I made it to the festivities only for an hour or so in the afternoon (a lot of chores to take care of back at The Manse), and BeezleBub and Horse Girl were there for the band concert and fireworks in the evening. (BeezleBub remarked that privately-funded fireworks shows, which these were, always seem to be bigger and more impressive than the publicly-funded ones. Call it yet another lesson in economics.)
Unfortunately Deb was working this weekend and was unable to attend. Maybe next year.
************
Call it what you will, but Chris Muir has it right: Just Think.************
I was sorry to hear that Neil Armstrong had passed away.I remember watching the moon landing and the following walk that July evening back in 1969. (Yes, I'm that old!)
We were at our family's beach house in Connecticut and were preparing to leave for home when we heard Armstrong and Aldrin were going to leave the LEM and venture out on to the Moon's surface. We delayed our departure because we didn't want to miss a minute of it.
I, like many kids of that era, were big fans of NASA and the moon program. I even had a four-foot tall model of the Saturn V in my bedroom that I'd built. And on that July evening the culmination of all our dreams came to be with those famous words: “That's one small step for a man. One giant leap for mankind.”
The Eagle has landed one more time. Godspeed, Neil Armstrong....
************
Harvard economist Greg Mankiw points us to a paper showing the proper way to the government budget deficit: Cut spending. Don't increase taxes.This paper studies whether fiscal corrections cause large output losses. We find that it matters crucially how the fiscal correction occurs. Adjustments based upon spending cuts are much less costly in terms of output losses than tax-based ones. Spending-based adjustments have been associated with mild and short-lived recessions, in many cases with no recession at all. Tax-based adjustments have been associated with prolonged and deep recessions.Cut spending. It's what we do on a personal, individual level, particularly when we cannot increase our 'revenues'. It's something we've had to do here at The Manse, cutting back on all kinds of non-essential expenditures to be able to meet all of our other obligations (read 'bills'). Government at all levels has to do the same thing. There are plenty of examples we've seen of what happens when they don't – California (including a number of now bankrupt municipalities there), Illinois, and the cities of Cleveland and Detroit, just to name a few. Raising taxes during a recession only makes it worse and makes it last longer. How does that help anyone?
************
I want one of these!This wouldn't be called a bike in my home state of New Hampshire because by statute a bike has 2 or 3 wheels. The contraption in the link above has none, therefore it can't be called a bike. (Thanks, Bogie!)
(H/T BogieBlog)
************
Also by way of Bogie and Jeff Soyer comes this photo essay explaining 19 reasons cats are better than dogs.************
Stuart Schneiderman asks What Do Feminists Want Women To Want?If we ask what feminists want women to want, the answer is clear: feminists want women to repress their feminine mystique, the better to be good feminists.No men need apply, as too many so-called feminists see all of their problems being caused by men. So all they have to do is cast off traditional relationships and adopt the “hook-up” mentality and everything will be just great. But as Stuart explains, it doesn't really work out that way in real life and too many of the women following this path will find themselves unprepared to have a real relationship should they decide they want one, leaving them fundamentally unhappy....but at least they'll have great careers!
They do not just want women to adhere to feminist ideology, but they want women to live their lives as feminists want them to live their lives.
As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing.
(H/T Maggie's Farm)
************
A couple of days ago I wrote about the dearth of Obama campaign signs in some sections of New Hampshire, while Romney signs are seen everywhere, as are those for many from both parties running for Congress, the New Hampshire legislature, and various county offices.Yesterday I made an inquiry of fellow New Hampshire blogger David Starr up in the northern tier of the Granite State, asking whether he'd seen the same thing. His response:
Well, I haven't seen diddly in the way of Obama signs, anywhere from Manchester all the way up to Littleton. But then I haven't seen all that many Romney-Ryan signs either. Not compared to the number of signs for Jerry Thibedeau, Ovide Lamontagne, and Charlie Bass ( Second Congressional District representative of the US House – ed.) . On the other hand, the sign printers are just now, this week, getting Romney-Ryan signs into production, so I expect those to increase shortly. There aren't many signs up for democrats for governor, US rep, or other state offices. To temper that, remember this is Grafton County which is still pretty Republican.It appears the wave of Romney signs hasn't quite made it up to the northern counties of New Hampshire yet, but neither have Obama signs.
Yes, this is an unscientific anecdotal survey, but it can be telling.
************
Speaking of Romney and Obama, there's this by way of Tom Bowler about electoral college predictions made by two University of Colorado political science professors. The two used a prediction model based upon economic indicators and they claim their model has correctly picked the winner of every presidential election going back to 1980.Their call: Romney, with 320 electoral votes and that he will win in every swing state – Florida, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Minnesota, New Hampshire, and Colorado.
Writes Tom:
I happen to believe the election outcome will be worse than the model's predicted 320-218 Obama loss. This will be the very first Tea Party presidential election. Tea Partiers are much better organized than they were going into 2010, and they aren't any less motivated. There has never been such a huge movement of conservative activists before, at least not in my lifetime.But, to quote Glenn Reynolds, “Don't get cocky, kid!”
************
Is Obama's relentless negative campaign backfiring on him? From the poll numbers, I'd have to say the answer is yes.As I and many others have written before, Obama can't campaign on the economy. Everyone but a few narrow-focused and blindered supporters understand that when it comes to the economy, Obama hasn't anything to crow about. So he tries to hit Romney on everything but the economy. But when the voters are focused on the economy, as are Romney and Ryan, then the other issues he's trying to run on are losing him voters.
(H/T Instapundit)
************
Q&O delves into the question of the definition of the word “compromise”, at least when it's used by Obama and congressional Democrats. All to often it's the Republicans who are expected to compromise, but not the Democrats.I've believed for some time that when Obama uses the word “compromise” he means “Sit down, shut up, and vote the way I tell you to vote!” That isn't compromise, that's capitulation.