Socialized medicine by chimps for chumps.

The Democrats’ health-care “reform” plan has little to do with reform. “Reform” is to the Dem health plan as reducing cholesterol intake is to replacing your existing healthy heart with the heart of a chimpanzee.

Obama Care, writes Robert Tracinski “is designed to push us out of our existing private health insurance plans and into a government-controlled plan”:

So we get socialized medicine either way. The only "choice" we have is between two different variations of socialist economics: communism and fascism. The health insurance plans offered through the exchange are based on the "fascist economic model: they are private in name only, with every aspect actually dictated by government. The "public option" is the economics of communism: the pretense of private ownership has been dropped, and everything is openly owned and run by government.

This false choice is just another way to bamboozle the public into the left's dream of a government-run health-care system.

Follow the link in the passage just quoted if you doubt the accuracy of the term “fascist economic model.”

Also read the story by Vern Hodgins about his and his wife’s experience with the Canadian health care system. It is not, not to put too fine a point on it, a patient-centered system.

"The New Third Rail." By Robert Tracinski, Real Clear Politics, 7/28/09 (emphasis added).

An irony delicious and exquisite.

I followed Francis Porretto’s link at Eternity Road to "physicist Alan Sokal's marvelous ribbing at [our leftist literati’s] expense" and found an intriguing record of scientific foolery and fatuous leftist posturing.

Professor Sokal wrote an article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: Toward a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity," which was a parody of a scientific paper consisting of 39 pages of patent nonsense -- “a mélange of truths, half-truths, quarter-truths, falsehoods, non sequiturs, and syntactically correct sentences that have no meaning whatsoever.”

This he submitted to a journal called Social Text which published it in 1996 as a serious paper.

Thereafter, the professor wrote an article, "Transgressing the Boundaries: An Afterword," not a parody, explaining why he wrote the first paper. When he submitted that article to Social Text it was "rejected by them on the grounds that it did not meet their intellectual standards."

Capitalism makes Bill sad.

Bill Maher demonstrates his grasp of economics:

If conservatives get to call universal health care "socialized medicine," I get to call private health care "soulless vampires making money off human pain." The problem with President Obama's health care plan isn't socialism, it's capitalism.

Mr. Maher probably meant to say that the problem with present American health care system is that it’s part of the capitalist system of delivering goods and services, and the fact that President Obama’s [sic] health care plan will be government run and cut loose from profit and loss concerns is no reason to conclude that health care will be worse than it is now.

I took a vacation in Canada one summer and I remember a radio report that the government was closing a cancer hospital for a month to deal with the backlog of patients awaiting treatment. Sorta like “rationing" health care, if you get my drift.

Maybe Bill’s a soulless vampire for advocating a system like that that fails to treat human pain.

Don't get me wrong. I don't mean to be critical of vampires anywhere. With or without souls. We have a . . . lot to answer for for our persecution of them.

"New Rule: Not Everything in America Has to Make a Profit." By Bill Maher, The Huffington Post, 7/23/09.

Always a buyer for our government debt?

Why do I think watching the Dems "manage" the economy is like tuning into a never-ending episode of "Romper Room"?

Now we've got the government trying to sell a quarter of a trillion dollars in debt over the next week . . . !

This is flat-out insane. At this run rate we would be trying to sell twelve trillion dollars over one year's time, an obviously ridiculous and impossible-to-peddle amount of debt at any price.

When does the rest of the world wake up (not to mention the primary dealers) and say "NO!"? Never? Is there a truly insatiable demand for our government's debt, despite the fact that President Obama got up on the national stage last night and promised to spend another trillion dollars we don't have?

"HOLY !@#!! Treasury Auction Schedule." Karl Denninger, The Market Ticker, 7/23/09.

Night arches.

Summer.

Two seminal essays.

1. Christianity make you apoplectic? You'll be ecstatic over rabid irreligion -- "Sins of Organized Irreligion." By Joe Sobran, 9/23/08.


2. Read about taxation as theft in New York City here -- "The Obsolete New York Model. Where a tax-eating majority votes itself a permanent income." By Myron Magnet, City Journal Special Issue, 7/20/09.
   

So, What is Canadian Health Care Like?

See the illuminating PJTV.com video over at Right As Usual, 7/14/09.

Freedom for Egyptians silenced.

One of the blogs I liked to read was Freedom for Egyptians written by an intelligent educated woman living in Cairo.

She enjoyed commenting on Muslim and Western culture, which she did in excellent English.

For reasons I can only guess at, she fell silent a little over two years ago. She apparently didn’t think highly of President Mubarak and I fear that she ultimately found no freedom in Egypt.

I want her to know that she is appreciated and her contributions are very much missed.

Freeloading Europeans.

Consider some basic facts: Europe has been riding on our economic coattails and sheltering under our defense umbrella since the end of World War II nearly 65 years ago. Our markets have been open to European goods, and our strong currency and relative affluence -- the product of our much-maligned free-market economic model -- have provided Europe with a ready buyer. . . .

While providing a huge market for Europe's goods, we've also substantially relieved the European powers of the burden of defending themselves. . . . "The U.S. last year spent about 44% more on defense than all other NATO members combined," Robert Wall recently noted in Aviation Week.

By assuming Europe's defense the U.S. has, in effect, allowed it the luxury of extremely expensive and ultimately unsustainable social-welfarism.

The great irony here is that the European model American leftists envy couldn't survive without its despised cowboy counterparty.

Why is it exactly that we still have military bases in Europe? Europeans clearly expect us to do the heavy lifting when things get ugly anywhere and their national pastime is to think of ways of making token military contributions when they do.

Remember the minesweepers the Germans sent during to the first Gulf War? How could we have done without them?

Here’s a thought. Maybe closing down our bases in Europe would help us save a nickel or two now that we’re experiencing some economic difficulties here at home. The Europeans could then show us how to have vibrant economies, support full blown welfare states replete with state of the art socialized medicine, and field potent militaries capable of fighting or mounting humanitarian missions anywhere in the world.

And the reason we don’t shut down over there is . . . what? Am I being too simple minded here?

"Europe Should Hope Obama Fails. The continent has been free riding on the strength of U.S. capitalism." By Jeff Durstewitz, Wall Street Journal, 7/11/09.

The apotheosis of stupid.

As I contemplate Mr. Obama’s being the legal and actual commander in chief of our armed forces, my mind resembles a roaring V8 engine with the throttle wide open and the clutch in neutral, obscuring the driveway down to the mailbox with great billowing clouds of blue smoke shooting out the exhaust.

Evidence of activity but no useful work.

How is it that we managed to elect as the president of the United States, no less, a man who grovels before a Saudi king -- in particular one who presides over the export of pustular Wahhabism (but I repeat myself) -- and thinks that a nuclear arsenal in this age is a superfluity?

President Obama wants all nuclear weapons to be eliminated in every country. The Russians cannot believe their ears. Is he stupid? Does he understand what he is saying? American military power sits on a nuclear foundation, and the U.S. president wants to remove the foundation? This catches the Kremlin short. Perhaps it’s a trick. . . . Whatever happened to presidents like John F. Kennedy, who championed a stronger nuclear arsenal?

"Finding the right Tune." By J.R. Nyquist, Financial Sense Online, 7/10/09.

What stirs the soul of Obama?

The Man from Nowhere with his Harvard Law and Columbia degrees was utterly at a loss to know how to respond to our national anthem while campaigning, you’ll recall.

I refresh your memory of Mr. Obama energizing his base:


Compare this conduct with what is depicted here:

"Discovered Fervor." By Christopher Taylor, Word Around the Net, 7/8/09.

Green and blue.

Dock

The real threat to Muslims.

Why, Islam, of course.

For since 1970 at least 5 million Muslims have been killed by their co-religionists on the grounds of Sunni-Shia divisions, ethnic tensions, political tensions, and other issues.

This applies to the Iran-Iraq war; the persecution of African Muslims in Darfur by the Arab Muslim dominated government in Khartoum; Kurdish persecution in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey (deaths have been a lot lower in Syria but persecution does take place); Pakistan-Bangladesh war; Algeria, Somalia, Syria (1982); Tajikistan; Yemen; and other nations. Also, roughly 150,000 Shia Muslims have been killed in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Pakistan, by Sunni Islamic fanatics.

Despite this reality we have world leaders like President Obama of America appealing to the so-called Muslim world for a fresh start. Yet surely an internal fresh start is needed first . . . .

"Islam and the Myths of Unity and Peace." By Lee Jay Walker, The Seoul Times, 7/11/09.

B. Hussein Obama -- Student of History, Sensei.

To escape the Islamic invasion, Byzantine Greek scholars fled west to Florence, Italy, bringing with them their architecture, art, sculpture and philosophy, fueling Europe's fascination with Greek culture.

This was called the "Renaissance," which President Obama reminded Europeans they were indebted to Islam for.

"Obama - A Student of History?" By William J. Federer, Worldview Times, 7/1/09.

That Moron Bush Dept. -- III.

The more that we can do to stimulate the economy in the short term, the challenge we've got as everybody knows is that we inherited a big deficit, and it is at a certain point potentially counterproductive if we're spending more money than we're having to borrow.

~ Barack Obama.

"Warren Buffett Backs Second Stimulus." By Alice Gomstyn and Bianna Golodryga, ABC News, 7/7/09.

H/t: James Taranto, Best of the Web, WSJ.

Cowboy Bush capitalism.

In his article reference below, Mr. Dale Steinreich, adjunct scholar of the Ludwig von Mises Institute, makes clear the causes of the housing debacle and, to no one’s surprise, the usual suspects are from both sides of the aisle. Our problem is not temporary Dem or Repub ascendancy, but our being governed by the Washington Party every waking and sleeping hour of our lives:

The current housing debacle wasn't caused by "eight years of cowboy capitalism ushered in by George W. Bush" and there was never any real deregulation of any sort at any time. It was a project created over three-quarters of a century by fascists from both parties.

All of the culprits are and were believers in the ability of government to analyze economic problems correctly and interfere with the market with beneficial result. Rather than acting to maximize economic efficiency, the prime directive was to calculate political advantage. With few exceptions, everyone got it wrong.

If the word “fascism” as used by Steinreich bothers you, please read up on the thinking that places fascism squarely on the left side of the political spectrum. Fascists merely skipped the part about the government taking over the means of production directly and did it instead by co-opting banks and manufacturing concerns with thinly- veiled threats.

The choice between the Stalin and Hitler was, in the words of Max Eastman, between Red Fascism and Black Fascism. Fascism is not a substitute word for “mean” or “evil” and Steinreich’s use of it instructive and hence useful.

"75 Years of Housing Fascism." By Dale Steinreich, Ludwig von Mises Institute, 7/9/09.

The not-so-impartial ABA.

The American Bar Association helpfully provides ratings of nominees to the U.S. Supreme Court. It would like you to believe that its work is the soul of objectivity and non-partisan selflessness.

It isn’t. The present members of the ABA's Standing Committee on the Federal Judiciary overwhelmingly favor democrats in their political donations and past members have disgraced themselves in low-rating highly qualified Reagan nominees.

ABA Standing Committee for an All-Democrat Judiciary is more like it.

"Friends Of Sonia, And Financiers Of Democrats, At Bar Association." By Thomas Mcardle, Investor's Business Daily, 7/8/09.

Honduras’ ex-president revealed.

All you will ever need to know about the man so loved by Castro, Chavez, and Obama:

"A ‘Man of the People.’" By Leonidas, Eternity Road, 7/6/09.

Proof of innate sex differences.

H/t: "Jessica’s Well."

Hitler finds out Michael Jackson has died.

Open road.

Downpour.