Even a graph is funny:

The author of the monograph attempts to calculate the outer boundaries of the faces rocked by Mr. Bon Jovi and finds that that the 1:1 ratio of faces seen to faces rocked is unlikely, but within the bounds of possibility.

Actually, I think the question begins even earlier: What exactly does it mean to "rock a face"?

I have my theories on this score, but I will not share them, out of respect for the womenfolk.

Thanks to MattM.

Posted by: Ace at 01:57 PM | Comments (1)
Post contains 122 words, total size 1 kb.

Really? What could have possibly given me the impression it was supposed to be a stimulus?

Oh, right: Because you called it the Stimulus, capital S in original, sixty-three billion times.

urns out the $787 billion "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act" (AARA) was not designed for full economic recovery, but rather to "stabilize" the downturn. That's the word from White House officials today, who held off-camera briefings with reporters on how the AARA is working so far.

"This legislation was designed to cushion the downturn," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. "That's why we have always talked about this as one function of economic recovery."

When pressed about the change in terminology, Gibbs said he was not trying to temper expectations after the fact. "I can probably find 15 or 20 occasions when I said this in the lead up," Gibbs said, explaining that he had always defined the AARA as part of a "multi-legged stool."

...

When asked about a second stimulus, all three left the possibility open.

Gibbs said the president "isn't ruling anything in, he isnÂ’t ruling anything out. If there are things that can be done to spur the economy back to recovery faster, they'll certainly be considered."

Wait -- a second stimulus? I thought it would be the first, since Gibbs just got done explaining the first "stimulus" wasn't a stimulus at all, but a "stabilization."

Ed thinks the shift in terminology -- and emphasis on a two-year timeframe -- means they've given up hope of any kind of impact for this year and are pinning their hopes on 2010.

Posted by: Ace at 01:42 PM | Add Comment
Post contains 304 words, total size 2 kb.

Of course.

– Vice President Joe Biden told people attending an AARP town hall meeting that unless the Democrat-supported health care plan becomes law the nation will go bankrupt and that the only way to avoid that fate is for the government to spend more money.


“And folks look, AARP knows and the people working here today know, the president knows, and I know, that the status quo is simply not acceptable,” Biden said at the event on Thursday in Alexandria, Va. “It’s totally unacceptable. And it’s completely unsustainable. Even if we wanted to keep it the way we have it. It can’t do it financially.”


“We’re going to go bankrupt as a nation,” Biden said.

“Well, people when I say that look at me and say, ‘What are you talking about? You’re telling me we have to go spend money to keep from going bankrupt?’” Biden said. “The answer is yes, I’m telling you.”

Joe Biden can see Russia Pluto from his house.

Posted by: Ace at 01:06 PM | Comments (1)
Post contains 192 words, total size 1 kb.

Zombietime has images from John Holdren's entries on a book on population control. He wrote this with Paul and John Erlich; Erlich was the big "Population Timebomb" guy in the seventies, who then moved on to the "Global Freezing Timebomb" before finally settling on the "Global Warming Timebomb."

Guy likes timebombs.

The book has all three men listed as co-authors. It does not appear to be the sort of book where one man writes one article, another writes another, etc. They share joint authorship and joint responsibility for everything contained in it.

Indeed, it has been concluded that compulsory population-control laws, even including laws requiring compulsory abortion, could be sustained under the existing Constitution if the population crisis became sufficiently severe to endanger the society.

And this is fun:

In today's world, however, the number of children in a family is a matter of profound public concern. The law regulates other highly personal matters. For example, no one may lawfully have more than one spouse at a time. Why should the law not be able to prevent a person from having more than two children?

It's amazing to me the Constitution is so protective of a woman's right to terminate a pregnancy and yet has so precious little about her right to carry a baby to term.

Did anyone say scary fascist Orwellian state? Yeah, Holgren did, actually.

Adding a sterilant to drinking water or staple foods is a suggestion that seems to horrify people more than most proposals for involuntary fertility control. Indeed, this would pose some very difficult political, legal, and social questions, to say nothing of the technical problems. No such sterilant exists today, nor does one appear to be under development. To be acceptable, such a substance would have to meet some rather stiff requirements: it must be uniformly effective, despite widely varying doses received by individuals, and despite varying degrees of fertility and sensitivity among individuals; it must be free of dangerous or unpleasant side effects; and it must have no effect on members of the opposite sex, children, old people, pets, or livestock.

In case you're wondering who, exactly, would do all these joy-joy things, never fear; he proposes a "Planetary Regime" to which all countries have ceded "some" sovereignty which will be an armed force capable of forcing its policies on the entire earth.

So... nothing worrisome there.

Ah, but someone might say, "sufficiently severe" might refer to Soylent Green type scenarios where people are literally dying of starvation and rioting over food-trucks.

No: His definition of "severe" is.... well, we've already passed it in this nation alone.

Holdren's track record shows a trend of alarmist viewpoints on scientific issues, including a statement made in 1973 that the U.S. population of 210 million at the time was "too many, and 280 million in 2040 is likely to be much too many." In response, Holdren recommended "a continued decline in fertility to well below replacement should be encouraged, with the aim of achieving [zero population growth] before the year 2000."

The current U.S. population is approximately 304 million.

He was talking this up when he feared the US might one day exceed 280 million persons, and now we're at 304 million.

Breaking news? No, he was already asked about this in committee by David Vitter. Assuming this is the first time you're hearing of it (as it's the first time I'm hearing of it*): Congratulations, MSM, on successfully burying yet another story.

* Actually I read the sluglines in my email box last week but dismissed them as very unlikely. Surely someone was misinterpreting, I thought, as I scrolled past them.

This despite the fact that Zombietime was named as the author and I know that he (or she?) is damned careful and reliable. But still -- No way, I thought.

Surely if there was anything here there would be a controversy about it in the MSM. Or on FoxNews, at least.

Shows what I know.

"Science:" Obama claims that we can't query this guy about his vile beliefs because that would, somehow, reduce free scientific inquiry.

This is nonsense that these bastards keep insisting on. If it's "science," you can't have an opinion.

This is not science. This is policy prescription. The scientific aspect of the paper would consist of projections of future world population growth and the planet's capacity (or incapacity) of handling that growth. We are not discussing that scientific speculation here: We are discussing his politics and and his policy prescriptions in addressing that scientific speculation.

I would think obvious to a "constitutional scholar" like Obama that Holgren's musings about whether forceable abortions were constitutional or not was not "science," but in fact, you know, an opinion on constitutional law and sound policy.

Science tells you what is, or what is possible. Politics is about what will be done in response to what is or what may be coming. And politics is obviously not coterminus with science: Politics embraces other considerations such as the law (is it really allowable under the Constitution to force abortions on women, especially given the "freedom of sexuality" right "discovered" in Roe and associated cases), ethics, and, of course, morality.

As the Freakonmoics guy noted, controversially, some years back, it may be that Roe v. Wade caused a drop-off in the crime rate, and consequently an improvement of the lives of everyone who wasn't aborted; that doesn't mean that "science" dictates we start forcing abortions on mothers likely to give birth to or nuture criminals. The observation the Freakonomics guys made was one of science (or at least the soft science of econometrics); any policy prescription addressing that is no longer "science" but a political position.

And yeah -- we're allowed to revolt at the suggestion that we forceably abort poor (and, let's face it-- majority black and Hispanic) babies in order to achieve an otherwise unobjectionable good.

Because of, like, morality and the law and stuff.

"Science" does not end the discussion, as Obama insists. It only begins it.

Incidentally... Yeah, as usual, these rat bastards were completely wrong on the "science." Completely wrong. 180 degrees wrong. Not even wrong, so far off the mark were they.

It appears these guys are willing to believe in any doomsday scenario so long as it gives them justification for slaughtering millions or even billions of human beings.

But of course we can't question him about this: That would retard the free and open inquiry of science.

Sort of like the in-house firing of the EPA guy who questioned the scientific evidence supporting global warming.

Posted by: Ace at 12:32 PM | Comments (7)
Post contains 1131 words, total size 7 kb.

Bumped and updated -- the AMA (at least the trustees, who I assume have the right to speak for the organization) endorse the Rangel/Obama bill.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

...

Above-the-main-post udpate:

Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus(D-Mont.) said Thursday that he hopes to have a bipartisan deal on a health care reform bill by the end of the day.

..

“We are meeting very aggressively today,” Baucus said of the bipartisan group, which plans to meet again at 1:30 p.m. “We will keep meeting all day long. I hope we can reach some kind of agreement by the end of the day, but having said that, it depends on what kind it is.”

...

Gotta spend to save spend.

The health care overhauls released to date would increase, not reduce, the burgeoning long-term health costs facing the government, Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said Thursday.

That is not a message likely to sit well with congressional Democrats or the Obama administration, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi , D-Calif., said Thursday she thinks lawmakers can find ways to wring more costs out of the health system as they continue work on their bills.

The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Democrat Max Baucus of Montana, who has not yet released a bill, said his panel is acutely aware of the long-term cost concern. “Clearly our committee will do what it can,” he said. “We are very seriously concerned about that issue. We very much want to come up with a bill that bends the cost curve.”

But Baucus suggested the White House is making the task difficult with opposition to one cost-cutting approach Elmendorf cited — limiting or even ending the tax exclusion for employer-provided health benefits.

The Democrats and President Obama have cited two goals in their overhaul proposals — expanding coverage to the estimated 47 million Americans who currently lack it and bringing down long-term costs because the growth in Medicare and Medicaid spending threatens to swamp the federal budget in coming years.

Under questioning from Chairman Kent Conrad , D-N.D., Elmendorf told the Senate Budget Committee that the congressional proposals released so far do not meet that second test.

“In the legislation that has been reported, we do not see the sort of fundamental changes that would be necessary to reduce the trajectory of federal health spending by a significant amount and, on the contrary, the legislation significantly expands the federal responsibility for health care costs,” he said.

...

[B]udget analysts and some members fear the legislation will not slow the growth of health care spending enough to prevent it from overwhelming the federal budget after that 10-year window.

"Overwhelming" the federal budget, which already has a built-in $1 trillion+ yearly deficit.

That is like being bitten by a shark when you're already fighting off tigers.

Thanks to AHFF Geoff.

Update: It does appear that ObamaCare will outlaw private insurance -- those who have insurance now will be grandfathered, but only if they keep their current insurance. No new enrollments in private insurance will be permitted after he takeover.

Under the Orwellian header of "Protecting The Choice To Keep Current Coverage," the "Limitation On New Enrollment" section of the bill clearly states:

"Except as provided in this paragraph, the individual health insurance issuer offering such coverage does not enroll any individual in such coverage if the first effective date of coverage is on or after the first day" of the year the legislation becomes law.

So we can all keep our coverage, just as promised — with, of course, exceptions: Those who currently have private individual coverage won't be able to change it. Nor will those who leave a company to work for themselves be free to buy individual plans from private carriers.

Meanwhile "ethicist" Peter Singer argues passionately for the dire need of health-care rationing.

You Can Buy Private Insurance? At Instapundit, a reader says that you can continue buying private insurance, but you have to buy it through the "Exchange" (or something), which supposedly is some benefit to you.

If it's a benefit why does it need to be mandated?

That's like passing a law requiring people to nap during golf coverage.

Posted by: Ace at 11:07 AM | Comments (2)
Post contains 744 words, total size 5 kb.

Bush did say that he looked into the soul of Putin and saw a decent man.

But that was before Putin revealed himself as what he was. And Bush never said anything like that again.

But brilliant Obama thinks he's a pretty good guy. Even as yet another journalist critical of Putin is murdered.

Posted by: Ace at 10:58 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 98 words, total size 1 kb.

Interesting bit of news here.

Big Correction: This is CIT Group, not CitiGroup or CitiCorp as I erroneously wrote. I just kept reading the one for the other.

Any time this sort of thing happens, there's obviously a lie or misrepresentation at some place in the books or the accounting process. Here's where it happens in CIT Group's case:

CITÂ’s bosses, led by Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Peek, had been touting the companyÂ’s well-capitalized status repeatedly ever since, in financial filings and investor presentations. In reality, whatever capital CIT possessed existed only in its executivesÂ’ heads -- literally.

The problem here is with the accounting standards as much as the governmentÂ’s capital rules. Consider this disclosure from the footnotes to CITÂ’s latest annual report. As of Dec. 31, CIT said the fair market value of its loans was $8.3 billion less than the value it was using on its balance sheet. Loans at the time were about two-thirds of its $80.4 billion of total assets.

By comparison, New York-based CIT had $7.5 billion of so- called Tier 1 regulatory capital as of Dec. 31, and $8.1 billion of shareholder equity. Take away the inflated loan values, and CITÂ’s capital and equity would have been less than zero. CIT hasnÂ’t said what its loansÂ’ market values were as of March 31.

The craziest part is that the difference in the loan values came down to nothing more than CIT executivesÂ’ state of mind.

Had CIT classified the loans as “held for sale,” the accounting rules would have required the company to carry them on its balance sheet at their cost or market value, whichever was lower. By labeling almost all its loans as investments instead, CIT got to avoid writing them down to market values.

So, for capital purposes, the only difference between an insolvent CIT and a well-capitalized CIT was a mere utterance by management that it planned to keep holding the loans. No wonder so many zombie banks continue to roam the country. All they have to do is wish away their ruin, and the rules let them.

There is one catch. As CIT said in its annual report, it’s allowed to classify loans as investments only if it “has the ability and intent” to hold them “for the foreseeable future or until maturity.” Otherwise, it must book the market losses.

ItÂ’s hard to see how CITÂ’s management could believe the company still has the ability to keep holding onto its loans now. Not with more than $3 billion of reported losses in the past eight quarters, a looming cash crunch, and its debt trading in the bond market as if the company might fail. A CIT spokesman, Curt Ritter, declined to comment.

And obviously if they're angling for bailout money they don't have the wherewithalll to do continue carrying bad loans as "investments."

Thanks to old guy.

Posted by: Ace at 10:54 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 507 words, total size 3 kb.

Monica Conyers' booking photo.

Shakedown artist.

[T]he name of Monica Conyers surfaces everywhere in the 27-page [indictment of her shakedown partner Samuel Riddle], which contends that the former city councilwoman played Bonnie to RiddleÂ’s Clyde as they prowled Detroit, boldly shaking down businesspeople and stuffing their pockets and bank accounts with cash.

...

“You’d better get my loot, that’s all I know,” Conyers is quoted as telling Riddle regarding a payment from a restaurant owner.

Riddle passed her $10,000 in that caper, the indictment says.

...

Conyers first took office in January 2006. Just 15 month months later, according to the indictment, Conyers and Riddle began their extortion racket.

The indictment charges:

• Conyers conspired with Riddle to hit up the owner of a technology company for $20,000 to make Riddle a bogus “consultant.”

• Conyers and Riddle pressured a Detroit restaurant owner to pay Riddle $20,000 for another “consulting job” that didn’t exist.

• Conyers and Riddle received $25,000 from the owner of a strip club with an issue before the city council.

• Conyers and Riddle attempted to receive money in another faux “consulting contract” for Riddle, this time with a real estate developer.

...

“This bitch is a trip,” Riddle told an owner of the technology company, explaining Conyers was eager to receive the owner’s final $5,000 payment.

“Work on the, uh, five thing,” Riddle advised, “so I can keep her chilled out and stuff.”

In a surprising bit of hard-hitting journalistic investigation, the Detroit Free Press actually manages to identify the political affiliation of her husband in the third-to-last paragraph. Monica Conyers' own affiliation is still something of a mystery.

Thanks to FromTheMaas.

Posted by: Ace at 09:31 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 309 words, total size 2 kb.

More often than not, a wise white woman with her wealth of experience won't come off as a condescending racist bitch. Mrs. Boxer is not a wise white woman.

On the upside, she didn't make him call her Senator.

Posted by: DrewM at 09:05 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 69 words, total size 1 kb.

Another coup.

A Wise Latina Will Add Spice to the Menudo of Justice

Iowahawk Guest Commentary
by Judge Sonia Sotamayor
Nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court

There has been a great deal written in recent weeks about an old extemporaneous quote of mine in which I stated that "I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn't lived that life." One needn't read the prophetic entrails of my culture's colorful Santeria chicken sacrifice ceremonies to realize this out-of-context quote has caused some public concern and confusion. I would like to take this opportunity to clear up any lingering questions, and reassure the American public I will bring to the Supreme Court a jurisprudence borne of the intellect of Louis Brandeis, along with the spicy salsa rhythms of Tito Puente and Celia Cruz. ¡Azucar! ¡Arriba!

...

Indeed, it is only through these differences that America can forge a better, more diverse tradition of legal justice. As you know, the Latina women of my culture are passionate and fiery, and if we learn our famously hot blooded men have been cheating with some raven-haired puta at the cantina, there will be hell to pay. As a Justicia on the Tribunal Supremo I will be naturally vigilant for any colleague who strays from the law, and will not hesitate to clobber them with the rodillo of established legal precedence. Afterwards, when we have reached consensus, there will be hot makeup majority opinions.

This is exactly the kind of wise, precedent-faithful Latina legal approach that I believe will be welcome by others on the Supreme Court bench, all of whom bring their own unique genetic legal wisdom and instinctual empathy. Justices Roberts and Souter for example, with their aloof, sexless, constipated, emotionally-stunted WASPy intellects and natural affinity for preppy white collar criminals. Justice Stevens has this as well, along with a keen grasp for the legal issues facing Americans with senile dementia. As an Irishman, Justice Kennedy enjoys a natural "gift of the gab" and poetically tragic alcoholism. Like you, I imagine that Justice Breyer can be kind of pushy and whiny, but we should also remember that as a Jew he is probably very skilled at cases that involve complicated numbers and math. To the casual observer, it probably seems absurd to have greasy Italian "goodfellas" like Justices Alito and Scalia working inside the legal system, but if we give them a chance they may eventually break the code of Omerta and finally turn state's evidence against their Cosa Nostra bosses. Yes, many have criticized Justice Thomas for being a self-hating "Oreo" and "Uncle Tom," but I like to think that deep inside him still lurks the the DNA of an angry Cadillac-driving streetwise Superfly, ready to show "The Man" that his pimp hand is strong.

And of course more at the link.

Posted by: Ace at 09:01 AM | Add Comment
Post contains 504 words, total size 3 kb.