If the moon were made of cheese, would you eat it?

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:55 AM | Comments (83)
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Do You Think Most People Try to Take Advantage of You?

Note that the results of this survey are based on local perceptions and expectations rather than actual behavior which may explain why the US comes in in the middle behind such well-known dog-eat-dog-until-they-eat-the-contaminated-dogfood countries as China.

In practice the US is very much a high-trust culture. Sure you may run into incompetent and/or indifferent government officials and company employees here, but it's rare that they would outright try to cheat you or demand a bribe.

That's not the case in most of the world. In fact I've been pleasantly surprised over the years at how honest and generous most Americans are - especially outside of urban areas. People who could've easily stiffed me without consequence inexplicably chose not to. We tend to focus on the crimes and frauds that do occur, but a large part of what makes our society work is the fact that on a daily level the vast majority of Americans actually do act responsibly and don't try to cheat each other.

This quality tends to get short shrift among pundits and politicians who tend to see every public good as a result of our large apparatus of laws and regulations. But in fact it's the daily courtesies, expectations, social norms, and implicit assumptions of trust that act as the essential lubricant to all of our interactions - not a written law in a volume somewhere.

If you thought every mechanic might steal your car even though this is completely against the law, would you ever drop your car off? Even if you had a attorney on retainer you knew could get full redress and then some in court? Probably not.

I believe it was Jonah Goldberg who once made the observation in one of his essays on "hidden law" that if you retained all of our current laws and Constitution but replaced every American with a foreigner, the country might hum along for a short while but would fall apart in a matter of weeks.

Outsiders (and sadly many domestic politicians) tend to see the successes of American society strictly as a result of our laws and system of government, but the reality is that we're far more than just the predictable outcome of a particular collection of laws, regulations, and amendments. more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 06:19 PM | Comments (513)
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And by "Patriots", I mean the New England Patriots that are playing the Dolphins right now, but I guess we can switch to the debate at 8:00 Eastern. Man, it really takes a special kind of genius to schedule a GOP presidential debate head-to-head with the Monday Night Football season-opener.

Oh, right. The Stupid Party. How could I forget?

Anyhow, this one's being somewhat inaccurately billed as the CNN/Tea Party debate. No problem with the CNN part, but Tea Party Express™^®© != "tea party". Hopefully there will be enough real grassroots tea partiers involved to rescue it from the capital "T" capital "P" set.

Tonight's moderator will be Celebrity Jeopardy champion Wolf Blitzer, and participants are Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, Ron Paul, Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. I'll take "Potent Potables" for $1,000 please, Alex.

Livestream here - click "CNN Tea Party Debate" to upper right.

Liveblog thingy below the fold.

Standard reminder: Your comments do not automatically display. So don't ask "Why aren't my comments displaying?" They don't display.

They're not posted comments a la chat room. Instead they go to queue, which the producers (cobloggers) read, and we post them, by hand, if we think they make a good point. more...

Posted by: andy at 03:45 PM | Comments (1014)
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1. Social Security. Likely to be the liveliest part of the debate. Romney has claimed that Perry plans to abolish Social Security, including in fliers circulated in Florida. Romney's attack is two-pronged: 1, chase voters away from Perry on this issue itself, and 2, also put a dent in the current belief that Perry is more (or just as) electable as he is.

Perry could stand or fall depending on his response here. I imagine he may call Romney a liar to his face. In fact, I'm not sure that anything short of that would be suitably reassuring to voters who are concerned by this line of attack.

2. Immigration. Romney had intended to get to this in the last debate, but didn't. This is actually where Perry has the most vulnerability. I don't expect Romney to leave immigration off the table this time around. With the Tea Party co-hosting the debate, I doubt their questioners will forget to ask about this.

Again, this could be a do or die issue for Perry. Either he can make a strong account for himself on this issue, or suddenly the Perry boomlet might end.

3. Ron Paul! Ron Paul probably loathes Perry more than other candidates. Because of the assault and everything.

Perry made a tactical mistake in responding to one of Ron Paul's attacks last go-round. When Ron Paul brought up his letter to Hillary Clinton, telling her to not forget the farmer community when planning reforms in health care reform, Perry said briefly had had no idea what reforms Hillary would propose. And then attacked Ron Paul for writing Ronald Reagan to quit the Republican Party.

In this kind of attack, it is not enough to simply attack Ron Paul. Ron Paul is an anti-semitic neo-Bircher conspiracy theorist crank, whose actual capacity to attract support in the GOP is limited at around 10% (right where it is). But if Ron Paul successfully attacks Perry, voters may desert Perry not necessarily for Ron Paul, but for some other alternative, such as Romney or Bachmann or Gingrich (or the undeclared Palin).

Simply knocking Paul is no real defense. It doesn't accomplish Perry's goal, which is to attract supporters to his own standard.

On this particular attack, Perry could have reminded the audience -- do you remember this? -- that the Hillary Health Care Reform Panel was notoriously secret. This was a big knock on it at the time -- it was all done behind closed doors, until they unveiled their monstrosity to the public.

Perry would have been much better served by pointing this out, rather than attacking the candidate from Prison Planet.

Ron Paul will surely attack Perry more tonight. The same way that lions and dolphins are not threats to one another, Romney isn't a threat to Paul, because there's very little chance a Paul supporter would defect to Romney, or vice versa. On the other hand, Perry can at least plausibly claim to be a 10th Amendment, return-power-to-the-states libertarian, which directly threatens Paul's little niche.

Although some attacks on Paul are warranted, Perry has to make sure his first, second, and third goal here is to knock down Paul's attack. Successfully attacking Paul in return should be a bonus-damage situation only.

4. RomneyCare. With (I assume) Tea Party people supply questions, this will be Romney's greatest challenge. Romney has the benefit, however, of this particular albatross being very well known already; it's doubtful Romney could actually hurt himself on this score. Or help himself. Opinions are already formed.

But a bad soundbite from Romney -- a defense of the mandate, say -- could do some additional harm.

5. Bachmann's Attempt To Re-Join the Top Tier. Perry's entry into the race has hurt Bachmann most of all. One recent poll has her down to 4%, I just heard.

That's why she'll be eager to join Romney in the Social Security attack. But Bachmann herself called Social Security a "fraud" back in 2010. Has Perry done his homework? Does he have that reply at the ready?

6. Everyone Else. Cain is done, and Santorum never had a realistic chance, despite decent debate performances. Huntsman seems to have won some kind of reality-tv contest giving him the right to pretend to be a Republican candidate for President.

Gingrich has been showing a pulse lately, and while I really doubt he could ever join the top tier, he has been gaining credibility in the debates.

Posted by: Ace at 02:53 PM | Comments (279)
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It's all about the green, and by green, I mean sweet, sweet government nobody's-paying-attention money.

Three more examples (and more at the link):

Al Gore acolyte Cathy Zoi was Obama's assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy while her husband was an executive at a company that received direct subsidies from the Obama administration and profited from the Cash-for-Caulkers bill Zoi's division implemented. Zoi has since left DOE to run a clean-tech hedge fund owned in large part by Democratic mega-donor George Soros.

A group of Democratic operatives have formed an investment company called U.S. Renewable Energy Group, or US-REG, which seems to exist for the sake of buying green-tech companies, and then helping them get subsidies. In at least one case, US-REG appeared to be a U.S. beard for a Chinese company seeking U.S. dollars to make wind turbines in China.

The Department of Energy's inspector general has repeatedly found that a loan program created by the 2005 energy bill and expanded by Obama's stimulus falls short on transparency and accountability.

Does no one in the Democratic Party get this? If I create a government subsidy for ghost hunting technology, I will create dozens of ghost-hunting-tech firms within days, as everyone gets aboard the gravy train.

This is not a good thing. Ghosts do not exist, and this money will soon be lost.

Posted by: Ace at 01:49 PM | Comments (159)
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Rick Perry announced he'd have a special guest tonight, and invited people to speculate about it on his website page.

Sarah Palin was a popular guess, but she's not coming; she had been invited by the debate's sponsors.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal just endorsed Perry, so that's his guest.

On Romney's side, he'll be bring Tim Pawlenty, who just endorsed him.

Tim Pawlenty's endorsement is helpful, but then, Tim Pawlenty previously criticized Romney sharply on RomneyCare, calling it ObamneyCare, and also saying that Romney couldn't adequately "prosecute" the case against ObamaCare, being a "co-conspirator" in its creation.

Of course, as candidates drop out, all of their endorsements of those still remaining in the race are going to have that flip-flop sort of aspect to them.

Rush Limbaugh warned candidates not to demagogue on Social Security, calling Romney out by name, but not mentioning Bachmann.

Posted by: Ace at 12:04 PM | Comments (449)
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A continuation of an in-thread conversation from last week. Ace:

State and local bloggers are actually MUCH more useful politically, and yet they don't get the attention the nationally-oriented blogs do, and there is no clever way yet discovered (or even a simple focus) on making sure those state and local blogs are always getting linked.

This is a problem that often gets discussed.

So, who's giving good blog in your state or county? This is the place to promote your local conservative bloggers (or yourself, heh), and the place to find local voices to add to your bookmarks.

Please post short links in the comments to your favorite local con-blogs and please indicate the state or county the blog covers.

If you bookmark some, maybe consider emailing a story link from it to some friends in that state now and again. This is a great way for these smaller blogs that do first-person investigative reporting to grab a following and get noticed.

Here's some local Connecticut news sites and opinion blogs. In no particular order.

CT News Junkie
Don Pesci
CT House Republicans
Connecticut Political Reporter**
Wayne Winsley
Jim Vicevich

**Great piece about US Senator Rictus Blumenthal (D-CT) at the Connecticut Political Reporter link.

Apparently his successor as CT Attorney General has quietly dropped almost all of Blumy's former caseload. Gosh, it looks for all the world like Dick was just tormenting hundreds of innocent businesses and individuals with baseless attacks in order to burnish his image as Champion Of The People.

And so naturally, we sent him to DC to represent us before the nation.
That'll do, Donkey, that'll do.

Posted by: LauraW at 11:54 AM | Comments (91)
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I don't watch any of the late-night talk show hosts, so I didn't know that they actually are making fun of Obama (or rather, his SCOAMF on the economy/jobs front). Even bitter old lefty Letterman.

Leno has a good one:

Leno: The NFL season kicks off Thursday night right here on NBC. We are all very excited. The game will be on right after the season finale of President Obama.

Some of these jokes aren't even funny. Which is a good sign that Obama's in trouble. Joblessness is so prominent in the public consciousness that they have to mention it, even when they don't have a good joke about it. The jokes are made because they're obligatory, not chosen because they're riotously funny.

Like this Leno line:

Leno: Government statistics show the U.S. economy created zero jobs in August. President Obama now says he's confident this month he can double that.

Not a good joke. But he felt he had to address the top political story, whether he had a good joke about it or not.

Leno: President Obama's jobs speech was tonight: A guy whose job nobody approves of giving a speech about jobs that don't exist to people who don't have any jobs.

Fallon: President Obama's $447-billion spending plan is called the American Jobs Act. It would have had a cooler name, but the name guy was laid off six months ago.

Same thing.

Leno: President Obama named his new $447-billion legislation the American Jobs Act. Better than the original name, the Save My Ass Act.

This isn't even a joke, really. This is just what everyone's thinking. This is less a "joke" and more of a straightforward if cynical analysis of the actual political positioning going on here. He gives it a joke format, but this is really no different than what Charles Krauthammer said about it the same day. It just has a joke-like rhythm and joke-like casual glibness.

These are almost all "clappers" -- "jokes" whose main appeal is not funniness, but simply the pithy expression of what the audience thinks. Such jokes don't get laughs; they get claps of approval. Not chuckles, but nods of assent.

It's one thing if a comic dares to make a truly funny joke at Obama's expense. But offering a series of clappers about him isn't about comedy, it's about genuine frustration, disappointment, and disapproval.

Posted by: Ace at 11:02 AM | Comments (300)
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Late summer is a bad time for re-runs. By September, people are tired of them.

In the just released Gallup daily tracking poll, which now has three days of polling since the speech was delivered last Thursday (Sept. 9th through 11th), Obama's approval rating has fallen to 42 percent.

By contrast, in polling done before the speech between Sept. 5th through 7th, Obama was at 44 percent approval, and on Sept. 6th through 8th, he was at 43 percent.

So the best one could say is that the jobs speech left his ratings virtually unchanged.

If Obama has any hope of getting his jobs agenda through Congress, he'll have to do it by convincing Republicans that his policies are popular. But it's a lot harder to do that if his approval ratings are in the tank.

And, of course, despite vowing that "everything is paid for," he actually simply instructed the Super Commission to float him another half-trillion, and put that much more on the nation's collective bar-tap.

Actually, this just in: Jake Tapper reports the White House does have a plan for paying for this.

Obama just doesn't want it very well publicized. And for good reason:

WH will ask supercommittee 2 come up w/ a way 2 pay 4 $447B jobs bill, + if they dont those tax increases wld B triggered.

Now, he's saying he wants either cuts that seven members can agree to, or automatic tax hikes, if no other way to pay for this nonsense can be found.

It just so happens that six of the members of the 12 member commission are Democrats... So gee, what the odds the automatic tax hikes will go into effect? Something approaching 100%, I would think.

Shocker. Always this passive-aggressive attempt to get others to raise taxes.

More Details: All to be paid for by, um, "spending cuts in expenditures in the tax code," as Obama once so euphemistically put it.

White House Office of Management and Budget Director Jack Lew outlined President Barack Obama's plan to pay for his $447 billion jobs plan — mostly through tax increases.

Lew said itemized tax deductions and exemptions for those making more than $200,000, and families earning more than $250,000 would be cut — raising about $400 billion to pay for Obama's jobs plan over 10 years. This includes a change to bring more hedge fund earnings under normal tax rules as opposed to capital gains rates.

The new tax rules would not take effect until January 2013, Lew said. Obama is not offering any spending cuts to pay for the jobs plan.

The rest of the total would be raised by cutting subsidies for the oil and gas industries to bring in another $40 billion, and change the depreciation rules for corporate jets. All told, Obama would cut $467 billion to pay for his plan.

No, he would "cut" $0 billion. He would increase taxes by $467 billion.

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: Ace at 10:10 AM | Comments (230)
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Outrageous? I think so.

A version of this hateful pile of ignorance and lies -- with debunking annotations rebutting this lunacy on-screen -- can be viewed here.

And Dan Rather, the Hard News Man, is the "anchor" for this channel.

Thanks to JoshP.

Posted by: Ace at 09:44 AM | Comments (105)
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