How Fedicare will "save" Medicare

The reason that the Obamatrons are going to take over healthcare is to get the general populace to accept rationing of healthcare to seniors. The statistics show that in the last year of life medicare expenditures average five and one half times the average of all other years. If everyone is in the same rationing pool, then the government will be able to sell their wisdom of cutting off care to those persons whose healthcare costs are starting to show the upward spiral that the computerized records indicate the beginning of the terminal year. Then the government's line will be, "It's for the children. Would you take funds from them just to extend a senior citizen's life six or seven months? You heartless bastard?" In reality it will be the government's thirst for dollars for vote buying and cronyism.

Of course the government will not allow their decisions to be litigated. I can see delays taking well past the day of death and the law written that heirs have no standing as plaintiffs.

I read recently that fraud in the medicare system was pegged at 31% of total expeditures. Maybe the government needs to hire some people from those evil insurance companies' audit departments. No insurance company could survive at that rate and the taxpayer shouldn't have to pay that as well as the overhead costs, like all government versus private industry costs are well over what they should be.

How to bailout California

It appears that Obamanation and its minions have come to the realization that the word bailout has become a political liability. But California is in trouble. The taxpayers of California have shown up at the polling places and said, "No mas!" In a sane world that would settle it and budgets would be cut to fit.

But we're talking about La-La Land the leftward land of silliness. So budget cuts are out of the question. So what can be done?

In California there is an entity called CalPERS (California Public Employees' Retirement System). This system provides retirement, health, and related financial programs and benefits to more than 1.6 million public employees, retirees, and their families and more than 2,500 public employers.

In October 2007 CalPERS valued its investment funds at $260 Billion, as of 5/21/2009 the valuation was $180 Billion. Without getting into valuation methods (which I suspect), it would seem that Obamanation can step in and say that all these current and future government retirees need "to be made whole". By restoring CalPERS losses, maybe making the required contributions for this year, and maybe funding retirement and health payments this year, Obamanation can say that California isn't being "bailed out", the gummint is just helping out other gummint employees that are like your neighbors. And I really want to hear the excuse that those nasty hedge fund managers (OK, Madoff was one that CalPers had invested money with) lost their money by imprudent investments in Chrysler and GM bonds.

That will save (not bailout) a loyally DemocRat voting bloc.

Obama to Close the Border

No, not the one the rest of us want closed. He is making it more difficult for Canadians.

There is a pretty good (you'll only need a barf-bag for the first and tenth paragraphs) column in the Montreal Gazette.

An excerpt:

Do you really think demanding passports from 35 million Canadians will stop terrorism, any more than seizing elderly ladies' shampoo at the airport? Professional terrorists don't arrive at the border with a crumpled Canadian Tire card, then plead to get in. They have real fake passports.

Obama Man Can

A great video from Greg Morton

Betrayed by Argo

In 1999, in order to prove "Anthropogenic Global Warming", an innovative step was taken by scientists to greatly improve the collection of observations inside the ocean through increased sampling of old and new quantities and increased coverage in terms of time and area.

That step was Argo.

Argo deployments began in 2000 and by November 2007 the array was 100% complete.

Houston, they have a problem. From the linked Vancouver Sun article:

So why are some scientists now beginning to question the buoys' findings? Because in five years the little blighters have failed to detect any global warming. They are not reinforcing the scientific orthodoxy of the day, namely that man is causing the planet to warm dangerously. They are not proving the predetermined conclusions of their human masters. Therefore they, and not their masters' hypotheses, must be wrong.

In fact, "there has been a very slight cooling," according to a U.S. National Public Radio (NPR) interview with Josh Willis at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a scientist who keeps close watch on the Argo findings.

Willis insisted the temperature drop was "not anything really significant." And I trust he's right. But can anyone imagine NASA or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) or the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change -- the UN's climate experts -- shrugging off even a "very slight" warming.

Oops!!!

The "Makeover" Syndrome

I have often thought this about women that convince their friends to adopt unattractive styles.

If you met a man who said he would like to 'transform' or 'remake' his wife, would you conclude that he: a) thought very highly of his wife and loved her? Or b) held his wife in rather low esteem and therefore found living her rather difficult? The answer is obvious: Those who wish to remake anything (or anyone) do not think highly of the person or thing they wish to remake. Little is as revealing of Barack Obama's and the left's view of America than their use of the words 'transform' and 'remake' when applied to what they most want to do to America. ... In light of those frequently made criticisms of America, I have often asked representatives of the left why they criticize America so much if they love it so much. 'Precisely because we love America, we criticize it. You criticize that which you love,' is the nearly universal response. But, of course, it isn't true. If you constantly criticize your spouse, for example, it is difficult to imagine that you really do love him or her. And perhaps more important, it is very unlikely that your spouse feels loved. That is why after being routinely described as racist, sexist, imperialist, etc., it is difficult to be able to tell that America is loved by the left. This is not written in order to indict the left, let alone the president, for not loving America. No one can measure another's feelings. Furthermore I do not question the sincerity of anyone who says he loves America. What I question are the actions and rhetoric of those who claim to love America yet want to transform and remake it.
--columnist Dennis Prager

What they really mean

From: The Conspiracy to Keep you Poor and Stupid

A 50 yr old Cartoon for Today

Socialism works until ...

you run out of other people's money.

Read the whole article, but here are some highlights:

Let’s be clear, it is the job and obligation of all investment managers, including hedge fund managers, to get their clients the most return they can. They are allowed to be charitable with their own money, and many are spectacularly so, but if they give away their clients’ money to share in the “sacrifice”, they are stealing. Clients of hedge funds include, among others, pension funds of all kinds of workers, unionized and not.

Shaking down lenders for the benefit of political donors is recycled corruption and abuse of power.

Let’s also mention only in passing the irony of this same President begging hedge funds to borrow more to purchase other troubled securities. That he expects them to do so when he has already shown what happens if they ask for their money to be repaid fairly would be amusing if not so dangerous.

Last but not least, the President screaming that the hedge funds are looking for an unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout is the big lie writ large. Find me a hedge fund that has been bailed out.

From Megan McArdle:

The administration is beating up the creditors because a) it wants to give the UAW a much better deal than they'd get in liquidation and b) they'd like someone else to pay for it. I recognize that the law is always kind of messy, but as far as I know, this kind of blatant political intervention between debt claims is unprecedented, and worse, it's a dress rehearsal for doing the same thing at GM. I don't think this is good for the rule of law, I'm pretty sure it will be bad for capital markets, and I'm nearly positive it's going to make it hard for any heavily unionized company to get substantial capital for the next decade.

Clinton's Military Adventure Continues

I love the troops' sense of humor. I also appreciate the line in the song about Rawanda and I guess they couldn't find the bus from Zonation's "Under My Bus" but still pretty good stunt work and not hard to understand the symbolism. Very few people realize that in Kosovo our troops are protecting the Muslim population.

Best Comeback evah!!

Joy Behar’s floundering response, “That’s quite a jump,” is entirely without merit. Joy Behar’s entire “point,” such as was, was to point out Coulter’s alleged hypocrisy in that she supports waterboarding being done to others, but does not want to be waterboarded herself. Of course, to any sentient being, this argument carries zero force; almost no one wants to be thrown in prison themselves, but almost everyone favors prison sentences being imposed on others in certain circumstances. This does not demonstrate intellectual inconsistency or hypocrisy on the part of the vast majority of America, it demonstrates that punishment works in part because we don’t want it to happen to us.

A conversation with a DGSE agent

Hat Tip: Pamela Gellar @ Atlas Shrugs

100 DAYS OF BEING A LAUGHINGSTOCK IN PARIS

Paris, France. It is very cool to be a French intel guy. A spectacular meal at a Parisian bistro with $90 entrées and a $200 bottle of Bordeaux? No problem. I'd known this fellow since he got me out of a jam in Sudan years ago. His James Bond days are over, but still, riding a desk for the DGSE -- Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (General Directorate for External Security), France's military intel agency - in Paris has its decided benefits.

One of them is not being infected with Obamamania. "My agency considers him a joke," he confides. "Every day there is some fresh lunacy that we cannot believe. Mr. Bush would often make us angry. But at this man we just laugh."

"In truth, it also makes us sad," he continued. "French resentment towards America is strong, so being able to laugh at your country feels good. But it is such a sad and strange thing to see America - America The Great! - do something so crazy as to elect this ridiculous man."

"There are many people in America who think he isn't a legitimate president as he wasn't born in the US and isn't a natural citizen. What do you think?" I asked.

He shrugged. "I wouldn't know. I've never had reason to make an inquiry."

"There are a lot of people convinced he is a traitor who hates America and is actively determined to destroy it. Any opinion on that?"

He didn't shrug at this. After a long slow sip of wine, he mused, "I would not go that far. Many of his actions, however, are very puzzling because they are so counter-productive regarding America's best interests. There seems to be a consistent pattern in that direction."

"What does Sarkozy think of him?"

"Nothing but contempt."

After a pause he asked, "And Langley?"

"Well, if you thought the war they waged against Bush was intense, it was nothing compared to how they're going to screw Obama. He has tried to gut them with the ‘torture memo' release and slashing their budgets. The morale is depressed, sullen, and enraged. You know what a left-wing outfit Langley is. They thought he was their boy and they feel betrayed. All kinds of damaging stuff on him will be appearing via their media friends."

He nodded. "And in Tel Aviv City?"

He was referring to the huge underground city complex of Langley's underneath the US Embassy in the Israeli capital. "That's an interesting question. You know how vast and deep the relationship is there. Langley is making every effort to overcome the total and massive distrust their Israeli colleagues have for Obama, whom they know is selling them down the Jordan River. So far though this effort is in words. The Israelis are waiting to see what Langley does."

He said nothing. I smiled. "You guys wouldn't be Langley's cutout for thwarting BO regarding Israel, would you? I'd never suspect that..."

He continued to say nothing, gave me only a slight smile in return, and poured me another glass of wine. "The Bordeaux is good, yes?" I nodded."

You know, the French media worships this man the same as yours in the US. All of this ‘100 days' talk, it is impossibly stupid. Most anyone in the French elite, the business leaders, Sarko's people, they all know this. They all think this is some crazy joke of the Americans. But it is a very, very dangerous joke. For 100 days your president has been a laughingstock among the tout le monde No one may be laughing 100 days or 10 months from now."

He leaned forward. "The world can go - how do you say - sideways with this man very quickly. No one he has working for him knows what they are doing - possibly excepting Mrs. Clinton - and he certainly does not. All of us in our little community are worried - us, our friends in Berlin, London, Tel Aviv, and Langley too as you say. It is not like the barbarians at the gates. It is everythere are no gates. The Somalis, Chavez, Iran, Putin, Beijing, the ‘Norks" as you call them, the list is long and it is growing. We are not sure what to do."

It took me a moment to respond. "The best thing that has happened now is Obama making Langley his enemy. They will be cooperating with you more, be more a part of your worried community. Working together, you can undermine his efforts more effectively, block and maybe even repair the damage."

It was my turn to lean forward. "Then again, all together you could be more pro-active. The man is a mystery. Nobody can make public his actual birth certificate, or even the particular hospital he was born in, or his college grades, or how he got into Harvard, or how he made editor of the Harvard Law Review and never wrote a single article for it. It goes on and on. He really is a Zero. I think all of you guys should find all of this out and make it known."

I added, "The quicker the better, before the laughing stops and the real dangers begin."

"What is that phrase you use?" he asked. "Something to consider?"

I laughed. "Yes, there is much to consider - and much that you can do. I mean, really, if the Soviet Union could be dismantled, so can this presidency."

It was a beautiful April afternoon in Paris. He walked me back to my hotel. It could be that the times we live in may get even more interesting.

This is so wrong in so many ways

Michael Vick in Talks to Become PETA Spokesman

Yes, you read that correctly. The disgraced one-time NFL superstar serving prison time for funding an illegal dog-fighting ring is primed to do public-service ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals upon his release later this month. According to three people with knowledge of the matter, the proposed endorsement is part of a comprehensive PR scheme aimed at rehabilitating the quarterback's image and gaining him readmission to the league that banned him from playing.

Obama Budget Cuts Visualization

My only quibble with this is the statement that there are things that can't be cut.

Role Reversal explains it all

Redstate has an article up today that relates an overheard conversation in a bookstore as a reflection of what a liberal (today's version, not classical) means when it says it loves America. The most telling part of the conversation is that it is a sexual role reversal for those of us that have held to the concept of "A man marries wanting his wife to never change, a woman marries with plans to change her husband." Of course, that too may have a political bent.

Click this sentence to read the full article, an excerpt:

The reality is, though, that ponytail wanted something else. He didn’t love his wife for what she was. In this he is a perfect reflection of the American left. They don’t love America for what it is. They love their own ideas of what they want America to be. Not what she is.