Flight from Trantor

Holding back

Obamians attempt a purge in the intelligence community, and then wonder why it doesn't function like a top.

WSJ:

"The U.S. had multiple pieces of information about alleged bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, according to senior U.S. officials, including intelligence reports and communications intercepts suggesting a Nigerian was being prepped for a terror strike by al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

[...]

But U.S. officials said it isn't clear whether intelligence officials in Washington charged with coordinating such intelligence activities effectively distributed the information gathered in Nigeria."

Gee, why wouldn't they want to stick their necks out?

In much the same way, Obamians beat up on small businesses, and then exhort the business owners to contrIbute more effort to an economic recovery. 

Anyone see a pattern here/

What is wrong with this story?

The NYPost reported today that Speaker Pelosi and confreres will be jetting off to Copenhagen to attend the Climate Farce.  While there was some question about whether they are taking 5 or just 2 Air Force jets, the part that stuck out for me was the following:

"...the 89th Air Wing source said Pelosi actually reserved five planes to carry a delegation that includes as many as 24 Democrats and six Republicans." (emphasis mine)

Ummm, why are Republicans collaborating in this nonsense?  Are these the same Republicans scratching their heads over reports that the Tea Party, to the extent it represents a coherent political entity at least, is more popular than either the Democrats or the Republicans?

Small wonder.

[UPDATE] From Byron York, one of the Republican fellow-travelers, Rep. James Sensenbrenner says via a press release "I look forward to seeing these negotiations progress and will pay close attention to make sure any deal struck is a good deal for the United States."

Oh C'mon!  The only good climate deal for the United States is no deal.

Senate Republicans wake up, grow a set...

... and the Left freaks out.  Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) invoked a parliamentary rule to require full reading of the 700+ page Sanders (Socialist-Vt.) amendment that would have made Medicare available for everyone - a "public option" by any other name.  MSNBC anchors reportedly went beserk. In the end Sanders withdrew his amendment.

[UPDATE]  And apparently when Sanders was allowed to interrupt the reading and withdraw the amendment, the Senate rules were breached.  Once the reading is begun, it can only be interrupted by unanimous consent.

Obama does Econ 101 - again

From the Presidents remarks today after his meeting with "Bankers":

"Our nation's banks play, and have always played, a crucial role in our national economy -- from providing loans for homes and cars and colleges; to supplying the capital that allows entrepreneurs to turn ideas into products and businesses to grow; to helping people save for a rainy day and a secure retirement. "

Yup, I remember that, too.

"So it's clear that each of us has a stake in ensuring the strength and the vitality of the financial system."

You mean except when you are trying to destroy the financial system and demonize Wall Street?

"That starts with finding ways to help creditworthy small and medium-size businesses get the loans that they need to open their doors, grow their operations, and create new jobs."

Just who is considered credit-worthy today?  All small business owners with good credit ratings who haven't had a line of credit canceled or frozen at least temporarily in the last 10 months, raise your hands........

Actually, I am sick of credit.  I don't want any more.  Because with all the nasty surprises that Obama and the Democrats are planning for the next three years, I have to lower my expectations on my ability to pay that credit back.  I am not hiring anyone else until this health care nonsense is settled.  I am not going tp hire anyone else until Obama and the Dems shed some light on just how much of my productive effort they intend to confiscate.

I can only speak for myself.  People say that there is no economic recovery because small businesses aren't expanding; small businesses are not expanding because of the uncertainty caused by Obamaian wealth redistribution rhetoric and its attendant policies - National Health Care and Cap 'n Tax. 

And of course (which brings us to today's event) the banks aren't lending, or so say the small businesses.  The banks are not lending because they, too, are afraid that the expanding Federal bureaucracy will choke the life out of small businesses and the banks will be left holding the bag.

So by all means keep beating up on the banks and the entrepreneurs.  It is working out so well for all of us.

"So I urged them to work with us in Congress to finish the job of reforming our financial system to bring transparency and accountability to the financial markets."

Why don't you work on bringing transparency and accountability to your own administration first, like you said you were going to do.

The EPA jumps the shark

...and takes the environmental movement with it?  We will see.

I am talking about the "finding" that CO2 is a pollutant. 

There has always been an anti-human fringe element in the environmental movement, and a decidedly anti-development/anti-progress not-so-fringe element.  And it has been easier to ignore the former and soft pedal the later as long as the former was confined to the fringe. 

But the EPA has now declared that simply exhaling is a dangerous act and in so doing it has elevated the extreme, the fringe, to the ordinary.  For many (hopefully most) sentient beings, this will be the final straw, and a clear indication that environmentalists have not been playing with a full deck.

The real downside is that the sensible conservationist aspects of "environmentalism" may get trashed as well.  That need not happen.

Bureaucrats get bonuses?

The Washington Examiner reported today that

"The economy has been in the dumps for years, but the good times keep on rolling for some favored D.C. employees.

City officials have doled out nearly $15 million in bonuses and awards since Mayor Adrian Fenty took office in January 2007, records obtained by The Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act show."

Yikes.  A few years ago I worked for a dot.bomb that was on its way out.  Our holiday bonus consisted of a lousy tee shirt.

This is on the heels of the USAToday report that Federal bureaucrats' salaries are now about 1.75 times as large as their private sector counterparts.  That is a government average of $71,206 vs. $40,335 in the private sector.

When I graduated from college 35 years ago, and law school three years later, government service was for the altruistic and/or unmotivated.  No one expected to make more money, but you did expect to have an easier and less stressful life.  Outside of the military or intelligence community or in some aspects of the judiciary, there was no particular honor in government service.  This has truly been turned on its head.  The money for government salaries comes primarily from taxes or government operated monopolies in services like the post office or Amtrak.  In large part the government is using its coercive powers to take from the productive sectors of the economy to give to the unproductive.  Not only unproductive, but inefficient.  No government entity that can simply raise taxes to cover its inefficiencies will ever be as efficient and productive as a private enterprise that will simply go out of business if it does not minimize its inefficiencies.

In many respects this is more insidious than any of the blatantly socialistic policies of the Obama administration.  Our attitudes about merit and reward need to be radically shifted in favor back to the private sector before we see any real progress away from redistributionist public sympathies.

The Climate is Changing?

Duh!  Along with everything else.

In a word, anicca.

"...[T]ime cannot wither nor custom stale Al Gore’s infinite monotony."

Roger Kimball.  It is almost poetry.

"Many readers will remember the scene in Dr. No when we first see Sean Connery: “Bond,” he says, flipping open the lighter and applying the flame to the cigarette. “James Bond.” In the background the Bond leitmotif swells forth, letting us know exactly what manner of creature we are dealing with. Al Gore should boast such a signature song, too. I recommend the tune from the Twilight Zone: irritating, repetitive, creepy — everything Al Gore’s theme song should be. It should play every time he appears to speak on television or before the public and should waft out of computer speakers whenever you click on a url associated with his name."