Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Our World: The Obama effect
By CAROLINE GLICK"Could there be something to all the talk of an Obama effect, after all? A stealth effect, perhaps?"
So asked Helene Cooper, the New York Times' diplomatic correspondent in a news analysis of the massive anti-regime protests in Iran published in Sunday's Times.
As Cooper sees it, the protesters owe their ability to oppose the regime that just stole their votes and has trampled their basic human rights for 30 years to Obama and the so-called "Obama effect."
Offering no evidence for her thesis, and ignoring a public record filled with evidence to the contrary, Cooper claims that it is due to Obama's willingness to accept the legitimacy of Iran's clerical tyranny that the protesters feel emboldened to oppose their regime. If it hadn't been for Obama, and his embrace of appeasement as his central guiding principle for contending with the likes of Khamenei and Ahmadinejad, the people on the streets would never have come out to protest.
By this thinking, America is so despised by the Iranians that the only way they will make a move against their regime is if they believe that America is allied with their regime. So by this line of reasoning, the only way the US can lead is by negative example - which the world in its wisdom will reject... [snip]
While Cooper's analysis gives no evidence that Obama's policies toward the ayatollahs had any impact on the tumultuous events now sweeping through Iran, it does make clear that the so-called Obama effect is a real phenomenon. It just isn't the phenomenon she claims it is.
THE REAL OBAMA effect on world affairs relates to the US media's unprecedented willingness to abandon the basic responsibilities of a free press in favor of acting as propagandists for the president. From Cooper - who pretends that Obama's unreciprocated open hand to the mullahs is what empowered the protesters - to Newsweek editor Evan Thomas who referred to Obama earlier this month as a "sort of God," without a hint of irony, the US media have mobilized to serve the needs of the president.
It is hard to think of an example in US history in which the media organs of the world's most important democracy so openly sacrificed the most basic responsibilities of news gatherers to act as shills for the chief executive.
Earlier this month NBC's nightly news anchorman Brian Williams bowed to Obama when he bade him good night at the White House...
[Lots of specific examples, Highly Recommended > ]
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No-drama Obama may invite more Iranian repression
San Francisco Examiner Editorial
President Barack Obama’s noted cool and nonchalance may reassure some, but his clear aversion to unexpected drama is a hindrance to confronting a dangerous crisis effectively.
In fact, his overly passive response to events in Iran reveals a regrettable unwillingness to speak up that could easily be mistaken by foreign leaders for weakness...
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No party favors for Iran
House Minority Whip Eric Cantor — who thinks President Obama needs to get tougher on Tehran — is steamed that the repressive regime's diplos are still being invited to U.S.-sponsored July 4 parties.
On Monday, a State Department flack was quizzed on the party topic and replied, ''No, there’s no thought to rescinding the invitations to Iranian diplomats..."
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Congress stuffs war-funding bill with cash for other items
The emergency war funding bill that President Barack Obama is expected to sign soon has mushroomed into a catch-all for many lawmakers' favorite projects.
Obama originally sought $83.5 billion in April to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. By the time Congress rewrote the bill and passed it last week, the price had jumped to $105.9 billion...
[Is this also 'last year's business' that doesn't apply to his no pork promise?]
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A Clunker of an Idea
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"CASH FOR CLUNKERS" is a bad idea whose time seems to have come. Congress has added trade-in incentives for old gas guzzlers to a $106 billion supplemental appropriations bill whose purpose was to fund military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.
President Obama is likely to sign the measure this week.
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POLL: 54% Oppose “Cash for Clunkers” Plan
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 54% oppose the “Cash for Clunkers” proposal. Thirty-five percent (35%) favor the plan, and 12% are undecided.
Most Americans oppose the plan to encourage people to trade in old cars for new, more fuel-efficient models, and few adults plan to take advantage of the program.
Regardless, Congress has passed the plan and sent its to President Obama who intends to sign it into law.
['Representative' government?]
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'Netanyahu's Jewish state condition ruining peace chances'
Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak blasted Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech on Sunday saying"Netanyahu's demand that Palestinians recognize Israel as the Jewish state is ruining the chance for peace,"
[Why's that? Last I checked, Israel had a bunch of Jews in it.]
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POLL: 81% Say Palestinians Must Recognize Israel
Eighty-one percent (81%) of U.S. voters agree with Israeli President Benjamin Netanhyahu that Palestinian leaders must recognize Israel’s right to exist as part of a Middle Eastern peace agreement. just seven percent (7%) disagree and say this should not be a requirement for a peace agreement. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure. [?]
U.S. voters continue to be pessimistic about the chances for peace in the region. Seventy-four percent (74%) say it is unlikely there will be lasting peace between the Palestinians and Israel within the 10 years.
Forty-nine percent (49%) of Americans say that if Israel attacks Iran because of the latter’s continuing development of nuclear weapons, the United States should help Israel.
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Hamas Spurns Calls to Recognize Israel
Dismissing pleas from former President Jimmy Carter, Hamas leaders last week refused to comply with international demands that the terrorist group recognize Israel's right to exist, the Associated Press reported."The visit has not led to a significant change. Hamas finds the conditions unacceptable,"... "Recognizing Israel is completely unacceptable."
Ahmed Youssef, Hamas' deputy foreign minister said. The other two international conditions—renouncing violence and accepting previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements—he called 'irrelevant'.
[Yet to hear our president is to be left with the impression that it's Israel that's somehow the road block to 'peace'.]
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The TARP Brain Drain
Many top traders and bankers have left the financial giants for rivals. The trend may continue as long as Citi and BofA remain under the government's thumb.
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The so-called brain drain that big banks have worried about ever since the government stepped in to bail out the financial sector appears to be well underway.
And nowhere is that pain being felt more acutely than at Citigroup (C, Fortune 500) and Bank of America (BAC, Fortune 500), the two banks that have received the most aid from the government and are subject to the most onerous restrictions on executive compensation
Exact figures about the number of departures from Citi and BofA are tough to come by. But Citi chairman Dick Parsons conceded at an economic forum last week that management has had to use terms like "patriotic duty" and the potential of doing "fascinating" work to convince people to work for the embattled firm.
"It is normal but it is exacerbated by the fact that those who are stuck in TARP can't compensate their people as well those who aren't,"
For months, financial firms have railed against proposed compensation caps, warning it would prompt an exodus of workers at firms that remain under the government's thumb to smaller rivals, foreign banks and the lightly-regulated worlds of private equity and hedge funds.
But last week, the White House proposed to limit bonuses at Citigroup and Bank of America for their top 100 salaried employees, who's compensation will now be set and scrutinized by the newly appointed "pay czar"...
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POLL = 53% Say More Government Spending Hurts the Economy
Most voters (53%) believe increases in government spending hurt the economy, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Just 27% now say increased government spending helps the economy, and 10% say it has no impact.
Most Republicans (73%) and unaffiliated voters (57%) say more government spending is bad for the economy. But a plurality of Democrats (45%) thinks increased government spending is beneficial.
Voters are much more supportive of cuts in government spending as opposed to increases. Almost half of voters (46%) think decreases in government spending help the economy, while 27% say they hurt it.
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Dems ignore Obama cuts
Congressional Democrats are largely ignoring President Obama’s $19.8 billion in budget cuts.
The president proposed axing dozens of programs that he said were inefficient or ineffective, but members of the House Appropriations Committee are again including the money for them...
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Lawmakers may slap sales tax on services
North Carolina lawmakers are considering taxing a broad variety of everyday services. You could pay more for a haircut, a pedicure, a clutch replacement or getting your yard mowed...
[All based on the assumption that it's their money, and anything they allow us to keep we should be grateful for.
It matters who you vote for.]
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'Evening News' Blames State Budget Woes on Economy, Ignores Growth of Government
[Meanwhile, in our professional media...]
It's basic economics - when the economy contracts and the flow of money slows, so do tax receipts to local governments, barring maneuvering by the government to impose higher taxes. And that has been a focus of news stories, most notably the state budget woes that have recently hit California.
A June 22 "CBS Evening News" segment showed how, during this sluggish economy, the demand for state government social programs, like welfare, have increased across the county, even as cash-strapped states are in fiscal crisis. But the report didn't point to one of the biggest reasons for state deficits: irresponsible government growth.
But what Bowers didn't explain is the $12-billion gap in Illinois has been caused by the rapid expansion of the size of state government. Illinois state government general funds expenditures increased eight of the nine years between 1999 and 2007, and in six of those nine years expenditures grew by 5 percent or more.
One of the other states in Bowers' report, California, has been a well-documented fiscal train wreck, for which the media have blamed voters who rejected an increase in taxes...
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PARASITE TIED TO GLOBAL BEE DEATHS
[Another man-is-the-problem disinformation campaign bites the dust.]
The sudden collapse of honeybee colonies around the world, a condition identified in 2004, is most likely caused by the parasite Nosema ceranae, not the human causes alleged by environmental activist groups.
Spanish researchers have reported in Environmental Microbiology Reports, a journal of the Society for Applied Microbiology, finding Nosema ceranae as the only common thread among them:
- Since 2004, honeybee populations around the world have been succumbing to Colony Collapse Disorder, characterized by worker bees leaving their hives and dying off without returning.
- Loss rates have varied from 30 percent to 90 percent of regional colonies.
- With no known cause to account for the die-offs, environmental activists blamed everything from pesticides [man] to cell phones [man] to global warming [man].
Once that was discovered, the Spanish science team introduced fumagillin -- an antibiotic -- into the affected bee colonies. It cleared the parasite and halted colony collapse. Many colonies began to rebuild their numbers shortly thereafter.
This is the same thing that happened with frogs when amphibians were declining, says H. Sterling Burnett, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. The environmental activists were quick to point their finger at global warming, pesticides and other human activities, when it turned out entirely natural factors were the cause.
Of course, after the activists' media allies sounded the alarm that pesticides and global warming are killing frogs and bees, they became strangely silent about reporting the exculpatory evidence that natural factors are to blame,.
"The general public has no idea that humans in fact were not to blame, unless they subscribe to and read academic journals."
[Or this amateur blog.]
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WHAT WASHINGTON'S "GREEN" SCHOOLS TELL US
In an effort to promote "green" jobs and to encourage energy savings in schools, universities and public buildings, the Washington legislature is considering HB 2334, which would send a $3 billion bond proposal to voters this fall.
Washington state already has experience with similar efforts to spend taxpayer money to improve the energy efficiency of schools. In 2005, the legislature passed the "High Performance Buildings" law requiring schools to purchase energy efficient equipment. That experience is instructive in the difficulty of spending taxpayer money wisely and achieving the predicted energy savings. Three things stand out from that experience:
- "Green" schools that incorporate many of the elements called for in this proposal have fallen far short of the projected energy savings.
- Recent studies and statements by those who work with the "green" schools in Washington state concur with previous findings: those buildings do not achieve the projected energy savings.
- Some advocates cite studies claiming to show that buildings that meet "green" building standards like Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) save energy when compared to other new buildings; these studies, however, make no such claims and are being misused.
Experience indicates the expected savings will fall short of projections.
[But saving energy isn't the real objective.]
DUMBEST GENERATION GETTING DUMBER
Any long-term solution to our education problems requires the decentralization that can only come from competition...
According to a McKinsey & Company report on the economic impact of the achievement gap in American schools, the longer American children are in school, the worse they perform compared to their international peers. That's a sobering thought: The longer kids are in school and the more money we spend on them, the further behind they get, says Walter Williams, a John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University.
In recent cross-country comparisons of fourth grade reading, math, and science, U.S. students scored in the top quarter or top half of advanced nations. By age 15 these rankings drop to the bottom half. In other words, American students are farthest behind just as they are about to enter higher education or the workforce.
As a result, the teaching establishment and politicians have convinced taxpayers that more money is needed to improve education:
- The Washington, D.C., school budget is about the nation's costliest, spending about $15,000 per pupil; its student/teacher ratio, at 15.2 to 1, is lower than the nation's average.
- Yet, student achievement is just about the lowest in the nation.
- However, 1,700 children in kindergarten through 12th grade receive the $7,500 annual scholarships in order to escape D.C. public schools, and four times as many apply for the scholarships, yet Congress, beholden to the education unions, will end funding the school voucher program.
[With the predictable consequences...
We must have universal-unencumbered {not 'managed' by public schools systems} vouchers that put parents back in charge of the education of their children.]
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THE CYBER WAY TO KNOWLEDGE
How can we reform U.S. K-12 education so that U.S. students will be competitive with Finnish teenagers? Technology -- particularly online education, say Terry M. Moe and John E. Chubb, authors of "Liberating Learning: Technology, Politics, and the Future of American Education."
Technology holds two potentially dramatic benefits, say the authors:
- One is simply a general improvement in education as students from "anywhere -- poor inner cities, remote rural areas, even at home" gain access to high-caliber instruction.
- More important, is technology's ability to destroy the political barriers that prevent education reform.
- In 1995, Midland, Pa., a declining steel town on the Ohio border, launched the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School.
- Today the online school serves 8,000 students throughout the state; and the classes aren't just digital correspondence courses -- there are textbooks and live educators, including "synchronous teachers," who work with students through instant messaging, voice and interactive whiteboards while the kids are engaged with their lessons online.
- Advisers are required to communicate with students' families at least once a week by email and once every two weeks by phone.
- As for results, even though the school's demographics are average or even below average, Cyber was rated as having made Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) in No Child Left Behind, hitting all 21 educational targets.
- By contrast, barely half of Pennsylvania's bricks-and-mortar schools received the AYP rating; on SAT tests, Cyber students scored 97 points higher than the state average.
Teachers unions, of course, are appalled...
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Dems move to shield ACORN
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A Republican lawmaker accused House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and congressional Democrats of "shutting down the process" in the House of Representatives to block his effort to investigate the national community organizing group ACORN.
Rep. Steve King, Iowa Republican, said in an interview on The Washington Times' morning radio show "America's Morning News" that Mrs. Pelosi and the Democratic majority had recently authorized an unprecedented change in House rules to curb the right of the minority to offer amendments to appropriations spending bills
The amendments, which were blocked from a House floor vote, would have prevented ACORN from being eligible for its workers and chapters helping organize or participate in the 2010 Census..."Nancy Pelosi has shut down the process and it's disgraceful,"
Audio clip
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Bachmann Urges Taxpayers to Sign The ACORN Petition
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ACORN is celebrating its birthday and as a gift from its friends in the House leadership an amendment that Congressman Steve King (R-IA) and I offered to keep ACORN from getting federal funds through the Census and other federal programs has been denied debate.
They won't even let it come to the House floor for discussion. They don't want to have to go on the record in support of this corrupt organization.
No wonder: The American people have said loud and clear that they don't want Congress funneling their hard-earned tax dollars to ACORN.
In less than 2 weeks, nearly 32,000 Americans signed my petition to stop Congress from spending millions on ACORN's voter registration fraud.
If you haven't signed yet: SIGN NOW!
Please forward this to all your friends and your family and your co-workers.
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50% Say Hate Is Growing in America
Fifty percent (50%) of Americans believe hate is growing in America in the wake of the murders of a doctor who performed late-term abortions and a military recruiter and a shooting incident at the U.S. Holocaust Museum in which a guard was killed.
Thirty-five percent (35%) of adults disagree, saying these were isolated incidents, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.
[This is the damage our corupt media causes. Of course these were isolated incidences, only the MSM's unrelenting spin could convince any adult otherwise.]
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STUDY: CHUBBY PEOPLE LIVE LONGEST
People who are overweight at the age of 40 live longer on average than people with other physiques, according to a study by the Japanese Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry. The study showed that thin people had the shortest life expectancy, on average dying six or seven years earlier than overweight people.
Researchers studied the health of about 50,000 people aged 40 or older over a 12-year period. They looked at the past physiques of the participants and how long they lived past the age of 40, and grouped them according to their body mass index (BMI), an indicator of how fat a person is.
However, the link between physique and life expectancy is not clearly understood.
The study also found that the fatter a person is, the greater their medical expenses. For example: The average lifetime medical expenses for overweight mena and women from the age of 40 is about $195,000 - 30 per cent higher than for thin people.
[Because they're living longer and, contrary to the smokers-costing-more myth, it's the prolongation of life that's expensive.]
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ObamaCare: Kiss Your Access Goodbye
President Obama and the Democratic Congress repeat a mantra so often that it has become a truism: America's health care system is a scandalous failure, and it is absolutely urgent that we fix it now. The mainstream media nod their agreement, and yet, the polls tell us something else:
Eighty percent of Americans say they are satisfied with the quality of their health care.
[Oh come on, we little people aren't qualified to reach that conclusion.]
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PBS Wages War on Pro-Lifers
The Public Broadcasting Service recently announced it will no longer allow religious programming on their taxpayer-subsidized airwaves. The handful of stations that have shown a Catholic Mass or Mormon devotions will be allowed to continue, but the other 300-plus stations have been instructed to avoid any kind of evangelism.
Welcome to Barack Obama’s new world order.
To everyone who’s watched two minutes of "Bill Moyers Journal," with its panels unanimously screaming for Bush’s impeachment, or more recently, for a single-payer socialist health-care system, the idea of PBS being devoted to a "non-evangelism" stance is several miles removed from ridiculous.
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Joe Scarborough Conservative Bashing Book Tour Flops Bigtime
Your humble correspondent feels obligated to warn you about the article you are about to see. It is a harsh but brutally honest review written by Brian Maloney of The Radio Equalizer about Joe Scarborough's new book, The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise.
Over the past several weeks, this site has been tracking the attempt by MSNBC's Joe Scarborough to make money bashing his former friends in any and every available public venue. Each time, he was quick to bash Rush Limbaugh, Karl Rove, Newt Gingrich, and other key conservative figures.
In recent years, Scarborough has found that turning against fellow Republicans could be good for the pocketbook, securing him the morning gig at MSNBC and a syndicated talk show airing on WABC / New York and elsewhere.
But in new data released late this week, Scarborough has struck out in every category: TV, radio and publishing. His widely-touted The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America's Promise has bombed. The most recent check at Amazon shows that Scarborough's book has now plunged to #295 in book sales despite seemingly endless promotion for it on MSNBC and the rest of the tube.
These numbers don't lie and the lesson for any budding Morning Joe-types out there is clear: the [reading] audience isn't stupid. They can sniff out a backstabbing weasel with remarkable speed, putting an early end to Scarborough's transparent get-rich-quick scheme.
By contrast, conservative author Mark Levin remained in first place after three full months, according to Bookscan, selling rapidly approaching the one million sales mark, and that was with relatively little promotion.
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WaPo: Obama's Cairo Speech Encouraged Iranian Revolt
The recent protests in Iran, as well as Hezbollah's political defeat in Lebanon days earlier, are the result of Barack Obama's speech in Cairo on June 4.
Such nonsense was actually reported by the Washington Post Tuesday.
[More accurate to say the protests occurred despite Obama's 'efforts'.]
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