This would be the quantitative easing stimulus (buying federal debt with freshly-printed dollars -- yeah, my mind loses the plot with that double-abstraction too), not Obama's trillion dollar fiscal stimulus.

The bad news: We've tried all of the usual government interventions to wake the economy up and they've all failed.

The possibly good news for those of this mindset: That pretty much only leaves some combination of cutting spending and possibly cutting taxes as the untried and yet-unproven-to-have-failed option.

I say that's only possibly good news because 1) that could never happen until 2012, assuming all things work out for us politically (including winning a near-supermajority in the Senate), which means at least another two years of economic misery, and 2) the recession's resistance to other conventional responses suggest it might be resistant to all responses, including the conservative ones.

Story here.

The Federal ReserveÂ’s experimental effort to spur a recovery by purchasing vast quantities of federal debt has pumped up the stock market, reduced the cost of American exports and allowed companies to borrow money at lower interest rates.

But most Americans are not feeling the difference, in part because those benefits have been surprisingly small. The latest estimates from economists, in fact, suggest that the pace of recovery from the global financial crisis has flagged since November, when the Fed started buying $600 billion in Treasury securities to push private dollars into investments that create jobs. Bernacke will publicly explain/defend his policies on Wednesday.

Thanks to Andy.

Posted by: Ace at 07:40 AM | Comments (185)
Post contains 265 words, total size 2 kb.

P-shop thanks to Aaron S.

A More Traditional Post... From The Anchoress.

Posted by: Ace at 06:25 AM | Comments (68)
Post contains 16 words, total size 1 kb.

(Note: I see some kind soul has already posted a Sunday Open Thread.)

Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire is one of my favorite novels of recent years, and was required-reading among many soldiers I know. Well, Pressfield has now published a slim little how-to book called Do the Work that might interest people who want to know how to complete projects -- not just creative projects, but any project, really. I'm not normally into self-help books, but this one is not so much a touchly-feely post-modernist tome as it is just some hard-headed pointers on how to avoid getting distracted. And a really cool thing: the Kindle version is free! (Do the Work seems to have been drawn from his longer book The War of Art, though I don't think it's an excerpt but a wholly separate work on the same topic.)

Another book I picked up is Back to Basics, which is sort of a "basic survival skills for dummies". It's a basic primer on how to perform a lot of manual tasks and chores (making and dying cloth, small-scale farming, and so on). It's probably meant as a "survive the apocalypse" kind of book, but I found it interesting just to read and find out how incompetent I really am at most things. The main problem with this book (as with most such books) is that it makes everything look too easy. It also tends to assume that you have the skills and tools needed to perform the various tasks.

Finally, I picked up a copy of Theodore Dalrymple's (the pen-name of Anthony Daniels) The New Vichy Syndrome. Dalrymple has been a favorite essayist of mine for years; his pieces in City Journal are almost always wonderful. He is also (as you might expect) a DOOM-crier after my own heart, only his target is not the US but his native England. He has been chronicling the descent of England in the postwar years (though, in his previous position as a prison doctor, he probably didn't see much good to leaven the bad, so perhaps his opinion is biased). He decamped for the Continent a few years ago, and now has produced a book about the strange mixture of smugness and terror that grips many European nations as unassimilated Muslim immigrants take over larger areas of the major cities. The general points are nothing new to readers of this blog, but Dalrymple has a wonderful way with words and a devastating ability to use anecdote and example to drive his points home. Highly recommended (as are his other books).

What is everyone else reading?

(Oh, and to my Christian friends: Happy Easter! He Is Risen!)

Posted by: Monty at 04:54 AM | Comments (77)
Post contains 452 words, total size 3 kb.

Happy Easter to those of you who celebrate. And to the rest of you ... happy whatever it is you should be happy about.

Use this thread to talk about anything other than Monty's forthcoming book thread, including anything stupid you see if you choose to ruin a nice Spring Sunday by watching Christiane Amawhatsherface or one of those other shows teh suck.

Posted by: andy at 04:12 AM | Comments (119)
Post contains 71 words, total size 1 kb.

Merry Easter Eve!

Added: Looks like Pixy revived the hamster and got it back on the wheel again. At least for the moment. CDR M sent this along earlier today. It's some kinda' South Park quiz. Involving South Parkish things or something. Available here

You will find it amusing. If not, I post every single bunneh video I can find on YouTube tonight.

Original Debacle:

*sigh*

This may be the shortest ONT post ever (not necessarily a bad thing given the usual offerings)

Movable Type has decided to give me the finger tonight. When I embed a link and hit 'save' I get a 401 Error. Yet it's letting me post videos, such as the two below the fold. Go figure. So entertain yerselves until I figure it out or one of the other cobs rescues this mess. If you'd like, I could try screwing around with the formatting, maybe centering everything? You guys like that sorta' thing...easily amused and all... more...

Posted by: Genghis at 06:18 PM | Comments (731)
Post contains 213 words, total size 2 kb.

CNN had this article today discussing the problem Obama faces with rising gas prices. Ever since Obama said last week that there was nothing he good to do in the short term, the MSM keeps on repeating it without any critical thought. I assume one would have to believe gas prices are rising because of the turmoil in the Middle East in order to fall for this. But gas prices have risen almost a $1 from a year ago and are up over 100% since Obama was inaugurated. This hasn't been a short term problem and Obama's policies are making it worse.

As the dollar gets weaker, oil goes higher. Now what's making the dollar weaker right now? Ah, QE2 is a major culprit. Since Bernanke works for the President, I think we can assume that the Prez has endorsed QE2. Ironic though. Obama rails against the fat cats on Wall Street and looky here:

New lows on market indexes tend to get people's attention. But unlike falling stock or home prices, which carry clear negative implications for the economy, a weaker dollar has some significant upsides. For one, it can make U.S. companies more competitive with the rest of the world by lowering the prices of American exports for foreign buyers. And as the greenback falls, profit earned in stronger currencies abroad translates into more dollars.

The benefits of a declining dollar showed up this week in first-quarter earnings reports from multinational companies such as IBM Corp., Intel Corp., United Technologies Corp., Johnson & Johnson and Honeywell International Inc. All reported results above expectations, thanks to robust global demand for their goods and services.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 04:48 PM | Comments (195)
Post contains 1008 words, total size 7 kb.

From Aaron, who's got an animated gif of the Ewok... um, entertaining himself that is really funny but I just don't know if I can post it. But here are two others.

The first one I asked him to do: A graph of Wonkette's relevance, by date.

This one's all Aaron. Don't blame me.

Posted by: Ace at 03:25 PM | Comments (89)
Post contains 66 words, total size 1 kb.

I think he's in America. He's been "in America" a lot, but it was always just a set in London or wherever or a CGI backdrop. They actually filmed here for the first time.

It's on BBCAmerica at 9. There's some kind of recap of the history of Doctor Who at 8. I imagine this means 38 minutes of Tennant, 3 minutes of Eccleston, 5 minutes for the current guy, and then a one minute montage of all the others (a fat 20 seconds for Tom Baker), and then some Daleks and, worse, commercials.

Hey, I love Tennant. Everyone loves him. But let's get into some new territory here. Show me some other flashbacks.

Here's a Dalek being funny, cracking wise to a Cyberman -- from 2:50 to the punchline at 3:25.
more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:30 PM | Comments (165)
Post contains 146 words, total size 1 kb.

I've been wondering about this because I'd written off Ryan ("My kids are too small and my ego's not big enough") and yet there continue to be these mentions of him as a prospect by the conservative media.

I asked Bill Kristol about this at Breitbart's book signing -- I keep hearing Weekly Standard people, particularly, hint that Ryan is entertaining the idea of a run.

Joking around, he said, "Oh, we all just say that to each other [at the Weekly Standard]" -- meaning, "We're all psyching ourselves up with that and/or attempting to put out that rumor out there."

Funny.

But I asked another journalist type (I won't say who since I didn't tell him I'd be quoting, it was a personal type question) and he said, "Well, he rules it out in his public statements but in his private statements...?" Not so much.

I asked, to be sure, if he was saying "Who knows what he says in private?" or if he was saying "I've heard what he says in private, and he's not as firm on it as he is in public declarations." He confirmed it was the latter.

I think the situation he'd be willing to consider it is if there's no unifying, consensus figure in the primaries.

Just noting.

I'm not sure if I am supposed to quote this, but Kristol said he had a "contrarian" take on Trump and birtherism -- which is basically my take. Birtherism may be untrue, but it's not nearly as damaging and radioactive as some parts of the establishment-oriented base of the party seem to think. And Trump, he agrees, is performing a useful function by, as I said, "treating Obama like an ordinary politician" and beating hell out of him -- not only does this bring Obama down to earth, and make it seem less taboo to not treat him with the deference reserved for the Sun King, but heck, who knows, maybe more Republicans will get the hint that it's okay to start hitting Obama hard.

By the way, speaking of "Narratives" -- it's The Narrative that other Republicans aren't hitting Obama hard. That's not really true. A lot of them are. Mitt Romney's hitting Obama hard, for example. Gingrich has never been shy. Palin has been for years (but the media doesn't like quoting her when she does, eh?).

It's just that it doesn't seem like they are. I guess Trump's brash style (and its amplification throughout the media) makes it sound like he's the only one doing this.

Not so, but he's the one getting through the most.

So, at the very least, I think Trump is at least softening him up. Maybe Trump's not doing something that others aren't, but the media is responding differently -- actually bothering to put his soundbites on the air.

Maybe they think it's safe to do that because Trump is a "joke" in their eyes. I don't really agree with their line of logic if that's what they're thinking.

Kristol noted-- "If the birtherism thing is as damaging as the media thinks, why are Obama's poll numbers falling while Trump's mainstreaming it?"

Good point. (Not that it helps, mind you, but it doesn't seem to be hurting, either.)

I told Kristol that it had long been my theory that birtherism was harmless politically, "All the hardcore conservative outlaws like us are saying that now." Since, you know, he has a reputation as a RINO and I get the RINO label myself.

Maybe it's not that funny. I laughed.

Breitbart gave a short speech about his determination to take on the media in their own villainous lairs (he used that analogy), such as MSNBC's studios. He spoke of his interview with indictment by celebrity jagoff "reporter" Martin Bashir, identifying him as "the man who put the thought of suicide in Michael Jackson's head."

He also noted, laughing, that people who give him fair interviews (he named Dylan Ratigan and Elliot Spitzer as liberals who were fair) do nothing for his book sales, and he walks out of those interviews saying, "Damn, missed opportunity."

On the other hand, Martin Bashir-type interviews go viral and sell his books.

If you watch that Bashir interview (below), by the way, it's a good example of what I mean when I say "Liberals don't lower themselves to ask us information-seeking questions." Bashir made statements phrased as questions, but they weren't questions, because at no point did Bashir even accept Breitbart's statements, for the sake of argument, as true. He just either said they weren't true or re-asked the question, which is not-so-subtle-code for, "You're a liar, answer me truthfully this time."

Generally, even when you suspect someone is telling a falsehood, it's good form not to simply call that person a liar, but accept their claim for the sake of argument but then ask them to explain any inconsistencies that might cause. Like, "Okay, let's say that was your intent with Shirley Sherrod, but then why did you X?"

Bashir doesn't even do that. It's just -- Liar. Honestly, I don't even think he's listening. He literally will not let Breitbart finish a statement, and he begins cutting him off not during a sixty second filibuster but more times than not on the third or fourth word of an answer.

Before Breitbart's even matched a verb to a noun.

How the hell do you cut someone off based on just a noun?

"My article--"

"Liar."

What? There can't be a lie if there's only a noun.

"Cars--"

"Liar."

"Lamps--"

"Liar."

"Delta rays--"

"Liar."

"Diddlefingers---"

"Ooh, you dirty liar."

So, obviously-- not really asking for the sake of generating information.

Best part is Bashir's odd and varied claims regarding when guilt by association is and is not fair. Bashir claims he can't be held responsible for MSNBC cutting off the head of a black gun-carrier and calling him white in order to advance the narrative that angry white Tea Partiers are carrying guns -- because Bashir wasn't at MSNBC then. (He also refuses to acknowledge it even happened; he doesn't say, "I know that happened, but that wasn't me." He sort of denies it happened.)

But having established the proposition that Bashir can't be held responsible for his coworkers, he then rakes Breitbart over the coals for a blogger who posted a few times on one of his sites and said something racist elsewhere, and also, an Orange County Republican who Breitbart has no connection to sending out a racially-charged photoshop of Obama.

As this one version of the clip got 99,000 views in three days, I guess Breitbart needs to thank Bashir.

more...

Posted by: Ace at 02:04 PM | Comments (187)
Post contains 1118 words, total size 7 kb.

From Friday's Best of the Web. ("The 'Birther' Metamyth" section)

These MBM pricks keep doing this! It goes back at least as far as their not noting that Oswald was a commie (didn't fit their 'right-wing city of hate' narrative).

Regarding a recent poll...

Among all Republicans, 45 percent believe he (President Obama) was born in another country, as do 45 percent of Tea Party supporters, the poll shows.

"Gee those Republicans are IDIOTS!"

However...

But here's something that bothers us about the results of this particular poll: They give us the overall results (57% say yes, he was born in the U.S., 25% say no) and specific numbers for Republicans (33% and 45%) and "Tea Party supporters" (34% and 45%), but not for Democrats and independents. ...
It looks to us as if the purpose of asking the question was simply to make Republicans look foolish.

Pollsters could have done the same to Democrats during the presidency of George W. Bush, though most didn't. Politico's Ben Smith managed to track down an exception:

... the University of Ohio yesterday shared with us the crosstabs of a 2006 poll they did with Scripps Howard that's useful in that regard.
"How likely is it that people in the federal government either assisted in the 9/11 attacks or took no action to stop the attacks because they wanted the United States to go to war in the Middle East?" the poll asked.
A full 22.6% of Democrats said it was "very likely." Another 28.2% called it "somewhat likely."

Smith cautions that "I'm still not sure this represents actual belief, as opposed to a kind of trash talk about a president you hate"--a point that applies equally to Obama detractors who assent to birther nonsense.

Ohhh. So Democrats are IDIOTS! too. It's almost as if a big difference between left and right wing citizens is how the media portray them.

BTW, in comments it would be nice to see some pre-Oswald examples.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 12:21 PM | Comments (208)
Post contains 359 words, total size 2 kb.