance to be cruel. But if we are not cruel today, all is lost."), whose ideas I liberally borrowed from -- as well as the History Channel series, Life After People.)

Mooky fixes everything

"Ow! The drugs -- they hurt!"

Dead in the water: the American economy

Maclean's, the Canadian newsweekly, has a very strong article on our economic situation -- in part, because Canada is likely to go down the tubes with us. Key point:

What’s alarming about the situation in the U.S. is just how quickly and easily the country found itself buried under a mountain of debt. Back in 2001, the Congressional Budget Office was estimating that by now, the U.S. should be running a healthy annual surplus—in fact it figured that when added together, the surpluses between 2001 and 2011 would total $5.6 trillion. At the time, it seemed like a reasonable projection. After all, in 2001 the government recorded a surplus amounting to $128 billion. But two important things happened since then that launched the U.S. into a very different future: the dot-com bust and George W. Bush. The recession that followed in 2001 caused tax revenues to fall and spending on social services to rise, taking a good bite out of those estimated budget surpluses. At the same time, newly elected president George W. Bush—emboldened by the surplus he’d inherited when he came to office—proceeded to dole out steep and widespread tax cuts, which cut revenue by about five per cent. That was followed by a new $530-billion drug benefit program in 2003. To top it all off, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan caused defence spending to explode. (The bill for those wars so far: $830 billion.) In just four years, America’s massive budget surplus was decimated and turned into a $400-billion annual deficit. Since then, it briefly showed signs of recovery, but when the recession hit in 2008, the deficit quickly plummeted back down to around $400 billion.

But it's not strictly a Bush bash-fest (although those are hard to say "no" to, given what an unmitigated disaster his presidency was):

President Barack Obama hasn’t helped matters. Faced with a severe recession he has had little choice but to push policies that have piled debt on top of debt. Nearly $3 trillion has been spent rescuing banks and the automakers (that’s about as much as the entire government spent in all of 2008), and stimulus programs have added another $800 billion to the government’s tab.

At some point, as many keep saying, we're going to have to pay this back. We certainly can't begin to now. The question is this: At what point does China say, to heck with it! All China has to do is slow down its purchase of U.S. treasuries (the instruments of our debt to them) in order to cause a major problem in our economy (e.g., an even crunchier credit crunch).

The Boomers are about to retire, placing unheard-of demands on Medicare, Social Security, etc. Either benefits will be cut, or taxes will have to rise. (Mind you, we're currently talking about expanding health care coverage on the government's non-existent tab.)

At some point, the U.S. will have to cut spending and raise taxes. There is no magic bullet.

At some point, the U.S. will have to bring troops home, contract its global interests to its immediate sphere of influence, and pay it all back. The really sad, pathetic thing is that it won't be us; it'll be our children and grandchildren.

At some point, we'll all be shrugging when the international community has to send help our way, because we were too stupid to see how we are wrecking our own country.

How about them bonds?

Two weeks ago, $134 billion in U.S. bearer bonds was seized by the Swiss from two "Japanese" men. If that doesn't sound like all that much given how often we hear the word "trillion" thrown around these days, it actually is -- particularly in bearer bonds, which are technically exchangeable for cash on demand. Assuming, of course, you can find someone to cash a $1 billion bond (or 50 of them, which these guys had).

It's almost certain they are fake. Neither type is known (or confirmed officially) to exist, and only a government facility could cash even one of them. (This analysis at Cannonfire has good details and follow-up.) Still, it's an alarming crime (crime being that the bonds were undeclared, being hidden in false bottoms of luggage) given the sheer amount. What are these guys up to?

It now appears that the men are notorious Filipino con men, and there is apparently some connection to nutty cult leader, Her Majesty Salvacion Legaspi.

A cult leader. A ridiculously huge amount in bearer bonds. . A U.S. official looks at a photo of the bonds and says they're obviously fake -- if that's true, then what are these guys up to? And if they're not fake -- if the U.S. official is wrong, or lying -- what are $134 billion in bearer bonds doing with two unidentified Filipino men? Crazy. And worth following.

Pump, pump, pump ...

Pushpushpushpushpushpush!

Obama now a fan of trade pacts

On one measure -- actually, on several -- Obama is proving to be every bit the truth-challenged döppelganger to his candidate"original" that his predecessor was. Obama is now all for NAFTA ("no plans to renegotiate" -- contra his campaign promise) and, more, for new trade agreements with South Korea, Colombia, et al.).

This from the Christian Science Monitor, but it's everywhere in the MSM:

Besides that, Mr. Schott says, "He'll want the American people to understand how trade policy can be part of a strategy to promote economic development in poorer countries."

Nothing new here. As the Washington Post reported, candidate Obama began the flip-flopping years ago, and has never really stopped. Obama is a politician at the end of the day, and a Chicago politician at that -- meaning his primary obligations are to his own fiefdom. Bush was a Texas politician; they're just as notorious for the same.

Of course, that's "pragmatism" to a Democrat. A Republican doing exactly the same thing would be accused of "lying." I'm no Republican (nor Democrat), but that's the way the game is played, apparently.

I give Obama credit where it's due: He's (thus far) avoided the temptation to get involved in Iran (we'll see how long that lasts) and he hasn't invaded any other nation (yet).

But his economic policies are a disaster (one that will get worse, merely continuing what Bush started) that our children and grandchildren will be paying for as the years drag on, and his Middle Eastern policy, except for some tough talk with Israel, is more of the same. (We'll be withdrawing in 2011 -- er, make that 2012, and we won't withdraw about 40,000 -- make that 60,000 -- troops whom we'll station in the countryside, etc.) The war in Afghanistan will apparently be long and bloody.

I am still praying for the man, still hoping (against hope?) that he won't sink us even further than the disastrous Bush administration did.

... or is he?

Peter Schiff is sometimes right, and he's sometimes wrong -- like every other economic/market writer out there. Another economic writer, Mike Shedlock ("Mish"), points out that Schiff's positions aren't always the best things for his clients -- at least not in 2008:

I have talked with many who claim they have invested with Schiff and are down anywhere from 40% to 70% in 2008. There are many other such claims on the internet. They are entirely believable for the simple reason Schiff's investment thesis was flat out wrong.

So, what's the upshot? I don't think anybody knows what's likely to happen, bull or bear. The more smug and dogged someone is, the likelier it is that person is wrong, though. The world is much, much more complex than bulls and bears like to admit, or even both sides in the global warming/climate change debate. (And yes, there is a debate; science is never "settled," as some like to claim, and scientific truth is never reached by consensus.)

Fact is that millions of people are going to retire soon with enormously less in their investment vehicles than they had, largely because of all the smiling/talking heads on financial shows and other forms of money media. Peter Schiff has been a welcome bromide, reminding us that an economy based on nothing but debt and consuming more and more cannot be sustained. But he's no oracle; no one is. Either way, don't believe the hype.

Peter Schiff: the "Bad News Bear" who's often right

Peter Schiff, president of Euro-Pacific Capital, has been downbeat on the U.S. economy for quite a while. He's generally been mocked for it by the usual hucksters of Wall Street.

But he's been uncannily right, too. Get a load of all the rosy predictions contra Schiff here:



Here's the CNBC edition:



I don't mean to fall down and worship Schiff. He's human, even though he's brilliant. I do mean to undercut the idea that this is some temporary downturn. We're headed for a huge, huge shakeup that will likely drag on for years. I don't buy the "recovery by the end of 2010" notion any more than I believe that running up unfathomable debt will save us (that's, er, insane).

How bad is the banking/economic situation?

In a long analysis in the London Review of Books, Brit John Lanchester says the international banking system is just about kaput:

I guarantee that at this very moment, somewhere in the world, somebody at one of the big banks is sitting with his head in his hands, looking at the company’s balance sheet and sweating over this very problem. If the global economic crisis can be reduced to one single phenomenon, it is this: the fact that nobody knows which banks are solvent. Because banks are crucial to the creation and operation of credit, a bank crisis leads directly to a credit crunch. It’s also the reason the huge amounts of money being pumped into the banking sector by governments are tending not to do the thing they are supposed to do, i.e. restart lending to businesses and consumers. That’s because – and here we can have that very rare thing, a brief moment of sympathy for the banksters – the banks are being given two totally incompatible goals. One is to rebuild their balance sheet and recapitalise themselves so they’re no longer at risk of going broke. The second is to keep lending money. They’re being told to save and to keep spending at the same time. It’s not possible, and in the circumstances it’s no mystery why banks are using every penny they can get, and calling in every loan they can: they’re doing it in order to ‘deleverage’ and rebuild their capital as fast as possible.

Lanchester's focus is the global banking system. His next book is amusingly titled Woops!

Similarly, Michael Hudson, professor of economics and president of the Institute of Long-Term Economic Trends, has a devastating assessment of the dollar's future as Russia, China, and other nations -- but not the United States -- in Yekaterinburg, Russia, last week:

Even without capital controls, the nations meeting at Yekaterinburg are taking steps to avoid being the unwilling recipients of yet more dollars. Seeing that US global hegemony cannot continue without spending power that they themselves supply, governments are attempting to hasten what Chalmers Johnson has called “the sorrows of empire” in his book by that name – the bankruptcy of the US financial-military world order. If China, Russia and their non-aligned allies have their way, the United States will no longer live off the savings of others (in the form of its own recycled dollars) nor have the money for unlimited military expenditures and adventures.

US officials wanted to attend the Yekaterinburg meeting as observers. They were told No. It is a word that Americans will hear much more in the future.

Just a matter of time, and not much time, at that. When the U.S. dollar falls from its position as the world's reserve currency, we'll be in even bigger trouble. But maybe that's what it will take to end the American empire and renew our nation as a democratic republic.

Stevie Nicks is a witch!

Kenny Loggins=Ultimate Evil! But you knew that.

"On the Carrot Highway"

"Why, yes, I am going your way!" You'll love the hip-hop break. I did.

Getting the state out of the booze and gambling industries

My state, North Carolina, passed an "education lottery" bill back in 2005. Supporters pointed to the fact that many of my fellow citizens were already playing the lottery in neighboring Virginia and South Carolina; and that a sizable portion of the revenues (35 percent) would be funneled into the state's education budget, and the funds are needed.

Critics, on the other hand, pointed out that the lottery experiences of other states indicated that those lofty promises were rarely met; and when they were, the funds didn't increase the education budget, but replaced dollars that were (thanks to the lottery revenues) diverted to other purposes; that the lottery is, or at least includes, a very regressive tax on poor people (who make up a sizable portion of the lottery player demographic); and that lotteries are actually a tax, and a hidden tax at that.

So who's right? Hard to say, but a 2007 New York Times investigation found that states aren't delivering on that promised windfall for education. Here in North Carolina, our governor recently proposed diverting more than $88 million for general budget needs. Understandable, given the budget crisis we face; but contrary to the promises the lottery was sold under. (It should be pointed out that Perdue cast the tie-breaking vote to as Lt. Governor back in 2005.)

And therein lies the rub. If it takes lies to get a lottery, you can bet your bottom dollar (ha!) that the lies won't stop there. Lotteries enrich the winners and the lottery-management company first and foremost; the state contracts with a private business to run the thing. This is no different than what one will find in Las Vegas except the state is not involved (save for licensing and regulating, as with any business). Lotteries also wind up hurting school funding, for a variety of reasons -- primarily, though, because the funds serve to replace funds moved elsewhere, rather than adding to the revenue base. It's bait and switch.

Here's another problem: As lottery revenues have fallen short of projections in our state, the push is on to attract more gambling. The current North Carolina focus is on "core gamblers" -- those who account for 80 percent of lottery business. Wonder what percentage of these folks are problem gamblers? I don't expect to see a state-funded study of lottery demographics any time soon (political third rail, that one), but the wealthy, I'd surmise, won't be heavily represented among "core gamblers" in the NC Education Lottery.

And another: According to the News & Observer, education funds from the lottery are primarily being used to build new schools in areas experiencing population declines.

I believe gambling is a sin that violates the principle of earning money for the work you do. Yes, it gets shadowy around the fringes of the gamble that is investment. It also gets shady when one follows the money, particularly where private sector gambling is concerned. But I also believe it's an individual's decision -- a sin, but not a crime. What makes no sense whatever, though, is to declare it illegal for private persons to start a gambling enterprise (or participate in a form of gambling the state doesn't endorse), but sanction it for the state's use. (The same applies to the sale of liquor in North Carolina, which is state-controlled for no good reason. And, for the record, I believe drunkenness is a sin, but drinking in careful moderation is not -- and I respect the decision of abstainers very much.)

Either ban it altogether, or allow private companies to run gambling operations and tax/regulate them, as with everything else. Don't pretend the money's "only for education." It's for whatever use the state has for it.

Freedom of speech, responsibility for our rights

You think it'd be clear by now, but novelists, talk show hosts, TV networks, U.S. presidents, broadcasters, athletes, entertainers and others all have two things in common, at a minimum:

They can't make you do what you don't want to do. And they can't keep you from doing what you will.

But now, those who supposedly advocate free speech and free expression are calling for an end to the expression they don't like. It was right-leaning writers and opinion-makers doing this during the Bush years; Andrew Sullivan, Hannity, Limbaugh, et al. played the terrorism-treason card so often it got silly.

Now it's the Left's turn, and they aren't disappointing. In the past few days, I've read and heard several examples of Left-leaning writers calling for hate-speech laws, "rounding up" those whom they view as espousing hateful ideas, etc. Along the way, they're blaming the murders of George Tiller, the late-term "abortion provider," and the U.S. Holocaust Museum shooting on Limbaugh et al. As if we hadn't discussed, and dismissed, this idea repeatedly. (Strangely, it doesn't seem to apply to the U.S. Army recruitment office murder, but that's hardly surprising -- and it would be every bit as wrong if they were advocatin gsuch.) Just as we didn't blame J.D. Salinger for John Lennon's murder, or Jodie Foster for the assassination attempt on Pres. Reagan -- because that's crazy, much as the murderers were/are -- we cannot hold anyone other than the murderers responsible for the murders. You may hate Rush Limbaugh, but he didn't cause any of this. Nor did Charles Manson or "society" cause Lynette "Squeaky" Fromme to attempt the assassination of Pres. Ford, or anarchists other than Leon Czolgosz cause Pres. William McKinely's assassination, and so on. And on and on.

Bottom line: There are those on the Right and Left -- Republicans and Democrats -- who are enemies of our Constitutonally identified freedoms. Our vigilance against these monsters -- both nutjob murderers (defense against whom requires a strong, individualist reading of the Second Amendment) and nutjob usurpers of our freedoms (defense against whom requires a strong, individualist reading of the First Amendment) -- is the only thing keeping them from rounding anyone up.

Is there anything that can't be advertised to the viewing public?

"Being a big guy has its advantages, and its disadvantages."

See more funny videos and TBT Videos at Today's Big Thing.

Free speech: often ugly, always necessary

One of the worst things -- the very worst -- about current (and recent) politics is the tendency among liberals and conservatives to demonize their opponents by the worst means available. During the Bush regime, opponents of the War in Iraq were frequently branded as fifth-column traitors whose undemonstrated links and ties to terrorist organizations were assumed.

Now, to quote Lt. Frank Drebin of Police Squad fame, "the foot's on the other hand" -- and the same tendencies have emerged, anew, among liberals. Yes, conservatives are all bigots who hate the earth and the minority populations who inhabit it, just as liberals were all commies and terrorists.

There are legitimate arguments to be made about domestic and foreign policy that should happen in calm, rational, invective-free discussion. But they rarely do. So ... what to do?

Nothing. Seriously. It's called "free speech" for a reason, and while no freedom is absolute, the Constitution clearly pushes the idea of individual liberty in each of its core amendments, the first 10, known as the Bill of Rights.

Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com documents how "progressives" tend to attack civil liberties with the same venom that conservatives do. The simple truth is that neither major political party cares about our individual liberties, except as they can be deformed as issues to win elections. Raimondo writes:

We all know the history of this impulse: the House "Un-American" Activities Committee, government infiltration of the antiwar and civil rights movements ("Cointelpro"), the sinister role played by J. Edgar Hoover and his political police in trying to stifle free speech and dissident political movements in this country — how can any "liberal" worthy of the title support such a brazenly illiberal concept?
The answer is: they’re in power, now. And they have no compunctions — or very few — about clamping down on the opposition, using whatever repressive device comes to hand.

Thus, "hate crimes" and "hate speech" laws, the "Fairness Doctrine," et al. Too many on the Right called for squelching free speech for Bush opponents during their reign; now, too many on the Left are calling for the same, albeit more subtly (and, obviously, targeted against their opponents on the Right). All conservatives are getting tarred with the extremist brush, now that an abortion provider and a security guard at the U.S. Holocaust Museum have been murdered by nutjobs.

Whether we happen to land on the Right or Left, we all have to accept the fact that others disagree with us. The answer to free speech we don't like is free speech of our own, countering the views we don't share. And that's the only answer.

Deadlier than the male ...

Well, when she looks and sings like this, you betcha! Classic cocktail tune ...

Trapped ... in the web of love!

Joi Lansing puts falling in love in perspective. Happy Friday!

Simple joys in daily living

If I get too far down, I have to make myself leave my home and go out, around people in public. I used to hate being in public, but that's changed.

I find there are many moments of joy in talking with strangers. It might be the person in front of me in a grocery store line, a waiter at a restaurant, someone at the post office. It begins when I remind myself to show kindness and interest in another person.

And it actually works. Joy follows even the most basic exchange.

I need to do this more often, as it seems so many things cloud my spirit with doubt, worry, even anger. So much divides us, makes us all mistrustful and hostile; I'm no exception. To reach across the divides from time to time and connect with another human being on the level of basic civility is a good thing. I sense God's presence in it. And I thank Him for it.

Great way to sell beepers

Pretty much the best commercial ever! - watch more funny videos

Injured in an epic conflagration?

I wonder if he does mesothelioma cases, too?

Ridiculous Insurance Commercial - watch more funny videos

Racial sensitivity: a primer

Warning: Some of this is a little dicey, but mostly it's hilarious.

The Bicycle Thief -- in 20 seconds

De Sica's classic slice of neorealism, neorealistically reduced to something less than its essence.

Treatment ends

Cancer treatment officially over, for now. I am so relieved. Feeling much better already! Yesterday I returned to church for the first time in months (the weekends were awful), with no nausea, no fatigue, no pain ... It was nice! Beautiful Sunday morning, and blessings throughout the service.

I have a CT scan scheduled to see where we are now, and I'll be getting those every six months for the duration to keep an eye on things. I'm in the high-recurrence category, so while I'm glad to be done for now, I have no illusions; this is likely just round one, and the next round will be harder.

But for now -- and now is all I really have -- I'm clean, cancer-free, and taking the first steps toward getting healthy again. And how good that feels!