Come on, Warren! A second stimulus might be needed???

What do they call him, "The Oracle of Omaha"?? Can he not tell that the first stimulus is not working?

An illustrious businessman like Buffet should be able to see the clear inefficiencies in the way the stimulus is being implemented. What's better:

a) allow people and businesses to keep their money and spend, invest or save as they see fit.

or...

b) take the money from people and businesses, send it to Washington, then send it back to Denver, and then doll it out from Denver (or whatever state capitol pleases you) to the hinterlands, supposedly back to those same people and businesses

Why isn't this obvious to the casual observer? More to the point, why isn't it obvious to an alleged genius like Buffet, or the brainiacs in Washington? Actually, Buffet himself implies the correct answer. The first stimulus was half stimulant and half "candy." He knows it, yet seems to think that even more of the same is the answer to the problem... how can an evidently smart man believe that the government will get it right the second time??

And, let me add this: we've spent most of the past several decades having it drilled into us that education is key in our burgeoning "information society." A highly educated workforce is the key to competing on a global scale, right?

Then, why in the world would anyone think that "shovel-ready projects" are the way to stimulate us out of a deep recession? The American workforce is well beyond shovels and manual labor. Obama is living in the 1930s!!

Our economy is so diverse today, there is no way a series of government projects can stimulate widespread growth. It must be achieved by broadbased tax cuts. Must!

Ward Churchill wants his job back.

Can we please get rid of this guy, once and for all?

This is a nice little metaphor. 

Someone, somewhere, somehow needs to knock some sense into the American people.  Actually, I think they're getting it... it'll just take some time to beat it into the heads of the morons in Washington...

The Atlantic shows there is good and bad in the latest unemployment numbers. This is really scary if trends don't change.

Have you seen this from Gateway Pundit:  Stimulus projections have been grotesquely wrong!

These are stories that I found silly, ironic, unbelievable, or overwrought (or all of the above).

Floods of tears as climate change 'hard man' breaks down at summit
Baby tax needed to save planet, claims expert
Study: Canadian Beer Drinkers Threaten Planet
Divorce Found to Harm the Environment
Christmas causes global warming
Stop Lighting Chanukah Candles, Cut Global Warming
Fever claim on global warming
Polar bears on the brink? Don't you believe it
CLIMATE CHANGE: Forests Could Cool or Cook the Planet
Global Warming Hysteria Could Make Gore Richest VP in History
Norway's Moose Population in Trouble for Belching
Global Warming Will Save America from the Right
Dearly departed encouraged to do their bit on global warming
Climate Change May Put World at War
Climate Change is like World War III

If I were king...

Oh, if only. 

These days, we have to ask ourselves, what really are we trying to stimulate?  "The Economy"?  That seems awfully nebulous to those of us out beyond The Beltway.  No, what the government should be stimulating in employment.  The main reason for the lack of consumer spending over the past several months is job insecurity.  Why in the world would anybody spend anything in an environment of contracting incomes, and the very real potential of job loss. 

Obama's plan has clearly done very little to stimulate job growth, despite his promises.  Now reaching over 9%, it is more than a point higher than the Administration predicted when his stimulus package was signed into law.  "Accelerate the stimulus," answers Joe Biden.

My answer:  The really simple one.  If you want to stiumulate jobs, then stimulate actual employers.  Companies big and small in America must be incentivized to hire new workers.  And how best to do that.  Yeah, you know!  Cut taxes on employers, cut payroll taxes... if I were king, I would do whatever it takes to drive corporate income taxes to zero.  After all, companies don't pay income taxes, their customers do.  Taxation is just another cost of doing business, which by necessity must be passed on to the customer.

The Left would argue that we can increase taxes with mandates that that increased cost of taxation not be passed on to consumers, by law if necessary.  But what does that accomplish, if it could be realistically done?  It reduces profitability... and therefore reduces share prices... and therefore hammers people in their 401k's and mutual funds.  Nice.

Obama is hunting where ever he can to increase tax collections from corporations.  But you see where this leads.  Higher prices and/or lower stock markets. 

They should have elected me king.

This is so cool!

I wonder if this is the Next Big Thing... a "disruptive technology" that changes the way we do...EVERYTHING!

Glenn Derene at Popular Mechanics previews Microsoft's super secret Project Milan... Surface Computing. 

"I never understand what sends [blogger Andrew Sullivan] on these tears," the estimable Instapundit tells us.

It's a question that the conservative side of the blogosphere has been pondering for years now.  If I may be so bold, I'll join in! 

In the days and weeks after 9/11, I thought that Andrew Sullivan was one of the great voices out there.  I read his blog daily, and was thrilled not only by his brilliant writing, but also by the promise he held... wow, a gay conservative! 

Oh, sure, there were plenty of gay conservatives out there before Sullivan, but the power of his writing stood out to me.  A compelling new future was out there.  He signaled to me that the flames of 9/11 really would alloy the disparate voices in our great country into something greater and stronger.  If a gay man could so powerfully put voice to conservative thought, nothing short of a sea-change could result!

Then came the gay marriage debate.

Ya know, I thought that Sullivan would continue to be the voice of reason, even in that debate which obviously hit so close to home for him, but the opposite happened.  Sullivan went crazy... he became a mean-spirited, name-calling ninny.

And the wierdest part of all is that he returned over and over to a favorite new target:  Glenn Reynolds.  I mean, of all people!!  Over in the Nutroots, the Instapundit is reviled, but they are a group of hysterical numbskulls.  Sullivan is an evidently brilliant guy.  Why does he continually attack Reynolds?  Instapundit has been my favorite jumping-off point in the internet since long before 9/11.  The man links to interesting topics, places on the internet that I might not have otherwise found...  but he so rarely injects his own commentary that casual surfers wouldn't really get a good feel for his views. 

I always thought Instapundit was a conservative on fiscal issues, military and foreign affairs, but probably liberal to libertarian on social issues (including gay rights).  And I just KNEW that he was on my side in the gun-rights debate.  But I always had a sneaking suspicion that I was projecting my own viewpoint on to whatever I could glean from Glen.

So, now Reynolds is a bloody-minded torture enthusiast?  C'mon, Andrew!!  You need to actually READ Instapundit.  You know he doesn't advocate torture.  Hell, I'll admit right here and now that I'd be less restrained on using "aggressive interrogation" than Reynolds would be.  Sullivan's rants are silly on their face, the absolute worst kind of strawman debate.

Well, if it was the gay marriage debate that sent Sullivan off the deep end, it is regrettable.  One of the great writers of the blogosphere became insufferable and unreadable.  As they say, more's the pity.

 Anything Jimmy Carter rants about should always be files under, "He's the One to Talk!"

Perhaps there's not much left to say about his latest dustup, but my fellow Coloradan at Protein Wisdom, has a fantastic commentary which merely uses Carter as a launching point.  I wish I could write so clearly and directly as Goldstein.

Carter continues to run his mouth, without think of the very real consequences of his words.  Those words can and will be used by the enemies of our country.  Yes, I realize that Mr. Carter doesn't think we have real enemies, but he, of all people, should.  The early seeds of our current conflict started to sprout under his watch... and it was his mishandling of the whole Iran Hostage situation which has led to so much pain.

Well, at least Mr. Carter seemed to show some semblance of reason when he contritely backed away from his comments... a little.

Funny story:  I was driving my kids to school, and as we passed a road construction site, my son, a first grader, asked what those men were doing.

"They're fixing the road because of all the damage our snowy winter caused," I told him.

"Cool.  Is it expensive?" he asked.  He asks this question a lot, lately, probably because his mom and dad always tell him that the coveted new toy he wants is too expensive. It's a pat answer, and we're going to have to come up with a better one as he gets older!

"It is expensive, but there are a lot of people who pay for it," I replied.  "Your mom and dad, and all the other moms and dads pay taxes, which help to pay to fix the road."

"Really?" he said, "I never saw you and mom pay taxes!"

"Yeah," I muttered under my breath, "neither did I."

I kinda lost enthusiasm for this blogging thing for a while... fine, I suppose, since I suspect not many folks read this drivel, but what the heck.  I'll dive back in, for the carthartic effect if for no other reason.

So, my favorite band, Rush, has a new album out!  It's called "Snakes & Arrows," and it is fantastic!

For those not familiar, Rush is a progressive hard rock band from Canada.  Their debut album came out in the late '70s, so no, they were not named after our favorite radio commentator.  Their lyrical themes can be complex, and they seem to lean libertarian.  Ayn Rand famously influenced some of the early songs.

If you go to iTunes, and read the user reviews, one thing that will pop out at you is all the talk about the production.  Rush is a big-time band now, with 50-something bandmembers who've done this whole rock-n-roll record thing a time or two.  Yet, the last couple of CD's have come out, and just not sounded very professional.  The last one, "Vapor Trails" from 2002, was bad enough that I thought something was wrong with my speakers when I first played it.

The band hired a new producer for this record.  Nick Raskulinecz (who previously produced the Foo Fighters, among others) came in and did a bang up job. The sound is loud and aggressive, without being overly noisy and grating as "Vapor Trails" was in spots.  In my iTunes playlist "Test for Echo" (1996) plays immediately after the last tune on Snakes & Arrows, "We Hold On."  Wow... TFE sounds like it's down in the mud by comparison.  Yeah, maybe you can chalk it up to 10 years of technical innovation in sound recording, but the effect is really dramatic.  And welcome!

For all the technical prowess of this new disc, though, and the prowess we've come to expect from these veteran players, this album was artistically about as good as it gets.  There are so many pleasant surprises here.  Listen to "The Way the Wind Blows."  Who else would move from the martial parade-ground drums to the classic blues riff to the power trio crunch to the anthemic chorus?  Who else would even try?  The three instrumentals on this record are a treat for long-time fans of the band, who shine most when they're just playing.  They've been nominated for only a small handful of Grammies in their 33 years in the biz, all for instrumentals (most recently, for the concert drum solo, "O Baterista"). 

These newest instrumentals are spectacular, and never suffer from repeated listenings.  You hear a different bit each time through.  "The Main Monkey Business" is a well-crafted rocker, while "Hope" allows guitarist Alex Lifeson to step out by himself on a 12-string acoustic solo.  The last instrumental is called "Malignant Narcissism," and pulls its title from a line in the movie "Team America: World Police."  According to the band, this was a last minute adder to the disc, and well worth it!  It rocks, but at a bit over 2 minutes, is way to short... always leave 'em wanting more, I suppose.

But this is a political blog, and this is Rush, so we need to address the lyrical themes.  As much as I'm coming to love this disc, allow me an admission... a confession, if you will.

I'm a Catholic.

And a conservative, of course.  A war-mongering, global-warming-denier type that you read about in all the papers (although I'm not particularly devout, and I lean toward the libertarian end of the spectrum).  I had read all the pre-release publicity, and devoured Peart's essays (here in PDF, here and here) about the album's inspirations.  I knew I was going to have issues with the themes that wind their way through the record, themes about the intersection of war and faith.  Given today's political environment, you could sense what was coming.

The record's 9th track is called "Faithless."  And the writings of Richard Dawkins are mentioned as an influence.

Oh, boy.  Faithless??

A lyric like "We're back in the Dark Ages/From the Middle East to the Middle West/It's a world of superstition" (from the aforementioned "The Way the Wind Blows") smacks of moral equivalency and that certain coastal arrogance leveled at those of us in Flyover Country.  Then there's the oblique, gratuitous swipe at the President in the same song: "It seems to leave them partly blind/And they leave no child behind/While evil spirits haunt their sleep."  Neil Peart, the drummer and lyricist, has taken to cruising the heartland atop his BMW motorcycle, and chronicling his travels.  He's observed the fundamentalists along his path; in parts of our great land it is impossible to miss their influence.  Billboards all over act as a call to repent and join the faithful. 

But, in the course of things, he seemed to make little effort to UNDERSTAND them.  It seems a common affliction among big-time entertainers that America's heartland is an alien land, with people as strange and inexplicable as cannibalistic tribesmen on Papua/New Guinea.  We sadly live in a world where bumperstickers and billboards are taken to have deep meaning.

Still, Peart's lyrics have been an inspiration to me for more than 25 years.  A man who includes Ayn Rand in his influences can't be all bad.  He's hardly that brand of Hollywood liberal ignoramus, like say, a Natalie Maines.  The lyrics are challenging, the music is challenging, and some of these songs are downright hooky! 

Honestly, even given the political baggage, I do love the album.  Hey, entertainment is entertainment.  Singers and songwriters tend to lean left... it is what it is.  We can sit back and separate ourselves from the politics once and again, and just enjoy the music.

I absolutely cannot wait to hear that soaring chorus from "The Way the Wind Blows" at Red Rocks near Denver this summer.  It gives chills just thinking about it!

Previously, I had voiced my concerns - and yet, my support - for Rudy Giuliani.

It appears other bloggers feel the same.  Yeah, I'm still on-board with Rudy, but I do have this sense of unease that stems from the 2004 election.  I'm of a firm belief that one of the reasons the Democrats selected John Eff'n Kerry as their candidate was because of the odd sense that he was more "electable" than those primary candidates which better represented their true-believers... Dean or Edwards, for example.

So, is Giuliani seen as more electable?  More appealing to independents and the lefties?  Is that really what we want?

I think Rudy would be just the shot-in-the-arm this country needs.  I like Bush, but you can sense that the country is experiencing Bush-fatique about now.  Largely, that has to do with the constant barrage of political attacks from the left and incessantly from the MSM's continual bashing of the current national circumstance... but it is there, and I feel it too.

Even as a Bush supporter, I can still thank goodness that our Presidents can only serve 8 years!  If I had to guess, I'd bet that in a couple years, George Bush will be ready to move on, too.

I have no idea how much this would cost at your average school.  Maybe it's prohibitive in cost, but I'm sure many, if not most, adults are familiar with workplaces where electronic ID badges must be used to gain access to the office or factory, and where photo ID's must be displayed on one's person at all times.

Couldn't we do that at our schools?  Shouldn't we?  Having a badge dangling from my neck on a lanyard doesn't interfere with my job... would it for a teacher?

Aside from cost, the only downside I can see is that I can imagine my own kids quickly losing their badges, but that doesn't seem to me to be a showstopper.

Crazy idea?

If there could possibly be a theme to the news of the past week or so, it would have to be "Protect Our Children."

From my own state of Colorado, to Wisconsin, to Pennsylvania, these tragedies are simply beyond my ability to describe.  It makes me heartsick just to dwell on the emotional aspects of the thing, much less try to rationalize what has happened.

Then you throw in the despicable behavior of former Congressman Foley, and you just shake your head...  how is this all happening?  

What's also depressing is the amount that political implications creep into my thoughts about all this... perhaps a tragic side-effect of starting my own blog.  But, this week and this season will be inevitably bound up in politics.  It is that season.  So, what of it? 

First, it seems almost inevitable that Democrats are going to overplay their hand in this thing... after all, Foley is gone, and reportedly in rehab.  This scandal is unlike the previous Page Scandals, in that back then, Congressmen refused to step down, and the opposite party could raise all sorts of Cain about that.  Back then, though, you had scandalous behavior on both sides of the aisle which balanced out, as it were.  So at the margins today, you have to think that there will be a net benefit to the Democrat Party.

However, let's just see how they handle the school shootings.  So far, I've been fairly surprised by the muted calls for more gun control from the Left.  This post at the Volokh Conspiracy shows a fine example.  Even in the linked-to article in the New York Times, we find the realization that gun rights are here to stay:

"It is neither possible nor tolerable to secure every school or guard every child. Nor is it possible or politically tolerable to keep tabs on every gun."

I will pass on this silly comment that it's not tolerable to secure every school, but that's a fascinating admission by the NYT on the political tolerability of keeping tabs on every gun, as they describe it.  It's fascinating because you can tell that the writer is fairly bursting with the urge to run to the nearest window and scream "BAN ALL GUNS! BAN ALL GUNS!!!" but understands the political ramifications of doing so. 

"Most gun owners are respectable, law-abiding citizens. But that is no reason to acquit the guns."

It's creeping in... that urge to blame the inanimate object.  Sure, most people are fine, but guns... guns... they turn people into maniacs!!

If the Left in this country cannot control itself, they will call loudly for bans, just like in the 90s.  Michael Moore probably already has cameras rolling.   But, the NRA, along with it's members and sympathizers (like me), has been fairly dormant so far this campaign season.  And just like in the 90s, millions of single-issue voters could go streaming to the polling places to flip the lever for Republicans, if they start to get concerned about about their Second Amendment rights, and if the NRA can mobilize its membership to action (recent history says that shouldn't be a problem).

Will the Dems show their true colors on the gun issue?  That would more than offset any bump they get from the Foley debacle.

UPDATE (10/4):  Told ya they'd overplay their hand!!

A gunman has hostages in a Colorado high school.

Difference... the shooter is not a fellow student, he's been described as a man in his mid-30s, and he claims to have a bomb.  My understanding is that 2 girls are being held, and this may be a result of a divorce/custody battle.

Live streaming audio at 850-AM KOA in Denver.

UPDATE (3:50 PM MDT):  One individual has been removed on a stretcher, critically wounded.  Reports say it's one of the female students... being flown out on a "Flight-for-Life" helicopter.

UPDATE (9/28 7:12 AM):  As you've no doubt heard, the shooter appears to have murdered the young girl, Emily Keyes, and then killed himself.  "The coward's way out," as the local sheriff put it.  This animal is said to have sexually assaulted some of his hostages.  Words fail.

When the Columbine tragedy had struck, I had been married for only a few months.  That was horrible enough, but now that I have two grade school kids, it seems so much more personal.