This article originally appeared at The American Thinker on 02/25/2009
Has it been but a single B.O. Presidential moon? It's hard to believe the sheer volume of hyperactive bumbling the Obama administration has crammed into the space of a mere 30 some days. Perhaps it's the technological superiority of the Obamanauts that has enabled them to ratchet up the level of administrative dysfunction so thoroughly.
Recall the dismay expressed by Obie One's staffers when they found that the White House technology apparently consisted of a few rickety abacuses and an intercom made of a series of tin cans cobbled together with string. While this primitive gear may have sufficed for the Bush administration to do their cipherin' out by the White House cement pond, it was woefully unacceptable to the hip new Prez and his Windy City Rollers.
With their exceptional technical wizardry, the new administration was able to nominate nearly twice as many Cabinet candidates as previous Presidential administrations, sometimes several to a single post. The nomination process has been the first truly bi-partisan effort by an American president, as Obama's selections have included both tax-payers and non-tax-payers.
As he hit the ground talking, our new chief executive was hardly remiss in promoting his appointments and policies. In fact, the Great Leader spent more than a third of his first month (11 days) on the road in an attempt to gin up support for his wobbly opening gambits. Obama emoted by radio address, press conference, town-hall meeting and even a bizarre interview with Al-Arabiya in an attempt to show what he believes is leadership right out of the gate.
Unfortunately, all his locutions just sound like more campaign rhetoric. What else can Obama do? Try to remember that when the only tool you have is a hammer, all of your problems begin to look like nails. What evidence do we have of BHO possessing any other skills relating to his new job? Better buckle in for 4 more years of detached, grandstanding flourish left untethered by an incurious media.
The Chicago crew has delivered a mixed bag at best in the foreign policy arena. On the plus side, Obama dispatched Hillary Clinton on a mission just about as far away as one can possibly get from the United States. Surprisingly, the normally pugnacious Mrs. Clinton has picked up on the new administration's developing two-fold diplomatic strategy characterized by the grandiose and self-effacing extension of olive branches, followed immediately by groveling. One might have expected an experienced politician with leftist credentials like Hillary's to carry a brief for the beleaguered Tibetans along on her visit with the Chinese Communists, but Ms. Foggy Bottom clearly acceded to the new Administration's priorities:
Clinton (sought) to focus on economic and environmental issues in Beijing, saying Washington's concerns about the human rights situation in China should not be a distraction from those vital matters.
Just keep turning yuan into dollars and we will forget about your little Tibetan problem: so nice to see such a principled stance from our new administration.
Likewise, the new kids on the Pennsylvania Avenue block are offering a fuzzy and nearly unilateral kind of nuclear disarmament in the face of Putin's muscling up on the Eastern Europeans and the various I-would-like-to-buy- a-vowel-istans. Obama's reaching out to the Iranians has accomplished precisely a demand for an elaborate act of contrition for our imagined Persian-directed sins as well as the end of our support for Israel.
With all the pro-Palestinians filling Obama's staff chairs, an independent observer might believe that he is considering tossing Israel under the bus, not that there is any room left down there. If it weren't for the providential squeaker of a victory by Bibi Netanyahu in the Israeli elections, the formerly committed Western alliance in the Middle East would resemble a beached school of 98 pound weaklings begging to have sand kicked in our faces. And the other guys have a lot of sand.
Of course none of the above is a top priority for the Hope & Changers. Just as in the Chicago Machine that birthed his political career, with Obama it's all about the Benjamins. And with the stimulating collusion of Pelosi and Reid, B.O. is rapidly making the Daley arm-twisters look like pikers. After what must have been a careful review of Karl Marx's Theory of Surplus Value , the Community-Organizer-in-Chief has begun the stimulation of the U.S. economy from rock-bottom up by holding town-hall meetings where the American Idle now get to engage in sympathy contests a la Queen for a Day. Henrietta Hughes? Come on down!
On the economic front, early indications suggest that the Obama administration will look to Brother Gettelfinger and the UAW for guidance, as the overpaid and over-benefitted union that drove our car industry into desperate shape has effectively solved Marx's Surplus Value dilemma: in the American auto industry, there is no surplus value. The value of the products manufactured these days is the same as its cost of production (or less.) If we leave it up to the Illini politicos, before long we won't even have to worry about capping CEO salaries: gross output production quotas can simply be assigned by the appropriate Federal Bureau. The Hurry-up & Changers have a similar cure in mind for the American banking system. And the health care system. And their sycophantic newspaper/media buddies. Ad nauseum ad infinitum.
All of this in B.O.'s first month, and this report barely begins to scratch the surface of his attempted Chicagofication of America. Our new President provides the perfect combination of hubris, narcissism, naïveté and unjustified self-confidence to continue to step well beyond the bounds of the limited mandate he acquired with his enormous campaign funds, the stilted lick-spittle media coverage, and unquestioning support from youths and minorities. Continuing attempted change at this pace will assure the rapid expenditure of Obama's diminishing political capital. Can you say Jimmy Carter?
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Quote of the Week
Rasputin, a Siberian peasant, was a televangelist. TV had not been invented however, so he had to swindle people one at a time.
P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich, A Treatise on Economics, 1996
P.J. O'Rourke, Eat the Rich, A Treatise on Economics, 1996
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Obama's Airness Doctrine
As soon as the Obama juggernaut began to transition away from the campaign mode and into governing, the slobbering Obie media began humming with talk of the great pragmatism of The Politician Formerly Known as The One. Getting down to the nuts and bolts of cabinet selection and legislative enactment was expected to have a grounding effect. It seemed unlikely we would be treated to the grandiose claims of Barry’s loftiest campaign hyperbole:
“this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D912VD200&show_article=1,
Well, maybe not.
In an interview with Lisa P. Jackson, Obama’s new E.P.A. administrator, she suggested that the agency
is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet. http://68.142.200.12/us.f397.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_662040_ADRqv9EAADGbSZ0kRQsMyCJdLTk&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=E.P.A.+Expected+to+Regulate+Carbon+Dioxide+and+Other+Heat-Trapping+Gases+-+NYTimes.com.htm&cred=.XRXdF1VjvxWFXKunovVZG0gYP5cK9T302PRVqWHAHn_OF40mKmBjBz6AAu7iTFtdfsyz1xT8Pal0XCzs1HAOutNaP79INq6cBp_oi5QElgs&ts=1235040611&partner=ymail&sig=vS7EifhZ4FsdxFzLpbbTpQ--
Not quite prepared to tackle the oceans, the Obamalibs are nonetheless quite ready to provide us with some inhalation therapy.
Ben LaBolt, described as a White House Spokesman (and not a French superhero) added ominously:
If the environmental agency determines that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, it would set off one of the most extensive regulatory rule makings in history.
Someone should alert the plants and trees that inhale carbon dioxide just as we homo sapiens take up oxygen.
No word in this report concerning the new Administration’s position on that other, as yet non-controversial, gaseous potential pollutant: Oxygen. If the New Democrats in charge decide to commence regulating the oxygen supply, look for the emphasis to focus on red states. This is surely only the beginning of Obama’s Airness Doctrine.
“this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal.”
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D912VD200&show_article=1,
Well, maybe not.
In an interview with Lisa P. Jackson, Obama’s new E.P.A. administrator, she suggested that the agency
is expected to act for the first time to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that scientists blame for the warming of the planet. http://68.142.200.12/us.f397.mail.yahoo.com/ya/securedownload?clean=0&fid=Inbox&mid=1_662040_ADRqv9EAADGbSZ0kRQsMyCJdLTk&pid=2&tnef=&prefFilename=E.P.A.+Expected+to+Regulate+Carbon+Dioxide+and+Other+Heat-Trapping+Gases+-+NYTimes.com.htm&cred=.XRXdF1VjvxWFXKunovVZG0gYP5cK9T302PRVqWHAHn_OF40mKmBjBz6AAu7iTFtdfsyz1xT8Pal0XCzs1HAOutNaP79INq6cBp_oi5QElgs&ts=1235040611&partner=ymail&sig=vS7EifhZ4FsdxFzLpbbTpQ--
Not quite prepared to tackle the oceans, the Obamalibs are nonetheless quite ready to provide us with some inhalation therapy.
Ben LaBolt, described as a White House Spokesman (and not a French superhero) added ominously:
If the environmental agency determines that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant to be regulated under the Clean Air Act, it would set off one of the most extensive regulatory rule makings in history.
Someone should alert the plants and trees that inhale carbon dioxide just as we homo sapiens take up oxygen.
No word in this report concerning the new Administration’s position on that other, as yet non-controversial, gaseous potential pollutant: Oxygen. If the New Democrats in charge decide to commence regulating the oxygen supply, look for the emphasis to focus on red states. This is surely only the beginning of Obama’s Airness Doctrine.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Totally Political Science
Al Gore’s politically correct culte verte really has nothing to do with science, but it continues to fill the slender science sections of our mainstream media outlets. Thankfully we find the news this week loaded with the results of actual scientific inquiry. Our task here at Totally Political Science is to find the intersection of politics and science and report them without poking our tongues through our cheeks.
The National Science Foundation released a fascinating report on the discovery of the remains of an enormous prehistoric snake:
Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas seem like garter snakes.
Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114112
Now that’s a snake, son! An ophidian this large would barely fit through your office door and laying flat, would stand hip-high to the average man. To determine just how these ancient reptiles became so huge, scientists turned to an examination of the earth’s temperature 60 million years ago when this behemoth still slithered the earth:
Scientists have long known of a rough correlation between a period or epoch's temperature and the size of its poikilotherms [cold-blooded creatures]," said Paul Filmer, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Earth Sciences, which co-funded the research. "As Earth's temperature increases, so does the upper size limit on poikilotherms." (ibid)
Researchers determined that the earth’s mean temperature must have been 7-10 degrees warmer back during Super-slinky’s hey-day. There was no correlation found in this report between the earth’s current slightly increasing temperature (reportedly 1 degree hotter in the last century http://news.cnet.com/Earths-temperature-at-400-year-high/2100-11395_3-6087108.html and the rapid expansion in girth of the world’s largest pork-ilotherm, Al Gore. There was neither any conjecture in the report regarding the selection of the Latin term, titanoboa cerrejonensis for the ancient basilisk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisk. It would seem more fitting that we name it after the biggest snake currently thriving on our planet: and Giganaconda chuckschumerensis really has a certain ring to it.
Moving up what the Darwinists call the evolutionary ladder in the news, we find a report regarding the order Chiroptera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat, specifically the rodent- like flying mammals we refer to commonly as bats. A scourge is ravaging the caved communities of bats hibernating in northern New York and Vermont. The creepy little critters are dying off in droves. Scientists are puzzling out the cause:
The most obvious symptom involved in the die-off is a white fungus encircling the noses of some, but not all, of the bats.
Bat with white nose syndrome (Photo courtesy West Virginia Association for Cave Studies)
Called "white nose syndrome," the fungus is believed to be associated with the problem, but it may not contribute to the actual cause of death. (http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-31-094.asp)
The disease has thus far been affecting primarily four species of bats:
Indiana bats, a state and federally endangered species, are perhaps the most vulnerable….Eastern pipistrelle, northern long-eared and little brown bats are also dying. Little brown bats, the most common hibernating species in the state, have sustained the largest number of deaths. (ibid)
Therein lies the expected rub. Reports suggest that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has gotten wind of the near epidemic and is suspicious of the origins of the disease: “Just like the CIA helped distribute cocaine and crack in the inner cities to powder the noses of young black men, now those same powerful forces are dusting up the noses of Chiroptero-Americans-especially the little brown ones!”
No word yet on whether Wright or his doppelganger the Reverend Al Sharpton are planning demonstrations at the mouths of New York caves. Both ministers are thought to be consulting with former Washington D.C. Mayor, Marion Barry, Jr. to strategize. Barry is, of course, an expert in the field of nasally ingested powdery substances.
Finally, from the European insect world (pardon the redundance), we find a study demonstrating how a cagey species of caterpillar gains the royal treatment from ant colonies by mimicking the noises made by their queen:
Ants of the species Myrmica schencki can be fooled into carrying certain caterpillars into the colony nurseries where the fakers enjoy full care and five-star dining, explains Jeremy Thomas of the University of Oxford in England. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40606/title/Caterpillar_noise_tricks_ants_into_service_
This caterpillar-with-ant-queen-microphone shtick is so convincing to the worker ants, that the imposters are given treatment preferable to that given their own species:
Queen-mimicry could explain the VIP treatment caterpillars receive in the ant colony. “Quite often they’re treated as superior beings,” Thomas says. In a crisis, worker ants rescue caterpillars before a regular ant brood. And in famine, workers will kill their own brood and feed it to the caterpillar. Ibid
This type of behavior, when exhibited in supposedly more highly evolved species, would help explain the results of the 2008 American Presidential election. The Democrat candidate, Barack Obama, by making sounds that worker (and should-be working) humans interpreted as the sounds of their leaders, gave Obama preferential treatment (especially in the media) and protection from the vicissitudes of having to actually demonstrate his ability to do anything. Just making the right noises was all that was required for Obama to secure the American homo sapiens equivalent of the ant-queen’s throne.
Investigation of the methods of sound production for the comparative species is particularly enlightening:
Advances in miniature electronics made the new study possible. Specially built ant-scale microphones and speakers allowed researchers to record both queen and worker ants under normal conditions and then play back the noises and observe ant behavior.
To a human ear, queens and caterpillars don’t sound at all similar, Thomas warns. Yet ants perceive noises differently, picking up vibrations with sensors in the legs. Ibid
This revelation helps explain the Chris Mathews “tingle up my leg” syndrome, experienced each time the Hardball anchor hears Barack Obama speak. Little did we know that this syndrome was just an evolutionary throwback to the response of an ancestral species to communicable chicanery. One wonders just how many Obamaniacs are still interpreting the messages from the New President femurally.
That’s all we have this week from the realm of ants, bats, snakes and Democrats. Look for more Totally Political Science next week on these same pages.
The National Science Foundation released a fascinating report on the discovery of the remains of an enormous prehistoric snake:
Scientists have recovered fossils from a 60-million-year-old South American snake whose length and weight might make today's anacondas seem like garter snakes.
Named Titanoboa cerrejonensis by its discoverers, the size of the snake's vertebrae suggest it weighed 1,140 kilograms (2,500 pounds) and measured 13 meters (42.7 feet) nose to tail tip. http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114112
Now that’s a snake, son! An ophidian this large would barely fit through your office door and laying flat, would stand hip-high to the average man. To determine just how these ancient reptiles became so huge, scientists turned to an examination of the earth’s temperature 60 million years ago when this behemoth still slithered the earth:
Scientists have long known of a rough correlation between a period or epoch's temperature and the size of its poikilotherms [cold-blooded creatures]," said Paul Filmer, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Earth Sciences, which co-funded the research. "As Earth's temperature increases, so does the upper size limit on poikilotherms." (ibid)
Researchers determined that the earth’s mean temperature must have been 7-10 degrees warmer back during Super-slinky’s hey-day. There was no correlation found in this report between the earth’s current slightly increasing temperature (reportedly 1 degree hotter in the last century http://news.cnet.com/Earths-temperature-at-400-year-high/2100-11395_3-6087108.html and the rapid expansion in girth of the world’s largest pork-ilotherm, Al Gore. There was neither any conjecture in the report regarding the selection of the Latin term, titanoboa cerrejonensis for the ancient basilisk http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basilisk. It would seem more fitting that we name it after the biggest snake currently thriving on our planet: and Giganaconda chuckschumerensis really has a certain ring to it.
Moving up what the Darwinists call the evolutionary ladder in the news, we find a report regarding the order Chiroptera http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat, specifically the rodent- like flying mammals we refer to commonly as bats. A scourge is ravaging the caved communities of bats hibernating in northern New York and Vermont. The creepy little critters are dying off in droves. Scientists are puzzling out the cause:
The most obvious symptom involved in the die-off is a white fungus encircling the noses of some, but not all, of the bats.
Bat with white nose syndrome (Photo courtesy West Virginia Association for Cave Studies)
Called "white nose syndrome," the fungus is believed to be associated with the problem, but it may not contribute to the actual cause of death. (http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jan2008/2008-01-31-094.asp)
The disease has thus far been affecting primarily four species of bats:
Indiana bats, a state and federally endangered species, are perhaps the most vulnerable….Eastern pipistrelle, northern long-eared and little brown bats are also dying. Little brown bats, the most common hibernating species in the state, have sustained the largest number of deaths. (ibid)
Therein lies the expected rub. Reports suggest that the Reverend Jeremiah Wright has gotten wind of the near epidemic and is suspicious of the origins of the disease: “Just like the CIA helped distribute cocaine and crack in the inner cities to powder the noses of young black men, now those same powerful forces are dusting up the noses of Chiroptero-Americans-especially the little brown ones!”
No word yet on whether Wright or his doppelganger the Reverend Al Sharpton are planning demonstrations at the mouths of New York caves. Both ministers are thought to be consulting with former Washington D.C. Mayor, Marion Barry, Jr. to strategize. Barry is, of course, an expert in the field of nasally ingested powdery substances.
Finally, from the European insect world (pardon the redundance), we find a study demonstrating how a cagey species of caterpillar gains the royal treatment from ant colonies by mimicking the noises made by their queen:
Ants of the species Myrmica schencki can be fooled into carrying certain caterpillars into the colony nurseries where the fakers enjoy full care and five-star dining, explains Jeremy Thomas of the University of Oxford in England. http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/40606/title/Caterpillar_noise_tricks_ants_into_service_
This caterpillar-with-ant-queen-microphone shtick is so convincing to the worker ants, that the imposters are given treatment preferable to that given their own species:
Queen-mimicry could explain the VIP treatment caterpillars receive in the ant colony. “Quite often they’re treated as superior beings,” Thomas says. In a crisis, worker ants rescue caterpillars before a regular ant brood. And in famine, workers will kill their own brood and feed it to the caterpillar. Ibid
This type of behavior, when exhibited in supposedly more highly evolved species, would help explain the results of the 2008 American Presidential election. The Democrat candidate, Barack Obama, by making sounds that worker (and should-be working) humans interpreted as the sounds of their leaders, gave Obama preferential treatment (especially in the media) and protection from the vicissitudes of having to actually demonstrate his ability to do anything. Just making the right noises was all that was required for Obama to secure the American homo sapiens equivalent of the ant-queen’s throne.
Investigation of the methods of sound production for the comparative species is particularly enlightening:
Advances in miniature electronics made the new study possible. Specially built ant-scale microphones and speakers allowed researchers to record both queen and worker ants under normal conditions and then play back the noises and observe ant behavior.
To a human ear, queens and caterpillars don’t sound at all similar, Thomas warns. Yet ants perceive noises differently, picking up vibrations with sensors in the legs. Ibid
This revelation helps explain the Chris Mathews “tingle up my leg” syndrome, experienced each time the Hardball anchor hears Barack Obama speak. Little did we know that this syndrome was just an evolutionary throwback to the response of an ancestral species to communicable chicanery. One wonders just how many Obamaniacs are still interpreting the messages from the New President femurally.
That’s all we have this week from the realm of ants, bats, snakes and Democrats. Look for more Totally Political Science next week on these same pages.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
The Bill Gates Mosquito Circus
This article was first published at The American Thinker on 02/08/2009
"Malaria is spread by mosquitoes," Gates said while opening a jar onstage at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference - a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars.
"I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected." (Fox News)
Historically a staunch supporter of free enterprise, Bill Gates has battled the regulators and his competitors every step of the way to maintain his Microsoft patents and to continue to profit from them. Since his incredible fortune has matured, Gates has turned to philanthropy, donating literally billions to a bevy of charitable causes. The Microsoft founder exhibits the occasional bout of quirkiness however, which one might expect from the uber-nerd who brainstormed his way to status as the richest man on the planet.
His latest stroll through the news, however, involves something like a parlor trick and seems more suited to the Howard Hughes school of eccentric billionaires. To make his point about the deadly and fearsome plague of malaria, Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes on the unsuspecting crowd at the Technology, Entertainment Design Conference in Long Beach, California. Did Gates plan on infecting some rich folks to prove his point? The answer is yes, although Gates quickly pointed out that the pests released were not malarial. Mr. Moneybags only intended to infect his audience with guilt. And guilt-inducement is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel. It has become the go-to move for so-called progressives when intellectual argument fails and one can't muster the facts to support one's case.
While the cause of eradicating malaria remains noble, the Gates Foundation apparently failed to get the Rachel Carson memo so widely distributed in the non-Sierra Club press. According to eFluxMedia:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are great supporters of finding effective treatments for malaria, and ultimately eradicating the disease by 2015. The Foundation is currently working with partners around the world to help discover and develop malaria vaccines, in addition to working on developing effective prevention strategies.
One has to admit, his intentions are good. Providing paving stones on the road to hell is the ultimate moral justification for most liberal causes: results don't matter, just having significant compassion. This focus on what Ken Wilber calls Idiot Compassion enables liberal thinkers to support abortion but reject the death penalty for serial killers or to whine about the disproportion of an Israeli response to decades of terrorist attacks. Or to remain mindlessly in support of the ban on DDT when it's implementation could save millions of lives.
In this case, the good intentions of The Gates Foundation overlook the simple fact that their efforts are redundant: Malaria was nearly eradicated in the 1960's. And then came Rachel Carson and her wrong-headed book, Silent Spring. Since Ms. Carson's tome was published, spring has been permanently silent for millions of Africans:
Rachel Carson's major impact on the planet has been to discourage the use of a safe, cheap pesticide called DDT to suppress disease-bearing mosquitoes. North America and Europe used DDT to eradicate malaria. After our children were safe, we told the Third World not to use it because it might harm their bird populations.
The absence of DDT has led to the needless deaths of at least 30 million people from malaria and yellow fever in the tropics. (Five times as many as Hitler killed in his concentrations death camps, albeit inadvertently). Most of them were helpless African children. In addition, malaria has been allowed to blight the lives of perhaps 1 billion chronic malaria sufferers, who are too often unable to work and further erode economic resources by requiring family nursing care. The millions of malaria cases in the tropics may, just by themselves, explain half of the poverty and human degradation on the planet today.
Ms. Carson's misguided compassion for a few species of birds which might possibly have been harmed by DDT made her an inspiration to the proto-PETA types who helped found the modern environmental movement. And who do you suppose filled the seats in the auditorium where Gates made his unorthodox demonstration? Right. Environmentalist wackos who would never approve of the use of DDT, regardless of its proven safety and effectiveness:
One of the most effective Third World uses of DDT is to spray the inside of homes. It's the most cost-effective mosquito repellent known. Instead of a mosquito entering the home; biting someone; spreading the disease; and dying hours later, the mosquito never comes in. One application every six months is enough to reduce malaria rates by 60 percent. DDT is the only highly effective strategy we have for suppressing this massive problem. If malaria made a comeback in America, the EPA would have to re-register DDT.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is now offering modest funding for the indoor use of DDT in poor tropical countries-30 years late.
I know I am no Bill Gates, but the solution looks disarmingly simple from here: Hey Bill: put down the mosquito circus and write a large check to the U.S. Agency for International Development. (Feel free to consult with Timothy Geithner on the required # of 0's.) You can afford it. Oh, and come out publicly for the reversal of the beatification of Rachel Carson.
"Malaria is spread by mosquitoes," Gates said while opening a jar onstage at the Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference - a gathering known to attract technology kings, politicians, and Hollywood stars.
"I brought some. Here I'll let them roam around. There is no reason only poor people should be infected." (Fox News)
Historically a staunch supporter of free enterprise, Bill Gates has battled the regulators and his competitors every step of the way to maintain his Microsoft patents and to continue to profit from them. Since his incredible fortune has matured, Gates has turned to philanthropy, donating literally billions to a bevy of charitable causes. The Microsoft founder exhibits the occasional bout of quirkiness however, which one might expect from the uber-nerd who brainstormed his way to status as the richest man on the planet.
His latest stroll through the news, however, involves something like a parlor trick and seems more suited to the Howard Hughes school of eccentric billionaires. To make his point about the deadly and fearsome plague of malaria, Gates released a glass full of mosquitoes on the unsuspecting crowd at the Technology, Entertainment Design Conference in Long Beach, California. Did Gates plan on infecting some rich folks to prove his point? The answer is yes, although Gates quickly pointed out that the pests released were not malarial. Mr. Moneybags only intended to infect his audience with guilt. And guilt-inducement is the last refuge of the liberal scoundrel. It has become the go-to move for so-called progressives when intellectual argument fails and one can't muster the facts to support one's case.
While the cause of eradicating malaria remains noble, the Gates Foundation apparently failed to get the Rachel Carson memo so widely distributed in the non-Sierra Club press. According to eFluxMedia:
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are great supporters of finding effective treatments for malaria, and ultimately eradicating the disease by 2015. The Foundation is currently working with partners around the world to help discover and develop malaria vaccines, in addition to working on developing effective prevention strategies.
One has to admit, his intentions are good. Providing paving stones on the road to hell is the ultimate moral justification for most liberal causes: results don't matter, just having significant compassion. This focus on what Ken Wilber calls Idiot Compassion enables liberal thinkers to support abortion but reject the death penalty for serial killers or to whine about the disproportion of an Israeli response to decades of terrorist attacks. Or to remain mindlessly in support of the ban on DDT when it's implementation could save millions of lives.
In this case, the good intentions of The Gates Foundation overlook the simple fact that their efforts are redundant: Malaria was nearly eradicated in the 1960's. And then came Rachel Carson and her wrong-headed book, Silent Spring. Since Ms. Carson's tome was published, spring has been permanently silent for millions of Africans:
Rachel Carson's major impact on the planet has been to discourage the use of a safe, cheap pesticide called DDT to suppress disease-bearing mosquitoes. North America and Europe used DDT to eradicate malaria. After our children were safe, we told the Third World not to use it because it might harm their bird populations.
The absence of DDT has led to the needless deaths of at least 30 million people from malaria and yellow fever in the tropics. (Five times as many as Hitler killed in his concentrations death camps, albeit inadvertently). Most of them were helpless African children. In addition, malaria has been allowed to blight the lives of perhaps 1 billion chronic malaria sufferers, who are too often unable to work and further erode economic resources by requiring family nursing care. The millions of malaria cases in the tropics may, just by themselves, explain half of the poverty and human degradation on the planet today.
Ms. Carson's misguided compassion for a few species of birds which might possibly have been harmed by DDT made her an inspiration to the proto-PETA types who helped found the modern environmental movement. And who do you suppose filled the seats in the auditorium where Gates made his unorthodox demonstration? Right. Environmentalist wackos who would never approve of the use of DDT, regardless of its proven safety and effectiveness:
One of the most effective Third World uses of DDT is to spray the inside of homes. It's the most cost-effective mosquito repellent known. Instead of a mosquito entering the home; biting someone; spreading the disease; and dying hours later, the mosquito never comes in. One application every six months is enough to reduce malaria rates by 60 percent. DDT is the only highly effective strategy we have for suppressing this massive problem. If malaria made a comeback in America, the EPA would have to re-register DDT.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is now offering modest funding for the indoor use of DDT in poor tropical countries-30 years late.
I know I am no Bill Gates, but the solution looks disarmingly simple from here: Hey Bill: put down the mosquito circus and write a large check to the U.S. Agency for International Development. (Feel free to consult with Timothy Geithner on the required # of 0's.) You can afford it. Oh, and come out publicly for the reversal of the beatification of Rachel Carson.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Obama Struggling to Find Photo-Op Republicans
This article was first pubished at The American Thinker on 02/02/2009:
Looks like President Barack Obama has got another think coming. The Acorn Wonder is trying a combination of bombardment and enticement to gain bipartisan support needed to give him cover for the Pelosi Pork Stimulator 2009. Obama's display of less than gracious disrespect ("I won") for the formerly wobbly guys across the aisle fell flatter than Caroline Kennedy's political EKG. The Congressional GOP bucked up and left Obama and Pelosi to garner all the accolades (or all the blame) for the results of this porcine enhancer.
Even the fact of zero Republican support for the bill couldn't wipe the rictal grin off the face of Nancy Pelosi as she helped ram the Pork Stimulator through Congress on the basis of the more plebian chamber's overwhelming Democrat majority. In celebration of the Democrats' pyrrhic victory, BO Plenty had a bipartisan soiree for Congressional leaders over to the White House. Even tempting the opposition with expensive wagyu steaks wasn't flying however, as the report out of the American equivalent of the House of Lords suggests that Pelosi's Pork may need a bit of Viagra. Mitch McConnell certainly didn't candy-coat it:
"I can't believe that the president isn't embarrassed about the products that have been produced so far."
While President Obama may be wet behind the ears, he is surrounded by enough experience to help him recognize that when even that old aisle-crosser hisself, John McCain, refuses to play along, the chances of garnering bipartisan support are between slim and none. If the Democrats remain arrogant enough to take their chances and shoulder all the responsibility for this Calydonian Boar of a bill, a slim chance remains that one of the Northeastern Republicans will provide token support for the Pelosian fiasco. It probably wouldn't hurt the careers of Olympia Snowe (RINO-ME), Susan Collins(Ditto) or Obama's new buddy, Gregg Judd(RINO-NH-and probably Commerce Secretary) to appear in flagrante de picto standing behind President BO Plenty as he signs the equivalent of an adjustable-rate, no document, sub-prime mortgage on our grandchildren's future. It looks like that's the only cover Obama is likely to get, if any.
Looks like President Barack Obama has got another think coming. The Acorn Wonder is trying a combination of bombardment and enticement to gain bipartisan support needed to give him cover for the Pelosi Pork Stimulator 2009. Obama's display of less than gracious disrespect ("I won") for the formerly wobbly guys across the aisle fell flatter than Caroline Kennedy's political EKG. The Congressional GOP bucked up and left Obama and Pelosi to garner all the accolades (or all the blame) for the results of this porcine enhancer.
Even the fact of zero Republican support for the bill couldn't wipe the rictal grin off the face of Nancy Pelosi as she helped ram the Pork Stimulator through Congress on the basis of the more plebian chamber's overwhelming Democrat majority. In celebration of the Democrats' pyrrhic victory, BO Plenty had a bipartisan soiree for Congressional leaders over to the White House. Even tempting the opposition with expensive wagyu steaks wasn't flying however, as the report out of the American equivalent of the House of Lords suggests that Pelosi's Pork may need a bit of Viagra. Mitch McConnell certainly didn't candy-coat it:
"I can't believe that the president isn't embarrassed about the products that have been produced so far."
While President Obama may be wet behind the ears, he is surrounded by enough experience to help him recognize that when even that old aisle-crosser hisself, John McCain, refuses to play along, the chances of garnering bipartisan support are between slim and none. If the Democrats remain arrogant enough to take their chances and shoulder all the responsibility for this Calydonian Boar of a bill, a slim chance remains that one of the Northeastern Republicans will provide token support for the Pelosian fiasco. It probably wouldn't hurt the careers of Olympia Snowe (RINO-ME), Susan Collins(Ditto) or Obama's new buddy, Gregg Judd(RINO-NH-and probably Commerce Secretary) to appear in flagrante de picto standing behind President BO Plenty as he signs the equivalent of an adjustable-rate, no document, sub-prime mortgage on our grandchildren's future. It looks like that's the only cover Obama is likely to get, if any.
Americans Go into Spending Rehab
This article was first published at Pajamas Media on 02/02/2009:
“I don’t think we will live the same way for 10 years,” says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York-based retail consultant and investment bank Davidowitz & Associates. “People are so scared they’re starting to save.”
The concept of our citizens putting money into savings is not a condition that has been seriously considered any time recently by American retailers. Riding a bifurcated wave of prosperity and debt-fueled consumption, the industry has ballooned to outrageously unsupportable proportions, blanketing our nation and the developing world with malls and storefronts that are unlikely to be of much further use in their current orientation.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a good cup of coffee as much as the next guy. But until quite recently, Starbucks, the Seattle mega-coffee retailer, was reported to have been operating 17,000 stores in 94 countries. God bless the guys who figured out they could sell $6.00 cups of coffee on even a small scale. Now layoffs and store closings are the order of the day. Under what economic system was expanding to 17,000 boutique coffee shops considered a viable long-term business plan? Apparently the American one.
Laissez-faire capitalism helped created the retail circus that America has been running in all three rings for the past two decades. OK, so McDonald’s has more than 31,000 outlets in 119 countries, but Ray Kroc’s brainchild sells hamburgers in a volume that can only be understood by Timothy Geithner, and they have a pre-school indoctrination program that the Democrats would like to get their hands on. In fact, McDonald’s profits were reported to have increased 80% in 2008.
These remarkable numbers were produced in the teeth of a recession that is decimating over-extended companies like Starbucks. And the overreachers are legion. The signs beneath the McDonald’s arches have become a piece of genuine Americana and might even reach “One Trillion Sold” before Obama’s deficit does. Starbucks, if it is to survive Barackonomics at all, needs a lot more than a face-lift. Financial bariatric surgery is more likely in order. This fits Davidowitz’s retail analysis:
Narrow specialties (Sprint’s cellphones) and high prices (Starbucks’ coffee) are tough sells as the consumer mood turns thrifty. What plagues Starbucks will also affect other upscale goody chains like Mrs. Fields’ Cookies, and causal dining outlets like Applebee’s and Cheesecake Factory. Any of the neighborhood outlets for those restaurant chains could be a casualty this year. For too many customers now, it’s McDonald’s or bust.
Now the nearly 20 year-long expansion is spent and the painful retraction is tearing through retailers like peanut butter and salmonella sandwiches through a retirement home.
And it isn’t just Starbucks getting reverse-biggie-sized. Circuit City, an electronics retailer, is closing all 567 of it’s stores; Charming Shoppes (Lane Bryant, Catherine’s, & Fashion Bug) closed 150 stores and announced the closing of another 100; Office Depot is closing 112 locations; and the outdoorsy Timberland & Eddie Bauer, 69 between them. Many retailers are simply closing all of their stores: Steve & Barry’s (173 units), Tweaker (a Bostonian electronics retailer-150 stores), Mervyns (149), Whitehall Jewelers (373), Club Libby Lu (98), and Linen’s N’ Things (however many they had.)
When Andrea Mitchell’s hubby Alan Greenspan described the go-go tech stocks boom of the 90s, he asked precisely the question American retailers should be asking themselves each time they open another storefront:
But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they (did) in Japan (in the 1980’s?)
I’ll take this one: We know now. The free market works. Despite suggestions from Democrats to the contrary, the evidence of failure on an increasingly grand scale is proof of precisely how the market was meant to work. Capitalism doesn’t mean that prosperity is continuous and uninterrupted. There are winners and losers. As an Indiana farmer once explained it to me: “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.”
Bankers lending money based upon a logical credit and collateral analysis results in fatter bankers getting fatter paychecks. Bankers lending money on the basis of politically correct bromides results in Indymac sausage.
Retail expansion based upon demographic analysis coupled with clear-eyed economic forecasting creates larger, healthier corporations. Retail expansion to the point of nine Starbucks locations in my hometown of Carmel, Indiana (population 68,000), creates the corporate personification of the law of diminishing returns. While 10 or maybe even 200 trendy latte shops might be a good thing, 17,000 U.S. barista-training centers more than likely spells irrational exuberance indeed.
“I don’t think we will live the same way for 10 years,” says Howard Davidowitz, chairman of New York-based retail consultant and investment bank Davidowitz & Associates. “People are so scared they’re starting to save.”
The concept of our citizens putting money into savings is not a condition that has been seriously considered any time recently by American retailers. Riding a bifurcated wave of prosperity and debt-fueled consumption, the industry has ballooned to outrageously unsupportable proportions, blanketing our nation and the developing world with malls and storefronts that are unlikely to be of much further use in their current orientation.
Don’t get me wrong, I like a good cup of coffee as much as the next guy. But until quite recently, Starbucks, the Seattle mega-coffee retailer, was reported to have been operating 17,000 stores in 94 countries. God bless the guys who figured out they could sell $6.00 cups of coffee on even a small scale. Now layoffs and store closings are the order of the day. Under what economic system was expanding to 17,000 boutique coffee shops considered a viable long-term business plan? Apparently the American one.
Laissez-faire capitalism helped created the retail circus that America has been running in all three rings for the past two decades. OK, so McDonald’s has more than 31,000 outlets in 119 countries, but Ray Kroc’s brainchild sells hamburgers in a volume that can only be understood by Timothy Geithner, and they have a pre-school indoctrination program that the Democrats would like to get their hands on. In fact, McDonald’s profits were reported to have increased 80% in 2008.
These remarkable numbers were produced in the teeth of a recession that is decimating over-extended companies like Starbucks. And the overreachers are legion. The signs beneath the McDonald’s arches have become a piece of genuine Americana and might even reach “One Trillion Sold” before Obama’s deficit does. Starbucks, if it is to survive Barackonomics at all, needs a lot more than a face-lift. Financial bariatric surgery is more likely in order. This fits Davidowitz’s retail analysis:
Narrow specialties (Sprint’s cellphones) and high prices (Starbucks’ coffee) are tough sells as the consumer mood turns thrifty. What plagues Starbucks will also affect other upscale goody chains like Mrs. Fields’ Cookies, and causal dining outlets like Applebee’s and Cheesecake Factory. Any of the neighborhood outlets for those restaurant chains could be a casualty this year. For too many customers now, it’s McDonald’s or bust.
Now the nearly 20 year-long expansion is spent and the painful retraction is tearing through retailers like peanut butter and salmonella sandwiches through a retirement home.
And it isn’t just Starbucks getting reverse-biggie-sized. Circuit City, an electronics retailer, is closing all 567 of it’s stores; Charming Shoppes (Lane Bryant, Catherine’s, & Fashion Bug) closed 150 stores and announced the closing of another 100; Office Depot is closing 112 locations; and the outdoorsy Timberland & Eddie Bauer, 69 between them. Many retailers are simply closing all of their stores: Steve & Barry’s (173 units), Tweaker (a Bostonian electronics retailer-150 stores), Mervyns (149), Whitehall Jewelers (373), Club Libby Lu (98), and Linen’s N’ Things (however many they had.)
When Andrea Mitchell’s hubby Alan Greenspan described the go-go tech stocks boom of the 90s, he asked precisely the question American retailers should be asking themselves each time they open another storefront:
But how do we know when irrational exuberance has unduly escalated asset values, which then become subject to unexpected and prolonged contractions as they (did) in Japan (in the 1980’s?)
I’ll take this one: We know now. The free market works. Despite suggestions from Democrats to the contrary, the evidence of failure on an increasingly grand scale is proof of precisely how the market was meant to work. Capitalism doesn’t mean that prosperity is continuous and uninterrupted. There are winners and losers. As an Indiana farmer once explained it to me: “Pigs get fat and hogs get slaughtered.”
Bankers lending money based upon a logical credit and collateral analysis results in fatter bankers getting fatter paychecks. Bankers lending money on the basis of politically correct bromides results in Indymac sausage.
Retail expansion based upon demographic analysis coupled with clear-eyed economic forecasting creates larger, healthier corporations. Retail expansion to the point of nine Starbucks locations in my hometown of Carmel, Indiana (population 68,000), creates the corporate personification of the law of diminishing returns. While 10 or maybe even 200 trendy latte shops might be a good thing, 17,000 U.S. barista-training centers more than likely spells irrational exuberance indeed.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Seeing the Kennedys in the Rearview Mirror
"The Kennedys were more than a rich, bad family who gained temporary political power. They were demagogues of oligarchy. Disguised as populists, they championed the definitely privileged and supposedly enlightened few....There is something more horrible than hoodlums, churls and vipers and this is knaves with moral justification for their cause. The Kennedy's thought the world would be a better place for having them run it."
Mordred had a Point-Camelot Revisited, P.J. O'Rourke in Give War a Chance, 1992
Mordred had a Point-Camelot Revisited, P.J. O'Rourke in Give War a Chance, 1992
How the Dems Can Fund Their Stimulus
Is it just me or does the Obama administration seem to gravitate toward cabinet nominees who can’t shoot straight? Now Tom Daschle, Obama’s designated selection for the position of Health & Human Services Secretary, appears to have filed his income taxes using the Tim Geithner school of income disclosure. The former Senate Democrat Majority Leader is smack dab in the middle of a dust-up:
The controversy deals with a car and driver lent to Daschle by a wealthy Democratic friend, a chauffeur service the former senator used for years without declaring it on his taxes.( http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/bumps-in-the-ro.html)
Once again, the vetting process sharpened the nominee’s memory, as it did in the case of Mr. Geithner, and Daschle handed over a check to the taxman for $101,943. Of course a spokesman for Daschle qualified the action by
adding that Daschle had asked his accountant to look into the tax implications of the car and driver five months before Mr. Obama won the presidency. (ibid)
Of course he did. The fanciful taxes filed by Mr. Geithner, Mr. Daschle and the reigning Democrat Chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, Charles Rangel, have made it quite clear that the accountants available for hire in Washington, D.C. are writing lots of taxes, mostly fiction. Why would one expect an accountant from this fiduciary wasteland to be able to generate enough spin to amend a tax return in a mere 7 months?
While I am not an economist and don’t even play one on TV, this new method of tax collection seems perfectly suited to helping fund the litany of porcine entitlements proposed in the Obama-Pelosi Stimululator 2009. IRS coffers are already nearly 150k richer thanks to the Geithner & Daschle vetting processes. Why not set up the cabinet Secretary positions on a weekly rotating basis? Members of the Democrat party could be chosen at random from Congress, the Senate and various state-level positions around the nation. By vetting each of the 15 cabinet positions weekly, we would collect an additional $27 million annually, assuming the average Democrat tax dodge at around the current figure of $75,000 each.
Now $27 million sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to a trillion dollar stimulus. But if we started in the New Orleans and Chicago regions, the averages could rise much higher and faster. Oops, my bad. We did start in Chicago.
The controversy deals with a car and driver lent to Daschle by a wealthy Democratic friend, a chauffeur service the former senator used for years without declaring it on his taxes.( http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/01/bumps-in-the-ro.html)
Once again, the vetting process sharpened the nominee’s memory, as it did in the case of Mr. Geithner, and Daschle handed over a check to the taxman for $101,943. Of course a spokesman for Daschle qualified the action by
adding that Daschle had asked his accountant to look into the tax implications of the car and driver five months before Mr. Obama won the presidency. (ibid)
Of course he did. The fanciful taxes filed by Mr. Geithner, Mr. Daschle and the reigning Democrat Chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, Charles Rangel, have made it quite clear that the accountants available for hire in Washington, D.C. are writing lots of taxes, mostly fiction. Why would one expect an accountant from this fiduciary wasteland to be able to generate enough spin to amend a tax return in a mere 7 months?
While I am not an economist and don’t even play one on TV, this new method of tax collection seems perfectly suited to helping fund the litany of porcine entitlements proposed in the Obama-Pelosi Stimululator 2009. IRS coffers are already nearly 150k richer thanks to the Geithner & Daschle vetting processes. Why not set up the cabinet Secretary positions on a weekly rotating basis? Members of the Democrat party could be chosen at random from Congress, the Senate and various state-level positions around the nation. By vetting each of the 15 cabinet positions weekly, we would collect an additional $27 million annually, assuming the average Democrat tax dodge at around the current figure of $75,000 each.
Now $27 million sounds like a drop in the bucket compared to a trillion dollar stimulus. But if we started in the New Orleans and Chicago regions, the averages could rise much higher and faster. Oops, my bad. We did start in Chicago.
The Plague of Al-Qaeda is Plagued
This article was first published at The American Thinker on 01/19/2009
It’s been a rough month to be a terrorist. First Hamas gets slapped around by the Israelis and now it’s reported that the bubonic plague has infected a powerful Algerian Al-Qaeda cell :
The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.
The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2146286.ece).
The cause of death was diagnosed as the plague. Further investigation indicated that the plague had ravaged the local cell:
The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the terrorists are reported to have scattered to Bejaia and Jijel provinces, hoping they can outrun the plague. The real dilemma rests now with the terrorist cells that have not been infected: do they accept the Algerians into their midst with the possibility of becoming infected themselves? Or do they risk the possibility that defecting members may surrender to obtain the medical treatment they need?
In either case it won’t be pretty. Potentially infected North African Al-Qaeda members better pray to Allah for the merciful treatment administered in this vintage Monty Python plague skit titled “Bring out your dead:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs). It’s like to be much bloodier.
It’s been a rough month to be a terrorist. First Hamas gets slapped around by the Israelis and now it’s reported that the bubonic plague has infected a powerful Algerian Al-Qaeda cell :
The killer bug, also known as the plague, swept through insurgents training at a forest camp in Algeria, North Africa. It came to light when security forces found a body by a roadside.
The victim was a terrorist in AQLIM (al-Qaeda in the Land of the Islamic Maghreb), the largest and most powerful al-Qaeda group outside the Middle East. (http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2146286.ece).
The cause of death was diagnosed as the plague. Further investigation indicated that the plague had ravaged the local cell:
The al-Qaeda epidemic began in the cave hideouts of AQLIM in Tizi Ouzou province, 150km east of the capital Algiers. The group, led by wanted terror boss Abdelmalek Droudkal, was forced to turn its shelters in the Yakouren forest into mass graves and flee.
Here’s where it gets interesting: the terrorists are reported to have scattered to Bejaia and Jijel provinces, hoping they can outrun the plague. The real dilemma rests now with the terrorist cells that have not been infected: do they accept the Algerians into their midst with the possibility of becoming infected themselves? Or do they risk the possibility that defecting members may surrender to obtain the medical treatment they need?
In either case it won’t be pretty. Potentially infected North African Al-Qaeda members better pray to Allah for the merciful treatment administered in this vintage Monty Python plague skit titled “Bring out your dead:
(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grbSQ6O6kbs). It’s like to be much bloodier.
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