I’d say the Liberals are basically neutered. They were out of control, but totally blew everything, like Lenny and a fragile furry creature. America’s probably learned its lesson for a decade or two, unless Sarah Palin gets elected and gives the old pendulum yet another big health *kick*

I was pondering some parallels today between Bush’s decisions about the Iraq invasion and Obama on healthcare reform.

Bush’s mistake was letting some over-confident civvies dictate troop numbers per his strategy, as opposed to his old man’s approach to desert storm and shield. Bush I sent what the Generals requested. Bush II sent what Rummy thought he could get away with.

Obama took a similar approach to healthcare reform. He let some civvie non-doctors slap together the most absurdly Liberal stack of horseshit they thought they could get away with, and inadvertently gave his enemies a big heavy stick to thump on him with for the foreseeable future.

They both had a brilliant chance to do something amazing – and shitted all over it. Bush had the chance to free Iraq in a sudden and awesome way. Just think about it!!! What if they had gone in with a slightly longer-term strategy and/or an appropriate number of troops to keep the peace in Iraq. In 2002 we would be where we are NOW in Iraq. Think of the credibility Bush would have had! Afghanistan – check, Saddam – check, Iran???

Likewise, Obama could have socialized US medicine by his 8th year in office. What if he had passed a small highly popular bill for health reform in his first year? Something including Republican ideas that would tight a few of them in? Something with real benefits that would be felt within the year or next? By end of year two, or sooner, he would have had health-reform-credibility and the capital needed to easily pass another ginger step. By his second term he could have carefully constructed the real “Big Fucking Deal.”

Of course, he would have also needed to keep that cap and trade bill stuffed up the collective Liberal ass, and not pulled a recklessly irresponsible and totally thoughtless ‘stimulus’ bill. I’m not saying he should have continued the tax-cut Bush approach to bracing and patching the economy. I’m saying he would have had to constructed and passed an actual stimulus bill, not a goody-grab labeled as such.

He went the belligerent rout though, and will have been a lame-duck the second half of his presidency, assuming he doesn’t find a way to pull-off a second term.

Breaking News!!!

All news outlets and the AP are all confirming that President Obama will announce that the USA has killed osama bin laden.  DNA tests have validated it is in fact his body!

The USA and the world celebrate the cutting off of one of the major heads of terrorism!

Bush’s groundwork has come to fruition through Obama’s continuation of his efforts!

UPDATE!!!
President’s address confirms US soldiers shot and killed osama bin laden!

The S & P recently  lowered the US credit rating outlook.  The reason for the downgrade, in a nutshell, was:

The United States has a large debt and deficit compared with other highly rated nations, and unlike with those other nations “the path to addressing [the debt and deficit] is not clear to us.”

That’s kind of a leadership – dare I say image – problem, isn’t it??? lol Glenn Beck has been warning of this for two years. lol

I think liberals and democrats have some wrong thinking on the idea of paying higher taxes. Like I said a couple posts ago, rich people will be investors, if not outright businesses. Taxing them takes carefully targeted investment out of the market, and then tries to ‘invests’ it otherwise according to bureaucracy. If the electorate think society needs something that only government should provide, why can’t regular people pay and even share for it – minus financially immovable people of course?

Also, there’s no reason we can’t get the economy back to 90s strength. It’s going to take risk and new ideas of course, and taxes just slow all that down. Once we’re back to 90s strength, then you can start raising taxes on The Rich. It’s actually a good idea then, in order to slow the economy down, to prevent all kinds of goofy crap, and build up a surplus to use in the next downturn.

That’s the idea anyway. The problem is wanker politicians who spend and pump regardless. Bill Clinton explained on an interview I heard a while ago that the reason the housing market was pumped up so huge was because it was the only thing growing our economy after the tech bubble blew. We kept low interest rates even though the housing market was hot as hell – getting people buying and selling homes, stuffing all the cash up in the air to be counted. Ooooooh, Mr. Politician, you’re making the economy so good – yeah!

1. Interest rates: You can get an interest rate around 5% currently on a mortgage. It’s better to take the near free money and put your income into something else, like an investment yielding >5%, or other more worthwhile things.

2. Inflation: A mortgage is like shorting the dollar. You basically lock in the value of the dollar. You buy a $100k house, and that asset is what you own, while the bank eats the inflation.

3. Rent: Saving for a mortgage, assuming you rent in the mean time, is like paying for two places to live but only having one.

4. Appreciation: From this general point in time, it’s only reasonable to assume that a home will appreciate over the life of a mortgage. You’re money in the bank won’t. It will earn interest, but will also suffer inflation, probably a lot, while the homes become more expensive.

5. Wisdom: It’s wiser to have that chunk of money stored away in some sort of liquidable investment than to have it trapped in a home. It might seem safer to have a small monthly payment. But it’s far better to have access to that sizable sum of money when tragedy strike – than to simply have a more gentle mortgage payment.

You know things are getting bad out there when James Carville and other prominent hard core libs/dems are turning on their beloved Obama. It’s quite an implosion we’re witnessing. It’s shocking how fast the dems went from fab to drab. And drab is stating it kindly. To see republicans and conservatives winning in long held liberal states is monumental. the people are speaking, and doing so with vigor. The next elections will be very interesting, especially after having seen the results of the recent primaries.

The oil spill has really taken Obama by surprise it seems. Things have gone from bad to worse for this guy, health care, cap and trade, immigration, and now the spill. These crises are really showing him to be completely incompetent. His age and inexperience are shinning through like a spotlight. The more this spill expands, figuratively and literally, the more Obama really does seem to lack the slightest dam clue as to what he is doing. He’s waning from one opinion to another trying to stay political ground. When the media turns on him saying he isn’t passionate enough, he starts cursing in a really awkward attempt to look enraged. And he gets hammered by the same back stabbing media.

“We’re dying down here!” exclaims Carville to the nation on TV. Obama must have been cursing at the screen at that moment. If only he could have redirected the certain rage he must have felt toward Carville at the actual oil spill, he would have looked very concerned, like his media wanted. I never thought I’d see the day when Carville was calling out his guy so prominently and with such abandon.

Perhaps our government system really does work. The people are so outraged with Obama’s nation killing policies and welfare programs that he’s actually forcing his own political demise. People are speaking with decisive action at the poles. He will likely be a one term president, which is still evidently long enough for him to do some serious and long lasting damage to our economy, laws, policies, industry, and general way of life. Now we know what happens when an ideological and inexperienced adolescent is allowed to run the country. It really seems to come down to this, the difference between an idealist and a realist.

We have a professor running the country. Which if we all needed to learn something, would be great. But we need a professor who has lived, worked, and run in the real world. And not the sleezy Chicago political world. Obama seems to embody all the most inadequate qualities for running a country, which is clearly showing now. Like cracks in a brand new road made with an inferior cement mix. We need a Roman road president, who’s experience and character have a deep and solid foundation. Politics as usual would even be an upgrade from Where Obama has taken us. After all these blatant back room deals, failed policies, platitudes, etc, it makes you want to scream and gives you a sense of real helplessness with regard to what is going on in washington. Obama has redefined politics as usual, setting a completely new standard for the depravity of politics. Obama politics as usual makes Clinton politics look like girl scout cookies. This is a bold new standard and total hypocrisy we are witnessing. Obama’s promises on the campaign trail got left on the trail, replaced by a Grinch smirk. When voters go to the poles, it will be interesting to see if the pendulum will swing back center or far right. With the extent to which Obama has poisoned the political landscape for all politicians, it will likely swing hard right, bringing who knows what. We’ll either see balance or something new we’ve never seen before, perhaps. For now, we just need to get the bull out of the china shop while there is still a few good dishes left.

Happy birthday everyone! YouTube is catching up with hookers and interns in number of public figures ruined. I was shocked when I heard it this morning, Helen Thomas’ resigning/retiring. Last night I was thinking about it and I figured she’d just be protected – as usual – by all the new powerful fancy leftists, and the old-person factor. But Gibbs even called her words offensive. At least it is still offensive for Americans to publicly support the destruction of Israel.

Oil Spill
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is probably going to do some serious and horrible damage to one of the most productive estuaries on the planet, the place that feeds the US 2/3 of its seafood, and provides a living to millions of people. This spill is truly horrible, leaking 5000+ barrels per day, an example of poor Failure Mode and Error Analysis. A collar on the head of the well was supposed to close on the pipe if the oil flowed over a certain rate, crushing the pipe close. But there was other equipment inside the pipe, so it didn’t close all the way. Since then BP has been struggling to find solutions.

So now what? Political grandstanding anyone? Time to score some political points? What did the Obama administration do when they heard of the leak? Well, nothing of substance. Obama had just finished promoting offshore drilling or they would have immediately drilled the drill-baby-drill agenda. And in this case, such offshore disasters are in the Federal reaction domain – unlike the hurricane Katrina disaster which was in the State’s reaction domain.

The Obama talking point this past week was, “from day one,” but that’s BS. Obama’s brigade was focused on other things and figured it was a small leak soon to be capped, something that would blow over, something to ignore while the Obama-oil wake settled down. The head of the EPA went to the Grand Canyon three days after the leak began. When the Obama administration realized the spill was huge and making it to shore, they suddenly sent a helicopter to rush the EPA head southeast. That’s not “day one.”

So now people see a massive oil slick on TV and the country is suddenly against offshore oil.

What did Sarah Palin have to say in this sudden anti-offshore-oil storm? Well she stuck to her gun, she still openly supports expanding US oil production and that includes off shore. What would you call that? Stupid? Stubborn? Idealistic?

Call it what you want. But the fact is: She’s right. Stopping US offshore oil will increase oil spills just like Cap and Trade will increase carbon release. For every barrel the US stops pumping another barrel or more is pumped in South America or overseas, where regulations are MUCH lower. Hell, many non-US oil rigs just plain leak. They have spills all the time too, but when there’s no spill they just sit there and leak. They destroy the ecosystems they’re in just by being there spill or no spill.

I’d like to know exactly what went wrong to cause this leaking, but it looks like Obama’s people are going to drag BP into a “let’s get’m” hearing like they did Goldman Sacks, so BP will probably stay buttoned up.

Oh yeah, Janet Napolitano didn’t know the military has oil spill equipment.

Time Square Bomber
Another failed attack? NO… We don’t hear about the failed attacks until months later. Like the ones we stopped when Bush was in charge, sending people to Gitmo and listening in on our phone conversations. Oh wait, Obama is doing that now too!

The goal of a terror attack is to effect policy – this one has. The terrorists’ method for effecting change is terror – this one terrorized. This was a successful attack with a botched detonation, just like the Burnt Balls Bomber (aka Underwear Bomber).

At least the reaction to this one was mildly saner than with Burnt Balls. They actually questioned this guy for a little while after catching him before Marandizing, as if perhaps he might possibly not be a lone fool. These goofballs though… We’re going to be lucky to get through this administration without another deadly attack similar to or worse than Fort Hood.

This pansy attitude I think has given our enemy new found confidence that they can attack without repercussions. The Obama charm apparently didn’t sweeten up Jonny-Jihad.

Greece
So Greece has gone bankrupt and needs a bailout. It had way too much spending that was reliant on high boom-time tax revenue. So, like California, when things get a little rough, the generous government pay, entitlements, and fat bureaucracies begin to starve. Now Europe has to bail them out.

So what’s happening over there? Are the Greeks breathing a sigh of relief that the Euro was set up so that no one could get out, so no one would willingly leave, effectively compelling other Euro standard countries to bail them out? No. They are rioting because they don’t want spending cut. I hope this isn’t the future for the US.

Oh yeah, they killed three people by throwing Molotov Cocktails in a bank. Mommy Government…

New Arizona Immigration Enforcement Law
People are still protesting it – using TOTALLY uninformed arguments. Seriously people, the law doesn’t legalize racial profiling. It doesn’t really do anything but sort of help AZ police check citizenship status. It’s already a Federal law that non-citizens carry ID inside the US. No one is checking anyone’s ‘papers’. If you sincerely appose this law you basically are in support of illegal immigration, which I think is the case with most of the opposition.

Obama’s Predator Drone Joke
Yeah, another Obama joke fell flat and offended some whiny little wimps. Who’s been coaching him on humor? Biden?
*sigh* He just needs to stop… You’re not funny Mr. President. It’s not your style. When you try it’s awkward and seems contrived. Take some advice: People think this blog is funny. I don’t try to make it funny. I just try to honestly communicate my ideas, usually while watching TV. I’m just weird and the way I think throughout the day is somewhat humorous, especially when I get frustrated.

Many people simply misunderstand the purpose of the public nuclear strategy. Liberal bloggers describe it like so: This is done in order to ensure that an all-out nuclear war isn’t created when so many other alternatives exist. (agreements ensure nothing) And then you hear Liberals calling up NPR voicing their indignation that the US nuclear strategy includes using nukes in any case for any reason – because we know how terrible they are now – it’s insane – and so on.

OK. I understand why the average Liberal might see our nuclear strategy like this. I mean, look at Obama. He can’t make a good move on either war or make a hair’s worth of progress against terror activities without posting it on the national refrigerator for us all to praise. And besides this, Liberals in general don’t seem to grasp the desperate realities or hard logics of war.

The nuclear strategy is part of the overall strategy of deterrence. In the simplest terms: If you don’t want the crazy people in the world to use their nukes on you – you damn well better keep them convinced you’re crazy enough to use your nukes on them in retaliation – immediately.

During the cold war maintaining this was essential. Likewise, enemies like India and Pakistan maintain the same deterrent check. Once Iran and N. Korea get there nukes, their neighbors will need nukes to deter them. Agreements won’t replace this logic, not when a war can be won and a civilization vaporized within an hour. (Remember, Hitler had that solid wall of democracies to his north and west convinced he had no designs on them, so they had no reason to stop him, until he picked them off one at a time leaving merry old England to fight the good fight by her self.)

Obama has decided it’s best to make some updates to the policy, primarily that he promises not to use nukes on countries not armed with nukes – with the noted exception of countries actively developing nukes in direct contempt of the national community, namely Iran and N. Korea. (Hey guys!) And he has no plans to update the current decades old US nuclear arsenal, but will be dismantling some according to future agreements.

Now the first one might seem natural, obvious, and logical – something that should have been included all along. Why would the US use nukes on a non-nuke country, besides Japan? The US and its allies have lived this past 50 years under a nuclear umbrella that not only protected them from nukes, but also Nazi-German-like conventional aggression, the kind made possible by tanks and trucks, the kind that can change the map over the weekend, the kind that Soviet military hardware was built for that every third-rate government owns. That’s why Western Europe doesn’t keep a serious standing army, the US is there to fish them out of any serious challenge to their sovereignty.

Under such an umbrella, only the truly crazy and brazen would invade a US ally. Sadam Hussein? Kuwait? Thankfully Kuwait was bordered with other allies and Sadam was so uncoordinated and weak that the US was able to push him out with one mighty effort. But the deterrence failed then because Sadam believed the US didn’t have the will to stop him, he underestimated, or rather we didn’t properly display, our crazy.

So why is Obama making such an odd change? Why is he compromising our crazy? Why is he giving the crazies of the world one less reason to behave?

Well, he wants to talk Iran and NoKo out of their nuclear weapons programs without a military strike, and thinks credibility will help. (Ever try to talk a crazy person out of something?) His idea is that, if he isn’t developing nukes, promises not to use nukes on non-nuke countries, and moves to reduce the US arsenal, the crazy guys will see the rationality in giving up their nukes. In other words, it will be harder for them to say: “eh, but you’re doin itnnnnnnnnnnn!”

If you ask me, this line of reasoning sounds like a campaign gimmick gone awry, like Cat’s Cradle fans starting a Bokononist church. There’s no way in hell Obama will earn a shred of credibility with the crazy leaders of the world, not the kind they respect anyway. And meanwhile Russia, China, and other rivals (possible future enemies) are updating their arsenals.

Again – one maintains a ready arsenal for fighting a war – so that war won’t have to be fought. We make bombs not so we can drop them. We make bombs so we can drop them, so we won’t have to. One can see how the philosophy behind this policy is dangerous. (deproliferation is another asinine topic for later, so enough with Obama’s reasoning)

The Liberals are going crazy over Sarah Palin’s latest Obama-bash in this regard. She equated the policy to announcing that anyone can – go ahead and punch me in the face, I won’t do anything about it. The Liberal counters, as usual, are nearly as fun an entertaining as Palin herself. They can’t point out any problems with her logic. They pretend she’s stupid without expressing why, and ponder if she’s just rabble-rousing. Then, usually end their piece extrapolating Sarah’s opinion into some radical view: She doesn’t agree with the policy change so she must want to go nuking some people!

Regardless, what I DO like – or love – about the policy change is the immediate message it has sent. “Ok – everyone without Nukes is cool. We’re not going to wipe you off the map any time soon. Oh – except for you two over there, yeah, you two.”

lol – Ahmadinejad is up to his usual mockery and N. Korea – well – N. Korea is being N. Korea. Mind you, I’m not saying I like the initial message because of the immediate failure of its ultimate goal – that failure being Iran and NoKo’s continues butt-slapping. I like it because it inadvertently told the two remaining spokes on the axis of evil that we got missiles with their names on them. Those two crazies NEED to know we’ve got all 14 of their probable locations targeted and ready for sudden abrupt zapping.

I wish we would get rid of these career jackasses.

I was watching celebrity apprentice. Rod Blagojevich is on there – or was. He’s adorable, but so totally useless unless you need to talk a paper bag into being a plastic one. He can barely use a cell phone and can’t operate a computer. Another guy opened up Word for him, and Rod took a half hour to type a paragraph.

Don’t try to apply logic to the health care bill. It degraded down from a Leftist dream-bill to an Obama political make-or-break stack of paper labeled “Healthcare Reform”. That’s it. It was called “Healthcare Reform”. Everyone knows the bill is poorly constructed, complicated, contradictory, unspecific, full of random specific chunks of Santa Clause, uses phony math and budgetary widgets, and is bristling with dangerous taxes. That’s why they had to cheat it through on reconciliation.

They’re talking about immigration reform now. I hope like hell that bunch fools can come to some reasonableagreement. Let’s hope the first thing Pelosi or Reid lets out on the floor isn’t written by a wack-job amnesty enthusiast. And let’s hope if they do bring up a rational bill there will be more than Graham on the Republican’s side ready to support it – despite their butt-hurtedness form the health reform ass raping.

Hey, wouldn’t you know, I realized today I do still have a little respect for Obama still. I thought it was all gone – beaten out of me, blood and screams – but it’s not.

I heard how Gibbs answered the question about removing the tax exemption on that subsidy big companies were getting to keep retirees on their prescription drug plan – the one that saves the gov’t money. Because those companies have to count the lose this quarter, and it’s in the hundreds of millions in loses, and hundreds or thousands of lost jobs, and so on.

lol Well, Gibbs says they just closed a ‘loop-hole’. (Right, because that’s how things should be. You get taxed on your money, you buy something with what’s left. To encourage you to buy something particular, the government gives some money, and then the government taxes that money. LOL

And then Gibbs claimed that the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of jobs are all figureblown out of proportion. How would Gibbs or the Whitehouse have any idea? No one has given them any figures yet!

So I was pulling some veggies out of the refrigerator while I was listening to this, and though to myself, “Obama’s going to can his ass, we won’t see him in a second term, Obama’s got no excess loyalty like Bush…” Then I realized such a though would require that I trust Obama’s judgment enough to assume he’d can a child like the stammering and inappropriate Captain Weird Gibbs of the Strange Brigade. lol “Yes we’ll can.”