Talking Points and Turtles (update)

In this post, http://unapprovedthoughts.blogspot.com/2012/04/talking-points-and-turtles-all-way-down.html , I make the point that all we ever get from liberals any more is mindless talking points.  There's nothing of substance.

Jonah Goldberg has a new book which seems to take the same general approach (although I'm sure he does it much better).  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1595230866/ref=as_li_qf_sp_asin_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=wwwviolentkicom&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=1595230866

Is the World Run by Dr. Laura's Callers?

Before the internet was readily available as a source for all the news and opinion the mainstream media didn't want to share, Rush Limbaugh' radio show was a convenient source.  During the 1990s, the Dr. Laura show could be heard on the same station that carried Rush's show (it was either right before or right after).  So I had a number of opportunities to hear her callers explain the details of their particular dire situation and ask for her advice.  Generally, the typical caller had made a number of really bad decisions, gotten themselves into an uncomfortable situation where it looked like every possible course of action would result in painful consequences, and they were calling hoping that she could provide the pixie dust advice which would allow them to ride a magic unicorn to a place where there are no painful consequences and everyone lives happily ever after.  Dr. Laura, to her credit, would inform them that she was fresh out of magic unicorns and pixie dust.  I must confess I only managed to make it through a few such calls during the time the show was on around here, but all the ones I heard seemed to follow this same basic plot.  Life is full of painful consequences, especially when you make lots of really bad choices.  Heck, sometimes there's pain when you haven't done anything to cause it.

Is the Dr. Laura show still around?  And if it is, can we get most of the world's so-called leaders to call in?  Starting with Ben Bernanke, perhaps?  And Barack.  Along with those in Europe?

When did it become accepted wisdom that government has the expertise and the mechanisms of power to fix everything so that citizens never have to experience any pain?  This is hubris on steroids.  Does anyone really think that the Federal Reserve can print trillions in worthless currency and it will 'fix' our economy?  The world went on a bender fueled by debt and now we're going to fix everything by getting even more pickled?!  We're weaning the patient off cocaine by mainlining crack.  What could go wrong with a plan like that?

Suppose that Americans saw a news story that said the Federal Reserve is taking green construction paper, cutting it into rectangles, scrawling 100s or 1000s on them and carting them over to the Treasury in an endless parade of wheelbarrows to be used to pay the government's debt to the tune of a few trillion.  I hope we'd have enough sense to be concerned.  Yet, that's what helicopter Ben is doing, only with a computer.  Frankly, I think I'd have more faith in pixie dust and a magic unicorn.

Unfortunately, Ben's not the only vendor of pixie dust.  The current White House acts as if there isn't a problem in the world that can't be solved painlessly by throwing money at it and adding to our national debt.  It seems to be the only play in quarterback Obama's playbook.  And Europe is playing a bizarre game of financial musical chairs where there's only one chair, it belongs to Germany, and the German citizens are beginning to wonder if they want to keep playing.  Most of the nations in the EU are broke, they can't finance their debt, so they pressure the banks to buy it.  Except the banks are broke, too.  Which is why they have no choice but to do the government's bidding.  So everyone is spending money they don't have in an effort to keep the bubble expanding and hoping they aren't going to be around to take the shot in the face when it pops.  To mix my metaphors, the EU plan appears to be that if everyone will agree to pretend the shark isn't in the pool, none of the swimmers will get eaten.  I think they'd be smarter to try to ride the unicorn out of that pool.

At the very least, someone should have the integrity to point out that the emperor is swimming in it without a suit.

The Euro is dead

The Euro is dead.  It's just lurching around and milking the scene for as much extra attention as it can garner before it collapses in a spectacular heap.

http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2012/04/28/europe-has-fallen-down-and-it-cant-get-up/

The ship is sinking. Spain is the fourth largest economy in the eurozone, and nothing is going right for it. Bad real estate loans in a collapsing housing market are pushing the country toward a huge bailout of sick banks. Unemployment is at a Depression level of 24 percent; youth unemployment is at 50 percent. Interest rates on the country’s debt are up sharply and its credit rating has just been downgraded. The Spanish government has no idea what to do.

An unemployment rate of 24%.  And the voters don't want to make any changes.  Hmmm.  I wonder how long the German people are going to want to subsidize the Spanish.  And the Greeks.  And the Italians.  And all the others.

 The countries in Europe, especially those in the South, have reached a point where reforms to the core social model are needed—soon—to avoid a catastrophic breakup of the eurozone. But voters in those countries don’t want the changes to be made.

In theory, there is a way to resolve this. The wealthier countries in the zone (which means Deutschland, über alles) would underwrite the debts of the laggards as the laggards gradually made reforms and reduced their spending. That would make the reform process easier and promote some growth in Europe.

But the Germans believe — and they are almost 100 percent certainly right — that the Club Med countries plus Belgium and France will use any breathing space they get to water down or postpone reforms. After all, when they signed up for the euro, the Club Med countries knew that they needed to undertake ambitious reform programs to sustain their membership in the monetary union and they refused to do anything serious — especially in the super-sensitive area of labor markets.

This has been the problem from the beginning: Club Med doesn’t want to live under German rules and Germany doesn’t want a Club Med currency. Club Med can’t make Germany underwrite the Club’s lavish lifestyle and Germany can’t make Club Med live by German rules.

Noonan on the incompetent one

http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/running_on_empty_furl6CRXj9dj3zVZfuXKSM

Peggy Noonan is often wrong, but she sometimes has a good feel for politics.  I think her feel here is dead on:

It’s interesting that the Obama campaign isn’t using what incumbent presidents always sooner or later use, either straight out or subliminally. And that is “You know me. I’ve been president for almost four years, you don’t know that other guy. In a high-stakes world do you really want someone new?”

You know why they’re not using “You know me”? Because we know him, and it’s not a plus.

Here’s one reason why.

There is a growing air of incompetence around Mr. Obama’s White House. It was seen again this week in Supreme Court arguments over the administration’s challenge to Arizona’s attempted crackdown on illegal immigration. As Greg Stohr of Bloomberg News wrote, the court seemed to be disagreeing with the administration’s understanding of federal power: “Solicitor General Donald Verrilli . . . met resistance across ideological lines. . . . Even Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s only Hispanic and an Obama appointee, told Verrilli his argument is ‘not selling very well.’” This follows last month’s embarrassing showing over the constitutionality of parts of ObamaCare.

All of this looks so bush league, so scattered. Add it to the General Services Administration, to Solyndra, to the other scandals, and you get a growing sense that no one’s in charge, that the administration is paying attention to politics, but not day-to-day governance.

As I've noted before -- it's all talking points all the time.  There is nothing of substance.  Just sound bites.  And soundbites of hope and change may work once, but they don't govern a country.

Bending science to fit the needs of politicians

 "Why do some scientists insist that Texas is warming when the data show a negligible increase? I don’t know. But I do know that a National Science Foundation program officer told me that applications for atmospheric science grants that do not include a global warming theme stand little chance of acceptance."

 http://www.mysanantonio.com/life/article/Research-shows-Texas-is-not-warming-3498409.php#ixzz1se4V0iO7

Forrest Mims III, an expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, was named one of the 50 Best Brains in Science by Discover Magazine.

The player formerly known as Ron Artest

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=86pxEMPfKII

Because his new name is ridiculous in light of his behaviour, I suggest that henceforth, announcers should simply refer to him as the player formerly known as Ron Artest.

How soon they forget

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/split-decision-on-health-care-would-not-be-a-disaster/2012/04/23/gIQAnMg4cT_story.html?wprss=rss_opinions
I have no major complaint with Charles Lane's main point -- a 5-4 decision by the Court (should Obamacare be struck down that way) doesn't mean that the public would consider the Court's decision to be illegitimate.  But this part is just wrong:

The public still esteemed the court after five GOP-appointed conservative justices all but handed the presidency to George W. Bush in 2000 — contrary to many legal academics’ predictions that the decision was legally flawed and therefore a partisan blot on the court.

The Florida Supreme Court's decision was overturned by a vote of 7-2.  And no one has even tried to argue with a straight face that the Florida Supremes were right when they ruled that it was appropriate for counties run by the Democrats to engage in vote-adding chad inspection for Gore while denying the same opportunity for counties run by Republicans to engage in vote-adding chad inspection for Bush.