AOL News says that a Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that “6 in 10 Americans Lack Faith in Obama”. The survey numbers themselves suggest that the longer the public watches President Obama in action, the less they like it. For example, total approval for Health Care has fallen from 57% in April 2009 to 45% in July 2010. The approval numbers on the economy have gone from 60% in Feb 2009 to 43% in June 2010. Numbers on his handling of the deficit has fallen from 52% to 40% between March 2009 and July 2010. Even his campaign to cast the onus on Wall Street has hit the rocks. His numbers on handling the financial industry have fallen from 48% to 44% in 3 months since April 2010. Confidence in his capability as Command-in-Chief has dropped. The President’s approval numbers have declined continuously and almost inexorably in every single one of the key policy measures the survey measured.Things are going in only one direction: down. Media mogul Mort Zuckerman, who recently admitted to ghost writing one of President Obama’s speeches says “the hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment.” Perhaps more ominously Zuckerman offers no advice about how to turn things around. In fact he’s not even sure where the bottom is:
Many people who joined the middle class, especially those who joined in the last few years, have now fallen back. It’s not over yet. Millions cannot make minimum payments on their credit cards, or are in default or foreclosure on their mortgages, or are on food stamps. Well over 100,000 people file for bankruptcy every month. Some 3 million homeowners are estimated to face foreclosure this year, on top of 2.8 million last year. Millions of homes are located next to or near a foreclosed home, and it is the latter that may determine the price of all the homes on the street. There have been dramatically sharp declines in home equity, representing cumulative losses in the trillions of dollars in what has long been the largest asset on the average American family’s balance sheet. Most of those who lost their homes are hard-working, middle-class Americans who had lost their jobs. Now many have to use credit cards to pay for essentials and make ends meet, and they are running out of credit. Another $5 trillion has been lost from pensions and savings.
But it is jobs that have long represented the stairway to upward mobility in America. For a long time, it was feared they were vulnerable to offshore competition (and indeed still are), but now the erosion is from economic decline at home. What happens as those domestic opportunities recede? Middle-class families fear they have become downwardly mobile and have not hit the bottom yet. The financial security that was once based on home equity and a pension has been swept away.
The Washington Post-ABC News poll is striking not only because it was commissioned by a normally pro-Administration group of media companies but because it conveys an implicit two-part message. Part 1: we are in an airplane diving straight for the ground and Part 2: an increasing number of passengers don’t believe the pilot knows how to fly an airplane. The two parts together spell a crash, and the only question is how many will survive. Zuckerman suggests that this time few will escape unscathed. “In all polls, voters who call themselves independents have swung against the administration and against incumbents. … Disapproval of Congress is so widespread, a recent Gallup poll suggests, that by a margin of almost two to one, Americans would rather vote for a candidate with no experience than for an incumbent. Throw the bums out is the mood.” Throw the bums out, no matter what party they belong to. In another era, that sentiment would have been called revolutionary.
This time the fallout may not be confined to the politicians. Zuckerman’s breezy admission that he helped write an Obama speech may not be forgotten by a public eager to remember who sold them the empty box. Even the press might take a hit this time. The ability of the elite as a whole to survive a crisis has always depended on the capacity of the political system to absorb the damage by getting one party to assume the liability for mistakes. That limits responsibility to only part of the system every two years. But a truly catastrophic failure will exceed the capacity of the Democratic Party incubents to take the shock. The damage will spread to every kind incumbent and perhaps beyond.
With the crumple zone likely exceeded the possible damage to the elite system will depend on how bad things get. If it gets bad enough the system will be in uncharted territory. So the real challenge facing the Democratic Party and the political and cultural elites as a whole is not whether they can save Obama’s Presidency — that is already lost — but whether they can still save themselves. But Zuckerman and the mainstream press cannot seem to advance a feasible rescue strategy except to hope the Republicans win in November to carry off some of the blame. They’ve gone as far as recognizing the problem but they can’t bring themselves to craft a solution. Probably that is because Washington is incapable of it. Ross Douthat comes perilously close to blaspheming the liberal faith in calling for an end government interventions in certain parts of the economy. It is an argument for limited government based on quasi-”progressive” grounds; but once adopted it implies a rejection of Barack Obama’s entire program. He knows this but doesn’t fully face it.
Take Barack Obama’s initiative to double U.S. exports in the next five years. As The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney points out, it involves the purest sort of corporate welfare: We’re lending money to foreign governments or companies so that they’ll buy from Boeing and Pfizer and Archer Daniels Midland. That’s good news for those companies’ stockholders and C.E.O.’s. But the money to pay for it ultimately comes out of middle-class pocketbooks.
The same critique can be applied to Obama’s green solar thermal initiatives and to health care. And once that Pandora’s box is opened the contagion will spread to a questioning of all kinds of entitlements. It’s not clear the liberal faith can survive the diminution of its church, which is the state. But it is a sign of how desperate things are that Douthat is beginnning to contemplate the equivalent of hacking off their arm with a pen-knife to escape from under the Obama rock. That probably won’t work. The pen-knife is too small; it will be too little and too late. The gravity of the situation probably exceeds the capabilities of Douthat’s belated half-measures to be effective. Russell K. Nieli of the Princeton James Madison Program argues that the admissions policy of “Poor Whites Need Not Apply!” can’t go on for much longer.
The box students checked off on the racial question on their application was thus shown to have an extraordinary effect on a student’s chances of gaining admission to the highly competitive private schools in the NSCE database. To have the same chances of gaining admission as a black student with an SAT score of 1100, an Hispanic student otherwise equally matched in background characteristics would have to have a 1230, a white student a 1410, and an Asian student a 1550.
Racial politics, pensions, health care, unions the whole concept of Green — these and a plethora of other questions are going to be revisited in a resource scarce world. The earth shakes. Well we’re talking about a crash, aren’t we? Neil Reynolds argues in the Globe and Mail that the welfare state itself is disintegrating and there is no way it can prevent its disorderly dissolution because once politicians have started the process of using tax money to reward favored groups deadly dynamic is started. Those who have entitlements won’t give them up, not with out a struggle, anyway. He cites Greece, a country which although bankrupt, can’t bring itself to stop spending.
“Democracy is two wolves and a lamb,” Benjamin Franklin reputedly said, “voting on what to have for lunch.” … Mobs have already taken to the venerable, iconic streets of European states, notably among them Greece, birthplace of Athenian democracy. It’s apparently easier to give wealth away than it is to take it back. Democracy assembled the welfare state peaceably enough. Can democracy dismantle it as peaceably? No, it can’t. The mobs are not finished.
“The mobs are not finished.” Why things should be different in California is an interesting question. Even though the Obama administration may be done, the terrible momentum of all that “hope and change” is not. That still has to run its course. The lasting legacy of the Obama administration was to bring it all to a head. It has written a lot of checks which an increasing number of people know can’t be cashed. Will the system pull out of the dive? Some things take time, whether it is available is another story.
embedded by Embedded VideoYouTube Direkt
For a long time, it was feared they [jobs] were vulnerable to offshore competition (and indeed still are), but now the erosion is from economic decline at home.
Zuckerman is mistaken, and if an icon of the business world like him can be mistaken, why shouldn’t an ignorant fool like Obama be mistaken?
THE *PRODUCTIVE* JOBS HAVE BEEN SENT OFFSHORE FOR FIFTY YEARS, AND WE’VE BEEN IMPORTING (LEGAL (H-1B) AND ILLEGAL) IMMIGRANT LABOR TO UNDERCUT WAGES AT HOME ON A LARGE SCALE FOR AT LEAST TWENTY. A few service jobs are still here, serving sandwiches, but it is not clear that these are the basis for a recovery. We have only survived for the last twenty years on loans and bubbles. THE DECLINE IS ‘SECULAR’ NOT CYCLICAL. The finance bubble burst because that’s what bubbles do – they are inflated ridiculously large and then they burst. It is unreasonable to expect to return safely to the top of the inflation levels.
Mort seems oblivious.
“Mortified” Zuckerman
So, if I were emperor, what would *I* do?
I’m not sure.
Certainly major surgery on Wall Street would be one item. Outlaw CDS entirely, and clawback $100b (or more? much more??) from Wall Street execs, for starters. Raise interest rates to “normal” levels so there is incentive to save and to halt the giveaway to the banks. Unveil all operations at the fed. Close Fannie and Freddie.
Call a business council and announce we are bringing back manufacturing jobs in every sector. Maybe Hawley-Smoot was right, not wrong. Start expelling illegal Hispanics in construction and H-1Bs in tech. Get an accounting of what it means to the economy and budget to write down all the inflated real estate prices. Have a public council on executive compensation. Look to raise average pay rates across the board at the cost of the execs.
And then break for lunch.
And Obama? Obambus the Glorious? Obambus the Fool? Trapped in a world he never made. I’ll repeat again, he passed no legislation, that was done by Congress. The ones to lose faith in are the likes of Pelosi and Reid. BUT UNTIL THE REPUBLICANS PUT UP CANDIDATES MORE ATTRACTIVE AND *CONVINCING* THERE IS REALLY NO CHOICE FOR THE PUBLIC. The public can lose faith in Obambus because of the clowning actions of Holder, Napolitano, regarding BP, the idiotic Arizona suit, and foreign affairs. Those are executive functions. But at this point (and every point) the economy trumps all, the impact of the financial meltdown is yet to be completed.
It becomes clearer every day that Obama and his administration have failed to institute the changes they claimed to have wanted (although it is still unclear if they ever really wanted to institute those changes or just wanted to destroy America). The concern now is, can the changes that have been started be stopped? Even more importantly, can they be reversed? The hundreds of new bureaucracies created by Obamacare — will they come into being anyway, even if Obamacare does not? Because the only thing worse than an inept bureaucracy is an inept bureaucracy that does not have a mission — then it has to create a mission. Anyone who has worked in the US government has seen mission creep. In the 28 years I worked for the US government I saw federal budgets rise inexorably even though we were less effective at what we tried to do and even though several presidential administrations came into office during those years swearing to reduce the size of government.
Al Gore was given the mission of “reinventing government.” Nothing changed except for the job titles, and the budgets kept growing. If Obama’s legacy is larger government with less to do, the rot will only grow.
Here’s a video that needs to go viral:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLybfQyrkdc
F
The American people who pay the bills should be in a state of cold rage. There better be a major change in November, and a draconian slashing of budgets, or it’s all up with the USA. This is the most important election of my lifetime, and I say that as someone who previously thought the most important election was Reagan over Carter in 1980. This time, and in 2012, it will be for all the marbles because the design margin is gone. We’re right on the edge of collapse and even with good leadership it will be very hard to get through this.
Obama was put forward by people who wanted to destroy America. They’ve all but succeeded.
The B-52 crash footage is doubly appropriate. The Buff was practicing for an airshow. A SAC general thought it unfair that the fighters got all the glory with their acro routiens so he ordered the bomber boys to develop a routine that would be awe-inspiring. Well, it was, as Maxwell Smart used to say “Once.”
And after the crash the general still said that the airsow routine would go on. Which was another way of saying that it would be quietly discontinued without admitting it was a huge mistake.
Who is John Galt?
Thinking of Zuckerman’s possible state of mind these days, I’m reminded of two things:
–the comment of one of Napoleon’s marshals after a terrible battle loss, when one of his aides said it was a disaster and he replied something like, It is worse than that–it is a blunder.
–old joke from the ’60s: Passengers board and the door is sealed and an announcement comes on: “This flight is the first to be completely controlled by computer, without human control, using the most modern equipment and engineering. Do not worry; nothing can go wrong … go wrong … go wrong …”
When Barney Frank and Barack Obama screw the beegeebus out of the economy it is no surprise that “Americans lack faith in Obama.”
Big Government breeds cronyism. Then cronyism breeds huge waste and more Big Government. The cycle repeats.
Obama was weaned on cronyism. He has proven cronyism works for him and his buddies. He breeds cronyism. He is cronyism. The quicker he is booted out of Office the quicker cronyism will recede and the economy will stop being molested.
After the economy has stopped being molested by Obama and his cronies it will recover on its own.
Rassmussen, http://www.rasmussenreports.com/ (who has called the past few elections far more accurately than the MSM hacks) reports a generic R vs D ballot with the Rs in a six-point lead nationwide. Half of those polled feel the Obama is doing a “poor” job with the economy.
With any luck enough true conservatives will get elected to put some backbone into the RINOs and end this maddness. The real problem is that they may end up getting put in charge AFTER the ship has gone below “crush depth”. Then it will be too late and we will all go down together. The next few months are crucial, even a dive is better than a tailspin, at least you can start correcting a dive and perhaps walk away to talk about it later.
#1 Josh
I don’t think there is any reasonable hope of re-industrialization unless we put some heavy chains on the regulatory agencies. American manufacturing was really killed by excessive and irrational government regulations more than anything else, and new ones appear every day. Who in their right mind wants to invest $50 million in a manufacturing facility when, after opening, a new regulation comes out that will entail spending ten million to “upgrade” the factory so it will comply with the new regulation?
Josh, Good List. You forgot about effects of regulation though.
The highly productive , non service sector jobs, you are looking for, usually are capital intensive and often have an effect on the environment. Our capricious and punitive regulatory regime often make these capital intensive ventures and those affecting the environment way too risky. Permitting times in the urban are way too long, that is if you get a permit at all. For new products, speed and the need to get to market are key. A slow permitting process often kills the project. You also need to expand when things get going and future expansion plans in many areas are a roll of the dice . In sum. why would any responsible CEO locate anywhere near many of our cities? In the last twenty years, since the beginning of Bush I, we have been actively pushing the good jobs overseas.
A new study, http://www.kauffman.org/uploadedFiles/firm_formation_importance_of_startups.pdf, shows that almost all job growth in the private sector comes from start -ups. ( Existing Business is a net destroyer of jobs). But our regulatory regime, particularly under Buraq, places too many obstacles to market entry for new business for productive endeavors for there to be job growth for good quality jobs.
Tcobb is right! the tree hughers have made it impossible to manufacture in the US they have made it impossible to drill for oil now too! Get ridd of the EPA as it is now! Democrat’s have made it to hard to fire lazy bums and rewards to many lazy folks with welfare, you can’t get things moving if you have to drag excessive dead weight…
12. Tcobb
So right you are!
Excess regulation is what has ruined all of American business, at our Police Station the city had to spends tons of money to comply with the ADA, as far as I know it is not possible to pass the MCOLES requirements in a wheelchair. All the same we had to comply. My daughter’s gymnastics facility had to remodel so that they could meet the requirement for wheelchair accessible bathrooms! Really?
I can’t begin to fathom the dollar value of the overhead inflcited by this sort of nonsense. It builds, layer upon layer, adding costs to everything we do here. Small wonder we can’t compete.
As somebody around here once said many years ago, “The terrible ifs accumulate.”
Variation: “The terrible ifs accelerate.”
More like a stall alert rather than a proximity alert.
It seems like we are reaching a fork in the river. I just hope we choose the right tributary.
The General
Appalled by all the savages abroad,
They found a race of sheep to rule at home;
They give the fleecing of their flocks much thought,
Needing togas for their parties. Rome
Provides a tailor-made example: men
And women with this ancient fashion sense
Fill the legislature. What they spend
On orgies! Their political events
End in cries—More circuses, more bread!
Let us see our neighbors being stripped
Naked—defiled! So much for Rome. You’re dead.
My armies are alive. We are equipped.
We pass through every river, like a test:
The Delaware or Rubicon? Guess.
Increasing regulation is a manifestation of something larger. It is part of a trend of trying to correct imperfections in the world of commerce, work and civic life.
The cost of government isn’t just the result of increasing headcounts at government agencies. It is also the mandated working conditions for those employees which include health, disability and retirement benefits as well as administrative redress for each and every employee who believes he has been wronged. And those benefits and newly protected employee rights are costly and make “payroll added costs” an ever increasing share of government expenditures.
We’ve made a much safer, nicer world for ourselves. Too bad we can’t afford it.
Over the last 100 years, liberals and progressives have identified some nice-to-have remedies for real problems – old age security, environmental pollution, child labor, etc. In each and every case, the remedy has been subverted and twisted to other purposes – usually vote buying or control by one sector against another.
The Left either are completely incapable of predicting the future behavior of people and institutions, or they are cynical in their proposals.
The Founders knew what is in the hearts of men and saw that the only solution was to avoid, in so far as possible, giving power to the government.
I’ve been reading the history of the New Deal. That period was a tragedy. Obama is more of the same premises, promises, and tactics. This time, it is a farce.
In our Democracy, Ben Franklin would be mortified. We did not get a Jefferson or Madison, or Hamilton or Franklin to lead us. We got Harry Reid, Joe Biden and Barney Frank deciding how to carve the lamb.
Our ancestors got the greatest minds of their time.
We got a wimp, a simp and a pimp.
The article from the WashPo tried to water down the implications, suggesting that the “mood” was “against everyone”. This is nonsense.
It hurts their keyboards’ feelings to have to write anything negative about “their” side…so, it comes with the “it’s about everyone, not just the guys we distort the news on behalf of” pap.
But make no mistake, dig into the real statistics. What you will observe is that while the promise of the seas receding may not come true…we are going to witness the “D’s” disappearing from our halls of governance at an astounding rate.
I liked the Thresher analogy in a prior post, but the B-52 crash has the virtue of being visible, unlike the Thresher disappearing into the deep.
Until the Republicans get on board with the Ryan proposal, they are showing themselves to be deck chair rearrangers. Yes, the Ryan proposal touches the third rail of politics, but . . . there’s no alternative.
“The Buff was practicing for an airshow. A SAC general thought it unfair that the fighters got all the glory with their acro routiens so he ordered the bomber boys to develop a routine that would be awe-inspiring. Well, it was, as Maxwell Smart used to say “Once.””
I know our brave men and women at arms do what they are told, even if it is just for an airshow, or the sort of aeriel “parade” that claimed the lives of the crewmates of my uncle who had survived his tour of combat over Japan as flight engineer in a B-29.
But, was anyone able to “punch out” from this one? Did they even know they were in trouble, because it looks like they were in controlled flight, apart from the fact that they were not maintaining altitude in that turn, as is easy to do unless you have a gobnormous amount of thrust as in a fighter or aerobatic aircraft.
Back on topic, do the Obama people even know that they are “low and slow and in a steep descending turn without enough thrust to pull up?”
Hope* and Fear*.
“the hope that fired up the election of Barack Obama has flickered out, leaving a national mood of despair and disappointment.”
(op cit)
…-
*Hope and Fear:
Charles Lamb, aka Elia*.
“Hope* is charming, lively, blue-eyed wench, & I am always glad of her company, but could dispense with the visitor she brings with her, her younger sister, fear*, a white liver’d-lilly-cheeked, bashful palpitating, awkward hussey that hangs like a green girl at her sister’s apron strings & will go with her whithersoever she goes.”
(Letters of Charles and Mary Anne Lamb)
*Elia:
“Charles Lamb (born Feb. 10, 1775, London, Eng. — died Dec. 27, 1834, Edmonton, Middlesex) English essayist and critic”
(answers)
The B-52 pilot was Bud Holland, notorious for his recklessness and arrogance as a pilot. His crews hated him. In the Fairchild crash only his co-pilot was on board. The co-pilot, who killed along with Holland, had dismissed the rest of the crew because he felt that Holland was going to kill them all, eventually. The story of Bud Holland is the subject of an excellent paper on how the military often fails to weed out dangerous elements in the leadership ranks, instead promoting them. The essay is available online, but I forget the address. Also try to find video of Holland, taken some months prior to his death at the Yakima bombing range. Against all regulations, Holland clears the ridge at the end of the bombing range by an estimated THREE FEET. The video suddenly goes blank at the moment of clearance because the men operating the camera dove to the ground, fearing that the B-52 would crash. It’s some of the most extraordinary footage I’ve ever seen. After reading the essay and other articles about Holland, I’ve concluded that he was a insane, or, perhaps, a sociopath.
#24 Paul,
It’s not complete, but the wikipedia article on the 1994 crash is a good starting point to answering several of your questions (better than I could)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Fairchild_Air_Force_Base_B-52_crash
No one survived the crash, and I’m pretty sure no one could have ejected at that altitude given the parameters of the survival/escape systems that the B-52 carries.
Speaking of incidents in bombers, this is one that took place with an RAF Vulcan in New Zealand- fortunately everyone survived:
http://www.thunder-and-lightnings.co.uk/vulcan/gallery3.html
Take special note of point #4.
We may be heading for a crash, but I think the airplane analogy is off base. Our crash won’t represent “The End”, as it would on a plane, but a market crash, which can transform into a new beginning, and a great opportunity. I’d also quibble with Wretchard’s point #2 on the importance of whether or not the passengers have confidence in their pilot. That wouldn’t matter much on a plane, as the competence of the pilot exists independent of his passenger’s confidence or lack thereof.
But the same can’t be said about a democratic republic such as our own. I suggest that the pending possibility of an Obama victory in 2008 turned a garden variety recession into the financial and political debacle we’re witnessing today. Those who saw clearly what was coming pulled in our resources, stopped spending, and began battening down our hatches. So in part, the financial meltdown is both an irrational response akin to panic selling, and is therefore largely self-fulfilling, and rational response to avoid being trampled to death as everybody heads for the exits.
The Obama debacle is the most tremendous opportunity for fiscal responsibility to re-exert itself after generations of profligate insanity centered in Washington.
The question is: when will someone emerge who can weave the strands together and craft the movement that will sweep the filth from the stables?
Re Bud Holland, the Fairchild crash, and the Yakima bombing range incident:
The co-pilot did punch out, but not in time, and was consumed in the fireball of the plane exploding. There are at least two videos of the crash, and one of them, run in slow motion, shows the doomed co-pilot ejecting then being engulfed by the fireball. In the instant before the crash, Holland reportedly said, “Sorry [name of co-pilot].
60 Minutes did a feature on the Bud Holland story many years ago. It includes the extraordinary footage of the Holland-piloted B-52 roaring down the range’s valley a few feet off the ground, then lifting its nose to clear the ridge at the end of the valley by just a few feet.
Re B-52 crash:
- Co-pilot punched out, but not in time, and was consumed in the fireball of the exploding aircraft. Holland reportedly told the co-pilot he was sorry in the instant before the crash.
- 60 minutes did a piece on Holland many years ago. Included is extraordinary footage of the Yakima bombing range incident.
The B-52 crash is a case study in poor leadership. A senior pilot with a history of flathatting allowed one last flight before retirement. Unfortunately for him and his crew, stall speed is predicated on weight and load factor. B-52′s in a 90 degree angle of bank have no vertical component of lift. Just like Barack on the economy, all weight and drag.
I still think it’s a mistake to count Bill and HIllary out. I don’t know that they’ll have much to work with ante-Obama, but I do think that (1) the Dem’s will look to the two of them to pull it together again, (2) that one or both of them will be out front of whatever progressive mob is left at that time attempting to lead it, and (3) they would be damned idiots if they weren’t twisting the BBQ stick that Obama is now spitted on even as we speak. I wonder if they’re still in touch with Carville and Morris, who have both been issuing “The King is Dead … long live the King” messages for a couple of months now.
I know it’s too much to ask, but please — can we impeach the jug-eared SOB rather than allowing him to tick down the rest of his Presidency on the golf course?
shropshirelad/19
Is that you or Housman? If you, I shall never post another line, and cheerfully cede the post of BC poet/versifier to a talent greater than I could ever hope to have.
Walt
Thanks, Walt. It is me, I afraid, not Professor Houseman. This sonnet was something that occurred to me on the subway this morning while looking at the East River.
Perhaps we should agree to share Parnassus together, sir. I understand there are plenty of Muses to go around…
All the best,
-S.
#32. NahnCee
If the Republicans win the House after the elections he may very well be impeached. I get the feeling that there are a lot of skeletons in his closet that no one, especially the press, has ever bothered to peer into. And the decision to impeach is purely up to the House.
What would be interesting after that is to see what the Senate does with it–they get to be the jury. It is unlikely that the Republicans will win the Senate in 2010, and in any event it will need two-thirds of the Senate to make the impeachment stick. If Obama’s popularity continues to plummet how many of the Democratic Senators will wish to hold the party line when it means hitching their political futures to the tail of a falling star? If the evidence of “high crimes or misdemeanors” is especially damning the choice will be very painful.
“Even though the Obama administration may be done, the terrible momentum of all that “hope and change” is not.” To put the final nail in the coffin of the USA the administration must pass immigration reform. You can count on it trying.
The Left complained about George Bush being like a jack boot Nazi but he took his defeats and there were many with humility. Now the Left brings forth a leader who acts like a brutish thug and fascist who rams through whatever he has set his mind to without pretense of democratic procedure. Now we know the Left decries behavior that it has reserved for itself.
Josh – “And then break for lunch.” Don’t forget getting schools back from the educational labor unions. We’d be almost better off trading with manufacturing labor unions if we had to make a choice. Public employee unions have ruined everything in California.
“THE REPUBLICANS PUT UP CANDIDATES MORE ATTRACTIVE”
The republicans do best who govern least. They’ll win the house until they regain the Whitehouse, then lose it later. Americans like a balanced government and it is obvious if the Republicans controlled the house now we wouldn’t be in this predicament. If there was something that the Republicans could’ve done they should have done it in 2003. Instead we got an unpopular war.
Gordon – ” nothing can go wrong … go wrong … go wrong …”
Wasn’t that West World with Yul Brenner?
Ledger – “Big Government breeds cronyism. Then cronyism breeds huge waste and more Big Government. The cycle repeats.”
I think government largesse is the excuse to bring in your “Czars” that in turn breeds cronyism. You got to have your guy administer that important program, for the little people of course, billions and billions of dollars for the little people.
Some Whiskey bait here, though nothing to do with intelligence:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100712/sc_afp/sciencesportusphysics
I like the part where Zuckerman says that statistically, people have made up their minds how they are going to vote by June of an election year. So its a bit late for the con men of the Ogabe administration to stage any sort of blue angels ‘lighter than air’ show at this point, and with the race car out of the chute via that shabazz sacko, what sort of panic button will the PR suits at the ministry of disinformation push once again, when this band of formerly itinerate secular rainbo mafiosi Elmer Gantrys feel a little trapped inside the white house? I think they coveted just a little too much absolute power, and public opinion is not the sort of thing people are going to give up, when they’ve been forced to give up just about everything else. The idea of people voting they wallet really skeers them.
Tcobb – “American manufacturing was really killed by excessive and irrational government regulations more than anything else”
So true. Our government allows products into the US that was produced in China with slave labor and unmitigated pollution betting that it will be made up by our exports. Well, how well did that work? You can grind up baby seals and injection mold it into toys and the American public would buy it. We the US consumer need to get a better handle on the trillions of dollars that we help spread around the world. If we acted like a consumer union that acted on conscious the world would be a better place and no amount of payola could corrupt our government.
shropshirelad/34
Thanks for the invitation to share Parnassus. Never been to Parnassus. Is that near Jersey City?
Walt
I have to agree that the video of the B-52 crash provides a powerful metaphor, but I feel it’s important to look at a rigorous analysis of the pilot’s history, rather than to simply speculate or accept the glib pronouncements of some commenters on Youtube or other popular locations.
Clearly, I’m not myself any expert. But I’m jumping in here because a number of years ago when I first became aware of this particular crash I did some research beyond the superficial “shock” videos. Here’s a link to a 40-page report researched and authored by USAF Major Tony Kern, titled “Darker Shade of Blue” A Case Study of Failed Leadership” that sheds some light on the context of the crash. (I hope this is the paper to which ROUGHCOAT referred in his #26.)
Here’s part of Major Kern’s initial statement:
” When leadership fails and a command climate breaks down, tragic things can happen. This is the story of failed leadership and a command climate which had degenerated into an unhealthy state of apathy and non-compliance–a state which contributed to the tragic crash of a B-52 at Fairchild Air Force Base, on the 24th of June, 1994, killing all aboard.
I have three purposes with this case study. First, I hope to integrate the various elements of the story into a historically accurate and readable case study for all interested parties, to provide a clearer picture of what actually occurred at Fairchild Air Force Base in the years and months leading up to the tragedy. Secondly, I wish to analyze leadership and the command climate at the wing, operations group, and squadron levels. This analysis will identify possible errors and provide lessons learned, for use in academic environments. Finally, I wish to show the positive side of this episode, for there were many who did the right thing, and acted in a timely and proactive manner. Their actions might well have averted the disaster in a more rational command climate. Their story should be told.
All testimony contained in this report are taken from the AFR 110-14 Aircraft Accident Investigation Board transcripts, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, or through personal interviews conducted by the author. I analyzed transcripts from 49 individual testimonies, and conducted 11 personal interviews. I wish to make it perfectly clear, that no data was taken from the Air Force Safety Mishap Investigation, so the issue of privilege was not a factor in preparing this report. In fact, I intentionally did not read or receive a briefing on the results of the safety board for the express purpose of avoiding even the appearance of a conflict.”
It’s a fascinating report, which reminds us that there are always folks who, given a position of responsibility, will abuse it repeatedly until either their superiors (in a chain of command) take away the privileges of that position, or reality itself steps in and provides the rest of us an object lesson, if we are smart enough to grasp it.
I don’t mean to slap anyone’s face, just want to make the deeper study available to anyone who may be interested.
It IS, as it turns out, acutely appropriate to the current situation in which we find ourselves.
AM/38–could be, I barely remember the movie but I’m pretty sure I read the joke before that and I’m sure it involved an airliner.
It is an “anti-incumbent” “throw ALL the bums out” anger. I would predict that just as many Republican incumbents will be voted out of office as incumbent Democrats.
Bush, not Obama, instigated TARP, and TARP my friends, created far more ire among the public than Obamacare.
The Obama administration does not govern, it administers the most blatant spoils system in the history of this country.
As I’ve stated before, Barack Obama is the ultimate revenge of affirmative action.
Affirmative action itself is merely a subset of the same mentality that gave us things like grade inflation, self-esteem initiatives, Earth-worship, expanding entitlements, the carrying of one half of the American people by the other half, and the emasculation of civil society. He, and Michelle by default, represent the culmination of all those efforts at “making a better world,” or whatever the Hell all those ghoulish progressives were really trying to achieve.
Tcobb – “American manufacturing was really killed by excessive and irrational government regulations more than anything else”
Actually, the American manufacturing base is still the world’s largest (China may overtake it soon), so, while it may be on life support, it’s not dead yet.
America has a huge potential to reformat its manufacturing base into one that can lead the world in making customized products, thanks to the rapid advance in design and modeling technologies that are now available and affordable for small shops. This is not mere speculation on my part, but is already happening. “Customization for the masses” may be on the way in the near future, and America could be at the forefront.
Bush, not Obama, instigated TARP, and TARP my friends, created far more ire among the public than Obamacare.
The whole status quo system has been judged and found wanting if the polls are to be believed. But a government-shrinking groundswell would force the conservatives to their roots while it would put an axe to the roots of those who believe the state is the answer. It is asking conservatives to live up to their principles, while demanding that socialists amend or change theirs.
It is a little bit like enforcing celibacy in the Catholic Church. If you are serious about the whole thing then you have got to do it. But it will be traumatic. The status quo has lived so long on a wink and nod that people have forgotten what is is. And you will never completely do it. Eventually people backslide so it is normal to have these great Spring Cleanings every now and again. The challenge is to clean up constructively. To sweep, scrub, vacuum and shampoo is better than burning the house down.
Adding to the excessive regulation theme.
The Dodd Frank Financial Reform bill does:
Add 19 new regulatory entities
Have an estimated cost of $20B
Advantage foreign banks over domestic banks
What it does not do is address Fannie Mae et al which were at the heart of
creating the junk mortgages that wrecked our financial system.
For anyone within range of the tube–check out Glen Beck. He’s doing a primer on difference between liberation theology and christian theology.
Its amazing, the guy is a mormon and he’s doing a good job of sketching out christian theology. I’ve never seen that before done on big media.
So, if I were emperor, what would *I* do?
I would wear clothes.
It’s probably worth mentioning that the current crisis will set the tone for race relations for decades to come. Race and even gender are explosive issues which have damn near blown up the comments section on the Belmont Club. And so it is with great anxiety that I open this can of worms. My thesis is that whether race relations improve or deteriorate will be largely be determined by whether the movement regards the incumbent as a ‘black’ President or a ‘socialist’ activist. It’s an important strategic choice.
One day while watching Al Sharpton on YouTube I realized that I had never personally met a black man as stupid as he was, not even — or maybe I should say most especially — in Africa. You have to go a long way and search good and hard to find someone as inept as Al. How could a man, so obviously from the left hand side of the distribution, be a leader? You could do better by picking a name out of a phonebook comprised entirely of black persons.
And then I remembered that I had been in this situation before. When a person who claims to represent you is cardboard cutout caricature the joke’s on you. Why should I be proud of Marcos? On contrary, I should exert myself to overthrow him and get Juan de la Cruz, or anybody else, into office in his place. The terrible condition of the schools, of structural unemployment and a host of other problems may be due to a concerted or unintentional conspiracy to break up a culture and return it to the plantation, where lo and behold, somebody like Al Sharpton can be a leader. If the current crisis does nothing else it must at the minimum open the intellectual door to a new emancipation.
So the thesis is that any reform that really works has got to find ways to raise up all the people in minority prisons, trapped in their hyphenated ghettos and make them look in the mirror and recite their names. Their real names. That is why I feel that any model of reform which is predicated on race-war or doctrines of racial inferiority or superiority or eternal gender enmity are a very poor strategic choice for anyone who wants this society to survive. Besides being a recipe for disaster.
That means groups like the Tea Parties have got to create opportunities for blacks and latinos to wage the struggle for their own liberation against current masters of their dependency conveyor belt, who you might or might not be surprised to learn, pose as their friends.
How this will happen I am at a loss to describe in detail. But I do feel very strongly that it is challenge that must be met. Barack Obama will finish up either being an example of a why America should never elect a black president or an example of why America should be very careful to not elect an avowed statist. The choice of terms is crucial; but more importantly the answer must come from the black people themselves, if the door is opened for them to do it.
My own guess is that these issues will be raised eventually, but only when the state solution set shows itself to be completely broken. Like Sherman’s March to the Sea the system must be seen to be wrecked before the mental shift is made. In this case the wrecking is being largely accomplished by the liberals themselves.
Wretchard says: Racial politics, pensions, health care, unions the whole concept of Green — these and a plethora of other questions are going to be revisited in a resource scarce world.
Meanwhile, another resource-consuming “initiative” to distract a favored constituency from looking too closely at Teh Won’s failures:
“The Obama administration unveiled a new national HIV and AIDS strategy Tuesday that officials said reflects a nation at a turning point in its fight against the epidemic.
While medical breakthroughs have greatly improved quality of life for the 1.1 million Americans living with HIV, the U.S. has struggled to lower the rate of new infections. The new strategy sets a goal of reducing new infections by 25 percent over the next five years.
About 56,000 people in the U.S. become infected each year, a rate that has held steady for about a decade.
‘We’ve been keeping pace when we should be gaining ground,’ said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius during a White House event announcing the strategy.
President Obama was to discuss the new plan at a reception honoring the work of the HIV and AIDS community Tuesday evening.”
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/13/obama-unveiling-strategy-hivaids/?test=latestnews
Alright alright, let’s quit our bickering about the forensics an git on with the eulogy. Barack Obama was the ultimate product of affirmative action, and it backfired, big time. Like a frankensteins monster, he was coddled and kicked upstairs so many times, he was just rolling with what they give him. The academic narrative needed a 3-d image, so this is what we got. the secret of the narrative was based on white guilt, and so both party’s, and any majority of white folks was in on the scam. He showed such promise, and what with the vast writings he contributed while he was fuhrer of the Harvard review, he could cited for al the…uh…what? He didn’t write anything? What? Sure he did, they just won’t let anyone look at it nomore, that’s the beauty of citing it vaguely. And then there’s his brilliant scholastic record too. What? No proof of that either? Well surely Elena Kagan knew what she was doing when she waved him in, didn’t she?
Ok, scrap the eulogy. We’ll switch to sermon. You know, in some cultures, when a man murder someone, they tie the dead man to the party responsible, and cast the perp out in to the wilderness with the putrified curpse on his back as punishment, to make him and us think about what he did. I think all conspicuous speech writing accessories such as zuckerman, Gore (redesigning government) and all others need to wear this one round they neck for a good long while. The republican party ought not bring it up all that much (who talked about Carter once he was sent packing?) But we the people ought to remind those responsible of their giddy, manic, conceited, binge at every possible opportunity, starting in 2006, and go all saul alinsky on them for a change, and condemn them to their own values like it was an albatross round their neck for a good long freaking time, to milk an avian reference once more for good measure. An elephant never forgets… so good bye all you rin0ze too.
Wretchard at #54
That is why I feel that any model of reform which is predicated on race-war or doctrines of racial inferiority or superiority or eternal gender enmity are a very poor strategic choice for anyone who wants this society to survive. Besides being a recipe for disaster.
Daniel Pipes posted an article today on Louis Farrakhan’s demand that American Jews pay blacks reparations. Pipes quotes Farrakhan:
“This is an offer asking you and the gentiles [sic] whom you influence to help me in the repair of my people from the damage that has been done by your ancestors to mine.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/437977/farrakhan-demands-reparations-from-jews/daniel-pipes
Apropos of the recipe for disaster, the cooks are already in the kitchen stirring the pot.
Less of a “market crash” than a trust-in-government crash. Both for those who believe they have an absolute right to “Obama’s stash” to those of us who want to believe the system is not inherently evil, just poorly managed. Weimar was “just” a market crash and see where it led given Bismarck had conditioned his people to be sheep rather than righteously independent and self-reliant (and consider that these were Germans, historically a very proud and fiercely independent people).
Where the three legged stool for civil society is some combination of Family, Faith and Markets. With history suggesting government and a free press are a distant fourth and fifth. It’s hard to believe how closely the U.S. MSM now resemble the old soviet mouthpieces – Rush and his daily half-dozen sound-bites of news-hacks using the same adjectives, and stories uniformly uncovered and uncommented upon until the politburo is forced to react, etc.
In the triad + government, it’s sobering to observe that all are “faiths” related to distribution of a scarce resource. In the Family, the parents decide what’s “fair,” in Faith the minister, king or dictator (or dictatorship of the majority, constrained or not), in the Market, it’s also an act of faith that two individuals acting independently in their own self-interest will most often advance the general good. Unfortunately, the Market faith struggles because the other two beat up on it mercilessly because it is a “faith” as if theirs is not. Where empirics show a free market regulated only by competition (by free citizens and their enterprise) does orders of magnitude better at raising the absolute quality of life for all citizens than the other two. Sadly, egality suffers when success is earned, v. gifted. Which is a small price to pay for accepting the human condition as it is, v. what we wish it would be.
This all leads to a discussion about how we can remove most of the cruft that has accreted in our operating system and return to something understandable (by the average person) that rewards those exercising intellect and judgment, penalizes process, and shortens the time between an action and its good or bad result (hopefully locally, not nationally, in most regards). And then if the citizen and their enterprise are relatively free to move, they (a locale’s citizens) can choose their own definition of success. By whatever metric pleases them. Social, economic, religious, smell, size, appearance, egality, etc. Where perhaps the only constraint is (1) no taking (redistribution) from other locales, and (2) no taking from your children’s children (no manumission, indentured servitude beyond current generation and its children).
Perhaps there is a simple three or four sentence fix to our current rule-set (which we should look for but historically layering more cruft on top of an already crufty OS doesn’t work out well long term unless the steady-state is acceptable – e.g. IBM’s MVS). Something that would return to self-rule and rule-of-self (and given the libertarian ideal is unreachable, at least for smaller communities of no larger than several hundred thousand). And disestablish the current tyrannies not only D.C. but places like Sacramento. (We have to know were in deep trouble when bills are thousands of pages, like OS bug fixes that amount to 10,000s of lines of code).
What we need to avoid is squeezing the balloon, shrinking something on the upper-half just to have the lower-half expand. The modern interconnected society has amplified outrageously the impact of faction and special-interests. The only way I can see to reduce their influence is to divide the target, and not just from 1 (D.C) to 50 (the states) – but hopefully by a factor of 1,000 (so we can have another 200 year run of mostly ignoring government and doing as we please). Then everyone can choose to find a place hospitable to their interests, gain the benefit and pay the (local) price for the privilege. Special interests then have to become local interests again. Some locales will quickly die and go into bankruptcy but then be recovered by some entrepreneurial class/locale (no more long-term decline in areas like downtown Detroit, they and similar places will be put out of their misery in years, not decades..).
NB. We should do something soon, because we are starting to see an egress of able people to other locales who are tired of spending more than 10% of their emotional and economic energy on government. Not only are the able fleeing high-tax states, they are fleeing THE States to places they personally find more favorable to the self-sufficient citizen and their enterprise. I’d like to give them and their families a first choice of 1000 locales competing for their trust so they stay here. What was an ignorable trickle is now visible. Shame on us.
Wretchard – “My thesis is that whether race relations improve or deteriorate will be largely be determined by whether the movement regards the incumbent as a ‘black’ President or a ’socialist’ activist.”
This is true and in this regard I consider Obama a stone cold Marxist. That said I know that my black friends are not Marxists but few would oppose Obama and his policies because that is what the “Black Community” does, for better or worse, it sticks together because in the past that is all they could count on. The bottom line is we need to depersonalize our political concerns as not to come off as racists and focus on the right policies, the majority of which we could agree upon if it did not devolve into a personality contest. I told my friends straight out that I did not begrudge them their candidate and share their joy for the historic bench mark that has been set but am personally not for Obama because he is the most liberal senator in Washington. This was before the election.
I don’t think the Republicans ought to consider impeachment even if the opportunity should avail itself. They’d just as soon as push for a military coup because it would take the military to keep the peace.
“The choice of terms is crucial; but more importantly the answer must come from the black people themselves, if the door is opened for them to do it.”
This is very true considering that white leftists will suffer a black conservative more than a black centrist would. The black community is brutal on so-called “uncle toms”. There are a rising number of black conservatives though, a lot more than you can imagine for obvious reasons. I think this year’s vote will show their numbers. Everybody is scared.
If the current crisis does nothing else it must at the minimum open the intellectual door to a new emancipation.
Had a conversation a month ago with a man of late middle age who happened to be black, had voted for Obama, did not hold what could be called conservative views in their entirety, was of working class background, and who had the following observations to make to me:
1) The job of President has been made too important, and Congress is supposed to be the seat of the People’s power.
2) He invoked the importance of state’s rights, and shrugged off my reminder that slavery and segregation all but killed states’ rights (I was testing him)
3) Marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman . . .
. . . and other comments and opinions in that vein. Such sentiments are not uncommon, in one mix/combination or another among ordinary American blacks, and the self-appointed black “leadership” is not always attuned to what a whole lot of ordinary African-Americans want, which is to pursue their, and their loved ones’, happiness.
Marion Barry opposed the gay marriage initiative before the DC City Council on the grounds that “it could start a civil war.” That is Barry hyperbole, but the underlying point is that, on a number of issues there is a chasm between the black elite and the black community. Remember that Jesse Jackson revealed himself to be conflicted about Obama in that famous open mic incident where he accused Obama of “talking down to blacks” and offered to “cut [Obama's] nuts off.” Granted, this is the same Jackson who sobbed with joy when Obama won election, but he revealed a conflict that is roiling under the surface, and did not sob with joy for Obama per se, but because the event was so momentous.
CDS and derivatives are a necessary evil. While there may be a market for municipal bonds to pay for Peoria’s sewer system, there is not a very large market for people who want to be fractional owners of Peoria’s sewer system in case of default. CDS fulfill a necessary function by making some needed deals go through that otherwise would not. Similarly, derivative contracts in the form of agricultural futures make some types of business work. Farmers can pay in crops at the end of the season for things like chemicals and fertilizer they need during the season. Companies that sell herbicides and pesticides have no interest in collecting soybeans, they would rather sell the soybeans up front with a futures contract and go about their business. They are ways of converting future value into transferable assets, which makes the markets more efficient.
Unfortunately, our current system is pretty hopeless at doling out the proper amount of even necessary evil, and our regulatory apparatus is far from competent at figuring out the dosage. It was regulators who told banks they could secure five times as much AAA or AA-rated mortgage-backed securities as they could corporate loans with the same capital. There’s a 5x leverage play right there. Mix in people doing 30x leverage and anticipating rising markets based on five years of data and you’re bound for disaster.
There are many culprits, but CDS and derivatives are not the only ones. If I had to pick one, I would pick leverage as the real problem — covering a 1:1 bet is much easier than covering a 30:1 bet, particularly if you hold all the potential downside. The other really bad thing is that if we’re trying to dose a poison/cure in the form of risk, letting people keep treating patients once they’ve killed a few is bad medicine. Saying a bank or investment house is “too big to fail” is in essence saying they are “so big they will not be allowed to fail”. The decision was made under the last President to not let the chips fall, floors were placed and the precedent set that bad risks would be covered out of the public purse. The feedback loops are not just broken, they’re horribly distorted and FinReg does not address those feedbacks. People need to fail, and be out on the street. If they are going to act like gamblers, they need to get the same treatment as they would from Tony the Nose when the sure-thing bet doesn’t come through. Lose your house, your job, your kids’ education fund, your pension and all but one of your cars.
If there’s anything that bothers me about BHO, it’s the dispassionate dismantling of freedom, the cold-handed removal of consequences from malefactors and the airy appropriation of private property in the form of Chrysler bond holders and BP’s assets. At least Bud Holland was gleeful when he buzzed the bluffs of Yakima, he was probably having the time of his life until the last few seconds. I’m pretty sure BHO will auger in much like Col. Holland, but it won’t be with any joy. It will be with the schoolmarmish rectitude of someone doing something that they feel should have been done long ago. We as a nation don’t need a schoolmarm, and BHO is far from the titanic nemesis that you would hope it would take to ruin our nation.
W…
The nature of the Congressional Black Caucus is entirely redistributionist; so there is a fusion between black-communism and Democrat national politicians.
Rush Limbaugh aired amazing ‘private’ exchanges between the Caucus leadership and Fidel Castro. Their craven fawning towards Fidel and his communism was uniform — and revolting.
—–
There is a great irony here. The whole ‘communism for blacks’ was schemed from Moscow. Ivan is completely racist and statist. So you have an entire political crew built-up by an alien power who HATES them, racially.
—–
Dating back to the Czars, Russia ALWAYS played off ethnic hatred.
Putin & Co are still playing that game on the international stage. ( e.g. Iran… )
——
So, from where I sit, there seems to be a complete identity between Mulatto-Americans and mega-redistribution — however defined.
What is even worse is that Hispanic politicians are adopting this hostility for an ethnicity that NEVER experience American slavery.
Ethnic block voting on a national scale is fully able to undo the Republic.
A good example is Hawaii. In the mid-eighties 100% of the civil service secretaries were Japanese-Americans. One ethnic group turned out to be more equal than all others!
Obumpty Dumpty sat on a wall.
Obumpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All of the leftists, even Kagan,
Couldn’t put Obumpty together again!
The new cards have been dealt, and the administration hand is looking pretty weak. They got a pair of threes, and the only option they think they’ve got is to bluff, with the old tried and true race hustle, and race bait initiatives. This is not a matter of ideology, or government policy, and never has been, it is a tactic. And tactics are used by despotic regimes. And kleptocracies. Not a matter of positive results, but of negative ones. Whoever blinks, won’t call the bluff, whoever goes home first to whatever level of comfort they want to hold onto another day is the one to lose first, but hey, we all lose, that’s what means to feed the beast. Race baiting is not a good election year strategy, but right or wrong, correct or incorrect, precise or imprecise, that’s what the hold-outs in the administration think they are left with- no other cards to play.
Excuse Mr.Ugarte, I see you’re tied up with your new close friends but before you go, this…”Casablanca”…how would I say it in English?
Gee, that’s swell, thanks Mr. Ugarte.
No, I’m sorry, I can’t hide you either.
Barack Obama will finish up either being an example of a why America should never elect a black president or an example of why America should be very careful to not elect an avowed statist.
Or he could just end up being an example of what happens when you let the media trick you into believing a guy — any guy — is something he is not. I believe that will be the take-away lesson.
I was born in Mississippi. I grew up in the Old South and most of my extended family still lives there. I can tell you for a fact that the vast majority of Southern whites are past race hatred. They don’t see Colonel Allen White as just another black man. They discriminate, but not so often in the old way.
A race war could happen if a dedicated cadre of whites or blacks made that their goal. But it’d be damn near impossible to foment. There’s not much in it for anybody. And everybody knows that.
None of us, nor Obama himself would be in this position had we had an even marginally credible MSM. Voters would have discovered who Obama is at the same time we did.
NONE of the major networks said word one about the NASA Muslim Outreach.
Nor did the NY Times, WaPo, etc!
(Byron York reporting prior to current Admin repositioning, namely denying that Obama ever uttered the words!)
The Big Denial of access to the Gulf story is largely a distraction:
Exclusionary zones around booms is treated as a great coverup, when in fact it is the MSM’s Comprehensive Refusal to report on the Admin’s incompetence and failure.
Right now Heritage is in the Gulf doing the reporting that the MSM won’t.
Instead, we have Anderson Cooper Sniveling in Faux Outrage about an insignificant detail, making THAT the story.
Cooper:
“The 65 foot exclusion basically means we can’t observe and report on what is really going on.”
Evidently Coop has not yet been introduced to binoculars and telephoto lenses!
BTW: Why has there been no Dan Blather Like Swarm about the Gulf in the blogoshphere?
For that matter, why was that the first and last one at all?
Crap, my #66 should have been “Col. Allen West.”
B/62–you’re right about the Russians. “Prejudice” doesn’t really cover their feelings about negroes; also Georgians, Tatars, Arabs, Indians–anybody basically with non-Slavic skin.
The number in my pool for “he doesn’t get to serve out his first term” has gone up by three in the last week. One of which was a Post Office Union steward from the North East.
Salt Lick, #66: Or [Obama] could just end up being an example of what happens when you let the media trick you into believing a guy — any guy — is something he is not. I believe that will be the take-away lesson.
I never subscribed to the idea that Americans were hoodwinked by the millions into voting for Obama. First of all, one-third of the electorate would have voted for a ham sandwich, or for Satan himself, if one of them had been the Democratic nominee in any given election. For them, that they got to vote for a “dream candidate” like Obama instead was merely gravy. Of the remaining 20% or so of the electorate who cast their lot with The One-And-Done, I strongly suspect that the vast majority of them did so for reasons that had less to do with “Hope” and “Change” than with fear and anger over the financial meltdown that had occurred on a GOP president’s watch. Again, they too would likely have voted for a ham sandwich over any Republican – let alone John McCain himself, who was about as weak an opponent as Obama could have hoped for.
Indeed, it occurs to me that a big part of Obama’s (and the Dems’ in general) problem is precisely that he (and they) misinterpreted his ’08 victory as a ringing popular endorsement of him and his campaign, when in reality he was elected for reasons that had little to do with either. For all intents and purposes he lucked his way into the White House, in much the same way he lucked his way into the US Senate – by being in the right place at the right time. But now the same fear and anger that helped him win two years ago is now biting him and his party hard in the nether regions, and now their luck appears to finally be running out.
“That means groups like the Tea Parties have got to create opportunities for blacks and latinos to wage the struggle for their own liberation against current masters of their dependency conveyor belt, who you might or might not be surprised to learn, pose as their friends.”
Wretchard, we’ve been doing affirmative action since the 1960′s now. Allowing some minorities (but not others) to go to the head of the line in EVERY circumstance. And what that has gained is is several generations who have grown up fervently believing that reparations (being paid something for nothing) are their god-given right.
Furthermore, for some reason, this same subset of people have clamped onto a lifestyle involving deriding education and dropping out of school, living on welfare whenever possible, and having babies. If you look at our prison population, it’s heavily African-American male. Doubtless Whiskey would have blamed this on a pre-plotted maternal strategy to take over the world for women, but it seems to me that you have to take into consideration the effects of breeding for stupid, lazy and too much testosterone, too.
The rub between our black and our brown minorities is that they are both after the same diminishing pool of free something-for-nothing. As well as both participating in the same masculine counting-coup behavior.
I think that if you expect Tea Partiers to create MORE opportunities for this subset of Americans after almost 50 years of allowing them to go to the front of the line in the name of an action that affirmatively tells them it’s their right, that just simply is not going to happen. It seems much more likely that the American taxpayer — those no matter what their skin color who actually get up in the morning and go to a job and pay taxes — will be quite happy to cease *all* continuing “opportunities” and allow them to either starve to death, or to kill each other unto extinction.
Occassionally I’ve heard about the approaching “Singularity,” where instead of people hooking up amorously, computers and machines hook up self-interestedly.
What has formed in Democrat controlled Washington is the Suckularity. It is within the “DC Suckularity” that Bureaucrats, Billionaires, Politicians, Journalists and Special Interest Groups all hook up. But even though they are the ones hooking up, America gets screwed.
The Washington suckularity is sucking in power and resources from the rest of the nation. Most of it is sucked down the drain but some it returns as hand outs and permission slips.
The Federal Government has become the Fiasco Government. Rules are made to be followed and tested to economic destruction — unless, of course, it is the Democrats breaking them. The Democrat Controlled Fiasco Congress has said, “Budget? We don’t need no stinking Budget.” Actually, I can wait for the movie — Nightmare on Elm Street meets Halloween.
As Democrat DC sucks, so sucketh the Nation.
I think that if you expect Tea Partiers to create MORE opportunities for this subset of Americans after almost 50 years of allowing them to go to the front of the line in the name of an action that affirmatively tells them it’s their right, that just simply is not going to happen.
No. Not more opportunities. More challenges. And here’s why. Pardon me while I mix my metaphors. The liberal tent is flapping like a chicken in a gale. Some of the administration’s liberal backers are looking at the polls and realize they plunging into the depths. It’s not a cycle of ups and downs, it is one long down. And they are chained to a lead cannonball with a big “O” stenciled to its side. What Zuckerman’s article says to me is they are looking for a key to unchain themselves. Not later but now. The ‘now’ is the key. But there is no key. They can try to hold their breath until 2012, but they can’t. And they know they can’t. So the subtext of the Wapo-ABC News poll is this: help! help! We’re drowning.
You’re treading water some distance away and ain’t doing too good yourself. But what about Zuckerman? Why not throw him a hacksaw? Why not throw him a pocketknife? He’ll know what he’s got to do with it. Sooner or later something is going to peel off this disintegrating airframe (told you my metaphors would be mixed) as the flows rip it apart. It will be every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. Unions are going to see their pensions vanish. Teachers are going to see salaries delayed, cut and finally even stop. People are not going to the treatment they want. And that day isn’t as far as off as one might think.
So the question is: do you pick up the pieces of that disintegrating airframe? Do you create conditions which will allow alternative centers of leadership to emerge? Or do you just watch as the whole shebang just vanishes into the Marianas Trench of debt? Can’t offer anybody a handout, it’s true. Couldn’t even if you wanted to. But you can offer them a challenge like this: why not you instead of Al Sharpton? What’s he got that you ain’t got? And when they think about it, most anybody has got a whole lot more.
Affirmative action has outlived the rural electrification agency.
My thesis is that whether race relations improve or deteriorate will be largely be determined by whether the movement regards the incumbent as a ‘black’ President or a ’socialist’ activist. It’s an important strategic choice.
You are right, of course, Wretchard. But it can only stop being about race, de facto, when the people for whom it is about race stop making it about race.
For large numbers of whites, I would daresay the majority, it hasn’t been about race for quite a while now. The canard about whites “not wanting a black man in the White House” is both evil slander and patently ridiculous at the same time. Way back in 2000, before anyone outside of Illinois (and most people in Illinois) even knew who Barack Obama was, I voted for a black man to occupy the White House. But not because he was black. But because, IMO, among all my party’s candidates in the presidential primary, he best articulated conservative ideas and Constitutional principles.
Now if that black man had been named Jesse Jackson, voting for him would earn me many brownie points with Dems, lefties, and many in the black community. The fact that his name was not Jesse Jackson but Alan Keyes, however, not only disappears those brownie points but counts as a net negative against me. Because Keyes is, in some people’s eyes, not the right kind of black. Even though I voted for this man who happens to have black skin to be president, I’m a white conservative and therefore still a racist.
So skin color counts. Until it doesn’t. Until it does. Until it doesn’t again. Until it does. The people operating this neverending racial shell game are, surprise surprise, on the left. It’s a game that conservatives, white/black/tan/green/purple can never, ever win. Because the people operating the game are hustlers, pure and simple, and the game is rigged every single time.
My opposition to Barack Obama is not based on his skin color. Never has been. And yet I could wear a sandwich board in public to this effect, write it on the chalkboard 1000 times, hire a skyplane to drag a banner with this message back and forth across the airspace of CONUS, and take out an ad in the top 5 liberal rags and blast the message across YouTube. But guess what? In current conditions, a percentage of my fellow Americans will absolutely refuse to believe me. In current conditions, nothing I do and nothing I say can convince them that I don’t harbor racial animus against the president.
Why are they currently unconvinceable? Because viewing the world through skin-colored glasses is, I would argue, the only way they have ever viewed the world. And it is quite literally inconceivable to them for it not to be thus. Their entire way of thinking about the world would have to change, and change dramatically, if race is not THE determinant. This is almost as big a deal as flat earth / round earth. That there could be millions, tens of millions, multitudes of tens of millions, of people out there whom the person obsessed with skin color has never acknowledged to exist, even though they were around him or her the whole time, is necessarily a concept so fraught with mind-blowing implications (such as, what else do you believe that ain’t so?) that believers are going to treat it like radioactive poison.
A black caller on Rush today, in expressing why he thought the vast majority of blacks would never abandon support for Obama (and he included himself in this number, even though he acknowledged that racial politics is hustling), said that “nobody else wants us.”
Rush sounded like he got within a millisecond of stopping the caller at that statement and asking him to elaborate, but ultimately Rush did not seek follow-up. Which I thought was unfortunate.
Because what I really would like to know and would have asked the caller myself would be, “Says who?”
Perceiving that you are unwanted, looked down on, considered not good enough, and/or not trusted, is NOT the same thing as actually being viewed that way. And that’s what I think is at the tragic center of the race debate, once all the hustling and posturing and baiting and power-grabbing (the whole Himalayas-heavy mountain load of it) has been pushed aside. A terrible, awful, soul-destroying, life-consuming irrational insecurity.
But one that I, me, bogie wheel, 2010 Gen X person, ain’t responsible for. And can’t do or say anything to make go away. Only the person with the irrational insecurity can heal the person with the irrational insecurity.
Every person who has ever been through major cr@p in their life eventually has to come to this choice. It’s up to me.
Roughcoat @ 29…
It’s here, under ‘B-52 Crash Documentary’.
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/military_videos.htm
Dang, my comment got eaten alive. I can’t remember what I said or I’d repeat it. Old age and July Tucson weather are tough on the thought process.
When a host as thoughtful and eloquent as Wretchard is mixing his metaphors like rainbows in a blender (or something), you KNOW the conversation has gotten hot and heavy. W, I agree with your essential argument: we cannot let this degenerate into a race thing. It is not about Hopey being black (although it is that surface characteristic that chiefly allowed this sociopath to seduce enough voters to give him one office after another). It is about his dishonesty, his arrogance, his laziness, his emptiness, his cowardice, his failure of intellect and affect. Those are just a few of the more salient aspects of what’s wrong with him: and none of them has to do with his “blackness.” Going beyond his individual personal failings, we get to the Marxism-statism- hard leftist philosophy which Obama has barely concealed, which drives his supporters as they heel into the turn low over the tower, hard left bank, 60 degrees, 70 degrees, 90 degrees, flying inverted and the engines unable to catch up with the rising speed of the stall.
November, or never. It’s that simple. And it’s NOT about race. We cannot allow it be smeared as somehow about race.
I have this theory about hell. It’s a condition where you are addicted to evil the way some people are addicted to alcohol, drugs or porn. You find that you just have to keep pushing the button to get stronger and stronger jolts. Nothing keeps you from stopping but yourself — and yet the addiction is so strong that to all intents and purposes the man in hell is trapped by chains of adamant. The closest portrayal in popular culture might be Peter Lorre in M where he defends himself against a roomful of murderers acting as a jury with the words “who knows what it’s like to be me?”
That is a long winded way of saying that some people will place themselves beyond reach. No shout, no entreaty, no logic will reach their ears. The thrill of self-righteousness, the buzz of anger, the delicious feeling of whatever addicts them will blind them in a maddening way and yet we cannot completely know their predicament. “Who knows what it’s like to be me?” In that phrase is the terrible tragedy and escape hatch of racism. The door is made of freedom and that is the one portal you can never will another to open.
All the same we have to go on with our lives despite them. To those who can extricate themselves from the pit of this mania, one can only say: ‘join us, not because we are better than you, but because we are like you’. Political correctness is not about the equality of mankind. It is about the indissolubility of human differences. I think we’ll find that enough people are willing to live and let live; that circumstance will let most societies work for so long as we don’t let the race baiters — and they are everywhere, as numerous among liberals as they are anywhere else — tell us what we can’t do.
Life will find a way. And we want to live under our names and not under labels; and we want to be happy, as ourselves and not as laugh-tracks.
bogie wheel, #76: A black caller on Rush today, in expressing why he thought the vast majority of blacks would never abandon support for Obama (and he included himself in this number, even though he acknowledged that racial politics is hustling), said that “nobody else wants us.”
Here we have the “slim vs. none” mentality on display again. If this caller is to be believed, blacks who vote Dem do so not necessarily because they see the Dems as reliable saviors, but because even a party of unreliable saviors is preferable to a party they see as not inclined to be their saviors at all. The same is true for gays – maybe even more so nowadays than for blacks. Heck, the same is probably true for just about any “preferred minority” identity group you can name. They all put their faith in Obama and “progressives” for the same reason that people play high-odds lotteries like Powerball: If you play, your chances of winning the jackpot may be vanishingly small… but if you don’t, your chances are absolute zero.
Even in these “interesting” times, slim still beats none, on any day of the week.
W @ 80: “Political correctness is not about the equality of mankind. It is about the indissolubility of human differences.” Bingo. All your mixed metaphors are forgiven. What you say here is the whole story. And in the “indissolubility of human differences” is a very lucrative career for lots of third-rate souls, who plague us today in terrible numbers.
W- “Sooner or later something is going to peel off this disintegrating airframe (told you my metaphors would be mixed) as the flows rip it apart. It will be every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost.”
Pretty dark but likely true.
I’m not so sure, though, it’s about throwing a few of conscious lefties a pocketknife or a hacksaw to saw their way out of the clenches of the Left’s octopus of destruction so we can all break free. What I think we need is a leader, a Reagan or a Churchill, to lead us out of this wilderness.
That said, none of the Republican Leadership are telling us out to get out of this mess. None has put forward any proposal , or I at least I haven’t heard of any, that would equitably dispose of our banking and regulatory issues, right our financial ship and steer us away from the brink of disaster. Hell, most aren’t even fighting the takeover/coup, they’re hiding. I read more reasonable proposals here at BC from from those who post, particularly Wretchard, than I hear from the entire Republican Leadership.
Wretchard @ 74:
I still think you are looking in the wrong direction if you frame it as, The Tea Parties (and/or non-racists, non-guilt-ridden whites) are the ones who have to do X or Y.
There is nothing significantly more or different that the above people can do or say that has not already been done or said. It’s up to blacks to decide that keeping race at the center of the cosmos is done with.
Re: Al Sharpton, I have no opinion on his intelligence, but he did remark, in the aftermath of the McDonald decision by SCOTUS, that he was “shocked” at how many blacks supported the decision. Please note that Rev. Sharpton lives in New York City, not Zurich, not Singapore. How a guy who claims to be a “spokesperson” for his community can be that out of it, on an issue as front-and-center as guns, violence, and self-defense, is beyond me. Let it be noted, for the record, that Clarence Thomas was where the people are, and where the Constitution is, on this one, while Sharpton was apparently out there orbiting Pluto.
Re: Col. West: If you haven’t seen this already, watch it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkGQmCZjJ0k
West’s reply begins at 1:40.
Could you ever, in any conceivable universe, see this guy bowing to the King of Saudi Arabia if he were POTUS?
No teleprompter, BTW.
I first read about Col. West many years ago when the Army went after him for firing his pistol into a bucket of sand beside the head of an Iraqi prisoner, in order to scare that prisoner into revealing information that West & his men believed the Iraqi had re: an imminent attack on an American convoy.
Some men are leaders, some men vote “present.” This guy is a leader.
Perhaps a commenter has already mentioned there is an article at the Boston Globe(?), the gist of which is that facts don’t change peoples’ minds. We are wired to believe.
That is why there will be a bonzai charge by the dems after the election, and why there will be no improvement in race relations.
When the money runs out and the system is wrecked, there will be no renaissance of capitalism and freedom. The reset button will be hit and the redistribution will continue only on a much smaller scale.
Freedom will continue to recede and the same type of people will still be in charge.
Walt, although not quite
Poet Laureate
his whimsy Muse
sure beats
Ozzie and Harriet
Joshua @ 81: you may be right, that this caller (and many others who haven’t called) are just being rational, in adopting a “slim versus none” electoral/political strategy. Kinda like the abused spouse: “yes, I am beaten hard and often; but at least I know what I’ve got.” To which I say: pathetic. Why should we indulge or allow such pathological behavior? If the “other side” has no credibility with these self-deluding losers, then why not just call them out as being exactly that? Put in other words, if the GOP (for which I hold no brief) has no votes from the “black bloc,” then by definition it has nothing to lose by telling the “black bloc” how irrational and self-defeating it is in clinging to the Dems; and it should be brutally vocal in its instruction. Never happen in this PC age, of course. That would be “racist” –to appeal to those trapped on the plantation, and to ask them to use their noggins and develop a strategy for getting some return on their vote.
But just as the GOP or others not favored by this caller will not ever stand up and say that, so too will the caller never stand up and say “I have been indulging myself in a fantasy of self-pitying victimhood, some notion that ‘nobody will ever love us’ which assumes the solution lies with some external actor or force instead of myself. I renounce that and I am going to go find out which candidate is worth my vote.” The Al Sharptons have been selling this community a kind of spiritual crack for far too long.
Tcobb @ 12: “American manufacturing was really killed by excessive and irrational government regulations more than anything else …”
Your comment, Tcobb, has been repeated above, and it needs to be repeated again & again.
When government in the US (and in much of Europe, for that matter) is so deeply in debt, there really is not much prospect for cutting the tax burden. Redistribute it to encourage growth, yes; but that will not reduce the overall burden on the economy. Most progress in cutting government deficits and debts is going to have to come from cutting spending — which will create its own pain. One man’s wasteful spending is another man’s income.
The necessary ingredient is economic growth — making products in the US which create jobs and (ultimately) more tax revenue. (That domestic industrial growth will cut the US trade deficit — bad news for China, Germany, Japan). And the only practical way to spur economic growth in the current economic climate is by rolling back excessive regulation.
Congress has to start repealing laws, eliminating agencies, reeling in judges, firing civil servants. No (short-term) pain, no (long-term) gain.
Bogie #76:
“For large numbers of whites, I would daresay the majority, it hasn’t been about race for quite a while now.”
Yes, I was born in 1952 in SC and recall segregated schools and separate drinking fountains. One day on March of 1999 I was driving down I-95, listening to the Rush show being guest hosted by Doctors Walter Williams and Thomas Sole. They were speculating on the likely Republican presidential candidates for the 2000 election. And I suddenly realized that I could think of more blacks I would vote for President than whites, including those two learned gentlemen.
Do you ever watch any of the Fox News Saturday morning financial TV shows? On one there is a black man named Charles, a self made man who came up from almost nothing. His political views are definitely toward the Right, but he voted for Obama. The reason he gave was that it he felt he had to in order to honor the civil rights pioneers.
So you see, while it has not been about race for most whites in the USA for some time now, it is still about race for most blacks. And that seems to translate into voting for Obama or any other one so anointed, not calling out Farrakan or Jackson or Sharpton or Rev Wright for what they are, and not even condemning the behavior of those who embrace the Ghetto Culture. Color equals Culture and vice versa, and it’s my Culture/Color Right Or Wrong.
The problem is, if you emphasize one aspect of your personality over all others the results will not be nice. And that’s the problem with many minority groups and all minority group leaders; they do.
I fear the Obama effect on race relations in the USA will be utterly devastating. How can you look at any black man and not think “He gave us that socialist in the White House.”
I’m with Bogie Wheel. Decades of internalizing Martin Luther King,
genuine friendships, working to be fair and colorblind
with staff and cooworkers.
And the Louis Farakhans, the new Black Panthers, the Crips and Bloods
get the attention and set the debate.
Right, so let it be said again, z rising tide lifts all ships. The opposite meme is “tax cut for the rich”. That is classic Democrats dividing and conquering. Well, they are very sucessfull at dividing us from our money anyhow. I think the idea that jobs come from business and not the government is the important point. You’d think is was obvious but apparently it is not. Government can supply jobs but only on top of a thriving economy. It is a sad fact that the Marxists in China have found this out on their own while the idea was lost somewhere in the cirriculm of the NEA.
as an asian with a sat score over 1600, i say obama is a gift.
i am full of joy at the prospects for america’s future.
89. RWE
I fear the Obama effect on race relations in the USA will be utterly devastating. How can you look at any black man and not think “He gave us that socialist in the White House.”
Yep. I’m already there, and have been there for over a year. (Although it was the guilt-ridden white liberals who really made Obama’s election possible.)
I would happily vote for Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, or Allen West.
oMan – “nobody will ever love us’
I read this really as a circling of the wagons, as in our team. Football fans have a fanatical loyalty towards “thier” team and for what? a pound of gold plated pewter? The bottom line is the black community is a voting bloc because they identify that bloc, being a minority, as their only strength, right or wrong. Whiskey would read tribalism into that but I think that debases the idea more than it deserves. United we stand works for minorities. The majority spends as much time disaasociating themselves with everybody else because it shows “individualism”. At least they will until their interests are no longer served.
Like I said before I have a couple of black conservative friends and they give me the shrugged shoulders look when it comes to Obama. I am not even sure they didn’t vote for him.
“His political views are definitely toward the Right, but he voted for Obama.” I bet he would have been more happy to vote for Colin Powell.
Now that we got that out of the way let us get back to the matter at hand, good governance.
Once again let me offer a good-natured caution to the good folks of the right (well represented here): It is a grave mistake to make Obama the bad guy/scapegoat here. Obama is merely a cats-paw, a glib front-man. The real enemy is so-called “progressivism”, which is merely socialism by a different name.
Focusing on Obama will alienate many blacks who might otherwise have been allies. Moreover, it allows the Dems to attack conservatives with cries of “racism”–thus permanently shifting the debate.
A Piece of Advice for the NAACP [Deroy Murdock]
The NAACP today is expected to adopt a resolution denouncing the alleged “racism” of the tea-party movement. Presumably this is the same tea party that has expressed its “bigotry” by repeatedly showcasing black conservative and libertarian speakers at its rallies, including, among others, yours truly, Deneen Borelli, Niger Innis, Mychal Massie, Kevin Martin, Bob Parks, and David Webb (who leads New York’s tea party). The tea-party movement focuses on cutting taxes, spending, and government debt. Promoting fiscal responsibility is neither black nor white. It’s green.
Rather than peddling lies, the NAACP should deploy such credibility as it may possess to denounce the New Black Panther Party. The NBPP is as loud, vocal, and unvarnished a pack of racists as exists in this country. To learn more about this hate group, go here.
44. Mad Fiddler : This link to the Fairchild crash report works better.
IMO, the different services punish differently. The Air Force is very lenient compared to the Navy where the guy in charge -is- held responsible, and anything major will end his career. For example, Duke Cunningham never made captain, because they thought he should have brought his F-4 home instead of engaging in the dogfight with the Mig.
am @ 37: The republicans do best who govern least.
Here’s a recipe for “least”: start at the beginning, work to the end, and then stop. Anything less than that is not the least, it’s too little.
But you raise a good point about the schools as another key issue.
–
Regarding CDS because few people want to be fractional owners of Peoria’s sewers, neither does AIG want to own the whole thing.
A goodly segment of the population of Hawaii chooses to leave racial troubles on the mainland, at least concerning their private lives.
Our son’s black roomate dates a Japanese girl, his Portagee (term of endearment given their Paniolo Past) roomate a local girl, (mixed Hawaiin/Asian) and our Haole son dates a Korean girl.
“Lucky we live Hawaii!”
Sounds like we need a new political party. Call it the “Freedom and Liberty” party, with the avowed goal of restoring individual, not group, freedom. Freedom to make our own choices without Federal guidance or permission. Explicit goals of cutting Federal spending, not just slowing, but actually cutting spending until the budget is balanced, eliminating ALL subsidies (including Federal welfare payments) on a step basis, and then eliminating any and all Federal departments, commissions, etc. not specifically granted to the Federal government by the Constitution (especially Education, Fannie Mae and Mac). Explain that the goal is to keep money in the pockets of those who earned it.
Declare a 5 year moratorium on ANY changes to existing business regulation, and explicitly state that after those 5 years, any FEDERAL business regulations are null and void unless voted into existence by Congress, and not simply mandated by bureaucrats. Federal involvement in Commerce would be limited to enforcing inter-state contracts and establishing guidelines for Health and Safety which the States may then choose to adopt.
If enacted, the economy would EXPLODE. Revenues would shoot up at both the state and Federal levels. This is the proper way to split the block behavior of minority groups, because it will WORK and anyone who sits back and demands “free stuff just because” would become a target of ridicule.
Of course, I have now declared myself to be the evil and twisted enemy of all “right thinking people” , as well as both political parties.
So be it. I am a free man, and I will die a free man, making my own decisions and accepting the consequences thereof.
Except for that last paragraph, I know I’m dreaming, but dammit, it’s a GOOD dream.
Imagine for a moment that you have this magic element – potentium – that is capable of remarkable feats. Put a couple of drops on the ground, and oil starts bubbling out. Smear some on sand, and computer chips float to the surface. Drop two wires into a beaker of potentium, and electricity starts flowing. Pour it over a vat full of wool, and sweaters self-assemble. And inject it a block of nitenol and an cardiac stent emerges.
Remarkable stuff, this potentium. But it is not perfect. Every so often, it doesn’t behave as planned, and a problem occurs. And, in rare circumstances, we have disasters.
The government, egged on by the media and the cluck cluck cluck of the chattering classes, steps in to regulate potentium. Restrictions are placed on its use, and you must fill out myriad paperwork for just a simple application. People who don’t posses potentium are envious of those who do, and use the government to “level the playing field.”
As a result of all of this interference, supplies of potentium dwindle. And as it dwindles, the demand for it grows. But price regulations remove the incentive to produce more, leading to shortages. Those shortages lead to calls for government subsidies, but in the end, the politicians can’t create more of the element, so people learn to live without it. After a while, no one even remembers what life was like when people were free to use potentium.
Funny thing is that potentium actually exists.
It’s human ingenuity.
What a tragedy, for us to squander our most valuable resource.
But the good news is that the source of potentium cannot be destroyed. It is still there. And supplies will renew quickly, once the restrictions are removed.
L3
“total approval for Health Care has fallen from 57% in April 2009 to 45% in July 2010.”
Oh my God! Christian Science is taking over!
“Disapproval of Congress is so widespread, a recent Gallup poll suggests, that by a margin of almost two to one, Americans would rather vote for a candidate with no experience than for an incumbent. Throw the bums out is the mood.”
And yet how many bums will these same Americans be returning to Congress?
I urge everyone to read the Russell K. Nieli link. I already knew of some of Espenshade’s work and had grown inured to the racial discrimination in university admissions as summarized in your quote, but there are some other shockers in the article.
The Neil Reynolds article reminds me of a recurrent Mark Steyn quote:
The operational conclusion seems clear.
NahnCee (#32):
In a parliamentary system, Obama would now have very good reason to be highly concerned about being replaced with Hillary.
Annoy Mouse (#37): “The republicans do best who govern least.”
Let’s hear it for Calvin Coolidge!
wretchard (#50): “The challenge is to clean up constructively. To sweep, scrub, vacuum and shampoo is better than burning the house down.”
Nah, we need a big purifying fire! (Sigh.)
(Begging forgiveness from the purists. I will attempt to make amends by stating that I consider Stop Making Sense to be the best concert movie evar.)
If I may repeat a request for information: there is a well known piece (at least 30 years old) about a plane crashing at takeoff, explaining how many seemingly small factors shaved an increasing number of yards from the safety margin. Can anyone point me to the piece?
103. Bob
If I may repeat a request for information: there is a well known piece (at least 30 years old) about a plane crashing at takeoff, explaining how many seemingly small factors shaved an increasing number of yards from the safety margin. Can anyone point me to the piece?
I know exactly the story you’re talking about. I think it’s more like 50 years old.
I probably have it around here somewhere, but I don’t know where. I’ll keep an eye out.
LL3# writes:
But the good news is that the source of potentium cannot be destroyed. It is still there. And supplies will renew quickly, once the restrictions are removed.
But LL3, the bad news is that potentium is a threat to the powers that be, and thus possession of it without a license should be made illegal. Our betters are working on this. It, like marijuana, cannot be eradicated, but at the same time the power of the state can stomp it down so that it never is allowed to grow to X inches in height without becoming a target for destruction.
The “world community” may not agree on many things, but the existing powers that be can and will rally behind the “potentium non-proliferation treaty.” It is in their best interest. And to them that is all that counts.
Alexis (#53): “‘So, if I were emperor, what would *I* do?’ I would wear clothes.”
Heh. Double heh.
Gaffe Prices (#56):
I come to praise Obama, not to bury him.
…
…
Alright, I got nuthin’.
Ari Tai (#58):
If I may quote a comment of mine from a neighboring blog:
Annoy Mouse (#59): “I know that my black friends are not Marxists but few would oppose Obama and his policies because that is what the ‘Black Community’ does, for better or worse, it sticks together because in the past that is all they could count on.”
Now see, that is not true at all of the “Jewish Community”. If the Republicans were to nominate a Jew for president (Cantor?), you can rest assured that Jews would not be blinded by ethnic considerations, and would vote 75% Democratic.
I share your misgivings regarding impeachment. I’ll go further and say that as much as I detest Obama’s actions, and as happy as I’d be to see him go, I am not convinced that impeachment is justified.
Darren (#61):
Agreed.
hdgreene (#73): “DC Suckularity”
You reminded me of the following movie review.
wretchard (#74): “But what about Zuckerman? Why not throw him a hacksaw? Why not throw him a pocketknife? He’ll know what he’s got to do with it.”
Good thing that I’m staying with your metaphor, or my imagination might carry me to infelicitous places.
bogie wheel (#76):
By the way, say what you will about Alan Keyes, the man is most articulate and eloquent, with no need for a teleprompter. (Oh, and that was an entertaining Allen West clip (#84), although I fear he just lost the Polish vote.)
rickl (#104):
Thanks. Yes, fifty years is quite possible.
The first glaring case of inaccuracy in the press I’d noticed was a late April night in New Haven during the 1970 murder trial of Black Panther Bobby Seale, accused of ordering the murder of Alex Rackley when he was suspected of being a police informant.
The trial became a rallying point for radicals and counter-cultural “freaks” from around the country, who were summoned by posters in scores of cities to converge on the New Haven Green near the Court House, and trash the place. Some of Seale’s fellow Panthers were ejected by the judge and one, David Hilliard, was jailed for disrupting the proceedings and if memory serves, being found carrying heat in the courtroom. (It was long before metal detectors were considered necessary for courtrooms.)
There were massive protests. William Sloane Coffin, Yale’s Chaplain, and Kingman Brewster, Pres., both famously made contemptuous claims that a fair trial of Black revolutionaries was not possible in the USA.
A rally was set one evening in the dragon-hump Ingalls skating rink designed by Eero Saarinen, featuring the Panther Lieutenant David Hilliard, and as far as I could tell, several of his bodyguards. He was expected to speak, having been freed primarily as a result of efforts of a bunch of activists from Yale Law School (quite possibly including the young Hillary…)
The audience was about five or six thousand Yale students (grad & undergrad) and probably a few thousand visiting freaks and serious radicals.
Let me paint a picture:
Ingalls Rink in the late spring is a high-ceilinged concrete arena, with lights aimed more or less straight down. The room was large enough, that all the joint and cigarette smoke formed a haze, making the scene much like a Leni Riefenstahl staging. To complete this impression, Hilliard and his fellows stood on a raised dais, dressed in polished floor-length caramel brown leather coats, surveying the crowd from behind wrap-around dark glasses, in jaw-thrusting poses that echoed the strutting of Benito Mussolini.
During some salutary remarks by a singularly pasty and obsequious student rep, a solitary character in shirt-sleeves approached the stage indicating a desire to join them. Hilliard’s bodyguards leaped off the stage and beat the holy crap out of the guy, until the crowd’s shouts persuaded Hilliard to stop it. Then the crowd – in a spasm of indignation – demanded that the freshly mutilated person be allowed to speak. He was helped up to the mike, stood there dazed and shaken, swaying uncertainly for a few minutes while the Panthers hung back. Presently the fellow was led away to have his wounds dressed. (Seems to have been a foreign-born grad student; I never found out what the hell he wanted to talk about.)
Hilliard then stepped to the microphone, and proceeded to insult the crowd of students with a fusillade of distilled racist and obscene judgments about their attitudes, origins, motivation, and usefulness. For a few minutes the stunned crowd – mostly middle-class students – were too shocked to respond. They had come to hear the guy speak about issues, after absorbing months and months of anti-government tracts, posters, harangues, and lectures telling them about how the power structure had been oppressing the black man.
And here was the Chief of Staff of the Black Panthers, jailed for contempt of court, then freed in response to protests, if not as a result of the legal work of the Yale community. And his response was. “F*CK YOU, YOU WHITE RACIST PRIVILEGED BASTARDS.”
First a few, then a growing chorus of booing arose, and the crowd began to turn their backs and walk out.
I was one of the early ones out; didn’t see any further reason to hang around.
The walk back to the Old Campus grew increasingly weird – a low-hanging cloud cover began to reflect a LURID RED GLOW, as though the whole city was on fire and the revolution was upon us. Turned out it was just an innocent house fire somewhere nearby, reflecting off the low clouds. We didn’t hear anything about the small and ineffectual bombs that went off at Ingalls after midnight, until hours later. Evidently the place had pretty well emptied long before they were detonated. WTF?
The whole trial and its issues were eclipsed a few days later by Nixon’s “Parrot’s Beak Incursion” into neutral Cambodia, meant to root the VC out of the illegal sanctuaries they’d been accustomed to using for a decade. Followed by the much publicized shootings at Kent State and Florida State.
So, all of that was to make the point that the article I read about those events in the NYT the next day might just as well have been written about events on Mars.
I never thought THEN that such distortion was anything intentional.
It’s become clear though, that in the last five decades — since the Hollywood film “All the King’s Men” made every Clearasil-scented dweeb believe he can become a Robert Redford by savaging a Republican administration — the press has become an unashamed propaganda machine. It does whatever it must to advance the Leftist narrative. If this means making up shit, that’s what they’ll do. If it means maintaining absolute silence about vast upheavals that tend to contradict the Leftist catechism, they maintain silence, and refuse to acknowledge challenges or complaints. If it means attacking, demeaning, destroying the victims of those whom the Left wishes to protect and advance, they do that.
The mainstream press, as they are increasingly being recognized by the public for the traitors they are, becomes daily more resolute in their role as whore to the Left. Now the ONLY way they can survive in any form whatsoever is for the present Marxist regime to confiscate funds from the productive class, and hand the loot to the new PRAVDA, Izvestia, and TASS.
The legislation has already been drafted, just waiting for some crisis to use as a distraction, for it to be passed by the corrupt criminals of Congress.
But I think there are too many people that are damn tired of being called racist when they’ve made profound changes in themselves, and seen their own taxes pissed away for decades paying bribes and shake-downs to race-baiting provocateurs.
This abc news article starts out with te premise that the tea party is racist, or has “extreme” elements to it. But this quotation from former NAACP chapter president (Rev. CL Bryant) covers it completely.
http://abcnews.go.com/WN/naacps-condemning-tea-party-racist-world-news-question/story?id=11150657
The Rev. C.L. Bryant, a leading Tea Party activist and former NAACP chapter president, called the claim of racism “simply a lie.”
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People wants to “create a climate where they can say that those on the right are in fact racist and those on the left are their saviors,” Bryant said. “This is very much what the liberal agenda is all about.”
re: Airplane Crashes:
Does anyone know what Michael Crichton was talking about when he writes that
“There was nothing wrong with the DC-10″ wrt to the Sioux City Crash?
…now that I’ve read about Chicago, I’d guess Sioux City was maintenance related also.
“Television just goes with the visuals, and never tells you what actually happened.”
“Come on,” I said. “Of course the story gets reported. What about those famous crashes involving the DC-10? We got that story.”
“There was nothing wrong with the DC-10,” he said. “You mean Chicago? Sioux City? There was no problem with the plane.”
“Are you serious?” I said.
“Yes. I’m serious. Did you ever read the NTSB dockets on the DC-10 crashes?”
I admitted I hadn’t.
“Then you don’t know the story,” he told me.
He went on to explain that the National Transportation Safety Board conducted an exhaustive inquiry into every fatal aircraft accident. Their findings, accompanied by dozens of pages of photographs, interviews, and other supporting documentation, were then made public.
“They’re fascinating reading,” my friend said. “You ought to look at them sometime. Because I’m telling you, this is a world that nobody knows about.”
—
“This is a world that nobody knows about: there was a challenge to a novelist, if ever I’d heard one. It wasn’t long before I realized that my friend was right.”
Wretchard @55
I agree that many of the necessary changes can only be undertaken after we have reached a much more difficult state. Personally I think that is about to happen over the next five to ten years as we continue to have bubbles pop with misery showering around our heads, of which the debt bubble will bring the most misery. Unfortunately many good men and women will have sincerely tried their best to right the ship of state with no success because the problems we’ve created are just too big to be solved without killing many sacred cows. That slaughter will only start when a majority are destitute.
I qualify the term destitute since we are Americans and our most destitute are in far better shape than many average residents of the unfortunate lands. I worry about my grand kids and doubt they will have lives much better than my own grandparents. I sincerely hope I’m wrong.
#61 darren – On the specific subject of bankers, I disagree with you because you don’t go far enough.
Those people were and are entrusted with other people’s money. That being so, IMHO any of them that gamble with other people’s money and lose should indeed lose everything. But I mean EVERYTHING. All their money, all their possessions, and most especially including their last car. Be left with the clothes on their backs. And also barred by law, on pain of imprisonment, from ever again borrowing money or being in an executive position of any sort. Formal qualifications represent an investment and hence an asset; they ought to be made null and void too.
The idea of Wall Street and/or City of London spivs digging ditches or begging on the streets appeals to me greatly.
unsk at 83
I’ve seen two. One is here, the other is from Florida
wretchard# 54;
In my declaiming on Obama, I always make the point that he is NOT “African – American culturally, but was raised by White sociaists, and it is the White half, mired in the fantasies of the academy, that has brought us to this juncture.
“Regular-folks” Black Americans have more common sense than what Sharpton and his ilk display, and are a source of embarrassment for them. I am speaking of working class, and middle class Black Americans, who can be engaged in a reasonble manner, not the “Obama’s gonna pay my morgage” third generation welfare types (of any color).
I wish we would drop the meme of Affirmative Action with regard to Obama, even though it is likely that that he vaulted to the top on his color: it doesn’t explain Joe Biden.
It is his worldview, and thin resume that are causing us problems, not his melanin.
We have to make this argument, while Conservatives elect black Americans likeCol. Alan West to office.
In addition, the best chance that Conservative have of peeling off Black Americans from the Democrat Plantation, is to run on school choice. The hypocristy of the Leftist elites on this issue is glaring, and it is established fact that both Hispanics and Blacks want school choice for their children. A platform of Real school reformation like the Kipp Schools, and vouchers for private religious schoolscould be a winning opening for some urban working and middle class Black Americans.
I think it’s inevitable that Obama will be seen through a race-based prism. As the failures mount, the cries of racism will get even louder. The left won’t let anyone be race neutral on this issue, and will seal their own fate by doing this. They’ll do it anyway, because it’s what they do.
Obama will make it much harder for another Black person to follow him, whatever his/her qualifications, because no one will want to see our politics degenerate into a race baiting nightmare again. It’s truly unfortunate that this historic Presidency should have been won by such a shallow, unqualified man. I think he’s poisoned the well for future Black Presidential hopefuls.
There’s plenty of downside to the current Administration, but there are some silver linings. One of them is that by the time his term in office ends the race card will have been overplayed for the last time, and we can move on to whatever comes after. This is much more important, long term, for the Black community than it is for the rest of us. The guilt by association game their “leaders” have been playing all of these years is coming to an end, and would be doing so even without Obama to hasten it along.
As the demographics in this country change, and as those who remember blatant racism (like me) die out, there will be much less sympathy for the proposition that a group of people should be held to different standards because of their history. I can’t imagine my neighbors who came here from Vietnam have much sympathy for anyone who was born here and managed to fail, considering the upheaval within their own lives that they have had to overcome. I’m sure they’ve encountered prejudice themselves, at times, but I doubt that puts them in camp with American blacks. And I’m pretty sure they feel no guilt for the fact that blacks were held in bondage for much of US history.
Conservatives don’t need to reach out to American Blacks. There are plenty of Conservative policies that would benefit Blacks, School Choice being an obvious example. When a group supports your opposition in 90-95% numbers they’ve marginalized themselves, and a deliberate outreach strategy is a waste of time and resources. We can demonstrate that we are not hostile to them, and we can attempt to articulate how conservative policies would benefit them, but it’s up to them to make their voices heard.
Fletcher (#111):
Before we implement your proposal, I’d rather we clarify the definitions a little. After all, don’t millions of Americans “gamble” on the stock market?
Since I mentioned France (#106), this one goes out to Marie Claude.
As I said in the earlier comment, I mean specifically those who do it for a living (usually a damn good one) with other people’s money. If you want to gamble your life savings on the market, that’s up to you.
Further to that, I think that there is something seriously wrong with a country where graduate physicists and engineers are flocking to the financial “industry” because their maths skills are useful there and the money “industry” pays better. This is the case in both the USA and the UK.
If the Republicans do get back in power, there are two tasks they need to set themselves and never cease from forwarding: ending affirmative action and removing illegal immigrants. They want to cut the deficit; two of the easiest ways to do that would be to make government more efficient and to put more Americans to work. End affirmative action, you can hire the best and most competent applicant, not just the one who fits the arbitrary skin color/plumbing requirements. Deport the illegals, you take a lot of Americans from being tax eaters to being tax payers, plus you make deep cuts in our welfare and incarceration costs. The days of America being able to be deliberately stupid are over. Our best efforts are going to be required for there to be any hope of us remaining fiscally afloat as a nation. We’re going to need meritocracy as our operating principle going forward, or we’ll drown in our debt.
One last comment: Wretchard, you shouldn’t have banned Whiskey and I’m disappointed that you did. Whether you liked him or not, he certainly had a good way of expressing a point of view that has enough truth to it that it makes a lot of people profoundly uncomfortable.
happygrl
My black friends call him Al Sharp-Tongue and think he is a riot because he is such a thorn in the side of conservatives. They don’t seem very embarassed by him but the moniker is fitting.
the Lockheed Electra was a pretty bad plane –until they found the wing flutter. The ex’s dad was on board flight 320 –she was just a young un –barely remembers him.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_L-188_Electra
Creepy scale version:
http://www.alexisparkinn.com/photogallery/Videos/RCb52crash.wmv
Buddy – 119:
“On February 3, 1959, American Airlines Flight 320 en route from Chicago to New York City crashed on approach, killing 65 of 73 on board.[10] This crash pushed the deaths of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, and Ritchie Valens (also in a plane crash) off the front pages. ”
…but we remember the day the music died, not the day 65 died.
fwiw
@39 Annoy Mouse. I mostly agree. But, I will point out that it is a circular trend. The main issue is how to stop it.
The big zero has done far worse than Nixon. It’s high time for a democrat President to get impeached (or forced out of office). The action would do the country good. Further, it would put the dem’s on notice the cronyism is unacceptable – just as organized crime.
Stop him and his Czars from screwing the economy and the tax payers. I say crank up the investigations and let’s see all of the big zero’s dirty laundry – then give him the boot.
So what to do – the Tea Party has put together a short term national recovery plan, that is, what to do right now to avert the economic collapse. They are working on a longer term plan. You can see the short term plan on the website: http://www.martea.net.
Fletcher (#116): “If you want to gamble your life savings on the market, that’s up to you.”
But when it comes to investing my retirement savings, you want to prevent me from consulting with people who specialize in such matters, especially if they dared graduate in physics or engineering?
Doug, her dad was a Rhodes Scholar –and old fashioned tinkerer who had developed aand patented a new type hearing aid. He built a manufacturing biz around it, and ran the co some years, and had just then sold it to Sheaffer Pen co –IOW, the payoff, finally, after nonstop life of work.
He was on his way to NYC (they were from Minneapolis) to take some press pix and pick up his big check, when he climbed on board Flight 320.
Ah, history –it just strings out forever.
I fear that we are not taking account of the fact that Obama and his core supporters will never see that their failures are their own making, they will simply continue to believe they are right and anything that doesn’t work is due to a dishonest, racist, etc. opposition.
Exactly what Stalin believed… anything that went wrong, no matter how big or small, must be due to sabotage.
And if I may join wretchard in mixing my metaphors, we are headed for a constitutional crisis in 2011 and a 2012 election that will resemble Germany in 1930 as the DoJ gives the green light to all manner of vote fraud and intimidation (read, street thugs beating people) as long as it is of teh approved results. The liberals will NOT go quietly, any more than did the Nazis who had manifestly lost WW2 by September 1944, but made the last few months the bloodiest of the whole war.
If the American polity survives, liberalism will be discredited for a generation… but it is NOT a given that a democratic republic will survive this challenge.
I wish the GOP would get its head out of its ass and start a serious program of capacity building to challenge the Dems and esp the libs on voting issues—registration, purging the rolls of dead and ineligibles, pass laws requiring I.D. to vote and greatly tightening up on absentee and early voting, poll watchers supported by squdrons of attorneys and hired muscle if necessary (someone has to keep the SEIU purple shirts from beating and intimidating people. Assume the Dems will do anything they think they can get away with to steal the 2012 election (not to mention 2010 in many places), and do everything possible to thwart that. And, probably too late, but the GOP should have made a major strategic commitment to winning the key state-level races that will determine the 2012 redistricting. But I have no confidence the GOP leadership is capable of strategic thought, it’s just polls and focus groups. The GOP has still brought a knife to a gun fight as far as I can see.
o/t –i was answering doug on the thread that closed while i was composting my sentences –so i gwan put it here, as it was effortful, and doug needs the info so he can drill a well on Wakiki and watch the fur fly –
***
well, firstly, you CAN blowout thru the drillpipe –it’s called a ‘drillpipe blowout’ and happens when you ARE shut in on a ‘kick’ but do not have a kelly cock set or IBOP (‘inside blowout preventer –a one-way valve in a sub –a short length of drillpipe containing a tool –in fact the IBOP has a wrong-way-turning threading –the only one on the rig) installed in the string. I have a hard time believing it but there is a theory that the drillpipe did blow out on the doomed rig, that it was gas exiting in the engine rooms (that drive the mud pump or pumps).
lessee, where were we –oh –where to set pipe –the ‘casing point’ for however many strings of casing the well design calls for. The deeper, the more strings, usually three seperate strings for drlg a deep well. Then if you strike, then you need a fourth string, the production string, to carry the hydrocarbons to the ‘christmas tree’ –the production wellhead manifold –which is that thing in your neighborhood.
That’s one of the controversies with BP –they run tapered strings –inherently offering fewer control options than long strings (surface to casing TD) with a tie-back. macondo was running tapered with no tie-back –which method the class acts –Exxon and Shell –won’t touch on a wildcat well.
why set casing you axe –there’s reasons having to do with borehole erosion and ability to maintain exact mud weight, etcetera — to set a string of casing –but above all is that when you get down into formation pressure and have to ‘weight up the mud’ (add high specific-gravity inert fine solids –commonly barium sulfate), the lower-pressure permeable formations above will not hold the mud weight that you need below, and you will experience ‘lost circulation’.
Loss of returns (same thing) is a real pain even when it’s not downright dangerous –which under abnormal pressure conditions it is, due to loss of head from the shortened column (iirc this is the sequence which blew out the Ixtoc).
to handle lost returns, you keep the bore hydrostatic overbalanced against the highest downhole pressure, WHILE keeping up with the loss via new mud mixing –with ‘LCM’ added –that’s ‘lost ciculation material’ — of which there’s many types –and each field has one or two which work better than the others –it’s a matter of particle-size distribution and wellbore behavior –and trial and error.
Anyhoo, even with a wildcat well, casing points can be roughly picked out via seismic logs –tho it’s gonna be a maybe so maybe notproposition deal on the guesstimated pre-plannining casing point –that is unless you’re drilling ‘known parameters’ –such as ‘stepouts’ or ‘infills’ in a known field.
if you have set pipe too high, you will know it at the point you find you need more mud wt –and that additional head causes a loss of returns –part or whole. people always think they drilled into a loss zone because that’s the intuitive –but research shows the loss zone is almost always the first permeable below the last casing string.
meaning –you missed your casing point –bad deal –you may have to squeeze the loss zone –gotta call a squeeze crew –Haliburton usually –with the isolating and squeeze tools –loss of rig time for starters.
So you aim to set your casing strings (that is when you’re not at “TD” and are intending to ‘drill out’) as deep as you can go within the formation pressure options –and try to always get that next weak zone (even a rank wildcat has seismic data and something from somewhere e-logged as near as possible –the strata will vary in depth and thickness mile by mile but within a certain ‘horizon’ the major formations will sequence similarly) showing on your data –that is if you will need more mud wt –as you generally will drlg ahead –as even without abnormal fluid or gas pressures just the normal gradient increases with depth due to plain overburden stress raising pore pressure via depth alone.
Also, permeables will contain saltwater when not oil or gas, and don’t even want a saltwater flow entering the bore as it cuts mud wt and contaminates mud properties and tho it doesn’t catastrophically expand as gas does, it still makes “API” well control impossible.
So, set pipe wrong and it’s a P&A if you’re already in small diameters, or at best an unplanned string of pipe –that is if you can’t cure the loss with LCM and babydrilling procedures.
casing is expensive in time and mtrl but the real problem is there’s only a few sizes of pipe and drillstring/bit combos and you can run out of room even if you started oversize to begin with –say even drilling out of intermediate string with 8-5/8 bit, a la Macondo, unless the report i read was wrong –as most everything seems to be coming out of BP.
Hell i’m all typed out –check later and i’ll see what i missed and fill it in.
You’re right about the shallow gas –without surface pipe, you’re ‘spudding in’ –tho there is a always a bigger ‘conductor’ surface pipe which without the bradenhead installed doesn’t really count as a surface pipe csng string, it’s just a mud return and loose surface mtrl-housekeeping unit. This is land drlg i’m describing –i don’t have the keyboard stamina to splain moon pool on floaters vs barge or jackup wellheads.
other questions, hit a shallow gas pocket without any open fire and you won’t ignite. Macondo probably lit off in the engine rooms. either no one set the kelly cock or else there was no IBOP in the string –which due to the cased-hole procedures they thought –the crew thought –they were in before the well started coming in (asterisk here, referring to the contretempts the crew and the bosses had that morning due to the shaky things being ordered up) –they may well have had the drill pipe open to the running engines.
jeez i tried to generalize so as not to write a book –but the whole thing is in the details –there’s no middle ground for a layman layout –
Mad Fiddler @ 107,
They’ve already engineered this mechanism, and they snuck it in way before Obama took office. The Left has taken over swaths of publicly-funded higher education PhD and Masters programs, programs that require that their students publish in order to matriculate, and coerced them into publishing reams and reams of anti-American “opposition” research. All this with confiscated tax-payers’ monies.
Look at the mouth, gut and legs of this thing. You’ve got:
1. tax-paying, productive citizens MUST pay into state revenues to finance anti-American opposition research at “higher ed.” campuses.
2. campused, soft-sciences “achievers” must publish anti-American opp. research or else lose “credits,” “degrees,” or other paper “atta-girls.”
3. once graduated, the campused “achievers” are eligible for full-time teaching positions (state employee with 3-months off/year, lectures only three times per week, but paid well with pension, and unionized).
At #1 we’ve got your “regime to confiscate funds.” Check. At #2 we’ve got the coerced publication of TASS-lich product (publish or…fail!). Check. And at #3, we’ve got your dossier’ed leftist academician’s dream: employment for “life,” serving the Green Furher (or whatever) at a virtual Der Stern, or TASS, or Arab News (Ryadh edition). Check.
A workers paradise, for sure!
Bertelsmanns would be proud. And I haven’t even explored the political roller-skates that keep the taxpayers shoveling good coal into this monster, yet.
[I've learned that a lot of this American "opp research" masquerading as Masters' Theses gets published by fringe, European publishers. Must be, it's too hot for a Penguin, or a Simon & Schuster.]
Belmont Clubbers, when you have the time click over to your local state Uni’s branch, and scroll down its list of graduating Masters and PhD’s. And then, if they’re available (and why shouldn’t they be, you paid for them?) then peruse the graduates’ theses’ titles one by one. And if, after this, you’re wondering why your taxes go to fund this horrendous glob of useless media, then you might also check your uni’s recent-hires lists to see if any of these radicals gained hire with their screeds.
If what you find doesn’t make you angry, then I’d check to see if you have a pulse next.
-S
SteaveAZ,
In several religious-based universities where I was either taking classes or had friends on faculty, I discovered that neither being a Jesuit nor being a born-again Christian guarantees a person will be safe from seduction by the atheist’s Marxist dogmas.
Still, compared to the viciously policed lockstep dogma I’ve experienced and heard described going on at secular state universities and community colleges, religious schools are a haven of openness and congeniality.