This is from Bloomberg today. So far, the Fed and the Federal Government has dedicated 12.8 trillion dollars to “stimulus” type packages. It’s just numbers now, isn’t it? This has become so disconnected from reality that really, is there anyone that internalizes this stuff any longer? Here’s the key: $42,105 for every man, woman, and child in the United States. That’s what we’re on the hook for. Think about that figure for a minute. Now, admit it: it can’t be real, right?
As Glenn Reynolds has been saying, “The country is in the very best of hands.”
I’ll always consider James Lileks to be the pioneer of this particular food genre: the tracking down of horrible foodie ideas from the 50′s, 60′s, or 70′s (usually to pimp particular brands of foods into unnatural and disturbing creations), show them, and proceed to make fun of them (buy the book!). Still, Spanno at Amazon’s Al Dente blog does a fine job of it.
And darn it, the last one (bacon!) doesn’t look that bad, if perhaps a bit difficult to eat. The rest, though — especially the Frankfurter Spectacular — is downright horrible.
Now to get your appetite back, realize there are thousands of very good foodie blogs out there, and lots with pictures. This one, for example, has me prematurely hungry: Parmesan Crusted Chicken with Fresh Spinach Salad. Good Lord yum.
I read this, and scoffed. Loudly.
NEW YORK, March 27 (UPI) — The Empire State Building, the Eiffel Tower and Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza are among the landmarks that will go dark Saturday night for Earth Hour.
This sends the message that the solution to possible climate change issues is to use less energy. Mind you, not by efficiency, but by living in the dark. This is a sad step backwards, and sends a depressing message to the younger generation. “Don’t expect to be able to be crazy with your lightbulbs like we were!” I’m all for clean energy, efficiency, being smart about energy use, etc. I’m not excited about going backwards in time a hundred plus years to find the solution to possible problem.
I suggest that, at 8:30 PM on March 28th, everyone turn on every light in their house. Call it the “Technology is Good Hour”. I’m going to.
My family and I have been taking preparedness more seriously of late. Stocking food, supplies, and starting to learn skills that may be useful if things go bad for us, Portland, the US, the world. It’s incredible that there are people that scoff at such activities, as if they were completely unnecessary. There’s a whole series of events and/or situations that could happen that would make it difficult to take care of yourself and your family for a period of time. Terrorist attack? Pandemic? Hyperinflation? All possible. With our just-in-time food delivery systems, it doesn’t take much to empty shelves at Fred Meyer.
Now, thanks to the New Scientist, we have something else to worry about: space storms, or coronal mass ejections.
IT IS midnight on 22 September 2012 and the skies above Manhattan are filled with a flickering curtain of colourful light. Few New Yorkers have seen the aurora this far south but their fascination is short-lived. Within a few seconds, electric bulbs dim and flicker, then become unusually bright for a fleeting moment. Then all the lights in the state go out. Within 90 seconds, the entire eastern half of the US is without power.
A year later and millions of Americans are dead and the nation’s infrastructure lies in tatters. The World Bank declares America a developing nation. Europe, Scandinavia, China and Japan are also struggling to recover from the same fateful event – a violent storm, 150 million kilometres away on the surface of the sun.
Wonderful, he said sarcastically. File this under, “Yet another reason to take preparedness seriously, not not to depend on Fred Meyer or the United States Government in times of crisis.”
You know, I need to read some of Jerry Pournelle’s work. The guy has quite the resume, and his speculative fiction looks right up my alley. He also dabbles (OK, more than dabbles) in political discourse, and I respect his ideas quite a bit. Instapundit reminded me of this when he linked to something that Jerry had re-posted — from an early 1980′s preface to a sci-fi anthology. Let me get the “read the whole thing” out of the way — that’s obvious. I’d like to explain why this is so relevant today, and not just through the lens of the Cold War.
Two key paragraphs jump out at me as timeless, and at the same time, very timely. The first:
There are other pressures. Republics stand until the citizens begin to vote themselves largess from the public treasury. When the plunder begins, those plundered feel no loyalty to the nation—and the beneficiaries demand ever more, until few are left unplundered. Eventually everyone plunders everyone, the state serving as little more than an agency for collecting and dispensing largess. The economy falters. Inflation begins. Deficits mount. Something must be done. Strong measures are demanded, but nothing can be agreed to.
With the latest CBO projection on the deficit, well, it’s apt. Consider this: under the President’s plan, less and less people will pay any income taxes at all. I know what you’re thinking: a good thing, right? No, it’s not. People who don’t fund the Federal Government’s programs are much more likely to want those programs to grow larger. I mean, why not? It’s self-interest winning over group interest. The percentage of Americans paying zero income taxes (or actually getting a check!) has been steadily rising for a long time. The higher this number goes, the less stable our democracy is. And here’s the second part of Jerry’s post that really hits home:
There are other masters; masters who will do more than hold fast to the old ways; they will usher in a new era. The theorists proclaim it. Times have changed. Old institutions, devised in simpler times, are outmoded. Modern times demand modern, streamlined, efficient government- government that can sweep away the dead hand of the past, and bring forth the new dawn.
A new friend of the people comes forth. He will end the babble of political parties and factions and class war He will give meaning to life; will lead a crusade against poverty, squalor, ugliness; will transform the nation into a land beautiful and shining.
Sound like anyone you know? Not that our current President on par with any of the 20th century nasties, but cult of personality married to dreams of Utopia is always a dangerous thing. Always.
The Financial Post out of the Great White North posted an editorial by Terence Corcoran asking, is this the end of America? Yes, perhaps a bit over the top. But. Is it really? He gets himself out of hyperbolic screed territory by noting that how you define “America” is awfully important, and not just focusing on the two months of disgrace our political class has shown the world. They’re both important. The President has been very forthright that he intends on changing everything. If allowed to skip down the road he says he wants us to go down, America would, indeed, not look anything like it has in the past. A significant minority of people in this country would count this has a great thing, our President and Congressional leadership included.
This paragraph is key:
One test of whether we are witnessing the end of America is how many more times Americans put up with congressional show trials of individual business people and their employees, slandering and vilifying them for their actions and motives. And for how long will they tolerate a President who berates business and corporations as dens of crime and malfeasance? If the majority of Americans come to accept the caricatures of business as true, then America is closer to the end of its life as a global leader, as a champion of markets and individualism.
Here’s the problem: while they try to keep the voter’s eye on the end goal, somewhere in the future, the whole thing is falling apart in the present. It’s not going to work. The end gambit isn’t some post-modern, quasi-socialist better-than-Europe Utopia, but nothing less than hacking off America’s legs and arms, and removing us from the world’s leadership through economic and social destruction. Now, this possible future is way down the road, too. The key is to not get caught up with the promises of a New Day, but pay attention to what’s happening now. If what’s going on in Washington doesn’t pass the sniff test, it probably is what you think it is.
Remember that little dust up a couple weeks ago when the PM of Britain, Gordon Brown, came to visit? President Obama gave what some people thought was a pretty cheesy gift for this level of diplomacy: a boxed DVD set of favorite American movies. (I mean, did he send an assistant to run to Target real quick before the meeting?) Still, I guess the Mr. Brown was “touched” by the gift.
Enter Mark Steyn, always on the case.
Mark (Hemingway), re that
Gordon Brown box set, I was happy to string along with the jokes that the U.S.-format DVDs wouldn’t work on U.K. machines. Yet, at the back of my mind, I didn’t quite believe that even the Obamateur Hour crowd at the White House could be that clueless.
Wow.
Training wheels, anyone? I’m thinking that Target trip actually happened. “Wow, this whole leader of the free world thing is hard!”
You know, I’m from White Salmon, still visit family there quite regularly, and I still haven’t dropped by this place. Or I should say, at least since it’s been open (I did get to look around inside before it was open). Sad, but on the bright side, they still don’t have their own beer available to drink. That’s a bummer. It’s great to see them get some digital ink on the Oregonian’s web site, even if it is a beer blog, and not, you know, paper.
This is probably the greatest booze ad of all time. Hands down. It does make me want a whiskey on the rocks, though. Now.
Hat tip to one of Instapundit’s readers.
The Belmont Club had an interesting post a couple days ago highlighting, graphically, the West’s lack of perspective. The original post was done by Augean Stables. One of the Secretary of State’s first visits since being sworn in was visiting Israel, and attempting to kick start the (in it’s current state) hopeless peace process. This is seen from within and without the Obama Administration as one of their most pressing foreign relations issue. Yet, if you measure the conflicts by the sheer number dead or wounded, it’s ridiculously small.
Why the difference in how we approach the problem? I’m betting there’s lots of reasons. I remember when one of the Left’s problems with the Iraq War was that there were bigger, badder, more dangerous regimes elsewhere. What about Iran? What about North Korea? And yet, here we are with an extremely leftist President, and what’s front and center? The Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Mr. Fernandez goes on to poke fun at the West’s insistence of looking at the world through some rather distorted lenses. I post it here directly with the hopes that Mr. Fernandez won’t mind. It’s pretty funny, but, well, kind of true.
