Category: Journalism

Bush Deficit vs Obama Deficit

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Bush Deficit vs Obama Deficit

Washington Post has a graphic deficit comparison of the two budgets, and Heritage Foundation highlights some of the differences.

More on this from Karl Rove at the Wall Street Journal:

Last fiscal year, the deficit was $459 billion. For this fiscal year, it was $569 billion when Mr. Obama took office. Under his proposals, another $1.276 trillion will be added to the deficit this year, for a total of $1.845 trillion.

The CBO says deficits will fall for three years to $658 billion, still nearly 50% larger than any past deficit. After that, deficits go back up every year, reaching the trillion-dollar a year mark again in nine years. By 2019, the debt would reach 82.4% of GDP, a level not seen since 1947. With astonishing candor, even Peter Orszag, the president’s budget director conceded these levels of deficits and debt are “unsustainable.”

Update: Just in from Rasmussen :

Two-thirds of U.S. voters (66%) think President Obama is likely to raise taxes on people who [make] less than $250,000 per year. That figure includes 47% who say he is Very Likely to do so. [sic]

Also keep in mind that Obama’s Carbon tax is regressive: it will raise the price of energy for every person in the US, and it will raise the price or decrease the quality of every product in the US. [e.g. for the quality statement – when oil prices went up, Starbuck’s decreased the mil on the plastic cups they use, causing more “crush spills” when people grip them too tight.] Any rise in energy prices will also create rises in food prices since food production, transport, storage, and preparation are energy-intensive operations.

As Stephana points out in coments: we also have to factor in Congress’ actions over the past two years when Democrats were in control, they created the deficit ahead of this coming one. They are also now in process of breaking Obama’s campaign promises for him – yesterday the promised $400.00 tax credit went bye bye almost as quick as Social Security surpluses.

The only video that fits the zeitgeist:

h/t Little Green Footballs Spinoff links and to Lawhawk for the Rasmussen update

What Now Democrats?

On the economic front the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but will the Dems realize this in time, or will they play up the current economic crisis for all its specious worth just to milk more “social justice” out of the wallets of taxpayers?

What Now Democrats?

The voters in the US are cyclic and this is their season of sorrow. The left is now ensconced in political power the likes of which they haven’t really seen since the days of the Johnson presidency. They have a near supermajority in the legislative branch, and they hold the executive branch as well. In this season their usual excuses can not hold any longer.

Singing a song of sorrow and blaming the Republicans for every ill won’t work and will ring hollow if even attempted now. The left has to put up or shut up after years of  proclaiming of what they could do if only the electorate would place them back in power. Well now they have and the Democrats have to demonstrate with real actions or it could become a two and out scenario.

That doesn’t create an environment for good decision making on their part and they will likely tackle symptoms vs the real problems because of the groups they are beholden to. The big dilemmas in this early part of the century aren’t what most folks think they are. Energy independence and clean energy make for fine bumper stickers but the real problem is clean energy abundance for the world. Making the US an island of energy wealth in a sea of energy poverty is the fail and it will isolate and destroy capitalism. The retrograde or luddite factions in the Democrat party  will try to create an environment of energy paucity and high cost because ever since Schumacher wrote “Small is Beautiful” energy itself is the evil, not the solution.

They will likely continue to prosecute the war in Afghanistan, but fail to address the roots of terror. These run deep, and are a legacy of the death of communism, the rise of radical Islam, and pockets of tribal nationalism around the world. These causes are not addressed easily but longer term the end to permanent refugee cities must be sought. If you seek out any terror group you will find a large burgeoning city of ethnic refugees at some countrie’s border.

 Whether these be the banilieus of France, the hellhole of Gaza, the Afghan refugee camps in Pakistan, the Terai Nationalist camps in Nepal and India, the Tamil camps in Sri Lanka, the Islamist camps in Thailand, or the Karen Camps in Thailand, other countries will exploit them and give rise to terror groups to destabilize their neighbors. When these camps are allowed to grow unabated and become ethnic nationlist refuges then you will get terror in large doses.

The ideologies as well must be attacked but the refugee camps are the start point, and new permanent refugee camps should not be created.

Now that the Democrats are back in power will the word Freedom be rehabilitated? Will they oppose the major tyrannies around the world? I don’t expect much from them on this front, but “the Sybil,” Joe Biden’s crisis is coming and the electorate is watching.

On the economic front the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, but will the Dems realize this in time, or will they play up the current economic crisis for all its specious worth just to milk more “social justice” out of the wallets of taxpayers? That’s a hard call to make at the moment but all indicators are for a continued period of talking down the economy.

The challenges ahead are great, and long term solutions are needed – what can we expect from the small-spirited and attention deficit Democrats over the next year?

Hamas Uses Ceasefire to Fire Rockets at Israel From Schools

Hamas Uses Ceasefire to Fire Rockets at Israel From Schools

IDF Video showing Hamas already moving back into schools to fire rockets at Israel

Meanwhile here’s an Al Arabiya reporter who thinks it’s humorous that Hamas just launched rockets at Israel from under their studio. She has no idea what counterbattery fire is, and is lucky that Israel doesn’t practice US procedures for counterbattery. The IDF knows these terrorists intentionally fire from locations they want the Israelis to shoot back at to create destruction to the people and infrastructure of Gaza for propaganda.

Bill Moyers Backpedals the Cycle of Violence

I still believe Bill to be the worst sort of racist, those that profess not to be prejudiced while savaging by word and deed the people they are supposedly not prejudiced against; all the while maintaining a tone of high-brow snooty moral superiority. Stating that you are one of the good people does not make you one.

Bill Moyers Backpedals the Cycle of Violence

At PBS Bill Moyers has explained, but not really apologized for, his statement that “god soaked violence” is encoded in the Jews and/or the Arabs DNA. He explains by saying he was not being specific or precise enough in his words, and he meant it instead about all of humanity, even though he was talking specifically about the Jews, Hamas, and the conflict in Gaza.

When I wrote my previous post on this I didn’t state so, but I assumed this semi-retraction was coming and that he would either use this route or state that he meant it as a figure of speech, not literally.

Regardless, the retraction is weak tea and he uses it to further his view that responding or trying to stop terror just makes it worse. The “god-soaked violence” statement is contrary to everything classical liberalism stands for, but fits hand in glove with modern liberalism where nobody’s really responsible for their acts — after all it’s coded in our DNA right, or possibly he thinks that it’s god-soaked and thus fated?

I still believe Bill to be the worst sort of racist, those that profess not to be prejudiced while savaging by word and deed the people they are supposedly not prejudiced against; all the while maintaining a tone of high-brow snooty moral superiority. Stating that you are one of the good people does not make you one, even in Bill’s world of truth being a relative thing, an amorphous blob subject to the shaping of anyone’s POV.
So Bill, what part of our DNA is “god soaked violence” encoded in? Can you point to the spot where methylation could turn those genes off?  

Below is the statement, the retraction starts at about 2:45 into the video.

Sunset 2008

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Sunset 2008

The last sun has set on 2008, and that’s a picture of it shot at distance through a gap in the trees. Many people will be looking back  — but history is for the historians, and what really survives as memories of 2008 deep into the future might surprise you since it will be future generations and not ours who decide what’s important and what’s not. They will do it against the backdrop of a different world, one that’s different culturally, ideologically, technologically, and politically.

We can’t determine what that backdrop will be and we can’t direct it either — the best we can hope is for some slight  influence. You don’t believe me? Without googling, name the most popular actress and actor of 1928, name the three most popular tunes, name the discoveries made by science that year, name the speaker of the house. Can’t do it?  If you look in history books you can find that the Thames flooded, there were great earthquakes in the Ukraine, as well as several other historic natural events that also caught us by surprise, but you aren’t going to find tons of cultural references, and what was burningly important in the news of 1928 is so much dusty newsprint today.

One of the things that did survive from 1928 is commercial television, and the first licensed production television station launched in Albany as WXRB but was popularly known as WGY tv. It has become today’s CBS station, WRGB Channel 6, where Rachel Raye got her start. But will anyone be watching Rachel Raye in 80 years? Probably not, but there’s good chance that Mickey Mouse will still be remembered in  some form and Walt Disney created the first short with Mickey Mouse in 1928.

What is endearing survives, what is mundane or ugly does not.

So as the pundits look back with love and malice at 2008 please put it in perspective. What survives the years is what we do and create, things of lasting value, truth, and beauty. The accomplishments we remember are the ones of  technology, the outcomes of wars, nature’s big surprises, and the lasting achievements of philosophy, art, and science. The ugly and the mundane gets left behind – so here’s the challenge, what will you do, what will you create that will last down generations? As you look back at 2008, what will survive? I’m betting Harry Potter will still be read in 80 years, but few will read much else from the start of this century; and what will those who do read our history think of us?

UK Muslim Extremist Exposed on Facebook

Asghar Bukhari, a regular speaker for Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the UK appears frequently on television as a “moderate” muslim in interviews. This week he got caught out in a rant on facebook

UK Muslim Extremist Exposed on Facebook

Asghar Bukhari, a regular speaker for Muslim Public Affairs Committee of the UK appears frequently on television as a “moderate” muslim in interviews. This week he got caught out in a rant on facebook, and Damian Thompson of the Telegraph has confirmed with Bukhari himself that he stands by the statement :

“Muslims who fight against the occupation of their lands are ‘Mujahadeen’ and are blessed by Allah. And any Muslim who fights and dies against Israel and dies is a martyr and will be granted paradise … There is no greater oppressor on this earth than the Zionists, who murder little children for sport.”

This is the pitfall with many of the political action groups posing as Moderates: first that many are not moderate at all – witness CAIR in America, and second that the media pimps their swill. Where can real moderate muslims go to be heard when media only courts the worst? You have to wonder if it’s a ratings thing – real moderates are too boring or something?

Or perhaps it’s because sometimes when moderates step forward they are stigmatized and threatened, at times by the very groups that the Beeb and others interview as “moderates”. PDF Link, Center for Social Cohesion.

Meanwhile Pastor Rick Warren is cozying up to MPAC-US, and the official MPAC site continues with the non-denial and excuses for encouraging Terror Groups, calling it Islamophobia to disagree:

**warning: Link to Islamist site.

Morning Update; Gitmo, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and more

Normally I spend the morning surfing news and the web and posting newslinks at Little Green Footballs but Charles’ site is serving a blank once you get below the header ad this morning, so I’ll do my updates here. Here’s a picture to look at while I’m compiling.
UPDATE: It appears that Charles at LGF is going through the tribulations of installing new, beefier servers, give him time and things will be back faster than ever.

Obama’s Plan to Close Guantanamo Forces Decision About Inmates

Obama Picks Richardson (ermmm… how well will he get along with Hillary?)

Celebrities are fighting like mad to be part of “The In Crowd” on January 20th. (We got our own way of walkin… we got our own way of talkin…)

In Israel this is probably a case of the “relief” organization not letting the Israelis search the ship for weapons before entry, a precaution performed at every port in the world, but FWIW, Libya in High Dudgeon calls for Security Council Intervention.

Meanwhile the tense situation continues over the Mumbai terror attacks, but I do believe that both governments are calmer than the usual incendiary political talking heads on both sides of the issue would have you believe. From various reports I’ve seen that the nuclear readiness on either side has not increased, troops have not moved or been reinforced at borders, and talking between the governments proceeds. India has demanded that Pakistan hand over the terror masterminds and accomplices, Zardari in Pakistan is saying that the terrorists are “stateless” actors, and that in no way was the government of Pakistan involved. At this point I believe it, right now Pakistan is desperate for more trade with India.

UPDATE: Rice to Zardari: (in different and more words) ‘ If you don’t take care of those terror training camps we don’t care if India does…’

The Daily suicide bombing or Taliban attack has occurred in Pakistan, and it appears that they are stepping up raids in urban areas, rounding up the usual suspects. Here’s a list of India’s most wanted, if Pakistan could find some of these terrorists and turn them over it would ease tensions a great deal.

The Governor of Kandahar, General Raufi, whose watch the Taliban jail break occurred on is stepping down after a short four months in position.

On the domestic front the Millenium Bomber, who has been singing like a bird, is back in court.

Industrial Scale Wind Energy is not pure as the driven snow, and here’s some interesting graphics on various power sources. There’s also that small problem that Wind turbines have with icing.

In Thailand the Airports have re-opened with the demonstrators leaving after the court ouster of the PM.

The New Anglicans appear to be splitting from the pack, with a new conservative schism forming in the Episcopalian church in North America.

Hot Air discusses opposition to Anti-Gay Adoption laws, the conflict comes when you turn pro-children or pro-family into anti-gay. It’s mostly religious conservatives behind the laws, but as I’ve pointed out here gays do have children already. While it’s preferred to place children in male-female families, it is so preferred that some children get no parents at all?

Pizza Prisoner Bomber gets 45 Years

Anti-Prop 8 Demonstration

Ringo the Gringo has a great photo essay on the anti-prop 8 demonstration at the Los Angeles civic center. The photo essay is grouped by the themes of the signs, and there were even a couple of Phelpsian counter protestors there. Please stop by to view the whole thing.

In a previous article here I outlined why the social conservative stance against gay marriage is highly counter productive.

Obamasks Video from Hillbuzz

I Don’t know who produced this at Hillbuzz, but it’s a series of excellent contrasts of the words Barack Obama has spoken. It’s a must watch to understand Barack’s paradox-speak. Video below the fold

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