Breaking News
Obama "drive to succeed" hampered by loss of traction due to excessive number of squishy bodies under the wheels of the Bus of State.

Adding The Market Ticker To The Blogroll
It's become a daily read and today's post there is no exception. In fact, it's worth a RTWT. I'll be adding that momentarily but first a snip from the post linked in the first sentence:

That of course isn't the point of the complaint. The complaint rests (properly, in my opinion) on the premise that the so-called "boom" in many parts of Europe was financed with German capital, which was effectively appropriated under false pretenses.

Gee, where have we seen this before? Banksters lying and cheating (cough-liar loans-cough!) and trading in derivatives without any money behind them (cough-AIG-cough!) and when the smoke clears suddenly the national governments are told "hand over hundreds of billions right now or the puppy dies!"

Uh huh.

G20 governments are increasingly coming to the realization that "borrow and spend" doesn't - and can't - work in the intermediate and longer term. Despite the bleating of Geithner at the G20 meeting he got nowhere trying to jawbone people into more Keynesian-style games.

We blew $4 trillion in the United States over the last two years and change and got nothing for it, and as a consequence we are stuck with the debt and haven't solved the problem. $4 trillion, of course, is about 30% of GDP, and this "support" has amounted to roughly 11% of GDP over the last three years.

Denninger gets right to the heart of the matter. I was at first disinclined to blame the "banksters" because of the massive culpability of the government in pushing fraudulent mortgages but I've come to realize that the current state of affairs is the very embodiment of moral hazard: profits are retained and when the inevitable losses begin to mount, they are passed on to the taxpayers. It's the essence of what really angers me about President Obamabi. He speechifies and acts like he's going to go all hard-ass on wall Street but all he's done is pump taxpayer money into those exact institutions he pretends to be against. And this new "financial reform" legislation does nothing but institutionalize bailouts with a $50B fund for precisely that purpose. That's taxpayer money he's putting up for his faux capitalist crony "bankster" friends. And they know it.
Even more unfortunately, the mainstream media either doesn't understand it or, as is more likely, doesn't tell the truth about it. Political power for the left is more important for the MSM than eternal verities like truth telling. I've worked in both banking and journalism. Neither profession can be relied upon. One has your money. One has your flow of information. Or, more accurately now, "had" as the rise of the Internet has seriously disintermediated the left wing journalist info guards. The Market Ticker is precisely one of those reasons the web is killing print news. We get more truth from knowledgeable people who are both directly involved and providing direct information for people who seek it out.
I hope you make the site at least a frequent stop. It may have a little more technical information than the average blog reader is conversant with but by sticking to the reading it will become progressively easier to grok.

A First Comment On The Employment Numbers
To establish the numbers themselves, allow me to indulge in a bit of snippage from the Christian Science Monitor:

On Friday, in a disappointing report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the economy gained 431,000 jobs and the unemployment rate slipped to 9.7 percent, down from 9.9 percent in April. The unemployment rate fell because there were fewer people looking for work, not because there was a jump in employment – private sector businesses added only 41,000 jobs last month, far fewer than economists had expected.

What I've been hearing on the radio news is how these are the "best numbers in ten years." Well, according to the reports on the details of the numbers, the vast majority of those 400,000 government jobs are Census hires. So the "best numbers in ten years" would go back to the last census enumeration which would be, let's see ten years ago? D'ya see a pattern here? The vaunted mainstream media doesn't seem to.
The upcoming post on these numbers will feature a Beavis and Butthead link (I can't find it as an embed). That's a first for PoW I think.

What Are We Going To Do Tomorrow Night?

A Toe In Politics
I figure that since the president seems to think the way to get things done is to appoint a "blue ribbon commission" to ___________ (fill in the blank with anything that Congress or the Executive branch should be doing), I'm going to appoint a Blue Ribbon Commission to go out and get me a couple of six packs of Pabst beer. I'm all about the 'yes, we can', though I'm perfectly willing to accept 'yes, we bottle.' I'm flexible.

More On The Whole Rectilinear Fish Thing
Sort of a side note, really. I was driving thru the drive thru (it works like that) at my local Burger King (I like their overly sweet iced "Mocha Joe," sue me) and saw that there is a new fishy offering in their "Big fish" sandwich option - Cilantro Lime sauced fish. I may have to try it as I am nuts for cilantro but I don't trust the King to make a cilantro sauce that's not cilantro inclined tartar sauce. To expect more is to court, marry and set up a household with disappointment.
But in the spirit of hopey changey, I'll try it if I'm at a loss for a meal one of these days.

So, Anyway
There I was watching some of the product of the televisioning machine when who should appear but the First Lady of the United States telling me to be all kinds of generous to the sadly afflicted people of Haiti. I'm down with that. I'll be making a contribution to the Red Cross on Monday but not because that zombie told me to. Really. The over-made-up face, the dead, soulless eyes. That is one scary fembot. She must have found where to get a Hillary style nut-vise years ago.

I Just Realized
When Obama made that stupid speech all those months ago, maybe he did not intend that the world would "heal" but that the world would HEEL! And he was expecting to be holding the leash of course.
Not so much any more Barry.

A Brief Thought On Chrysler
Joe Sherlock today has piece on the situation at the littlest of the Big Three automakers with the heart of the matter nicely pulled together: "I was pessimistic about Chrysler's survival when it first filed for that bizarre banana-republic bankruptcy, which I now refer to as Obamaruptcy. And the subsequent shotgun marriage to Fiat - a nuptial which only made sense after a lot of drinking or a severe head injury."
First of all, "Obamaruptcy:" heh! It doesn't roll smoothly off the tongue but it is now an essential truism. So, full marks for the neologism.
But it's the meat of the post that intrigues me. I can offer no great insight into the car biz, especially in comparison to Joe who just knows his stuff. But an image, an idea struck me in reading the post. Both Chrysler and Fiat are like two falling-down drunks and the only way two drunks can support each other is if they're falling into each other from opposite directions. Unfortunately for us, Fiat and Chrysler are falling in the same direction with the only difference being the rate of drop.
As Joe said, the American taxpayer will never see his or her money that went into the "rescue" ever again. All to pay back Obama's union backers for their political support. Shameful.

EM's inspiration corner....does size matter?
"Never come between a mother and her baby."
Squirrel maternal instinct photo sequence.

You have got to admire this squirrel. I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.
Oh... I will be proud to lead this wonderful squirrel into battle anytime, anywhere.
That's all.

Today's Must Read
Victor Davis Hanson at Pajamas Media. Less dyspeptic than I (below), certainly more reasoned and very well put. Trifecta. RTWT. Now. Please.

The Day After
Just a couple of minor key thoughts after the great Obamagasm on the Mall. First, "Rev." Lowery can go to hell for insulting only whites in his idiotic little rhyme at the end of the benediction. I have no animus toward anyone who does not share my ethnic heritage but he obviously sees only whites as those who do not "do right." Screw you. You just showed me a black man who did very, very wrong.
Then again, what Lowery said rhymed. The inaugural "poem" was crap on a stick. Earlier I railed against Maya Angelou's craptastic poem for Clinton inauguration but I now have to give her credit: at least it was a poem. That nonsense we were subjected to yesterday was a laundry list read by someone who has absolutely no idea how poetry should be read out loud. William Carlos Williams was once accused of writing a "grocery list" but it was a grocery list arranged so that the "poetic rhythym (could) emerge." Here there was no rythym, no music, just the dull plodding of someone writing words down on paper.
This woman, this alleged poet, makes me think she has never read Shakespeare, even Poe in "The Bells" or "The Raven" shows that cadence matters as much as rhyme. Does anyone actually study poetry in this country any more?
In any event, I'll not take anything as augury. And in answer to the question of "Do you support the president?" No. Absolutely not. I support my country. I believe in freedom. The new regime wants my allegiance but that is reserved for America, not Barack. And I will use the lessons I've learned from the opponents of Presidents Bush: oppose everything on the basis of politics, only call the President "Mr." instead of "President," and never govern - only campaign, campaign, campaign.
Also, read Billy Beck - scroll through the January 20 posts on Two--Four - he gets it. The loss of real freedom we suffered under Bush is going to look like a walk in park compared to what the left will do in the next four years.

EM has an epiphany...

...On earth as it is in heaven

Give us this day our daily bread...

!!*POOF!!*

oh..hmmm..forget it!

That's The Big "Aha!"
So I start by quoting the GEICO gecko. There worse things in life. Which avoids the question what is the big "Aha!" It's the revelation that my kitchen is actually a cunningly constructed Rubik's Cube. I concede that the colors have been scrambled now for a while (i.e. the kitchen got way too messy). But in order to get all the colors to face up (i.e. really organize the place) I have to further scramble the colors.
I'm working on two kitchen surfaces that have been accumulating stuff for at least three years with little rhyme or reason save that said surfaces were convenient places to put things. Now that I'm putting things to right, I have off-loaded a lot of stuff onto the previously clean surfaces making the kitchen look, for now, even more messy that it did last night. But tomorrow will see the snick-snick-snicking of those surfaces back to unichrome again. And possibly the relocation of cookbooks. Possibly.

01/01/09
Happy New Year to one and all.
I entered the last year with hopes but an unwillingness to confront difficult issues. This year I enter with resolve to do the things I did not do in the past. Despite the troubles we face, there is much in the world to be had if we are willing to gasp the handle and open the door.

Quote Of The Day
I don't do QOTDs normally. But I want to extract something from the increasingly valuable Billy Beck. I readily admit that it is lacking context so if you don't read the whole thing, shame on you.

"One could perhaps be forgiven for thinking the 20th century's great moral argument had been settled."

Of course, the change does not survive examination against actual history -- nothing about these arguments was ever "settled" -- but that has nothing to do with general ignorance of the fact that the "economic argument" is an argument over consequences of a moral system. It is not fundamental in any way.

A Whole New World Part The Second
I heard on the radio last evening that Maya Angelou is going to write a new poem for her maximum leader. Lord save us. Maya Angelou is very possibly the worst famous poet this country has ever produced. Pretentious, banal and small minded. I'll dig up the "poem" she wrote for Clinton and demonstrate later this afternoon.
After I go shopping and make cranberry sauce.
UPDATE: Make my into ripping tomorrow. Never got away from the house today and it's too late to adjust my expectations. Got to write another letter to the editor first.

A Whole New World
This morning I couldn't even get out of my driveway what with all the unicorns prancing around farting rainbows and reflecting the morning sunshine off their glittery gold horns. Though since they crap gold and jewels at least the financial crisis will be over soon. No, wait, once we being collecting all the gold and jewels in out pooper-scoopers, gold and jewels will become worthless due to the supply. Dammit Obama! We need a limited number of unicorns!
If we could the unicorns that whizz gasoline, I'd be happier. I guess we'll have to wait for a Republican administration for that.