Argument:

• History is made by people



• There are more people now than ever before



• Therefore, more history is being made now than before

Here's a graph to illustrate that point.

And some mind-blowing commentary...

By this reckoning, over 28% of all the history made since the birth of Christ was made in the 20th century. Measured in years lived, the present century, which is only ten years old, is already "longer" than the whole of the 17th century. This century has made an even bigger contribution to economic history. Over 23% of all the goods and services made since 1AD were produced from 2001 to 2010.

MP: It also looks like more economic output was produced in the 20th century than in the previous 19 centuries combined.

Looks like a lot of stuff is going on! Are you ready for a singularity?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:47 PM | Comments (69)
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Part 1, and Part 2.

Part 1 ends with a discussion of her mentally retarded claims.

Michele Bachmann specified when this Mystery Woman approached her-- right after the debate, as she went to the edge of the stage to shake hands with debate-attendees and well-wishers. Seems likely there's videotape of this Lady In Tears.

A Man In Tears:

My parents refused to give me tetanus shots when I was growing up because they were afraid it might encourage me to play around abandoned, rusting farming equipment. -- JohnE.

Posted by: Ace at 10:03 AM | Comments (366)
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Sending out a mass email to the CT Morons today. Let's talk. We gotta do this before Winter closes in.

Oh, that marina we were going to meet at before the hurricane? Yeah, apparently that has been sorta, uh, "destroyed" according to our host, JackStraw.

Who coincidentally has been spending a lot of his spare time at Home Depot lately.

That's...gonna need another coat of paint.

Roof looks good, though. Real good. Thank goodness the roof held!

Phew.

Posted by: LauraW at 08:32 AM | Comments (90)
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LSU (3) knocked off Miss. State (25) Thursday night, and last night Boise St. (4) had little trouble with Toledo.

Top tens, Wisconsin (7) and N. Illinois, SC (10) vs. Navy, Idaho at Texas A&M (9), N. Texas at Alabama (2), Oklahoma State ( at Tulsa, and Stanford (6) vs. Arizona.

But the big game tonight is Oklahoma (1) at FSU (5), 8pm EDT.

OU by 10.

Have a great football weekend, morons. more...

Posted by: Dave in Texas at 05:18 AM | Comments (187)
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Earlier today I wrote that Dennis Miller's own switch on this -- from "I think he's a good guy, I just don't agree with him" to "I don't like this man" -- might have been evidence of a broader shift in the public mood.

Not sure if that's true, or just a combination of wishcasting and coincidence, but Obama's favorables are now negative, at least in one poll.

And that poll is the CBS/NYT poll, as it turns out.

For the first time, more Americans have an unfavorable opinion of President Obama than have a favorable opinion of him, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll released late Friday...

Just 39 percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of Obama, while 42 percent view him unfavorably. In January of this year, 40 percent had a favorable image of Obama, and 34 percent had an unfavorable opinion. In January 2009, as he was inaugurated, 60 percent of Americans had a favorable opinion of him.

What's surprising to me there is that in January his favorables were already pretty low -- and that's surprising since I had kept reading Obama's favorables were above 50%.

It is generally thought that a pol's personal favorable rating represents his highest plausible level of public support, under good circumstances. His job approval may rise and fall, based on varying conditions or policy responses, but if it fell on bad news, it could always rise up again on good news.

On the other hand, a pol's personal favorability would be the last to fall, and once lost, the hardest to get back.

So this may represent America finally giving up on the "Give him a chance" feeling and saying "Enough, he's incompetent."

Thanks to Miss80sBaby.

Posted by: Ace at 09:41 PM | Comments (221)
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I got pulled into this at the last moment. So if it stinks, and oh boy will it, then that's my excuse. Sit back and embrace the suck.

Brilliantly Smart-A$$ Responses to Completely Well Meaning Signs.

HereÂ’s a taste.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 06:01 PM | Comments (705)
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Stop blaming me. I didn't start with the sharp elbows.

But if it's going to be that kind of campaign, then it's going to be that kind of campaign.

Again, to quote the Bard of Long Island, We didn't start the fire.

Byran Preston plays a little Spot the Crony Capitalist, and discovers...

[quoting another source, emphasis added:]Meanwhile, Bachman has taken somewhere north of $140,000 from pharmaceutical companies. Those donors include Abbott Labs, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, AstraZeneca, Novartis, Eli Lilly and Bayer. Yet, not a dollar of all that pharma money, from such a wide range of the worldÂ’s largest drugmakers, came from Merck. Might Bachmann be going after Merck on behalf of that companyÂ’s competitors who also happen to be Bachmann donors?

Why bold GlaxoSmithKline? Because they make the only other viable HPV vaccine on the market, Cervarix.

Ah-ha! Maybe it's only Merck, then, that is selling Retard In A Needle.

But this Cervarix? Fine, fine product.

If you'd like protection against cancer, ask for Cervarix by name. Not the other one, you know, the one [Content Warning For Edgy Humor But Frankly Doctor Bachmann Has Injected This Whole Hot-Button Emotional Meme Into the Debate] that's actually a state-coerced hypodermic lobotomy.

You know when you've gone too far and too fringe?

When Ron Paul says you've gone too far and too fringe.

“We are pretty pissed off about it,” says one confidant. “She messed up, making it harder for other candidates to speak up. Taking on Perry on this front, with serious arguments, could have been a long and very successful line of attack. She went a step too far and embarrassed the field. She polluted the issue.”

Eh, she's an idiot in the first place.

And so is Ron Paul, who cites Al Qaeda as a credible source as to why the kill us (because we're attacking them; it's our fault, you see), but ignores Al Qaeda saying the attacks are motivated by the ultimate goal of a World Caliphate and complete Submission to Islam the world over.

Funny how he only takes Al Qaeda at their word in some cases. Conveniently enough, like the left, he credits their statements when they support his peace-at-any-cost philosophy, but ignores their statements -- won't even acknowledge them -- when those statements suggest that merely giving Israel to the terrorists will not buy them off.

"I Think She Can Get Away With That In Congress. I Don't Think That You Can As President." Bachmann has long had a problem with confusing statements that would be politically helpful to her as statements that are, in fact, actually accurate.

ItÂ’s a problem, former top staffers for the Minnesota congresswoman told POLITICO, thatÂ’s plagued her since she first arrived in Congress in 2007.

Three former senior aides to Bachmann painted a picture of a shoot-from-the-lip member who cavalierly makes assertions without knowing the facts — and would occasionally make them up to suit her needs.

The issue was serious enough, according to the accounts of two former staffers in BachmannÂ’s House office, that when new senior aides arrived to work for her, they were warned: Fact-check everything she says.

Upon entering Congress, she demanded a staffer get General Peter Pace on the phone. She was told it would probably not be possible for a very junior, just-sworn-in Congresswoman to speak directly to a guy with a lot on his plate. No call was placed.

But that didn't stop her from getting what she wanted -- the ability to say she'd spoken with General Pace.

But that didn’t stop Bachmann from going on a radio program and telling listeners that she did. “I just spoke with the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Bachmann told the radio host, according to a staff member familiar with the conversation.

And there were other "misstatements."

In a recorded interview with the St. Cloud Times, she said the U.S. had agreed to partition Iraq and turn part of it over to Iran. “They are going to get half of Iraq and that is going to be a terrorist safe haven zone,” she said at the time.

Bachmann’s comments were picked up by the popular Drudge Report website, and she was forced to issue a statement of quasi-apology: “I’m sorry if my words have been misconstrued.”

Yeah, this is why I don't believe there even was some hysterical woman that just so happened to buttonhole her about her daughter's alleged mental-retardation-by-inocculation just when Michele Bachmann was in need of such an anecdote.

I think she just lied.

Or she read it on the internet and then decided to... switch the story up a bit to better suit her needs.

"I read it on the internet" is supposed to be an ironic statement of skepticism, not a life-motto.

Thanks to JeffB.

Posted by: Ace at 02:46 PM | Comments (664)
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This is unclear.

The great @williamamos highlighted the fact that Solyndra did indeed apply for a second big loan guarantee, noting this blog, LA Observed, scooping everyone on the story.

Here's the thing: No one seems to be able to say with confidence whether the government did in fact extend that loan guarantee to them.

I'm assuming, provisionally, that means this is being covered up.

Because why would the Obama Administration, if it had in fact denied the loan guarantee, not rush out with proof they'd declined the second application? That would be helpful to them, wouldn't it?

Oh, I suppose it might not be -- it could be that by the time of the second loan guarantee application analysts had finally finished their analysis and concluded it was a bad risk, and the first loans shouldn't have gone out, either.

Which is still something I'd like to know, then.

Very interesting that the government does not seem eager to tell us what became of this $469 million request.

If they're not saying, it seems likely that the answers would reflect rather badly on them.

Solyndra applied for that extra $469 million the same year it received the $535 million of ultimately wasted taxpayer money which is the subject of a current congressional investigation. According to the companyÂ’s SEC filings, that $535 million was only intended to cover Phase I of the construction of its “Fab 2″ solar panel manufacturing facility.

...

ItÂ’s unclear if the now-bankrupt and scandal-embroiled green energy company actually received a second loan. Department of Energy officials did not immediately respond to The Daily CallerÂ’s request for comment, and the companyÂ’s SEC filing left the question open.

So $535 million on February 2, then this second request of $469 million on September 11 (both in 2009), this second request apparently always part of the plan.

Summing up, either:

1. Obama did extend this loan guarantee to Solyndra, in which case, whoa.

2. Obama did not extend this loan guarantee to Solyndra, even though apparently the plan was always to get a full billion plus in loan guarantees, in which case, it seems likely that a full analysis of the company's riskiness caused the OMB or DoE (or whoever) to finally say "No," in which case --not as big a whoa but still a whoa it's an even bigger whoa, as it proves the administration caused this half-billion-plus loss due to their own pure-political-optics demand that the application be passed in time for a photo op.

If the second application was declined, due to the analysts having more time to properly vet the company, that proves that Obama's political pressure caused the loss of over a half billion taxpayer dollars.

So.

Which is it?

No one's saying.

I find that very interesting.

I Missed a Possibility: Possibility 3: They can't say because they don't know. They just don't keep track of every piddling little half-a-billion-dollar spending plan.

(And yes, if you're "loaning" money to a company that can't repay, it's not a loan, it's simply spending/wasting taxpayer money.)

If that's the case: whoa again.

I don't see too many good answers to this question.

Apparently the Obama Administration can't find any good answers either, which is why they aren't answering.

Do we not have a right to know what the hell happened to a second half-billion dollars?

How do they imagine this is something they can decline comment about?

Posted by: Ace at 01:12 PM | Comments (369)
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I have to thank the cobloggers for putting up the donation post in the first place.

But thanks even more to the readers who donated. Ads really don't pay a great deal of money. You can probably get a sense of that by how many very-small concerns advertise here. Those various Google ads are not placed by, say, Ford Motors or Motorola.

Honestly, donations are what keeps me above the poverty line.

Thank you so much for your support -- or, where we disagree, at least your indulgence. I know I can be a dick.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 12:53 PM | Comments (107)
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Three guesses.

It's not likely that a formal bailout will occur. As the OMB might say (the people who ware supposed to be crunching numbers and protecting the public fisc), the optics of that would be terrible.

But who knows.

But even absent a big, formal, declared bailout, there's some under-the-radar bailing-out going on.

The U.S. is coming to Europe's financial rescue.

So far, America's role is fairly limited. But if the crisis continues to grow and the U.S. takes on a wider role, U.S. consumers and taxpayers could feel a bigger impact. The biggest exposure could come from America's status as the single largest source of money for the International Monetary Fund.

The latest round of American financial assistance came Thursday with a promise by the Federal Reserve to swap as many dollars for euros as European bankers need. In the short run, those transactions won't have much impact because the central banks are simply swapping currencies of equal value. If the move helps avert a wider crisis, it could help spare the global economy from another recession.

But over the long term, consumers could feel the impact of central bankers flooding the financial system with cash, according to John Ryding, chief economist at RDQ Economics.

"This is a lender of last resort function," he told CNBC. "With the dollar injections that the Fed has done, it's like giving a patient medicine with really bad side effects." Ryding said the bad side effect in the U.S. has been inflation, which has picked up to 3.8 percent year over year.

Worse yet, Europe is doing this to avoid a political solution that its elites oppose for political reasons.

I am quite sure that I haven't the foggiest idea about how difficult it would be, in practical terms, to unwind this whole Euro/economies-joined-at-the-hip-of-currency Frankenstein's monster they've created. I'm sure it would be painful and difficult.

But I'm also sure that Europe's Elites have long made huge bets on this and are avoiding it at least partly because of the political repudiation that would follow.

So instead of giving that possibility a full and fair hearing, they keep doubling down on bailouts for the PIIGS, and we are enlisted to backstop this certain doom with our dollars.

Posted by: Ace at 12:21 PM | Comments (250)
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