Only as high as I reach can I grow,
only as far as I seek can I go,
only as deep as I look can I see,
only as much as I dream can I be.
Karen Ravn
Thoughts and Prayers for the Oklahoma City Tornado Victims
From the CNN Update page:
- At least 51 people -- including seven children at an elementary school -- were killed when a massive tornado struck an area outside Oklahoma City on Monday afternoon, officials said.
- The tornado was estimated to be at least 2 miles wide at one point as it moved through Moore. The preliminary rating of the Moore tornado is at least EF-4 (166 to 200 mph), the National Weather Service said on Monday afternoon.
The last time I was in Oklahoma City I was working for Oracle on an IT project for the State of Oklahoma. A few years earlier I attended a human factors symposium in Norman, co-hosted by a Native American University faculty member and friend, Jim Trumbly. (Jane Carey, now retired, was the leader of our fledgling group: human factors was on the periphery of MIS research; one of the ISU faculty also attended at least this symposium. The latter took a year to establish a campus research center, which led to my temp appointment there. Getting to teach their ACS graduate class in human factors was my favorite time ever in a classroom. Let's face it: teaching stuff like COBOL is not as much fun as you might expect.) I liked Oklahoma; I was interested in a faculty position in Tulsa, but they were targeting female candidates.
I mentioned in a prior post I slept through a tornado. We were living in family housing at an old army post near Salina, KS (our backyard was bordered by a wheat field) while my Dad was serving in Southeast Asia. We didn't take a hit, but my mom and siblings were up and would speak of the tree in our front yard nearly bent in half; one of my siblings asked my mom whether he should wake me up. As I recall, there was some sort of military airplane/model near the post entrance, and they were finding pieces miles apart after the storm. I'm not sure how I managed to sleep through it. But no such luck in Houston during the hurricane there; the windows rattled so viciously I thought they might explode at any instant and spent a lot of time in the bathroom.
It reminds me: I was pulling for fellow libertarian/magician Penn Jillette whom easily won the Celebrity Apprentice All-Star showdown against country crooner Trace Adkins based on merit--but Trump named Adkins winner last night. Pathetic on Trump's part; no doubt Jillette's recent public criticism of Trump and his show played a role, although Trump, to his credit, put it out there. Personally, I understand Jillette, in trying to appease Trump's thin-skinned inflated ego, didn't want to sabotage his charity's chances of benefiting from his potential victory, but I would have respected him more if he had told Trump to blow it out his ears. It was pathetic of Trump to put it out there; his clear intent was to put Jillette on the spot--not for anything Jillette did on the show. (Let me finish this discussion with a plug for Jillette's chosen charity here, which provides programs addressing needs of intellectually disabled individuals in the Las Vegas area.)
Why did I bring up the Trump show in this discussion? Trace Adkins was playing on behalf of the American Red Cross, which, as Adkins continually reminded viewers helped his family out during a fire emergency while he was on tour. (I'm sure Adkins must be a wealthy entertainer and didn't need Red Cross services to take care of his family; there must be more to the story than what I've heard.) I myself have contributed to the Red Cross on multiple occasions (it would not surprise me to hear of an Oklahoma appeal soon; here is a current press release). But to be honest, the Red Cross is Americana, like Mom and apple pie; how does Trump deny a victory to the Red Cross? I would--because Jillette was the better contestant.
O'Malley Polling at Zero Percent in New Hampshire
I know--we are still in year 5 of the Black Hole of American History, aka the Obama Presidency. It's still early to talk about 2016, but the Master Legal Plunderer of Maryland, the former wunderkind mayor of Baltimore, isn't gaining any traction yet against the likely geriatric candidacies of Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. O'Malley is term-limited, and he will be out of office after the general elections next year. How do I hate O'Malley? Let me count the ways--class warfare tax hikes, industrial policy, Prisongate; his cartoonish partisan rhetoric on the Sunday morning talk shows.... I personally think the Dems would be better off running a red state former governor like Brian Schweitzer or Joe Manchin (although both men are seriously flawed as conservatives and probably couldn't hold their own states). I think people who seriously believe Hillary Clinton's 60% approval ratings are delusional: she is getting credit for not being Obama and she is largely sidestepping the issues with the economy. Ms. Clinton is not charismatic; my suspicion is that people will be looking for fresh faces and ideas; I don't think that includes a proxy rerun of the 1992 campaign. I also think they want a change from partisan gridlock as usual. Look, I'm not in a state of denial:I have no doubt many women would vote for Clinton strictly on the basis of her gender; others because they feel she's paid her dues, but she had that going for her in 2008 and couldn't get the job done. I think O'Malley's executive experience and youth play to his benefit, but he lacks foreign policy and federal experience, and he's going to need new ideas--and that means breaking with same old same old policies.
The Worst Article of the Year: Adam Hartung, "Economically, Could Obama Be America's Best President?", Thumbs DOWN
HELL NO! He's easily the worst--and it's not even close.
I don't even think the White House Press Office is this clueless: here is just one example:
To which President would you compare Obama’s economic performance?At first I thought, this must be a satire, right? Someone is pulling my leg, right? But, no, I'm convinced these people actually believe this stuff, and it's all rubbish from start to finish. You have to totally suspend your beliefs in reading this swill: it's like the writer and his interviewee are living in an alternate universe.
BBBB- By all measures, President Obama has outperformed every modern President.
It's hard to know where to start or how to proceed--I could refute the article point by point, like I've done for Grunwald, Plouffe, Klein and others, but I think that's hardly necessary. I'll simply make a few specific points.
Let's start with the fragment above. The author alternatively discussed Reagan and then dismisses him by referencing deficits. First, Reagan dealt with a Democratic-controlled House his full 2 terms and a Democratic-controlled Senate his last 2 years. At no time did he ever enjoy majorities FDR and Obama (in his first 2 years) enjoyed. Second, the author ignores spending and deficits: "President Reagan added $1.412 trillion to the debt during his two terms. He fought the 1982 recession by cutting the top income tax rate from 70% to 28%, and the corporate rate from 48% to 34%. He also increased government spending by 2.5% a year. This included a 35% increase in the defense budget, and an expansion of Medicare [to cover catastrophic illnesses]." One could argue increases in defense contributed to the end of the Cold War--and we saw real cuts in defense spending through the 1990's (see below). Let us not forget it's not just the case Obama more than doubled the externally held debt, but the debt exceeds GDP--when Reinhart and Roloff provided some evidence that debt loads exceeding 90% adversely affect economic growth.
Much is made of the auto bailouts, but the fact is that bankruptcies do not necessarily mean liquidations; the big difference is that Obama delayed moving on the bankruptcies, making more loans at taxpayer expense and then managed a bankruptcy process that violated the rule of law and favored his special-interest union allies. The author ignores other domestic and foreign-owned operations in this country did not require government bailouts; there is little doubt these companies had the capacity to make up for GM and Chrysler loss in sales.
Now let's deal with the fact the author seems to confound fiscal policy (in Obama's arena) with monetary policy (in the Fed's arena). Talking about new NOMINAL highs in stock indexes can hardly be traced to Obama's record spendthift ways. Let me point out: (1) we have the worst labor rate participation rates and highest long-term unemployment rate in decades; (2) we have had the lowest economy and job growth rate after a major recession since the Depression; (3) we still don't have breakeven jobs since the start of the recession in Dec.2007, never mind adding going on 5 years of new labor force entrants requiring roughly 200K jobs a month just to tread water, never mind allow deployment of the structurally unemployed and underemployed.
The author doesn't talk about near-zero interest rates Obama's entire Presidency and their effects on savers and fixed-income people. He doesn't talk about how the proportion number of Americans investing in the stock market has declined. He doesn't talk about how gold, a money proxy, earned more than stocks over the 2000's. He doesn't mention how the purchasing power of the dollar has declined by a third over recent years, which makes things like oil imports more expensive. He loves the fact the health care sector has been recovering in stock prices (go figure--mandated purchases of goods and services, an aging population, escalating health insurance premiums while overall income remains stagnant). He doesn't talk about how household net worth has plunged under Obama, how many older people are retiring with negligible savings and bleak employment prospects. He doesn't talk about high unemployment for less educated workers, minority groups, etc. He doesn't talk about people underwater on their mortgages.
I could go on and on. The entire piece is pure crap. I would be willing to bet this guy is a closet Democrat trying to rationalize his support for the Obama regime, but you could buy all of Revlon's inventory of lipstick and not have enough to put on this pig. (Time-permitting I may review certain points in future posts; I can't believe Steve Forbes lets incompetent hacks post their crap on his website.)
Political Cartoon
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| The media's phasers set to stun Obama ready for Jedi mind meld Courtesy of Jerry Holbert and Townhall |
Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band, "I'm Going Down"
