Current Status of the Obama Administration

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/24/Devastating-numbers-for-obama-in-ny-times-poll

GDP Errata - Take 2

Do you remember the scene in the Hunt for Red October toward the end of the movie where the Russian ambassador comes to see the U.S. Secretary of State with hat in hand to try and find out what happened to their submarine and rather shamefacedly admits that they seem to have lost another one? The Secretary fixes him with a look of patronizing incredulity, knowing perfectly well what has happened, and says "Alexei - another one?" Well, that's sort of how I feel about the new and further "update" of 1Q GDP news announced yesterday by the Administration. Turns out it wasn't the 0.1% originally reported, or the -1.0% later reported, but the real figure is now (for the moment) -2.9%. That's NEGATIVE 2.9%. 

Another one, Alexei? My, my, my, my, my!

The Armageddon Scenario

ISIS is chewing through northern Iraq toward Baghdad and is expected to hit the capital in the next few weeks. ISIS think al-Qaeda are wusses, if that gives you some idea of the sort of folks we are talking about. To understand why they have been able to move so rapidly, you have to go back to the Surge. 

Saddam's power base was tribal, based in Tikrit, and trans-Arab in the Ba'th Party which was also manifested with the Assad gang in Syria. Iraq was an artificial construct created by the British when they ran the area as a colonial power and their boundaries did not necessarily coincide with the tribal boundaries. This has persisted into modern times. Although Saddam governed primarily from a secular perspective, the minority Sunnis supported him because he offered a counterbalance against the majority Shiites in Iraq, who live largely south of Baghdad. When Saddam was toppled by the U.S., the Sunnis supported the post-war al-Qaeda insurgency until the U.S. military "surged" and effectively was chewing it to pieces. Sunni leaders saw the handwriting on the wall and, convinced that the U.S. was going to see this through, switched sides and went after al-Qaeda with a vengeance. Shortly thereafter al-Qaeda was effectively decimated and Iraq became relatively quiet awaiting post-war political developments. 

The current Prime Minister, Maliki, is a Shia and he has systematically removed or prevented the Sunnis from having a meaningful role in the post-war government. The Shiites largely take their cues from Iran, the major Shia power in the area. This has largely happened during the Obama Administration, probably not by design but because of neglect since President Obama has been for the most part supremely disinterested in foreign affairs, choosing instead to focus on changing the domestic structure of the United States. Unfortunately, since the Sunnis saw no hope that the U.S. was going to redress the situation, they took matters into their own hands and opened the door again to the al-Qaeda insurgents and that is how we have arrived at the current imbroglio which is a genuine civil war aided and abetted by the transnational al-Qaeda, Inc. 

Former U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton has just said we should just let them slug it out. Perhaps, but more than just Iraq is in play because of al-Qaeda. ISIS very recently seized border outposts with Syria and Jordan. Syria is already a mess and embroiled in its own civil war, but Jordan is a U.S. ally and one of the few stable Arab states in the area. It is also a buffer between the rabid politics of most of the rest of the Middle East and Israel. ISIS is already threatening to flood Jordan with 15,000 "freedom fighters" and incidentally to nuke Israel. While we can kid ourselves that what these crazies do really doesn't matter to us, the Israelis can't, which means the likelihood of someone (not Israel) getting ash-trayed (nuclear) in the Middle East is going up as I write this. 

Jordan cannot fall - period. If it does, the Armageddon scenario will have arrived front and center and even now, it is waiting in the wings. Paint me pessimistic as Obama and the other European leaders don't seem to be cut out for such a time as this. I don't think they even realize the extent of the problem. Where are the Churchills and FDRs when you need them? 

The Chickens Come Home to Roost

Poland has been one of the allstars of the post-Soviet era. Lech Walesa and others led the struggle against the Russians and freedom and democracy have really taken root there. W was a staunch supporter of the Poles and they reciprocated as vocal and material supporters of the U.S., sending Polish troops to Iraq and Afghanistan and allowing basing of an anti-missile site directed at Iran. Now, after 5 years of Obama, which included the abrupt cancelation of the anti-missile site, the Polish foreign minister has been heard off the record saying that the alliance with the U.S. isn't worth spit. 

When your friends start talking behind your back like this, maybe it's time to listen. It isn't hard to imagine what your enemies might be saying, or more importantly doing, and there won't be anybody to help us. Is this what Obama meant by his foreign policy "re-set?"

www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/06/22/Report--Polish-minister-calls-US-ties-worthless

A Tea Party for Germany?

England has the UKIP, which was recently quite successful in elections. Now we have the AfD (Alternative fur Deutschland) Party in Germany, another Tea Party-type political group focusing on political basics. Composed most of church-going conservatives and headed by the former head of IBM-Europe, the new party is already causing problems for the Euro-centered mainstream parties because its central tenet is "Germany for Germans." Not surprisingly, the Germans are getting tired of hauling the rest of Europe around on their backs and these folks have the temerity to say so. Interesting things happening in Europe, not to mention in the U.S. of A. Eric Cantor could not be reached for comment.  

www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/22/Is-this-Germany-s-Tea-Party-The-AfD-s-cry-of-Courage-for-Germany-rattles-Merkel

Father Clint?

A Catholic priest was murdered in Phoenix last week and the Diocese now says that priests there can carry. I understand the logic but the mental picture creates a little dissonance.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/18/Diocese-Priests-In-Phoenix-Can-Carry-Guns

A Contrarian View of Computers in the Classroom

PC Magazine's Jon Dvorak can be a little crusty, but he knows his stuff when it comes to computers. His take on computers in the classroom? Get 'em out. 

Dvorak says,

"Tech firms are looking forward to selling more machines for the classroom, where student can struggle by themselves on what amounts to a "teaching machine" that essentially does not teach. Teaching machines have never worked in the past, and they will never work in the future...

Teaching machines have been around for some time and stemmed from the ideas of controversial behaviorist BF Skinner. He developed something called programmed learning, which quickly morphed into teaching machines that culminated in the Control Data PLATO computers, or Programmed Logic for Automated Teaching Operations."
I am familiar with Skinner's work and while operant conditioning may work in some cases to learn certain less complex behavioral responses (touch this = pain), it does not work well in learning complex information that becomes building blocks for even more advanced skills. It is designed to produce robots with predictable responses and with Skinner, ones that can be easily controlled by someone else - think Big Brother. 

Dvorak concludes:

"There is something weird and pathetic about a teacher who goes from student to student to help them individually on the computer. This is not teaching, this is IT support.

Computers are great, I agree. But teachers teach and computers compute. Get gadgets out of the classrooms and watch things improve."

Call me old-fashioned, but I agree. 

www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2459679,00.asp

The Border Madness and Payola

An interesting story from National Review via Breitbart reports that supposedly the Obama Administration is knowingly letting in known gang members from Mexico and elsewhere in Central and South America, the MS-13 gang in particular. This raises some troubling questions, if true.

Historically where a city or an entire country is despoiled by drug trafficking you find corrupt politicians and other public officials. Take Colombia for a long time or Chicago in the 1930s. The Mexican/South American cartels are dealing with billions of dollars and it is impossible to believe that the current flood of heroin and meth into the U.S. is happening with the unified resistance of American politicians and officials at all levels. Corruption usually occurs at the local level but it can go all the way to the central government and very high officials  - think Colombia and Mexico as examples. Follow the money. That should be true of the U.S. too. We might be surprised what we find. 

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/14/Report-Obama-Admin-Knowing-Letting-Illegal-Immigrant-Gangsters-into-US

Let's See Who the Climate Deniers Are

"Global Warming" has morphed into "Climate Change" because temperatures didn't cooperate and have remained steady or cooled for the past 15+ years. Now another curve ball for those who think the sky is falling and will cause plagues a la Moses if we don't do SOMETHING. Specifically, a geophysics team from the University of Texas that was studying the melting of a portion of the Antarctic ice cap (remember that much of the rest of it increased by 60% last year) has found that water temperatures underneath were much warmer than they expected because an active volcano was belching away. Yup, a volcano spewing out molten lava does have a tendency to heat up the neighborhood. It will be interesting to see the Global Warmist crowd tie this to man-made activities. Curses - foiled again! Get Gore on the phone - "Al, we got a problem!"

www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/06/10/Why-the-West-Antarctic-Ice-Sheet-is-really-melting-And-no-not-climate-change

Step by Step

Melinda Gates announced that the large charitable foundation created by her and husband Bill Gates will no longer fund abortion. She explained that "abortion" and "family planning" have come to mean the same thing and they are not comfortable with that. Good decision. Family planning is fine; killing a child for convenience is not. Step by step.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/12/Bill-and-Melinda-Gates-Foundation-Says-It-Will-No-Longer-Fund-Abortion

I Like It

A Chicago artist is artistically filling potholes with embedded mosaic tiles. Each one has a number corresponding to the number of them that he has filled. His hope is that it will shame the city into doing the job but there is fat chance of that. Oh well, it's an enjoyable diversion, especially for Chicago where most of the news has been about the stratospheric murder rate. 


news.yahoo.com/chicago-man-filling-potholes-artfully-144057355.html

The Re-set with Iran

President Obama likes to re-set things, whatever that means. He has pursued a re-set with Russia and that has worked like a champ - just ask the Ukraine. He has also tried for a re-set with Iran and while he seems happy with it, it might behoove us to see how the Iranians look at things:

Speaking to a large crowd assembled to mark the 25th anniversary of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini's death, "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei declared his continuing belief that America is the Great Satan. "Battle and jihad are endless," he said. "This battle will only end when the society can get rid of the oppressors' front with America at the head of it, which has expanded its claws on human mind, body and thought." Arrayed behind the cleric was a banner reading, "America cannot do a damn thing!"

townhall.com/columnists/monacharen/2014/06/10/america-cannot-do-a-damned-thing-n1849481

Sounds promising doesn't it? Well, chalk up another foreign policy success and move on down the road! Who's next? China. Okay where's the re-set button? This is a piece of cake! W eat your heart out!

So Do We, Lech

Lech Walesa, the man who helped lead Poland out of the Soviet
orbit and to the West, recently shared a meal with President Obama. When asked by Polish television what he said to the President, Walesa replied:

“I said that I wished the United States would lead."

So do we, Lech. So do we.

www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/06/04/Lech-Walsea-to-Barack-Obama-I-Wish-the-United-States-Would-Lead

A Liberal Awakens from Her Coma

Texas has a relatively low tax rate but Austin has consistently voted in various and sundry taxes so that it looks more like California than the rest of Texas. Now taxes have gotten so high that even liberals are squeaking:

“I have voted for every park, every library, all the school improvements, for light rail, for anything that will make this city better. But now I can’t afford to live here anymore,” said Austin artist Gretchen Gardner to Austin American Statesman reporters."

Better late than never. It's a disease but recovery is possible - just say no!

www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-Texas/2014/06/05/Austin-Liberals-Cant-Afford-Taxes-They-Voted-For

D-Day + 70

America owes its freedom today to men like the ones who hit the Normandy beaches 70 years ago today. There were similar landings with similar casualties in places like Anzio, Tarawa, Iwo Jima and Okinawa. A horrendous price was paid in blood by young men so that we could enjoy our freedom. 

Attached is a comparison of the combat gear carried by those men versus our soldiers today. It's amazing what they did in 1944 with that gear. It is no less amazing today what our troops are able to do when called on. Our eternal thanks.

www.cnet.com/news/from-utah-beach-to-kabul-how-army-

gear-changed-since-d-day/

Bergdahl Trade Ripple Effect

A Taliban commander says that in light of the Bergdahl trade, American troops have become high-value kidnapping targets. Which is precisely why our policy had always been not to negotiate with terrorists. Did you know that four Oregon National Guard units are mobilizing for Afghanistan right now? 

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2649827/Taliban-commander-says-kidnappings-come-Obama-completed-5-1-hostage-trade.html

The Bergdahl/Taliban Trade

The New York Daily News is generally left of center which is what adds to the impact of this editorial. Simply put, The Daily News says that President Obama surrendered the honor of the United States to the Taliban in the trade for Bergdahl the deserter. Agreed. It is worth reading the editorial.

This is another first. I have never seen another Administration do anything like this, Democratic or Republican. President Clinton said that he took a pass on even talking to the Taliban. It is almost as if the President is representing the bad guys, not the American people who elected him. 

www.nydailynews.com/opinion/surrender-honor-article-1.1816079

Going Down

On my 5/22 blog I did a piece on the hypocrisy of touting the "improving" economy in face of the fact that GDP growth in the first quarter was only 0.1%. It seems I was premature. In fact, revised figures have been released (which seems to be a fairly regular occurrence) and the economy went negative at an annual rate of -1.0%. One more quarter of a negative GDP and we have - drum roll please - a RECESSION as traditionally defined by economists. It will be interesting to see how they spin that as "new and improved" if that happens.

www.usatoday.com/story/money/business/2014/05/29/gdp-first-quarter-revised/9694823/

Observation Point

C. S. Lewis wrote in his book, “The Four Loves”: “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/25342

Seattle's $15 Minimum Wage

Well, they did it up in SEA - passed the $15/hour minimum wage. Actually, I am glad they did because now we can see in a laboratory situation what happens when this sort of perhaps well-intentioned but stupid legislation is passed and hopefully learn from what is likely to be Seattle's bad experience. 

There was already a similar experiment underway in the Seattle suburb of SeaTac that Seattle voters could have learned from and avoided this idiocy, but hey - it's more fun to do it yourself! Here is what was happening just south of Seattle:

 "At the start of the year, the Seattle suburb of SeaTac raised the area’s minimum wage to $15, and the consequences are now starting to be felt. And it’s not just the unions who championed the effort, or those who still have jobs, that are feeling them.

Over the last few months, a few things have happened:

• Managers have taken more responsibilities on themselves, instead of hiring more workers.
• Businesses have laid off workers, or eliminated their plans to hire more.
• Area parking now comes with an added “living-wage surcharge.”
• Hotels have cut employee benefits, free food, and overtime.

Shocking: when bad ideas are put into place, there are consequences."

Some other predictions: summer jobs for high schoolers will go from scarce to non-existent, employers will aggressively automate as many routine tasks as possible, prices will go up in fast food joints, movie theaters, and anywhere else using lots of low-skilled people, overall service quality will go downhill, and last but not least, the same political idiots will clamor to raise the minimum wage to $20/hour for exactly the same reasons - once is not enough! 

My condolences to the folks in Seattle who voted against this including my daughter and son-in-law. Idaho is looking better and better.

townhall.com/tipsheet/danieldoherty/2014/06/03/seattle-approves-15-miniumum-wage-hike-n1846982

Been There; Done That - Didn't Work

The Obama EPA just promulgated (illegally) new regulations that kill coal as an energy source in the name of Global Warmism. The question to be asked is why are we reinventing the wheel when Germany has already tried this nonsense and it didn't work.

Yes, several years ago Germany did the same thing for the same reason - renewable energy sources like wind and solar were the wave of the future instead of the nasty old ones like coal or other fossil fuels and it would save the world by reducing CO2 emissions - never mind that China and India were totally ignoring the subject. The result was that these new energy sources could not carry the load of keeping Germans warm during cold German winters at a reasonable price and it began to collapse the economy. After several years of trying, the Germans threw in the towel and recently approved a large new coal field for mining to re-start the use of ucky coal. The reason:

"In March, development began to expand the Brandenburg coalfield in Germany with designs of supply, of enough lignite (brown coal) to power local power plants for the next 30 years, or longer. The move had to be made; Germany is importing tons of American coal, and brownouts and blackouts have taken a toll on the nation. The dream that 25% of electricity will be coming from renewable sources has become a nightmare. Every major manufacturer based in Germany has complained, and several have warned of shifting to lower-cost nations.

* Electricity is 30% cheaper in Asia
* Electricity is 50% cheaper in the United States than in Russia

Currently, due to the spike in prices, 800,000 households in Germany cannot afford their electricity bills."

This is where the U.S. is now headed unless Congress finally develops a spine and it is backed by the courts. What the Obama EPA has done is flagrantly unconstitutional - the President is governing (as he promised) by fiat and ignoring the legislative process altogether. The result will be a a continuing devaluation of our government as a government of laws and not the whims of would-be tyrants, the continued decrease of our economy and standard of living, and a self-inflicted major wound that will cripple America's ability to be a player for good in the world. Putin and the Chinese, not to mention all the other bad actors out there, have to be sitting back in total wonder at what we are doing to ourselves. 

finance.townhall.com/columnists/charlespayne/2014/06/03/deathblow-to-coal-n1846807