And, yes, I had a coon-skin hat. Hat tip to Gerard Van der Leun. ..bruce w..

William Shatner reads Levi Johnston’s tweets on the Tonight Show. Hat tip to Greg Pollowitz at the Media Corner on National Review Online. ..bruce w..

Hat tip on the video to Matt Yuen, a long-time friend and fellow PMS Commando (that writeup in from world-famous author (and budding politician) Dan Gookin, another one of the Commandos). You jump out of the same plane together, and you definitely are friends for life . . . however brief that may end up being.

ITEM: Obama is losing the ACLU, which (along with the press) is unhappy with the limits on access to detainees at Gitmo:

American Civil Liberties Union Director Anthony Romero said the access problems grate against the administration’s pledges.

“It’s frustrating,” Romero told FOX News during an interview at the Navy base.

He said his organization has never been allowed inside the detention camps — not under the Bush or Obama administrations — but suggested that he was expecting more access since Jan. 20.

“Especially now in light of the Obama administration saying they wish to have greater transparency, it’s more than a bit ironic that members of the press are now being denied access to the camps when they had it before under President Bush,” he said.

The beat reporters who routinely cover the military commissions at the base used to be invited on military-planned side trips to the detention camps when court was not in session. The trips allowed journalists to film, photograph and write about conditions inside.

That is no longer the case. Several sources told FOX News the decision to discontinue the trips came from Washington and the Pentagon.

Where’s that hope, change and transparency now? Welcome to the Chicago Way.

ITEM: Joshua Zumbrum over at Forbes gives eight reasons to remain wary about the housing market, including the end of the housing tax credit, tightened credit standards among mortgage vendors, and the flood of foreclosures still to come. Read the whole thing.

On the other hand, Megan McArdle (my favorite tall female libertarian economist) sees positive signs:

Amid everything the government is doing in the economy, it’s easy to forget that they’ve been putting quite a lot of effort into supporting house prices.  (Supporting, a relative term, in this case meaning keeping them from falling farther).  The FHA has stepped in as the lender of last resort, while the first time homebuyer tax credits have encouraged at least a few people to jump into the market.  Meanwhile, the mortgage modification efforts have kept some foreclosures from happening–but since optimistic estimates place the projected redefaults at 35%, and more conservative estimates look for half or more of the modifications to fail, many of those foreclosures have simply been delayed, and will end up back on the market in winter and early spring.

We’ll see what happens.

[UPDATED 09/30/09 -- 0625 MDT]

ITEM: Warmist Countdown Watch: Successive earthquakes have hit near Samoa (causing 99 deaths due to tsunamis) and now in Indonesia. These are tragedies in a geologically active part of the world. The question is: how long until some Warmists start claiming that these quakes are tied into climate change? (Don’t laugh — it’s an actual set of Warmist beliefs.)

ITEM: “The State doesn’t own my body!” Pro-choice protest? Well, of a sort:

New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be available beginning next week. Much of it is reserved for state health care workers, but there is growing opposition to required innoculations.

Health care workers in Hauppauge screamed “No forced shots!” as they rallied Tuesday against the state regulation requiring them to roll up their sleeves.

I’m pro-vaccination, but it must be a bit disquieting to have health care workers protest and risk losing their jobs over receiving mandatory vaccinations.

ITEM: Andrew Malcolm, over at the LA Times’ “Top of the Ticket” political blog, is always worth reading. Wherever his political sympathies may lie, he’s willing to poke — and poke hard — at failings and foibles all across the political spectrum. His latest analysis of Obama’s growing struggle with Afghanistan is worth reading in full:

Signs are growing that Obama will seek to change the war goals, to redefine what is success and divert the discussion away from the more-troops measure. It’s not defeat in Afghanistan; it’s victory of a different kind. The president used a similar strategic argument recently when abandoning the Bush administration’s missile defense shield in Europe: it’s not less defense, it’s defense done smarter and cheaper.

Biden reportedly opposes additional forces. He was a senator when Obama was a sixth grader, and recalls too vividly the last Democratic administration to pour U.S. soldiers into a distant guerrilla war — and lose. That savagely split his party — and nation — and lead to 20 years of Republican presidents in the next 24.

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed earlier this week, Sen. John Kerry, who succeeded Biden as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, began the Afghan redefinition.

Kerry, who was in the Vietnam war before he was against it, said that 1) things have changed in Afghanistan since last spring, 2) perhaps what we need is not more troops but a “well-honed counter-terrorism strategy,” 3) the recent Afghan election was deeply flawed and maybe it’s the fault of a weak, untrusted Afghan government if we can’t win militarily and 4) we need to plan how to get out.

As I said, read the whole thing.  Then go over to the Washington Examiner to check out the “ducks-in-a-row” approach the Obama Administration is taking (with a helpful assist from the mainstream media).

ITEM: As noted here a few days ago, much of Leftist thinking can be summed up as if you fervently hope for something good to come true, then it will. This is especially true in the “green/alternative energy” domain, where hopes for magical breakthroughs in solar and wind power ignore serious issues of energy density and production. As it turns out, there’s another big problem with many of these “new energy” ideas: they often require a lot of old-fashioned H2O:

Here is an inconvenient truth about renewable energy: It can sometimes demand a huge amount of water. Many of the proposed solutions to the nation’s energy problems, from certain types of solar farms to biofuel refineries to cleaner coal plants, could consume billions of gallons of water every year.

“When push comes to shove, water could become the real throttle on renewable energy,” said Michael E. Webber, an assistant professor at the University of Texas in Austin who studies the relationship between energy and water.

Read the whole thing.  ..bruce w..

Ed McMahon -- veteran of two wars

He served in two wars (WW II and Korea), flew 85 combat missions in Korea, and achieved the rank of Colonel in the USMC:

When the United States began gearing up for World War II, McMahon wanted to become a Marine fighter pilot. Since the Navy’s V-5 program required two years of college, he enrolled in Boston College. When the Navy relaxed the two-year requirement, McMahon dropped out of school and signed up. In early 1943, he first went to a civilian-run Wartime Training School in Texarkana where the Navy evaluated cadets’ potential by checking them out in a Piper Cub. Then came the three-month Preflight School at Athens, Georgia. McMahon received primary training at Dallas and intermediate training at Pensacola. McMahon received the single engine carrier syllabus and was assigned to the Marines. After receiving his commission and wings in early 1945, McMahon was sent to the Corsair Operational Training Unit at Lee Field, Green Cove Springs, Florida. Upon completion of training, he was “plowed back” and became an instructor in the same unit. On the day the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, McMahon received orders to join the Marine carrier program on the West Coast. His orders were cancelled and he returned to civilian life.

After McMahon graduated from Catholic University, he got a job in television in Philadelphia. In two years, he had become Philadelphia’s top TV personality. In 1952, McMahon got his big break when he was offered a job in New York with CBS; however, he was recalled into the Marine Corps due to the Korean War. After several months of training at Miami and El Toro, McMahon arrived in Korea in February 1953. He flew 85 artillery-spotting missions in the Cessna OE Bird Dog before returning home in September 1953. . . . McMahon remained active in the Marine Reserves retiring as a full colonel in 1966.

Makes me look at him in a whole new light.  ..bruce w..

We're coming for you.

MORNING LINKS

ITEM: Speaking of swine flu hysteria, this may be a good time to invest in pork belly futures – there may be a shortage soon.

ITEM: Yet another way in which Western Europeans are looking for the US to help them financially.

ITEM: Here’s a slideshow of items from the Michael Jackson Neverland Ranch auction. Some interesting, some amusing, some downright creepy. Hat tip to the Drunk Report.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: With rising panic over the swine flu, here’s a statistic to keep in mind: about 36,000 people already die each year from flu right here in the US.  It will be interesting to see how many actual swine flu deaths we have here in the US. Bet it won’t be 36,000.

ITEM: Or should I say “H1N1 flu deaths“? Just trips off the tongue, doesn’t it? Kind of like “man-caused disasters”. Hmm…maybe “porcine-induced disaster“? (For SK fans out there: yes, ‘trips’ was deliberate.)

ITEM: What is most telling about Arlen Specter’s party switch is not the move itself; it’s his blatant hypocrisy after denying such a switch just five weeks ago and proposing changes to Senate rules back in 2001 after Jeffords’ defection. But here’s the real kicker: Joe Biden talked him into the switch. It’s one thing to be persuaded by the charisma and rhetoric (if a teleprompter is handy) of Obama — but Joe Biden?  It doesn’t say much for Specter. Of course, neither does this.

ITEM: The economic collapse has made wildcatters of us all:

In 1993, Chevron Corp. gave up the ghost and turned the field over to the city. “We go for big oil fields,” a Chevron spokesman says, and Whittier just “wasn’t economical.” Whittier, for its part, saw its legacy in President Richard M. Nixon — who attended college here when he couldn’t afford Harvard — and the city was glad to be rid of the pumps.

But then last year, as tax revenues plunged and oil crept up toward $150 a barrel, Bob Henderson, the town’s mayor, had a revelation.

“I was sitting at home, just idly thinking about this possibility of oil drilling and suddenly thought: ‘Oh, my God, when I purchased the old Chevron property, we demanded they give us the oil rights.’ ”

The demand was made so Whittier could convert the area into a wilderness preserve. Says Mr. Henderson: “It’s home to an awful lot of animals — bobcats, coyotes, hundreds of birds.”

Goodbye Bambi, hello oil rigs. Cha-ching!

ITEM: And pirate attacks have made heroes of us all:

Tayler and the others rushed to the railing and also saw what he described as five or six men sitting in a roofless pirate boat. One started climbing a rope to the deck beneath them. “He was already halfway up,” says Tayler. One passenger screamed: “Pirates!”

Without hesitation, passengers began to grab whatever they could find around them. “We immediately began throwing tables and deck chairs at the rope,” said Tayler. One hit a pirate scaling it. He fell off and the boat turned around, Tayler recalls.

The skirmish between the passengers and the pirates lasted for several minutes, he says. Suddenly, the pirates opened fire — Tayler says he counted three salvos of 25 to 30 rounds each.

Again and again, the pirate boat would approach the ship and disappear under the stern, only to reemerge. Tayler and his fellow passengers continued to throw chairs despite the gunfire. One passenger was shot in the leg and one bullet grazed the head of a crew member. The armed security staff finally turned up six to eight minutes into the skirmish, passengers claim.

Good for them.

ITEM: And the continuing market in credit default swaps (CDSs) may yet again make paupers of us all:

Wall Street looks to be quietly making gains in its attempt to keep regulatory interference to a minimum in a $30 trillion derivatives market at the heart of the financial crisis.

The fact that I haven’t even mentioned the name of the market yet speaks to one of the main reasons Wall Street is winning: it is benefitting from the fact that Main Streeters and their representatives in Congress are too bored by the topic to do anything about it.

Credit default swaps, or CDS — there, I said it — are a really geeky business. They are essentially promises by one party to pay another, if some third party should fail to pay its debts.

ITEM: Quick, which car manufacturer do you think will be #1 in global new car sales ten years from now? I’ll bet you weren’t thinking of this one.

ITEM: Speaking of manufacturing, here’s one of my all-time favorite SNL commercials. The best part is watching Sam Waterston struggle to keep a straight face.

ITEM: And finally, this is just too cool for words:

One man, living his dream.

Thanks for stopping by!  ..bruce w..

Dawn is a feeling...

AFTERNOON LINKS! Yes, there are actual afternoon links!

ITEM: Maybe it’s because he paid all his taxes — actor Kal Penn (of the “House” TV series and the “Harold and Kumar” movies) joins the White House staff.

ITEM: President Obama visits Baghdad. Good for him, and I mean that in all sincerity. My son Jon (CPL Webster, USMC)  just finished his tour of duty in Iraq in February, and he’s likely to be in Afghanistan by the end of the year. And I’m glad  — and again I mean this sincerely — that Pres. Obama was given as warm a welcome by the troops there as was President Bush on each of his visits to Iraq.

ITEM: So, how is the economic upheaval affecting law firms? Pretty harshly, by all accounts (emphasis mine):

Look, with minor exceptions, the reality is that M&A work is dead. Real estate work is non-existent. Putting aside bankruptcy, in every historic bust, litigation was the work that saved the day. But when we talk to law firms about litigation even in the patent world, I’m being told clients are cutting back. They’ve decided to cut back on the volume of prosecution work and are postponing any litigation they can. You can bring a lawsuit and prevail at trial but still not be assured of winning because today you don’t know whether you will be able to collect on the judgment.

One of our clients – a leading and successful IP boutique – told me that one of their very best long-term patent clients has decided to put off all their outside legal work except what is absolutely necessary to preserve the asset value of the corporation.

Let me summarize this way: Clients are pushing the reset button. They are insisting on smaller teams for their litigation and corporate work. We’ve heard a lot about this in the last few weeks. Clients are redesigning the value paradigm.

Much of the work that went outside they no longer deem to be of the same value. Work once viewed as essential is now viewed as elective. Work once viewed as high in value is no longer needed or is viewed as much less in value and warranting a much lower price. Commoditization is spreading to more and more work. It may well retreat some in the long run but in the short run it will operate with force.

FRESH MORNING LINKS! Now with less pork!

ITEM: Best headline of the day: “New Media vs. Gnostic Bureaucracies”. It also happens to be an outstanding article; here’s a key passage:

News media enterprises today are subject to market forces and are facing consequences – the destruction of many recently prosperous enterprises and types of enterprises.

But the modern nation-states – and the supranational organizations like the United Nations — are stiflingly bureaucratic. They are less subject to market forces than are businesses, and in reaction to the current economic panic – a crisis of abundance, not of scarcity – the big governmental and intergovernmental bureaucracies are opportunistically seizing more power.

The bureaucracies have a shifting parasite-host relationship with the social engineer, the “international development professional,” and the other types of soulless technocrat whom the late Samuel Huntington called “Davos Man” and Frederick Wilhelmsen called “the egomaniac, lusting gnostically to dominate all existence.” Just contemplate what has taken place in Washington the past two months, and at the Group of 20 Summit in London last week, where Chinese totalitarians, Russian authoritarians, cosmopolitan eugenicists, and Western “democratic” socialists strained to stitch together a Frankenstein monster from the jumble of formaldehyde jars holding the maimed remains of capitalism.

As the saying goes, read the whole thing.

ITEM: Robert Avrech, over at Big Hollywood, recounts his encounter with a stalked woman in a gun shop in Culver City (CA):

“I can’t believe I’m here. I’ve been against guns and violence my whole life.”

I let this pass. Now is not the time for a self-righteous lecture.

ITEM: Defense Sec’y Robert Gates seeks to expand the government payroll by 39,000 while reducing private sector defense contractors. He’s cutting some key weapons programs as well:

Gates also proposed canceling some of Boeing’s missile defense programs, including one to equip a modified 747 aircraft with a laser that can shoot down missiles soon after they’re launched, saying the program “has significant affordability and technology problems and the program’s proposed operational role is highly questionable.”

Boeing would also be hurt because it makes one-third of the F-22 fighter jet and the Pentagon plans to stop ordering additional aircraft. Gates would also cancel the Air Force’s program to build a new search-and-rescue helicopter, which had been awarded to Boeing. And it would not order more of Boeing’s C-17 cargo planes. Boeing could also see a military satellite program, known as TSAT, end.

Didn’t we go through this with Clinton? And didn’t we really, really regret it when 9/11 happened? I already quoted Santayana a few days ago, so I’ll quote Benjamin Franklin instead: “Experience is a dear school, but fools will learn at no other.”

ITEM: And if Obama appears to be repeating Clinton’s mistakes with the military, he likewise seems to be repeating Jimmy Carter’s mistakes with geopolitics:

Rarely has a Presidential speech been so immediately and transparently divorced from reality as Mr. Obama’s in Prague. The President delivered a stirring call to banish nuclear weapons at the very moment that North Korea and Iran are bidding to trigger the greatest proliferation breakout in the nuclear age. Mr. Obama also proposed an elaborate new arms-control regime to reduce nuclear weapons, even as both Pyongyang and Tehran are proving that the world’s great powers lack the will to enforce current arms-control treaties.

ITEM: Speaking of not learning from experience or history, the Associated Press now wants to go after “content pirates”. Good luck with that; after all, the RIAA has been so successful in its efforts to date.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update: Investor’s Business Daily raises the on-going issue as to why the Obama Administration won’t let banks give back TARP funds — is it to maintain control over these institutions?

ITEM: I considered embedding this Onion video, but I thought it might be a bit too, ah, graphic for some of our readers: “Hot new video game consists solely of shooting people point-blank in the face.“ I did find it hilarious, though, particularly in its skewering of the more pretentious side of the video game industry.

ITEM YOU PROBABLY WON’T SEE ELSEWHERE IN THE MSM: The Washington Times reports that the Bush Administration’s African AIDS effort saved 1.1 million lives.

OVERNIGHT LINKS

ITEM: Creeping socialism/facism alert: Remember the Phoenix police? The ones who seized the computer of a blogger critical of them? Well, now they’re detaining photographers for allegedly violating Homeland Security statutes by allegedly taking photographs of a Federal building (the photographers stated they were actually shooting in the opposite direction).  When the photographers asked what statute they were violating, the policeman said, “Google it.” Hat tip to the Drunk Report.

ITEM: From various accounts, the US is planning to send Italy far more than the $50,000 reported on wire services as emergency aid in the aftermath of the major earthquake outside of Rome. But a reader over at the Corner at NRO e-mailed Jonah Goldberg with an interesting question:

If Italy accepts their bailout money, will Obama have the power to remove [Italian Prime Minister] Berlusconi?

Good question.

ITEM: Speaking of Obama and Europe, some of the commentators over there are less than impressed with his oratorical prowess:

… am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled – his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn’t he go on a bit? The crowd in Prague was huge, and initially wildly enthusiastic, but what he served up was not any more impressive than his damp squib in Berlin last year. Is there a computer which churns this stuff out for him? . . .

Empires rising and falling, destinies being defined and a Golden City standing as a monument to unconquerable spirit… goodness, what a ham. When he really gets going he’s worse than Tony Blair.

But Obama was only warming up. “When I was born,” (Everything usually leads back to him, you’ll notice)… “the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become an American President.” (Him again)…

“Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. And few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, and a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams”. (Not by Ronald Reagan they wouldn’t have been, when most of Obama’s Democrat friends thought the then US President’s robust approach to the Cold War made him a loony on the loose).

ITEM: As for the continuing crisis, this graph apparently is quite popular all over the net:

The key take-away from the graph above is to note the series of “bounces” in each bear market, where the stock prices rise for weeks or even months before declining again and to an even lower level. The big dispute right now is whether the market has hit bottom or whether it’s just going through a temporary rise. I have no clue, but then, I have no stocks. Or bonds.

As for the overall historical trends, this chart — covering 140 years — shows the ups and down over time:

The takeway here is: stocks go up and stocks go down. The overall trend is up, but that trend is measured in decades.

Ain’t we got fun? ..bruce w..

The road ahead

OVERNIGHT LINKS (and don’t go waiting for any updates, either)

ITEM: Headline of the week: “Spacetime May Have Fractal Properties on a Quantum Scale.”

ITEM: Economic common sense from … Germany?

ITEM: There is some justice in the world, after all:  “Vindictive people make less money.”

ITEM: On the other hand, this explains a lot: “Expert financial advice cuts brain activity.”

ITEM: Just in case you were wondering, here’s how to become a ‘blimp’ pilot.

ITEM: Another idiot school, though this one was over in Britain: School sends parents letter complaining about poor class attendance of dead daughter.

The sun is blank. No sunspots.

ITEM: I happen to have the SciFi Saturday nigh movie, “Polar Storm”, on the TV. I think it’s setting a new record for scientific/technological errors per minute. UPDATE: Oh, it’s even more horrible than I could have imagined. I mean, the production, effects, and even acting are up to the usual SciFi Saturday standards. But I have never seen such an unremitting series of scientific and technological idiocies. On the other hand, I’ve never watched An Inconvenient Truth….

WEIRD ITEM: Obama preparing for UFO arrival.

ITEM: Remember all those cool time-lapse videos you’ve seen of plants growing and blossoming. Well, now you can make your own with this little gizmo. Ain’t technology wonderful?

ITEM: On the other hand, here’s a reminder on the unexpected gotchas of technology: serial killer “suspect” turns out to be woman who accidentally contaminated DNA swabs.

ITEM: Why we should think long and hard before attempting “bioengineering” or “terraforming” to solve “global warming”:

While some scientists and environmental groups object to their plan fearing harmful changes to the ecosystem, Planktos went ahead and dumped a hundred tons of iron dust mixed with seawater into international waters off the coast of the Argentina.

Expecting a plankton bloom and carbon credit riches to follow, their plans were literally eaten alive by a swarm of algae-loving shrimp. They did get their bloom, but it was not large, carbon dioxide capturing algae. Instead they promoted the large-scale bloom of haptophytes, a tiny algae common in the open ocean and extremely abundant in the fossil record. They are also the fellows responsible for the white foam you sometimes see on the edge of beaches.

That’s it! See you on Monday.  ..bruce w..

This is the kind of rally we really need: all out, no rules

EARLY MORNING LINKS — they’ll still be brief, because I’m still busy

ITEM: The mainstream media tells us how to cope with difficult times: eat more candy (NY Times), play more (USA Today).  No, really.

ITEM: Think of it as evolution in action: Josh Freeze comes up with a novel (and brilliant) tiered pricing structure for his new solo album:

At the cheaper end of the tier, $50 will get you the digital download, a double disc set, a t-shirt, and a 5-minute phone call with Freese to discuss anything you like—including what you liked or didn’t like about the album. Too boring? Buy the $250 package and you’ll get signed drumsticks, plus you can have lunch with Freese at The Cheesecake Factory or PF Changs. The $5,000 package includes (among other things) a letter from Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam telling you about his favorite song on the album.

But wait there’s more! If you’re willing to spend a sizable amount of money, the perks get even weirder: there’s only one $10,000 package, but that’s because included alongside the foot massage and day at Disneland, Freese will give you his Volvo station wagon, of which he obviously only has one. The $20,000 package includes 2 original songs written for or about you, and you get sing back up or play (“the drums, triangle, whatever”) on them.

ITEM: Political geeks (and Democrats themselves) usually point to the 1994 mid-term elections as a cautionary tale for Obama and Congress, but Jeffrey Lord goes back to 1966.

ITEM: Somewhere in here, it’s important to remember that the Democrats have controlled Congress for two years, not two months:

Expect to see this chart (updated) during elections next year.

ITEM: As I recall, when Bush did this, it was decried as an attempt to snub the mainstream media and manipulate the news. Now it’s described as Obama seeking “filter-free” news coverage. And the State Department is having its own problems with the press.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism update: the House votes to create a national youth corps under Federal control with mandatory service requirements. Now, who was it who did that several decades back? (UPDATED: And let’s not forget the Soviets!)

ITEM: Pres. Obama has an editorial published today in a variety of countries around the world. Frank Gaffney worries that we’re actually sending the wrong message.

ITEM: So, ‘resetting’ the US relationship with Russia — how’d that work out?

The profound differences in psychology, philosophy and policy that have been the central source of friction between the American and Russian governments for the past decade remain very much in place. Sooner or later, the Obama administration will have to grapple with them.

Anyone who doubts the truth of this need only look at remarks Lavrov himself made last weekend in Brussels, where he presented a vision of the world utterly unchanged by the events of Jan. 20. Speaking to past and present policymakers — several of whom had helped dismember the Warsaw Pact and expand NATO in the 1990s — he offered his own version of those developments, as well as of some more current. Among other things, he said, or implied, that the West lied to Russia; that NATO remains a threat to Russia; that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe should replace NATO as the primary Western security organization; and that, by the way, Russia has plenty of potential clients for its gas in the Far East should its Western clients ever become problematic. As for Russia helping to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons — an Obama administration suggestion — Lavrov’s only comment was that “there is no proof that Iran even has decided to make a nuclear bomb.”

The transcript of his remarks, and those of other Russians attending the same conference, do not capture their snide tone, or the scorn with which they dismissed suggestions that Russia’s neighbors might have wanted to join NATO because they were afraid of Russia. To return to the metaphor: If that is how the Russian government sounds after pressing the reset button, I’m not sure that the technical complications that caused the screen to freeze have gone away.

ITEM: Investors Business Daily asks the legitimate question, “If Geithner’s Plan Is Bad, Why Do Markets Like It?” One answer: we’re back to the Greater Fool theory: if investors think that other investors like it, then they’ll buy stocks in anticipation of selling them to those other investors. The question is, will yesterday’s rally be sustained? [UPDATED: Nope.] Noam Scheiber (at The New Republic) thinks the Geithner plan can work, but doesn’t really address the additional cost to taxpayers.

ITEM: Yet another tragic story of someone feeling solidarity with a “revolutionary” movement, only to be brutalized by that same movement. In the words of 60s liberal Pete Seeger, “When will they ever learn?”

OVERNIGHT LINKS — they’ll be brief, because I’m busy

ITEM: Well, Obama is losing Congress for going back on his promises regarding signing statements.

ITEM: And Zogby says Obama’s approval numbers are down to around 50%. On the other hand, I’m not sure I trust Zogby polls much. [MORNING UPDATE] Of course, even his Rasmussen numbers aren’t looking all that good:

When will he cross into negative territory? The pool is open.

ITEM: On the other hand, Obama still has the late-night comedians in his pocket. Obama just had possibly the worst week of his career, providing tons of comic fodder, and what did Jay Leno feature on the Tonight Show? An idiotic “What’s George Bush Doing Now?” skit (Bush and Cheney fighting with light sabers). That’s almost as pointless and pathetic as Jacob Weisberg over at Slate continuing his “Bushisms” feature.

ITEM: The Senate shows some remarkable good sense and puts a hold on the idiot House Bonus Tax Bill for now. Betcha those AIG execs who gave back $50 million in bonuses are kicking themselves right about now.

ITEM: Creeping socialism/fascism alert: the Obama Administration wants more power to seize businesses. I thought that’s what got us into this mess in the first place.

ITEM: George Will may appear mild-mannered, but he’s mildly wielding a mean baseball bat in this column.

ITEM: “Investors offered toxic mortgages” — Is that where you’d put your money? So why does the government thing the investors will buy these assets? That’s what Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) wants to know:

“The plan seems to offer little incentive for private investors to participate unless the subsidy is made so rich that it comes at the expense of the taxpayer,” Mr. Cantor said in a statement.

And here are the likely incentives, which pretty much mean the taxpayers are screwed again.

That’s it for now (and more than enough).  ..bruce w..

Remember this? I do.

I scan the web so that you don’t have to . . .

Let’s see . . . the North Koreans . . . the Chinese . . . and now the Russians. Who’s going to be the next to challenge the new Obama Administration? Maybe Iran? And how will the Obama Administration respond? Oh, I know — by no longer calling captured terrorists “enemy combatants“! That’ll show them. “Reset button“, indeed. We seem to be resetting ourselves  back into the Cold War.

Meanwhile, VP Joe Biden remains the gift that keeps on giving. Explain to me again why this man was somehow more credible as Vice President than Sarah Palin? On the other hand, his response was to a friend addressing him as “Mr. Vice-President”, so he was merely echoing the sentiments of a lot of other Americans.

Didn’t we see this technology in “The Dark Knight”?

The Economist (a magazine I used to subscribe to until it veered sharply left) worries that “President Obama’s crisis response is not up to the task“. I think that has already been established. Didn’t take long, either.

Obama is losing Michael Barone, but I’m not sure he ever had him.

Obama may also be losing the Washington Post; at least, the WaPo appears to have decided that it’s a real newspaper, not a Democratic lapdog like the New York Times or MS-NBC. This analysis piece by Scott Wilson notes the Blame Bush syndrome coming from the White House. (Hat tip to Red State.)

Obama may even be losing Robert Reich; at least, he’s worrying him.

In contrast, Mark Steyn says we shouldn’t worry at all — it’s our kids who’ll have to clean up Obama’s mess!

Democrats: The Party of Tax Cheats! I know it’s been asked before, but are Democrats in favor of higher taxes simply because they have no intention of paying them?

Remember my link yesterday to the “Obama Fingers” they’re now selling in Germany? Rachel Lucas gins up this wonderful poster:

Yep, it’s a new era of relations with Europe, all right.

Speaking of chicken, here’s what I’m fixing today (got the recipe years ago from my daughter Bethan):

Tabasco Chicken

Take a few pounds of boneless, skinless chicken breasts and put them in a large ziploc bag. (NOTE: I often first cut the breasts lengthwise; they cook faster and more evenly that way.) Dump in one entire large (5 oz) bottle of Tabasco sauce, whatever your favorite flavor is (original, chipotle, jalapeno).  Close the bag and squish things around to coat all the breasts. Let the chicken marinate for at least a few hours. Grill over coals; don’t overcook. The leftovers, sliced up, make great fajitas.

Oops! Juror twitters during $12 million civil case (” I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money!”).

Rehabilitating the Vikings.

Movie recommendation for the weekend: “36 Hours” (1965, B&W). James Garner stars as a US Army officer involved in D-Day planning who is drugged and kidnapped by German intelligence just a few days before the Allied Invasion of Europe. He wakes up in what appears to be a US Army Hospital, his hair has gray in it, he can’t read without glasses. He’s told that it’s 1950 and that he’s been suffering from amnesia due to torture inflicted by the Gestapo. So, his doctor (Rod Taylor) asks him, what can he remember about the Allied Invasion of Germany…? Also stars Eva Marie Saint, as well as John Banner (Sgt. Schultz from “Hogan’s Heroes”) in a wonderful bit part that probably landed him the “Hogan’s Heroes” role. A well-done film with some interesting twists; ripe for a modern remake.

My two favorite plays of all time are “Arcadia” by Tom Stoppard and “A Man for All Seasons” by Robert Bolt (neither of which should be confused with my favorite Broadway musicals of all time, “West Side Story” and “Sweeney Todd”). And this is probably my favorite scene from “A Man for All Seasons” (hat tip to Article VI Blog):

Tha-tha-tha-that’s all, folks! Enjoy your weekend!  ..bruce w..

Nom nom nom

First cut for a Friday (the 13th! again!) morning . . .

Be sure to keep up to date with the North Korean missile launch via Henderson’s posts.

Obama went to Germany during the election, and they return the love:  “Obama Fingers“.

Wait!  I thought the idea was to nationalize health care, not throw veterans under the bus.

China “worried about US Treasury holdings.” They’re not the only ones (hat tip to Transterrestrial Musings):

Deficits as far as the eye can see

Another day, another disappointed Obama backer:

Obama’s proposed budget shows all the vision, restraint and grace of a grasping committee chairman, using the cover of a still-unresolved banking crisis to push through a broad liberal wish list before anyone notices its costs and complications. The pledge of “responsibility” has become the massive expansion of debt, the constant allocation of blame to others and the childish cultivation of controversy with conservative media figures to favorably polarize the electorate. The pledge of “honesty” and “sacrifice” has become the deceptive guarantee of apparently limitless public benefits at the expense of a very few. The pledge of “bipartisan” cooperation has become an attempt to shove Republicans until their backs reach some wall of outrage and humiliation

Apparently, this disappointment more and more applies to the public at large as well.

Peggy Noonan should really get out of New York more often; she’s caught in an echo chamber of her own making:

I asked a friend, a perceptive writer, if he is seeing what I’m seeing. Yes, he said, there is “a pervasive sense of anxiety, as though everyone feels they’re on thin ice.” He wonders if it’s “maybe a sense that we’ve had it too easy in the years since 9/11 and that the bad guys are about to appear on the horizon.” An attorney in a Park Avenue firm said, “Things look like they have changed and may not come back.” He contrasted the feeling now on the streets with 2001. “Things are subdued. . . . Nine-eleven was brutal and graphic. Yet because there was real death and loss of life folks could grieve and then move on.” But today, “the dread is chronic. . . . Tom Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe were supposed to be invincible. The pillars of media were supposed to be there forever. The lawyers were supposed to feed through thick and thin. Not anymore.” He quoted Ecclesiastes:  “The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth.” We are worried, he said, “about a way of life, about the loss of upward trajectory.”

From the daily “What if Pres. Bush had done this” department:

While publicly identifying with the nation’s have-nots, the Obama administration has been cultivating the Beltway social elite behind the scenes.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration invited top editors of three of Washington’s local luxury lifestyle magazines — Capitol File, DC magazine and Washington Life — to a meeting where they discussed, among other things, how President Obama and first lady Michelle Obama can embrace Washington’s glittery social scene.

The White House is “identifying taste makers in order to help create grass-roots interest in some of the programs they are working on,” said Washington Life’s Michael Clements, who attended the meeting. “They wanted to introduce themselves. It was certainly a departure from previous administrations.”

From the ‘chief watchdog’ of the ‘stimulus package’:

“I’m afraid that there may be a naive impression that given the amount of transparency and accountability called for by this act, no or little fraud will occur. My 38 years of federal enforcement experience tells me that some level of waste and fraud is unfortunately inevitable,” Mr. Devaney told state officials charged with coordinating the spending.

You mean like this? “GAO cites fraud in Medicare in-home services billings“:

Fraud and abuse helped boost Medicare spending on home health services 44% over five years as some providers exaggerated patients’ medical conditions and others billed for unnecessary services or care they did not provide, a Government Accountability Office report out Friday says.

The only way to cut down on fraud in government spending is to cut down on government spending. But that assumes that Congress actually cares about fraud, corruption and accountability.

Back during the primaries and the general election, I had nice things to say about Barack Obama, but I also felt he lacked the experience (particularly executive/leadership experience) to be President of the United States and, as such, leader of the Free World.  Unfortunately, the six weeks or so since his inauguration have shown how very much unprepared he was (and is), and the resulting damage will be with us for years.

Let’s remember this statement by President Obama just a little over a month ago:

President Barack Obama warned Thursday that the nation is facing a recession so deep that, without action, it could turn into one that “we may not be able to reverse.” The threat of an irreversible recession that could “linger for years” is very real, Obama said, urging Congress to pass his economic recovery act.

Now, it’s “Never mind.”

Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and his plans will speed recovery.

But wait! There’s more! (Hat tip to Instapundit):

Lawrence H. Summers, the White House economic adviser, calls it “the paradox at the heart of the financial crisis. “

“In the past few years, we’ve seen too much greed and too little fear; too much spending and not enough saving; too much borrowing and not enough worrying,” Summers said Friday in a speech to the Brookings Institution. “Today, however, our problem is exactly the opposite.” In remarks to a private dinner at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce on Wednesday, Summers was even blunter, according to an attendee: “Before, we had too much greed and too little fear. Now, we have too much fear and too little greed.”

Also, It turns out the Europeans aren’t as willing to plunge into trillion-dollar deficits as Obama and Congress are.

Someone needs to start a blog listing all the failed/withdrawn nominees of the Obama administration. It really is getting hard to keep track, though here’s a start. Of course, this approach might solve some of the Administration’s problems.

Frank J (of IMAO) weighs in on what may really be the core problem of the Obama Administration.

Hey, the New York Times is actually out in front with a story about a corrupt Democrat, and they even identified her — Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA) — as a Democrat! Hope and change indeed. Now if they’ll just start covering all the others. . . .

Michael Hirsh hasn’t yet jumped off the Obama bandwagon, though even he acknowledges things have not gone well.

Woman on fire: Megan McArdle has front and center in expressing her opinions about the current financial crisis and the various (bungled) efforts by Congress and Administration to deal with it. I find her a lot more credible than the Obama apologists.

And if Obama is getting criticized by Sen. Lincoln Chaffee (U-RI, ret.), you know he’s struggling.

Of course, Obama lost Sen. Judd Gregg some weeks ago, and Gregg, in hearings with Treasure Sec’y Geithner, explains why: ““The argument that [the Obama budget plan] cuts the debt in half in four years is, ahh, is truly spurious.”” And it gets better from there. (Hat tip to Gateway Pundit.)

One of the few bright spots in the Obama Administration so far.

I thought the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was actually written by, well, atomic scientists.

Proof there is some justice in the world.

And speaking of justice:  here’s Bernie Madoff’s court statement. To his credit, he does not equivocate or excuse himself. Of course, that’s small consolation to all those who collectively lost billions of dollars.

I’m not at all a fan of legalizing drugs, but I’m beginning to wonder if it’s the best of a bad set of options.

Oh noes! Global warmingz Climate change has struck again! Global hurricane energy reaches a new high a new low!

Where have all the cyclones gone, long time passing...

YouTube won’t let me embed this video, but it does give some perspective on life today.

How to look like a million bucks for under $200 (for men only).

It was 30 years ago today (well, not really, but it sounds nice): Bob Metcalfe reminisces about the origins of Ethernet.

This for the dog lovers out there (hat tip to The Daily Brief).

Weird link o’ the day: Christopher Columbus was a Scotsman (historian claims).

And if you’ve scrolled down this far…Glenn Beck one-ups Stephen Colbert:

“Killer bees. Killer bees, Glenn, killer bees are back.”

Have a great weekend.  ..bruce w..