The iPhone

The Mrs. and I got new iPhones yesterday and really love them. For once, the hype is warranted.

Birther Insanity

This birther phenomenon is almost as amazing as the Palin derangement on the left. Some kooks persist in maintaining that Obama was not born in the U.S. and CNNs Lou Dobbs gives it air time. Now the leftists at MSNBC and various commentators such as Eugene Robinson go wacky with outrage. If everyone would just ignore the issue, it would die, but that doesn't seem likely.

What does a picture say?

Obama, Professor Gates and Sergeant Crowley meet for a beer to rescue Obama from a gaffe that distracted him for a week. This White House photo showing Obama racing ahead of his "friend", the crippled Professor while the cop helps him with stairs is amazing from many different viewpoints, but most of all it is amazing the White House let us see the picture. How many voted for Obama thinking he was a kind, considerate man who was going to look out for the less fortunate in our society. Maybe not so much when he thinks nobody is watching.

Not very sensitive

A physician by the name of David McKalip from Florida used this image of Obama in witch doctor garb to object to the President's health insurance program. Liberal blogs are outraged and it does seem to be rather insensitive.

Birth Certificate Controversy Real

BestView is surprised to keep reading how many are still convinced that Obama is not constitutionally eligible to be President because he was not a natural born citizen. I have always assumed that the matter was roughly comparable to the "grassy knoll" theory, but in this case a real birth certificate would put the matter to rest, evidently. Guess we will just sit back and watch what happens since there seems to be bigger matters confronting us.

Spending Offsets hard to find, evidently

"On April 20, President Obama challenged his Cabinet to cut $100 million in spending over the next 90 days.

The deadline came -- and went -- without a report from the White House on whether or not that promise was fulfilled.

Asked about the spending cuts, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Monday that information still was being compiled."

Reform?

Good analysis from John Stossel:

Leave aside how much power the state would have to exercise over us to run the medical system. Suffice it say that if government attempts to control our total medical spending, sooner or later, it will have to control us.

The administration estimates the cost of its takeover of the health care system to be $1.5 trillion over 10 years with no increase in the deficit. But no one should take that seriously. When it comes to projecting future costs, these guys may as well be reading chicken entrails. In 1965, hospitalization coverage under Medicare was projected to cost $9 billion by 1990. The actual price tag was $66 billion.

Read it all.

Too fat

The liberal bloggers are worried the new Surgeon General is too fat to be a good role model. The concern is available here.

Health Care Rationing

An inevitable consequence of whatever is passed with regard to health insurance is rationing. Cuts in Medicare funding are already a major feature and the result is seniors will be forced out of end of life measures which extend life minimally and cost the "system" excessively. This ethical situation is fascinating to consider in the abstract, but when you or a family member is involved, the decision could easily be different for each of us. The extent to which heroic measures should be taken in individual cases is one decision, who pays for it is another, and finally there the question of whether or not the government makes the decision is the biggest of all in some ways. Liberals seem to want the government to be out of the abortion decision and preeminent in the end of life decisions.

We are so sorry

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton opened a three-day visit to India on Saturday by urging India not to repeat American mistakes in contributing to global pollution, and she passionately defended U.S. demands for help in fighting terrorism.

"We acknowledge now with President Obama that we have made mistakes in the United States, and we along with other developed countries have contributed most significantly to the problem that we face with climate change," she said. "We are hoping a great country like India will not make the same mistakes."

A new definition of government pork

The Drudge Report is having a field day reporting on what the government is doing with the "stimulus" money. One of the items listed in the Recovery.org listing of stimulus expenses is $2,531,600 to buy ham for the needy, soup kitchens, etc. O.K., nobody should go hungry. However, the Department of Agriculture used a no bid contract to buy the 760,000 lbs of ham at $1.50/lb. See the listing here. The same ham is available at Food Lion for $0.79/lb.

Exams for Firefighters

The confirmation hearings for Sonia Sotamayor has brought a lot to the TV about her ruling that a qualification test for promotion in the fire department was thrown out because an insufficient number of blacks passed it. This, of course, meant that the whites who were discriminated against filed suit and the Supreme Court sort of sided with them even though Sotamayor ruled the other way. The claim by the blacks and those who support Sotamayor's ruling state that blacks do not do well on multiple choice exams, are not as well prepared as those who actually study for the exam, and blah, blah, blah.
In my years as a medical school Professor, I have given a large number of exams and the rules of the game hold that even though much of the content of the lectures is largely the same from year to year, students are given access to all the exams given over the previous few years. Therefore, in order for us to really discern whether the students have learned the material, it is necessary to construct an exam in which the questions have been varied in such a way as to distribute the performance over a wide enough span to make a proper assessment. This leads me to my proposal for qualifying exams such as the one for promotion in the fire department in New Haven, Connecticut.
Go to all the minority firefighters in the pool of potential promotees and have them make up an exam. Have them make up the questions and provide the answers. Go over the questions with them and establish that in fact they make sure a fire officer knows about building materials, fire suppression agents vis a vis the nature of the fire and so forth. Exclude the white applicants from the process. Now, take the resulting test questions, rephrase them, switch the alternate (wrong) responses, and give the exam to everyone. After this, let the chips fall where they may and hopefully avoid complaints about the unfairness of the exam and maybe even absurd court cases.

Good Question

Consider Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, VA Hospitals, and any other governmental program. Which is such a success that you want the feds to take over your access to health care?

Afghanistan Report by Michael Yon

Michael Yon for many years, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, has been an independent reporter who actually goes out into the field of battle instead of staying in protected areas like most reporters. This is his latest pictorial report from Afghanistan which ends with the following conclusion. Go here to read it all and see his pictures.

The war is heating up and all signs indicate it will continue to worsen. The Afghan war has become more dangerous, on a per capita basis, than the Iraq war ever was. The unit I will soon be with took five KIA last week and many others wounded. July will almost certainly be the most deadly month so far in the entire Afghan war. The press makes it sound like the British must be shaken, but I know those soldiers. They will be striking back. Needless to say, our people will do the same as needed. Nobody over here is shaking in his or her boots. We don’t have enough troops, or Afghan forces, but our folks are ready for more action and will do what needs to be done.

This may be fun to watch

It didn't take long for Clinton to double cross New York City. Six months into her tenure as secretary of state she has suddenly exempted diplomats from paying some property taxes there. Mayor Michael Bloomberg said her betrayal has cost the city $260 million in lost tax revenues and counting. As New York's junior senator, Clinton fought to make diplomats pay up. And he said her reversal changes a longstanding policy. "Since 1873 they've been saying this is taxable," Bloomberg said.
As might be expected, the senior Senator from New York, Charles "where is the camera" Schumer, will get involved. "We're going to find a way to make sure that these embassies pay and that New York is made whole," Schumer said.

Let the fun begin.

China on a slippery slope to decadence

From China Daily:

A spokesman for China's Hunan Satellite Television said Tuesday that "Happy Girls", its proposed version of "American Idol", had won conditional approval from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television.

The conditional approval came after a similar reality show planned by Hunan TV was cancelled last year amid criticism that it promoted vulgarity and encouraged youngsters to seek instant celebrity.TV company executives were discussing the timetable and rules of the contest, Li Chao said. But he added they would stick to the tradition of selecting the best singers to the taste of the general public.

Everything's O.K.

President Obama said his $787 billion stimulus plan passed without anyone having read it "has worked as intended". At the time it was described as essential to pass this in order to keep unemployment at 8%. Since unemployment is now 9.5% and rising, maybe it was really intended to be a pork bill and if so, Obama is correct. He wouldn't mis-speak, would he?

Obama's realistic goal

White House officials confirmed that Obama agreed to language supporting a goal of keeping the world's average temperature from rising more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

Should be easy considering the following climate report. Read it all.

The latest global averaged satellite temperature data for June 2009 reveals yet another dorp in temperature. This latest drop in global temperatures means despite his dire warnings, the Earth has cooled 0.74°F since former Vice President Al Gore released "An Inconvenient Truth" in 2006.

Get me out of here

The G8 meeting is being held in an Italian town which was recently severely damaged by an earthquake. There have been several aftershocks. A newscast I heard said the host country had helicopters waiting to remove the heads of state should a subsequent quake strike the area. Wouldn't that have been a fun story? The helicopters take out the big wigs and leave the rest of the people to deal with the rubble.

Cap and trade?

Here is a little lesson in logic. If Obama puts a tax on carbon emissions and you have a manufacturing plant is some place like Ohio, would you be put at a greater or lesser competitive position vis a vis a plant in China which does not pay this tax and never will? Once again we are reminded that elections have consequences.

Body Language Mean Anything? Hope not!!!

Palin Derangement Syndrome

It is fascinating to read and hear the reaction of the chattering class to Governor Palin's resignation. All of the liberals just despise her. This is especially true of the liberal females like Maureen Dowd, Ruth Marcus, and Gail Collins.
She is stupid, ill informed, mentally ill, a quiter, and all manner of lower humanity to these elites. Why does she elicit such emotion? Surely the New York and Washington punditry have other things to worry and concern themselves with. Obviously, that is not the case with any liberals including those in the Republican party who are also working behind the scenes to discredit her. One of the most absurd objections to her is her resignation to do something else. How much did we hear when Obama essentially resigned from the senate (even though he collected pay checks each month) and started running for President? John McCain did the same thing. Before them there was John Kennedy, Joe Lieberman, and others. Didn't Hillary resign from the Senate to do something else? Guess that was different since nothing was said about it. Nobody knows anything about Palin's plans or the specifics of her family situation, but the speculation is almost entirely negative and premature. She is obviously a tremendous threat to some large part of the political status quo.

Over Stimulated? Apparently not!

In April of 2008 Bush and Pelosi passed a $168 billion stimulus bill which they said would prevent a recession. The jobless rate was then 4.8%. Next comes Obama who, vowing not to be outdone by Bush, got in bed with Pelosi again and rammed through a $768 billion stimulus bill which nobody had read. This legislation was designed to do almost everything but create jobs and it is proving to be less than effective as the jobless rate is about 17% if you include folks who are discouraged from looking for work and those working part-time who want full-time jobs. The official rate is 9.5%.

So we have an apparent lack of success with stimulus bills. We also have a minimum wage hike going into effect on July 24th which will hardly induce further hiring of those entering the job market for the first time or with limited skills. Something needs to be done and a predictable suggestion comes from Paul Krugman, the liberal Nobel Laureate who writes left-wing drivel for the New York Times. He says---passionately--- that Obama needs to get busy and pass another stimulus bill. Read it here. Yes, it fits the classic definition of insanity. Do the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.

The EPA Muzzle

1. The EPA of the "open" and "transparent" Obama administration decided a contrary report on the contribution of man to our current global cooling which is called global warming or "climate change" is discussed in this Wall Street Journal essay.

BestView agrees with a comment to the article above:

....the silencing of Mr. Carlin along with Al Gore’s lifestyle, reveals the true nature of the hoax, that it is a political tool to further a leftist agenda. If Global Warming was actually occurring and caused by man, then the earth would be warming. It’s not. If there was legitimate concern about the effects on the planet, all “believers” would stop flying, driving and maybe even breathing and there would be intense, open, honest debate in an effort to find real solutions without silencing any particular point of view. Instead we are told to accept climate change on faith and any views such as Mr. Carlin’s which are not supportive of Obama’s agenda are heresy.

And also this one:

I was up at Glacier Point in Yosemite admiring the glacial polish on the granite and reading the signs explaining how the ice in Yosemite Valley had sculpted the U-shaped valley, that 10,000 years ago the ice retreated, leaving the valley as we see it today. I thought "there's your global warming -- it's been going on since the last Ice Age (which was not the first Ice Age)." Why is it that there's a sudden leap of faith that it is human activity causing the warming? Bunch of arrogant people who project trends via computer programs and tell us that C02 is going to get us all when it is an infinitesimal percentage of the atmosphere. Could it be that there's a new religion afoot? One which uses a natural phenomenon to exercise control over people and congeal power in the great and all-knowing government? Let's not bow down to the new czars yet.

Jimmy Carter redux

It looks like Obama has the same foreign policy instincts as Jimmy Carter and will usually come down on the wrong side. We saw this when he puts pressure on Israel about settlements with very little on the Palestinians. Again, he was slow to realize Iran is a brutal terrorist nation and then he came down on the side of Chavez, Castro and other communists in the Honduras' efforts to avoid a fate similar to these failing nations in Central and South America.

With the Obama domestic policy initiatives combined with his international mis-steps, this is going to a long 4 years.

Shocking!!

The White House seems to be retreating from President Barack Obama’s campaign promise that he would not raise taxes on families making less than $250,000.

Under persistent questioning from ABC’s George Stephanopoulos Sunday, Obama senior adviser David Axelrod declined to restate the vow and left open the possibility that the president might sign health care reform legislation that taxes high-cost, employer-provided insurance plans which some middle-class families currently receive tax free.

Raise your hand if you are surprised.

Prisoner Abuse???

"Three days a week, Georgia now serves inmates only two meals. And across the country, there have been increasing reports of substandard food. This is inhumane. Adequate meals should be a nonnegotiable part of a civilized penal system. It is also bad policy. Researchers have found a connection between poor food quality and discipline problems and violence. Georgia has nevertheless decided to save on staff costs by serving just two meals on Friday, as it already did on Saturday and Sunday. The state says it gives prisoners the same number of calories on days when one meal is skipped. Even if it does — and some prisoners’ advocates are skeptical — it can be oppressive to go so long without eating."

This, from a New York Times editorial, suggests to me that my fair state of Georgia is doing the right thing. The entire editorial can be read here, but it fails to mention that an additional rationale for the twice-a-day meal plan is those are on days when the prisoners do no work.

My Michael Jackson Memory

My favorite memory of Michael Jackson was when he married Lisa Marie Presley and someone remarked that this was the best evidence yet that Elvis was in fact dead.

Maybe Reagan made Bush do it

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md, is using the fatal D.C. Metro accident to slam the Reagan administration for failure to adequately fund public transportation a quarter-century ago.

Yet the accident occurred despite the fact that Congress ignored Reagan and funded Metro anyway. Read it here.

Passing

Evidently BestView has been occupied with other things over the past several decades. The passing of Michael Jackson has made a much bigger impression on the rest of world than I would ever imagine. Evidently his music was considered more extraordinary than I realized since his other contributions to society would not seem to be all that iconic. Rest in peace, Michael.

Good enough for thee but not for me

Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a neurologist and researcher at the New York University Langone Medical Center, said that elites often propose health care solutions that limit options for the general public, secure in the knowledge that if they or their loves ones get sick, they will be able to afford the best care available, even if it’s not provided by insurance.

Devinsky asked the president pointedly if he would be willing to promise that he wouldn’t seek such extraordinary help for his wife or daughters if they became sick and the public plan he’s proposing limited the tests or treatment they can get.

The president refused to make such a pledge, though he allowed that if “it’s my family member, if it’s my wife, if it’s my children, if it’s my grandmother, I always want them to get the very best care.

Tax the polluters?

"At a time of great fiscal challenges, this legislation is paid for by the polluters who currently emit the dangerous carbon emissions that contaminate the water we drink and pollute the air we breathe."
So saith Obama at his press conference yesterday when talking about his cap and trade legislation which will impose a tax on power companies, manufacturing companies, agriculture companies and others. BestView doesn't know whether to be sadder about Obama trying to make us believe these taxes (like all other corporate taxes) won't be passed on to consumers or my belief that the average American is too ignorant of such matters to question the annointed one.

Is universal health insurance constitutional?

If the government cannot proscribe -- or even "unduly burden," to use another of the Supreme Court's analytical frameworks -- access to abortion, how can it proscribe access to other medical procedures, including transplants, corrective or restorative surgeries, chemotherapy treatments, or a myriad of other health services that individuals may need or desire?

This question about whether the government's role in deciding who gets which medical treatment is constitutional is the subject of this interesting essay in this mornings Wall Street Journal. Read it here.

Save medicare first

President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers issued a report earlier this month estimating that as much as 30 percent of Medicare spending is unnecessary for improving health outcomes. Given such opportunities for easy savings within government, and Medicare's weighty influence in the broader system (many private insurers set payments by adding a percentage to Medicare's rates), it would make sense to reform Medicare first, see what works and what doesn't, and then apply the lessons of that process later to any system-wide fix. Unfortunately, Obama and Democratic congressional leaders are hellbent on turning the system upside down with radical reforms that are sure to have vast and unexpected consequences. Read it all here.

Here is an interesting comment to this editorial from a reader:

"...have all Fed employees - especially Congressmen - try out the new system for a couple of years before they inflict it on the rest of us. When Congressmen no longer get VIP treatment at Walter Reed, then maybe I'll think their system is good enough for me."

My favorite new scientific study

From Japan:

We have long been warned of the risk of obesity, but a new Japanese study warns that being very skinny is even more dangerous, and that slightly chubby people live longer.

People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found.

"We found skinny people run the highest risk," said Shinichi Kuriyama, an associate professor at Tohoku University's Graduate School of Medicine who worked on the long-term study of middle-aged and elderly people.

A wake-up call for liberals?

The following from Newsweek and a fawning reporter, Michael Isikoff, suggests that liberals may just be catching on to the "Obama deviations" from his campaign rhetoric.

As a senator, Barack Obama denounced the Bush administration for holding "secret energy meetings" with oil executives at the White House. But last week public-interest groups were dismayed when his own administration rejected a Freedom of Information Act request for Secret Service logs showing the identities of coal executives who had visited the White House to discuss Obama's "clean coal" policies. One reason: the disclosure of such records might impinge on privileged "presidential communications." The refusal, approved by White House counsel Greg Craig's office, is the latest in a series of cases in which Obama officials have opted against public disclosure. Since Obama pledged on his first day in office to usher in a "new era" of openness, "nothing has changed," says David -Sobel, a lawyer who litigates FOIA cases. "For a president who said he was going to bring unprecedented transparency to government, you would certainly expect more than the recycling of old Bush secrecy policies."

Happy 4th of July

We have been promised by the psychotic idiot who controls North Korea that he will fire a missile at Hawaii on the 4th of July. Our Secretary of Defense says, "I think we are in a good position, should it become necessary, to protect American territory."He thinks? Maybe the reason Secretary Gates is not more certain is when North Korea fired their last missile, our esteemed President of Change announced the very next day that we would reduce funds for our missile defense system. Is there any chance Obama's response to the first missile is related to North Korea's decision to contribute to our fireworks display on Independence Day?

Chump change denied BO

BestView is suspicious of the way dems in Congress deny Obama a few million to close Gitmo---something the entire party supports---and will gladly give him billions and even trillions for other things like buying auto companies and banks. Reckon ol' Barack is giving Congress a wink and nod on this matter?

The dems climate problem

The liberals on both coasts are erroneously convinced that we need to raise taxes on carbon emissions via something like the cap and trade idiocy. This will reduce the elevation of temperatures and reduce the use of coal to produce the electricity to run this country's power grids. Well, it seems that some of the politicians in the democrat party are saying, not so fast. In the middle of the country, energy is produced by coal burning and the farmers are reminding the politicians that warmer temperatures would be welcomed in states like Iowa, the Dakotas and other farm states since the crops would be enhanced. Let the fight begin.

Down Dollar

The Federal Reserve is creating dollars at a rapid pace to help jump-start the economy. Liquid money is up 11% over the past year, the monetary base has increased by 110%, while bank reserves are a thumping 903% larger than they were a year ago.

With this much money being created, the dollar has only one way to go -- down. It's nothing more mysterious than supply and demand. An exchange traded fund that has a symbol UDN which you can buy on the New York Stock Exchange will go up in value as our dollar becomes devalued. I own some in my IRA.

A splendid idea

Why not have the federal government demonstrate that it can provide adequate health care to American Indians, a promise it hasn’t kept for 222 years? Then demonstrate it can provide adequate health care to veterans, a promise it hasn’t kept for 79 years. Then demonstrate that it can reform and efficiently run the health insurance system called Medicare, which it has been been making a dog’s breakfast of for the last 44 years. And then, and only then, take over all of American health care.
Read it all here.

California Morass

Democrats and Republicans in California's legislature are gearing up for battle as they try to close a $24B deficit that could leave the state unable to pay its bills next month. Democrats are calling for higher taxes and fees while Republicans are pushing for $16B in program cuts. Top state officials approached the White House for emergency aid but were rebuffed; the Obama administration is concerned a California bailout would call for other states to want some too.

Politicians really just hate having to do what they are elected to do.

Rape Jokes

David Letterman finally realized that it is not funny to joke about raping 14 year old girls---even if a conservative, pro-life politician is the Mother. Even though many black teen-agers get pregnant sans marriage in the U.S., similar jokes about Obama's daughters getting "knocked-up" will probably never make it to the late night comedian's repertoir.

Too Cold?

It is now more than 200 years since the great astronomer William Herschel observed a correlation between wheat prices and sunspots. When the latter were few in number, he noted, the climate turned colder and drier, crop yields fell and wheat prices rose. In the past two years, sunspot activity has dropped to its lowest point for a century. One of our biggest worries is that our politicians are so fixated on the idea that CO2 is causing global warming that most of them haven't noticed that the problem may be that the world is not warming but cooling, with all the implications that has for whether we get enough to eat.

Read about the effect of cold temperatures on food crops here.

Government Health Care

Every now and then BestView runs across a comment or letter to the editor which captures a point of view with which it is difficult to argue. Such is the following comment on proposed "universal coverage" by The Elector of Saxony at Gateway Pundit.

The problem is that more than half the country pays zero or less then zero in taxes (they receive "tax credits" even after paying a zero tax rate.) More than half the country is functionally illiterate in English, and completely ignorant of the facts of economics, commerce, and mathematics. Such a population gave us Barack Obama, an utterly unqualified President. They will gladly support the leader's "FREE" healthcare, because they are not capable of understanding the broad implications.

Go to the fast-food joints in your town and ask anyone who works there to explain a simple supply curve to you. Half can't read English, the other half can't understand. That's Obama's voting base! Now there are 10's of millions of them who vote Democrat on command.

Show me a farmer who tries to reason with a plague of locusts, and I'll show you an educated Conservative trying to explain the logic of demand-driven, private healthcare over command, statist, communal healthcare to an "undocumented worker" or a half-witted Junior College 3rd year Freshman who waits tables at Chili's.

Prophetic?

About the time our original thirteen states adopted their new constitution in 1787, Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years earlier:

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government.

A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury.

From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.

The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.

During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the following sequence:

1. From bondage to spiritual faith;
2. From spiritual faith to great courage;
3. From courage to liberty;
4. From liberty to abundance;
5. From abundance to complacency;
6. From complacency to apathy;
7. From apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"

Anyone worried about who the Dictator will be?

Hard to get mind around this deficit picture

Car Bargains

Those Chrysler dealers who were ousted via some formula nobody understands are left with a large supply of cars which were forced on them by the company prior to bankruptcy that must be sold shortly. The incentives provided and promised by the company will soon expire along with the extended warranty behind them. It is tempting to go see how cheaply one could buy one of these vehicles, but I am left thinking of a price which I would pay and so far, none is low enough to make me drive down to one of the soon-to-be-closed dealers.

Open Letter to Obama

The following letter was written by Lou Pritchett, a former Vice President for Proctor and Gamble. It was sent to the New York Times and they, of course, ignored it. However, the letter made its way to the internet and has been circulated widely and confirmed as legit by Snopes.


AN OPEN LETTER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA

Dear President Obama:

You are the thirteenth President under whom I have lived and unlike any of the others, you truly scare me.
You scare me because after months of exposure, I know nothing about you.
You scare me because I do not know how you paid for your expensive Ivy League education and your upscale lifestyle and housing with no visible signs of support.
You scare me because you did not spend the formative years of youth growing up in America and culturally you are not an American.
You scare me because you have never run a company or met a payroll.
You scare me because you have never had military experience, thus don't understand it at its core.
You scare me because you lack humility and 'class', always blaming others.
You scare me because for over half your life you have aligned yourself with radical extremists who hate America and you refuse to publicly denounce these radicals who wish to see America fail.
You scare me because you are a cheerleader for the 'blame America' crowd and deliver this message abroad.
You scare me because you want to change America to a European style country where the government sector dominates instead of the private sector.
You scare me because you want to replace our health care system with a government controlled one.
You scare me because you prefer 'wind mills' to responsibly capitalizing on our own vast oil, coal and shale reserves.
You scare me because you want to kill the American capitalist goose that lays the golden egg which provides the highest standard of living in the world.
You scare me because you have begun to use 'extortion' tactics against certain banks and corporations.
You scare me because your own political party shrinks from challenging you on your wild and irresponsible spending proposals.
You scare me because you will not openly listen to or even consider opposing points of view from intelligent people.
You scare me because you falsely believe that you are both omnipotent and omniscient.
You scare me because the media gives you a free pass on everything you do.
You scare me because you demonize and want to silence the Limbaughs, Hannitys, O'Relllys and Becks who offer opposing, conservative points of view.
You scare me because you prefer controlling over governing.
Finally, you scare me because if you serve a second term I will probably not feel safe in writing a similar letter in 8 years.

Lou Pritchett

Secretary Clinton

Obama's naming of Hillary to be Secretary of State was a masterful political stroke. He brought her into the tent ostensibly but then named special envoys to the Middle East, Iran, the U.N., North Korea, and other places. She has to be the least powerful Secretary of State in history. BestView wonders when she will decide to step out and assert some independence. Should be fun when it happens.

Sotomayor Finances

Sotomayor’s income over the last decade has been over $150,000 per year. One would expect a person with that level of income, and no kids, to have saved up quite a bit of money.

Instead, Sotomayor has a total of $31,985 in the bank, which would be almost wiped out if she paid up $15,823 in credit card bills and a $15,000 dentist bill.

Do we really want a Supreme Court Justice who’ll have $1,162 left in the bank if she pays her bills?

Just Wondering

Would the makers of Fiber 1 initiate a new commercial blitz proclaiming that its cereal was not cardboard if it didn't taste like it?

What psychological void is being filled when Obama feels it necessary to fill the stage with sycophants standing behind him when he makes his daily pronouncements on TV? Do those standing back there realize how degrading their presence is?

If Sonia Sotamayor had said her experience as a Latina enhanced her decisions relative to a black male, would that have been considered a valid assessment and not racist---even if true?

Did the Arabs in the audience listening to Obama list the accomplishments of Arabs to mankind realize that each example (inventing algebra, for one) was centuries ago and autocratic governments have stifled their progress ever since?

D-Day

About this time every year I think about the day we spent at Normandy a few years ago. Since we retired, we have taken numerous trips to countries around the world and none compare with that day on the coast in France. When you stand above the cliffs and consider the obstacle they posed for the brave men who scaled them in the face of machine gun fire, you have to be completely awed. The German bunkers are still there and it is amazing they were ever breached. When you then go to the cemetery and view the sea of crosses, it brings history home as little else does. Everyone should make a trip there prominent on their "bucket" list.

Child Abuse from Liberals

The following is an excellent editorial on the continuing efforts by the liberal education establishment to promote their own interests at the expense of our children--especially those who need help the most. Read it all here.

The Milwaukee Parental Choice Program provides vouchers for some 20,000 low-income, mostly minority children to attend private schools. Because the 20-year-old program polls above 60% with voters, and even higher among minorities, killing it outright would be unpopular. Instead, Democratic Governor Jim Doyle wants to reduce funding and pass "reforms" designed to regulate the program to death. The goal is to discourage private schools from enrolling voucher students and thus force kids to return to unionized public schools.

To that end, Democrats in the state legislature voted last week to cut per-pupil payments to private schools by $165 while increasing public school spending by $400 per student. Taxpayer support for students in the program is only $6,607 per student to begin with, which is less that half of the $13,468 for students in Milwaukee public schools.

Those funding cuts would be accompanied by mandates of dubious academic benefit. One regulation would require schools that have already been accredited to meet additional accreditation requirements. Another would force schools to offer expensive bilingual programs that suck up scarce resources and are spurned by most immigrant parents who want their children taught in English.

Reid on Sotomayor

"I understand that during her career, she's [Sotomayor] written hundreds and hundreds of opinions. I haven't read a single one of them, and if I'm fortunate before we end this, I won't have to read one of them."

Makes you proud of our Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, doesn't it?

Poor Geithner

BestView is feeling sorry for our Treasury Secretary Geithner who was dispatched to China to convince them that the U.S. is worthy of their continuing investment in our treasury notes and bonds. This must have been a rough trip. While speaking to an audience of students, Geithner said the U.S. was putting in place the foundations for restoring fiscal sustainability. The students laughed at him. Then he said that the U.S. plans to "put in place comprehensive health-care reform that will bring down the growth in health-care costs that are the principal driver of our long-run fiscal deficit". Was his audience in China stupid enough to believe that adding a few trillion dollars in new health care entitlements will bring down the cost of health care? A more important question is whether the U.S. population is stupid enough to buy that shrouded pig.

Two murders

The news media have been quite diligent in reporting on the killing of the abortion doctor in Kansas and commentators have rightly deplored the senselessness of taking a life to protest the taking of life. There is another killing in a near-by state that deserves as much coverage, but let's see if it gets it. Read it all here.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A man with "political and religious motives" killed a soldier just out of basic training and wounded another Monday in a targeted attack on a military recruiting center, police said. The shootings were not believed to be part of a broader scheme.

A police report based on an interview with the suspect says Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, 23, told police he observed two soldiers in uniform, drove up to the recruiting center and started shooting.

"He saw them standing there and drove up and shot them," Lt. Terry Hastings told The Associated Press. "That's what he said."

Bye-Bye Newspapers

Here is a good post-mortem on the newspaper industry. A sample follows:

With few exceptions, most notably the Wall Street Journal, the newspaper industry fell into the classic trap of underestimating the power of the internet. Not only can the internet do a better and more timely job distributing news but it demolished barriers to entry for news gatherers, editors, and commentators. Who can feign surprise? Go check out the price difference between a web server and a block-long printing press feeding a fleet of trucks.

Good as gold?

A 1 oz gold coin issued by the U.S. Mint and decreed by Congress to have a monetary value of $50.00 is the source of an interesting court case in Nevada. Let's assume you have a $50 gold piece and take it to the bank to deposit it. The bank clerk will credit your account for $50 but if you take it down the street to a coin dealer, he will give you about 20-times that amount.

What if you have a construction business and you hire a guy to hang dry wall and pay him in gold coins at a rate of say one gold coin per week and since the worker is an independent contractor as opposed to an employee, you are not required to withhold anything for taxes. Therefore, does the worker owe taxes on $2,600---the face value of his yearly earnings---or something like $50,000? If $2,600, the employee is below the taxable level the government has established for owing income tax. That question is one which should be answered by the IRS when the dry wall guy files his taxes.

Well, as you might imagine, the IRS does not want to worry about individual income tax reports and it is charging the businessman with 57 counts of income tax evasion, tax fraud and criminal conspiracy. If convicted on most counts, he could live out his life in prison. BestView has a problem understanding how the employer is guilty of anything when he uses U.S. coinage as Congress designated it, and if I was on the jury, he would have at least one vote of not guilty.

What if I had a piece of property on the market for $100,000 that I paid $50,000 for and I designated that the buyer close with $2,000 in $50 gold coins---legal tender? Would I have a tax gain on the transaction? One thing I would have is a major problem finding a lawyer to close on the transaction.

Government Motors

It looks like BestView is back from the balmy Bahamas just in time to wallow in the Obama nominee for the Supreme Court and his contrived bankruptcy of GM. Since tomorrow is the day when we all expect GM to enter bankruptcy, this event is one which should be watched closely for an investment opportunity. If you own GM stock now, it will become essentially worthless after the company enters Chapter 11. However, the shell company could well be worth something to some big corporation since it has gobs of losses on the books. Here is the situation:
GM has lost about $69 per share in the last 3 years. That loss is very valuable. It may be a record for any American corporation. Someone will want that corporate shell when all the assets are stripped away. That someone will want it for the loss. For example, Microsoft could buy the GM shell for less than $500 million. The GM tax loss for the last 4 years is almost $32 billion. An analysis by Gerry Sullivan found that based on Microsoft's recent earnings and taxes, the GM tax loss would save MSFT around $9 billion in taxes.
For this reason, GM stock may be worth buying in the near future, but you would have to be out of your mind to buy one of their cars.

BestView off to the Bahamas

We will be taking a little trip with one daughter, her husband, and 2 grandkids to the Bahamas this week. Posting may be sporadic but relaxing should be continuous.

Clinton's Legacy

Just ran across this article mentioning that JFK had a sexual relationship in the White House with a 19 year old intern and she is coming out with a book (naturally) describing the affair. This should make for interesting commentary from the liberal media.

A Gitmo Solution

Scott Ott who publishes on the ScrappleFace web site strikes again. Read it here.

In an effort to shut down the U.S. Naval Detention Center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, thereby restoring America's moral standing in the world, President Barack Obama today declared some 240 enemy combatants held at Gitmo to be 'human fetuses'.

In an executive order, the president said, "Since I ordered Gitmo shut down, and people don't want us to bring the inmates here, the only way to extract them from the facility is to change their legal status to one that offers us more choices."

While accused terrorists have access to attorneys, and nearly-limitless legal appeals, a fetus has no legal standing, cannot speak for itself, and is subject to the death penalty without regard to guilt or innocence.

Civil rights advocates have pressured Obama to follow through on campaign promises to shutter Gitmo, but even Democrats in Congress have resisted bringing the inmates to U.S. soil for trials and incarceration.

"We can debate whether enemy combatants have access to protections under the U.S. Constitution," said Obama. "However, no serious person would grant such protection to an embryo or fetus. The loss of 240 fetuses wouldn't raise an eyebrow in a nation where more than 3,000 of them hit the Dumpster daily."

The president noted that America's global reputation has been devastated by U.S. treatment of terror suspects, but that "our treatment of a million fetuses each year earns us nothing but admiration, and requests for clinic-funding from those who aspire to be like us."

Sources acknowledged continuing White House debate about whether a terrorist who escapes from Gitmo alive can still be treated as a fetus.

Real men, real sport

This is a slow time for televised sports here at BestView. When they diluted baseball by putting a major league team in every city without comparable increase in major league quality players, they lost me. Not interested anymore. NBA basketball has evolved into a marathon season with 7 foot players putting the ball into a 10 foot basket---usually after having palmed the ball and taken excessive steps. Not real basketball.
That pretty much leaves me with PGA golf at this time of year, but I ran across a game of Australian rules football while channel surfing the other day and there is a game being played by real men. They dress like soccer players and the game has full contact collisions which are at least as violent as our football. I don't understand the rules, but they score a lot of points some way and the action is compelling.

Microbiology to save the world

Well, maybe that title exaggerates just a bit, but we are seeing some interesting results from a recent meeting of the American Society of Microbiology. As described in one report, my colleagues have found a way to convert biomasses into biofuel that can be used to decrease our dependence on oil. Here is a sample of the report, but the entire abstract can be read here.

Researchers are looking at alternate biomasses as food for microorganisms to ferment into ethanol. The most attractive are known as lignocellulosic biomass and include wood residues (including sawmill and paper mill discards), municipal paper waste, agricultural residues (including sugarcane bagasse), dedicated energy crops (like switchgrass) or the non-edible parts of corn like cobs, stalks or stover. The problem is, unlike corn starch, the sugars necessary for fermentation are trapped inside the lignocellulose part of this plant biomass. The key to ending the food versus fuel debate is unlocking the sugars trapped in cellulosic biomass.

To do that, some scientists have taken a page out of the playbook of the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical companies routinely use a process known as high throughput screening to rapidly test thousands of compounds for potential new drugs. Martin Keller at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the DOE bioenergy research center director, and his lab have adapted the method to rapidly test poplar tree samples for their ability to give up sugars.

Cheney's Defense

BestView is amused by the liberal reaction to Dick Cheney's speech yesterday and previous appearances on interview shows. It is obvious that they are not pleased that he is offering a defense of the Bush/Cheney defense policies, but what seems to matter the most to them is the fact that he is speaking out at all in any way. To them, he is supposed to be under a rock and let Obama do and say anything he wants.

Memo Logic

Let's see where we stand on the interrogation memos everyone is talking about. Obama released the ones which set the legal framework upon which three terrorists were convinced to chat to us about future attacks on America. Once this was done, Dick Cheney asked that the other memos which concerned the results of the little CIA talks with our detainees. Cheney says they will reveal that our persuasion techniques were helpful. Obama says he has read them and he finds them "ambiguous". So, even though BO says he is going to have an open administration and the memos in dispute will not support Cheney's claim, he is going to keep them classified. Those of us who are skeptical about all this somehow find it passing strange that Obama would hesitate to prove the former Vice-President wrong in his claim. Logic finds us on the other side of the Messiah's decision on all this and we look for him to cave as he has on so many other things.

Financial Options

BestView does not give investment advice, but if you are concerned about the U.S. debt and budget situation, certain well-established consequences will flow from the Obama administration economic policies. First, the country will need to borrow extensively to fund the budgets projected in the future. The only way they can do that is to print money and sell the bonds to someone. When you increase the supply of something, its value goes down. Ergo, the value of the dollar in the future will go down in my opinion. What can you do about this? One thing you can do is buy an Exchanged Traded Fund (etf), which trades just like any stock, that has the symbol UDN. This is a fund which goes up in value when the dollar loses value. I own this in my IRA.

Another consequence of the massive increase in the amount of dollars which will be available is commodity inflation. When the value of money goes down and more dollars start chasing things we need to support our life styles---like food and energy---the cost of those things will go up. In previous posts BestView has mentioned the virtue of owning some gold. Now there is a way to offset some of the damage that will be inflicted on future budgets in your household by owning a broad basket of commodities which will increase in value when the cost of things like oil, wheat, sugar,etc. get more expensive and thereby make food and transportation more expensive (inflation). Again, this can be done using an exchange traded basket of commodities called an ETN which trades like an ETF or any other stock on the New York Stock Exchange. The symbol is RJI. If you think that in the next few years the cost of groceries and energy is going to go up, an investment in RJI could help offset that increase. I am currently considering such an investment, but haven't bought it yet.

These are not investment recommendations, but we all need to find some way to avoid the consequences of inflation and these are two ways to investigate for your particular situation. Another hedge against inflation is real estate, but that is the subject for another day and compared to the suggestions above suffers from lack of liquidity in that you can't just wake up some morning and sell your real estate like you can a stock.

A shovel ready project now underway

Legality of "Torture"

Victoria Toensing is a legal source with superb credentials to explain the background of the current torture investigation called for by the loony left in this country. Her Op-Ed is required reading if the situation is to be put in proper context with historical support rather than political vendetta against Bush and Cheney. Read it here.

Common Ground?

President Obama delved into the charged abortion debate in a controversial Notre Dame commencement address Sunday, urging civility and a search for common ground on this most divisive issue. As usual, Obama sounds entirely reasonable but he needs to explain how to reach common ground without a dead baby.

If you weren't worried before........

The anchor closed the interview by getting the former vice president’s take on the Obama administration’s performance so far:

ROBERTS: Let me ask you about the new administration. How do you think they’re doing so far?

GORE: I think they’re doing amazingly well. I think that he is moving forward on all fronts in a very intelligent, focused and committed way -- that is exactly what the country needs. There’s room for disagreement on this policy or that policy, but overall, I think that the American people are responding the same way I am. And by the way, I think he’s done a terrific job of reaching out to his opposition.

ROBERTS: Even though he only got three Republicans in the Senate to vote for the stimulus package, and none of them voted for his budget?

GORE: Correct, and I don’t think that's to be laid at his feet. I think that the efforts that he has made and continues to make may well bear fruit later on.

ROBERTS: And are you confident that all of this money, all of these trillions of dollars are being spent wisely?

GORE: Yes. Whenever you have programs of this size, you will always find critics to pick out one or two things and spin them in a negative way. But, by in large, I think they’ve set the right priorities and that they’re doing an excellent job. Yes.

Criminal Acts

If the CIA lied to Congress about its interrogation of terrorists, it is a crime. Even though Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker for 2 years, it is certainly reasonable to look for her to push for a belated criminal prosecution of those responsible. Let the overdue trials begin.

Don't hold your breath.

Is it now the CIA's turn?

It is hard to believe that the CIA--even under Leon Panetta--is going to quietly permit Nancy Pelosi to call it a liar when there are actual documents confirming their congressional briefings and attendance at them. This is going to get good and the country can only gain if some sensible democrat challenges her to save the party from her left wing idiocy.

A History Lesson for Liberals

The leftists who are now in a tizzy because the CIA poured some water on the nose of terrorists in the aftermath of 9/11 need to read this reminder of the nation's response to Pearl Harbor by General Curtis LeMay. Here is an example:

On the night of March 9, 1945, LeMay sent 346 huge B-29 bombers loaded with napalm from the Mariana Islands (Guam, Saipan and Tinian) to Tokyo. The first planes dropped their incendiaries on the front and back of the target area -- like lighting up both ends of a football field at night. The rest of the planes filled in the middle. More than 16 square miles of Japan's capital city were gutted, two million people were left homeless, and 100,000 were dead.

Some of us think our response was too restrained after 9/11 and a more emphatic lesson on the perils of such terror attacks on the U.S. should have been made on all of Islam.

A Walk on the Left Side

Now and then BestView checks in to see what liberals are concerned about on their blogs. Since our entire government is now controlled by Dems the main problem seems to be any voice contrary to their social/big government agenda. First it was Rush Limbaugh and now the boogie man seems to be Dick Cheney who had the temerity to actually give a couple of interviews. Here is an example from the blog Talking Points Memo:

This is a guy who made an entire career as the ultimate evil puppet-master, always behind the scenes and always in control. What strikes me as so out of character is his apparent inability to keep his mouth shut when he no longer has his hands on the strings. While I despise him for what he did to our country's image and his shredding of The Constitution, I have always had a begrudging respect for what I thought was his phenomenal discipline and long term ability to keep the goal (however evil) in front of his public ego. Now I am finding him to be an ever more paranoid, disturbed, and pathetic man and I am truly shocked that those on the inside let him run the show for so long. I would ask how we let this megalomaniac do so much damage, but he wasn't actually a megalomaniac - that requires a delusion of power.

They really don't like Cheney much in loonyville.

Presidential Malfeasance

In the U.S. criminal code, specifically 8 USC 1325, it says illegal aliens "shall, for the first commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both, and, for a subsequent commission of any such offense, be fined under Title 18, or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

President Bush did not enforce this law as he swore to do when inaugurated and Obama has not and will not either. Here is a recent comment of Obama's Secretary of Home Land Security.

During a recent interview on CNN's "State of the Union With John King," Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was asked what she thought about the statement by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., that the feds should prosecute all caught crossing the border illegally. She responded by blaming employers, "the human traffickers who are exploiting human misery," and said that "when we find illegal workers, yes, appropriate action, some of which is criminal, most of that is civil, because crossing the border is not a crime per se. It is civil."

So the federal government ignores the law and turns on Sheriff Arpaio who just wants to enforce that which the government put into law.

BestView has BeachView

We are spending the week at our beach home on Eddingsville Beach in South Carolina. Just returned from a 2 mile walk on our beach with temperature about 80 F, a gentle SW breeze and not another human being in sight the entire time. Just sublime. It is easy to forget about Obama and Pelosi on the beach.

Deficits Matter

The consequences of the Obama budget deficits are already becoming obvious. Liberals who once decried Bush deficits of $300-400 billion are now mostly silent when Obama's are in the trillions, but the bond market will bring all of us down to reality. All the money Obama wants to borrow comes in the form of Treasury Notes which must be put up for auction. The government sells them to bidders and the interest rate on them reflects supply and demand plus the outlook in the future. So, if you are trying to sell a 30 year bond, the buyer will want to set the price at a level which will allow him to make money over that length of time. If the supply is large, the price will be lowered and the interest due on the note will be higher. There was an auction last week and the interest demanded by the buyers of the 30 year notes went from 4.1 to 4.3%. This may not seem like much,but we have only begun to sell these things to finance Obama's budget excesses. When the interest rate on treasury notes goes up, the interest rate on everything goes up. We are in the very early stages of what could be Jimmy Carter squared.

Obama's Budget Cuts

We all remember during the seemingly endless campaign that Obama said if we elected him he would go over the budget line by line and take his pen to strike out unnecessary spending. Well, he has evidently done exactly that. Since most people lose their sense of reality when billions and trillions are used to depict government spending, BestView has found another way to see how mightily Obama's pen was wielded. The headlines this week all said Obama was proposing cuts of $17 billion from his previously announced budget. Here is the math. The budget he put forth called for spending $11,600 for each American and the cuts, which Congress won't accept, come to $55.00. How is that for "Change You Can Believe In?"

Voucher Update

BestView is still steaming at the Obama position on vouchers for black students who are demonstrably benefiting from their escape from the failing D.C. schools. Now, apparently since they are catching some flack from what is an indefensible position, they say students currently in the voucher program can be "grandfathered" and continue, but no new students can be added. This, of course, is tacit admission that the program works but the teachers union can't be challenged.

Meanwhile, other liberals are concerned with the fact that there are 4,777 black males per 100,000 in the nations federal and state prisons and local jails. The number for whites is 727 per 100,000. Blacks are 13% of the general population and 38% of the prison population. What is the liberal solution to this disparity? They want to make the use and distribution of crack cocaine the same as powder even though they know that crack has a greater effect on black communities and locking up crack pushers and users longer has to be a positive. This is evidently a better solution to the problem than giving young blacks a good education. Our prisons are not full of educated men of either race.

Just walking the dog

A not so gay marriage?

Despite promises from Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.) would retain his seniority after switching parties, Specter will be put at the end of the seniority line on all his committees but one under a resolution approved on the floor late Tuesday.

Under the modified organizing resolution, Specter will not keep his committee seniority on any of the five committees that he serves on and will be the junior Democrat on all but one — the chamber’s Special Committee on Aging. On that committee, he will be next to last in seniority.

Story here

Obama's Biggest Disgrace?

The Wall Street Journal has two excellent editorials today describing the shameful, hypocritical decision of Obama to discontinue the voucher program available to a few Washington, D.C. students (99% black and Hispanic). Read them here and here. An partial description of this shameful situation is given below. Well worth reading.

The Education Department released its annual evaluation of the D.C. program last month -- tellingly, without a press release or media briefing -- and it showed that voucher recipients are reading nearly a half-grade ahead of their peers who didn't receive a scholarship. These academic benefits are compounding over time. The study revealed that the program's earliest participants are 19 months ahead of public school peers in reading after three years. Nationwide, black 12th graders as a group score lower on reading tests than white 8th graders. The D.C. voucher program is closing this achievement gap.

See if you can follow this political syllogism. President Obama and his Education Secretary have repeatedly promised to support "what works," regardless of ideology. The teachers unions adamantly oppose school vouchers, whether or not they work. Ergo, Messrs. Obama and Duncan decide to end a D.C. school voucher program that works and force poor kids back into schools where Messrs. Obama and Duncan would never send their own children. What a disgrace.

Attack on Tax Cheats

It was really fun to watch Obama make a serious announcement yesterday that he was going to ask Congress to crack down on tax cheats with a somber Sec. Geithner looking on as a human prop behind him. There was room back there for Tom Daschle, Rep. Rangle, and others, but Geithner must have drawn the short straw.

Liberal Economics at the New York Times

As has been pointed out in BestView and elsewhere newspapers are going the way of the buggy whip. The New York Times is threatening to close the Boston Globe if the unions don't give back major portions of previous agreements and is losing money daily. Now, the word is this dishonest liberal rag has decided that it can bring in more money by raising its price. So, both the weekly and Sunday additions will cost more. If you think it is smart to raise the price of something you can get free online, this is a winning idea. Otherwise, it is akin to the liberal thinking which believes raising taxes is a good way to increase revenues.

Phony Alert

WASHINGTON (AP) - One day after saying he wouldn't travel in tight quarters because of the swine flu scare, Vice President Joe Biden rode a train Friday from Washington to Delaware.

Known for speaking freely, Biden told NBC's "Today" show on Thursday that he had urged family members to avoid airplanes and subways for fear of contracting the H1N1 flu virus.

"I wouldn't go anywhere in confined places now," Biden said.

The comments infuriated the travel industry and triggered several revisions from the Obama administration, whose official advice is less severe.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano commented, "If he could say that over again, he would say if they're feeling sick, they should stay off of public transit or confined spaces."

By Friday night, Biden seemed ready for his own do-over. A longtime rider of Amtrak, he took a train from Union Station to his Delaware home, his office said.

Change the Words

In a recent BestView entry below,The Truth Commission, it is pointed out that when liberals and others in the government name something, it is often done in such a way as to disguise its true nature. The New York Times this morning has a great story which makes this point and several others commonly raised in this blog. Here are two paragraphs of the story which makes it clear that the entire climate change, global warming subject is manufactured claptrap.

The term global warming turns people off, fostering images of shaggy-haired liberals, economic sacrifice and complex scientific disputes, according to extensive polling and focus group sessions conducted by ecoAmerica, a nonprofit environmental marketing and messaging firm in Washington.

Instead of grim warnings about global warming, the firm advises, talk about “our deteriorating atmosphere.” Drop discussions of carbon dioxide and bring up “moving away from the dirty fuels of the past.” Don’t confuse people with cap and trade; use terms like “cap and cash back” or “pollution reduction refund.”

Joe Biden, M.D.

Obama is going to bankrupt the country, but fortunately he brought along Joe Biden for comic relief while we go under. With the economy teetering, unemployment still rising, and a recovery still in doubt despite massive spending, our Vice President demonstrates his vast medical training by advising that his wealthy family is not taking planes or subways. Meanwhile, those working in places like NYC with no reported cases of H1N1 influenza, who have no other way to get to work except the subway, are left as confused as they were when Obama sent his 747 flying over Ground Zero last Monday. During the campaign, the liberals warned us that if we voted for McCain we would get a moron for Vice-President. Turns out, they were right.

Obama Motor Company

Obama was just on T.V. (surprise) telling us how great it was that Chrysler was going into bankruptcy---even though he has spent billions of our money trying to avoid Chapter 11. He also says that we should go out and buy an American car. He made it clear that he considers Chrysler which is merging with a European company (Fiat) is an American company, but those cars built by Americans in the southern states do not qualify. In addition, you don't have to worry about a warranty with Chrysler since the government will honor them---since Chrysler is an Obama Motor car. Our new president will choose winners and losers in the U.S. it seems. Just amazing.

This should be good

The future model of the Detroit automobile companies is evidently going to be a marvel of entrepreneurial genius. It looks like the United Auto Workers (UAW) would own 39% of GM. The federal government would own 50%. The creditors will be shafted with just 10%. In the Chrysler plan being discussed, labor would own 55%, making it effectively a subsidiary of the UAW. BestView looks forward to the labor negotiations between the Obama administration and the union bosses. Maybe we'll just stick with Toyota products.

Miscellaneous Observations

When the teleprompter breaks down, our new president doesn't sound much more articulate than the previous one.

The Jews and Muslims have found common ground in objecting to calling the illness spreading out of Mexico "swine flu".

Matthew Stafford, the quarterback from the University of Georgia, was drafted first by the Detroit Lions and given a contract worth some $71 million. That would buy a large part of his new city.

The media are giving the Obama administration some grief over the photo-op staged by sending Air Force 1 flying low over New York City, but imagine the blow-back if it had happened on Bush's watch.

Astronomers tracking a mysterious blast of energy called a gamma ray burst said on Tuesday they had snapped a photograph of the most distant object in the universe -- a smudge 13 billion light-years away.

The Truth Commission

It is well known that politicians of both parties name legislation in such a way as to disguise its true effect and usually is completely contradictory in its implementation. We now have one of the most liberal senators, Leahy of Vermont, calling for a Truth Commission to find out why the Bush administration did what they did in its interrogations of terrorists. In fact, Leahy does not really want to know the truth about everything---such as how firmly the democrat leadership signed off on everything at the time.
As was pointed out in the Wall Street Journal this morning, the dems were in full voice against torture and passed legislation in February 2008 that would have limited the U.S. to techniques found in the Army Field Manual. This was easy since they knew Bush would veto it and the veto would be sustained. Now the dems have a large majority in both houses and a president who would sign it, but they do not want to go this route and are instead calling for a Truth Commission. The reason, of course, is if they now make waterboarding illegal, they are admitting that up until now it was legal.

China Gold

BestView has mentioned several times that the devaluation of the dollar by the Bush/Obama spending will drive an appreciation of gold.
This article in the Financial Post discusses the accumulation of gold rather than more of the dollars which will lose their value over time. Since the Chinese own so much of our debt, one might conclude that they share BestView worries about our currency.

SHANGHAI/BEIJING - China revealed on Friday that it had secretly raised its gold reserves by three-quarters since 2003, increasing its holdings to 1,054 tonnes - or a pot worth about US$30.9-billion - and confirming years of speculation it had been buying.

Hu Xiaolian, head of the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, told Xinhua news agency in an interview that the country's reserves had risen by 454 tonnes from 600 tonnes since 2003, when China last adjusted its state gold reserves figure.

Royal Climate Change

If you want to even consider the possibility that "climate change" nee "global warming" is an important factor in your life, keep in mind that you will be reaching the same conclusion as this idiot:

Prince Charles is being accused of hypocrisy after it was revealed that he is chartering a luxury private jet for a five-day tour of Europe to promote environmental issues.

The Prince and the Duchess of Cornwall, plus ten Clarence House staff, will fly from London to Rome this evening. Then they will fly on to Venice and Berlin, before returning to Britain.

Clarence House aides stress that the trip is at the request of the Government to promote its climate change policies.

But instead of using scheduled flights, the Royal party has hired a private plane, thought to be an Airbus A319.

Beware Israeli Security

An Italian cruise ship with 1,500 people on board fended off a pirate attack far off the coast of Somalia when its Israeli private security forces exchanged fire with the bandits.

Six men in a small, white Zodiac-type boat approached the Msc Melody at about 1730 GMT Saturday and opened fire with automatic weapons, Msc Cruises director Domenico Pellegrino said. They retreated after the security officers returned fire and sprayed them with water hoses. The ship continued its journey with its windows darkened.

"It felt like we were in war," the ships commander, Ciro Pinto, told Italian state radio.

None of the roughly 1,000 passengers and 500 crew members was hurt, Pellegrino said. The passengers were asked to return to their cabins and the external lights on board turned off.

Pellegrino said all Msc cruise ships around the world are staffed with Israeli security agents because they are the best trained.

More Nonsense

The following statement from Dennis Blair is patent nonsense. Evidently, our interrogation techniques prevented another al Qaeda attack which one must presume saved lives, but these are less precious than our "image" abroad. Here is the quote:

The Obama administration's top intelligence officer, Dennis C. Blair, has said the information obtained through the interrogation program was of "high value." But he also concluded that those gains weren't worth the cost.

"There is no way of knowing whether the same information could have been obtained through other means," Blair said in a statement. "The bottom line is these techniques have hurt our image around the world, the damage they have done to our interests far outweighed whatever benefit they gave us and they are not essential to our national security."

New Flu Strain

There is enough different about this strain of influenza coming out of Mexico (and it will come out) to raise my concern. First, the virus is genetically different from that complex of antigens to which most in the U.S. have been vaccinated. It is being spread at a time of year which is not usual for influenza. Lastly, it is evidently striking individuals who are not usually so vulnerable. Young, healthy individuals rather than infants and the elderly are affected severely. I recommend staying out of crowds and keeping your hands clean and away from your face. This could be a bad one. A recent article is published here.

This won't be in the NY Times

A Philippine appeals court overturned Thursday the conviction of a U.S. Marine who was sentenced to 40 years in prison for raping a Filipino woman in 2005.

The court also ordered the immediate release of Lance Cpl. Daniel Smith, who is being detained inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Manila.

The acquittal came a few weeks after the victim recanted, saying the sex was consensual.

The mother of the woman said her daughter decided to change her story and left the country.

The acquittal also came amid clamor for Smith to be turned over to Philippine authorities.

A lower court sentenced Smith in December 2006 for the rape of the woman in a van at a former U.S. Navy base in Subic north of Manila.

Three other defendants -- Lance Cpls. Keith Silkwood and Dominic Duplantis and SSgt. Chad Carpentier -- were all cleared of rape.

The case has stirred strong protests from women's and left-wing groups in the Philippines and strained ties with the United States.

The rape charges sparked a strong debate on whether an existing Visiting Forces Agreement between the United States and the Philippines should continue or be abrogated.

Another bad liberal idea

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick is moving ahead with a plan for mandatory GPS devices in cars that would be read at gas pumps and automatically charge drivers for miles driven.