To: Larry King

From: Mitch Berg

Re: Apologies

Mr. King,

For over two decades, I’ve mocked your USA Today newspaper column as a self-indulgent, stream-of-consciousness glob of senseless drivel. At one point or another, I may have thought to myself “it’ cant’ get any dumber than this”.

To my chagrin, I owe you an apology, Mr. King. To be fair to me, in my most toxic nightmares I had no idea that anyone had a column this really really stupid in them:

…you shouldn’t fret, dear hearts, if what you do doesn’t draw a big crowd or get written up in the papers. Be proud. If you’ve dedicated yourself to the tango, or playing drop-thumb banjo, or digging up ancient cities, or writing sonnets, you are beautiful, and please do not yearn for the bright lights. Those wombats reading the news off teleprompters are talking to the bedridden, the delusional and the criminal. The happy StairMaster president is on his way to a mansionette in Dallas, to be the decider of where to put the sofa. His successor, Mister Mambo, has cast his lot with Harvard and Yale and old Clinton hands, and soon enough, Lord knows, they will get the first of many comeuppances, and their shining faces will be chopfallen.

Mister Mambo?

As for me, I sat and wrote sonnets, including one about self-esteem.

Life is absurd. A man can count on that.

Here I am on the front page, standing alone,

Refusing to hide my face behind my hat,

Which, in my case, I do not even own.

MAN, 66, NABBED FOR PUBLIC EXPOSURE.

All I did was go take a leak in the bushes.

I didn’t run through the park with no clothes or

Flash anyone. Ridiculous. Absolutely atrocious.

The injustice! Some gumshoe at the P.D.

Was out to enhance his crime-stopping reputation

And now I am an outcast crying bootlessly

For the crime of emergency urination.

With fortune and men’s eyes I’m in disgrace

But you still love me and I refuse to hide my face.

Mr. King, I know what you’re thinking; there’s no way something like this would inspired by something as crass as public urination.

You, like I, would be wrong:

It was inspired, if you must know, by observing a man taking a leak in the bushes at a park where a Cuban band was playing, and a line of dancers formed impromptu next to the stage and did a lovely salsa step, so simple, graceful, slide slide turn slide, arms up, turn step step slide, and you had to think, O my God how beautiful we are. And beyond was the man disgracing himself, and he was beautiful, too.

Mr. King, I am so sorry. You read like Hemingway, taut and acerbic, compared to Keillor’s flabby drivel; indeed, while Jesse Ventura and Al Franken may be Minnesota’s greatest embarassments, Keillor must be closing in.

Please accept my apology. Write about toe corns and brooklyn bagel shops to your heart’s content. I have a newfound appreciation for your oeuvre.

That is all.

Victor Davis Hanson has an excellent article about the ironic incongruities of the past year.

He’s got ten. I had to start with this one – on the media’s grotesque double-standard re Sarah Palin and, in this case, Caroline Kennedy:

[Palin] surely didn’t give snap answers on foreign policy matters. In no short order, a woman who had five kids, a 16-year political career, and a successful governorship was reduced to a white-trash hack, the mother of a promiscuous teen, as awful rumors, trafficked in by liberal professionals, swirled about her own most recent pregnancy.

The mainstream media’s narrative was thus that glibness matters, 16 years of Alaskan politics don’t quite cut it for national office, and a candidate’s personal life is fair game, as the moose-hunting ex-mayor of Wasilla and her life-story attest.

OK, it’s easy to make fun of things you don’t understand – and if Chris Matthews or Jon Stewart don’t get hunting, they certainly don’t have the mental kilowattage to know that the Northern accent (made most famous in America by Palin and Frances McDormand in Fargo and not many more) is a dialect, not a sign of stupidity.

These same egalitarians in the media, however, do not seem to have a problem with Caroline Kennedy, soon perhaps to be anointed Senator from New York.

But on the basis of what? Political experience—zero.

Past elections? Zilch.

Eloquence? Nope. Ms. Kennedy drones on with “you know” and “I mean” dozens of times per minute. In comparison, Sarah Palin sounds like Demosthenes or Cicero.

I almost choked on that when I saw the infamous “y’know y’know y’know y’know y’know” video last week. I’ve noted in the past – I give speaker points. Dad was a speech teacher; I was in radio.

Palin, dialect notwithstanding, is an electrifying speaker. Not “fancy” electrifying, but she connects with an audience like very few people anywhere in politics. And Kennedy’s father, John F., was one of the great orators and communicators in American political history, up there with Reagan (and praise gets no higher).

Full disclosure? Hardly. We know nothing about Caroline’s vast fortune—where it exactly came from and how it is used. We learned far more about poor Mr. Palin’s decrepit old prop airplane than Ms. Kennedy’s stock portfolio and past contributions.

Perhaps the difference is good citizenship? I doubt it. Palin ran for offices; Kennedy often passed on voting entirely.

Is it doctrinaire politics? Again, I doubt it. Palin has taken on Republicans in Alaska, entrenched males, and indeed, on matters of energy, her own running mate John McCain.

Kennedy? I don’t think there a liberal dogma or progressive politician she has ever questioned.

Don’t bother them with impedimenta like “consistency with their own alleged beliefs”.

We laugh about Palin’s Idaho work-your-way-through-college sports journalism degree, especially perhaps in comparison to Kennedy’s Ivy League pedigree. But the latter is too often affirmative action for silk-stocking East Coast grandees. Take away money and nomenclature, and I doubt Kennedy would have gotten into such schools on her own merits. I offer such an unsupported generalization on the basis of her elocution: I turned out about 100 classics majors and MA students during 21 years at CSU Fresno, and without exception every single one (mostly poor or minority students without parents who went to college) in interviews sounded far more knowledgeable and grammatical than does Ms. Kennedy.

The irony in all this? Too obvious to state…

There’s much more. Read the whole thing.

Even Obama supporters are tired of his campaign’s money-grubbing ways:

Word has just been received at The Ticket that President-elect Barack Obama sent out an actual e-mail today without asking for more money from tired donors. No, really.

The N.Y. Times’ Katharine Seelye recently reported growing donor fatigue among eager and happy Obamaites to whom it has occurred that they’ve already given nearly $1 billion to buy all this change to believe in, even many long weeks after the ex-freshman senator won the White House already.

And when’s it gonna end? “I’m way over this thing,” Obama volunteer Abe Silk complained this week on Huffington Post. “You guys really want me to donate $25 to ‘make the inauguration a success’? What on earth does that even mean?”

Oh, Abe (and, by extension, all you dewy-eyed naifs that drank all that “hope and change” koolaid)!  You are not “way over” “this thing”.  It’s just begun.  Only it’s going to come out of  your paychecks pretty soon.   And the only way to be “over it” is to vote for…

…well, no, tu no puedes think about that, can you?

Observations on having an Ipod for the first time in almost a year:

1. I had no idea this song was so amazingly cool.  It’s almost a shame Patti Scialfa has to put up with all that “Mrs. Springsteen” stuff; she does some really great music.
2. The last time I heard this song  was probably thirty years ago, on an AM radio in a car in North Dakota on KFYR, and remember it as a sappy teenypopper love song.  So I downloaded it a few weeks ago (I have no idea why).  And it’s…a sappy teenybopper love song with the most over-the-top production since Queen discovered the sixty-four-track tape recorder.  Hyperactive strings, a Hammond B3 poking its nose and occasionally soaring behind the mix, and enough big black background singers (borrowed from Andre Crouch) to take on the Mormon Tabernacle choir (and singing overlapping, interleaving parts with more layers than one of those Hardee’s triple-decker grease burgers), it’s not just glorious, not just sappy; it’s gloriously sappy.
3. Metallica is great workout music.

That’s a start.

The Navy commissioned the USS George HW Bush on Saturday:

It’s been nearly eight years since the paperwork was signed, and the George H.W. Bush is poised to become a warship.

The carrier, the 10th and last of the Nimitz class, will be commissioned this morning at Norfolk Naval Station.

Both Presidents Bush will be on hand, along with a host of military and political leaders and 18,000 other spectators.

As part of the ceremony, the ship will be “brought to life,” with all the crew thundering aboard to take their places on deck. They’re ready.

“Everybody likes a new ship,” said Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Luckenwitz, a damage controlman who has spent the past three years helping train the ship’s on-board firefighters. “It’s like buying a new car. Everybody’s ready to get under way.”

Odd to read that the ship will be the last of ten units of the Nimitz class of carriers.  I remember the American left phumphering about how un-needed the Nimitz herself was, 30 years ago – I recall an episode of All In The Family where Rob Reiner launched into a self-righteous tirade on the subject, courtesy of Norman Lear…

…after whom, I think, the Navy should name a garbage scow.

Kids and I are settling down for the season premiere of 24 in about a half hour.

I hope Joel Surnow learned some lessons from Day Six; if we wanted DC intrigue, we’d flip over to West Wing.

I know, I know; it’s not unlikely that this season could be worse than last season – which was not even a pathetic shadow of Days 1-3.

But I hasten to recall that the first six hours last season were not half bad. So there’s potential.

Fingers crossed. Nacho fixings staged and ready for irradiation. Pop stored in fridge, ready to deploy.

Barack Obama has outlined his plans to create jobs in America via speeches during his inspiring campaign and his calming and reassuring tone as Occupier of the Office of the President Elect.

As economic conditions have evolved and Obama’s confidence in his magical powers has grown, he has revised his goals and ambitions for job creation over the past year.

In an effort to be a progressive source of economic guidance and as a public service, we have gathered and cataloged the President-Elect’s “Job” Creation Goals as outlined in his many and factual addresses to the nation.

Using the same mathematics and economic theory* employed by Obama’s advisers and cutting-edge spreadsheet technology, we have analyzed and extrapolated Barack Obama’s “job” creation predictions.

Here is a sampling of the data and its sources (emphasis mine-JR):

Feb 13, 2008 WASHINGTON – Democrat Barack Obama said Wednesday that as president he would spend $210 billion to create jobs in construction and environmental industries, as he tried to win over economically struggling voters.

Obama’s investment would be over 10 years as part of two programs. The larger is $150 billion to create 5 million so-called “green collar” jobs to develop more environmentally friendly energy sources.

December 24th, 2008 Dec. 24 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama is still four weeks away from inauguration, and already the size of government is growing. His initial goal of creating 2.5 million new jobs has been upped to 3 million, rising in lockstep with a proposed economic stimulus package.

We know money buys influence. Now we find out it can buy jobs as well.

If only it were that simple.

Jan 10, 2008 Jan. 10 (Bloomberg) — President-elect Barack Obama said his two-year plan to boost the U.S. economy will generate up to 4 million jobs, higher than his previous estimates, the biggest portion of them in construction, manufacturing and retail.

Here is our analysis:

As you can see, by this time next year, Barack Obama will have predicted the unprecedented creation of over 32 Million Jobs by the end of 2011. This is cause for great rejoicing and a renewed confidence in our political system.

The surplus of new jobs will actually allow many workers to choose more than one, although experts predict an executive order will limit job selection to two per worker and three per household for American citizens and  three per worker and five per household for illegal aliens undocumented workers that can document a contribution to the Obama ’08 campaign.

We will revise our estimates as new data is made available to us via the media.

*Hopey Changey^©

Dictators need to have a war to keep their nation in a state of crisis.  If they don’t have one, they need to manufacture one.

I was going to write about Obama’s state of the union speech yesterday – but I’m going to use King’s observations instead, since he’s both qualified and coherent:

“All we have to fear is the status quo,” I think, is how Ed characterized that. But I think much of this is hyperbole. Take for example “2 million out of work.” The context for this is a workforce over 140 million people. Through November, the 12 month percentage change in employt is a decline of 1.4%. (You can play with the data.) This doesn’t even match the 12-month percentage change in March 2002, hardly a period that called for the drama of this speech. Payroll employment declines of 2.5% or more have occured in both the 1974-75 and 1981-82 recessions. We may get to that level; I think that’s more likely than not some time in the next six months, at which point you will say “4 million out of work” rather than two. But let’s keep some perspective rather than dwell on “we could lose a generation of potential and promise.” That’s just bathos. Four million jobs lost sucks, but it’s not without recent precedent when the size of the economy is accounted for.That same perspective is needed elsewhere. 2.8 million more people involuntarily in part-time work? Take a look at the data. 25% of them are workers age 16-24. We don’t have data before 1994 for the unemployment series that includes part-time workers who wish they were full time (known as U-6), and we know it’s higher than it has been since we’ve tracked the current series. But it was pretty high in 1994, also not a date when we thought the end of the world was nigh.

King – an actual licensed economist, for those who don’t already know – goes on to show how bad the crisis at this moment is not, at least for most Americans.  Read the post.

The question:  why did Obama uncork a stemwinder on exactly how badly we all need his trillion-dollar hug?

Rahm Emanuel noted that the new administration didn’t want to waste a crisis, that they could pass things in crisis mode that wouldn’t get past Congress in normal times. The speech tries to elevate a normal recession into a crisis. In doing so it risks imposing a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist anymore when fiscal policy works through its lags.

See “The New Deal, Circa 1939”.

(And yes, I wrote this before I read Roosh’s excellent “Trillion Dollar Hug“, which you need to read now).

…of telling the US it couldn’t win in Iraq, Time Magazine needed to MoveOn to something new.  Something as rife with change as the Obama administration.

Like telling Israel it can’t win.

The more things change, the more we hope.

Obama gave a speech yesterday. Word has it (I didn’t watch or listen) he discussed the economy in no uncertain terms.

Let me guess though, I’ll bet he used the words “crisis” numerous times; I’ll bet he furrowed his eyebrows real good like and probably had a real ominous look on his face too.

Were ya scared?

Did he make you think you need him to save you? …that this crisis is too severe for you to solve it on your own? Did he speak of sweeping, decisive, massive and immediate action being required on the part of the federal government? Did you need a hug? A big government hug?

These days it seems like it is our patriotic duty to consume more. And if we don’t choose to spend more money ourselves, the government will do it for us.

Obama is building his case: You need big government. You need guys like him; guys that are smarter than you cuz they read more books, went to better schools and have more letters after their name. Guys that aren’t afraid to take massive, decisive action; to write big checks with someone else’s money.

These problems, despite being undeniably caused by liberal policies in the first place, must be solved by the government. The government must “create” three million “jobs.” The government is the answer, no matter what the question, when you’re a liberal.

Liberals can’t do anything if it doesn’t justify government’s growth and influence in our lives.

But wait a minute. Isn’t it excessive spending that got us into this mess in the first place? Spending more now seems like drinking Scotch to cure a hangover.

But what if the right thing to do right now is nothing?

Here and there are some small signs that the economy is at least bottoming — a crucial stepping stone to meaningful recovery.

New orders, employment, backlogs, and exports all ticked higher than the previous month.

The November factory-orders report showed non-defense capex rising at a 3.9 percent annual pace, the first increase in four months and the best gain in 10 months. Computer orders surged 12.5 percent.

Commercial construction rose 0.7 percent annually in November, and is up 12.1 percent over the past three months.

And in the November personal-income report, real disposable income jumped 1 percent for the month and is up 7.1 percent at an annual rate over the past three months. Real consumer spending in that report rose 0.6 percent in November.

Additionally, the credit freeze continues to thaw. The three-month LIBOR rate is all the way back to 1.4 percent. And corporate bond rates continue to decline, a signal that private capital markets are starting to function again. The 30-year mortgage rate is holding around 5.3 percent.

At a recent conference in San Francisco, academic economists were very pessimistic, expecting recession to last through the whole year. But easy money and low retail gas prices may be a lot more stimulative than the academics think.

The stock market says we’re already over half way through the recession, it’s up almost twenty percent since it’s low point in November.

Americans are already saving more. Banks are amassing cash which they will lend as soon as their balance sheets improve.

Unemployment has a long way to go to match Reagan-era suffering let alone Great Depression levels. Reagan came into office with 7.6% unemployment, it rose to 9.7% then fell to 5.5% on his watch.

Riddle me this: How did he do that?  How big was Reagan’s government stimulus? (It’s a trick question).

Obama’s fear mongering is designed to set the stage for the hero to enter. The damsel in distress is you, he’s going to rescue you, and we all know what the hero gets to do to the damsel once he rescues her.

It’s not enough for Obama to be the first African American President of the United States.

Obama needs a legacy, and in the annals of history, the great liberals, the ones with fist-pounding speeches and legacies, all did the same thing. Increase government, create ever more massive government spending and debt, and screw the next generation (or two or three).

Obama’s 9/11 is the economy and he is going to take the only action a liberal knows.

The economy will improve. The free-enterprise system will come to the rescue like it always does. Capitalism will survive. It may have started already. Obama just wants the credit for it.

You see liberals have just one lever in front of them, and they’re always itching to pull it whenever we give them the chance. Obama wants to pull it so hard, it will be in the history books.

The most galling thing about the Bush Administration was it gave the Dems – the party of Tip O’Neill and Ted Kennedy and Barney Frank – the opportunity to try to claim to be the party of fiscal responsibility with a straight face.

I told myself down all those long years “if, heaven forfend, those chattering chipmunks get into power again, they’ll revert to their true colors.  Of course, it’ll bankrupt the country…”

Of course, I was right…

President-elect Barack Obama warned of dire and long-lasting consequences if Congress doesn’t pump unprecedented dollars into the national economy, making an urgent pitch Thursday for his mammoth spending proposal in his first speech since the election.”In short, a bad situation could become dramatically worse” if Washington doesn’t go far enough to address the spreading crisis, the Democrat said as fresh economic reports showed an outlook growing increasingly grim.

…but it’s probably not worth bragging about.

So, all you “Hope and Change” voters; if your kids ask you “why can’t I find a job, and why does a house cost me 15% interest” one of these years, have you started working on your response yet?

(And yes, I know Bush spent like a crack whore with a gold card.  I was warning Republicans of this in 2000.  And there’s nothing about “a bad spender” that justifies “a worse spender”, so just (to coin a phrase) move on).

“National Talk Like A Pirate Day” – every September 19 – is fine and dandy and all.  But it’s kinda played out.

I think it’s time-ah to declare January 22 as “International Talk Like James Hetfield Day-ah!”

Last week, as Israel began its ground offensive, National Public Radio ran an interview with  a “Norwegian Doctor” who sounded as if he might have been Mike Malloy, or maybe Vanessa Redgrave.  They introduced the fellow as a “doctor”, without elaboration, as he fiercely and horrifically condemned the consequences of Israel’s attack.

I thought I smelled a rat.

I’m fairly sure the rat was this guy:

International media reports, including those from the BBC, CBS, CNN and FOX’s sister station Sky News, present Gilbert as an ordinary doctor.But a look at his record shows that Gilbert, 61, is a political activist and member of the Norwegian Maoist “Red” party, and he has been involved in solidarity work for the Palestinians since the 1970s. He has criticized the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders for refusing to take sides in conflicts.

Gilbert volunteers at the Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza with the Norwegian Aid Committee (NORWAC), an aid organization funded by the Norwegian government, and he has been interviewed by the media on a variety of issues. Israeli government officials have said Hamas hides weapons in the hospital where Gilbert works.

I’m ashamed to be Norwegian-American today.

To:  Jeff Fecke

From:  Mitch Berg

Re:  Apology

Jeff,

 Your appearance on Prager yesterday was not a real career highlight, let’s just say.

But while your premise started from a distortion, proceeded through a weak argument and, in the end, a disingenuous attempt to distance yourself from your own hours-old writing on the subject, your approach was at least not as puzzlingly silly as that of your guest-host, “Center for “Independent” Media” capo Robin “Rew” Marty…

I, too, think Dennis Prager has sex issues, but, unlike Fecke, I’m willing to say it’s likely because he’s really bad in bed.  See!  We can have lots of fun together.

…where “fun” equals really dim ad-homina. 

Wheeee!

Anyway, Jeff, I’m sorry. I  wrote too soon.

With the news of the Minnesoros “independent”‘s layoffs, it’s good to see that the “Center for Independent Media” is hiring…

…editors for the home office, to run all those “independent” news blogs:

TWI’s publisher, the non-profit Center for Independent Media is looking for two news editors to shape the editorial direction of a network of sites across the country. The jobs are based in Washington, in the same offices as TWI.Full job description and instructions on how to apply after the jump.

“Shape the editorial direction” of a bunch of sites all named “Independent”.

I’ll just let that rattle around the cranium for a bit.

…it’s time for the Minnesoros “Independent” to focus on the real enemy: those damn Christians.

Even Christians among them. Chris Steller compares Senator Burris’ uppity sense of faith to that of Michele Bachmann and Sarah Palin:

Democrats in the U.S. Senate appear ready to join God in backing Burris’s appointment by Illinois Gov. Rod “Nothing but Blue Sky” Blagojevich to join their ranks, it might be a good time to review who really calls the shots in American politics. After the jump, videos of Burris, U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin discussing the key role God played in their ascension to public office.

Christians who are uppity.

Big scoop there, Steller.

While the carnage at the Taj Hotel was the focus of world attention during the bloodbath last Thanksgiving weekend in Mumbai, the Nariman House synogogue was apparently the main target:

A senior police official, told [Indian website] DNA on condition of anonymity, that the interrogation of Mohammed Amir Iman Ajmal (aka Kasab) revealed as much. Just before entering the city, the terrorists’ team leader, Ismail Khan, briefed them once again about their targets. “But Khan briefed Imran Babar, alias Abu Akasha, and Nasir, alias Abu Umer, intensely on what to do at Nariman House,” the officer said.

When asked during interrogation why Nariman House was specifically targetted, Ajmal reportedly told the police they wanted to sent a message to Jews across the world by attacking the ultra orthodox synagogue.

I’ve been scouring the Hindi leftymedia for demands that India “respond proportionally” by attacking a mosque and a hotel. I seem to have found nothing.

It’s the Blagojevich burger:

It is the invention of Kuma owner Michael Caine, who once sold a Chicago City Council Burger, topped with foie gras. That was much tastier. But then, &*!% ’em: The Blago begins with a 10-ounce patty, a feisty foundation that remains nonetheless in the &#@$ background, marrying well with the *&^@# condiments; the patty is best ordered pale pink for maximum evocativeness. Next, the burger is topped with a very thick slice of bologna, ensuring every bite of beef is undercut by a mouthful of salty, startlingly bold baloney.The grandest touch, however, is the “bun.” Burger and bologna are held between grilled cheese sandwiches of Wonder Bread and processed American cheese.

The grace note: yellow mustard, squirted into the shape of a dollar sign.

The price? “Negotiable”:

Caine has sold about 70 since last week, and he won’t take less than $10.

“But if you want to pay more, sure.”

This is, after all, a &%$! valuable hamburger.

Last time I went to a burger joint, all I got was appreciation.

(Via Peg)

I haven’t followed Jeff Fecke much since he left the Minnesoros “Independent”.

But he (and Megan Carpenter) were on the Prager show yesterday, talking about their allegations that Prager advocates “marital rape” (by asking women to do, please, try to get into the mood once in a while).

Oh, you can listen to the show…

…or you can take Bogus Doug’s review and run with it.

The takedown:

Jeff Fecke on The Dennis Prager Show – Wednesday, January 7, 2008: “You know Dennis, I’ve been going back over my columns back over the break and I was wracking my memory to remember whenever I said you advocate marital rape. And I was wondering if you could cite it.”

The pin:

Jeff Fecke on his own blog, talking about his upcoming appearance on The Dennis Prager Show – Tuesday, January 6, 2008: “I will be on the Dennis Prager Show tomorrow — yes, you heard me right, the Dennis Prager Show — discussing his wonderful advice on how it’s a good wife’s duty to endure marital rape.”

I don’t agree with Prager on everything – capital punishment and the value of abstinence pledges jump to mind – but for goodness’ sake, if you’re gonna mix it up with the guy, bring you “A” game. Judging by the comments, even Jeff’s audience wasn’t impressed.

Whether you are a conservative, liberal or independent, or can’t find it with both hands, I can’t imagine anyone outside Democrats in Congress thinking highly of this proposal, highlighted in the Most Viewed Story of 2008 on InvestmentNews.com.

Powerful House Democrats are eyeing proposals to overhaul the nation’s $3 trillion 401(k) system, including the elimination of most of the $80 billion in annual tax breaks that 401(k) investors receive.

Powerful? Maybe so. Smart?

Well now, we know they wouldn’t be Democrats if they were smart, would they.

And here’s proof:

the director of the Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag, testified that some $2 trillion in retirement savings has been lost over the past 15 months.

A poor, certainly intentional and patently alarmist choice of words. I can’t corroborate my suspicion, but I’m convinced Orszag is a prodigy of Al Gore.

The market drops, like it does from time to time, and this one was a big one, but certainly no precedent, and $2 Trillion is “lost“. Someone with Orszag’s book-learnin’ credentials should know the difference between a presumably temporary (and albeit severe) fluctuation in the market, and a permanent loss.

The sky is not falling. The market will recover from the cluster of liberal social engineering and corruption that caused this crisis; this despite the fact that those culpable are still at the helm or advising the Occupant of The Office of the President Elect.

Orszag is on a mission.

House Education and Labor Committee Chairman George Miller, D-Calif., and Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee’s Subcommittee on Income Security and Family Support, are looking at redirecting those tax breaks to a new system of guaranteed retirement accounts to which all workers would be obliged to contribute.

Liberal Democrats have uncovered yet another avenue for government to invade our lives, confiscate our hard-earned dollars, and throw them down the same rat-hole that is the soon-to-be-insolvent Social Security Administration. It’s not the “nation’s 401k system.” It’s my 401k. It’s your 401k.

Under Ms. Ghilarducci’s plan, all workers would receive a $600 annual inflation-adjusted subsidy from the U.S. government but would be required to invest 5% of their pay into a guaranteed retirement account administered by the Social Security Administration. The money in turn would be invested in special government bonds that would pay 3% a year, adjusted for inflation.

The reason prudent investors choose to diversify into equities and bear their inherent risk is that historically over time that risk has returned a premium over “safer” investments that may have less volatility but don’t keep pace with inflation and therefore lose purchasing power.

In the mean time, these dollars are invested back into our economy unlike the dollars that would be “invested” by the government on your behalf. Most likely they would be stolen by greedy liberals with a penchant for spending other peoples’ money.

“I want to stop the federal subsidy of 401(k)s,” Ms. Ghilarducci said in an interview. “401(k)s can continue to exist, but they won’t have the benefit of the subsidy of the tax break.”

The colossal arrogance of Ms. Ghilarducci is beyond comprehension. Teresa, you ignorant slut. It’s not a subsidy. It’s our money.

401k’s will be a boon to federal coffers as most of the dollars invested in “the nations 401k system” will be taxed once distributed to the retiree. True to form, liberal democrats’ myopia prevents them from waiting that long. They want your money. They want it now.

401k’s have been a boon to future retirees and may be the sole source of retirement income for many hard-working and deserving Americans who will never ever come close to recovering their mandatory contributions to the mismanaged Social Security Administration.

Most people understand this simple concept.

Apparently Democrats don’t, or are counting on the fact that we’re too stupid to get it or too uninvolved to do anything about it.

As the bumper sticker says, “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.”

Twice the cost of a Zamboni at $160,000…

Toronto, Canada’s largest city, is slowly phasing out their Zambonis in favor of Finnish-made IceCats. So is the National Hockey League. And the reason is carbon monoxide: while the Zambonis run on propane or natural gas, the IceCats are all-electric. In an indoor arena, that can make all the difference: it’s no big surprise to read that a study in the American Journal of Public Health determined that replacing carbon-emitting resurfacing machines with electric ones would reduce the concentration of nitrogen dioxide in indoor arenas by 87%.

87% percent of what number? How much difference can a Zamboni or two make in a huge ice arena?

Who’d a thought you could make a Zamboni any uglier.

Is it just me, or is it ironic that the NHL is a spectacle featuring juiced up hockey players beating the piss out of each other while at the same time worrying about inhaling too much NO²?

Hysteria can be hysterical.

It was Saturday, January 7, 1989.

You might recall a couple of weeks ago – Wyatt, my omni-addicted roommate, decided to start selling cocaine from our hovel on the East Side of Saint Paul, to “pay up what he owed me” among other things.

I hadn’t had the highest hopes on that.

Like most things in life, the situation lived down to, and below, my least stringent expectations.

He hadn’t started paying the bills. He had, however, been dipping into the stock – so in addition to selling coke out of the house and from the bar during his evening “job” (as a a bouncer at a sleazy bar on University), he was starting to behave less rationally.

On the other hand, there was the never-ending entertainment of watching the parade of bimbos trooping through the house even faster. He’d occasionally bring home a floozy from a bar during the day, bring one home after his “shift”, and then have the girlfriend over after he shooed floozy #2 on her way.

But the bills? They went begging.

It was about 5PM. I’d just made a frozen pizza, and was watching some Kung Fu movie in the living room, on a ratty recliner that one of us had dragged home.

Wyatt slouched through from the kitchen. “I’m headin’ out to Fargo with Michelle”, he said, referring in his fake arklahoma accent to one of the semi-regular floozies “to the casino”. He was addicted, need I add, to gambling.

It’d be a mistake to say I “snapped”. But I had had about enough.

“You got money for blackjack?” I looked up from the TV. “Could you spare a buck or two for the rent or the NSP?”

Shane, sitting on the couch, looked at us.

“F**k you” Wyatt muttered, continuing toward the stairs.

“I’ll take that as a no?”

He turned around, and stomped back into the room, shoulders squared back, teeth gritted, standing right in front of the chair.

“F*WK YOU!” he bellowed.

“Uh huh”, I nodded my head. “I pretty well am, these days”.

“YOU ARE F**KING PATHETIC!” he bellowed. “YOU WANNA F*CK WITH ME?”, he said, grabbing the arms of the chair on either side of me, leaning over until his face was three inches from mine. “I WILL EAT YOU! THE STRONG EAT THE WEAK! AND YOU ARE THE WEAK!”

It smelled like booze.  His eyes looked coked-up.
Kick him in the nuts, I thought to myself. Buy yourself enough time to get out of the chair. Pull the knife, I thought, the lockblade that I kept in my back pocket and cut him up. Kill him.

Wyatt stood up and stomped to the stairs.

“Yeah, “strong”, Mister Addicted-To-Everything”, I muttered, standing up, reaching my hand into my back pocket for the knife just in case.

“FA*K YOU”, he bellowed. “THE STRONG EAT THE WEAK!”

Come back here and do something, you f****ng scumbag, I thought. Give me an excuse. I don’t care anymore.

“Wow”, Shane said, grinning grimly. Wyatt was into him for bill money, too.

“You need to move the f*ck out of here!”, I yelled.

“F*CK YOU!”, he yelled from upstairs.

“Pay the bills, or move out!”

“YOU MOVE OUT. THIS PLACE IS MINE!”

“Pay the bills or move out”, I yelled, stepping into my room. I slipped on my tweed jacket I wore to work.

The one with the little .22 pistol stuck deep in the pocket.

Wyatt had to go.

Ugh.

Bonus question:  how long ’til some “feminist” leftyblog calls Ms. Narayan a hero?

(Via Kouba.  Thanks.  Thanks for nothin’)

DFL petty poobah – a former DFL state legislator, in fact – on a state politics discussion forum:

As Minnesotans, we can be proud of our election system.

Take 100 random Minnesotans off the street.

Ask them “To the best of your knowledge, how did  the canvassing board and the secretary of state arrive at the conclusion that Norm Colemn’s 200-odd vote margin of victory on election night is now a 200-odd vote Franken lead?”

Take the correct answers, and express them as a percentage.

That’s how proud we can be.

Any bets?

Hint:  I, who follow this stuff as a political junkie, have no idea.