Noteworthy Net-Worthies:

IBDeditorials.com — “In Search of Moderate Islamofascists.” Wrap sentence: “After the uncompromising demands we made of the Taliban in September 2001, such a change only would be viewed by Islamofascists worldwide as more proof of the infidels’ lack of nerve.”

Mark Finkelstein — “Good thing Jack Welch criticized Barack Obama on national TV and not at a toney New York party: he might never have been invited to sip Cosmos with the cocktail set again ….”

Jazz Shaw at Pajamas Media — “Team Obama is serving up softballs to Letterman, Leno, and Stewart. Will they ever step up to the plate and swing?” I guess it depends on their interest in toney/tony parties.

I’m actually starting to appreciate Twitter as a potential application that can help certain businesses, but I believe this Slate article by Farhad Manjoo is correct  — “It’s not a Google killer, and it’s not a Facebook killer.”

From the Columbus Dispatch’s Hallett and Niquette — “Governor’s Doubters Grow.” Topside take: It must be three times as bad as indicated for these guys to even write about it. Pathetic quote: ” …. one prominent Democrat who asked not to be named …. fretted that the painful budgetary decisions Strickland is deferring could hurt President Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election chances in Ohio.” That’s always the first thing on their mind (sadly, that’s a mostly two-party statement). Also, given its 4:04 a.m. timing on March 8, I wonder if the pair’s report actually got into print.

From RedState’s Brian Faughnan — “Obama Betrayed by His Own Words on Market Collapse” — He told John Harwood at the New York Times that he recognized the need to “pay some attention to market psychology.” Then he didn’t.

Jeff Jacoby — “Whatever Happened to Global Warming?” It’s nowhere to be found, except in the delusional statist environmental enclaves of the Obama adminstration and in the minds of reality-ignoring enviro activists.

Suitably Flip points out (HT Red State) that “even after adjusting for inflation (the Obama “stimulus”) is bigger than the New Deal and the Iraq War combined.”

“Obama musters campaign army for economic fight” — How about mustering some help for Tim Geithner in filling his 14 still-open positions?

“CNN Correspondent Now the Communist Candidate in El Salvador” — The surprise would be if he wasn’t.

National Review (HT Jake Tapper at ABC’s Political Punch via Jennifer Rubin) — “Charles Freeman is a career diplomat, a Saudi apologist, and a savage critic of Israel. He also argues that Beijing did not strike down the Tiananmen Square protesters with sufficient swiftness. Barack Obama proposes to make him head of the National Intelligence Council. It’s an abominable appointment.” But not surprising, and also not subject to Senate confirmation.

From Miami, Florida:

Mar 5, 2009 11:45 pm US/Eastern

It is the most magical moment in a parent’s life, for CBS4′s Shannon Hori and her husband Kendall Cogan, that thrill doubled when their twins, Colt and Cade, were born. But shortly after their birth at Jackson Memorial doctors found Colt’s blood oxygen level was very low; the joy turned to concern and then to absolute shock.

“When they were born we went from this amazing high of having two precious babies,” Shannon says, “and then, a few hours later, we learned that one had a rare congenital heart disease.”

Lung x-rays rang another alarm.

“What surprised us was the fact that the lungs were extremely hazy,” says Dr. Marco Ricci, Cardiac Pediatric Surgeon at Jackson Memorial’s Holtz Children’s Hospital. “The lungs should be black.”

Seeing the abnormal x-rays, doctors ordered an echocardiogram. For Dr. Ricci, it left no doubt that Colt’s tiny heart had a serious problem.

“The right side chamber was significantly larger than the left,” said Dr. Ricci. “It was clear that the baby had a major congenital heart defect which we call total anomalous pulmonary venous connection, in which, essentially, the pulmonary veins that carry the blood back from the lungs to the heart were disconnected from the heart.”

The only option for survival was immediate surgery on Christmas Eve. Shannon’s husband Kendall felt helpless and says that at that point, “We just started praying and counting our blessings that had we been somewhere where they couldn’t determine it, or they couldn’t do anything about it, where would be?” said Cogan.

“We couldn’t even hold Colt in our arms,” Shannon said. “To have that feeling of I just want to hold my baby and he’s going to have surgery, open-heart surgery and we didn’t feel like we could do anything for him. It was just terrifying, waiting those five hours. And they came back and they said it was a success, the procedure is done, his heart appears to be fixed and we all started crying, we were so happy.”

It was the greatest of Christmas gifts. Even though it was almost unbearable to see tiny Colt attached to the two dozen machines that helped keep him alive. Within days, x-rays showed significant improvement, and little by little Colt regained strength.

But then, two weeks later, during a very minor procedure, it was Shannon’s heart that was almost broken.

“I was singing, ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star’ to calm him,” she says, “and, all of a sudden, I saw the worst thing. His face just went blank and the alarms started going off, and the doctors and nurses just started running from every direction to his room and I just started praying to God.”

Colt’s heart had stopped. Dr. Ricci was paged and rushed in to help moments later.

“His heart wasn’t coming back,” said Ricci. “At that point, we understood that the only option was to open his chest.”

At that point, the doctor knew Shannon had to leave the room.

“I can’t even think how difficult it must have been for her, being there and watching her baby, essentially dying,” said Dr. Ricci.

She was terrified. “I just stood outside the room and prayed to God that He would save him, and He did,” said Shannon as she cried.

They did, after pumping Colt’s heart manually and connecting him to a hear-lung machine.

“They were taking out the defibrillator. It was the stuff you see on TV and say ‘this will never happen to me.’ It took 15 minutes, 15 excruciating minutes until someone came out and said, ‘his heart is beating again.’”

It’s a miracle, followed by three long weeks of recovery.

“His brother Cade was at the house, and Colt was in the hospital,” Shannon says, “so we went back and forth. Kendall would spend the night in the hospital; I would stay during the day and see Colt.”

Finally, almost a month and a half after they were born, the twins were finally reunited at home. Now the hope is that Colt will heal soon and catch up this bigger brother.

Shannon will forever be grateful to the hospital and all the medical personnel.

“We are very lucky that we have that great hospital in that community and doctors like Dr. Ricci who save his life, not once, but twice.”  …..

Go here for the rest of the story.

Her post at the Weekly Standard blog is here.

Her links: Ouch (Robert Samuelson). Ouch (WaPo editorial). And ouch (E.J. Dionne).

The debate over the short- and long-term efficacy of ethical baggage-free adult stem cells vs. life-destroying embryonic cells is a real example of a scientific debate that might as well be over. Adult stem cells (also referred to as repair stem cells) win.

Given that factual situation, it’s difficult to refute Chris Smith’s serious charge last week, as reported by the Catholic News Agency (bolds are mine):

Mar 7, 2009 / 08:04 am

Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ) has criticized human embryo-destroying stem cell research, saying it is unethical, “unworkable and unreliable” and now “demonstrably unnecessary” in light of recent advances. He charged that President Obama and some Congressmen “still don’t get it” about the breakthroughs involving adult stem cell research.

Rep. Smith also accused the Obama administration and the Democratic leadership of being “obsessed with killing human embryos for experimentation at taxpayer expense.”

Leading a Special Order of Members of Congress who are opposed to human embryonic stem cell research (ESCR), Rep. Smith made his comments on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday.

“Recent spectacular breakthroughs in noncontroversial adult stem cell research and clinical applications to effectuate cures with the mitigation of disease or disability have been well documented,” he said, remarking on the “significant progress” achieved with adult stem cells.

According to the Congressional Record, he said that his legislation helped establish a nationwide network to collect umbilical cord blood and the placenta from childbirths, which has borne fruit in treating leukemia and sickle cell anemia.

“Adult stem cells, Madam Speaker, are truly remarkable. They work, they have no ethical baggage, and advances are made every day at a dizzying pace,” he said.

He noted scientists Shinya Yamanaka and James Thomson’s development of a process that uses viruses to transform skin cells into pluripotent, embryo-like stem cells called induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells.

Rep. Smith also referred to research teams from the United Kingdom and Canada who have announced they have successfully reprogrammed ordinary skin cells into iPS skin cells without the use of viruses. He then quoted the U.K. team’s leading scientist, who told the BBC the procedure might even eliminate the need for human embryos as a source of stem cells.

“Pluripotent stem cells are those miraculous building block cells that can be coaxed into becoming any type of tissue found in the human body,” Rep. Smith explained.

“Unlike embryonic stem cells that kill the donor, are highly unstable, have a propensity to morph into tumors and are likely to be rejected by the patient unless strong anti-rejection medicines are administered, induced pluripotent cells, stem cells, have none of those deficiencies and are emerging as the future, the greatest hope of regenerative medicine.

….. He quoted several of James Thomson’s comments, in which the University of Wisconsin researcher said the embryonic stem cell debate will be a “funny historical footnote” and characterized new adult stem cell research advances as “probably the beginning of the end of the controversy over embryonic stem cells.”

It should be the “end of the end” of any controversy over funding embryonic research. Because adult stem cells can do anything embryonic cells might (in theory, supposedly, some day) do in curing and/or mitigating human disease, life-destroying embryonic research shouldn’t be done. That it apparently will be, despite “the settled science,” to use the debate-stifling language of the globalarmists, makes Smith’s charge against President Obama and the congressional majority’s leadership presumptively valid.

Addendum: Less than two years ago, I predicted in this comment that adult stem cells would eclipse embryonics in 5-10 years (bold applied now is mine):

Write it down: 5 years, even 10 years from now, ESCR will still be almost nothing but promise, while other SCR will at a minimum have done another 5-10 years of blocking and tackling, and may itself achieve all the breakthroughs Hail Mary black-hole ESCR promises — *someday*. That would include pluripotency, as there are beyond-early indications that ASCRs can be trained to be pluripotent. If realized, that achievement would, and should, consign life-taking ESCR to the ash heap of history.

I was wrong in estimating that it would take as long as 5-10 years. I’m (obviously) not sorry that this turned out to be the case. I’m only sorry that I underestimated scientists’ and other researchers’ ability to so quickly prove that God provides us ethical and moral ways to overcome our problems if we only demonstrate a little patience. It is clear to me that He did so just in time to make it obvious to all who will see just how misguided — and, yes, just how objectively evil — a move to apply federal taxpayer dollars to the immoral alternative really is.

We also owe a large debt of thanks to George W. Bush for keeping federal dollars away from life-killing and clearly unproductive embryonic research during his term in office.

Speaking of debts, let’s not forget that somebody promised me a few beers when (he thought if) I was shown to be right. But if he wants to weasel out (my guess: he will) do just that), that’s okay, because if I do collect on the bet, I’ll have to run to confession to ask for forgiveness for stealing.

From Tennessee:

An 8-year-old boy who has been unable to go to school for over three months is going back next month.

His parents, who naturally feared the worst when doctors told them Jonathan had a tumor on his spine, have replaced worry with gratitude and give credit to God for what they say is a miracle they witnessed firsthand. Actually more than one.

Jonathan, his father Steve explained, had been suffering from neck pain for over a year, usually after having played for a lengthy time on his video game system. Steve and Faye would ask Jonathan to lie down and rest for a while, and the pain seemed to go away.

But one day when a nurse friend was at their home, the McKenzies told her about the problem. After looking at Jonathan’s neck she advised them to see his pediatrician.

Following some x-rays, the family was sent to Children’s Hospital in Knoxville for further tests. That same night, they got a call that an appointment had been made for them to travel to Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville. “Your son has a tumor,” they remember the doctor telling them.

The doctor’s prognosis

It was there in Nashville they met Dr. Ginger Holt and where they were also relieved to find out that there was a 99.9 percent chance Jonathan’s tumor wasn’t cancerous.

It wasn’t, further testing revealed. The McKenzies learned Jonathan had an aneurysmal bone cyst that was growing in toward the spinal cord instead of out, like most cases. It was actually wrapped around the cord, Steve said, and also a major artery.

“There were two major areas of concern,” Steve said. “Bleeding because of the artery and the possibility of injury to the spinal cord and possible paralysis.”

Holt told the family that surgery would be risky, but it was the only option they had. A date was set to remove the tumor, and doctors told Faye and Steve they would have to fuse three of Jonathan’s vertebrae together while also removing the invasive tumor.

“We were told the tumor had grown so long that it had prevented the C-4 vertebrae from growing,” Steve explained. It would not be strong enough to support his neck after surgery.”

Through all of this, the McKenzies relied on their faith in God and the support of other members of the Christian community. The family attends Freedom Freewill Baptist Church in Friendsville and Jonathan was placed on several prayer lists.
(more…)

None of this will surprise readers here, but it should go on the record nonetheless.

Coverage of “tea party” protests in various cities around the country (this March 4 Pajamas Media press release, HT to FreeRepublic, cited 22 locations on February 27 and seven this weekend) has been sparse to non-existent, especially at major establishment media outlets.

There was no coverage of this weekend’s or last weekend’s protests by the Associated Press, the self-described “essential global news network,” based on a seach on “tea party” (not in quotes) at its ap.org home page at about 10:00 a.m.:

What’s more, even though over 20 of the protests had already taken place, the AP’s David Bauder, in his coverage of a dispute over the prominent use of CNBC’s Rick (“Rant Hear ‘Round the world“) Santelli’s name at a protest web site (the March 2, 8:06 p.m. item above), either did not know that the protests had occurred, or didn’t care to inform his readers that they had.

Looking at this weekend’s coverage thus far, a 10:15 a.m. Google News search on “tea party” for March 7-8 (in quotes, sorted by date with duplicates included), returned only 47 items (the over 1,500 results claim at the top of the first page of the results is wrong; scroll to the bottom to see that there are only 5 pages of results). Roughly a quarter of them are unrelated to the protests; most of the rest are from local publications and TV stations results. One exception is Michelle Malkin’s column (“The Wealth Battlefield”) in the Washington Times.

As if you didn’t know already: With the exception of a one-paragraph blog post at the New York Times, searches at the Washington Post and the Times on “tea party” (not in quotes) indicate that there was no coverage of the protest events.

Maybe the tea partiers should have told the press that they were holding Iraq War protests.

UPDATE: Patrik Jonsson at the Christian Science Monitor did an even-handed report on the tea party movement on February 27 (“Budget debate launches new tea party”). I appreciate his e-mail calling his work to my attention.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

From Austin Texas:

Mar 7, 2009 / 02:31 pm

Luidgy Virgile is a beautiful 2-year-old boy from Haiti. His dark curly hair, ready smile and rambunctious, energetic spirit make people warm to him immediately.  However, just six months ago, Luidgy’s parents were terrified of losing him because he had a congenital heart defect. But, thanks to the grace of God, a local nonprofit organization, and physicians in Central Texas, Luidgy’s heart has been successfully treated, and he can look forward to a long and healthy life.

In March 2008, Luidgy was diagnosed with an atrial septal defect, a hole between the upper chambers of his heart. The oxygenated blood and non-oxygenated blood were blending inside his heart. He also had an atrial flutter –– an irregular heartbeat. His symptoms included fatigue and trouble breathing.

Luidgy needed surgical procedures to fix these problems, but this type of surgery is not done in Haiti. In addition, Luidgy’s parents could not afford to travel to another country and pay the high medical fees for their son. Elika, Luidgy’s mother, is a law student, and his father is a policeman.

“When the doctors in Haiti said Luidgy had to be operated on, we didn’t have the money to have an operation,” Elika said. “We thought we would lose him.”

And then a marvelous series of occurrences took place.

Elika’s sister, Nathalie Jacques, works at the Sacre Coeur Hospital in Milot, Haiti, where she met Sister Martha Barlai-Kovach.

Twenty years ago, Sister Barlai-Kovach was in the novitiate for the Daughters of Charity with Sister Teresa George, the vice president and chief operating officer of Dell Children’s Medical Center in Austin.

Sister Barlai-Kovach e-mailed Sister George asking if there was any way she could help Luidgy.

Sister George knew about Heartgift, a nonprofit organization in Austin and San Antonio, which provides life-saving heart surgery to disadvantaged children in developing countries where this type of surgery is not available, at no cost to the children and their families. Sister George contacted Heartgift.

In January, Elika and Luidgy flew to Austin. Heartgift arranged for transportation, medical treatment and a French-speaking host family.

Initially, everyone involved expected Luidgy would need open-heart surgery, which requires about a week’s stay in the hospital and then several weeks of recovery.

But it was discovered that Luidgy’s medical condition could be treated in the cardiac catheterization lab at Dell Children’s Medical Center, with surgical instruments threaded to his heart via catheterization.

Dr. Arnold Fenrich, pediatric electrophysiologist with Children’s Cardiology Associates in Austin, was able to find the cause of Luidgy’s atrial flutter and treat it.

“I identified an area of tissue on the top chamber that would allow me to deliver energy to that tissue to cause a scar and block the path (in order to make his heartbeat normal.) I treated it with radio-frequency energy,” Dr. Fenrich said.

Lisa Rodman, the executive director of Heartgift, said Dr. Fenrich’s presence in Austin made it possible for Heartgift to bring Luidgy here. Dr. Fenrich is the only pediatric electrophysiologist in Austin and he just recently began practicing in Austin.

“Until Dr. Fenrich came here, the problem wasn’t treatable here. If we had heard about Luidgy’s problem even six months earlier, we probably couldn’t have treated it,” Rodman said.

The second part of Luidgy’s treatment was closing the hole –– the atrial septal defect –– between the upper chambers of his heart. Dr. Karen Wright, a pediatric cardiologist with Children’s Cardiology Associates, successfully closed the hole.

Amazingly, because both of these procedures were done via catheterization, Luidgy never had to undergo open-heart surgery, which would have been more extensive and would have required a longer, more complicated recovery.

Luidgy’s mother said her heart is full of gratitude for everyone who helped her son get well. ….

Go here for the rest of the story.

You would think that a proposal for the government to radically extend its involvement in health care would motivate reporters to investigate how it’s working out in other countries. You would be wrong.

Mark Levin bought this matter up on his show Thursday. His web site’s home page (near the bottom left) points to a post at Liberty-Page.com, where there are compilations of dozens of articles on how socialized medicine is not working out well in Britain, Canada, and elsewhere.

Though it’s still early in year, the Liberty-Page site cites no reports from either country during 2009. This leads to the question of how difficult it would be to find more recent examples.

The answer is “very easy,” despite the fact that British and Canadian news organizations have traditionally tended to treat their countries’ socialized systems as sancrosanct.

Looking at just one country, here are just six relevant results from the past three weeks obtained from a Google News search on “NHS BBC” (not in quotes):

• March 5 — “Disgust” over Wheelchair Delays“; “One child has been waiting for 20 months and the North Wales NHS Trust says it has cut times and is aiming to ensure no child waits more than a year.” That would be an accomplishment?
• March 5 — “NHS charges to rise in England”; “The British Medical Association (BMA) said the current system was not working and was ‘iniquitous’ for many patients.” It wants every single solitary prescription to be free.
• March 2 — “Prime Minister’s health records breached in database attack; Scottish rich and powerful victimized”; so much for mediard records security.
• February 25 — “Hospital lost patient data disks.” Ten years’ worth.
• February 17 — “Stroke services are ‘UK’s worst’” — “Dr Tony Rudd, who assessed services in Wales, England and Northern Ireland two years ago, said services in Wales were ‘scandalously bad.’”
• February 17 — ”New computer delay costs NHS Trust £500,000” — “THE next London hospital in line to install the problem-hit NHS computer system has had its start date postponed for a second time.”

This search wasn’t difficult. One would think that someone, anyone, would ask how Team Obama plans to avoid allowing what every other socialized health system has imposed on its people: unconscionable delays (accompanied by needless premature deaths), rationing, poor quality treatment, and administrative snafus.

But apparently there’s no time for that. Michelle Obama’s right to bare arms is apparently more important.

Cross-posted at NewsBusters.org.

The George Mason econ guru is outstanding, as usual, in his March 4 column:

Government health care advocates used to sing the praises of Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). That’s until its poor delivery of health care services became known. A recent study by David Green and Laura Casper, “Delay, Denial and Dilution,” written for the London-based Institute of Economic Affairs, concludes that the NHS health care services are just about the worst in the developed world. The head of the World Health Organization calculated that Britain has as many as 25,000 unnecessary cancer deaths a year because of under-provision of care.

….. Government health care advocates sing the praises of Canada’s single-payer system. ….. (But) Canadians have an option Britainers don’t: close proximity of American hospitals. In fact, the Canadian government spends over $1 billion each year for Canadians to receive medical treatment in our country. I wonder how much money the U.S. government spends for Americans to be treated in Canada.

“OK, Williams,” you say, “Sweden is the world’s socialist wonder.”

….. Malmo, with its 280,000 residents, is Sweden’s third-largest city. To see a physician, a patient must go to one of two local clinics before they can see a specialist. The clinics have security guards to keep patients from getting unruly as they wait hours to see a doctor. The guards also prevent new patients from entering the clinic when the waiting room is considered full. Uppsala, a city with 200,000 people, has only one specialist in mammography. Sweden’s National Cancer Foundation reports that in a few years most Swedish women will not have access to mammography.

Dr. Olle Stendahl, a professor of medicine at Linkoping University, pointed out a side effect of government-run medicine: its impact on innovation. He said, “In our budget-government health care there is no room for curious, young physicians and other professionals to challenge established views. New knowledge is not attractive but typically considered a problem (that brings) increased costs and disturbances in today’s slimmed-down health care.”

….. I wonder how many Americans would like a system that would ….. prohibit private purchase of your own medicine if the government refused paying. ….. Government health care advocates might say that they will avoid the horrors of other government-run systems. Don’t believe them.

Read the whole thing.

Team Obama won’t tell us how they will avoid the horrors just described, as well as many others (if not in the first few years, eventually) — because they can’t.

From Lowestoft, UK:

07 March 2009

After soldier Walter Thomas Baker was killed during the Battle of the Somme in 1916, a medal commemorating his brave sacrifice was sent to his widow.

Now more than 90 years later, the medal – known as the Dead Man’s Penny – has been returned to his closest living relative in Lowestoft after being hidden in an attic on the other side of the Atlantic for decades.

The saucer-sized bronze gunmetal medal was sent home to Mr Baker’s widow, living in Canada, after his death on September 20, 1916, but it was soon lost.

It was not seen again until the 1970s when it was bought at a yard sale in Hamilton, Canada. It was then passed on to Della Hill, a housewife from Ottawa, and it lay forgotten in her attic until she came across it one day while spring cleaning.

When she saw a picture of another Dead Man’s Penny in a magazine article last August, Mrs Hill realised the value of the medal she had been storing and contacted her local newspaper to appeal for information.

Researchers from family history website Ancestry.co.uk then got in touch with Mrs Hill and started trawling through their historic military records to trace the rightful owner of the medal – bearing the soldier’s name and the motto ”He died for freedom and honour”.

The experts soon found Mr Baker’s military service file from his time with the Canada Overseas 76th regiment, his marriage certificate and attestation papers, allowing them to trace his family tree to locate his great-great-grandniece Vanessa Rider, of Lowestoft.

Yesterday, Ms Rider – who had no idea that her distant relative had been a war hero until she was contacted by the website’s experts – was reunited with the medal at Lowestoft Record Office. She was also presented with an historical record from Mr Baker’s regiment and a letter from Mrs Hill explaining how the medal had been found.

Ms Rider said: “I could not believe it when I heard that one of my ancestors had been honoured in this way, and that I would be receiving this Penny. I never imagined something like this would happen to me.

“My friend had been helping me trace my family tree, and after looking into the Baker family on my mother’s side we got an e-mail from Canada saying that someone had something which might be of interest to us.

“I was a bit sceptical and thought it was a joke at first, but followed it up and found out what it was. I was absolutely stunned. It was so kind of Mrs Hill to take the trouble to find the family that it belonged to.”

Military records show that Mr Baker emigrated to Canada from London with his wife just weeks before enlisting in the army and heading off the war, sailing into Liverpool in April 1916 and later being sent to the Somme. ….

At Townhall, another well-known commentator calls out the nature of Obama’s agenda, and explains the markets’ decline:

But the list of causes of the collapse of the financial system does not include the absence of universal health care, let alone of computerized medical records. Nor the absence of an industry-killing cap-and-trade carbon levy. Nor the lack of college graduates. Indeed, one could perversely make the case that, if anything, the proliferation of overeducated, Gucci-wearing, smart-ass MBAs inventing ever more sophisticated and opaque mathematical models and debt instruments helped get us into this credit catastrophe in the first place.

And yet with our financial house on fire, Obama makes clear both in his speech and his budget that the essence of his presidency will be the transformation of health care, education and energy. Four months after winning the election, six weeks after his swearing in, Obama has yet to unveil a plan to deal with the banking crisis.

What’s going on? “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste,” said Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. “This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”

Things. Now we know what they are. The markets’ recent precipitous decline is a reaction not just to the absence of any plausible bank rescue plan, but also to the suspicion that Obama sees the continuing financial crisis as usefully creating the psychological conditions — the sense of crisis bordering on fear-itself panic — for enacting his “Big Bang” agenda to federalize and/or socialize health care, education and energy, the commanding heights of post-industrial society.

Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy — worthy and weighty as they may be — are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.

Some of us warned that this is what was really going on.

Nobody with a brain can make a case that this is what America consciously and deliberately voted for in November.

Earlier this week, ADP said that private employers shed 697,000 seasonally adjusted jobs in February, the first full month since Barack Obama’s inauguration, just short of four months after his election, and roughly nine months into The POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy.

Today, Uncle Sam’s Bureau of Labor Statistics chimed in similarly about all employers:

Nonfarm payroll employment continued to fall sharply in February (-651,000), and the unemployment rate rose from 7.6 to 8.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Department of Labor reported today. Payroll employment has declined by 2.6 million in the past 4 months. In February, job losses were large and widespread across nearly all major industry sectors.

An update to the post-election job loss totals, as well as those since the POR Economy began, is on the way.

UPDATE: Revisions to prior months show that an additional 161,000 seasonally adjusted jobs were lost in December and January compared to what was reported last month.

Over 3.6 million seasonally adjusted jobs have been lost since the POR Economy’s impact on employment can fairly be said to have begun (the POR Economy began sometime in June,

In the months since Obama’s election, the current period has underperformed the prior period in regards to actual, on the ground, not seasonally adjusted employment changes by almost 3.0 million — and the previous comparables were not that impressive in the first place:

UPDATE 2: From Bloomberg –

President Barack Obama now has the distinction of presiding over his own bear market.

Well, that’s a start to admitting to the full course of events. As noted yesterday, as of Thursday’s close, the markets were down an average of close to 50% since the POR Economy kicked in, if June 1, 2008 is defensibly used as the best approximate benchmark for when it began.