Have you seen this? It's outrageous. more...

Posted by: Ace at 11:10 AM | Comments (171)
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He's soliciting donations to run ads defending his Path to Prosperity.

In an email through his political organization, the Prosperity Project, Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, also asked the GOP presidential field to support the budget. Ryan is pushing back against a campaign led this week in Iowa by the Democratic National Committee to frame GOP presidential candidates as extremists.

“The DNC is attacking all of the candidates for their support of my Path to Prosperity budget,” Ryan wrote in the email. “We have to fight back. With your support, I’m planning on launching a counter-attack to educate Iowa voters about the Path to Prosperity and how it’s the only plan currently on the table that saves Medicare.”

This doesn't signal any interest in a run, just his interest in seeing his plan be adopted as United States policy.

Meanwhile, Perry is scheduled to appear at the RedState gathering in Charleston, SC, this Saturday, and make his intentions for the future known. Which is meant to mean he won't be announcing -- he'll just be making it clear that he will announce at some point.

This is intended (it looks like) to make Perry a second headline of the day after Michele Bachmann wins in the straw poll, which annoys some Iowa Republicans:

Perry is basically going to attempt inject himself in to the national news story, but his speech and entrance into the race will not match the excitement of Ames.

The RedState gathering in Charleston, South Carolina, takes place from Friday through Sunday. Perry could have arranged his schedule to announce either before or after the Straw Poll. Iowans wonÂ’t forget this.

Eh, kind of parochial. It's annoying that these early-primary state voters get so jealously protective of their Big Time In The Spotlight.

Of course that's exactly what Perry intended, so it can't be said they're imagining things.

Posted by: Ace at 10:35 AM | Comments (206)
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Stay tuned...content will be along any minute. Any minute.

Posted by: DrewM at 08:59 AM | Comments (469)
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From Bret Stephens at the Wall Street Journal:

Socrates taught that wisdom begins in the recognition of how little we know. Mr. Obama is perpetually intent on telling us how much he knows. Aristotle wrote that the type of intelligence most needed in politics is prudence, which in turn requires experience. Mr. Obama came to office with no experience. Plutarch warned that flattery "makes itself an obstacle and pestilence to great houses and great affairs." Today's White House, more so than any in memory, is stuffed with flatterers.

. . .

Can anyone recall a memorable phrase from one of Mr. Obama's big speeches that didn't amount to cliché? As for the small speeches, such as the one we were kept waiting 50 minutes for yesterday, we get Triple-A bromides about America remaining a "Triple-A country." Which, when it comes to long-term sovereign debt, is precisely what we no longer are under Mr. Obama.

Then there is Mr. Obama as political tactician. He makes predictions that prove false. He makes promises he cannot honor. He raises expectations he cannot meet. He reneges on commitments made in private. He surrenders positions staked in public. He is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved. He is overbearing when he ought to be absent.

If I could quote more, I would. More stupid is as stupid does at the link.

Thanks to Slublog.

Posted by: rdbrewer at 05:55 AM | Comments (584)
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Yestday, the Dow sank like a holed submarine, dropping a terrifying 635 points and taking most world markets along with it. David Ranson over at Forbes tries to explain why the stock market tanked.

Why this crisis is different from 2008.

Starting from the most obvious: The two crises had completely different origins.

The older one spread from the bottom up. It began among over-optimistic home buyers, rose through the Wall Street securitization machine, with more than a little help from credit-rating firms, and ended up infecting the global economy. It was the financial sector's breakdown that caused the recession.

The current predicament, by contrast, is a top-down affair. Governments around the world, unable to stimulate their economies and get their houses in order, have gradually lost the trust of the business and financial communities.

That, in turn, has caused a sharp reduction in private sector spending and investing, causing a vicious circle that leads to high unemployment and sluggish growth. Markets and banks, in this case, are victims, not perpetrators.

Perma-bull Larry Kudlow, always able to see chicken salad in chicken shit, advises everyone not to panic.

King Putt, never one to lose an opportunity to make a bad situation worse, came out to exercise his voice some more. The markets, which had been showing signs of rallying prior to the speech, accelerated their crash-dive. Some cynics with shriveled black raisins for hearts might suggest that this is a massive "no confidence" move in our esteemed God Emperor.

London is being rocked by riots as I write this. This counts as financial news because London is a major financial hub, and this just adds to the uncertainty that many investors are feeling right now. Also, the UK is in the middle of a major austerity push, and there is a lot of free-floating anger and anxiety in Britain (and elsewhere) about what the future may hold. The "causes" of this riot almost don't matter; the fuel for this riot is the same fear and atavism that many people in the developed world are feeling. (This is how widespread the rioting is. It's not just some small, localized disturbance.)

Thanks to the pension crisis, the public sector should prepare for a "lost decade" of pay increases.

Update 1: Bret Stephens on the unparalleled genius of our God Emperor - "I don't buy it. I just think the president isn't very bright." more...

Posted by: Monty at 05:51 AM | Comments (203)
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Pragmatism is a matter of human needs; and one of the first of human needs is to be something more than a pragmatist.

Posted by: Gabriel Malor at 02:52 AM | Comments (158)
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Is Matt Damon Right That Teachers Make a "Shitty" Salary?

Of course not. Matt Damon has always struck me as someone who's probably smarter than average but is absolutely convinced that he's a Nobel-worthy genius. So despite the fact that his mother was a teacher, he doesn't actually know what he's talking about.

According to Department of Education statistics for 2007-2008 (the most recent year listed), the average public school teacher brought in a bit over $53,000 in "total school-year and summer earned income."

Â….An average salary of $53,000 may not be much for a movie star such as Damon, but it's a pretty good wage when compared to U.S. averages. Indeed, the Census Bureau reports that median household income in 2008 was $52,000.

More to the point, Bureau of Labor Statistics and other surveys that take into account the reported number of hours worked in a year consistently show that on a per-hour basis, teacher income (again, not including fringe benefits, which are typically far more robust than those offered other workers, including college-educated professionals) is extremely strong.

Now teaching is an honorable (and necessary) profession, but truthfully teachers are some of the whiniest workers you'll ever meet. There - I said it.

They enjoy far more job security, higher hourly wages, less accountability, and work fewer hours than almost any other profession you can name. Yet ask any teacher and they'll sincerely explain to you (at length) how they're practically an enslaved underclass.

[Full disclosure: In a past life I was a teacher, and yes it is one of the best part-time jobs you can ever have] more...

Posted by: Maetenloch at 05:58 PM | Comments (777)
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Oh wait, the Onion didn't steal the Maher joke; they wrote it first.

Another difference: This joke is worth stealing.

I forget who first wrote it, but for a while I've been flogging a commenter's joke:

If only there were some sort of... natural mechanism to explain variations in the earth's temperature.

Such a hypothetical source would have be large, though: On the magnitude of our own sun.

Two weeks ago I spread the joke anew on Twitter.

I think the Onion noticed.

Thanks to gg.

Al Gore Yells And Curses, Still Sounds Really Really Gay: "Bullshit!"

Posted by: Ace at 05:17 PM | Comments (150)
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Live streaming coverage from the BBC.

Sketchy details about "youths:"

British prime minister David Cameron and other senior politicians were planning to fly back from holiday on Monday as riots spread through London with potent images of the capital ablaze beamed around the world and emboldened youths attacking in broad daylight.

...

In a sign that rioters were growing in confidence, between 50 and 100 youths gathered on a busy junction in Hackney, east London, not far from the site of next yearÂ’s Olympic games, during the early afternoon, throwing missiles at police and setting light to cars.

...

AP reported that police have ordered London football clubs to call off matches.

If you're consuming the media, you probably don't know what it's about. I assumed that meant it was racial, and the telegraph seems to obliquely confirm that with the euphemism "underclass."

The police shot a black guy in suspicious circumstances. Feral kids with no jobs ran amok. To TonyÂ’s mind, this was a riot waiting for an excuse. In the hangover of the violence that spread through London, the uprisings seemed both inevitable and unthinkable. Over a few days in which attacks became a contagion the capital city of an advanced nation has reverted to a Hobbesian dystopia of chaos and brutality.

...

Among several obvious answers, one is a failure of policing. The evidence so far points to more ignominy for the rudderless Met, as doubts emerge over whether Mark Duggan, whose death inspired the initial riots, fired at police. The stonewalling of Mr DugganÂ’s family precipitated the crisis, and the absence of officers to intervene in an orgy of looting led to a breakdown of order suggestive of the lawless badlands of a failing state.

It's pretty amazing that there are major riots going on in a world capital and the media won't tell us anything about them, out of a belief we can't handle it.

Posted by: Ace at 05:06 PM | Comments (159)
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The bitter fruit of a dumb decision by the Obama Administration.

The condition of the bodies prevents positive separate identification, a Pentagon spokeswoman said, and DOD rules require family permission to view the transfer of remains.

“Because the remains are unidentified at this point, next-of-kin are not in a position to grant approval for the media access to the dignified transfer,” DOD spokeswoman Capt. Jane Campbell wrote in a press release. “Therefore, in accordance with DoD policy, no media coverage of the arrival and dignified transfer is permitted. Families will however, be given the opportunity to be present for the arrival.”

This is something people would speculate about but it's not something that we need to know. It's not something the families of the fallen should have to have known and discussed publicly.

If there was a blanked ban on these ceremonies as there was under the Bush administration, this would be something for the military and the families to deal with privately. But Obama had to play to his base in the press and show how transparent he was compared to Bush.

And if you want to see why you don't want the vultures in the press around at these things, this is part of what CNN's Pentagon Reporter Barbara Starr said about it.

And remains are returned to Dover for that very precise DNA formal identification for legal and forensic reasons. But when someone is -- we're allowed to cover it when they at least have a fair, reasonable certainty of who it is, and they can match up a name and a set of remains.

Tough business to talk about here, but that's the way it goes. If they have a reasonable certainty of a set of remains, and a name that goes with those remains, then they will ask the family if they wish to have coverage to have their service member remembered and honored by the news media.

In this case, by all accounts, from what the Pentagon is telling us just in the last few minutes, the remains are in such poor shape, they cannot even go that far. We are asking, though, very strongly if there's any accommodation that can be made, if there's any picture that can be recorded, any image that can be shown in any way, shape, or form so Americans can see these people coming home for their final journey -- Wolf.

"...have coverage to have their service member remembered and honored by the news media." What in the world is she talking about? Now Starr maybe a nice persona and good at her job but that's just obnoxious. Reporters don't go to Dover to remember or honor the fallen, they go there to do a job but only sometimes. There have been hundreds of these ceremonies but beyond the early ones that Obama and administration officials went to, how many have made national news? Somewhere around zero as best as I can recall. If you really think the media is honoring and remembering the fallen then you damn well get your ass out to each and everyone of these because while some causalities maybe more news worthy than others, they all deserve to be remembered and honored equally.

This double standard is not the fault of the media, they are just doing their jobs. It's the fault of the Obama administration who set up this system where some return services are more notable than others and that's just wrong.

Related: The Special Operation community is a relatively small one in the military and they tend to take care of their own. A loss of this magnitude is going to place a heavy burden on charities that help take care of those left behind.

You may want to consider helping out if you can.

Posted by: DrewM at 03:47 PM | Comments (212)
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