Line of the Day

Mark Steyn on the OWS protesters:

The slogans, the drum circles, the D.O.A. gig, and the endorsements of opportunist celebs like the Rev Jackson and Michael Moore is like a Starbucks compilation CD of revolutionary chic.  

Sad News - Bob Forsch

Bob Forsch, an unsung great Cardinals pitcher of the 70s and 80s, died suddenly today at the age of 61.   Forsch was never the best pitcher in the game, never won a Cy Young or, to my knowledge, got close to one.   Yet, if you look at his career, his stats match up very well to other Cardinals pitchers with much higher profiles.   Forsch had a record of 168-136 as a starter, with an ERA of 3.76, and he threw two no-hitters in his career.   In 1982, he went 15-9 for the Cardinals' World Series champions; he also was a starter in 1985 and 1987 when the Cardinals won the NL pennant.   Chris Carpenter, who has a Cy Young and, like Forsch, has pitched in three World Series for the Cardinals, has a much higher profile and is considered a "star."   He also was making $15 million a year for the Cardinals this year, while Forsch's top contract was $750,000.   Yet Carpenter's overall record is only 144-92 with the same 3.76 ERA, and he's never thrown a no-hitter.   Carpenter does have a deserved reputation as a big-game pitcher, and his post-season record of 9-2 far outshines Forsch's 3-4.   But you have to wonder.... what would a guy like Forsch who reliably gave the Cardinals 200 innings per year (7 times between 1975 and 1986).... what would a guy like that have been worth today?  

A sad day in Cardinals land.   But, then...  Forsch did get the opportunity to throw out the first pitch at Game 7 last week.    My thoughts are with his family, but, seriously... what a way to go out!  

RIP.

More Solyndra B.S.

Powerline blog has a good post up about the bonuses that Solyndra executives received in the months before the company went bankrupt.   It makes for appalling reading:

Solyndra’s executives [paid themselves] substantial bonuses shortly before their company declared bankruptcy, having run out of your money. The taxpayers likely will be stuck with a $530 million bill. Here is where some of it went:

Karen Alter, senior vice president of marketing, received two $55,000 bonuses on April 15 and July 8 of this year, on top of her $250,000 annual salary.

If it weren’t our money, this would almost be funny: how can you award someone in charge of marketing $110,000 in bonuses when the company wasn’t making enough sales to stay out of bankruptcy? Ms. Alter’s recent political contributions, according to Open Secrets: Barack Obama, $2,300; David Sanders (D), $1,000; Alan Khazei (D), $3,000.

Ben Bierman, executive vice president of operations and engineering, received $120,000 in bonuses this year on top of his $276,000 salary.

Mr. Bierman’s recent political contributions, per Open Secrets: Barack Obama, $2,300; DNC Services Corp., $1,950; Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, $1,950; Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, $2,750; Priorities USA Action, $500; Women Vote!, $250.

Paula Camporaso, vice president of information technology — $80,000 in bonuses on top of her $107,000 salary.

Dave Sanat, vice president of supply chain — $80,000 in bonuses on top of his $111,000 salary.

Bill Stover, the company’s CFO who took the fifth before Congress at a September hearing, was awarded at least $120,000 in bonuses on top of his $367,000 salary.

And, finally:

The document also reveals that Chris Gronet, one of Solyndra’s founders, was “transitioned to the role of adviser and consultant” from his position as CEO on July 1, 2011, and negotiated a severance package worth more than $450,000.

Mr. Gronet’s recent contributions: Barbara Boxer, $1,000.

I’m sure they all really appreciate your tax dollars.

My father built his small business without government handouts over thirty years.   He employed 20-25 people, giving them health insurance and a pension plan and a living; he served his community in a variety of ways (too numerous to list); and he always (I mean always) paid himself less than he might have, because he never wanted to be caught short and be unable to pay either his creditors or his employees.   In short, he was an ethical, honest businessman.   He didn't think of himself as special in that way; honesty was important in the real world, and was expected.

That ethos still exists in parts of America, but it obviously didn't exist at Solyndra, a Potemkin Village of a company created, it appears in retrospect, solely for the purpose of giving liberal elites an opportunity to access taxpayer dollars.   It's almost as if the company was set up purely to get government grants that you could turn into bonuses to executives who could then recycle that cash back into Democratic campaign coffers.

Ya think?

OWS Imploding

The Occupy Wall Street mob scene -- that's what you have to call it -- is appalling, and it's amazing to me that Mayor Bloomberg has not acted yet to shut it down and move these vagrants off the street and away from the homes and businesses of the citizens of the Zuccotti Park area.   They are doing real damage, not just to the neighborhood, but to the reputation of New York, which has been hard-earned over the past thirty years since I lived there:

A deranged homeless man who has been squatting among the Occupy Wall Street protesters in lower Manhattan went on a violent, early-morning rampage yesterday, cursing incoherently and kicking down tents.... It was just the type of increasingly violent incident that has downtown residents -- already bombarded by megaphones, incessant drumming, graffiti and public urination -- feeling on edge as the OWS takeover of Zuccotti Park enters its third month.

Here's a video from the New York Post about the most recent incidents in the parade of horribles that is OWS-New York:

Solyndra Update

Why, why, why are we worrying about whether Hermann Cain hit on a secretary in the 1990s?   There is staggering corruption going on in the nation's capital under our eyes.   The tip of the iceberg is the Solyndra scandal,which is metastasizing as we speak:

• The House Energy and Commerce Committee voted Thursday to subpoena the White House for all internal communications related to the failed solar company Solyndra.   It was a party line vote, 14-9.   Democrats are, of course, crying foul. 
• The Department of Energy's Inspector General, Gregory Friedman, testified before the committee about the massive waste and fraud that went on as part of Obama's Green Energy "stimulus".    He said that his office has launched more than 100 investigations of stimulus-funded companies that have recovered $2.3 million and resulted in five criminal prosecutions.
• He also added this mind-boggling testimony:   "The concept of 'shovel-ready' projects was not realized, nor, as we now have confirmed, was it a realistic expectation," Friedman said.
• Finally, if that weren't enough, we learned yesterday that the Obama administration had looked at loaning Solyndra another $100 million just weeks before it went bankrupt.

And we're worried about whether Hermann Cain made some woman "uncomfortable" by something he said -- we don't know what yet -- back in the 1990s, i.e., back when we were running budget surpluses and had low unemployment and had just won the Cold War and before 9/11 and... well, you know.   Maybe Mark Steyn is right; maybe we are more frivolous than the Greeks.

Happy Birthday, Mom!

It was the Regular Daughter's 12th birthday last month, and the Regular Grandma visited.   A grand time was had by all, as you can see.   Now, today it's the Regular Grandma's turn.    Happy Birthday, Mom!   You're the greatest!

Mark Steyn Does Not Think the Glass is Half Full... Not Hardly

No, that's not Mark Steyn, but this puppy/angry bear captures the sentiment.

Remember the budget deal in August that was supposed to move us onto a path toward fiscal sanity?   Mark Steyn remembers, and he's less happy than the hound:

I am officially the voice of pessimism. In fairness, I see myself as more of a the-glass-is-one-sixteenth-full type.... The prevailing bounds of American politics do not allow for meaningful course correction. Instead:

1) Months are expended in a dramatic media showdown over the debt crisis with network anchors warning of ever more looming deadlines over footage of various eminences shuttling between the White House and the Capitol.

2) At the last minute, a deal is triumphantly announced.

3) The deal allegedly saves $1 billion from FY2012 — or approximately what the Government of the United States borrows every five hours. So in less time than it takes to run the press release for the breakthrough deal off the photocopier, we’ve borrowed back all the money it saves. But hey, it’s a start. And it’s the thought that counts.

4) Months later, the actual bill goes through, and — whaddayaknow? — the cheeseparing austerity package of spending cuts turns out actually to increase spending by $10 billion.

5) Lather, rinse and repeat.

... In 2011, the United States government took in $2.17 trillion but blew through $3.82 trillion — and that’s before Entitlement Armageddon shows up down the road. If you’re spending $4 trillion but only raising $2 trillion, you need to be cutting government in half or you’re not serious. Washington is not serious. Indeed, it’s far more frivolous than Athens.

Sex Sells

Sex sells.  Hermann Cain may or may not have had a sexual harassment problem in his past.   I don't know the man, so I don't know what he may or may not have done.   I do know that sexual harassment charges have been thrown about loosely over the past two decades (see Thomas, Clarence), with innocuous, if gross, behavior labeled as predatory.   I also know that there's a double standard for behavior between Republicans and Democrats (see Kennedy, Ted; see Clinton, Bill). 

That being said, what's really irritating about the Cain story is not the effect on a Republican candidate.  It's that this mini-scandal, because of the media's obsession with sex, is distracting the media from investigating and reporting on real and important scandals in the Obama administration -- Solyndra, Fast and Furious, Corzine-gate (where exactly did $900 million go to out of MF Global, the investment firm run by the former New Jersey Senator and current Obama bundler?), not to mention the ongoing scandal of Obama's support for the increasingly criminal and dangerous Occupy Wall Street movement.   And, of course, it's distracting us from the real issues -- the financial meltdown in the Eurozone, our crushing national debt and runaway entitlement programs, the increasing danger of a nuclearized Iran, the fallout from the Arab Spring which is turning into an Islamist Winter.   Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera.  

Girl of the Day - Varga!

The girl of the day for today is an Alberto Varga cover girl for October 1944 -- what the men fighting in, say, the Huertgen Forest in November of that year might have ogled in their spare time, when they weren't ducking for cover:

Birthday Today - Willie McGee

The Cardinals, of course, have a rich tradition and an even more loyal fan base.   The fans love the Cardinals, and particular players capture their fancy in an almost irrational way.   You can explain the love they have for Stan Musial, the greatest Cardinal ever.   You can explain the love they have for Albert Pujols, who might end up being the greatest player ever, period.   You can explain the love (and admiration and fear) they have for Bob Gibson.   But it's frankly hard to explain the love Cardinals fans have had over the years for 1980s centerfielder Willie McGee, who helped them to the World Series championship in 1982, won the MVP in 1985 (when he won the NL batting title), and helped them to NL pennants in 1985 and 1987.   To me, of course, there's no question that Ozzie Smith was the MVP of all of those great Cardinals teams of the 1980s, but somehow McGee captured the fans' affection.  Maybe it was the strange way he walked, which turned into raw speed when he ran.   Maybe it was his odd, ET-like face.   Whatever it is, he's always been a favorite in St. Louis and probably always will be.

Want to feel old?   Willie McGee turns 53 today.   

Here's What a Real Candidate Would Sound Like

Many have noted the inability of Rick Perry and/or Hermann Cain to answer simple questions about policy issues.   To give you a sense of what a candidate who really understands an issue would sound like, consider this exchange from a town-hall meeting with Paul Ryan, the great Congressman from Janesville, Wisconsin:

Ryan continues to handle pointed criticism of his Medicare reform deftly. At Kenosha, a 53-year-old man stands and tells Ryan he has end-stage renal failure and will die if Ryan's Medicare reform passes.

"You may as well put a gun to my head," he says.

"I've got good news for you," Ryan says. "What you said is not correct, and I mean that in a sincere, kind way."

Ryan explains empathetically and articulately that people now on Medicare will be grandfathered into the old system, that those in the new system could not be denied coverage by providers, that high-risk subsidies would stabilize their rates, and that Obamacare is what will "collapse the health care system, and especially the Medicare system." 

"You have a very unique health care condition. I'm very familiar with it," Ryan says. "The federal government basically stepped up and said, let's cover this disease because there's no way private insurance can cover this. We learned a lot about end-stage renal disease, and that is this: There are some people in society who through no fault of their own--you're a perfect example--get hit with an unpredictable extremely expensive illness." 

Ryan explains that the solution is state-based "high-risk pools," which would protect the 8 percent of the population that needs such subsidies and lower premiums for the other 92 percent.

The audience applauds. And the man suffering from end-stage renal failure sits back down.

That's an answer with everything:   empathy, information, details, principle.    Too bad Ryan's not running for anything, other than reelection to Congress.

Cain Steps In It... Again

Hermann Cain's presidential campaign is taking a hit in the mainstream press because of an as-yet unfounded claim of sexual harassment.   But in the conservative blogs he's getting pilloried tonight for a comment in an interview today that suggested that he does not know that China has had nuclear weapons for more than fifty years.   Here's the transcript:

JUDY WOODRUFF: Do you view China as a potential military threat to the United States? HERMAN CAIN: I do view China as a potential military threat to the United States... we already have superiority in terms of our military capability, and I plan to get away from making cutting our defense a priority and make investing in our military capability a priority, going back to my statement: peace through strength and clarity. So yes they're a military threat. They've indicated that they're trying to develop nuclear capability and they want to develop more aircraft carriers like we have. So yes, we have to consider them a military threat.

Look, I like Cain and I wish him well as a person.   But Cain's one and only positive attribute in his run for the Presidency is that he was a successful businessman.   I like that, and I want that in a President, because it shows that the candidate will be sensitive to how wealth is actually created in the private sector, and it shows, at least to a degree, that he knows how to manage a large enterprise.  But, having said that, that's not all a President does, and not all a President needs to know.   What I sense is that Cain is a conservative version of Obama -- an inexperienced, not-ready-for-prime-time guy whom we like out of all proportion to his merits because he's black and voting for him makes us feel good about ourselves.  

Think about it:  if Cain weren't black, wouldn't we all be reallly turned off by his recent wishy-washy comments on abortion?   The not-so-hidden VAT tax in his 9-9-9 plan?   His deer-in-the-headlights know-nothingism on foreign policy?   Seriously, if he doesn't know about the Right of Return (the central issue in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians) and he doesn't know about China's military capabilities (the central challenge to America for the next 50 years or so), then he really doesn't know much, does he?

Girl of the Day - Lena Headey

In a spasm of bad parenting, I sat down over the weekend to watch the movie 300 with the Regular Son.   Bad idea:  too much gore, and some scenes that had too much sex stuff going on.   Fortunately he focused on the visual aspect of the movie, which comes from a Frank Miller graphic novel and was remarkable at times.   Or at least that's what he said.   Not sure; he's 14, and, well, you know.

Anyway, a relatively unknown British actress-model, Lena Headey, played the Queen of Sparta, Gorgo:

She apparently is now starring in the HBO series, Game of Thrones.  

Birthday Today - Lyle Lovett

Lyle Lovett turns 55 today.   Lovett has never made it super-big, but if you ever turn past Austin City Limits accidentally on a Saturday night and he happens to be playing, you'll see a musician/songwriter who writes beautiful, heartfelt songs with a jazzy/country flavor.   Here's a beautiful song called "Nobody Knows Me":

Occupy Wall Street Gets Mugged By Reality (Continued)

Andrew Breitbart continues to do the job that the mainstream media refuses to do.   Here is a great video from his Big Government web-site, in which a young female activist talks about the rapes, gropings, and other assaults going on at Zuccotti Park in Manhattan in the Occupy Wall Street protests:



Free speech does not require that the government permit protesters to create a public health and public safety hazard.   Zuccotti Park is clearly both, and it needs to be shut down.

Girl of the Day - Cleopatras

The Regular Family popped over to the Milwaukee Public Museum today for a quick look at the Cleopatra exhibit.   One of the features was a tour through images of Cleopatra in art and cinema through history.   There have apparently been five Hollywood Cleos.   The first, in the silent era, was Theda Bara:

Next, in 1934, an oddly out-of-place Claudette Colbert:

In 1945, Vivien Leigh took on the role.... again, odd (although easily the most beautiful):

In the mid-1950s, perhaps the oddest of all was Rhonda Fleming, in Serpent of the Nile, who looks like a Vegas showgirl playing in a camp Egyptian number:

Finally, of course, there was 1963's Cleopatra by Elizabeth Taylor:

I guess I have to say that Theda Bara is the most convincing.   All of the others, perhaps because we hear them speak, seem false, too modern.   Bara, in the silent movie, seems strangely more realistic, because she's more exotic, as in this, the only fragment left from the 1917 film:

Tony Rides Off Into the Sunset

I have often been a critic of Cardinals manager, Tony La Russa.   As a close observer of baseball, I have often noted that La Russa tended to overmanage in using relief pitchers and defensive replacements late in games, with the result that on more than one occasion he's been left with no players left in extra innings, and some of his big bats on the bench.   (This year he often replaced David Freese and Lance Berkman, for instance, with Daniel Descalso and Skip Schumaker, losing a lot of potential extra innings pop -- you'll note what happened with Freese in the lineup in the 9th-11th innings in Game 6 of the World Series.  What if La Russa had taken him out?)

That being said, I'm willing to concede that I'm a fan, and he's a professional, and maybe there's a lot more to his job than filling out a lineup card and making pitching changes.   He was the leader of the team and he was the one who kept the Cardinals fighting when they were 10.5 games out in August, 8.5 games out with 21 to play, 3 out with 5 to play, down 2-1 to the Phillies, needing a win on the road to close out the Brewers, and needing to win two at home to win the World Series.   That kind of club culture comes from the top, and La Russa was the one who instilled it.

I have no idea what a guy like La Russa will do without baseball, but we wish him well.   I think there is no question whatsoever that he's the greatest manager the Cardinals have ever had, and you could make an argument that he's the greatest manager of all time, period.   The only managers who have won more than Tony's three championships are Joe McCarthy, Casey Stengel, and Joe Torre of the Yankees, Walter Alston of the Dodgers, and Connie Mack of the Philadephia A's.   Only Torre won any of his pennants in the wildcard era where a manager has to win three straight series to win the championship, and Torre had the benefit in every year of the game's largest payroll.   McCarthy, Stengel and Mack all won their World Series (7 for McCarthy and Stengel, 5 for Mack) when there were only 8 teams in each league.   La Russa is the only manager of this group to win with two different teams and in two different leagues.   Maybe the only other manager who might match him would be Sparky Anderson, who won three championships with the Reds in the 70s and the Tigers in 1984, but even then Anderson only had to win a five-game NLCS or ALCS to get to the World Series.   It's much tougher now to win multiple championships.  

Overgrown Children

Monty at Ace of Spades makes an essential point about the Occupy Wall Street protesters, but it's really applicable to much of America ca. 2011:

They are overgrown children, in other words -- not adults in any real sense of the word. It is an oddity about modern Americans that always strikes me: many seem so...unformed. I've seen pictures of my grandfather and grandmother when they were in their early 20's (married and with 2 kids already, and another on the way) and they seemed like fully-formed adults already. They looked like adults; they dressed like adults; they behaved as adults. Yet now I see people at 30, 40, 50 years old who seem little more than self-obsessed adolescents -- smug, directionless, angry but inchoate, lavishly educated but not particularly intelligent, entitled without being industrious or deserving. They even groom and dress like children: slovenly, unwashed, unbarbered, sneakers, t-shirts, sweatpants, looking like unmade beds. I look at the OWS protests and I see a crowd of ill-behaved, unsupervised toddlers, but no adults willing (or perhaps able) to call them to order. My grandparents had much more difficult lives in any way you can measure than these spoiled brats, and yet they were better people -- and happier people, on the whole.

My old man used to comment that if you went to an NHL game in the 1960s in St. Louis (when the Blues were the hottest ticket in town at the ancient Arena) nearly every man you'd see was wearing a coat and tie.   The same was often true for baseball games, except in the bleachers.   Men used to dress like men, and if you were in your late-20s you were expected to have spent some time in the Army and be out and have a real job and a wife and some little kids and a house... you were expected to be a grown-up, in other words.   Now we let young men stay boys for decades, until it's too late to actually turn them into men.  

If I had one thing to blame for this unfortunate trend, it would be birth control.   Men become civilized when women civilize them with marriage at a young age, and women were able to exercise this civilizing power in past generations by withholding sex without marriage.   But with the advent of birth control, women lost that leverage.   Now, if what you read is true, young women are universally available, even for young men who ought to be thought of as "losers."   In fact, I'd argue that the availability of sex is likely what turns a lot of young men into losers... they don't have to try hard to be a winner anymore.  

Un. Be. Lievable.

This is my ninth World Series in my lifetime, and the fifth win, and this one has to be the sweetest -- the Cards late rush to the wild card, the great upset win over the Phillies, beating the Brewers in Milwaukee where the Regular Family lives, and now this electric Series against the Rangers.    I just thank God and my Dad for making me a baseball fan and a Cardinal fan.  Wow!

Greatest. Baseball. Game. Ever.

Or at least the greatest one I've seen.   Cardinals 10, Rangers 9.   On to game 7!

No Posting. Heart. Attack.

Sorry for not posting tonight.  I'm having a heart attack watching the Cardinals-Rangers game.   9-7 in the bottom of the tenth, Cardinals have the tying runs on.  

I.  Can't.   Stand.   Too.   Much.  More.  Of.  This. 

File This Under "You Can't Make This Up"

The Occupy Wall Street protest took another bizarre (but telling) turn today, when its volunteer kitchen staff revolted against the influx of moochers:

The Occupy Wall Street volunteer kitchen staff launched a “counter” revolution yesterday -- because they’re angry about working 18-hour days to provide food for “professional homeless” people and ex-cons masquerading as protesters.

For three days beginning tomorrow, the cooks will serve only brown rice and other spartan grub instead of the usual menu of organic chicken and vegetables, spaghetti bolognese, and roasted beet and sheep’s-milk-cheese salad.

They will also provide directions to local soup kitchens for the vagrants, criminals and other freeloaders who have been descending on Zuccotti Park in increasing numbers every day....

 

To show they mean business, the kitchen staff refused to serve any food for two hours yesterday in order to meet with organizers to air their grievances, sources said.

Some protesters threatened that the high-end meals could be cut off completely if the vagrants and criminals don’t disperse.

Unhappiness with their unwelcome guests was apparent throughout the day.

“We need to limit the amount of food we’re putting out” to curb the influx of derelicts, said Rafael Moreno, a kitchen volunteer.

A security volunteer added that the cooks felt “overworked and underappreciated.”

Many of those being fed “are professional homeless people. They know what they’re doing,” said the guard at the food-storage area.

Go figure.   Give away free food and shelter and advertise the proximity of young females and.... surprise!   You get a lot of interesting characters coming out of the woodwork.  

Human nature rears its head again.   But the utopian Left never learns any lessons. 

 

Peter Schiff Becomes a Hero to the Right

New York businessman and radio host, Peter Schiff, by the end of today will have become an instant hero to many on the right.   Schiff had the temerity to take a camera and a microphone down to the Occupy Wall Street protests and engage in dialogue with the leftists down there.   His main point is that the protesters ought to be directing their energy against Washington, not against Wall Street; against Big Government, not against capitalism.   My favorite parts are where he asks a woman who is berating him for his greed:  "I employ 150 people.   How many do you employ?"   And when he asks people pointedly "How much of my income do you think the government should take?   Is fifty percent enough?"

Great stuff.

It's Working

Here's a new video from the MacIver Institute, a Wisconsin-based conservative think tank, that presents the data on how Scott Walker's budget reforms are working for the State of Wisconsin and its local school districts:




It is working.   But you'd be hard-pressed to find that news reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the state's biggest newspaper.   Yes, there are important alternative outlets -- especially talk radio like Mark Belling and Charlie Sykes out of Milwaukee.   But the fear here is that Walker's victories won't be felt by enough people in time to avoid the recall.   People are just like that -- they hear people talking about the poor teachers or the poor public employees, but they don't notice things that don't happen.... like their property taxes not going up, where otherwise they would have had to have a big increase.

The video is a good start in getting the word out.   We need to do a lot more.    

OWS Supporters Don't Like Being Made Fun Of.... But Tough Shit, Buddy

I don't get many comments on the blog; heck, it's usually my Mom commenting that I should stop blogging and get back to work.   But I got a comment on one of my posts on the OWS protests that's worth sharing.   The fellow commenting was apparently perturbed that I had made fun of some of the OWS protesters who had felt put out that rich bankers got to work so early they couldn't chant at them and bang their drums when they walked by.   Here is the comment in its entirety:

The protest is about these people making money off the backs of others, dumb ass. Not the mere fact that they're rich. Dumb ass.

I really like the repetition of the "dumb ass."  I'm sure it made this anonymous fellow feel very intelligent to say it the first time, so he just had to get that feeling back again at the end.   Hmmmm... calling someone who disagrees with me a "dumb ass," man, that's persuadin' the middle-class voter, ain't it?  

Meanwhile, I have a hard time understanding how exactly it is that OWS supporters feel that rich bankers make money off the backs of others.   Bankers loan money to people who want money with the agreement that they will pay it back.   They charge interest to make a profit, but there are numerous regulations limiting the amount of interest they can charge and, in any event, the market generally sets the interest rates, and lendors certainly have a right to recover the time value of their money, don't they?   If bankers didn't make money lending money, there would be no reason to accept the risk of loaning and entrepreneurs, home buyers and, yes, students who want to borrow for college would have to do without.   Maybe the OWS supporters think the world would be a better place without bankers, but I don't think it's a world they'd really much like to live in.

To me, a taxpayer, the real moochers in society who "make money off the backs of others" are people who accept welfare (I never have), accept unemployment benefits (ditto), accept food stamps (ditto), housing subsidies (ditto), or who work for the government and expect cushy benefits and early retirement "off the backs of others."   And, of course, people who borrow money for things they can't afford (houses or college educations) and then don't want to pay it back, but want other citizens who are more responsible (taxpayers) to bail them out.   But that's just me.   Maybe I'm a dumb ass.  

***

While I'm on the topic of making fun of OWS protesters, here's a video that's getting a lot of play out there.   What exactly is this woman upset about?   Apparently the world out there is just too confusing for her:




But I'm the dumb one?

Occupy Oakland Rioting... Let the Anarchy Begin

Obama and the Democrats were short-sighted in their support for the Occupy Wall Street mobs.   It's not the Tea Parties -- citizens and taxpayers who simply want their government to reform and stop spending money we don't have.   These people in the OWS protests are members of the anarcho-socialist Left, and while most of them are just silly and foolish, some of them were inevitably going to "break bad" as the saying goes.  

Well, it's started with today's riots in Oakland:




When Obama says that he's fighting for the "middle class," I don't think those words mean what he thinks they mean.   The middle class Americans I know don't like rioting in the streets of their cities. 

Girl of the Day - Starting the New Year for The Regular Guy Off Right

It's Year Two of The Regular Guy Believes, so we have to get back to first principles in our Girl of the Day:

There now.   All better?

OWS Supporters Don't Like Al Qaeda, But They Really Really Hate Rush Limbaugh

I strongly suspect not a single person interviewed here has ever heard five minutes of Rush Limbaugh's show.   They just mouth the received wisdom of the hard Left. 

Sad... these people are literally sitting a few blocks from the hole in the ground that used to be the World Trade Center.   And they won't take their own country's side in a fight.

The video is from the Media Research Center.  

Obama's Real "Jobs" Program

Obama's real jobs program is apparently to hamstring (through regulation) or demonize (through demagoguery) American business.   Remember when he went hard after corporate jet owners as an easy way to caricature the "rich"?   Well, it's had predictable results:

Piper Aircraft Incorporated has announced their plans to lay off 150 employees and release 55 contract personnel after deciding to suspend their light business jet program.
 
The company stated in a press release that while they are keeping up with their budget and performance goals, "planned development costs had risen above the point that were recoverable under foreseeable light jet market projections."

It's almost as if that's what Obama wanted.   But I suppose the Piper Aircraft employees weren't members of teachers' unions or public employee unions, so they don't count as "middle class."  

John Burns' Pessimism on Iraq

John Burns of the New York Times is one of the real reporters left at the newspaper, and his reporting on Iraq over the past ten years has been essential.   He was interviewed last week by Hugh Hewitt about the Obama Administration's decision to withdraw American troops by the end of the year, and his assessment on Iraq's future was dire, to say the least:

HH: Do you see a potential for the return of the hot war of 2006, a civil war at least as brutal as that period of time, John Burns?
JB: I do. I do see that potential. I just noticed this evening a piece on the New York Times website saying that one of the Iraqi groups, insurgent groups, al Qaeda-linked groups, is claiming that they killed 60 people in Baghdad in the last ten days. The tempo of atrocities is on the rise again. And I think a lot of guns have been holstered, waiting for Americans to go. Everybody knew that they were going to go. The fact that they’re not going to leave a residual presence behind now, of 3,000-5,000 troops that the Iraqis had been talking to Washington about keeping, a sort of tripwire presence, it was certainly a question of time. Even they would have to come out, you know, 12 months, 24 months, 36 months down the road. So a lot of groups of ill intent have been waiting for the Americans to go. And it seems to me that yes, there is a real, real risk of a resumption of widespread violence. And I think American have to brace themselves, and I’m a bit pessimistic about this, for the possibility that the American period in Iraq, which has accomplished some good things, it’s also been a source of, of course, a great deal of unhappiness, and certainly a great deal of resistance within the United States, not to mention Iraq. I think that Americans have to brace themselves for the possibilities that the accomplishments that the United States will be leaving behind, which is a natant constitutional system, may in time suffer the fate that, for example, the British did after their period in Iraq during and after the First World War. The sands of Iraq will simply blow over them, and the American presence in history will amount to, to have accomplished, sadly, rather little.

We are still in Germany and Japan sixty-six years after the end of World War II.   We are still in South Korea fifty-seven years after the end of the Korean War.   We fled Vietnam in 1975.    The countries where we stayed are democracies and allies.   The country we fled is still communist and authoritarian to this day, and holocausts occurred in our wake (the killing fields of Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, the boat people of Vietnam).   Now we are proposing to flee Iraq.   God help them.