Neoconservative Bombast

After reading the “Shadow Commander” by Dexter Filkins in this week's New Yorker I felt compelled to write a letter to “The Economist” accusing them of Neoconservative Bombast with their call for American intervention the Middle East. The possible quagmire of the U.S. in Syria becomes all the more startling when Filkins exposes what an implacable foe Iran is and what an existential threat the fall of Damascus in considered to be for Tehran's influence in the region. Also I am pleased to see our frozen relations with Iran are thawing.

Correcting the Crackpot Next Door

ChuckKlosterman's little essay in the New York Times Magazine “The Ethicist” section naturally got me thinking about conservative crackpots be they Tea Party, Evangelical or just plain greedy, intolerant and angry old men who have a visceral belief that government spending is out of control and therefore it is right to hold Obama-care as hostage to the debt ceiling. Today's “Off theCharts” report of State Government spending by Floyd Norris puts that belief in question, but good luck getting that message out to those who choose to be willfully ignorant.

I have been much more optimistic about the so called anemic job creation of this current recovery because government, state government especially, has been reducing the head count considerably. The growth in employment is against this headwind which I consider very healthy as it means a reduction in the percent of government in the economy. I have been blogging about this less government good news for about a year now. “The proportion of civilian employees in each state in comparison to government jobs was 16 percent, the lowest figure since 2001” according to Norris's article so that the profligate “W” era has be erased. I don't agree with Obama-care, but it was enacted fair and square and so was the President. On the other hand this current Tea Party tantrum about the debt ceilng appears to be sour grapes.

Another interesting point in the report comes up about my fair State of Connecticut where we will be re-electing a Democrat Governor soon because the irrelevant Republican party will lead the charge against out of control State Government spending. Irrelevant because Norris's article shows that Connecticut has a 14.3 percent government to civilian employee rate, 8^th lowest in the nation! The irony is that eight out of the top ten bigger state governments are GOP wacko dominated.

Tough Law regarding something Law doesn't understand

Cyrus Vance, Manhattan District Attorney, released yesterday a 112 page report on white collar cyber crime.  I am not convinced that the report knows of what it talks about when it mentions the District Attorney's office is prosecuting Sergey Aleynikov, a former programmer at Goldman Sachs and the subject of a Michael Lewis article in Vanity Fair which convinces me, a big supporter of collaborative programming, that Vance doesn't understand open source.  The Federal court threw out the Aleynikov conviction for pretty much being stupid and it appears the same the 112 page report is tainted with  intellectual property grabbed from open source and then arbitrarily named as proprietary by Goldman Sachs accusatory legalese stupidity as well.

Rubin's baggage weighing the Administration down

William Cohan's opinion piece “Was this Whistle Blower Muzzled?” in today's New York Times brings a narrative that I have been pondering for some time regarding the Obama Administration and the formation of the Tea Party. Unlike FDR who was quick to lynch Wall Street, Barack Obama didn't, but should have. By protecting former Clinton Administration Secretary of the Treasury Robert Rubin's Citigroup an awful lot of misdeeds got swept under the rug which could have been used for show trials putting the blame where it belonged rather than as baggage weighing the administration down.

The Mayor of Crazy Town

With a debt crisis looming and an Energy Department that is a superfluous embarrassment  with no real constituency backing so that it would be easy to put up as a sacrificial lamb to save Obama care, so then why then double down with U. S. Revives Aid Program for Clean Energy ?  Now is not the time to be adding to the worst in government,  but eliminating it to further isolate the GOP crazies.

Iran has a Black and a White Hat

Iran Moves to Mend Ties with West article in the New York Times today shows two hats, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei with the black hat and President Hassan Rouhani with a white one.  Why are we not listening and responding cordially to white hat? Isn't white hat's election an indication that the Iranian people are sick and tired of the tension generated by black hat?

George Will's Libertarian conversion

Well maybe not quite.  I do know that we started at the same place with Barry Goldwater's Conscience of a Conservative and then I got distracted. It' good to see him and the metamorphous he has undergone.   This hour long interview on Reason TV flew by. I wished there had been more.

Climate Alarm, too muted for some

The U. N. is about to publish a big climate change study and survey which some view as being not being alarming enough.

I am re-posting Matt Ridley's presentation that I found a year back at Reason TV that turn the assumptions of the poor result of global warming on the heads of the global warming alarmists.

Putin the Mediator

In a very well written editorial in today's New York Times, Russian Premier Vladimir Putin makes an extremely good point, which is to use the U. N.  From my perspective while I would be troubled if I believed that my neighbor was beating his wife and children,  I would never intervene unilaterally. I would call the police. And I would keep calling if necessary.

War is easy to get into but hard to get out of

I have to commend President Obama for considering that war is easy to get into but hard to get out of.  His going to Congress and now considering Russia advising it's client state to remove tactically useless weapons from the scene all come from a wariness of pulling the trigger.

Consider how Lyndon Johnson's legacy was destroyed by huffing and puffing a Gulf of Tonkin Resolution through Congress for a limited response to an unclear attack that morphs into a protracted war with fifty thousand American and untold Vietnamese dead for what we now consider a mistake.

Syria's Assad deconstructs Charlie Rose

al-Assad may not be likable, but he appears to be rational and realistic. I can't say the same for our side, Secretary of State Kerry in particular.

Media Research Center - What a FOX hole!

I just spotted an "I am Against Liberal Media Bias" bumper sticker that on a google search shows itself to be from Media Research Center. You go MRC. Keep on scamming the ignorant people.

As for bumper stickers, nothing beats "Give Peas a Chance"

On Syria Vote, Trust but Verify

Florida Democrat Representative Alan Grayson's editorial in today's New York Times hit's hard on classified information.  When I accuse the NSA of calling Diane Feinstein a dumb bitch it is because they are using her.  She relays everything the intelligence community wants us to believe and thereby gives it her blessing.  If I were in Representative Grayson's shoes I would resign from the House Foreign Affairs Committee and be free to declare what BS the CIA is delivering.