Ron Paul on The Daily Show

Once again, an excellent performance by Dr. Paul. It was almost flawless, as the only thing he missed was to point out, in answer to one of Stewart’s questions, that corporations are government entities created by governments. I just received my copy of End the Fed from his publisher and will be reviewing it soon.

Posted by Vox Day.

Friedman addresses the wrong audience

But why let a chance to wax dramatic about the possibility of an assassination go by?

Sometimes I wonder whether George H.W. Bush, president “41,” will be remembered as our last “legitimate” president. The right impeached Bill Clinton and hounded him from Day 1 with the bogus Whitewater “scandal.” George W. Bush was elected under a cloud because of the Florida voting mess, and his critics on the left never let him forget it.

And Mr. Obama is now having his legitimacy attacked by a concerted campaign from the right fringe. They are using everything from smears that he is a closet “socialist” to calling him a “liar” in the middle of a joint session of Congress to fabricating doubts about his birth in America and whether he is even a citizen. And these attacks are not just coming from the fringe. Now they come from Lou Dobbs on CNN and from members of the House of Representatives.

Again, hack away at the man’s policies and even his character all you want. I know politics is a tough business. But if we destroy the legitimacy of another president to lead or to pull the country together for what most Americans want most right now — nation-building at home — we are in serious trouble. We can’t go 24 years without a legitimate president — not without being swamped by the problems that we will end up postponing because we can’t address them rationally.

The only questions about Obama’s legitimacy are those result of Obama hiding his records. Obama could end the questions about his legitimacy in about five minutes; if Friedman is genuinely worried about the issue, he should join Joseph Farah and Lou Dobbs in demanding the complete release of all records that are even remotely relevant to it.

The cold reality is that despite all their hand-wringing about potential dangers to Obama, there are few things the American Left would like better than to see him become a martyr to the cause. It’s already apparent that as president, Obama will be an ongoing series of political disasters for the Left for another three years and possibly seven. But as a martyr, he would be useful for generations.

Friedman’s disingenuousness is highlighted by Jonah Goldberg, who points out the irony of a fan of Chinese communist autocracy feigning concern about American liberal democracy.

Posted by Vox Day.

Launch Party!

If this doesn’t establish Linux on the desktop, nothing will. The funniest thing is that two days after sending me the link to this video, Big Chilly was invited to a real Windows 7 launch party! Microsoft is really terrible at this sort of thing… everyone knows that a genuinely vibrant advertisement would have included a gay Asian and a fat, but funny Hispanic.

Kill him now, Chilliette. It would be kinder.

Posted by Vox Day.

VPFL Week Three

67 Mounds View Meerkats (3-0)
43 Masonville Marauders (0-3)

60 Valders Valkyries (3-0)
39 Judean Front (2-1)

86 Alamo City Spartans (2-1)
48 Burns Redbeards (0-3)

55 Black Mouth Curs (2-1)
19 Greenfield Grizzlies (0-3)

88 Winston Reverends (1-2)
57 Bane Silvers (2-1)

Definitely a good week if you’re a Vikings or Meerkats fan. Also, in a nod to popular opinion, I’ve decided that the winner of the VP-AFL will claim a spot in the VPFL the following year.

Lesbian Dorito Night (3-0) – 94.35
Supernaut’s Jihad (0-3) – 83.90

Az Hammeroids (3-0) – 109.30
COS McRays (0-3) – 83.95

Masonville Marauders (3-0) – 91.35
The Thunder (1-2) – 89.70

Village Valkyries (3-0) – 94.35
Cranberry Bogs (1-2) – 81.65

Oakies (1-2) – 113.95
South Plains Storm (0-3) – 94.25

Posted by Vox Day.

An unsubtle plea

New York’s iconic Empire State Building will light up red and yellow Wednesday in honor of the 60th anniversary of communist China.

Allow me to translate:

Dear People’s Republic of China,

Please don’t stop buying our debt. Please, for the sweet love of Chairman Mao, don’t stop buying it!

Yours submissively,
Wall Street

Posted by Vox Day.

FDIC games

How is this even remotely okay?

[I]t appears the FDIC will ask for three years of assessments in advance, or about $36 billion according to Reuters. The advantage to the banks of prepaying assessments (as opposed to another special assessment) is the banks don’t have to record the expense immediately.

Need any further evidence that the FDIC is out of money? So, the banks will prop up their insurance fund by $36 billion, but will pretend they’ve still got the cash so they don’t fail and cause the fund to be drawn down. Yeah, that should work great!

I find that $36 billion to be interesting in light of how my calculations currently have the FDIC Deposit Insurance Fund’s pre-assessment balance around -14.8 billion as of last Friday, assuming that the ratio of actual losses to estimated losses is still running at the second quarter’s 1.69 rather than the first quarter’s 1.91. Since there was a $14 billion difference between my calculation and the FDIC quarterly report thanks to the second-quarter assessment, this suggests that the reason the Fed wants to collect advance assessments is because the fund has run out even on a post-assessment basis. I wonder, however, why they don’t want to tap their credit line as everyone had assumed they would.

One interesting theory is that the reason the FDIC bank closures have suddenly slowed down of late – three in two weeks – is that they are having problems coming up with the cash to cover the losses.

UPDATE – Make that $45 billion upfront. In cash, please. And you can be certain that losses will reach $100 billion long before 2013; they’ve already blown through $50 billion in three quarters this year.

Posted by Vox Day.

This is a joke, right?

This disinterest in communication not only smacks of reprehensible irresponsibility on the part of the present inhabitant of the White House, but outrageous farce:

“I’ve talked to the president, since I’ve been here, once on a VTC ,” Gen. Stanley McChrystal told CBS reporter David Martin in a television interview that aired Sunday.

“You’ve talked to him once in 70 days?” Mr. Martin followed up.

“That is correct,” the general replied.

I’ve been an advocate of bringing the troops home from the occupied countries since 2004, but even if I hadn’t been, they must be brought home immediately now. If the titular Commander-in-Chief can’t be bothered to even talk to the freaking commanding general, this farcical pretense of playing at war must immediately stop. American soldiers deserve far better than to be shipped off to play mercenary globocop / political pawn while their so-called commander ignores them. Every military family with men stationed in the theater should be furious about this incredible abdication of responsibility.

There was never any serious doubt that the war in Afghanistan would ultimately fail, but this is downright insane. It also appears to conclusively settle the question about Obama’s fitness for office. And if you know anything about military etiquette, you’ll recognize that Gen. McChrystal is flashing a subtle, but perfectly clear signal regarding his opinion of his civilian superior here.

Posted by Vox Day.

Evading the obvious

Steve Sailer points out the salient point that is never discussed whenever the topic of immigration is broached:

Immigration is probably the single broadest, deepest, most intellectually challenging topic in all of public policy. There’s no knottier or more significant question you can ask than: When the government elects a new people, how many and whom should it elect?

The harsh reality is that everyone, including the most starry-eyed immigrant enthusiast who thinks Guatemalans emit vibrant rainbows instead of methane and jihad-sworn Saudis merely want their shot at the American Dream of a white picket fence and 2.5 wives, believes in limits on immigration. There is no way that anyone is going to cheerfully permit 300 million Chinese to immigrate next year, so the conversation isn’t actually about whether to limit immigration or not, but rather, which immigrants and how many them will be permitted entry. As the old joke goes, we’ve already established what the lady is, now we’re just haggling over the price.

Given the way that many immigrant cultures have actively conspired to significantly modify Constitutional WASP America to suit their foreign preferences, it appears likely that history will eventually judge much of the immigration that was permitted in the previous century to have been a tremendous mistake. And it appears even more likely that this current wave of immigration from the Third World will work about as well for America as Visigothic immigration did for the Roman Empire.

Posted by Vox Day.

NFL Week Three

This is the weekly open NFL post. I’m thinking All Day will bring the thunder against San Francisco once Favre shows that they can’t stack the box against him. I’m hoping Matt Forte will finally get rolling against a bad run defense – although coaches changing defensive priorities often shows the obvious to be nothing of the sort. I’m wondering what is wrong with Clinton Portis, and I will be very amused if the Titans start out 0-3.

Posted by Vox Day.

Democratic integrity

Peter Schiff does the right thing:

While Peter Schiff has the money to hire an experienced campaign team, he’s shied away from that approach. Andrew Schiff said that when his brother first formed an exploratory committee, he put together a team of Washington-based consultants to help hone his campaign message. When they expressed doubt about the political viability of his libertarian message, Schiff let them all go.

“We decided we didn’t want to be put in a standard box, and Peter wasn’t impressed with their ideas and how they wanted to sell him,” said Andrew Schiff. “The guys in D.C. wanted to spend lots of money, and we saw how the game was played and how they got their money. It left a bad taste in our mouth, and we moved on.”

There’s no point in playing bait-and-switch with the American people. If they genuinely want to be impoverished serfs living in a post-apocalyptic economic landscape, that’s their right. Schiff is giving them the option to choose freedom, and that’s all one can reasonably hope to do. If you focus on winning uber alles on the grounds that you can’t effect change without holding political office, you have already lost regardless of how the election turns out.

Posted by Vox Day.