Fog of War

Press Secretary Jay Carney blamed the below differing stories on the 'fog of combat.'

THEN: Osama Bin Laden was armed with an AK-47 during the raid.

NOW: The Al Qaeda leader was actually unarmed but did resist before he was shot.

THEN: On Monday, the White House said Bin Laden was involved in a firefight, which is why the SEALs killed rather than captured him.

NOW: On Tuesday, however, White House press secretary Jay Carney said Bin Laden did not fire on the SEALs.

THEN: Counter-terrorism chief, John Brennan said a woman, thought to be one of bin Laden’s wives, was used as a human shield during the raid and was killed.

NOW: Amal Al-Sadah, 27, bin Laden’s youngest wife, is thought to have rushed at the Navy SEALS and was shot in the leg but not killed. The woman who died was said to be the wife of one of his aides, caught in the cross fire. 

THEN: A White House transcript said it was bin Laden’s son Hamza who was killed in the raid.

NOW: They then corrected that to another son Khalid.

THEN: The night of the raid, administration officials held a telephone briefing for reporters. 'During the raid, we lost one helicopter due to mechanical failure,' one of the administration officials said.

NOW: Later in the same call, another official contradicted that: 'We didn't say it was mechanical.'

Birthers and other conspiracy.

For quite some time I have been wondering as to why Barry Obama would not just produce evidence that he was born in Hawaii and stop the nonsense.

Then I realized that in dealing with theorists no evidence will suffice. Like the JFK assassination, the 9/11 disaster, Man Made Global Warming, Area 51, Over-population, Crop Circles, Uri Geller, etc. People are going to believe how they want.

Hands raised if you drank from any conspiracy kool-aid in the past. Mine is right there with you.

Case in point: Barry's Birth announcement was in two separate papers when he was born. These are released by the hospital to the newspapers.

However, the reaction to the above information is that the papers were faked. Or they smuggled the baby into Hawaii and pretended he was born and released that announcement to two papers. Because they knew in advance that this child was to become a President...

So you could produce the doctor, nurses, film, birth announcements, quantify them beyond a reasonable doubt and your theorists would still "Demand further evidence"

What are people saying about Obama?

Harris poll is saying that people think Obama...

* Is a socialist (14%)

* Wants to take away Americans’ right to own guns (17%)

* Is a Muslim (15%)

* Wants to turn over the sovereignty of the United States to a one world government (12%).

* Has done many things that are unconstitutional (9%).

* Resents America’s heritage (12%)

* Does what Wall Street and the bankers tell him to do (15%)

* Was not born in the United States and so is not eligible to be president (8%)

* Is the “domestic enemy that the U.S. Constitution speaks of” (8%)

* Is a racist (7%)

* Want to use an economic collapse or terrorist attack as an excuse to take dictatorial powers (8%)

* Is doing many of the things that Hitler did (6%).

* May be the Anti-Christ (6%).

* Wants the terrorists to win (5%).

Oh when I said People, I mean Democrats! Full story linked here.

Climatologists Baffled by Global Warming Time-Out

It has to be getting more and more difficult to believe in the man made global warming cult Al Gore has been raking in the cash from.

"The planet's temperature curve rose sharply for almost 30 years, as global temperatures increased by an average of 0.7 degrees Celsius (1.25 degrees Fahrenheit) from the 1970s to the late 1990s. "At present, however, the warming is taking a break," confirms meteorologist Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences in the northern German city of Kiel. Latif, one of Germany's best-known climatologists, says that the temperature curve has reached a plateau. "There can be no argument about that," he says. "We have to face that fact.""

With Hurricanes At Thirty Year Low, Gore Turns To Photoshop

Climate change appears to have stalled just before the upcoming world summit in the Danish capital, where thousands of politicians, bureaucrats, scientists, business leaders and environmental activists plan to negotiate a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions.

Billions of euros are at stake in the negotiations, meaning who is going to get the slush fund that cap and trade 'creates' to stop global warming. I guess that makes it a real crises!

A letter from one of my Representatives.

Dear Mr. Kiester:

Thank you for contacting me with your concerns about health care reform. I appreciate hearing from you.

In adopting reforms to the system of providing health care in the United States, Congress and the President should take heed of the adage "First, do no harm". Many Americans, particularly the 160 million who benefit from employer provided health insurance are happy with their coverage, their chosen doctor and the coverage provided under their plan.

I believe that reform should not be paid for by taxing the benefits of those already covered. They should not force anyone to change plans or providers. Finally, expanded coverageto the uninsured should not add to the ballooning federal deficit.

That said there are problems with our existing system. I've talked with small business owners who have seen their insurance renewals denied because one employee became sick or was injured. Others have complained about sustained policy price increases or exclusions of existing medical problems. These types of complaints point towards the insurance reform I have been pushing for 20 years; to have the insurance industry play by the same rules as other industries in America. Insurance companies and Major League Baseball are the only two industries exempt from anti-trust laws. That means insurance companies can legally collude to raise prices and exclude individuals from coverage. I have introduced legislation, H.R. 1583, to repeal this exemption. The Consumer Federation of American estimates that repealing the anti-trust exemption could help lower healthcare premiums by 10 percent.

The plan being considered in the House would focus on a few key factors. First and most importantly, it would make sure that every American has comprehensive health insurance that they know they cannot lose even if they lose their job or get sick. It would stop insurance companies from denying coverage to people based on preexisting condition. It would guarantee coverage to all Americans with a minimum package of benefits. For the millions of people who have insurance through their employer nothing will change. For Individuals and small businesses that do not have or cannot afford to provide insurance, they would be able to get affordable insurance by choosing from a "health insurance exchange". This exchange would give them a wide array of insurance plans to choose from, including, if they so choose, a public option. They can choose the plan and level of benefits they want. If they want to pay extra for a premium plan, they can. If they want just the basic package, they can choose that as well. The idea of an exchange is to pool risk, meaning the premiums paid for the plans in the exchange are put into one big pot which will lower premiums for everyone. Furthermore, there would be limited subsidies for lower income families and individuals to make sure everyone can afford coverage.

The insurance industry wants it both ways. They complain about the prospect of a public plan option as "unfair competition" while at the same time they are fighting tooth and nail to retain the antitrust exemptions so they don't have to truly compete with one another. They don't want reform. They want profits. As a result they and their allies are doing their best to frighten the public about what the health reform proposal currently being written inCongress will or will not do.

Opponents say that the bill would lead to fewer choices for Americans to choose their plan or doctor. The truth is the proposals being considered in the House will increase choice by giving people the ability to choose from an array of private and public health insurance options. Most importantly, if you like the doctor or plan that you have now, you can keep it. The bill will simply give people more choices, especially since one of the critical reforms is taking away the insurance industry's ability to deny coverage and care.

Some have warned that the bill would "ration care". The bill would actually take medical decisions away from insurance companies and put them in the hands of doctors, nurses and patients. No longer will insurance companies, whose primary goal is profits, dictate what care patients receive.

Some people warn of the "Canadian System" of people waiting in line to receive care and having to come to America to get a needed procedure. This is a bogus argument because the plans being considered in Congress today are nothing like the Canadian or European systems. What we are considering is an American system, based on choice and savings.

Simply put, we must do something soon or we face a health insurance crisis. The 47 million Americans in our country today lack health insurance get their health care in the most expensive way imaginable; by waiting until it's too late and going to an emergency room. The cost of this care is then passed on to the rest of us who have health insurance at the rate of over $100 billion a year in increased premiums and higher taxes. If we don't act now, the cost an employer-sponsored family health insurance plan will reach $24,000 by 2016 forcing most American households to spend 45% of their income on health insurance. This is unacceptable to me.

To be clear, I fully support the idea that people who are happy with their health insurance should be able to keep what they have. However, the cost of not doing anything is too great for all of us.

Sincerely,

Rep. Peter DeFazio
Fourth District, OREGON

Because facts are important

With AP acting more like a branch of Obama's administration, it was quite astonishing to see this article come out. Journalists doing thier job seems a saddly rare thing nowadays.

By CALVIN WOODWARD and JIM KUHNHENN (AP)

WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's assertion Wednesday that government will stay out of health care decisions in an overhauled system is hard to square with the proposals coming out of Congress and with his own rhetoric.

Even now, nearly half the costs of health care in the U.S. are paid for by government at all levels. Federal authority would only grow under any proposal in play.

A look at some of Obama's claims in his prime-time news conference:

___

OBAMA: "We already have rough agreement" on some aspects of what a health care overhaul should involve, and one is: "It will keep government out of health care decisions, giving you the option to keep your insurance if you're happy with it."

THE FACTS: In House legislation, a commission appointed by the government would determine what is and isn't covered by insurance plans offered in a new purchasing pool, including a plan sponsored by the government. The bill also holds out the possibility that, over time, those standards could be imposed on all private insurance plans, not just the ones in the pool.

Indeed, Obama went on to lay out other principles of reform that plainly show the government making key decisions in health care. He said insurance companies would be barred from dropping coverage when someone gets too sick, limits would be set on out-of-pocket expenses, and preventive care such as checkups and mammograms would be covered.

It's true that people would not be forced to give up a private plan and go with a public one. The question is whether all of those private plans would still be in place if the government entered the marketplace in a bigger way.

He addressed some of the nuances under questioning. "Can I guarantee that there are going to be no changes in the health care delivery system?" he said. "No. The whole point of this is to try to encourage changes that work for the American people and make them healthier."

He acknowledged then that the "government already is making some of these decisions."

___

OBAMA: "I have also pledged that health insurance reform will not add to our deficit over the next decade, and I mean it."

THE FACTS: The president has said repeatedly that he wants "deficit-neutral" health care legislation, meaning that every dollar increase in cost is met with a dollar of new revenue or a dollar of savings. But some things are more neutral than others. White House Budget Director Peter Orszag told reporters this week that the promise does not apply to proposed spending of about $245 billion over the next decade to increase fees for doctors serving Medicare patients. Democrats and the Obama administration argue that the extra payment, designed to prevent a scheduled cut of about 21 percent in doctor fees, already was part of the administration's policy, with or without a health care overhaul.

Beyond that, budget experts have warned about various accounting gimmicks that can mask true burdens on the deficit. The bipartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget lists a variety of them, including back-loading the heaviest costs at the end of the 10-year period and beyond.

___

OBAMA: "You haven't seen me out there blaming the Republicans."

THE FACTS: Obama did so in his opening statement, saying, "I've heard that one Republican strategist told his party that even though they may want to compromise, it's better politics to 'go for the kill.' Another Republican senator said that defeating health reform is about 'breaking' me."

___

OBAMA: "I don't know, not having been there and not seeing all the facts, what role race played in that. But I think it's fair to say, number one, any of us would be pretty angry; number two, that the Cambridge police acted stupidly in arresting somebody when there was already proof that they were in their own home, and, number three, what I think we know separate and apart from this incident is that there's a long history in this country of African-Americans and Latinos being stopped by law enforcement disproportionately."

THE FACTS: The facts are in dispute between black scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr. and the white police sergeant who arrested him at his Cambridge, Mass., home when officers went there to investigate a reported break-in. But this much is clear: Gates wasn't arrested for being in his own home, as Obama implies, but for allegedly being belligerent when the sergeant demanded his identification. The president did mention that the professor was charged with disorderly conduct. Charges were dropped.

___

OBAMA: "If we had done nothing, if you had the same old budget as opposed to the changes we made in our budget, you'd have a $9.3 trillion deficit over the next 10 years. Because of the changes we've made, it's going to be $7.1 trillion."

THE FACTS: Obama's numbers are based on figures compiled by his own budget office. But they rely on assumptions about economic growth that some economists find too optimistic. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, in its own analysis of the president's budget numbers, concluded that the cumulative deficit over the next decade would be $9.1 trillion.

Associated Press writer Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar contributed to this report.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

OMG Obama, Stop the Maddness!

A quick googling shows that family insurance coverage costs, on average, $10,728.  

Someone explain how this makes any sense to anyone other then or government?

"$59 billion in changes to the tax code that would help pay for the cost of efforts to cover the more than 40 million Americans without health insurance, including a substantial tightening of estate and gift tax rules.

Other new revenue raisers would affect life insurance products, limit certain accounting methods, and bar the paper industry from reaping a tax credit for a recycled fuel known as "black liquor."

Budget documents released Monday reiterate President Barack Obama's plans to create a $630 billion "health reform reserve fund" to help pay for the health-care efforts, which are expected to cost at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years. Tax provisions in the plan should cover $325.6 billion of the reserve fund, with the rest coming from savings to the federal government's health-related costs."

$59 billion to cover 40 million Americans... 

Specter ripping Jefferods about moving to Democratic party

Irony abounds!

Under My Bus!

Truely funny political humor!  GO ZO!

100 days of this!

Looks like WaPo has something:

He is spending more then anyone has ever. Plans on spending even more.  And its not his money...

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has pwnd him. Fidel Castro, just called him superficial. 

Originally he said, "We can't keep looking to the past. We've got to look to the future here. So I don't think it would serve any purpose to prosecute or investigate former administration officials on these interrogations the CIA did." All of a sudden he changes his mind! 

Obama doesn't know what he's doing, he has no clue what's going on in his own administration. Janet Napolitano said the 9/11 hijackers actually got into our country through Canada. The National Post in Canada has a piece asking how did this woman get her job? She says it's not a crime to illegally enter the country, she is in charge of Homeland Security! 

If Eric Holder or Conyers does investigations of former Bush administration officials, It will be about destroying and criminalizing policy circumstances with which you disagree. Nancy Pelosi signed off on all of this in 2002. When they were explained waterboarding and all this, nobody in Congress objected. So if Holder proceeds, he's going to have to send out subpoenas not just to the executive branch, he's going to have to send out subpoenas to the lawyers, the White House counsel and anybody else who had anything to do with this!

 Nobody's going to go work for the executive branch ever again.

During a photo-op with King Abdullah, he says, "I'm going to let Holder go ahead and do what he wants to do. If he wants to investigate these people in the Bush administration, fine.” (paraphrased) 

The White House press office was just blindsided by this. The director of communications in the White House, she quit. She resigned the White House! 

It's embarrassing incompetence and inexperience. 

Admiral Blair admitting the CIA received high value, lifesaving information from terrorists, while President Obama is condemning the same interrogations as immoral and counterproductive. 

President Obama is throwing grand White House parties with Kobe beef, a hundred bucks a pound, while telling the nation to cut back in order to survive the greatest economic downturn supposedly since the Great Depression.

Bowing to the king of Saudi Arabia!

Listening patiently and respectfully while Daniel Ortega talks for 50 minutes about the “criminal country” he leads, Obama does not stand up for his country at one point during the Summit of the Americas. 

He has run around the world and apologized for the greatest, most compassionate, most innovative and freedom-loving country in the world.

Then we have the nominations of five tax cheats to his cabinet, including the man who oversees the IRS. 
We have Obama's press spokesman, who makes a complete idiot of himself daily. 

He sends back a symbol of freedom, that bust of Sir Winston Churchill to Great Britain just after moving into the White House. 

He insulted the prime minister of England, the queen of England, with embarrassing, thoughtless gifts. 

We have the French president Sarkozy ridiculing Obama's messianic complex, inviting him to walk on water at Normandy beach. 

We have Iran taking a hostage, an American journalist, as Obama promises better relations. 

We have North Korea humiliating Obama with their missile launch. 

We have Obama putting the country in debt for generations to come while promising fiscal responsibility, offering up laughable budget cuts, 

Banning lobbyists from his administration, while appointing them left and right. 

Lying that Caterpillar would hire more with the stimulus bill, then watching while that company lay’s off thousands after the bill passes. 

He pledges to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. But then he keeps it open with no plan for its future. 
Proclaiming total transparency, while keeping secret who got the TARP funds, when, where, why. 

He is incapable of communicating without a teleprompter. 

He attacks a private citizen broadcaster from the White House. 

He makes a ham-handed attempt to nationalize the banks preventing financial institutions from paying back TARP money they don't need or want. 

He has made bad situations worse with car manufacturers, and the worst is yet to come. 

He has sparked hundreds of protests involving hundreds of thousands of Americans at tea parties regarding irresponsible government spending.

His Homeland Security chief labels peacefully demonstrating Americans and veterans as security risks. 
Moved the census over to the Commerce department to politicize that.

This was orignally my Rant on the Wizars blog.

Out spending the cuts and engaging the enemy.

“The administration’s new talk of trimming a meager .0025 percent from the $4 trillion federal budget just doesn’t square with its reckless record on borrowing and spending,”  “Washington Democrats have spent the past three months doling out more taxpayer dollars than every previous president combined, and the administration is clearly feeling the heat.”  --House Minority Leader John Boehner.

“More money has gone to Rep. John Murtha’s pet airport in Pennsylvania than the federal government will save over the next 90 days under President Obama,” --Eric Cantor

Thus Republicans point out the lack of spending control and propagandising of a trivial cut.  As we all know the Republican party knows all about lack of fiscal control.  Let's hope this is the start of actual commitment, for when they win back the Senate in 2010

Still in all, 100 million trimmed is $ 100 million.  If this is the start of going line by line, great!

Also, Obama meeting with all these Anti-American "leaders."  Most of these guys make me feel sick.  The approach President Obama is using makes me uncomfortable.  Yet, there is value in talking .vs. not talking. 

Like the Heritage Foundation, as it continues to put a Latin American team in place, the Administration needs to concentrate on four basic challenges

1. Exercise Caution on Cuba. President Obama must now give his new policy time to work and discourage Congress from seeking to unilaterally lift restrictions on U.S. tourism and end the embargo. He should continue to press for reform, drawing high-level attention to Cuba's human rights situation and emphasizing the need for a democratic transition on the island.
   
   
2. Keep Mexico on the Front Burner. Mexico is by far the most pressing regional challenge, one that requires the steady application of the Oval Office's influence. The Administration needs to focus on the delivery of promised anti-drug assistance. It can help by using the President to deliver a powerful message against drug abuse in the U.S. as a first step toward demand reduction.
   
   
3. Complete Free Trade Deals. The Administration should avoid shadowy rhetoric about "partnerships" and "a new era in the hemisphere" and seal the deal by working with Congress to deliver approval of free trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
   
   
4. Tough Love for Chávez, Morales, and Ortega. Latin America's populist-authoritarian left says it wants good relations and its own "restart button." The Obama Administration must develop a results-oriented, "show-me" policy in response. Security concerns, economic policy issues, and the loss of democratic freedoms are challenges that must be addressed if there is hope for genuinely constructive relationships to develop between the U.S. and nations governed by the Latin American left. Photo-ops and populist dramatics make good media story, but they accomplish littl
   

Charles Krauthammer, telling it like it is. Taking it to the "Man"

Charles Krauthammer, columnest for The Washington Post, has done an excellent job eliminating bias and spin from the above linked artical.

While the rest of the MSM spouts and spins off propaganda on how wildly sucessful or most beloved, hallowed, President Obamas triumph in Europe has been, Mr. Krauthammer has gone right down the middle.

It has been up to Radio and the New media to fill in the information void the MSM is creating, seemingly deliberately, around, beloved, hallowed, President Obama. 

We the people should NOT have to work so hard just to get the basics, but like it or not, it's the reality.

No Healthcare left behind.

77% of Americans feel the quality of their own health care is good. The 'wrong' bit is access and increasing costs.  The solution that President Obama touts will jettison the good stuff.

The Health Policy Consensus Group in a joint statement on Health Reform six seriously flawed heathcare ideas for change:

• A new government health insurance plan.
  
• An employer “play-or-pay” mandate.
  
• A uniform, government-defined package of benefits.
  
• A mandate that individuals must purchase insurance.
  
• A National Health Insurance Exchange extending federal regulatory powers over private insurance.
  
• Federal interference in the practice of medicine through a federal health board, comparative effectiveness review, and other government intrusions into medical decision-making.
  

Pres. Obama included $1.1 billion for comparative effectiveness research. This means  “those that are found to be less effective and in some cases, more expensive, will no longer be prescribed."  The decision is taken out of the hands of Doctors and Patients.  

This mirrors the UK system, which  produces some of the worst health outcomes in the industrialised world.  Where thousands of people are killed in hospitals for reasons unrelated to their original condition. 

The establishment of a “single payer” health care system would  lower payments for physician and health care providers. This would be lower incomes for physicians and reduce the supply of active physicians, impairing access to health care for all patients. 

More government might seem like a good solution to health care.  Unfortunatly, the government is horrid at running things.  We have to preserve what is good about our healthcare:

Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:

• Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
  
• Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
  
• More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
  
• Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).
  

Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report “excellent” health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as “fair or poor.”

Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.

Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either “fundamental change” or “complete rebuilding.”

Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the “health care system,” more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).

Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade. The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.

Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country. Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.

Imagine that we had created a Government Food Service. We make it "fair" and not on ability to pay, so foodstuffs would be rationed by the Feds. Each American had been allocated one butcher, one baker, one resturant etc. 

What would happen? Huge bureaucracy, duplication of effort, too much of this and not enough of that, the rise of a black market, and people going hungery. In other words, Government at its finest.

USA looses at the G20 .

Our Rookie President did not work for the USA's best interests at the G20.  Europeans did the best Chinese did the worst.  The G20 has agreed to increase the resources of the International Monetary Fund to $750 billion, to fund $100 billion for multilateral development banks, and to increase trade finance to poorer countries. 

The G20 claims this will grow to $5 trillion by the end of the year, raise output by 4 percent, and accelerate the change to a green economy.

If only we could learn from history, THIS DOES NOT WORK!   Development aid has been tried repeatedly since the 1940s: it has failed so many time that there is no reason to believe that it will work now. And claims that any of this spending will bring a ‘green economy’ into being ignore the  economic fallacies of the concept.

So the Europeans get regulations, Americans get a watered-down endorsement of stimulus spending, the Chinese get a bigger role in international financial institutions, and the developing nations get more politically corrupting development aid. 

So we got took.

Obama's Dumb stunts.

Obama gives the PM of England Gordon Brown a pathetic 25 DVD  ‘gift’, that is not playable in England.

Obama has tried to enter the White House through a window.

Obama nearly burned down his office when he lit the fireplace with the flue closed - the mantle burned, building was evacuated… the fire department extinguished the burning mantle. - 

Obama reads from the wrong teleprompter and thanked himself for inviting the Irish PM to the East Room of the White house.

Obama bumps his head getting into or out of the Presidential helicopter. (Maybe they should add Gerald Ford to those presidents he is being compared too?)

Obama does not understand a Profit and Earning ratio.

Obama stuns a Marine by not saluting him, before boarding the Marine One Helicopter - 

He tucks his shirt into his underpants.

Obama does not know who the President of France is.

The UK is having a field day with our President and his perpetual Gaffes.  I guess he is changing how the world views us...  for the worst...

I'm sure he will do a first rate job running GM...

New phrase today "Debt Bomb"

Hope and Change (read: Tax and Spend) has brought us to this little problem.

We are broke.  Not living within our means.  If it was wrong for Americans to borrow money earlier this decade to purchase a house they couldn’t afford, why Obama making the very same mistake?

The United Kingdom failed to attract buyers for $2.5 billion of 40-year bonds, the United States Treasury had the same difficulties with its sale of $34 billion worth of five-year notes and was forced to raise their interest rate to a much higher yield than had been anticipated. This came on the heels of Germany having two failed auctions of its bonds already this year.

Briefing.com had the following to say: "Treasuries were battered on the poor showing on the 5 year auction. The 5-yr was swung off to add over 8 basis points to its yield, while the 7-yr, which has its offering tomorrow, saw a beat down of over 9bps. The market has enough concerns about global supply and this ugly offering of the “relatively” safe, mid-duration notes adds to that jaundiced view."  

This is really, really, bad news.  The kind of news you should ask your representatives about.

Bloomberg reported on what this means: "President Barack Obama’s government is selling record amounts of debt to revive economic growth, service deficits, and cushion the failures in the financial system. Debt sales will almost triple this year to a record $2.5 trillion, according to estimates from Goldman Sachs Group Inc."

The Congressional Budget Office’s forecast is over $9 trillion in deficits in the next ten years. So the Treasury will be auctioning off $1 trillion worth of paper a year forever!

Will there come a point when we’ll have the same difficulty selling our debt as the U.K. had today and Germany has had twice this year? What happens then?

The Obama administration and a Democratic-controlled Congress as they continue to spend money faster than it can be printed.  They do NOT care!

The words they are a changin'

So President Obama has ended the "Global War on Terrorism."  and started the "Overseas Contingency Operation."

Oh and we no longer have to worry about "Toxic Assets"  those are now "Legacy Loans" or "Legacy Assets"

"Man Made Global Warming" is now a thing of the past look out for "Climate Change"

How about the term "Liberal"  that is so passe'  you need to be "Progressive"

Be very aware that the very words the policy makers are using, have changed into something other then what Webster has listed.  They are more mallible and have a warm fuzzy feel.

The MSM appears to be in cahoots as well, turning a blind eye to news and reporting propaganda in its place.

DVD gift Obama gave UK leader does not work in UK.

While not exactly a film buff, Gordon Brown was touched when Barack Obama gave him a set of 25 classic American movies – including Psycho, starring Anthony Perkins on his recent visit to Washington.

Alas, when the PM settled down to begin watching them the other night, he found there was a problem.

The films only worked in DVD players made in North America and the words "wrong region" came up on his screen. Although he mournfully had to put the popcorn away, he is unlikely to jeopardise the special relationship – or "special partnership", as we are now supposed to call it – by registering a complaint.

Why exactly is President Obama considered so bright?

Green Collar work

As I understand it, Green Jobs is the big thing.  That leads us to quite a few questions and exposing some myths:

Myth: Everyone understands what a green job is.
Reality: No standard definition of a green job exists.

Myth: Creating green jobs will boost productive employment.
Reality: Green jobs estimates include huge numbers of clerical, bureaucratic, and administrative positions that do not produce goods and services for consumption.

Myth: Green jobs forecasts are reliable.
Reality: The green jobs studies made estimates using poor economic models based on dubious assumptions.

Myth: Green jobs promote employment growth.
Reality: By promoting more jobs instead of more productivity, the green jobs described in the literature encourage low-paying jobs in less desirable conditions. Economic growth cannot be ordered by Congress or by the United Nations. Government interference - such as restricting successful technologies in favor of speculative technologies favored by special interests - will generate stagnation.

Myth: The world economy can be remade by reducing trade and relying on local production and reduced consumption without dramatically decreasing our standard of living.
Reality: History shows that nations cannot produce everything their citizens need or desire. People and firms have talents that allow specialization that make goods and services ever more efficient and lower-cost, thereby enriching society.

Myth: Government mandates are a substitute for free markets.
Reality: Companies react more swiftly and efficiently to the demands of their customers and markets, than to cumbersome government mandates.

Myth: Imposing technological progress by regulation is desirable.
Reality: Some technologies preferred by the green jobs studies are not capable of efficiently reaching the scale necessary to meet today’s demands and could be counterproductive to environmental quality.

Joke I just wrote.

Obamas Prepare to Plant White House Vegetable Garden!

They are starting with Geitner, Pelosi, Reed, Frank and Dodd...

*rim shot*  (now to wait for Leno to call)