At Least He Got Right To The Point

"San Diego Police Chief: We Can Disarm Americans Within a Generation"

And, as Ace so eloquently put it:

As the goal is admitted, let us have no more discussion of these ridiculous diversions.

The goal sought is disarmament, period. Accomplished bit by bit. But none of those bits are "reasonable" or "common sense" as they are admittedly simply elements of the intended goal, which is complete disarmament.

See you in the camps.

We Know Why. You Just Don't Like the Answer

Today's bit of fluffery from The Atlantic is worth a read, if for no purpose other than to see just how far those who still believe in socialism will go to delude themselves.

Britain's economy is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, but this much is clear: it's a disaster. After its Olympics-fueled growth, such as it was, lifted it out of recession in the third quarter of 2012, Britain might be headed back after its economy fell 0.3 percent at the end of the year -- the fourth time in five quarters its GDP has contracted. Britain's now verging on a triple-dip recession, which is just another way of saying a depression.

Of course, The Atlantic being firmly in the MOAR SPENDING ELEVENTY!!!! camp of economic wisdom, the finger gets pointed at the normal location.

It's no accident this era of zero growth has coincided with an era of austerity. Despite entering office with borrowing costs at 50-year lows, the Cameron coalition decided the government deficit, and not the growth deficit, was the chief threat to future prosperity. It raised taxes and cut the growth of spending, but did so with little regard for what constituted smart cuts and what did not. As Portes points out, public net investment -- things like roads and bridges and schools,  and everything else the economy needs to grow -- has fallen by half the past three years, and is set to fall even further the next two. It's the economic equivalent of shooting yourself in both feet, just in case shooting yourself in one doesn't completely cripple you.

The comment vultures then pile on, screaming about Krugman and Republicans and "demand" and so forth, all in the insane dance macabre that marks the pseudo-Keynesian true believers.

I have a simpler answer: the UK is getting what they pay for.

Natalija Belova, 33, told The Sun how she spurns full-time work — yet can afford foreign holidays and buys designer clothes. 

The Lithuanian said: “British benefits give me and my daughter a good life.” 

She has milked soft-touch Britain for £50,000 in benefits and yesterday said: "I simply take what is given to me."

Oh, but there's more. Lots more.

A SKIVING couple told last night how they claim £17,680 a year in benefits — and don’t even bother looking for work because it would leave them worse off. 

Danny Creamer, 21, and Gina Allan, 18, spend each day watching their 47in flatscreen TV and smoking 40 cigarettes between them in their comfy two-bedroom flat. 

In short: paying people not to work results in people not working.

People not working, but getting paid, results in nothing.

And for some reason, other countries and people actually creating value don't want to pay good money for nothing.

So in essence, the UK is pumping billions of pounds annually into something that has no value whatsoever to anyone.

Unless you count politicians' need to purchase votes.

Because Shut Up and Pay, That's Why

The whole point of the Obamacare fiasco, or so we've been told by health-care experts like Oprah and Soledad O'Brien, falls into three categories:

1.  Private health insurance companies are evil, vicious, rapacious creatures (but not people) whose policies, claim-handling procedures, and premium costs murder hundreds of millions of people annually while generating profits sufficient to pay for their Perrier-filled toilets.
2. Everyone must be forced to buy health insurance from the aforementioned companies.

There are other explanations like the Fluke (aka "Black Hole of Georgetown") Theorem, but all of this adds up to one simple argument patiently repeated by Obama and his Ministry of Propaganda over and over again to us bitter clingers:  it was necessary for the government to step in and take regulatory control worthy of Eva Peron over a fifth of the US economy.

Because, after all, we know how incredibly well the government manages what it already controls.

While Federal law permits Medicare payments for services rendered to an alien who is lawfully present in the United States, Medicare benefits are not allowable for aliens who are not lawfully present. If a Medicare claim was processed after the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' (CMS) data systems indicated that a Medicare beneficiary was unlawfully present in the United States, CMS was able to prevent the payment. However, when CMS's systems did not indicate the unlawful presence status until after a claim had been processed, CMS was not able to detect and recoup the improper payment. Because CMS did not always receive the unlawful presence information promptly, Medicare payments totaling $91.6 million were made to health care providers (providers) for services to approximately 2,600 unlawfully present beneficiaries during calendar years 2009 through 2011. CMS did not have policies and procedures that would have enabled it to detect such improper payments after the payments were made. Consequently, CMS did not notify its payment processing contractors (Medicare contractors) to recoup any such payments.

Have no fear, bleeding-hearts; they didn't leave other people with sketchy claims out.

Prisons, not the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, pay for health care of incarcerated people who are otherwise eligible for Medicare (incarcerated beneficiaries). If a Medicare claim was processed after CMS's data systems indicated the incarceration status, CMS was able to prevent the payment. However, when CMS's systems did not indicate the incarceration status until after the claim had been processed, CMS was not able to detect and recoup the improper payment. Because CMS did not always receive incarceration information promptly, Medicare payments totaling $33.6 million were made to health care providers (providers) for services to approximately 11,600 incarcerated beneficiaries during calendar years 2009 through 2011. CMS did not have policies and procedures that would have enabled it to detect such improper payments after the payments were made. Consequently, CMS did not notify its payment processing contractors (Medicare contractors) to recoup any such payments.

According to the American Enterprise Institute, the average American worker retiring in 2009 paid $64,971 in Medicare payroll taxes over their lifetime - which means that, in the matter of two years, Medicare's vaunted administrative efficiency managed to vaporize the sum total of dollars extracted from every single paycheck received over the entire 44-year working life of 1,927 individuals who presumably were legal citizens who mowed their lawns, gave at the office, and kept their noses clean.

Whoever said crime does not pay clearly had no experience with government bureaucrats.

Now for those evil, vicious, rapacious (but not a person) private insurance companies, this cost would come, to use a complicated financial term, "out of their own hides" as unrecoverable operational loss. There would be a massive audit, severe imposition of harsh internal controls, a likely drubbing in the stock market, and a definite dip in the company's fortunes.

 But since Medicare is the thing nearest and dearest to Obama's heart - a government-mandated monopoly that has essentially banned its competition - it need not bother with any of that;  it just starts charging everyone else more.

Now, again, if one of those evil, vicious, rapacious (but not a person) private insurance companies made the revelation that everyone else's premium costs were going up because the company was giving politically-connected groups benefits to which they were not entitled and, as a bonus, that they were too lazy to do anything about it, there would be executive heads flying, nineteen Piers Morgan prime-time screaming specials, and Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson/Toure/(insert your own race-baiter here) yelling something about money-crazed Jewish crackers out to hurt black people.

 In Washington, they call it "a good solid B-plus".

So keep that in mind, seniors, working people, children, and babies waiting in Mormon celestial temples for a start date of about two centuries from now: the message from Obama and The Bureaucrats is that, if you think there's value in working for a living and paying your taxes, you are chumps.

What Matters Most

From a sermon of Martin Luther on the Nativity.

How unobtrusively and simply do those events take place on earth that are so heralded in heaven!

On earth it happened in this wise: There was a poor young wife, Mary of Nazareth, among the meanest dwellers of the town, so little esteemed that none noticed the great wonder that she carried. She was silent, did not vaunt herself, but served her husband, who had no man or maid. They simply left the house. Perhaps they had a donkey for Mary to ride upon, though the Gospels say nothing about it, and we may well believe that she went on foot. The journey was certainly more than a day from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, which lies on the farther side of Jerusalem.

Joseph had thought, “When we get to Bethlehem, we shall be among relative and can borrow everything.” A fine idea that was! Bad enough that a young bride married only a year could not have had her baby at Nazareth in her own house instead of making all that journey of three days when heavy with child! How much worse that when she arrived there was no room for her! The inn was full. No one would release a room to this pregnant woman. She had to go to a cow stall and there bring forth the Maker of all creatures because nobody would give way.

Shame on you, wretched Bethlehem! The inn ought to have been burned with brimstone, for even though Mary had been a beggar maid or unwed, anybody at such a time should have been glad to give her a hand.

There are many of you in this congregation who think to yourselves: “If only I had been there! How quick I would have been to help the Baby! I would have washed his linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!” Yes, you would! You say that because you know how great Christ is, but if you had been there at that time you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Childish and silly thoughts are these! Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ your neighbor. You ought to serve him, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself.

The birth was still more pitiable. No one regarded this young wife bringing forth her first-born. No one took her condition to heart. No one noticed that in a strange place she had not the very least thing needful in childbirth. There she was without preparation: no light, no fire, in the dead of night, in thick darkness. No one came to give the customary assistance. The guests swarming in the inn were carousing, and no one attended to this woman. I think myself if Joseph and Mary had realized that her time was so close she might perhaps have been left in Nazareth. And now think what she could use for swaddling clothes – some garment she could spare, perhaps her veil - certainly not Joseph’s breeches, which are now on exhibition at Aachen.

Think, women, there was no one there to bathe the Baby. No warm water, nor even cold. No fire, no light. The mother was herself midwife and the maid. The cold manger was the bed and the bathtub. Who showed the poor girl what to do? She had never had a baby before. I am amazed that the little one did not freeze. Do not make of Mary a stone. For the higher people are in the favor of God, the more tender are they.

Let us, then, meditate upon the Nativity just as we see it happening in our own babies. Behold Christ lying in the lap of this young mother. What can be sweeter than the Babe, what more lovely than the mother! What fairer than her youth! What more gracious than her virginity! Look at the Child, knowing nothing. Yet all that is belongs to him, that your conscience should not fear but take comfort in him. Doubt nothing.

To me there is no greater consolation given to mankind than this, that Christ became man, a child, a babe, playing in the lap and at the breasts of his most gracious mother. Who is there whom this sight would not comfort? Now is overcome the power of sin, death, hell, conscience, and guilt, if you come to this gurgling Babe and believe that he is come, not to judge you, but to save.


With love from me and my family....a happy, blessed Christmas, and a joyous New Year, to every one of you.

Dan (North Dallas Thirty)

Entertaining Contradiction of Today

In which Sarah Palin is upbraided for her temerity in saying that Americans should be allowed to be responsible for their own health.

In the wacky world of Wasilla's finest, Palin tries to cast the effort to fight obesity as part of Michelle Obama's "different worldview."

Here is a portion of the transcript from HuffingtonPost.com: "Take her anti-obesity thing that she is on. She is on this kick, right. What she is telling us is she cannot trust parents to make decisions for their own children, for their own families in what we should eat.

"And I know I'm going to be again criticized for bringing this up, but instead of a government thinking that they need to take over and make decisions for us according to some politician or politician's wife priorities, just leave us alone, get off our back and allow us as individuals to exercise our own God-given rights to make our own decisions and then our country gets back on the right track."

Hmmm. "Let's Move" is Obama's "kick?" Maybe someone should kick Sarah Palin so she can understand how devastating obesity is to the future of the United States.

Of course, if you look at how fat Roland Martin is, it's pretty obvious that the government needs to do his thinking for him, since he clearly had no idea how bad obesity was for your health.

Entertaining Contradiction of the Day

From a usual source of amusement.

DN says:
November 22, 2010 at 11:35 pm

… wait… You blocked him from commenting and he comes here and lifts lines you write so that he can whine about it on his blog? That’s pathetic!

The hilarity comes from the fact that the blog where this comment was made is famous for lifting lines other people write so they can be whined about there.

Num Num Num

Supper was so good tonight, I had to share it with all of you as well.
4x4 with cheese plain and fries.

It's a secret menu thing.

The First Annual Christina Romer Award for Ideology over Economics

To a fitting target, for this statement:

That’s why tax cuts for the rich have a much smaller impact: the rich allocate a much smaller fraction of their income to buying goods and services.

Of course the rich devote a smaller fraction of their income. If you make $200k a year as opposed to a typical income of $50k, you have to spend roughly four times as much to be spending the same fraction of your income.

However, if a person making $200k spends $50k per year and a person making $50k spends $25k, the person making $50k is spending double the fraction of their income, but the person spending $200k is spending double the amount.

And the stimulative power of spending is all about the amount, which is why the richest five percent of the population account for nearly three times that percentage of the spending. Furthermore, since the rich have more to spend in the first place, they have not cut back nearly as much as the poor in terms of keeping the economy afloat. Meanwhile, there is also evidence that not only do the rich spend a much greater amount, but that they are just as prone to spend as the poor.

In short, Rob Tisinai's statement, while in keeping with the correctness of the Obama Party ideology that requires demonization of the rich (while ironically supporting and endorsing tax-dodging kajillionaires like John Kerry and Charles Rangel), does not make sense from an economic standpoint.

In other words, in classic Romer style.

Nothing Like Sacrificing Other Peoples' Money

The latest from the desperate Obama Party:

More than 40 of the nation's millionaires have joined Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength to ask President Obama to discontinue the tax breaks established for them during the Bush administration, as Salon reports.

"For the fiscal health of our nation and the well-being of our fellow citizens, we ask that you allow tax cuts on incomes over $1,000,000 to expire at the end of this year as scheduled," their website states. "We make this request as loyal citizens who now or in the past earned an income of $1,000,000 per year or more."

Of course, the thought of voluntarily paying more in taxes, which every one of them can do right now, never seems to cross the minds of these leftist doofuses.

I'll make "Patriotic Millionaires for Fiscal Strength" a deal; they agree to hand over every ounce of their money and assets over the magical $250k threshold to the government for five years, and then we'll think about it.

But since they can't even hold their own like Geithner, Rangel, and John Kerry responsible for tax evasion.....