Thoughts On A Sunday

Deb, Beezlebub, and I went to Meadowbrook last night to see Alan Jackson in concert. To say it was an awesome show would do it an injustice.

I have to admit to being taken by surprise when he performed Where Were You When The World Stopped Turning. It wasn't the song that took me by surprise but my reaction to it. Too many memories of That Awful Day. Looking around I saw I wasn't the only one with tears in my eyes.

*********

It appears there are examples in abundance why the American people should resist the pie-in-the-sky spending and regulation efforts of the Obama administration. All one needs to do is look at the failing states here in the US to see the results of that kind of financial pipe dream.

With all of the business regulations being proposed perhaps Obama and Congress should look to California to see how well heavy regulation is negatively affecting business, and in turn, their economy.

A recent study done by California State University – Sacremento shows state regulations costs the state's businesses and its economy upwards of $500 billion (that's billion with a 'b'), five times the state's budget and a third of California's gross domestic product.

Could it be one more reason why California's unemployment rate is 12.2% and businesses and workers are leaving the state? Do we really want to do the same thing nationwide?

*********

You know the glow has faded when even the Washington Post is dumping on President Obama, calling him the narcissist he is as evidenced by his speech before the UN this past week.

Obama’s rhetorical method in international contexts -- given supreme expression at the United Nations this week -- is a moral dialectic. The thesis: pre-Obama America is a nation of many flaws and failures. The antithesis: The world responds with understandable but misguided prejudice. The synthesis: Me. Me, at all costs; me, in spite of all terrors; me, however long and hard the road may be. How great a world we all should see, if only all were more like…me.

Perhaps more of the MSM will come to realize they've hitched their wagons to an image with no substance and start distancing themselves from Obama.

Then again, maybe not.

Dr. Melissa Clouthier adds her thoughts on the matter, as does Flopping Aces.

*********

Glenn Reynolds has been running a poll all week about who we'd like to see on the GOP ticket in 2012. The latest one let's us choose two candidates.

The two leading candidates as of 9AM today?

Sarah Palin with 52.9% and General David Petraeus with 23.4%. Mitt Romney was a close third.

Palin has been leading since the very first poll he ran earlier in the week.

*********

Cap'n Teach fisks Wapo climate change propaganda puppet Juliet Eilperin on her report about the latest predictions from the UN Environment Program, which forecasts doom no matter what we do.

So why should we spend trillions to mitigate CO₂ emissions if it will have no measurable effect? The simple answer: political power.

The report has it detractors among the MSM, including the New York Times.

*********

Apparently we'll see the Obama Administration and the present Congress become the masters of the Law of Unintended Consequences, with one of them being the end of the sale of 'fixer-upper' homes because of the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade energy bill. The provisions laid out in the bill will do nothing except depress the real estate market further by increasing the costs of housing to no good effect.

(H/T GraniteGrok)

*********

Skip takes a lesson from yours truly and condenses a number of posts into a compilation (one of which is linked just above). Go check it out as there's plenty of good stuff.

*********

Arthur Laffer gives us some insight about taxes, the Depression, and our present economic troubles.

More telling than the op-ed piece are the comments, particularly those from leftist history revisionists and economic ignoramuses. These folks need to take some history and (non-marxist) economics classes.

*********

Here's yet another example of the Law of Unintended Consequences, this time with the government's new controls on credit cards: Banks and credit card issuers are raising interest rates before the new controls go into effect.

Barney Frank and Carolyn Maloney, the two behind the legislation imposing those controls, are shocked to find the card issuers would do such a thing.

As if the rest of us in the real world didn't see it coming.

(H/T Viking Pundit)

*********

Blue Crab Boulevard reports on a disturbing trend in mortgage defaults: people with perfectly good credit, up to date on their mortgages with no financial difficulties just walking away from their homes.

These are called strategic defaults. A majority of those doing this have homes are in areas with concentrated negative equity markets, meaning the homes are worth considerably less than the mortgage on them. This is not the first time I've heard about this.

Some months ago a report on one of the major network news magazines covered the growing trend of people buying a second home not too far from to their first – usually worth far less than their primary home – moving in, and walking away from their first home. Again the cause of this phenomenon was the large negative equity in the primary home.

(H/T Pirate's Cove)

*********

Confederate Yankee proves to us that you can't prevent stupid.

John Boehner's opposition to the fiasco that is Obamacare didn't kill Kimberly Young. Widespread Republican and Democratic opposition to a fatally-flawed bill offered up by radicals unwilling to compromise didn't kill her, either. Her own bad decisions led her not to seek care. Her own bad decisions put Kimberly Young in the morgue, when all she had to do was take advantage of existing health care right in front of her.

A fitting quote from one of my favorite philosophers, Heinlein, in regards to Kimberly Young's death: “Stupidity cannot be cured with money, or through education, or by legislation. Stupidity is not a sin, the victim can't help being stupid. But stupidity is the only universal capital crime; the sentence is death, there is no appeal, and execution is carried out automatically and without pity.”

*********

News the education lobby and the teachers unions don't want to hear: Charter schools outperform regular government schools.

The teachers unions vehemently oppose the Charter school option. Were it within their power, Charter schools would be banned and the students therein forced back into the failed government school system.

The clock is ticking relative to the fate of government schools as they are currently constituted. As is always the case in a free market economy, viable and successful choices have emerged that threaten the very future of the government school teachers unions and their low quality, poor outcome institutionalized agenda.

The world has and continues to change dramatically. Government schools have been standing still as the world has long since passed them by.

The unions also vehemently oppose homeschooling because they believe such education is inadequate. But plenty of studies show homeschooled children consistently outperform their publicly schooled peers. What the unions are trying to do is quash any competition, particularly if the competition offers a superior 'product'.

(H/T Maggie's Farm)

*********

Call it poetic justice in the Kelo vs New London decision.

*********

The New England Patriots played the Atlanta Falcons in Foxboro this afternoon. Frankly, they aren't impressing me so far this season. With the loss of Tedi Bruschi from retirement and Richard Seymour being traded to Oakland, the Pat's defense has been struggling. Brady isn't 100% either, and Wes Welker is still out due to injury, both of which are certainly hurting the offense.

They still managed to win, 26-10.

*********

Jennifer Rubin gives us four subjects that may well become the focus of the 2012 presidential campaign.

First: “It turns out experience matters.”

Second: “The American people were had.”

Third: “It’s Barack Obama’s economy — and debt.”

Fourth: “No bleeping way is America in decline.”

As the saying goes: Read The Whole Thing. And don't forget the comments.

*********

Another one of those “This is just stupid!” incidents when state government pokes its nose where it doesn't belong. Why does the fact that this took place in Michigan not surprise me?

*********

According to The Dartmouth, enrollment in New Hampshire's two year colleges has surged as the economy has worsened.

Enrollment in New Hampshire’s seven community colleges is up 12 percent this fall, an apparent reaction to the current economic climate. Students affected by the downturn — including recent high school graduates seeking an affordable way to continue their education, and older students looking to update their skills in a progressively more competitive job market — are turning to community colleges for help, according to Shannon Reid, director of communications for the Community College System of New Hampshire.

Although the state’s community colleges have seen steady enrollment increases over the past decade — typically between 3 and 5 percent — this year’s enrollment jump was the largest in recent memory, Reid said.

Apparently this is a nationwide trend. This is not surprising considering the cost of four-year colleges and the weak economy.

*********

And that's the news from Lake Winnipesaukee, where it's been raining all day, the warm weather returns on Monday, and where the foliage is just starting to change.