The Lies that Buy ... Elections

What happens when the idiots who run the government collude with the media to "win" an election:

What Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid — the architects of what I have been calling the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) economy — did during the final five months of the presidential campaign to convince businesses, entrepreneurs, and investors that they were intent on starving them of the energy resources needed for growth and radically increasing their taxes, combined with their party’s decades-in-the-making housing and mortgage industry debacles coming to a head, virtually guarantee that.
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Obama, Biden, and the Democratic Party are engaging in their sharply negative jawboning on the economy for the same reason a mob hit man sends a person he knows to attend his target’s funeral: he wants to make sure he’s dead. Obama et al. want to make sure the economy seems dead, and that consumers don’t do something unhelpful like start spending again, until shortly after their party’s precious stimulus package becomes law — after which they, with the help of their lapdogs in old media, will joyously announce a resurrection.

So the Democrats - and the Republicans certainly helped out - and the media "killed" the economy so that they could win an election and then resurrect the economy after Jan. 20, figuring nobody out here in the hinterlands would notice. Yet, we're noticing. Well, some of us.

But, as the article notes and links, the turnaround has probably already begun. But this should definitely be encouraging, despite the headline "Retail Sales Plummet:"

When gasoline sales are excluded, the fall in overall retail sales is more modest: a 2.5% drop in November and a 4% decline in December. A 40% drop in gasoline prices over the year-earlier period contributed to the sharp decline in total sales.

Now, including gasoline as "retail sales" is technically accurate but arguably uselessly insane, along the lines of the panic-inducing articles you read in October and November about "plummeting" oil prices, as if that were a bad thing. Oh, sure, bad for Arab countries, but good for Americans. So, in the end, a 2.5% drop in retail sales is almost nothing. Add to it the other good news, and the economy is only in danger of being ruined - for real - by Democrats forcing the federal government to bail stuff out.

Alcoholic Manhattanitte Predicts End of Alcohol in Polite Society

Not bloody Mary likely:

Susan Cheever, among America's greatest experts on booze, is predicting the end of drinking in polite society with a self-imposed return to a sort of Chardonnay-sipping Prohibition. It makes grim news for a New Year which promises little but gloom and poverty, a prospect to be faced, if Cheever is right, without a decent draft of claret or a slug of bourbon.

Cheever, 65, believes that the social taboo that has consigned cigarettes to the butt-bin among the American middle classes is increasingly spreading to getting drunk, or even a little high. Tipsiness means being labelled as working class, or lower, and has already become completely "non-you" at the high end of New York society.

Americans, like most people in the world, like alcohol. There isn't one chance in hell that drinking is on the outs or will become unfashionable. Getting drunk, however, has always been considered unfashionable and lame. What we have here is an ex-drinker (alcoholic) wishing nobody else would drink, because she can't/won't drink responsibly, and, yes, drinking responsibly means getting tipsy X percent of the time, because that's what the eff alcohol was created to do. Nobody would drink it if it didn't alter your mood.

And, yes, getting drunk every once-in-a-while is totally okay. It happens.

Oh, and about that crack on cigarettes: people still smoke them. I hear that the incoming president of the United States smokes them, does that make him low class or something?

Climate Change Morons

First off, AP writer Seth Borenstein is a complete hysterical moron, writing this idiotic piece as if he were shouting an urgent warning that a great danger was about to occur. There is no "global climate." The planet has experienced "global climate change" and "global warming" and "global cooling" since the beginning of time. And, anyway, how big is this "change" problem? Tiny:

The average global temperature in 2008 is likely to wind up slightly under 57.9 degrees Fahrenheit, about a tenth of a degree cooler than last year. When Clinton was inaugurated, 57.9 easily would have been the warmest year on record. Now, that temperature would qualify as the ninth warmest year.

A tenth of a degree? Seriously? I'm supposed to care about such a tiny fluctuation in the "global climate"? Really? You do realize the planet is in a warming period of a global ice age, right, which explains why there's such widespread flora and fauna.

This nitwittery is nothing more than a religion for anti-religious leftist morons, because facts don't matter to them, belief in a cause does. Morons.

Crime and Punishment

Over at Ace of Spades HQ, this post notes that the Illinois Democratic Party is trying to figure out how to oust Democratic Gov. "Hot" Rod Blagojevich from his post because of the scandal involving him and Obama's US senate seat. Now, aren't we supposed to wait until somebody has been convicted of something before removing them from office. I mean, it's one thing to pressure him to resign because of the overwhelming appearance of impropriety and a desire to sweep embarassment from the stage, but it's another to convict the douchebag in the court of public opinion.

I mean, seriously, I thought this tactic was only used by Democrats against Republicans, not one of their own. Obama didn't suffer any negatives from any of his past associations,with shady or corrupt (or insane) people, so what's the big deal here?

Che Guevera, Murderous Thug

I have no idea why Che Guevara remains a popular figure on the left. Similarly, I have no idea why the right debunks the murderous boob's cult of personality every 15 months or so. That said, once more, with feeling.(and Reason TV video)

Department of Stupid Idiots

For the longest time, we were told it was Global Warming, a phenomenon caused by man and his use of fossil fuels and the creation of excess CO2 in the atmosphere. Then, when the science showed there was no such thing as Global Warming, the global warmists changed the argument to "global climate change," which is fancy way of saying "weather," and labled those of us on the skeptical and anti-anthropogenic-cause side as "deniars." Nice, that. And now comes the latest bit of nonsensical hysteria from Team Obama:

President-elect Barack Obama said Tuesday his administration would brook no further delay in tackling climate change after discussing global warming with former vice president Al Gore.

Sitting between Gore and his vice president-elect Joseph Biden following the hour-long meeting, Obama told reporters: “All three of us are in agreement that the time for delay is over. The time for denial is over."

This moron Obama is really full of himself. It'll be interesting to see what happens over the next few years as he tries to remake reality into the worldvision he sees inside his skull.

Obama's Pastor is a Total Moron

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright returned to the pulpit this past weekend and blasted America's use of atomic bombs in World War 2:

"Any preacher who dares to point out the simple ugly facts found in every field imaginable is demonized as volatile, controversial, incendiary, inflammatory, anti-American and radical," Wright said, taking time out to note the thousands of Japanese civilians who died 67 years to the day when American warplane dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Of course, Dec. 7 marks the date that the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It would be four more years before the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, events which led the Japanese to surrender unconditionally and end the war. This guy Wright is an anti-American moron of epic proportions, and his link to Obama only signals character traits likely to be found in Obama, should the mainstream media dare itself to look.

Obama Is A Moron

He's not even president, yet, and already he's outing himself as a doctrinaire pinhead with no understanding of reality:

Obama said his plan would put millions of people to work by "making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s."

WATCH:

He also wants to install energy-saving light bulbs and replace old heating systems in federal buildings to cut costs and create jobs.

This clown wants to be FDR2, only he doesn't realize FDR1 was a complete and utter failure who is only redeemed in history because he happened to be president during World War 2, and we won that war, so history imputes victory on him and transforms him into a hero. Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a socialist nightmare who led the nation to disaster after disaster.

The other problem we have here is that Obama is a small-minded idiot. He wants to replace furnaces and light bulbs to "create jobs?" Ahem, who the hell wants to be a lightbulb changer as their new "green" career? This assclown Obama thinks the US government's energy bills are too high? I'll bet dollars to donuts right this instant that Obama hasn't a single clue what the "nation's" energy bill is. He doesn't know because nobody knows. Nobody can know. There is no way to know how much money the federal government spends on gas and electric bills. There's no line item in the budget, and no single bureaucrat at any level of government tracks the expenditures.

And that these proposals for a new public works administration are the first from his presumptive office as the president-elect show us that he has no clue what country he lives in, and who lives in it. Apparently, we are a nation of laborers who can easily shift from bricklaying to carpentry to furnace repair and lightbulb installation. Obama doesn't have a clue what the workforce of America looks like.

Are you a laid-off software engineer looking for a new gig? Hell, you voted for The One, so embrace your new career as an asphalt technician in the new Highway Corps of Engineers, building better, blacker roads for a brighter future! You've always wondered if it was boring holding one of those Stop/Go road signs, and now you'll find out!! Finally, you'll get the answer to the eternal question, "How many guys does it take to watch another guy use a shovel?"

Because you'll be using the shovel!!!

Oh, sure, you used to be a $70/hour automobile factory worker, but you'll gladly work for minimum wage to rake leaves in the federal park system. It's for America!!!! And, don't forget, you voted for the guy, so this is the America you wanted!!!!!

When he spoke of change and hope, you always knew what you wanted was a greener federal office building in your town, one that used those (toxic-mercury-filled) compact fluorescent lightbulbs and super-efficient furnaces. What's next, Rinnai tankless hot water heaters?

The Blagojevich Scandal

I dunno, I think Hugh Hewitt is a bit over-optimistic when he writes:

The MSM issued a huge pass to candidate Obama during the election when it came to Rezko et al. They cannot keep that up through an entire presidency.

Wanna bet?

If there's anything that's absolutely certain is that the mainstream media will do everything it can to minimize every and any Obama negative. The MSM covered for Clinton for eight years, after all, even if the average Joe remembers the reporting as "coverage of the Clinton scandals" and not "covering up for the Clinton scandals."

That, and at least for the next two years, there is zero possibility that Congress /"the government" will do anything to Obama even if Obama is shown to be a corrupt, shallow, bought-and-paid-for, know-nothing, lying, evasive, vindictive Illinois politician in the pocket of wealthy international anti-American billionaires. Plus, Obama can be linked to murder, incest, rape, and burglary and not suffer tainting in the current mainstream media environment. Unless we get some serious change we can believe in in the media, there's no hope that Obama will come off as anything other than some super-genius wonder-kid who found some fourth way to political success and will unite the country and heal the world.

Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey Hey, Good-bye

The middle of the end is reached:

LOS ANGELES - U.S. newspaper advertising revenue collapsed by nearly $2 billion, or 18 percent, in the third quarter, according to the Newspaper Association of America, an industry group. Even online ad revenue made a small U-turn for the second quarter in a row.

Coming soon: the end of "The Narrative." Once that's done with, maybe we'll be able to take our country back from the nannystate socialists who are doing everything to hollow out liberty and freedom they can in the name of collectivism.

Notice the second sentence, too, as it is a meaningless and poorly-written sentence as it stands. That "small U-turn for the second quarter in a row" means that online sales are continuing to decline, not suddenly dropping without precedent, as the writer of the article seems to try to be insinuating.

Now, if we could only get Hollywood to fail...

Redefining Recession

Used to be two quarters of "negative growth," as the old school economists put it. Not any more:

WASHINGTON (AP) - The U.S. economy has been in a recession since December 2007, the National Bureau of Economic Research said Monday.

The NBER—a private, nonprofit research organization—said its group of academic economists who determine business cycles met and decided that the U.S. recession began last December.

By one benchmark, a recession occurs whenever the gross domestic product, the total output of goods and services, declines for two consecutive quarters.

This group just pronounces it so, and the article is woefully skimpy on facts and figures, so take it with a salt lick.

But these bits are interesting to note:

the NBER's dating committee uses broader and more precise measures, including employment data.
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However, employment, one of the measurements tracked by the NBER, has been falling since January.

This group says there's been something in the "measurements" of employment data, but the article is silent on what that data is. There's nothing to it, so you're obviously meant to think that people are losing their jobs at some sort of dizzying or terrifying rate, given the other flavoring particles the article uses to describe what's going on.

But, seriously, what are the figures? Oh, let's see:

At 6.5 percent in October, the national unemployment rate increased by 0.4 percentage point over the month and 1.7 points over the year.

Up a whopping 1.7% on the year. Sheesh, that's not nothing, but it's nothing to get clammy hands about, especially with a total unemployment rate of 6.5%, which is right in that neighborhood normal Clinton-era economists liked to call "full employment," the rate at which everyone who wants a job has a job, and those without a job are either going back to school, retraining, or sitting it out for a while.

Why in the world the left is pushing so hard to create the illusion of a recession in the land is beyond me, but the only potential answer seems to be that the left thinks if it can convince enough Americans that capitalism and free markets have been proven to be a failure, then maybe Americans will go for something changey and hope inspiring.

War and Police

Mark Steyn explains the Bombay massacre to the media. I suspect the media will continue not to get it, if this is any indication:

Many of us, including the incoming Obama administration, look at this as a law-enforcement matter. Bombay is a crime scene, so let’s surround the perimeter with yellow police tape, send in the forensics squad, and then wait for the DA to file charges. There was a photograph that appeared in many of the British papers, taken by a Reuters man and captioned by the news agency as follows: “A suspected gunman walks outside the premises of the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus or Victoria Terminus railway station.” The photo of the “suspected gunman” showed a man holding a gun. We don’t know much about him — he might be Muslim or Episcopalian, he might be an impoverished uneducated victim of western colonialist economic oppression or a former vice-president of Lehman Bros embarking on an exciting midlife career change — but one thing we ought to be able to say for certain is that a man pointing a gun is not a “suspected gunman” but a gunman. “This kind of silly political correctness infects reporters and news services world-wide,” wrote John Hinderaker of Powerline. “They think they’re being scrupulous — the man hasn’t been convicted of being a gunman yet! — when in fact they’re just being foolish. But the irrational conviction that nothing can be known unless it has been determined by a court and jury isn’t just silly, it’s dangerous.”

Back when I was a practicing journalist, I used to get into arguments with editors all the time about the insertion of the word "allegedly" into my articles before various and sundry facts. I would argue the word was unnecessary and pointless and inelegant in its over-use, and they would tell me it needed to be there to shield us from prosecution for libel or slander. It didn't even need to be a police or similar crime story, either. Editors would throw it in there any time they thought I might be alleging as fact something that deserved shading with a bit more gray.

Just one of the many reasons I left the secular priesthood of journalism.