Living longer

On August 23, 2011, I did a post on a new book by Sonia Arrison called 100 Plus. Nick Schulz has a new article commenting on her book. If life expectancy does increase to such an extent, I believe it will create more problems than it solves.

Surviving the loss of a spouse

A To-Do list for the surviving spouse. Great advice from Kiplingers.

New iPhone app

Get this: The Obama Clock gives you "updates of Obama’s approval rating, public debt, the unemployment level, the average price of regular gasoline per gallon, and the movement in the housing price index. And that’s not all. It also counts down the time til the expiration of Obama’s term. The creator of the app is an optimist. He is of the view that it’s one and done."

LSU football

The LSU football program seems to be in a lot of trouble just as the season is about to get underway.

Rasmussen poll

In a Rasmussen poll, a generic Republican beats Obama by 8 points.

Health and retirement

Could being healthy actually make your retirement worse? Yes, of course. Healthy people can expect to live longer. Their health costs will be higher.

The Social Security Ponzi

The Daily Caller has a good discussion on Social Security as a Ponzi scheme. Here are a couple of quotes:

“It is a Ponzi scheme for these young people,” [Rick] Perry said. “The idea that they’re working and paying into Social Security today, that the current program is going to be there for them, is a lie. It is a monstrous lie on this generation, and we can’t do that to them.”

Jeff Berkowitz, a communications consultant and former research director at the Republican National Committee, said statements like Perry’s — accurate though they may be — rub Americans the wrong way because they call that guarantee into question.

“The reason it’s so controversial is because it’s so exactly true,” Berkowitz said. “The more you expose the uncertainty, the more people become concerned about the safety of their investment.”

Our police state

In Tennessee a fifth-grader's parents broke the law by letting her ride her bike to school. I can't imagine that. She's supposed to ride the bus, which are of course completely safe, LOL.

Perry moves ahead

According to a CNN poll, Rick Perry is leading the GOP field.

How bad it is

The Hill: "If the election were next Tuesday he'd lose. That's how bad it is," said a Democratic strategist.

The future of books

Daily Pundit: "Books have no real future. Stories have just as much of a future as they ever did, perhaps more."

This is good if you are interested in the argument between digital and print books. 

Exercise myths

Popular Mechanics: Stretching before you exercise is one of the three biggest exercise myths.

Frodo Baggins of the right

Walter Russell Mead on Jeffrey Toobin's New Yorker article on Clarence Thomas.

Toobin argues that the only Black man in public life that liberals could safely mock and despise may be on the point of bringing the Blue Empire down.

In fact, Toobin suggests, Clarence Thomas may be the Frodo Baggins of the right; his lonely and obscure struggle has led him to the point from which he may be able to overthrow the entire edifice of the modern progressive state.

Irene analysis

The NYT explains why forecasters overestimated Irene, but it can be blamed on the media as well.

Looking for a business opportunity?

Where is the Facebook for old people?
You may want to avoid the snide comments. 

REPO bandits

As a fan of Operation REPO on TruTV, I was interesting in this article called "Bandit Tow-Truck Drivers to Face Jail."

An old question

Does poverty cause crime?

"Hurricane" Irene: totally over-hyped

Irene is actually not a hurricane as it comes ashore, it's a tropical storm. 

UPDATE: After watching TV coverage, I see that it is a devastating storm, but it is not a hurricane. 

Texas Aggies leaving Big 12

Texas A&M are leaving the Big 12 Conference, probably for SEC.

UK demographics

Mark Steyn quoting the UK's Office of National Statistics:

In 2010, a quarter of births were to mothers born outside the UK, according to the ONS…
If a quarter of all babies born in England and Wales are to foreign mothers, then we’re experiencing the biggest change in our demographic identity since the Anglo-Saxon invasions of the fifth century. Future historians will regard this as the major development in early 21st-century British history…
Nothing like this has happened before. Please pay no attention next time a Left-wing historian pops up on TV to romanticise the arrival of the Normans, Huguenots, Eastern European Jews etc. These were significant influxes, but Great Britain has never been “a nation of immigrants”. Even cosmopolitan London has witnessed nothing remotely comparable to the population shift recorded by the ONS statistics. More than half of all babies born in the capital in 2010 were to foreign mothers; in the borough of Newham more than three quarters of all new mothers were born abroad.
A lot of people reading Ed West will say: “Well, so what? What’s the problem?” That’s fine if you want to turn some of the oldest nation states on the planet into an ongoing experiment. Maybe the experiment will work out fine, maybe it won’t. But, given that the nations most enthusiastically embarking on it are responsible for 90 per cent of everything the modern world takes for granted, you’d think more people might at least give some thought as to whether the gamble is worth it.

Ouch!

Howie Carr on Obama's vacation:

And so farewell, Barack Obama, don’t let the hatch door of Air Force One hit you on the way out of Massa-tu-setts, as you pronounce it.
The first family came in separate planes, and they’re leaving, ditto. Hey, it’s only money, our money.
Even before Irene, this wasn’t much of a presidential vacation compared to the earlier ones. An Obama vacation on the Vineyard has been downgraded from Cat 3 to tropical storm. It’s hard to get excited about the arrival, yet again, of the second coming of Herbert Hoover.

Making business cool again

I know, I've done several post about Steve Jobs, but he's worth it. Here is an article on how he made business cool again.

Astronomers discover planet made of diamond

Astronomers discover planet made of diamond.

The granny state

Grandparents are now the safety net. LOL, tell me something I didn't know.

As Irene approaches

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie: “Get the hell off the beach … and get in your car,” Governor Christie said during a late Friday afternoon news conference. “You’re done, its 4:30, you’ve maximized your tan.”

Steve Jobs photo

This photo of Steve Jobs was taken 2 days after his resignation from Apple. Now I understand.

Bernanke can't do anything else

Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke failed to propose any new steps to boost the economy. Why? He's outta bullets. The Fed has no more options.

Steve Jobs changed the world

WSJ: How Steve Jobs changed the world. I would not want to be Tim Cook, his successor.

Modern farming

AP: Farmers are increasingly relying on the internet.

Why is the Clinton School of Public Service a co-sponsor of the event for the WM3 last evening? I can understand the Arkansas Times, I think.

Grand slam record

The NY Yankees set a new record: 3 grand slams in one game.

Evngelical vote

The evangelical vote will be be more, not less, important in 2012.

Sprint to sell iPhones

Sprint will soon sell the iPhone.

Little Rock's Apple store

Two days after Steve Jobs retired from Apple Computer, Little Rock's Apple store will celebrate its grand opening.

Jobs resigns from Apple

Steve Jobs has resigned as Apple CEO effective immediately.

Take your car to a dealership for service?

Popular Mechanics: Should you take your car to a car dealership for service, or not?

Is higher education worth it?

Will a college education produce the same benefit in the future as it did in the past? Probably not.

It is commonly assumed that a college degree will boost your lifetime earnings but this belief is a mistake.

They assume that the current generation is going to get the same financial benefit from college that people did who graduated 40 years ago.
But things are different today. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, nearly 70% of all high school graduates go on to college — compared with 45% in 1960.
Then, only the brightest and best-prepared students attended college and the schools offered academically rigorous courses that prepared students for the future.
Now even middling high-schoolers attend college — and often learn very little. Then they enter a job market where a bachelor's degree is relatively common — and must compete against many others for the same jobs.

I've always heard that in the future a bachelor's degree will be as common as a high school diploma once was, and now we're at that point. 

Washington Monument cracked

Yesterday's earthquake caused cracks in the stones at the top of the Washington Monument, according to the NPS. 

In addition, the National Cathedral was damaged. 

Marco Rubio at the Reagan Library

Marco Rubio spoke at the Reagan library on "the proper role of government."

A quote: “Poverty does not create our social problems, our social problems create our poverty.”

Hope they can recover

DC earthquake devastation.
But there is more serious damage. See more recent post. 

These women pack heat » Local News » Meridian Star

Meridian, Mississippi, women pack heat, and they are not kidding.

The whine of the drill

What if you dentist did not have to drill to fill a cavity?

Pat Summitt

Pat Summitt, Tennessee women's basketball coach, has early onset dementia, but she will continue to coach.

New industrial cities

New industrial hubs across the country. The industries vary. For example Kansas City is a hub for information technology and is being called the Silicon Prairie.

The age of longevity

Futurist Sonia Arrison's new book 100 Plus: How the Coming Age of Longevity Will Change Everything, from Careers and Relationships to Family and Faith looks interesting. Life expectancy has dramatically increased in the past half century. But how far can it go?

You might want to see this WSJ article by Matt Ridley.  He begins with this: "There is a paradox at the heart of the debate on aging. All the recipes for averting the effects of senescence— the anti-wrinkle oils, the vitamin supplements, the testosterone shots, the strict dieting regimens—are plainly little better than snake oil. And yet something is obviously working: People are living longer and longer, and are getting healthier and healthier in old age. Experts have been predicting for decades that average life expectancy will level out, but it stubbornly keeps rising. Others have predicted a growing burden of ill health among the elderly. Yet old people are healthier than ever, much of their illness compressed into shorter periods at the end of life."

He has this quip: "As somebody said of giving up alcohol: You don't live longer; it just feels like it."

Daily Presidential Tracking Poll

Rasmussen: 45 percent "strongly disapprove" of the job Obama's doing, the lowest yet.

Camry redesign

Toyota will introduce a redesigned Camry, but the news is not generating a lot of excitement.

What's causing our deficits?

Byron York:

 The bottom line is that with baby boomers aging, entitlements will one day be a major budget problem. But today's deficit crisis is not one of entitlements. It was created by out-of-control spending on everything other than entitlements. The recent debt-ceiling agreement is supposed to put the brakes on that kind of spending, but leaders have so far been maddeningly vague on how they'll do it.

This issue could be an important one in the coming presidential race. Should Republicans base their platform on entitlement reform, or should they focus on the here and now -- specifically, on undoing the damage done by Obama and his Democratic allies? In coming months, the answer will likely become clear: entitlements someday, but first things first.

Waters on Tea Party

Maxine Waters: "[T]he Tea Party can go straight to hell."

Maxine Waters

Sen. Rick Santorum: “Maxine Waters is a “Caricature of what’s wrong with Congress, she is vile.”

Sociology and the tea party

Want to know how sociologists see the tea party movement? Not a surprise.

Where is Gaddafi?

We're still waiting to see what has happened to Gaddafi.

Is it over?

Reuters reports that the rebels have reached Tripoli and are encountering no resistance.

Mark Steyn on the imperial presidency

Mark Steyn on the "Imperial Presidency." He has a number of good quotes.

Rick Perry: “I’ll work every day to try to make Washington, D.C., as inconsequential in your life as I can.”

Steyn: "Why exactly does the president need a 40-car escort to drive past his subjects in Dead Moose Junction? It doesn’t communicate strength, but only waste, and decadence."

"A post-prosperity America that has dug itself into a multi-trillion-dollar hole will eventually have to stop digging. When it does so, the government of the United States will have to learn to do more with less. A good place to start would be restoring the lifestyle of the president to something Calvin Coolidge might recognize."

AP college football poll

Oklahoma is number 1 in the AP college football poll. Alabama is number 2.

SS disability nearly broke

Social Security disability is on the verge of insolvency.

Glenn Reynolds promotion

Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit has been promoted from Contributing Editor to Resident Contrarian at Popular Mechanics. I'm jealous, LOL. I think I could fill that role somewhere.

CTRL+F

90 percent of Americans don't know how to use CTRL+F. Those keyboard shortcuts can come in handy: CTRL+C, CTRL+V, CTRL+S, etc. 

Betty White

Betty White, 89, is the most popular and most trusted celebrity.

Tolbert: No justice

Jason Tolbert reacts to the Jonesboro news: No justice.

Palm Pilot RIP

The Palm Pilot appears to be dead.

West Memphis 3

At Jonesboro, Arkansas, three men convicted of killing three boys were freed from prison after they agreed to plead guilty to release one of them from death row. They still maintain their innocence in a legal maneuver called an Alford guilty plea.

See the ADG report. The LA Times has a report with this quote: "Today's proceeding allows the defendants the freedom of speech to SAY they are innocent, but the FACT is, they just plead GUILTY," Scott Ellington, district prosecuting attorney for Craighead County, Ark., said in a prepared statement.

On income redistribution

From a comment on TaxProf Blog: "The untold story is that redistribution of income is, by and large, not designed to help the poor but to preserve social stability on behalf of the rich (or a portion of them). It's like Guido Calabresi used to tell his students on the first day of classes at Yale. Are you in favor of high taxes? Yes. Are you in favor of high spending? Yes. Do you want to see your seats at Yale redistributed to people with lower test scores? Silence. Aha, he would say, you just want to redistribute other people's advantages, not your own."

Phone stereotypes

A new survey supports stereotypes that Android users are more likely to be late tech adopters who skew politically conservative, whereas iPhone/iOS users are more likely liberal, outgoing city-dwellers who make more money, take more vacations and enjoy the finer things in life.

This is described as a nonscientific survey. I agree with that.

The shrinking president

Jennifer Rubin notes our economic troubles and comments:

What say you, Mr. President? Ah, there’s a speech coming up in September. The chasm between the president’s agenda (and leadership skills) and the problems we face seems to widen with each passing day. The problem is not the Martha’s Vineyard vacation but the two and a half years that preceded it. The policy initiatives and the president himself seem too small for the challenges we face. He resorts to political stunts to fill the time and directs blame to Congress, the Republicans or whatever else he can think of. As our problems deepen and expand, Obama’s stature shrinks. You wonder what will be left of him by November 2012.

The modern Harriet Tubman

Rep. Allen West says he is a “modern-day Harriet Tubman” who wants to lead black voters away from the “plantation” of the Democratic Party....

“I’m here as the modern-day Harriet Tubman to kind of lead people on the underground railroad away from that plantation into a sense of sensibility,” said West, who is the sole Republican member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

College debt crisis

The Atlantic focuses on the higher education bubble. Students are more than $1 trillion in debt for their tuition.

How do colleges manage it? Kenyon has erected a $70 million sports palace featuring a 20-lane olympic pool. Stanford's professors now get paid sabbaticals every fourth year, handing them $115,000 for not teaching. Vanderbilt pays its president $2.4 million. Alumni gifts and endowment earnings help with the costs. But a major source is tuition payments, which at private schools are breaking the $40,000 barrier, more than many families earn. Sadly, there's more to the story. Most students have to take out loans to remit what colleges demand. At colleges lacking rich endowments, budgeting is based on turning a generation of young people into debtors.
As this semester begins, college loans are nearing the $1 trillion mark, more than what all households owe on their credit cards. Fully two-thirds of our undergraduates have gone into debt, many from middle class families, who in the past paid for much of college from savings. The College Board likes to say that the average debt is "only" $27,650. What the Board doesn't say is that when personal circumstances go wrong, as can happen in a recession, interest, late payment penalties, and other charges can bring the tab up to $100,000. Those going on to graduate school, as upwards of half will, can end up facing twice that.
A fact of academic life is that the tuition-debt nexus keeps most colleges going.

This will stop at some point, probably soon. 

I don't know if I can get into it...

but this site is for those who are into 1990s nostalgia.

Who cares?

At Verizon, the Communication Workers of America are on strike, but no one is noticing. As Megan McArdle reports, "The workers who are striking are the ones who service land lines.  And land lines are simply no longer central to American lives, or the economy." People continue to drop their landlines. The strikers are asking Verizon to divert money from the wireless business for the benefit of union workers as the number of subscribers they service declines. Naturally the answer is no.

This reminds me of the effort to protect the jobs of firemen on diesel locomotives.

The campaign ahead

Washington Examiner: It's going to be a long, ugly campaign.

Arkansas will not accept health-care exchanges

Jason Tolbert: Arkansas will not participate in the health-care exchanges that Obamacare envisioned. Other states that rejected these federal grants are led by conservative governors, but in Arkansas the credit goes to conservative Republicans and a handful of conservative Democrats in the House of Representatives. They stood up against the Governor's office and most Democrats. After all, the constitutionality of Obamacare is still in doubt. As a result millions of tax dollars have been saved.

Michigan vs Texas

Michael Barone discusses the political economy of the Midwest, contrasting it with Texas.

What women do

Women spend more than five hours each day gossiping and chatting, according to a study.

Seen enough?

Karen Tumulty: "I don't think the problem is that the country hasn't seen enough of Barack Obama."

Clinton and projection

Bill Clinton calls Rick Perry a "good looking rascal," but he adds, "“And he’s saying ‘Oh, I’m going to Washington to make sure that the federal government stays as far away from you as possible –while I ride on Air Force One and that Marine One helicopter and go to Camp David and travel around the world and have a good time.’ I mean, this is crazy.”

Isn't Clinton just projecting onto Perry just what he thought about riding on Air Force One? Sure he is. This is crazy.

10 budget fixes

Robert Samuelson: 10 ways to fix the budget.

Heckling Obama

Hot Air: A tea partier heckles Obama: Why are you talking about civility when Biden's calling us Terrorists?

How to know it's time to retire

Now this is good advice. You are strongly encouraged to ask yourself, what am I going to do with my time? After you get past the first month, that will be your question.

Gallup's numbers

The Gallup Poll has Obama's weekly approval rating at 40 percent, which marks a new low for his administration.

Ten incumbent presidents have sought re-election since World War II, and none has won a second term with final pre-election job approval ratings below 48%. The last two presidents who lost their re-election bids -- George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter -- had job approval ratings in the 30% range in the fall of the election year. Thus, Obama's challenge is not only to move his rating back above 40%, but also to push it close to or above 50%.

Feminism, she said, is a joke

Susannah Breslin:

Feminism claims to be about empowerment. In fact, over the years, it has increasingly devoted itself to promoting the image of women as victims. Victims of men. Victims of pop culture. Victims of sexism. Victims of discrimination. Victims of other women....

Feminism was always based on the idea that women have it harder than men. These days, people just aren’t buying it. The stock market has gone haywire, unemployment is endemic, and some women are beginning to see that feminism’s segregationist, mollycoddling politics have done more harm than good.

Can’t get a job? Try telling your prospective employer that it’s because you’re a woman. That employer will find someone with the can-do attitude you lack. Don’t like how women are represented in pop culture? The internet has made it possible for you to make your own media. Still trying to figure out if you’re a “feminist” or not? Stop trying.

Did Butch Cassidy survive?

This story claims that the famous outlaw Butch Cassidy survived the shootout in Bolivia and lived to a rip old age. As usual, experts disagree.

Communism equals Nazism

Instapundit: "Nostalgia for communism is morally equivalent to nostalgia for Nazism, and the nostalgists should be treated the same way."

Guess what people are buying on eBay

Gold.

Air travel since...

9/11 and how it has changed.

Collapsing housing markets

10 housing markets that will collapse before the end of the year. I thought some of them had already collapsed.

GOP primary race as of today

The GOP presidential primary picture has changed dramatically over the past few days. 
It looks like Romney, Bachmann and Perry to me.

Althouse attacked

Ann Althouse was attacked at the Wisconsin state capitol.

Headed home

Tiger Woods missed the cut at the PGA championship in Atlanta.

Obamacare unconstitutional

An appeals court ruled Friday that President Barack Obama's healthcare law requiring Americans to buy healthcare insurance or face a penalty was unconstitutional, a blow to the White House.
The Appeals Court for the 11th Circuit, based in Atlanta, found that Congress exceeded its authority by requiring Americans to buy coverage, but also ruled that the rest of the wide-ranging law could remain in effect.
  

So our system of government is broken?

Krauthammer:

Spare me the hysteria. What happened was that the 2010 electorate, as represented in Congress, forced Washington to finally confront the national debt. It was a triumph of democratic politics—a powerful shift in popular will finding concrete political expression.

 

But only partial expression. Debt hawks are upset that the final compromise doesn’t do much. But it shouldn’t do much. They won only one election. They were entrusted, as of yet, with only one-half of one branch of government.

 

But they did begin to turn the aircraft carrier around. The process did bequeath a congressional super-committee with extraordinary powers to reduce debt. And if that fails, the question—how much government, how much debt—will go to the nation in November 2012. Which is also how it should be.

You sound like Obama

Michelle Bachmann to Tim Pawlenty: "Governor, when you were governor in Minnesota, you implemented cap and trade in our state, and you praised the unconstitutional individual mandate, and you called for requiring all people in our state to purchase health insurance that government would mandate. Third, you said the era of small government was over. That sounds a lot more like Barack Obama if you ask me. During my time in the United States Congress, I have fought all of these unconstitutional measures as well as Barack Obama. And I led against increasing the debt ceiling the last two months."

Perry's hat is in

According to the AP, Rick Perry is running for president. He will make it official on Saturday.

Experimental glider lost

A hypersonic glider lost contact after its launch.

Casey Anthony poll

A poll finds that Casey Anthony, recently found not guilty of murdering her two year-old daughter, is the most hated person in America.Well, not for me. I've moved on.

Most valuable U.S. company

Apple Computer is the most valuable U.S. company.

Going to college this fall?

Christian Science Monitor: The higher education bubble has popped.

Five Guys burgers

According to one view, Five Guys has the best burgers on the planet.
Sure, I like them, but I can't afford the calories any more. And they give you way too many fries. 

DOW's worst drops

See here for the DOW's worst drops since 1899.

Where is the bottom?

The stock market is down over 500 points today, the third time in the past five trading days.

Lack of trust in government

Washington Post:

Barely one in four Americans has confidence that the federal government has the ability to fix economic problems, and most share Standard & Poor’s indictment of the country’s policy-making process, according to a new Washington Post poll.
The spreading lack of confidence is matched by an upsurge in dissatisfaction with the country’s political system and a widespread sense that S&P’s characterization of U.S. policy-making as increasingly “less stable, less effective and less predictable” is a fair one. 

Also:

When it comes to economic issues, the erosion in public trust is deep: Just 26 percent now have even some faith the government can actually solve problems. Confidence is down 21 percentage points from October 2010, and less than half its 2002 levels.
One big issue is public concern that the government is failing to address major problems. More than seven in 10 Americans say the federal government is “mostly focused on the wrong things,” a sentiment that is also sharply higher than it was last fall.

Krauthammer's explanation

Krauthammer:

That late-day rally that we saw probably started around 3:00, when the word went out that the president would not address the country. There was cheering, hats thrown in the air, general irrational exuberance. …
The real story is what happened around 2:00. The man who really runs America, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, said something extremely unusual. He said: For two years I’m going to keep interest rates low. Normally, the chairman of the Fed will say words like “indefinitely,” or “for a while.” They’ll use obscure words. But he was extremely specific.
This is a contrast from his predecessor, Alan Greenspan, who spoke in language that was so opaque and obscure you’d think you were listening to an extinct Himalayan dialect.
But Bernanke said two years, and that of course reassured people at a time when there is uncertainty about health-care costs, about taxes and regulations, all of which incidentally are caused by the administration and the government. He was extremely clear, extremely specific.
Now, there is a downside because one of the reasons that we are where we are is a long period of artificially low interest rates [that] created a bubble. So this could help to prolong the bubble.

Cable TV loses subscribers

This report says that cable (and satellite) TV companies are losing subscribers. The economy could be the cause, but also we have other low-cost alternatives like Netflix and Hula which now stream video. You may not get first-run shows, but so what?

I talked to a guy the other day who explained how he was getting TV programming on the cheap. The details are vague right now but he was happy with the savings. Also I've just started to stream TV programs to my iPhone. Of course I'm paying for that service but oh well, I don't expect to do it much. The choices are limited.

You won't believe it

Who did Harry Reid name to the deficit-reduction "super committee"? 

UPDATE: Boehner's choices. 

No 2nd term

A majority of American, according to a Gallup poll, believe that Obama does not deserve a second term.

James Buchanan 2.0

Karl Rove on the O’Reilly Factor says it is wrong to compare Obama to Jimmy Carter’s failed presidency.  Rove says a more apt comparison is James Buchanan.  In over his head, the 15th President’s leadership vanished as the nation fell to pieces all around him.   Perhaps Jimmy Carter will catch a break.

As the market tanks...

Drudge's current headline is BARACKALYPSE NOW.

The ugly death of the welfare state

Big Government: "It’s already happening – the liberal dream of a perpetual social welfare state where deadbeat liberal constituencies feed off of the work of productive conservative citizens in perpetuity is dying.  There’s no doubt about that; the only question left is how long and hard the process will be as the hideous leviathan the utopian liberal establishment has created convulses and dies.
It’s going to die hard.  And ugly."

down down down

The stock market fell like a rock today, down 634 points. Is more to come?

Jackie: LBJ did it!

Jackie Kennedy believed that Lyndon Johnson was behind JFK's assassination. This report is based on the release of new information from Caroline Kennedy. LBJ has long been a suspect because, after all, who had more to gain? But as bad as Johnson was, I don't believe it.

A new low

Rasmussen: Seventeen percent of Americans say the U.S. Government has "consent of the governed." It has zero percent of my consent.

Hurray for the caddie

Adam Scott won the Bridgestone Invitational championship but the cheers were for his caddie, Steve Williams. Tiger Woods recently fired Williams. Nice payback.

Does the TSA know what diabetes is?

At the Denver airport, a pregnant woman reported the TSA refused to allow her past a security checkpoint because she was carrying insulin for her diabetes and ice packs while boarding a plane.

Save on drugs

Some 100 expensive prescription drugs will over the next 5 years become generics. You might want to look at the list here. I don't believe it will help me because I'm already taking generics.

Tragedy

The Taliban shot down a U.S. helicopter in Afghanistan, killing 30 Americans most of whom belonged to the Navy SEALS unit that killed Osama bin Laden. Eight Afghans were also killed.

Need a good laugh?

Peggy Noonan quoting Conan O'Brien: "There was drama at the White House this week when a man tried to hurl himself over the fence. But the Secret Service intervened and talked the president into going back inside and finishing his term."

Great debate on our future

Stanley Kurtz:

It seems to me that, on any reasonable assessment, the gulf between the parties on fiscal policy is becoming more difficult to bridge, not less. Pessimism on that score seems entirely justified, so it’s hard to argue with S&P on at least that specific point. I do think the outlook for fundamental fiscal agreement before the 2012 election is bleak. After that, things could change dramatically for the better, or not. In any case, whether S&P is being fair or unfair to move at this juncture, the political standoff we’re in is, sadly, necessary right now, despite its costs.

Americans are in the midst of a great debate on the future of our society. Everyone seems to agree that the outcome of the next election will have a decisive impact on what kind of country we are–or become. Will we retain our distinctively American characteristics, or move irrevocably toward the European model? A “grand bargain” on taxes and entitlements right now, would push us another big step down the European path. Like as not, it would simply set a precedent for ever more such “compromises” as the baby boomers continued to retire. By the time the entitlement crisis was fully “fixed” we’d be taxed at Scandinavian levels.
At any rate, in the context of President Obama’s broader transformative efforts, it’s impossible to trust that a “grand bargain” would do anything other than enable the president’s ambitious plans, which are in no way agreed upon yet by the public at large.
It’s going to take time, debate, and above all elections to resolve this conflict. Supposedly, our squabbling political parties are incapable of compromise. In fact, we have serious disagreements on first principles that cannot and should not be resolved in the absence of a more fundamental determination of which way the country wants to move. Whether or not Barack Obama is reelected will be the single most important factor determining the direction we take. Nothing much will happen until that question is resolved, S&P notwithstanding. And for all the problems it causes, that is the way it has to be.

Well, it varies

How much alcohol does it take to get drunk?

Thanaks for nothing

Roger Kimbell: Thank you, Mr. President:

In the space of two years, you have done more damage to this economey — which means the future not only of this country but the rest of what you would disdain to call the civilized world — than any President in history. You are a poor man’s Jimmy Carter, a midget Herbert Hoover, a disaster for this country and the world.

S&P downgrades U.S. credit rating for the first time. 

New computer hacking threat

Even insulin pumps are vulnerable to computer hackers. Medical devices like pacemakers, operating room monitors and others are now able to transmit information from a patient's body and are capable of remote control. As such they are part of the Internet age.

Something else to worry about, LOL. 

Oh wow

Students in Britain have been urged to sell a kidney to pay for the student loans.

Another Blanche flip-flop

Former Sen. Blanche Lincoln, who either did or did not cast the deciding vote on health-care (she wanted it both ways), has flip-flopped again on health-care reform. She is now chairperson of the Small Businesses for Sensible Regulations group, which is part of the National Federation of Independent Businesses. The latter organization is part of the effort to overturn Obamacare. This was posted on the Tolbert Report on August 4, but I can find a specific link to it.

OK see here.

Why this market crash is different

It feels the same but it's different because:
1. The Fed already has interest rates at zero.
2. Our budget deficit is already out of control, so I don't see this Congress passing another stimulus.
3. Everyone is sick of bailouts.

This means the government can't do anything about this crash. The difference is not good.

Falling like a rock

The DOW had its biggest sell-off since the 2008 crisis, falling over 500 points. All economic news was bad, as it usually is. Notice how we go from one crisis to the next.

Ice Age dust

What caused the Ice Ages? Iron-rich dust.

Life magazine

Take a look at this March 1942 issue of Life magazine.

The Return of the Great Depression

... is a timely book by Vox Day.

In over his head

Eric Cantor: “I think, frankly, he’s in over his head as to what to do about this economy,” Cantor said.

Electrifying sales

The Chevy Volt's sales numbers are electrifying the country. Last month GM sold 125 of them.

Tea Party wins

The Tea Party is the ultimate winner in the debt deal.

The debt deal President Obama signed into law Tuesday was shaped largely by the Tea Party movement, which propelled dozens of fresh faces into Congress last year only after the candidates pledged to drastically slash federal spending.

While many Tea Party freshmen in the House and Senate ended up voting against the debt ceiling bill because they didn't think it cut deep enough, their fingerprints were all over the measure.
There were historically steep cuts, no tax increases and a commitment to even bigger spending reductions in the near future. In response to Tea Party pressure, the measure also requires the House and Senate to vote on a balanced budget amendment, something that hasn't happened in 15 years.
"The Tea Party had a huge influence on the debate," said Chris Edwards, director of tax policy studies at the Cato Institute, a conservative think tank.
Just six months ago, Edwards said, Democrats were proposing new stimulus spending, not reductions. Then the debate on the debt ceiling started, and the sizable pack of new House members sent a clear message to Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, that they wouldn't vote to raise the nation's $14.3 trillion borrowing limit unless spending was slashed.

According to Jammie Wearing Fool, the country is giving up on Obama.

She has a way with words

Sarah Palin: "If we were really domestic terrorists, shoot, President Obama would be wanting to pal around with us wouldn’t he? I mean he didn’t have a problem with paling around with Bill Ayers back in the day when he kicked off his political career in Bill Ayers apartment, and shaking hands with Chavez and saying he doesn’t need any preconditions with meeting dictators or wanting to read US Miranda rights to alleged suspected foreign terrorists. No if we were real domestic terrorists I think President Obama wouldn’t have a problem with us."

This is a response to Biden and others calling the Tea Party terrorists during the debt crisis. 

DOW falls below 12,000. Why?

The debt ceiling bill passed today and the DOW plunged 265 points and closed below 12,000. What does this mean?

This can only mean one of two things (or both): either 1) there never was any economic calamity to be feared if the debt limit was not raised, or 2) essentially zero investors thought there was any chance the ceiling would not be increased. On any interpretation, key aspects of the media narrative of the last month or more were wrong.

Or maybe they just don't believe the deal went far enough. 

So extraordinary

Peter Wehner, in a post entitled "The Rapid Collapse of Liberal Presidents," recalls the cult of Obama in 2008. He notes that Obama's declining popularity is similar to that of Johnson and Carter. The best part of this post is the quote from historian Alan Brinkley: “The extraordinary outpouring of celebration, joy, and hope all over the world at this election is something I could never have imagined in my lifetime,” according to Professor Brinkley.”There’s a discipline to Obama that is so extraordinary,” he raved. And then he added: “I don’t think we’ve had a president since Lincoln who has the oratorical skills that Obama has. Obama has that quality that Lincoln had.” LOL. Can you believe it?

Save our credit rating?

The debt deal won't save our credit rating. Why should it? It was not good enough.

UPDATE: See here. 

The latest oxymoron

Trying to learn clear writing in college is like trying to learn sobriety in a bar. It's the latest oxymoron: College English.

Guns to their heads

Joe Biden calls Tea Parties terrorists. Mike Doyle (D-Pa.) said the same. For example, "Earlier in the day, Biden told Senate Democrats that Republican leaders have “guns to their heads” in trying to negotiate deals."

Tea Party wins

The Washington Post claims that the Tea Party won the debt fight. When Obama took office, he became the big spender in the Stimulus bill and Obamacare, but no one is even talking about doing that again.

The WSJ takes the same view.  "The big picture is that the deal is a victory for the cause of smaller government, arguably the biggest since welfare reform in 1996. Most bipartisan budget deals trade tax increases that are immediate for spending cuts that turn out to be fictional. This one includes no immediate tax increases, despite President Obama's demand as recently as last Monday. The immediate spending cuts are real, if smaller than we'd prefer, and the longer-term cuts could be real if Republicans hold Congress and continue to enforce the deal's spending caps." ...

The tea partiers pride themselves on adhering to the Constitution, which was intended to make political change difficult. Yet in this deal they've forced both parties to make the biggest spending cuts in 15 years, with more cuts likely next year. The U.S. is engaged in an epic debate over the size and scope of government that will play out over several years, and the most important battle comes in the election of 2012.
Tea partiers will do more for their cause by applauding this victory and working toward the next, rather than diminishing what they've accomplished because it didn't solve every fiscal problem in one impossible swoop.

Death of Keynesian economics

Dick Durbin (D-Ill) says that the debt deal ends Keynesian economics. I hope so. John Maynard Keynes was a British economist whose ideas were employed in the New Deal of the 1930s. Keynesian economics totally failed to end the Depression and in fact continued it for 10 years.

We have a deal

The parties involved seems to have agreed on a deal, but it still must be passed by both Houses of Congress.