Slipping on a Greece Spot

Remember Greece, the country that spent itself into oblivion and is surviving only by the largesse of the Germans? It's back in the news. Germany required some pretty drastic economy measures to get the fun-loving Greeks to live within their means and sobriety hasn't been pleasant. But let the good times roll again! 

Syriza, the hard-Left Greek political party whose motto is "We don't need the stinkin' Germans to tell us what to do!" won the national elections decisively and the emergency descent of the Greek economy should begin shortly. Syriza said we (Greeks) have paid the price long enough and to heck with the agreement! Well alrighty then. All Greeks should securely fasten their seat belts and place their tray tables in an upright position and BTW assume the crash position. This is not going to be a pleasant trip. It may be salutary, though, for certain other no-holds-barred spenders. On second thought, naw - they never learn. Stand by for impact.  

www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/26/the-end-of-the-center-left-greeces-socialist-party-loses-to-both-hard-left-and-neo-nazis/

That's a Great Idea!

I love innovation and here's one that I wish I would have thought of. Lucid Energy of Oregon is building pipes that have inline turbines in them that uses the natural flow of water in a city's water system as it moves to houses and businesses to generate electricity. It will capture enough energy from Portland's water system to power 150 homes. Brilliant! This is the sort of de-centralized power project that cumulatively could over time help us to depend less on oil (and the resulting potential vulnerability) for our power needs.

www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2015/01/portland_company_that_built_ci.html#incart_m-rpt-1

Don't Worry

Remember all the recent happy-dappy economic news about unemployment - again? Well, it's all baloney - again. Unemployment was down in November-December due to Christmas temp hiring for the holidays. The New Year arrives and presto chango, those jobs fade away. And the real economy? Pretty much always a month or so after the fact we hear things weren't so good after all and this month is no exception.
The Commerce Department reported orders of durable goods fell 3.4% in December. "Durable goods" are things like cars, washing machines and airplanes. While that might be understandable over the holidays, at the very end of the article the writer buried this little gem: 

"There was also weakness in a number of areas, and a key category that serves as a proxy for business investment plans edged down 0.6 percent in December after a similar decline in November and a 1.8 percent fall in October."

Okay, let's see - that's 3% down since October and since these are the predictors for future business investment, which means orders for say durable goods and increasing hiring to meet demand, I'm going to venture a guess and say it ain't looking real rosy for 2015. I'm shocked, shocked. But what does it matter? C'mon, be happy!

news.yahoo.com/orders-us-durable-goods-fell-3-4-percent-135217076--finance.html

The German Giant Awakes?

Here is an interesting story about the PEGIDA protests in Germany. This movement is quite large and protesting the "Islamization" of Germany. It is getting the Tea Party treatment from German pols and the press but if you read the report, the people involved seem to be the same sort as involved here in the Tea Party - quiet, respectful citizens who are fed up with the status quo. There is a tinge of traditional German nationalism (peace with Russia; the U.S. can't control our foreign policy) but by and large the focus is on Germany for Germans. There were also large Leftist counter-demonstrations to the march covered in the story, which is another feature of Germany in the last 100 years. Germany after all was the home of Karl Marx. This is an interesting brew developing and one to watch if it continues. 

www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/24/german-anti-islamisation-marches-what-the-mainstream-media-doesnt-want-you-to-know/

In Your Debt

We saw American Sniper tonight. I can see why the Left is upset. This film projects an enormous emotional punch. It is definitely a must-see movie. Bradley Cooper does a terrific job as Chris Kyle, as does Sienna Miller as his wife. Eastwood has perhaps the capstone of his career. War is not pretty. The movie is unsparing of the impact on Kyle and his family. But it is periodically necessary when you see the savagery of the jihadists, the same ilk who dropped the World Trade Center and hit the Pentagon and took 3,000 lives. Many, many thanks to our men and women who have taken the fight to the enemy's homelands so we don't have to live in fear here.

Weasels in Washington

Republicans in Congress are either incompetent or liars. The Republican House passed a bill in 2013 banning abortions after the 5th month of pregnancy because after that time babies in utero can feel pain. The only other nations that currently allow abortions after this time are North Korea and China - lovely company. The bill was killed in the Senate by Harry Reid. 

Enter 2015 and the Republican House once again tees up the bill. But wait - Rep. Renee Elmers (NC - Rep.) works behind the scenes to get it killed and succeeds. She had run as a pro-life candidate but claimed the bill was unpopular with Millennials. When polling data showed this wasn't true she began tap dancing and mumbling, as did Boehner and other Republican leaders. 

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Would Obama have vetoed the bill? Of course - North Korea and China are paragons of civil rights virtue for him. Erick Erickson writing in Townhall if anything understates the prospects for this Congress:

"Mollie Hemingway, a writer at The Federalist, noted everyone should be worried by the House Republicans' action. The measure has overwhelming popular support; the GOP campaigned on the issue; Renee Ellmers herself voted for the identical legislation in 2013; but the GOP could not pull it off. That level of incompetence bodes poorly for legislation that does not have popular support."

No duh. Disgusting bunch of weasels. 
townhall.com/columnists/erickerickson/2015/01/23/republicans-unanchored-n1946965

The Ruling Class Air Force

Oh the irony! An entire air force of 1,700 biz jets is descending on Davos, Switzerland to the Global Warming Conference. Screw the polar bears - when the Ruling Class travels all bets are off! The masses can set their thermostats a few degrees lower to make up for it. 

www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/01/20/1700-private-jets-fly-to-davos-to-discuss-global-warming/

Entertaining Angels

Chick-fil-A has caught a lot of grief for supposedly being closet racists and rednecks and who knows what else. Think again.

Last year a freak snowstorm in Birmingham, Alabama stranded hundreds of motorists in their cars. A number of them abandoned their cars and trekked into a near-by Chick-fil-A for warmth and some food. The restaurant proceeded to cook hundreds of sandwiches and its employees walked out to the highway and handed them out free to other stranded motorists in their cars. 

This year, same place, same restaurant, same manager. A cold snap is chilling the city to the bone and a homeless guy walks in and asks if there is any work so he can get something to eat. Instead of getting tossed out, he's invited to sit down and is served a hot meal. When the manager notices the guy's hands are blue from the cold, he goes back and gets his own gloves and gives them to the man. The whole scene is caught by another customer who takes a photo on their phone and posts it on Facebook, which has now gone viral.

Yup, nasty folks who work for Chick-fil-A. After it became a web sensation, the manager was asked why he did it. He said it comes from the Cathy family who owns the company. As Tosd Starnes, the writer of the piece, says - be hospitable to strangers, you never know when you are entertaining angels. Hebrews 13:2. Think about it the next time you see a down-and-out stranger or a Cick-fil-A and your stomach is grumbling.

townhall.com/columnists/toddstarnes/2015/01/12/you-wont-believe-what-chickfila-did-for-a-homeless-man-n1942059

Progressive Slumlords

Que pasa? It's harder on a poor person in San Francisco than say Dallas, TX? Consider these eye-opening statistics:

"The more progressive the city, the worse a place it is to be poor and/or black. The most pronounced economic inequality in the United States is not in some Republican redoubt in Texas but in San Francisco, an extraordinarily expensive city in which half of all black households make do with less than $25,000 a year. Blacks in San Francisco are arrested on drug felonies at ten times their share of the general population. At 6 percent of the population, they represent 40 percent of those arrested for homicides. Whether you believe that that is the result of a racially biased criminal-justice system or the result of higher crime incidence related to socioeconomic conditions within black communities (or some combination of those factors) what is undeniable is that results for black Americans are far worse in our most progressive, Democrat-dominated cities than they are elsewhere. The progressives have had the run of things for a generation in these cities, and the results are precisely what you see."  Kevin Williamson

townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2015/01/13/15-statistics-that-destroy-liberal-narratives-n1942063

Y'all Come - The Consequences

On August 27, 2014 I posted on Gov. Jerry Brown's unique immigration program for California - "Y'all come!" Now the chickens are coming home to roost. Health spending for state-paid healthcare is up by $5.8 over inflation from last year's budget. Good luck Golden Staters!

 www.breitbart.com/california/2015/01/10/healthcare-for-illegals-pushes-californias-budget-to-5-8-billion-over-inflation/

Je Suis Charlie

Global Warming! Shriek!

"The record-breaking cold blanketing the United States has been so harsh that the penguins in the National Aviary in Pittsburgh ended up being ushered indoors to escape the numbing cold."

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/08/record-breaking-cold-so-bad-even-penguins-forced-inside/

Perspective

The headlines have run relentlessly telling us how good the economy is under Obama - happy times are here again, yada, yada! Woo-hoo! Yeah right. 

Take a gander at this:

"September also saw a labor force participation rate of 62.7 percent, however prior to then, the last time the rate hit 62.7 percent was in February of 1978."

Obama has flooded the economy with Federal funny money for 6 years and added trillions to the deficit. Not surprisingly, with that much money sloshing around, the economy has managed to stay afloat. I mean, you can create an oasis in the Sahara if you pour enough money into it, but when the flood of money recedes, the endless sand is still there and your pool floatie sticks and stays. That's where it sits for 93 million Americans who no longer even bother to look for work.

www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/09/record-92898000-americans-not-in-the-workforce/

Running From the Socialist Paradise

How can this be? Since the "normalizing" of relations with Cuba was announced by the Obama Administration, escape attempts have increased by 117% according to the Coast Guard. Don't these people know that Cuba's medical system is wonderful - better than that in the U.S.? And they get all these free or low cost service? Could it be that perhaps they know something that the so-called intelligentsia in this country still have not figured out in 50 years? That Castro and his gang run Cuba more like Al Capone ran Chicago than George Washington leading the United States in its formative years?

townhall.com/tipsheet/christinerousselle/2015/01/07/despite-normalizing-relations-with-cuba-escape-attempts-on-rise-n1939901

Oh Puh-lease!

White House press flack Earnest Josh (nee Josh Earnest) refused to label jihadis murdering 12 people with AK-47s at a Paris satirical publication as "terrorism" despite the President of France already having done so. Wonder what he would have said on 9/11? Or the next time there us a similarly big hit. Workplace violence? Just expressing their political opposition? 

www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/wh-unsure-whether-murderous-rampage-france-terrorism_823285.html

Now They're Disillusioned

Bummer when reality hits home. Life is so much better when it can be lived in the realm of theory and not the pocketbook:

"Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the heart of the 378-year-old university, voted overwhelmingly in November to oppose changes that would require them and thousands of other Harvard employees to pay more for health care. The university says the increases are in part a result of the Obama administration’s Affordable Care Act, which many Harvard professors championed."

They really should have considered who they were dating before going out.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/05/harvard-faculty-frantically-fights-to-stop-obamacare-healthcare-cost-increases/

A Great American

A great piece in WND today about George Washington Carver who revolutionized agriculture in the South by advocating rotational crops to replenish the soil with nitrogen and discovering about a zillion uses for the lowly peanut. Born around the end of the Civil War, his mother and sister were kidnapped soon afterwards and the kidnappers left the infant Carver to die, but he didn't. Instead, he was raised in Missouri by German immigrant parents, went to Iowa State where he graduated with a degree in agriculture, and went on to be a professor at Tuskegee Institute. 

In 1928 Carver said:

“Human need is really a great spiritual vacuum which God seeks to fill. …With one hand in the hand of a fellow man in need and the other in the hand of Christ, He could get across the vacuum. … Then the passage, ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me,’ came to have real meaning.”

Here is the short list of some of the products he developed:

"... peanut butter, salted peanuts, peanut flour, peanut flakes, peanut meal, cream from peanut milk, butter from peanut milk, egg yolk, breakfast food, bisque powder, cheese, cream cheese, cheese pimento, cheese sandwich, cheese tutti frutti, cocoa, crystallized peanuts, curds, granulated potatoes, potato nibs, golden nuts, mock coconut, pancake flour, peanut hearts, peanut surprise, peanut wafers, pickle, sweet pickle, shredded peanuts, substitute asparagus."

The whole article is well worth reading. Would that we all would respond like Dr. Carver, a great American.

www.wnd.com/2015/01/man-who-saved-the-south-said-it-was-gods-doing/

Competition Improves the Product

Even in sports. Yesterday was the first time the BCS football playoffs were held and we were rewarded with two very entertaining games. Oregon and Ohio State came out on top and play for the national championship next week. Under the old BCS system, neither would have been there but instead would have been watching from the sidelines as #1 Alabama and undefeated Florida State picked by the arcane BCS computer played instead. There is no question, competition improves the product - in sports and could it be, even in healthcare? Nah, bring on the single-payer system and let's experience how wonderful it is! How about one airline to serve all? We could name it Aeroflot. On second thought, the experts know better - bring back the old BCS system.

The First 2015 Darwin Awards Candidate

A Brit "fighter" for ISIS forgot to turn off the location services on his smartphone while traveling to ISIS safe houses. Could you get the door please" I think I hear F/A-18s knocking.

www.breitbart.com/london/2015/01/01/muslim-convert-mark-taylor-accidentally-tweets-locations-of-isis-safe-houses/