Lucid Links (062309, Morning)
Noteworthy Net-Worthies:
Not a lot scares Chuck Norris. But, as is the case with Lou “God Bless Him” Pritchett, Barack Obama does (also at WND, HT Oxpecker).
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Larry Kudlow (HT Instapundit) engages in what I hope is not premature e-celebration while making a strong point — “It looks like President Obama’s big-bang health-care reform is going down to defeat. This is good. But my question is why do we need it at all? According to a recent ABC News/USA Today/Kaiser Family Foundation survey, 89 percent of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That could mean up to 250 million people are happy. So why is it that we need Obama’s big-bang health-care overhaul in the first place?”
Because, of course, it’s not about happiness, or better service delivery, or any of that other self-evident blather easily exposed as nonsense when looking at the experience of other countries. It’s about control.
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More posturing economic sludge – “Obama wants new council to help auto industry.”
Haven’t you guys tired of ruining the auto industry and the rest of the economy yet? This is simply more bureaucracy that will pretend to deal with the problems created by the POR (Pelosi-Obama-Reid) Economy a year ago.
As I said in my Pajamas Media column, posted at BizzyBlog earlier this morning, “…. they (and their party) sowed the seeds of a serious economic decline. Now they, and sadly we, are reaping the whirlwind.”
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I’m finding the self-congratulatory “revolution is being televised, YouTubed, and Twittered” observations being made in various quarters more than a little hard to take.
Of course, it’s important that images, video and on-the-street reports are escaping from Iran. But it’s incredible that alleged leaders, and some pundits who should know better, seem to actually be thinking that the exposure will be enough to topple an evil regime, and excuses them from their moral obligation to speak out and act.
Maybe “the whole world is watching” so-called “strategy” will be enough this time. But if so, it will only be due to extraordinary luck. It didn’t exactly work at Tiananmen, did it? Though there were fewer tools 20 years ago, there were enough of them to matter; we saw and knew what was happening.
Michael Ledeen has it right when he sadly observes (at PJM’s home page) that “the brave Iranian people are right to believe nobody in the outside world will help them. They’re on their own,” and concludes his column by noting that it “is indeed a great pity, and a terrible stain on our national virtue.” In 1981, Poland wasn’t on its own (HT Mark Levin).
We had a virtuous leader then; the jury’s deliberating on the current one, and it’s not looking good.
A perspective on the debt Democrats have been amassing in the last 8 months since the election.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yREOUxo6Qdc
How much have they spent in less than a year? Few have talked about this aspect.
Comment by dscott — June 24, 2009 @ 9:32 am
Returning to the scene of the crime, Barney Frank is … wait for it,… wait for it, advocating lower lending standards on Condos.
http://www.news-to-use.com/2009/06/barney-underwriter.html
And in a display of the wit for which Mr. Frank is famous, the letter writers slyly point out that higher lending standards won’t reduce taxpayer exposure to bad loans because the Federal Housing Administration has even lower standards for condos. “While the underlying goal may be to reduce taxpayer exposure relating to the current conservatorship of the GSEs [government sponsored entities], such a goal would not have such an effect if it merely results in a shifting of loans from the GSEs to the FHA.” Tougher lending standards will merely shift market share from one government program to another, so what’s the point in being cautious?(…)
Comment by dscott — June 24, 2009 @ 10:15 am