OK, this Obama cult of personality is getting a wee bit out of hand. I don’t begrudge his supporters waxing rhapsodic about his many virtues (as they see them), but this whole nationwide address to students — and the accompanying letter from EdSec Arne Duncan to teachers and administrators — is getting a bit too close to being creepy, particularly this section of the Duncan letter (emphasis mine):

[Students can] write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date by the teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Note what this item doesn’t say: “to help themselves”, “to help their families”, “to help their community” or even “to help the country”. It’s “to help the president.” That, in my opinion, is way out of line. Having the teachers collect these letters and use them “to make students accountable to their goals [to help the president]” is even more creepy. Those teachers aren’t being paid to make our country’s students “accountable” for goals to “help the president.” They are there to teach our students how to read, write, reason, do math, and think for themselves — and they’re doing a damned poor job of it.

Jack Kennedy’s famous inaugural quote was, “Ask you what can do for your country.” It was not, “Ask what you can do for me.”

[UPDATED 09/02/09 -- 2030 MDT]

Boy, that was fast. The Department of Education has quickly revised the instructions to teachers regarding their students, changing the one line I cited above. It now reads (emphasis mine):

• Write letters to themselves about how they can achieve their short-term and long-term education goals. These would be collected and redistributed at an appropriate later date byt he teacher to make students accountable to their goals.

Of course, the real question is — how many of the teachers will continue to use the old assignment rather than the new one? Hat tip to Jim Geraghty over at NRO Campaign Spot.

[END OF THIS UPDATE]

Along those same lines, there was a flap at an elementary school in Utah over showing the “I Pledge” video at a school assembly (emphasis mine):

Many pledges, such as supporting local food banks, smiling more, and caring for the elderly are noncontroversial. But other pledges, such as “to never give anyone the finger when I’m driving again,” “to sell my obnoxious car and buy a hybrid” and to advance stem cell research cross the line, some say. . . .

Gayle Ruzicka, president of conservative Utah Eagle Forum, said the video was blatantly political. She said other offensive pledges included, “I pledge to be of service to Barack Obama,” “I pledge allegiance to the funk, to the united funk of funkadelica,” and pledges to not use plastic grocery bags and not flush the toilet after urinating.

The video then ends with these various celebrities saying (shouting, really), “What’s your pledge?” “What’s your pledge?” “I know you’ve got a pledge — what’s your pledge?” And then: “I pledge to be a servant to our president and all mankind.” And it pulls out to end with the following image:

OK, that’s full-on creepy. This is being shown at a mandatory, official assembly of grade-school children. According to the newspaper article, it was recommended by the head of the local PTA but was not vetted by the school’s principal before it was shown (quote: “I wish I would have seen this before. I don’t think I would have shown it.”)

[ADDED 09/02/09 -- 1520 MDT]

In the meantime, Jules Crittenden reports on a Boston high school where the Hingham (Boston) High School had as its required summer reading (…wait for it…)   Dreams of My Father by (yep) Barack Obama:

At the high school in la-di-da Hingham on Boston’s South Shore: “Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance.” Parents complained, and the principal said their kids could read another memoir of their choice. She just never told all the other saps, who got stuck reading the vanity campaign tome.

And from the original Boston Herald article:

With school opening Tuesday, the Herald has learned teens whose offended parents complained were allowed by Principal Paula Girouard McCann and Helaine Silva, head of the Hingham Public Schools English Department, to pick any other memoir – an option they never publicized.

“I had no idea,” sophomore Graham King, 15, who was only on page 120 of the 460-page autobiography yesterday, told the Herald with an astonished look. “My parents would like me to be done with it.”

As Jules says, “Unclear whether any other sitting pol’s tome has ever been assigned, but I’m going to take a wild guess that this is special, because it’s … Obama.”

[ANOTHER UPDATE -- 09/02/09 1748 MDT]

Jude over at Hugh Hewett’s blog raises his own concerns about Obama’s cult of personality:

The danger we now face as a culture, as a political culture, is that either Obama is wallowing in the lionization of his own image and no one close enough is calling him on it, or that those around him are propogating the idolization of a man as a means to centralized power, and he is not discouraging it because he enjoys it and the power it seems to bring.

Jude then goes on to note (as others have, including someone at Daily Kos[!]) that while Pres. Obama’s portrait has been up in Federal buildings since his inauguration, Vice-President Biden’s has not. The current explanation is that Biden’s official portrait is at the General Services Administration, but that it has not yet been distributed. Come to think of it, other than his eulogy of Sen. Ted Kennedy and his dismissal of Russia as having a “withering” economy, Joe Biden has largely been absent from the news and public stage all summer long.

[END OF UPDATES]

Finally, you have this excellent Pajamas TV piece by Bill Whittle about the deliberate use Obama-specific iconography after the 2008 election. We are all familiar with the Obama campaign logo:

The logo continues to be used heavily at BarackObama.com, which is the home for the Organizing for America organization run by the Democratic National Committee:

I don't think they're using the logo often enough....

I counted forty (40!) instances of the Obama logo just on the home page of that website (the snapshot above is only the upper portion of that home page).

But it is also used (or adapted) for official US efforts as well. Or do you think this logo at the Recovery.gov website — and on signs all over America — is purely coincidental?

Look! It's shaped like an R! Oh, wait....

Still, as Whittle points out, there is a downside to this heavy “branding” of Pres. Obama — it makes it easy to mock him without attacking the office of the Presidency. Likewise, should Obama’s poll numbers continue to sink, the Obama brand will drag down those organizations and efforts that rely upon it. And maybe, just maybe the Obama cult of personality will dwindle away.  ..bruce w..

While many recent poll numbers are looking better and better for the Republicans, here’s a wake-up call from Rasmussen:

Seventy-four percent (74%) of Republican voters say their party’s representatives in Congress have lost touch with GOP voters nationwide over the past several years. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 18% of GOP voters believe their elected officials have done a good job representing the base.

As the poll indicates, the Republican Congress largely blew it after the 2002 and 2004 elections, resulting in large Democratic gains in 2006 and 2008.  Even with the sinking poll numbers for Pres. Obama and the Democratic Congress, GOP candidates are going to have to provide both Republican and independent voters with some real reasons to vote for them in 2010. I can’t say that I’ve seen much out of GOP congressional leaders to date that points in that direction.  ..bruce w..

It’s scary at times how well Randall Munroe (author of xkcd) captures our inner thoughts.  ..bruce w..

Obama's approval rating as per Rasmussen Reports (6/21/09)

This took a bit longer than I expected, and there’s still a tremendous amount of movement in the value itself, but Rasmussen today recorded its first negative value for the Daily Presidential Tracking Poll since President Obama took office. This value is actually calculated by subtracting the percentage who strongly disapprove of Pres. Obama’s performance from the percentage who strongly approve of his performance. Here’s a chart from Rasmussen itself that shows the convergence and then crossing of those two groups:

Interestingly, the actually division between the overall approve/disapprove numbers has been pretty even for some time — it’s been roughly 55/45 since March, with a little movement in both directions. Given the margin of error (+/- 3%) and the wild swings over the past few months, I’m not sure how significant the first negative value is.

On the other hand, if this were five months into the McCain administration with the same result, I’m sure it’d would be front-page, above-the-fold news on the NY Times and the Washington Post. ..bruce w..

The Obama/Democratic financial plan in a nutshell

MORNING LINKS — apparently, Monday’s also a snowy day

ITEM: I went to bed with rain falling outside and woke up to about an inch of snow on the ground, with more falling. And apparently we could get more on Friday Morning (May 1st).

ITEM: For about two years before things collapsed, my co-blogger, Bruce Henderson, was pointing out the profound financial risks of the housing collapse and subprime crisis — backed with data gathered automatically from multiple listing services all over the country. He wasn’t alone; it’s just that nobody wanted the good times to end.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: A Russian politician sets an example for the US Democrats — “Winning Candidate From Ruling Party Renounces Fraudulent Victory“. Now, if Al Franken could just take inspiration from this man. . . .

ITEM: On the other hand, the Labour Party in Merry Olde England just seems determined to beclown and befoul itself with idiocy that I can scarce believe:

They were ready to lay down their lives for Britain  -  and have been rewarded with an act of treachery.

Thousands of Gurkhas were yesterday shut out of the UK in what was described as ‘shameful betrayal’ by the Government.

Immigration Minister Phil Woolas claimed changes in the rules would allow 4,300 more former Gurkhas to settle here out of the 36,000 who served in the British Army before July 1997.

But lawyers battling for the Gurkhas said they believed only around 100 would benefit. Hundreds of former rank-and-file soldiers will face deportation while thousands more will be barred from entering the country. . . .

Lawyer David Enright said: ‘It’s an absolute betrayal of the Gurkhas, who have been told they are not welcome in this country.

‘It is shameful. This Government has welcomed 600,000 Eastern Europeans, and tens of thousands of asylum seekers every year.

‘But these men, who have fought for us in our darkest hour and in the worst parts of the world, are not welcome. It is a scandal and an outrage.’

Miss Lumley, whose father fought alongside the Gurkhas, said: ‘These men do not want charity. They want this Government to recognise our moral debt of honour.’

Hat tip to Stoaty Weasel.

ITEM: Ya think?

In an interview with FOX News, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who traveled to Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday ahead of elections there, said Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons makes it extra important for the government to keep a lid on the Taliban there.

ITEM: As has been the case for nearly a century now, the rest of the world looks to the United States to save them — this time, financially:

While much of the world blames the United States for triggering the global financial crisis and recession, most nations also are looking to America to start pulling the rest of the world out of the slump.

A parade of foreign financial leaders in town for this weekend’s spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank denounced the financial excesses on Wall Street that have cost millions of jobs and caused trillions of dollars in lost output from Detroit to New Delhi. Yet they also hailed some tentative signs of stabilization in the U.S. economy after a winter of free fall that led the world economy into its worst downturn in modern times

Because, you know, the rest of the world was doing so well before financial troubles hit the United States.

ITEM: The US Supreme Court’s decision regarding the “reverse discrimination” case involving white and Hispanic firemen in New Haven (CT)  should be interesting:

Wednesday morning, a lawyer defending in the Supreme Court what the city of New Haven, Conn., did to Frank Ricci and 17 other white firemen (including one Hispanic) was not 20 seconds into his argument when Chief Justice John Roberts interrupted to ask: Would it have been lawful if the city had decided to disregard the results of the exam to select firemen for promotion because it selected too many black and too few white candidates? . . .

Racial spoils systems must involve incessant mischief because they require a rhetorical fog of euphemisms and blurry categories (e.g., “race-conscious” measures that somehow do not constitute racial discrimination) to obscure stark facts, such as: If Ricci and half a dozen others who earned high scores were not white, the city would have proceeded with the promotions.

Read the whole thing.

ITEM: Speaking of the Supremes, wondering what that student strip search case is all about? Debra Saunders lays it out, and it isn’t pretty:

[Savana] Redding was an honor student with no disciplinary marks against her when another student was caught in class with prescription ibuprofen, small knives and a cigarette. That girl falsely told Assistant Principal Kerry Wilson that she got the pills from Redding.

Redding denied the charge. Wilson searched her backpack and found nothing. So he asked a female assistant and school nurse to strip-search Redding. The two women took Redding down the hall and instructed her to remove her socks, shoes and jacket, then shirt and pants, and finally, when she was down to her underwear, they asked her to pull and twist her underwear — exposing herself — to see if any pills fell out. Redding later described the episode as “the most humiliating experience” of her life.

The experience should have been among the most humiliating for Wilson, the assistant and the nurse: They didn’t find any pills.

Yeah, I’d sue their butts off, too.  Hope Redding wins.

ITEM: Speaking of hope, how’s that Hope and Change™ working out? Not so well, it turns out:

Across the dark living room, one of Childs’s favorite pictures is displayed on a worn coffee table. It shows Childs with her arms wrapped around Barack Obama, his hand on her back, her eyes glowing. They met at a rally attended by 37 supporters on a rainy day in 2007, when Childs responded to Obama’s sluggishness on stage with an impromptu chant: “Fired up! Ready to go!” She repeated it, shouting louder each time, until Obama laughed and dipped his shoulders to the rhythm. The chant caught on. “Fired up!” people began saying at rallies. “Ready to go,” Obama chanted back. He told audiences about Childs, “a spirited little lady,” and invited her onstage at campaign appearances. By the day of his inauguration, when Childs led a busload of strangers bound for the Mall in her now-iconic chant, her transformation was complete. She was Edith Childs, fired up and ready to go.

But now, as Obama nears the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Childs suffers from constant exhaustion. In a conservative Southern state that bolstered Obama’s candidacy by supporting him early in the Democratic primaries, she awakens at 2:30 a.m. with stress headaches and remains awake mulling all that’s befallen Greenwood since Obama’s swearing-in.

ITEM: And, of course, there’s all that transparency that Obama promised during the campaign:

The Obama administration, which has boasted about its efforts to make government more transparent, is rolling back rules requiring labor unions and their leaders to report information about their finances and compensation.

The Labor Department noted in a recent disclosure that “it would not be a good use of resources” to bring enforcement actions against union officials who do not comply with conflict of interest reporting rules passed in 2007. Instead, union officials will now be allowed to file older, less detailed conflict reports.

Because, you know, the Obama Administration will not be beholden to special interests.

ITEM: Speaking of unions, it looks as though the Union of Auto Workers (UAW) blinked in the face of Chrysler’s possible bankruptcy:

It’s crunch time for Chrysler: The automaker has until Friday to slash billions of dollars in debt off its books and partner with Italian automaker Fiat.

Huge hurdles, no doubt. But this weekend it cleared two big ones: It successfully negotiated new deals with the United Auto Workers union and Canadian Auto Workers. The government had been leaning on the UAW to cut wages, making them on par with those of the transplant auto plants in the U.S. In a statement late Sunday, the UAW said the changes meet the requirements set forth by the Treasury Department.

Funny how the prospect of total disaster tends to focus one’s mind.

ITEM: Speaking of economic disaster, Robert Samuelson takes on the utter silliness that surrounds “green economics”:

The trouble is that these models embody wildly unrealistic assumptions: There are no business cycles; the economy is always at “full employment”; strong growth is assumed, based on past growth rates; the economy automatically accommodates major changes — if fossil fuel prices rise (as they would under anti-global-warming laws), consumers quickly use less and new supplies of “clean energy” magically materialize.

There’s no problem and costs are low, because the models say so. But the real world, of course, is different. Half the nation’s electricity comes from coal. The costs of “carbon capture and sequestration” — storing CO2 underground — are uncertain, and if the technology can’t be commercialized, coal plants will continue to emit or might need to be replaced by nuclear plants. Will Americans support a doubling or tripling of nuclear power? Could technical and construction obstacles be overcome in a timely way? Paralysis might lead to power brownouts or blackouts, which would penalize economic growth.

This sounds remarkably like the problems with the actual anthropogenic global warming models.

ITEM: And the Washington Post (God bless ‘em) points out what Obama and the Congressional Democrats are trying very hard to hide: that Obama’s proposed tax increases would fall squarely on the back of small businesses:

Since last year’s campaign, President Obama has vowed repeatedly not to increase taxes for families making less than $250,000 a year. That pledge, while politically popular, has left him with just two primary sources of funding for his ambitious social agenda: about 3 million high-earning families and the nation’s businesses.

Johnson, with her company, falls into both categories. If Obama’s tax plans are enacted, her accountant estimates that her federal tax bill — typically, around $120,000 a year — would rise by at least $23,000, a 19 percent increase.

“You hear ‘tax the rich,’ and you think, ‘I don’t make that much money,’ ” said Johnson, whose Rainbow Station programs are headquartered near Richmond. “But then you realize: ‘Oh, if I put my business income with my wages, then, suddenly, I’m there.’ “

Guess where almost all of the job growth in the US over the past decade has come from? And guess what will happen to job growth if and when those taxes hit?

ITEM: Speaking of deception from the Obama Administration, FactCheck.org finds that Obama has “fudged” or “spun” on a number of items, though their list looks like outright mistakes or lies:

– He told a joint session of Congress on Feb. 24 that “we import more oil today than ever before.” That’s untrue. Imports peaked in 2005 and are lower today.

– He claimed in the same speech that his mortgage aid plan would help “responsible” buyers but not those who borrowed beyond their means. But even prominent defenders of the program in his administration concede that foolish borrowers will be aided, too.

– He said in an address on March 10 that the high school dropout rate has “tripled in the past 30 years.” But according to the Department of Education, it actually has declined by a third.

– Obama also got it wrong when he claimed in his March 24 speech that “we are reducing nondefense discretionary spending to its lowest level since the ’60s.” His own forecast puts this figure higher than in many years under Reagan, Clinton or either Bush.

Let’s say it all together: What if Bush (0r McCain) had made these same ‘errors’? How would the press deal with it?

ITEM: Finally, have you wondered what Newt Gingrich and Fidel Castro might have in common? Hint: it involves President Obama.

More links in the morning, maybe.  ..bruce w..

Performing for the media

MORNING LINKS

ITEM: Stories from the Great Depression. This is a good read to remind ourselves that (Robert Reich notwithstanding) we Americans continue to live in unprecedented abundance:

In the summer, I took a washtub and put it on a little scaffold out near the chicken house and put burlap sacks around it to make it private. You’d fill that tub full of water in the morning, the sun would heat the water. I found a valve somewhere and I had a valve in the bottom of the tub, and that’s where we got the warm water. It held about 20 gallons. We might take one shower a week.

When you got hungry, you could take a walk out in the mountains. There was always something to eat — all kinds of berries — and in the winter you got pecans, hickory nuts, walnuts. We used to eat bullfrog; that’s a delicacy. And we used to eat squirrels and rabbits.

Meanwhile, here in 21st Century America, going through a recession means “shifting from sit-down restaurants to fast-food chains.” Oh, the agony and sacrifice.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism alert: Stewart Varney wonders why the Obama Administration would refuse to accept repayment of TARP funds from banks. The answer, of course, is so that the US Government can maintain control over these banks:

Here’s a true story first reported by my Fox News colleague Andrew Napolitano (with the names and some details obscured to prevent retaliation). Under the Bush team a prominent and profitable bank, under threat of a damaging public audit, was forced to accept less than $1 billion of TARP money. The government insisted on buying a new class of preferred stock which gave it a tiny, minority position. The money flowed to the bank. Arguably, back then, the Bush administration was acting for purely economic reasons. It wanted to recapitalize the banks to halt a financial panic.

Fast forward to today, and that same bank is begging to give the money back. The chairman offers to write a check, now, with interest. He’s been sitting on the cash for months and has felt the dead hand of government threatening to run his business and dictate pay scales. He sees the writing on the wall and he wants out. But the Obama team says no, since unlike the smaller banks that gave their TARP money back, this bank is far more prominent. The bank has also been threatened with “adverse” consequences if its chairman persists. That’s politics talking, not economics.

ITEM: Walgreens pulls the Chia Obama from its stores. Yet the manufacturer says that they’ve had “unbelievable interest” in the Chia Obama.

ITEM (bumped w/updates) — IMAGINE IF THIS WERE THE MCCAIN ADMINISTRATION TAKE-23: Larry Summers got millions for acting as managing director for a hedge fund as well as in speaking fees from the very institutions (J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs and Lehman Brothers) at the heart of the financial meltdown. Several other key Obama Administration figures have likewise received funds. And David Axelrod profited significantly from his Obama campaign work. Nope, no conflict of interest here. Just move along, folks.

OVERNIGHT LINKS — surprise! Posted today anyway.

ITEM: Machievelli famously said that it is better to be feared than to be loved. Bush may not have been much liked over in Europe, but he got a remarkable amount done with them. Obama is greeted with praise, but actual accomplishments? Not so much:

But in his first real taste of diplomacy, Obama is finding out that, like in domestic politics, the gushing praise that other leaders may bestow doesn’t necessarily translate into support for the entirety of his agenda. In other words, simply not being George W. Bush wasn’t enough.

Actually, not being George W. Bush appears to be a disadvantage in actually getting other countries to go along with the US.

LENGTHY EXPLANATION FOR FUTURE SHORTHAND: In Douglas Adams’ classic work, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, he has a flashback scene in which the computer Deep Thought — after several million years of calculation — is about to reveal the answer to life, the universe, and everything. The announcement is briefly delayed by two philosphers, Majikthise and Vroomfondel, who represent the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries, and other professional thinking persons, and who demand that the answer be suppressed because it will put them out of work. Here’s their threat:

MAJIKTHISE: We’ll go on strike!

VROOMFONDEL: That’s right. You’ll have a national philosopher’s strike on your hands.

DEEP THOUGHT:  Who will that inconvenience?

MAJIKTHISE: Never you mind who it’ll inconvenience you box of blacklegging binary bits! It’ll hurt, buster! It’ll hurt!

So in current and future posts, when I refer to “today’s Majikthise award”, it will be for a link claiming some dire consequence or tragic loss for which the questions needs to be asked: who will that inconvenience?

ITEM — TODAY’S MAJIKTHISE (“who will that inconvenience?”) AWARD (see, that didn’t take long): The New York Times Company threatens to shut down the Boston Globe. The real shame is that it couldn’t be the other way around. By the way, I have nothing but sympathy for the actual employees of the Globe – but I’ve worked for 35 years in information technology, where layoffs and company failures are a way of life. Think of it as evolution in action (catchphrase from Oath of Fealty by Niven and Pournelle).

ITEM — JUST-SAY-NO LINK: Monster Cable, purveyor of highly overpriced audio-visual cables (actual performance is no better than coat hangers), apparently uses money from its stiff profit margins to sue lots of other business that happen to use the word “monster” – including (I kid you not) Disney for “Monsters, Inc.” and a family-owned “Monster MiniGolf” miniatured golf franchise. Note: while the WSJ covered this story, it was The Consumerist (one of my favorite daily blogs) that raised the stink on the mini-golf lawsuit back in December and was likely responsible for getting Monster Cable to back off.

ITEM: OK, this is a  cool idea — to grow the first flower on the Moon.

ITEM: NOAA concedes that not all climate change is man-made. What was their first clue — all the climate change that has occurred for the last 4 billion years?

ITEM: So, why do we have fingerprints, anyway?

OK, now I’ll see you on Monday.  ..bruce w..

That's funny, the damage doesn't look as bad from out here.

MORNING LINKS.

ITEM: That didn’t take long: President Obama apologizes for his “Special Olympics” remark on the Tonight Show last night. In the meantime, the New York Times beclowns itself (hat tip to Strategy Memo at Real Clear Politics) by saying: “In his appearance with Mr. Leno, Mr. Obama walked a tightrope between projecting good humor and projecting a presidential air.” Yeah, joking about handicapped people falls under “projecting good humor”. Oh, and the NY Times article quotes almost every Obama clip except the Special Olympics one. No selective reporting there. Philip Klein (The American Spectator) notes that CNN gave Obama a pass as well. The LA Times did cover it, but only at the very end of a long story.

ITEM: Remind us again why Barack Obama was a better choice than Sarah Palin?

ITEM: Also from Philip Klein: “8 of 10 Americans happy with their health care”. So why exactly are we looking at spending over a trillion dollars on “health care reform”? Also, Philip Klein (man keeps popping up, doesn’t he?) addresses the myth of the 46 million Americans without health insurance.

ITEM: From the I-am-not-making-this-up Department: Countrywide sues AIG. May they both lose.

ITEM: Speaking of the New York Times and clowns, the NYT managed to run an extensive profile of Sen. Chris Dodd (D-PMA) and his various troubles without once mentioning that he’s a Democrat.

ITEM: Not only are most Americans happy with their health care, a majority now values economic growth over environmental protection for the first time ever. Yeah, when you’re unemployed and facing foreclosure it’s hard to care about a hypothetical 3-foot rise in sea levels 100 years from now.

ITEM: Speaking of environmentalism: urbanization is a good thing, while moving out to the countryside damages that which we strive to preserve.

ITEM: The law of unintended consequences continues to trip up good (or bad) intentions: Will bonus fix slow recovery? Furthermore, will the idiotic legislation passed by Congress damage the companies that the US Government is now buying up? As Noam Scheiber at TNR says, “There are third-world juntas that would think twice before doing this.”

ITEM: xkcd weighs in with a plea for journalistic honesty:

Now let’s talk about the difference between a million and a trillion.

Hail to the Chip!

ITEM: If you’re not reading this blog, you should be.

ITEM: Also, that dawn-of-a-new-era Obama outreach to countries such as Iran? How’s that working out?

ITEM: Oh, and that “[lobbyists] won’t find a job in my White House” pledge? How’s that working out?

ITEM: And then there’s the “most open and transparent Administration in history” pledge. How’s that working out?

ITEM: The Rasmussen Obama Approval Index dropped 3 points back to its lowest level ever, +4. What’s most telling is the slow erosion of the “Strongly Approve” and “Total Approve” numbers, which are both at their lowest points ever (35% and 55%, respectively). The glow of the One appears to be fading a bit.

ITEM: Speaking of which: as Drew over at Ace of Spades notes, this is “about the only thing John McCain got right last year”:

ITEM: I never thought I’d see the day when the European Union demonstrates more financial wisdom than the US.

ITEM: Morning headline: “More people in love than previously thought”. Than who previously thought?

ITEM: There are a number of editorials and articles that are beginning to echo the fundamental question, “What the hell is happening in America?” Here’s one from our Neighbors to the North:

Helicopter Ben Bernanke’s Federal Reserve is dropping trillions of fresh paper dollars on the world economy, the President of the United States is cracking jokes on late-night comedy shows, his energy minister is threatening a trade war over carbon emissions, his treasury secretary is dithering over a banking reform program amid rising concerns over his competence and a monumentally dysfunctional U. S. Congress is launching another public jihad against corporations and bankers.

As an aghast world — from China to Chicago and Chihuahua — watches, the circus-like U. S. political system seems to be declining into near chaos. Through it all, stock and financial markets are paralyzed. The more the policy regime does, the worse the outlook gets. The multi-ringed spectacle raises a disturbing question in many minds: Is this the end of America?

As they say, read the whole thing.

ITEM: In the meantime, the “Throw Geithner Under The Bus” clock keeps ticking. This is not the sort of article you want to read about yourself on the web (the writer even mentions the C-word):

I used to think that it would be a long, long, long time before I would witness a Cabinet official make as spectacular a mockery of himself as Alberto Gonzales did when he was at the Department of Justice.

Then, Timothy Geithner came along. . . .

Now, after two months on the job, Barack Obama has had to come out and tell people that he has every confidence in Geithner’s ability to serve. As just about everyone in Washington knows, once the President has to express confidence in the abilities of a Cabinet officer, that Cabinet officer is under a deathwatch.

And here’s another one from the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times, that great bastion of retrenched conservatism:

But as the debacle over the American International Group bonuses has made clear, Geithner’s knowledge about Wall Street is matched by his ignorance about the political culture of Washington. And the blunders committed by Geithner (and others, including the Federal Reserve and previous Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson) could undermine key elements of President Obama’s economic recovery plan.

ITEM: In the meantime, the Financial Times — another publication that has lurched to the left in recent years (probably due to Bush disapproval) and to which I subscribed in years past — stands athwart the current overheated populism and clears its throat:

Capitalism has been wounded by the global recession, which unfortunately will get worse before it gets better. As governments continue to determine how many restrictions to place on markets, especially financial markets, the destruction of wealth from the recession should be placed in the context of the enormous creation of wealth and improved well-being during the past three decades. Financial and other reforms must not risk destroying the source of these gains in prosperity. . . .

Partly owing to the collapse of the housing and stock markets, hostility to business people and capitalism has grown sharply again. Yet a world that is mainly capitalistic is the “only game in town” that can deliver further large increases in wealth and health to poor as well as rich nations. We hope our leaders do not deviate far from a market-oriented global economic system. To do so would risk damaging a system that has served us well for 30 years.

ITEM: The number of voices speaking out against the punative (and quite possibly unconstitutional) actions of Congress continues to increase. Here are a few: the (UK) Daily News; the Economist; Michael Lewis at Bloomberg.com; and Charles Krauthammer. In the last case, you can almost hear Krauthammer’s quiet yet pungent voice:

A $14 trillion economy hangs by a thread composed of (a) a comically cynical, pitchfork-wielding Congress, (b) a hopelessly understaffed, stumbling Obama administration, and (c) $165 million. . . .

And there is such a thing as law. The way to break a contract legally is Chapter 11. Short of that, a contract is a contract. The AIG bonuses were agreed to before the government takeover and are perfectly legal. Is the rule now that when public anger is kindled, Congress summarily cancels contracts?

Even worse are the clever schemes now being cooked up in Congress to retrieve the money by means of some retroactive confiscatory tax. The common law is pretty clear about the impermissibility of ex post facto legislation and bills of attainder. They also happen to be specifically prohibited by the Constitution. We’re going to overturn that for $165 million?

Nor has the president behaved much better. He too has been out there trying to lead the mob. But it’s a losing game. His own congressional Democrats will out-demagogue him and heap the blame on the hapless Timothy Geithner.

ITEM: Doug Johnson thinks that yes, indeed, March 9th may have represented the bottom of the bear market. While I truly hope he’s right, all I can say is:

ITEM: We all need a reason to laugh, and this is one of the funniest and most amazing stunts I’ve seen in some time (hat tip to Rachel Lucas):

OVERNIGHT LINKS. I stay up late so that you can wake up early.

ITEM: Congress seem determined to prove Mark Twain right: “No man’s life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session.” And speaking of which — “When they came for the Merrill Lynch bonus recipients, I didn’t speak up, because I wasn’t a wealthy Wall Street trader.” You know the rest.

ITEM: Meanwhile, Obama appears on the Tonight Show and indicates that he’s trying to get ahead of the backlash backlash. Smart man; he must have watched the Congressional hearings involving AIG.

ITEM: On the other hand, Obama made a joke about the Special Olympics and his lack of bowling skills. If Bush had done that, ten national organizations would have been up in arms, and it would have dominated the mainstream media for at least 72 hours, with the clip being played over and over. Obama’s teleprompter has issued a statement disclaiming all responsibility. Meanwhile, Jim Treacher has come up other suggested witticisms that Obama could use.

ITEM: On the other hand, I’m not sure having your aides tell the press how much President Obama has been in the dark about critical and controversial issues is a winning strategy. In the end, the choices boil down to appearing ignorant (and thus incompetent) or dishonest.

ITEM: When will Barack Obama stop campaigning and actually govern the United States?

ITEM: Obama appears to be losing Peggy Noonan. I’m just not sure most Republicans want her back.

ITEM: The fascist overtones of Obama and Congress in berating AIG executives as individuals have real-world consequences (read the whole thing):

The A.I.G. executive who was nicknamed “Jackpot Jimmy” by a New York tabloid walked up the driveway toward his bay-windowed house in Fairfield, Conn., on Thursday afternoon. “How do I feel?” said the executive, James Haas, repeating the question he had just been asked. “I feel horrible. This has been a complete invasion of privacy.”

Mr. Haas walked on, his pink shirt a burst of color on a slate-gray afternoon. The words came haltingly. “You have to understand,” he said, “there are kids involved, there have been death threats. …” His voice trailed off. It looked as if he was fighting back tears.

“I didn’t have anything to do with those credit problems,” said Mr. Haas, 47. “I told Mr. Liddy” — Edward M. Liddy, the chief executive of A.I.G., the insurance giant — “I would rescind my retention contract.”

He ended the conversation with a request: “Leave my neighbors alone.”

And here’s more.

ITEM: Give credit where credit is due: AG Eric Holder is making the right move in changing the US Government’s basic attitude towards Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Gee, I’m so used to seeing bad moves (deliberate or erroneous) out of the Obama Administration that I feel downright giddy seeing one I like and thoroughly approve.

ITEM: And now I can say the same thing about Congress: Rep. John Conyers (D-Moon) is actually calling for hearings about ACORN’s various criminal and quasi-criminal activities. However, the other Democrats on the committee are suddenly finding all sorts of reasons why ACORN shouldn’t be investigated:

Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat and chairman of the Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution, civil rights and civil liberties that hosted Thursday’s hearing, suggested there was not enough “credible evidence” to warrant a hearing focused exclusively on ACORN.

Rep. Melvin Watt said he would concede that ACORN and some of its members engaged in voter fraud. But he said voter fraud was already covered by existing law and Congress has not further role in the matter. “I’m not coming to a hearing to have a trial on ACORN. That’s not my job,” the North Carolina Democrat said

Not enough “credible evidence” about ACORN? Give me a break.

ITEM: Like it or not — and whether China likes it or not — we’re in bed together.

ITEM: Hey, let’s bail out newspapers! Talk about burying the lede — you have to get halfway through this very long article before you get to this key suggestion:

Going backward is not an option; nor is it desirable. The old corporate media system choked on its own excess. We should not seek to restore or re-create it. We have to move forward to a system that creates a journalism far superior to that of the recent past. We can do exactly that–but only if we recognize and embrace the necessity of government intervention. Only government can implement policies and subsidies to provide an institutional framework for quality journalism. We understand that this is a controversial position.

Help us, Oba-ma Kenobi! You’re our only hope!

ITEM: But just don’t ask him for DVDs. Yes, that’s write, the “25 Classic American Films” that Pres. Obama so generously gave the visually-impaired UK PM Gordon Brown won’t even work in Brown’s DVD player. Wrong region. Cheap and incompetent — just what we like to see in a President and his staff.

That’s it for now; I’ll post some updates in the morning.  ..bruce w..

...has far to go.

AFTERNOON UPDATES:

ITEM: NASA Scientist and Moonbat Warmist James Hansen says that “The democratic process doesn’t quite seem to be working” with regards to climate change and is calling for protests and direct action (Wikipedia: “Direct action can include nonviolent and violent activities which target persons, groups, or property deemed offensive to the direct action participant.”). The man is certainly free to speak his mind, but he should not be calling for “violent activities” as an official of the US Government.

ITEM: Speaking of NASA, they should look at hiring these teenage students over in Spain.

ITEM: Duke basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski to Barack Obama: stop opinining on the NCAA playoffs and focus on the economy. (“It’s the economy, stupid.” — James Carville to Bill Clinton in 1992.)

ITEM: Texas Thunderdome: “Texas High School Staged Cage Fights Between Students, Documents Say.” As my wife said, “Only in Texas.” (And I’ve lived there twice and love the state.)  “Two men enter; one man leaves.” — Tina Turner to Mel Gibson.

ITEM: Congressional hearings on ACORN, which organization the White House wants to have help out with the 2010 Census. More commentary and coverage over at Ace of Spaces.

ITEM: “Think of it as evolution in action”: individuals unlikely to reproduce.

ITEM: Mickey Kaus (a daily must-read) comments on the existence of “Journolist”, the left-wing echo chamber (or is that “star chamber”) for journalists (I posted about it on Tuesday)) and is told to shut up if he knows what’s good for him (or something like that).

ITEM: He can run but he can’t hide. Karl posting at Patterico’s Pontifications documents just how complicit Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) was in the Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac debacle and, in fact, in the whole subprime catastrophe.

OVERNIGHT/MORNING POSTS:

ITEM: It’s a bull market rally for Obama’s popularity! The Rasmussen Obama Approval Index is back up to +7!

ITEM: And now Obama’s ubiquitous teleprompter has its own blog! (Hat tip to Mark Hemingway at the NRO Corner.)

ITEM: According to one Congressman, thirteen of the bailout firms are deliquent on $220 million in taxes. Hey, it’s not like they’re being nominated for a Cabinet position or anything.

ITEM: A group of moderate Democratic Senators is questioning the current headlong rush on the Obama agenda. Of course, they haven’t done anything to halt it so far. Bryan York documents Obama tossing fiscal responsibility under the bus. Nouriel Roubini joins the chorus trying to point out that US economics have been one big Madoff/Ponzi scheme for years. And Amity Schlaes points out lessons for us (and for the US) from other countries.

ITEM: Obama in his town hall meeting yesterday assured his listeners that rich people can afford to pay more taxes, with “rich” meaning an income of over $250,000. Leaving aside the class warfare implications, what about small businesses, particularly LLCs and sole proprietorships? That’s where much of the job growth is, and that’s exactly where the Obama Tax Hike will hurt people the most. Obama’s solution?  Lend them more money so they can pay those taxes.

ITEM: I predicted yesterday that the Obama idea to make veterans wounded in action pay for their medical treatment using their private insurance would be gone by Friday. I was too conservative; it died yesterday afternoon.

ITEM: So the new question is: will Treasury Sec’y Tim Geithner be gone by Friday? This Time article sure isn’t going to help him. Meanwhile, the folks at Bespoke Premium are betting it won’t happen until either the end of June or the end of the year. They don’t understand that when Obama wants to get rid of someone, they go quickly.

ITEM: Remember Bush’s comments from yesterday? “”I’m not going to spend my time criticizing him. There are plenty of critics in the arena. … He deserves my silence.” It just struck me that Bush may have remembered the famous dictum (usually attributed to Napoleon), “Never interfere with your enemy when he is in the process of destroying himself.”

ITEM: Bush may be keeping quiet but Karl Rove — the Democrat’s other favorite eeeevillll mastermind (besides Cheney) during the past eight years — is not.

ITEM: Obama, the “common man” who is so angry at those Wall Street fat cats, signed a children’s book deal that included a $500,000 cash advance just five days before he took office as President. Nice work, if you can get it, particularly since it only involves editing down one of his existing books, not actually writing a new one. Does anyone think that Crown Publishing would have paid him half a million if he hadn’t been elected President. And doesn’t that mean he is, in effect, trading on his status as President to make money? From the article:

Analysts say there don’t appear to be any rules that would bar such transactions after a president takes office, but it’s unclear whether an incoming or sitting president has ever signed a book deal upon entering the White House.

“I don’t recall any sitting president entering into a book deal,” said campaign finance lawyer Jan Baran, former general counsel to the Republican National Committee. “They all have historically done that after they leave office.

ITEM: Once a Communist, always a Communist! Mikhail Gorbachev argues for state control of economics. Yep, we all remember how well that worked out for the (former) Soviet Union!

ITEM: Peter Brown schools VP Joe Biden, as does John DeVore,  over his latest inanity (“President Obama has inherited the most difficult first 100 days of any president, I would argue, including Franklin Roosevelt.”) Yep, the smartest man in the room, alright.

ITEM: Obama claims “the buck stops here” with regards to the AIG bonuses but then (as Philip Klein puts it) goes on to blame other people. That’s not quite accepting responsibility, is it?

ITEM: In the meantime, the Obama Administration is now throwing the Federal Reserve Bank under the bus over the AIG bonuses. Everyone’s to blame but Obama.

ITEM: And what about all those Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonuses? If you want to talk about corrupt and insolvent, Fannie and Freddie fit the bill.

ITEM: Meanwhile, Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Ireland) admits that, yes, he did indeed insert the loophole for the AIG but did so at the insistence of the Treasury Department. Paging Tim Geithner….

ITEM: Shepard Smith at Fox News speaks truth to power about the hypocrisy and grandstanding that Congress is doing right now over AIG  (hat tip to Gerard Vanderleun at American Digest):

ITEM: In a similar vein, Caroline Baum over at Bloomberg.com compares the AIG situation to “Atlas Shrugged” and says that Obama needs new AIG Chairman Liddy more than Liddy needs Obama. Diana Furchtgott-Roth, in the meantime, sees all the AIG-bashing as a political smokescreen (and I might add, “full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”). And Michael Godwin at the NY Daily News says that Congress was the real loser at yesterday’s hearings.

ITEM:  Speaking of hypocrisy, someone on the radio today asked a simple question: why is Congress so outraged over $165 million in post-bailout bonuses, yet just a few weeks ago they passed a spending bill with nearly $5.5 billion in earmarks (over 30 times more than the AIG bonuses). Oh, and Obama signed that bill, despite his campaign promises to the contrary. Of course, he also signed the stimulus bill that allowed the AIG bonuses. Of course, Daniel Drezner argues — not without reason — that neither bonuses nor earmarks matter very much in the whole scheme of things.

ITEM: Obama compares dealing with AIG to dealing with a suicide bomber. No, really.

ITEM: Speaking of suicide bombers, our new US Attorney General Eric Holder has stated that he may release  some of the Gitmo terrorist detainees right here in the United States. This has been a public service announcement.

ITEM: James Lewis over at American Thinker wonders if the Democrats really, really understand where all this is going to end? (Here’s a clue: very, very badly.)

ITEM: From the sauce for the goose department: SEIU (that’s a biiig union, and one that’s quite cosy with the Obama Administration) has had a unfair labor complaint filed against it by its own unionized employees, who claim that it’s laying off salaried staff and going to outside contractors.

ITEM: The Dem’s future nightmare, Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, is still killing wolves. Hey, she has to keep her fighting edge somehow.  And, boy, wasn’t it a good thing she didn’t end up in the White House?

I’m sure there’s more out there, but you’re on your own for now.  ..bruce w..

And the luck of the Irish to you!

. . . will be later today. Right now, it’s Tuesday morning, so it must be link time:

President Obama’s War on Business continues. As I noted yesterday, I’m not happy with the AIG payout, but it is both unseemly and dangerous to have the President of the United States singling out and using taxpayer dollars and government officials to attack specific private businesses for clearly legal actions, just as it is even more unseemly and dangerous for him to single out private individuals who are exercising free speech.  Obama’s actions are beginning to smack of some of the worst abuses during the Wilson and Roosevelt administrations (such as actively investigation and prosecuting people who were using legal tax loopholes; cf. The Forgotten Man by Amity Schlaes, pp. 205-208).  It frankly smacks of true fascism, as this report by Ace of Spades shows the consequences of such an approach (viz., angry mobs outside of AIG offices).

Meanwhile, Megan McArdle looks at the outrage (real or fake) over the AIG mess and asks the profoundly pertinent question, “Do we want to make a point, or do we want to make money?” Sadly, I think the Democrats (including Obama and the current Congress) have answered that question repeatedly.

And even more meanwhile, Patterico reminds us just which Noble Government Servants received lots o’ money from AIG.

And still meanwhile, Conor Clark notes the introduction of an unconstitutional effort in the House to tax those AIG bonuses, but what else is new?

And, of course, we have people like Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) to remind us that Republicans can be grandstanding idiots as well.

The real irony is that it was the ethically-challenged Sen. Chris Dodd (D-finance industry) who put the compensation guarantee into the bailout bill. And guess, just guess, who was the single largest recipient of campaign donations from AIG last year?

When Grassley isn’t ranting like a loon, he makes a very good point about the continuing tax problems of Obama nominees:

“I want to stress that the Finance Committee is not doing anything different now from what it has always done under the leadership of either Senator Baucus or me,” Grassley said, referring to Democratic chairman Max Baucus of Montana. “We are vetting nominees for the current administration the same way we vetted nominees for the previous administration.”

“The tax issues of the nominees considered by the committee this year came to be public only because the nominees chose to proceed.”

Grassley said the committee has always requested three years of tax returns from nominees, and always employed experts to review them. And in the past, he added, “many nominees” faced questions based on their tax returns. The reason tax problems seem more prevalent now, Grassley explained, is that in previous administrations those nominees chose to quietly withdraw. Now, they try to stick it out, leading to sometimes embarrassing controversy. “Chairman Baucus and I agree that if a nominee chooses to proceed after tax issues are identified, then the public should be informed of those issues,” Grassley said.

Read the whole thing.

Richard Cohen defends . . . Jim Cramer. And he does so using the remarkably logical and simple explanation that the executives of most of the failed or damaged financial firms held onto their own stock. If they thought their firms were OK, then how could anyone else have known (as Jon Stewart claims) that there were serious problems? Kudos to Cohen for going with logic over cheap shots.

Here’s a debate. Robert Shrum is arguing that Obama is doing the right thing by tackling all of his policy initiatives at once, and that his real risk is from recalcitrant Democrats. On the other hand, Clive Cook is arguing that Obama is creating a “log jam” of policies and at the same time is quickly squandering his political capital. My money’s on Cook.

Obama may be close to losing Ed Koch, who pointedly supported Obama over McCain despite his focus on national security issues.

And speaking of national security issues — gee, I feel safer already.

Speaking of which . . . shall we start a pool on when the Obama Approval Index goes negative for the first time? I’m willing to be it’s before April 1st.  (On the other hand, he did bounce back to +5 today!)

Y’know, once again, this is the very thing that the Left accuses the Right of — probably because the Left is already doing it.

And speaking of the press, the New York Times editorial staff has flip-flopped so often depending upon who’s in power that this hardly seems like news. But it’s important to document their hypocrisy.

A return of “that 70s horror show“, economically speaking? I remember it well, since I graduated from college in 1978 and almost immediately faced double-digit inflation, followed by double-digit interest rates, followed by double-digit unemployment.

Forget Afghanistan (well, not really, especially since my nephew is headed there and my son [they're both Marines] is likely to follow): the next hot spot for the US is likely to be along the Mexican border. Mexico may not be a “failed state”, but it sure is a troubled one.

As my good friend (and former boss) Tony Gibson likes to say, when times are tough, cash is king. And China appears to understand that very well.

Well, with the shoe on the other foot, the Republicans are changing their tune on filibusters of judicial nominees. The Democrats have no room for complaint, since they started this whole mess during the Bush Administration. And, of course, the Democrats are now considering new “end runs” around normal legislative procedures. They may want to rethink that, since there’s a good chance that Republicans are going to gain ground in Congress next year and in 2012.

On the other hand, Red State warns the Right against schadenfreude. Yes, Obama’s poll numbers are dropping, but the Republicans numbers are worse. I fully blame Bush and the idiot Republicans in Congress during the 2000-2006 period for the current Congress and Administration; it’s going to take more than a few votes against the wretched Simulus package to regain the public’s trust and good opinion.

On the other hand, the Right can probably indulge in schadenfreude regarding the drop in traffic on liberal blogs.

Doesn’t anyone in the Obama Administration remember that the Smoot-Hawley Act made the Great Depression ever worse? So why are we looking at a new round of trade protectionism? And the backlash is already beginning.

“The Media loves conservatives, but only if they hate Republicans”. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

“How elite environmentalists impoverish blue-collar workers.” Not news by any stretch, but a good thing to remember in our current crisis.

And speaking of environmental idiocy: we’re turning away from nuclear power right when we should be embracing it.

Here’s a new kind of environmental protest:

A Halifax bus driver will be suspended with pay while Metro Transit investigates why he jumped out of his bus and used a stick to beat a toy seal being used as a prop by anti-seal hunt protesters.

Someone needs to track down this man’s address so that we can all send him thank-you cards.

The sun is blank--no sunspots.

Climate report from Spaceweather.com:  “The sun is in the pits of the deepest solar minimum in almost 100 years.” But of course, this has nothing to do with the general cooling of the earth that’s been going on for the last several years, does it?

Meanwhile, folks at Edmonton are wondering why they keep seeing record low temperatures.

Oh, and by the way, it turns out that the Sun was pouring more energy into the Earth’s climate system back when “global warming” was going on in the 20th Century.

But, of course, the science on anthropogenic global warming is settled and unanimously agreed upon — except for a few crackpots here or there.

Weird link of the day: Cow abducted by UFO? (from the Tiffany of news networks, MS-NBC)

As someone who runs his own firm, I like the site Freelance Folder, but I do have to say that right now finding more personal time is not the pressing challenge for most freelancers; it’s finding more work, clients, and billable hours.

And for your St. Patrick’s Day enjoyment (hat tip to Ace of Spaces):

Have a great St. Paddy’s Day!  ..bruce w..

I think I saw one of these on "Outer Limits" once

. . . can’t trust that day . . .

Obama & Company are trying to figure out how to get out in front of taxpayer anger rather than be the target of it. Good luck with that! On the other hand, if Obama had been honest before the election last fall . . .

Obama Approval Index is back down to just +6 down to an all-time low of +4. That’s as opposed to +30 two days after his inauguration (which was less than two months ago). Lo, how the mighty have fallen . . .

Speaking of taxpayer anger, expect a big explosion in San Diego Country. Home prices have dropped nearly 25%, but property taxes are going to go up because someone cleverly put in an automatic increase tied to inflation (and independent of changes in property values). In particular, I like this statement:

“We don’t have a choice,” said Jeff Olson, chief of county property assessment services.  . . . “I always say I’m not a policymaker, I’m a policy follower – we just follow the rules,” Olson said.

Also from San Diego, the following is not, I repeat, not an Onion article:

Trevor Hadrian started collecting Hot Wheels when he was 6. They were toys then, the key props in imaginary police chases, construction projects and ambulance runs.

When he got too old to play in the yard, he kept buying the miniature cars but left them in the packaging, preserving their value and his memories of a purer, less complicated time.

Now Hadrian, 22, a Vista resident, is scrambling to survive the economic downturn – looking for work, moving to a smaller apartment and “selling pretty much everything.”

Even his Hot Wheels, all 400 of them.

“It’s killing me,” Hadrian said. “But I’ve got to eat.”

All across San Diego County, people trying to make ends meet are facing hard decisions about what stays and what goes. The choice can be especially painful for those who have spent years cultivating collections that feel like part of the family.

We’re no longer dealing with “enemy combatants” at Gitmo, and in fact, according to our new Homeland Security Sec’y Janet Napolitano, we’re not even dealing with terrorism any more, but merely “man-caused disasters”.  You can’t make this stuff up. Besides, Napolitano is being sexist here; it should be “human-caused disasters”.

I’m not a big fan of ex-Presidents and ex-Veeps running around bad-mouthing the current Adminstration. But after the last eight years of Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, and (occasionally) Bill Clinton doing just that to the Bush Administration, I figure that it’s only karma for the Obama Administration to have to deal with Dick “Darth Vader” Cheney. Particularly when (according to a breathless Keith Olbermann) Mr. Cheney ran his own secret assassination squad.

Speaking of idiot journalists, Kathleen Parker (of “oogedy-boogedy” fame) argues with a straight face that newspaper journalism was destroyed by . . . (wait for it) . . . Rush Limbaugh! (Hat tip to Kevin Williamson.) This is a logical and conceptual non sequitur of such staggering extent as to be admired even as it is ruthlessly mocked.

If you want some intelligent and supportable insight as to the problems facing newspapers, here’s a great start (hat tip to Metafilter).

Who exactly is the card-check (anti-secret-ballot) legislation intended for? “Just 9% of Non-Union Workers Want to Join Union”.

And there are some real-world headlines you just can’t make up: “Leftist Ex-CNN Reporter Wins El Salvador Presidency”. No, really.

Last week, I recommended (and I recommend strongly) the film “The Lives of Others”. Here’s an essay from someone who has lived under socialism.

And more European second-thoughts about Obama and his plans: “Euros Backing Away From Gitmo Prisoners”.

In the meantime, Obama throws Mexico under the bus.

We get blatant racism and not-even-coded code words from...a liberal talking about GOP Chair Michael Steele:

You can’t put a colored face out and think that black people and brown people and women are coming just because you got a colored face out front.

So if the economy is going to recover by the end of 2009, just why did Congress pass and Obama sign that trillion-dollar train-wreck of a “stimulus” bill and put us on the path for massive long-term deficits? (Note that Fed Chief Bernanke says nothing about the stimulus bill helping; he only talks about getting the banks and financial markets back on track.)

But wait! “Top administration economic advisors” say that a quick turnaround is unlikely!

Even the AP (no fan of Republicans or free markets) is starting to wonder about the contradictory economic stories of the Obama Administration.

You know all that talk about nationalizing banks here in the US? Well, take a look at what has happened with nationalized banks in the UK (hat tip to Ace of Spades) as someone tries to open up a credit-card transaction account for his mother-in-law’s business:

FN: Could you repeat the exact question again?

RBS: Is she a member of any political party, basically? (note: he was referring to my mother-in-law)

FN: I must admit I’m not entirely happy with answering that question. I don’t see what relevance it has to…

RBS: [He says a supervisor will call me back, as one of the company directors lives abroad]

FN: But listen, I mean when you call back, we may be prepared to answer that political question. But can you explain again one more time why it’s relevant?

RBS: It is put upon us by the Financial Services Authority to try and omit any money laundering and things like that.  It helps us crack down on fraudulent merchants by asking these types of questions.

FN: But I don’t understand why, say, if she is a member of the Conservative Party or Labour Party, that is related to fraud?

RBS These are questions thrust upon us by the Financial Services Authority, sir. It would be the same no matter where you apply for merchant services, the same question would be asked. It is legally binding. It’s to try and omit any fraudulent activity. I presume the reason why we ask that question is because there is a high volume of fraud in that sector. Where people who are of that sort of nature maybe are inclined to commit fraud. I’m not for a minute implying that she will do. But that’s just trying to protect us and you, as well, you see.

Meanwhile, Jennifer Rubin points out just how useless (if not downright destructive) the stimulus package is turning out to be (hat tip to Transterrestrial Musings):

In an interview with the New York Times we heard from the president:

President Obama can’t assure that the economy will bounce back this year, but he says he will “get all the pillars in place for
recovery this year.”

But that prediction and the job calculations cooked by the president and his economic advisers have already been proven wrong. A Republican insider on Capitol Hill explains that the “forecast for saving or creating jobs is based on the stimulus ensuring that the unemployment rate not exceed 8% between now and 2014.” But we are already passed the 8% mark.

What would have happened without the stimulus? According to the administration’s calculations, we would then hit 9% unemployment. But that is the very figure that many economists now predict we will hit in a matter of months. Some predict we will hit 10%. Four states have already hit that figure. . . .

. . . we have already entered the very territory (namely, 8%-plus unemployment), which the stimulus was designed to prevent. In short, we have paid more than a trillion dollars (including interest) and are no better off than where we would have been by the administration’s own calculations without the stimulus plan.

It looks as though Obama is losing David Broder already — or, at least, Obama is losing some of the DC types who spoke to Broder:

Meantime, on the main challenge — fixing the economy — the criticism has begun to infect the mainstream media, as well as the conservative wing. I was struck last week to read heartfelt pleas to Obama from David Ignatius of The Washington Post and David Brooks of The New York Times to get his priorities straight and concentrate on the crucial task of rescuing banking, credit, housing and jobs.

These are people who deeply admire and respect Obama and wish him nothing but success. But, like some thoughtful congressional Democrats with whom I have spoken, they worry that he has bitten off more than he can chew.

Criticism of this kind is not an augury of failure. But it does signal that the honeymoon is over.

Ditto for the Dem pols speaking to Michael Goodwin:

Not long ago, after a string of especially bad days for the Obama administration, a veteran Democratic pol approached me with a pained look on his face and asked, “Do you think they know what they’re doing?”

The question caught me off guard because the man is a well-known Obama supporter. As we talked, I quickly realized his asking suggested his own considerable doubts.

Obama has lost Dan Gillmor as well, over civil liberties issues. (Well, I know who Dan Gillmor is, even if you don’t.)

I may not agree with much that Robert Reich has to say, but he’ll get no arguments from me on this.

On the other hand, I very much disagree with Robert Reich in almost everything he writes here — particularly in premises and consequences — with the exception of this: I think Obama’s strategy is revolutionary as well. But I think it’s a disaster, while Reich wants more of it.

Woman on Fire (Part Deux): Megan McArdle, statuesque libertarian economist, answers the very real question, “What difference does it make to the recession if Citibank and Bank of America fail?”

On another front, here’s more on the simmering-and-almost-boiling maritime issues regarding China vs. the rest of the world. And speaking of China: there are some major economic issues brewing over there as well. Still the Chinese have been wiser than us in some matters:

[The Chinese real estate glut is] a chilling echo of what happened in the United States over the last decade. But there are important differences in the two markets. For one thing, Chinese by law must have “skin in the game.” The absolute minimum down payment on a new house or apartment is 20% of the purchase price, and for most buyers it’s usually closer to 30%. And a large percentage of Chinese — upwards of 40% according to some estimates — pay cash for new apartments, because in a high savings economy, housing is widely seen as a safe investment. That means, in China, you don’t have the real estate equivalent of “dine and dash”: people don’t abandon houses the minute they think the price level is lower than what they paid, leaving it to the mortgage company or the banks to sort out. There’s no sub-prime, zero-percent-down U.S.-style debacle here.

Counterintuitive trends: crime rates in several Colorado cities are falling as the economy has grown worse.

Also from my local newspaper: “When will Atlas shrug?” (Hat tip to Instapundit, who saw it before I did.)

Last of the local news: Denver community hires coyote hunter. Think of it as evolution in action.

Canada is ripe for a political revolution of its own:

A Canadian court has ruled that an immigrant who beheaded a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus and then ate his eyeballs is not criminally responsible for his actions because he has a “mental disorder.” The decision, which follows a series of spectacularly lenient judicial rulings in Canada in recent years, has outraged ordinary Canadians, who say that left-wing judges increasingly are sacrificing justice and common sense on the altar of bleeding-heart political correctness.

That was not parody, but this is, sort of:  if you’re young, enthusiastic, and hopeful, this piece from the Onion should be enough to depress you.

This is not parody, but might as well be: Gerard Vanderleun samples the lastest Warmist fruitcake and finds him, well, rather fruity and nutty.

Speaking of depressing — Ron Silver has died at age 62.

And if you really want to be depressed: “The Size of Derivatives Bubble = $190K Per Person on Planet” (hat tip to Boing Boing).

From Lifehacker: How to make your own sports drink.

Didn’t we see this device in the last “Wallace and Gromit” movie?

That’s it for today — see you tomorrow.  ..bruce w..